Missing the Crazy....

0:00:01.0 ANNOUNCER : We've been about this work, diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, shared through the voices of a White woman and a Black man. We bring lived experiences. We have pursued the DE&I progress for most of our professional lives. We use Crazy and the King to cover news, tips from colleagues and hosts, incredible guests. Listeners count on Julie and I to transparently drive the conversation. We thank you for rocking with us. Check it. Julie, kick off us the show.

[applause]

0:00:37.5 TORIN : Whoop-whoop! Welcome to Crazy and the King. I know it's different. I know you're not used to that. Literally, you are absolutely missing a familiar voice, like you are wondering why is it that Torin   is opening the show? Where is the trusted and fearless leader of Crazy and the King? Well, she's gallivanting the globe. She is doing what gallivanters do. [chuckle] She is actually out. I can't even tell you where she is located. It is an undisclosed location. I believe at the time of this recording, it is close to midnight or 1:00 AM her time, and truth of the matter is, she's just not as dedicated to recording as I would be. It's the truth. It really is the truth.

0:01:45.3 TORIN  : I think about one of my clients right now that I'm supporting... And this is Torin   by the way, hey, what's happening? I think about one of the clients that I'm supporting right now, and they have offices around the globe, and I had to set my calendar for a couple of 3:00 AM meetings and a few other meetings that were, I believe, at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, and I happily did that. Jane, didn't get ready to record no podcast at 12 o'clock. She is definitely dedicated to Crazy and the King, but that dedication does have a limit and she's not going to record it at midnight and nor would I want her to. Shout out to you, Julie. Miss having you here on the show, but I'm going to do the very best that I can to cover some ground for the both of us and really treat the show the way that you would treat it if you were here. If you were here with me, we'd have some banter back and forth, and we'd talk about how our weeks perhaps have been. We'd talk maybe about what we did over the weekend, we might highlight a few stories, things that have made us smile, perhaps gotten up under our skin. We share some commentary around just life.

0:03:15.8 TORIN  : We do that. We do that in our own unique way. No one, no one records like Crazy and the King. We are unique. We do it our way. And so if Julie was here, that's what would happen. And so even though my incredible pod partner is out for this particular episode, I'm going to do everything that I can to keep our show very familiar for those of you who are accustomed to listening to us. For those of you who, while this may be your initial, your first listen of Crazy and the King, don't judge it by just my singular voice. Bookmark it, subscribe and make sure you come back because we drop new episodes every single Thursday. They will most likely hit your feed by the time you rise on Thursday morning. So certainly at some point on Thursday, you'll have an opportunity to listen to what Julie and I have put together. I want you to make sure that you tell a friend to tell a friend and make sure that you continue to rock with Julie and I here at Crazy and the King.

0:04:34.9 TORIN  : Of course, you can find us across all of the listing platforms, we are out there. And if you struggle with a favorite listing platform and you'd prefer to go to our website, feel free to do that, crazyandtheking.com, and when you get there, if you've never visited our site before, a pop-up will show up and invite you to subscribe to our newsletter. We welcome new subscriptions to the newsletter, that way if you forget, Julie has a program where you will be reminded that a new episode has dropped in, it will also have a short synthesis of what the episode is about.

0:05:14.4 TORIN  : This week, we'll do a little bit of light show work as we normally would do, and then I'm going to hit our In A Flash segment, take a commercial and jump into the meat of what I'd like to discuss today. I wanted to have this discussion with Julie. We may very well have it at a later date still, because I am not in any way ignoring her input, the valued input that she would have bring, the context, the layer, the dimension that she would have brought to this conversation. So we may very well have this conversation or some form of it at a later date, but I'm going to have it today. So let's get to it. In January, Washington Post actually has a story that says 4.3 million people quit their jobs. 4.3 million people quit in January. The article used that actually as the headline. And within the article, what I saw were that there were a number of quits particularly in White-collar positions.

0:06:28.3 TORIN  : So it wasn't only and it's not only happening in service-related personal contact, frontline-related positions, but it's also happening in White-collar positions. The article talks about quits in the finance and insurance sector rising by more than 30,000, which is an indication that a number of people with "professional" jobs that they too are looking for new opportunities. And this is really something that Julie and I, we've talked about it over and over and over again, but that people are going to reconsider how they allocate their 40, 50, 60, 70, maybe even 80-hour work weeks with some of these re-opening plans that are out for consideration.

0:07:25.6 TORIN  : It actually connects to another story that I found over on HR dive, which spoke to the HR profession, and in that story, it said half of HR leaders surveyed said that they are burned out and that they are job hunting. That was a little funny to me because the whole burnt out piece and still job hunting, kinda like an oxymoron like you're not too tired to spend some time looking for a job, just a little bit of a chuckle on my part, but honestly, I said, this really is highlighting even those that we feel have cushy jobs, easy jobs, easier, I should say jobs, that this great resignation, this reconsideration, this re-imagination of what work will look like, could look like, it has no boundary, and that every single... Let's say every single business unit, department, team, organization, every single leader should be re-evaluating and thinking about how are they connecting to those that report to them.

0:08:43.8 TORIN  : The story actually went on to talk about... Well, and when I say the story, the story on HR dive, it referred to a survey that was conducted in February from All Voices. I'm not familiar with All Voices. It was an anonymous survey, but they reached out and touched a number of people and 72% of the HR professionals, again, said that they are burnt out and looking for a new job. And back to the Washington Post article, it does talk about job openings which are up some 55% year over year, and that it continues to outpace the available employees in the marketplace. So again, if you are a leader, if you are a person responsible for building teams, you gotta keep your finger on that pulse because over the last year, 50 million Americans have quit or changed jobs. So I'm not wishing any ill on anyone, I'm just simply encouraging people to stay present. Menopause is a serious thing, and this is according to an article over on Bloomberg. I'm not gonna spend a whole lot of time there, one, because I'm not skilled up. I don't have a deep enough conversation or enough fact to have real long and strong commentary around it. But this article focused on 900,000 individuals that quit in the UK. They quit work because of menopause.

0:10:13.0 TORIN  : Now, it was a couple of years ago, it was 2019, but this is an issue. And when you think about women leaving the workplace for an issue, health-related issue such as menopause, you have to ask yourself as an organization, are we doing enough to be connected to the people that we say matter to us? And again, this is a hard conversation for a lot of people because they feel like... Look, our job is to simply come to work, smash numbers, impact the bottom line, do things that are going to increase brand recognition, how can we show up in the marketplace as the dominant force, what is it that we can do to make sure that the rumblings in the media and across the social fear are positive about our company? Well, this is one of those things. You can take care of the people that are in your organization. You can do something different so that you can attract a newer audience to the organization. The article talked about on Bloomberg, global menopause contributing to productivity losses topping more than $150 billion a year. That's no chump change. If you look at the balance sheet of every single organization on the planet, sure, $150 billion, you'd say to yourself, "Ah, it's nothing," but it's something that should be looked at.

0:12:00.5 TORIN  : And as we are looking at benefit packages, how we are curating healthcare options, what are we doing to address the diversity inside of our workplaces? The last article that I wanna mention here in the light show work is a tweet by my dear friend, Mr. Todd Corley, who we mentioned last week. He actually put up a tweet earlier this week, and the tweet was actually done on March 9th. So if you follow Todd, he's on Twitter at @CorleyTodd, C-O-R-L-E-Y Todd, C-O-R-L-E-Y T-O-D-D. Now, the image that he put up, it didn't have a source on it.

0:12:46.9 TORIN  : So that caused me a little pause just for a moment, pause as in, am I gonna mention it in the show, or am I gonna stay away from it because I don't have a referenceable link? And so even though I'm not sure of the origin of this infograph, this pictograph, if you will, I trust Todd because he, stand-up guy, definitely seasoned in the DE&I space, and so I just wanna share it. First stat on the image, it says 81% of practitioners surveyed felt the effort was of a benefit to their company, the DE&I effort was of benefit. 81% of practitioners felt the DE&I effort was of a benefit to their company.

0:13:41.6 TORIN  : I'mma repeat that for a third time. 81% of practitioners felt the DE&I effort was beneficial to their organization, 81%. Why not 100%? If you're doing DE&I work in your company, why is it that you can't affirm that the work being done is of a benefit to the company? 34% have or feel the company has properly resourced the effort or the function. We've talked ad nauseam about how DE&I leaders and departments are under-resourced and under-funded. That was of no surprise to me. 34% feel the company is properly resourced. And in the last stat on that tweet was 49% feel they have a strategic plan in place in their organization. 49%. Less than half of those surveyed, wherever Todd got these numbers from, less than half feel their organization has a strategic plan in place. It's a problem and it really underscores why we... Just truly, why we must keep our noses down and continue to enroll more people in the DE&I effort in our organizations rather than trying to do this gigantic lift all on our own. Now, here would be a moment where I know Julie would comment and she would add some commentary, she put some flavor on what it is that we were talking about, she'd probably seed the conversation with a consideration that's often off of people's radar, some consideration around people with disabilities, if you will, but...

0:16:15.8 TORIN  : Or how disability efforts are even more woefully underfunded, if that makes sense. So I just want you all to think about, even though you hear a lot about the conversation regarding diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, if you do it the way that my friend, Jo Weech likes to say it, inclusion, access equity and diversity, if you do it the way that I had on a client call earlier this week, person didn't like... And this is a well-recognized individual in the pharmaceutical space. Person does not like the word diversity. The person leans and prefers to word parity. It doesn't matter to me. It's all semantics. However you acronym it, or however you say it, we have a lot of work yet to be done. In A Flash, this week during International Women's Day, Stories Inc. Use their channels not only to celebrate the stories of women but to also celebrate the women on their team, their internal team. Now, if you missed it, you can head over to Stories Inc. On the Blue Bird app. And speaking of handles, did you see the Gender Pay Gap Bot hitting the atmosphere with a bit of Sassy Savage? They got busy this week. I'm telling you for real, if you are not following Pay Gap app on Twitter, listen to me, apparently they had a bot looking for instances of companies saying that they supported women and the account would then tweet what the actual pay gap was for that respective company.

0:17:58.5 TORIN  : Love it. Get with them on Twitter at @PayGapApp. Oh yeah, and about Yemen, yep, that Yemen, while the world's attention is riveted on the horrific drama unfolding in the Ukraine, the effects of EU policies continue to play out on bodies of Black and brown people, the world over. This is one of those moments where I'm hoping to appeal to the All Lives Matter folks, that while war is happening, that we don't forget about, or at worst, ignore the atrocities happening in other countries. And finally, jury selection in the next Theranos trial starts this week and I'm going to try my very best to share a recording of the More Than Numbers: State of Tech Company Data Collection, Reporting, Transparency and Accountability meeting hosted by the Kapor Center. It's on YouTube, you'll be able to find it. It's a long title. I'll say it again: More Than Numbers: State of Tech Company Data Collection, Reporting, Transparency and Accountability, again, hosted by the Kapor Center.

0:19:14.1 TORIN  : I'm hoping that Julie will be able to grab and drop the link, the YouTube link in the show notes. And I honestly think that that does it for our In A Flash installation this week. Quick commercial break, and I'll chop up our audio clip for the week.

0:19:38.0 TORIN  : Alright, so this week we're gonna do it different. I had a conversation with Julie before she left the country. We decided that we would cover another individual, two individuals' conversation. That conversation was actually held by one of our December guest, Mr. John Graham, the author of Plantation Theory on Clubhouse. And John was in conversation with Dr. Joy DeGruy, who authored the book entitled Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, America's legacy of enduring injury and healing, a book that actually was revised in 2017. Now, for some of you, you may not have or be familiar, you may not have heard or be familiar with the phrase post-traumatic slave syndrome. I get it. Cool. Let me give you Dr. DeGruy's definition. And for those of you listening who'd like to Google or at least land on some familiarity of Dr. Joy DeGruy, it's J-O-Y D-E-G-R-U-Y. Again, D as in David, E, G as in girl, R-U-Y. Joy DeGruy. Dr. Joy DeGruy.

0:21:14.6 TORIN  : Her definition of Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome is a theory that explains the etiology of many of the adaptive survival behaviors in African-American communities throughout the United States and the diaspora. Now, I know that there are some new listeners out there, and I don't want you to walk away from this listen thinking that... Well, just thinking that we are unprepared in having our conversations. And so because of that, I wanted to make sure I put in for some context... I just wanna put it in a bit of context around this Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome, because there are some who might be listening with that side eye, that twisted ear and saying, "There is absolutely no way." When you think about PTSD from war, we think about PTSD or some form of it, after birth is given for mothers, there are a good number of people that just do not believe that Black people can experience post-traumatic slave syndrome. Think about it. It was 400 years ago. Like, just get over it. 400 years ago. There's absolutely no way that any conversation or consideration should be connected to slavery, it's an excuse.

0:23:03.6 TORIN  : So for context, I just wanna share with you that we dropped a little stat around the Holocaust. We just celebrated... Well, celebrated is not the word. We recognized, remembered International Day of Holocaust a few weeks back. Dr. Rachel Yehuda, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, Director of Traumatic Stress Studies Division at the icon School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, dropped a study in 2015. Dr. Rachel Yehuda said that genetic changes stemming from the trauma suffered by Holocaust survivors are capable of being passed on to their children, and it has been the clearest sign yet that one person's life experience can affect subsequent generations, that it can be passed on to their children. Now, if you're an honest listener, you'll pause for a moment, just for a moment, and you'll think about the duration in which the Holocaust took place, and then you'll understand why Dr. Joy DeGruy drafted the book that she drafted, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. What we're going to do is break down a five-minute conversation.

0:24:54.7 TORIN  : It was really a part of a longer-than-two-hour conversation that she and John Graham had on the Clubhouse platform. If you are following either of them on Clubhouse, you know you can listen to the replay in its entirety. I am just grabbing five minutes of a more-than-two-hour rich conversation. And let me just say this to you, I encourage you to go to Clubhouse and go to John Graham's profile, and if you can't find it, ping me on one of the platforms, I will shoot you the link so you can listen to the two-hour conversation yourself. But what we'll do here is break down a five-minute piece of the exchange in about three different sections and I wanna comment on them here, session, or shall I say clip number one.

[music]

[video playback]

0:25:55.9 Speaker 2: Real-life stuff. My grandkids are going to a school in Portland, Oregon, my fault, I brought them there, okay. So they're... My kids now have kids and they're in school, and of course, anywhere my grandkids are, I show up, I show up, I train for free, [chuckle] I do all of that for free 'cause I got skin in the game, okay. So what happened was, in my granddaughter and my grandson's school, it's a elementary school, it's actually elementary middle, but the teachers were complaining that Black parents, they were saying the Black parents are not... They're not really interested in their kids and people always say they don't care about their kids, they don't show up for the teacher-parent conferences, they're not there at a back-to-school night or whatever. And so the principal brought everybody together and he made the statement that Black parents are not attending, the problem is Black parents aren't attending teacher-parent conferences. And so my daughter and her friends, all of whom are Black, went to this principal who was White and said, "First of all, you're blaming people and you're blaming the very people that you really would like to have in school. So let us reframe that problem for you so that you're not blaming them and you're not hiding the answer in your actual problem statement, 'cause if the problem is Black parents aren't showing up, then the answer is Black parents just need to show up."

[music]

0:27:27.3 TORIN  : So if the problem is that Black parents aren't showing up, do you frame the conversation negatively, or do you frame such in a way that is more inviting? That's the question. That's really what you heard in that clip. Do we blame Black parents, or do we shape the conversation in a way that is inviting and palatable that might keep them at the table of consideration, that they may say to themselves, "You know what, there are some good things happening in the school and maybe I'm missing out. There's some information about my child that probably I should know, but I'm not involved, maybe I'm missing out." Do we frame it negatively, or do we find a way to put it in a positive context? That clip, it had me thinking about just a swathe of DEIB-related academic research that I've seen, continue to see, conversations that happen within the recruiting channel.

0:28:38.6 TORIN  : It forced me, triggered me to think about hiring managers that may be near the Zoom water cooler or the stuff that people are saying, even though I can't hear them. [chuckle] I know I can't hear you, but even though I can't hear them, the stuff that people are saying when they're driving home and sitting around their dinner table, sitting in their domicile, what conversations are they having? How are they taking these problem statements, and are they pronouncing them in a way that is ugly versus aspirational? We've all been in the vicinity of people who have shaped the conversation negatively versus aspirationally.

0:29:31.1 TORIN  : It also got me thinking, this first clip, I know it was only a minute, but it got me thinking how hard... Now, we don't know from this exchange, we can't really answer this question, but how hard did the principal work, attempt to invite, to get Black parents to show up, maybe even to get all parents to show up? And I wonder, was it just the Black parents, or was this isolated as a function of the then conversation between Dr. DeGruy's daughter and the principal? I'm wondering if there were other audiences of parents that were not showing up. But again, from this first piece, it's how we frame the challenge that we are going after. Let's continue to listen.

[music]

[video playback]

0:30:46.3 Speaker 2: And the problem is Black parents and it's never the people. It's almost always the system. So my daughter says, "We are not getting attendance of all parents to back-to-school night and to teacher-parent conferences, which that actually states what the problem is. We're not getting the full participation of all parents." Then you can go to that target population which my daughter decided to do. She and her friends, "So let us reach out to Black parents." Now, did they go to the Black parents and go, "Why are y'all ain't going?" No. They said, "Why do you think a parent may not go to a parent-teacher conference?" So this one parent said, "Well, I don't know about anybody else, but I don't have time." "Okay, so if you had time, you'd go?" "Yeah, well, sometimes I don't have transportation." "Okay, so if you had time and you had transportation." "Well, sometimes I don't have child care." "Okay, so if you had time, you had transportation, you had child care, you would come to the parent-teacher conferences?" And there's a silence. And the parent says, "I don't feel welcome in that building." So the problem... Unless you talk to that parent, you're not gonna get that...

[music]

0:32:00.9 TORIN  : Okay, so the daughter was concerned and she reached out. No rocket science there. She had a concern. I know the daughter's name, but because Dr. DeGruy is not using her daughter's name, I'm not going to use the name. If you get out on Google, you can find her daughter's name and her daughter's website and the beautiful, wonderful work that she's doing up in the upper northwest. But the daughter was concerned, and so she reached out along with a number of her friends. And I said to myself, how is it that we are tackling this issue? Whether it be pipeline-related, promotional-related, strategic-related, sponsorship-related, how are we tackling this issue of overlooked communities, marginalized, under-represented groups in our workplace? It's germane to the story. That's what we've heard in that clip. And so the daughter reached out, and I don't know if you caught this part, but she said that she started by asking questions and wondering of the parents, why, why you are not attending the PTA meetings. Just an open-ended question. She wasn't antagonistic. She wasn't... What's the word that I'm looking for? She didn't talk down to them. She wasn't dismissive.

0:33:39.8 TORIN  : She wasn't authoritative. She was curious. "Why are you not attending the PTA meetings?" And one of the parents, and I'm assuming it may have been multiple, but it just took one. One of the parents said, "Well, I don't have enough time." Then the parents said, "No, it's probably more that I don't really have transportation." The daughter said, "Wait a minute," kept asking questions, prodding a little bit more. "Okay, okay, it's child care issues." That's the reason why I'm getting it, child care issues. "Sometimes I just don't have someone who can take me... I just don't have a way to get there." And when it was all said and done, none of those were the real essence of why this particular parent wasn't showing up. This particular parent wasn't showing up because she didn't feel welcomed. She didn't feel welcomed. She didn't feel welcomed. Earlier this week, I was at a training boot camp by Heroic Public Speaking up in New Jersey. Probably 35 or 40 of us in the speaker boot camp, and I would say to the tune of 100%, every single one of us as participants, we said that the team did an above average, I mean an above incredible job, that's the better way to... They did an above incredible job of making us feel welcomed into their training facility.

0:35:39.1 TORIN  : This parent said, "I don't feel welcome." This is a culture statement. And as people in this space, we pride ourselves on employer branding material and all-hand meetings and recognition months. We pride ourselves on saying we have good culture. This is our culture. At that school, the parent didn't feel welcome. We always talk about culture. The question is, are we really assessing our culture beyond the performance surveys and the other assessments? Do we need more touch points, additional touch points, different types of touch points? Are the touch points accessible by everyone? Are they equitable? Are we shaping them with questions that continue to nourish the inclusive environment that we are trying to build? I just want us to take a moment and really think about this short five-minute dissection or dissecting of the clip, just five minutes. I want us to think about how are we showing up in our environments. Now, this last clip is a little bit longer, but I want you to take a listen.

[music]

[video playback]

0:37:16.9 S2: So then my daughter says it's data. It's empathy interviewing, but it's data. And then she says to the parent, "Well, tell me a place that you go and you do feel welcome." "I feel welcome when I go to church. Everybody's nice to me." And she said, "So tell me about a time in the school where you didn't feel welcome." "Well, when I walk in the door, the woman at the desk act like she can't see me or say hello. And I don't ever see... They only call halfway through the year and tell me my kid hasn't been doing anything all year. What am I supposed to do then? I don't ever see anything positive on the world, but... "

0:37:50.6 S2: So all of these are data points. So my daughter created something called Black Parent Night at the school, and of course at first, there was a whole thing online, this is self-segregation, she goes, "Well, what do you think PTA? That's a White parent night and nobody seemed to be having a problem with that." So it went back and forth, and finally the Black parents first couple of times there was gripe sessions, they were mad, they're... And then all of a sudden, they started getting ideas about what they needed. So what the principal did was he started saying, attaching to their performance review, the performance review of these teachers, "How soon you got in touch with parents?" The next thing you know, there are little postcards going out during the summer, "Come to our ice cream social. Come look at where your desk is gonna be," because he attached it to something that meant something to them.

0:38:43.0 S2: Then as a result of that, of course, all of these Black parents are now coming in the building, Latinx parents are showing up. They closed the achievement gap, 18 points. That wasn't even what they were trying to do. Closed the achievement gap by 18 points simply by listening to the parent, root cause analysis, it wasn't a welcoming place, they identified why it wasn't a welcoming place, they identified the real problem and they were able to solve it. But if you were to start with that first analysis, "Well, Black parents don't care about their kids. They don't wanna come to... They don't come to back-to-school night or parent-teacher conferences." The reason I point that out to you, my daughter did and got asked, it was so successful that other schools in the area said, "Well, can you come and do it at my school?" and she said, "No. I can't do it at your school because I don't have a connection to that school." It's about relationships. It's about context. So you've gotta find out from your school, from your people, from your parents, what they think and feel, and until you do, you can't take this and put this on top of that school and think it's gonna work.

0:39:52.5 S2: So again, it's really recognizing... My actual model is called the relationship approach. It's all about relationships, period, relationships of parents to the schools, to the teachers, to the community. It's a village. It really is. And if you wanna heal, you gotta heal the village, everyone.

[music]

0:40:20.4 TORIN  : So the ending is so rich in insights and thoughts and Dr. DeGruy, she actually talked about data points. Off the top, she mentioned the data point. She also mentioned folks being mad about the focus on Black parents, and we've heard that on a number of occasions, particularly after the George Floyd incident over the last 18 months or so, a number of individuals are wondering whether or not we are spending too much time talking about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and are we spending too much time focused on certain audiences? But Dr. DeGruy mentioned, "Yeah, there was an issue with the focus being on Black parents, but in the end, we kinda ironed all of that out." She talked about how the principal started to take alternative actions. I love that. The principal said, "I'm going to attach contact rates to your, as an educator, your performance evaluation, your performance metric." We talk about that all the time in the DE&I space, how we need to have accountability.

0:41:29.6 TORIN  : What do I say often? I say we need a declarative statement from our leaders, we need to have a reallocation of resources, and we must hold people accountable. Dr. DeGruy talked about how the principal made the decision to hold people accountable. And once the school started listening to the parents, they wound up closing the achievement gap through increased participation, like a major lift in performance. But most of all, Dr. DeGruy talked about not looking to replicate what was done at this school and ad hoc taking it to another school, because what the daughter said was, "I can't make the same leaps of improvement because I'm lacking the relationship in your school that I have in my children's school."

0:42:32.7 TORIN  : How many times have we looked at diversity and inclusion efforts and asked for best practices? How many times have we gone out on Google and we've said to ourselves, "Well, if this company had this particular approach and we just change a word or two here, we might be able to do the very same thing in terms of our DE&I strategy"? How many times have we said we're going to put unconscious bias training at the core of our DE&I efforts, and once we do that, that we are miraculously going to see a lift in... How many times? How many times have we tried to short-circuit, shortcut the effort and not invested wholeheartedly, fully, completely, thoroughly, substantively? How many times has that happened in your organization or organizations where you might have some influence or a bit of sway? I hope that you enjoyed the five minutes because Julie and I were really going to get into that and just talk about it, even though it focuses on parents and parent-teacher conferences in an academic setting. It is so absolutely applicable to the work that we do each and every day.

0:44:03.1 TORIN  : Quick commercial, promise. We'll be right back to close the show. So our Her Voice segment is where we amplify women making moves, and this week we have three incredible individuals, first and foremost, Suneera Madhani, she is the co-founder of Stax, it's a subscription-based payments processor that hit unicorn status this week. The Orlando, Florida-based payment processing company, Stax, announced a $245 million Series D round, valuing the business at more than $1 billion. And DocuSign actually hired Iesha Berry as its first CDO and Engagement Officer. And finally, the last amplification for this week is a little bit different, and depending on how you see the issue surrounding Brittney Griner of the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury, well, it would depend, or shall I say, determine how you go out and try to do a bit of research, but Brittney Griner is believed to be detained in Russia, and what I'm hoping is that by my saying, amplifying her name, Brittney Griner, that you will do a bit of research, that you will contact your senators, maybe someone from the Embassy State Department, a Russian connection if you have one, I just want you to be aware, because when you read all of the news stories, this doesn't seem to me to be an issue of epic drug proportion. Quote of the week: "To not employ swathes of women from 45 to 60 has got to be a real issue, otherwise, you're missing all the insight from that particular generational category."

0:46:07.5 TORIN  : That was said by Liv Garfield, the Chief Executive Officer of the British water utility, Severn Trent PLC. And that was connected to the stat up top of this episode around menopause. Listen, no name drops, hopefully, the resource link for the Kapor Center's Zoom meeting is something that will be included in the show notes. Jay, continue to gallivant and enjoy yourself. We'll be back next week, same time, same place, new issue on Thursday. I close reminding each and every one of you to share the pod with your digital tribe, and to find your voice. Be a better human. Let's create better culture teams and work places. For now, Jay and I are ghosts.

0:47:01.7 S3: See you.

[applause]

0:00:01.0 ANNOUNCER : We've been about this work, diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, shared through the voices of a White woman and a Black man. We bring lived experiences. We have pursued the DE&I progress for most of our professional lives. We use Crazy and the King to cover news, tips from colleagues and hosts, incredible guests. Listeners count on Julie and I to transparently drive the conversation. We thank you for rocking with us. Check it. Julie, kick off us the show.

[applause]

0:00:37.5 TORIN : Whoop-whoop! Welcome to Crazy and the King. I know it's different. I know you're not used to that. Literally, you are absolutely missing a familiar voice, like you are wondering why is it that Torin   is opening the show? Where is the trusted and fearless leader of Crazy and the King? Well, she's gallivanting the globe. She is doing what gallivanters do. [chuckle] She is actually out. I can't even tell you where she is located. It is an undisclosed location. I believe at the time of this recording, it is close to midnight or 1:00 AM her time, and truth of the matter is, she's just not as dedicated to recording as I would be. It's the truth. It really is the truth.

0:01:45.3 TORIN  : I think about one of my clients right now that I'm supporting... And this is Torin   by the way, hey, what's happening? I think about one of the clients that I'm supporting right now, and they have offices around the globe, and I had to set my calendar for a couple of 3:00 AM meetings and a few other meetings that were, I believe, at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, and I happily did that. Jane, didn't get ready to record no podcast at 12 o'clock. She is definitely dedicated to Crazy and the King, but that dedication does have a limit and she's not going to record it at midnight and nor would I want her to. Shout out to you, Julie. Miss having you here on the show, but I'm going to do the very best that I can to cover some ground for the both of us and really treat the show the way that you would treat it if you were here. If you were here with me, we'd have some banter back and forth, and we'd talk about how our weeks perhaps have been. We'd talk maybe about what we did over the weekend, we might highlight a few stories, things that have made us smile, perhaps gotten up under our skin. We share some commentary around just life.

0:03:15.8 TORIN  : We do that. We do that in our own unique way. No one, no one records like Crazy and the King. We are unique. We do it our way. And so if Julie was here, that's what would happen. And so even though my incredible pod partner is out for this particular episode, I'm going to do everything that I can to keep our show very familiar for those of you who are accustomed to listening to us. For those of you who, while this may be your initial, your first listen of Crazy and the King, don't judge it by just my singular voice. Bookmark it, subscribe and make sure you come back because we drop new episodes every single Thursday. They will most likely hit your feed by the time you rise on Thursday morning. So certainly at some point on Thursday, you'll have an opportunity to listen to what Julie and I have put together. I want you to make sure that you tell a friend to tell a friend and make sure that you continue to rock with Julie and I here at Crazy and the King.

0:04:34.9 TORIN  : Of course, you can find us across all of the listing platforms, we are out there. And if you struggle with a favorite listing platform and you'd prefer to go to our website, feel free to do that, crazyandtheking.com, and when you get there, if you've never visited our site before, a pop-up will show up and invite you to subscribe to our newsletter. We welcome new subscriptions to the newsletter, that way if you forget, Julie has a program where you will be reminded that a new episode has dropped in, it will also have a short synthesis of what the episode is about.

0:05:14.4 TORIN  : This week, we'll do a little bit of light show work as we normally would do, and then I'm going to hit our In A Flash segment, take a commercial and jump into the meat of what I'd like to discuss today. I wanted to have this discussion with Julie. We may very well have it at a later date still, because I am not in any way ignoring her input, the valued input that she would have bring, the context, the layer, the dimension that she would have brought to this conversation. So we may very well have this conversation or some form of it at a later date, but I'm going to have it today. So let's get to it. In January, Washington Post actually has a story that says 4.3 million people quit their jobs. 4.3 million people quit in January. The article used that actually as the headline. And within the article, what I saw were that there were a number of quits particularly in White-collar positions.

0:06:28.3 TORIN  : So it wasn't only and it's not only happening in service-related personal contact, frontline-related positions, but it's also happening in White-collar positions. The article talks about quits in the finance and insurance sector rising by more than 30,000, which is an indication that a number of people with "professional" jobs that they too are looking for new opportunities. And this is really something that Julie and I, we've talked about it over and over and over again, but that people are going to reconsider how they allocate their 40, 50, 60, 70, maybe even 80-hour work weeks with some of these re-opening plans that are out for consideration.

0:07:25.6 TORIN  : It actually connects to another story that I found over on HR dive, which spoke to the HR profession, and in that story, it said half of HR leaders surveyed said that they are burned out and that they are job hunting. That was a little funny to me because the whole burnt out piece and still job hunting, kinda like an oxymoron like you're not too tired to spend some time looking for a job, just a little bit of a chuckle on my part, but honestly, I said, this really is highlighting even those that we feel have cushy jobs, easy jobs, easier, I should say jobs, that this great resignation, this reconsideration, this re-imagination of what work will look like, could look like, it has no boundary, and that every single... Let's say every single business unit, department, team, organization, every single leader should be re-evaluating and thinking about how are they connecting to those that report to them.

0:08:43.8 TORIN  : The story actually went on to talk about... Well, and when I say the story, the story on HR dive, it referred to a survey that was conducted in February from All Voices. I'm not familiar with All Voices. It was an anonymous survey, but they reached out and touched a number of people and 72% of the HR professionals, again, said that they are burnt out and looking for a new job. And back to the Washington Post article, it does talk about job openings which are up some 55% year over year, and that it continues to outpace the available employees in the marketplace. So again, if you are a leader, if you are a person responsible for building teams, you gotta keep your finger on that pulse because over the last year, 50 million Americans have quit or changed jobs. So I'm not wishing any ill on anyone, I'm just simply encouraging people to stay present. Menopause is a serious thing, and this is according to an article over on Bloomberg. I'm not gonna spend a whole lot of time there, one, because I'm not skilled up. I don't have a deep enough conversation or enough fact to have real long and strong commentary around it. But this article focused on 900,000 individuals that quit in the UK. They quit work because of menopause.

0:10:13.0 TORIN  : Now, it was a couple of years ago, it was 2019, but this is an issue. And when you think about women leaving the workplace for an issue, health-related issue such as menopause, you have to ask yourself as an organization, are we doing enough to be connected to the people that we say matter to us? And again, this is a hard conversation for a lot of people because they feel like... Look, our job is to simply come to work, smash numbers, impact the bottom line, do things that are going to increase brand recognition, how can we show up in the marketplace as the dominant force, what is it that we can do to make sure that the rumblings in the media and across the social fear are positive about our company? Well, this is one of those things. You can take care of the people that are in your organization. You can do something different so that you can attract a newer audience to the organization. The article talked about on Bloomberg, global menopause contributing to productivity losses topping more than $150 billion a year. That's no chump change. If you look at the balance sheet of every single organization on the planet, sure, $150 billion, you'd say to yourself, "Ah, it's nothing," but it's something that should be looked at.

0:12:00.5 TORIN  : And as we are looking at benefit packages, how we are curating healthcare options, what are we doing to address the diversity inside of our workplaces? The last article that I wanna mention here in the light show work is a tweet by my dear friend, Mr. Todd Corley, who we mentioned last week. He actually put up a tweet earlier this week, and the tweet was actually done on March 9th. So if you follow Todd, he's on Twitter at @CorleyTodd, C-O-R-L-E-Y Todd, C-O-R-L-E-Y T-O-D-D. Now, the image that he put up, it didn't have a source on it.

0:12:46.9 TORIN  : So that caused me a little pause just for a moment, pause as in, am I gonna mention it in the show, or am I gonna stay away from it because I don't have a referenceable link? And so even though I'm not sure of the origin of this infograph, this pictograph, if you will, I trust Todd because he, stand-up guy, definitely seasoned in the DE&I space, and so I just wanna share it. First stat on the image, it says 81% of practitioners surveyed felt the effort was of a benefit to their company, the DE&I effort was of benefit. 81% of practitioners felt the DE&I effort was of a benefit to their company.

0:13:41.6 TORIN  : I'mma repeat that for a third time. 81% of practitioners felt the DE&I effort was beneficial to their organization, 81%. Why not 100%? If you're doing DE&I work in your company, why is it that you can't affirm that the work being done is of a benefit to the company? 34% have or feel the company has properly resourced the effort or the function. We've talked ad nauseam about how DE&I leaders and departments are under-resourced and under-funded. That was of no surprise to me. 34% feel the company is properly resourced. And in the last stat on that tweet was 49% feel they have a strategic plan in place in their organization. 49%. Less than half of those surveyed, wherever Todd got these numbers from, less than half feel their organization has a strategic plan in place. It's a problem and it really underscores why we... Just truly, why we must keep our noses down and continue to enroll more people in the DE&I effort in our organizations rather than trying to do this gigantic lift all on our own. Now, here would be a moment where I know Julie would comment and she would add some commentary, she put some flavor on what it is that we were talking about, she'd probably seed the conversation with a consideration that's often off of people's radar, some consideration around people with disabilities, if you will, but...

0:16:15.8 TORIN  : Or how disability efforts are even more woefully underfunded, if that makes sense. So I just want you all to think about, even though you hear a lot about the conversation regarding diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, if you do it the way that my friend, Jo Weech likes to say it, inclusion, access equity and diversity, if you do it the way that I had on a client call earlier this week, person didn't like... And this is a well-recognized individual in the pharmaceutical space. Person does not like the word diversity. The person leans and prefers to word parity. It doesn't matter to me. It's all semantics. However you acronym it, or however you say it, we have a lot of work yet to be done. In A Flash, this week during International Women's Day, Stories Inc. Use their channels not only to celebrate the stories of women but to also celebrate the women on their team, their internal team. Now, if you missed it, you can head over to Stories Inc. On the Blue Bird app. And speaking of handles, did you see the Gender Pay Gap Bot hitting the atmosphere with a bit of Sassy Savage? They got busy this week. I'm telling you for real, if you are not following Pay Gap app on Twitter, listen to me, apparently they had a bot looking for instances of companies saying that they supported women and the account would then tweet what the actual pay gap was for that respective company.

0:17:58.5 TORIN  : Love it. Get with them on Twitter at @PayGapApp. Oh yeah, and about Yemen, yep, that Yemen, while the world's attention is riveted on the horrific drama unfolding in the Ukraine, the effects of EU policies continue to play out on bodies of Black and brown people, the world over. This is one of those moments where I'm hoping to appeal to the All Lives Matter folks, that while war is happening, that we don't forget about, or at worst, ignore the atrocities happening in other countries. And finally, jury selection in the next Theranos trial starts this week and I'm going to try my very best to share a recording of the More Than Numbers: State of Tech Company Data Collection, Reporting, Transparency and Accountability meeting hosted by the Kapor Center. It's on YouTube, you'll be able to find it. It's a long title. I'll say it again: More Than Numbers: State of Tech Company Data Collection, Reporting, Transparency and Accountability, again, hosted by the Kapor Center.

0:19:14.1 TORIN  : I'm hoping that Julie will be able to grab and drop the link, the YouTube link in the show notes. And I honestly think that that does it for our In A Flash installation this week. Quick commercial break, and I'll chop up our audio clip for the week.

0:19:38.0 TORIN  : Alright, so this week we're gonna do it different. I had a conversation with Julie before she left the country. We decided that we would cover another individual, two individuals' conversation. That conversation was actually held by one of our December guest, Mr. John Graham, the author of Plantation Theory on Clubhouse. And John was in conversation with Dr. Joy DeGruy, who authored the book entitled Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, America's legacy of enduring injury and healing, a book that actually was revised in 2017. Now, for some of you, you may not have or be familiar, you may not have heard or be familiar with the phrase post-traumatic slave syndrome. I get it. Cool. Let me give you Dr. DeGruy's definition. And for those of you listening who'd like to Google or at least land on some familiarity of Dr. Joy DeGruy, it's J-O-Y D-E-G-R-U-Y. Again, D as in David, E, G as in girl, R-U-Y. Joy DeGruy. Dr. Joy DeGruy.

0:21:14.6 TORIN  : Her definition of Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome is a theory that explains the etiology of many of the adaptive survival behaviors in African-American communities throughout the United States and the diaspora. Now, I know that there are some new listeners out there, and I don't want you to walk away from this listen thinking that... Well, just thinking that we are unprepared in having our conversations. And so because of that, I wanted to make sure I put in for some context... I just wanna put it in a bit of context around this Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome, because there are some who might be listening with that side eye, that twisted ear and saying, "There is absolutely no way." When you think about PTSD from war, we think about PTSD or some form of it, after birth is given for mothers, there are a good number of people that just do not believe that Black people can experience post-traumatic slave syndrome. Think about it. It was 400 years ago. Like, just get over it. 400 years ago. There's absolutely no way that any conversation or consideration should be connected to slavery, it's an excuse.

0:23:03.6 TORIN  : So for context, I just wanna share with you that we dropped a little stat around the Holocaust. We just celebrated... Well, celebrated is not the word. We recognized, remembered International Day of Holocaust a few weeks back. Dr. Rachel Yehuda, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, Director of Traumatic Stress Studies Division at the icon School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, dropped a study in 2015. Dr. Rachel Yehuda said that genetic changes stemming from the trauma suffered by Holocaust survivors are capable of being passed on to their children, and it has been the clearest sign yet that one person's life experience can affect subsequent generations, that it can be passed on to their children. Now, if you're an honest listener, you'll pause for a moment, just for a moment, and you'll think about the duration in which the Holocaust took place, and then you'll understand why Dr. Joy DeGruy drafted the book that she drafted, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. What we're going to do is break down a five-minute conversation.

0:24:54.7 TORIN  : It was really a part of a longer-than-two-hour conversation that she and John Graham had on the Clubhouse platform. If you are following either of them on Clubhouse, you know you can listen to the replay in its entirety. I am just grabbing five minutes of a more-than-two-hour rich conversation. And let me just say this to you, I encourage you to go to Clubhouse and go to John Graham's profile, and if you can't find it, ping me on one of the platforms, I will shoot you the link so you can listen to the two-hour conversation yourself. But what we'll do here is break down a five-minute piece of the exchange in about three different sections and I wanna comment on them here, session, or shall I say clip number one.

[music]

[video playback]

0:25:55.9 Speaker 2: Real-life stuff. My grandkids are going to a school in Portland, Oregon, my fault, I brought them there, okay. So they're... My kids now have kids and they're in school, and of course, anywhere my grandkids are, I show up, I show up, I train for free, [chuckle] I do all of that for free 'cause I got skin in the game, okay. So what happened was, in my granddaughter and my grandson's school, it's a elementary school, it's actually elementary middle, but the teachers were complaining that Black parents, they were saying the Black parents are not... They're not really interested in their kids and people always say they don't care about their kids, they don't show up for the teacher-parent conferences, they're not there at a back-to-school night or whatever. And so the principal brought everybody together and he made the statement that Black parents are not attending, the problem is Black parents aren't attending teacher-parent conferences. And so my daughter and her friends, all of whom are Black, went to this principal who was White and said, "First of all, you're blaming people and you're blaming the very people that you really would like to have in school. So let us reframe that problem for you so that you're not blaming them and you're not hiding the answer in your actual problem statement, 'cause if the problem is Black parents aren't showing up, then the answer is Black parents just need to show up."

[music]

0:27:27.3 TORIN  : So if the problem is that Black parents aren't showing up, do you frame the conversation negatively, or do you frame such in a way that is more inviting? That's the question. That's really what you heard in that clip. Do we blame Black parents, or do we shape the conversation in a way that is inviting and palatable that might keep them at the table of consideration, that they may say to themselves, "You know what, there are some good things happening in the school and maybe I'm missing out. There's some information about my child that probably I should know, but I'm not involved, maybe I'm missing out." Do we frame it negatively, or do we find a way to put it in a positive context? That clip, it had me thinking about just a swathe of DEIB-related academic research that I've seen, continue to see, conversations that happen within the recruiting channel.

0:28:38.6 TORIN  : It forced me, triggered me to think about hiring managers that may be near the Zoom water cooler or the stuff that people are saying, even though I can't hear them. [chuckle] I know I can't hear you, but even though I can't hear them, the stuff that people are saying when they're driving home and sitting around their dinner table, sitting in their domicile, what conversations are they having? How are they taking these problem statements, and are they pronouncing them in a way that is ugly versus aspirational? We've all been in the vicinity of people who have shaped the conversation negatively versus aspirationally.

0:29:31.1 TORIN  : It also got me thinking, this first clip, I know it was only a minute, but it got me thinking how hard... Now, we don't know from this exchange, we can't really answer this question, but how hard did the principal work, attempt to invite, to get Black parents to show up, maybe even to get all parents to show up? And I wonder, was it just the Black parents, or was this isolated as a function of the then conversation between Dr. DeGruy's daughter and the principal? I'm wondering if there were other audiences of parents that were not showing up. But again, from this first piece, it's how we frame the challenge that we are going after. Let's continue to listen.

[music]

[video playback]

0:30:46.3 Speaker 2: And the problem is Black parents and it's never the people. It's almost always the system. So my daughter says, "We are not getting attendance of all parents to back-to-school night and to teacher-parent conferences, which that actually states what the problem is. We're not getting the full participation of all parents." Then you can go to that target population which my daughter decided to do. She and her friends, "So let us reach out to Black parents." Now, did they go to the Black parents and go, "Why are y'all ain't going?" No. They said, "Why do you think a parent may not go to a parent-teacher conference?" So this one parent said, "Well, I don't know about anybody else, but I don't have time." "Okay, so if you had time, you'd go?" "Yeah, well, sometimes I don't have transportation." "Okay, so if you had time and you had transportation." "Well, sometimes I don't have child care." "Okay, so if you had time, you had transportation, you had child care, you would come to the parent-teacher conferences?" And there's a silence. And the parent says, "I don't feel welcome in that building." So the problem... Unless you talk to that parent, you're not gonna get that...

[music]

0:32:00.9 TORIN  : Okay, so the daughter was concerned and she reached out. No rocket science there. She had a concern. I know the daughter's name, but because Dr. DeGruy is not using her daughter's name, I'm not going to use the name. If you get out on Google, you can find her daughter's name and her daughter's website and the beautiful, wonderful work that she's doing up in the upper northwest. But the daughter was concerned, and so she reached out along with a number of her friends. And I said to myself, how is it that we are tackling this issue? Whether it be pipeline-related, promotional-related, strategic-related, sponsorship-related, how are we tackling this issue of overlooked communities, marginalized, under-represented groups in our workplace? It's germane to the story. That's what we've heard in that clip. And so the daughter reached out, and I don't know if you caught this part, but she said that she started by asking questions and wondering of the parents, why, why you are not attending the PTA meetings. Just an open-ended question. She wasn't antagonistic. She wasn't... What's the word that I'm looking for? She didn't talk down to them. She wasn't dismissive.

0:33:39.8 TORIN  : She wasn't authoritative. She was curious. "Why are you not attending the PTA meetings?" And one of the parents, and I'm assuming it may have been multiple, but it just took one. One of the parents said, "Well, I don't have enough time." Then the parents said, "No, it's probably more that I don't really have transportation." The daughter said, "Wait a minute," kept asking questions, prodding a little bit more. "Okay, okay, it's child care issues." That's the reason why I'm getting it, child care issues. "Sometimes I just don't have someone who can take me... I just don't have a way to get there." And when it was all said and done, none of those were the real essence of why this particular parent wasn't showing up. This particular parent wasn't showing up because she didn't feel welcomed. She didn't feel welcomed. She didn't feel welcomed. Earlier this week, I was at a training boot camp by Heroic Public Speaking up in New Jersey. Probably 35 or 40 of us in the speaker boot camp, and I would say to the tune of 100%, every single one of us as participants, we said that the team did an above average, I mean an above incredible job, that's the better way to... They did an above incredible job of making us feel welcomed into their training facility.

0:35:39.1 TORIN  : This parent said, "I don't feel welcome." This is a culture statement. And as people in this space, we pride ourselves on employer branding material and all-hand meetings and recognition months. We pride ourselves on saying we have good culture. This is our culture. At that school, the parent didn't feel welcome. We always talk about culture. The question is, are we really assessing our culture beyond the performance surveys and the other assessments? Do we need more touch points, additional touch points, different types of touch points? Are the touch points accessible by everyone? Are they equitable? Are we shaping them with questions that continue to nourish the inclusive environment that we are trying to build? I just want us to take a moment and really think about this short five-minute dissection or dissecting of the clip, just five minutes. I want us to think about how are we showing up in our environments. Now, this last clip is a little bit longer, but I want you to take a listen.

[music]

[video playback]

0:37:16.9 S2: So then my daughter says it's data. It's empathy interviewing, but it's data. And then she says to the parent, "Well, tell me a place that you go and you do feel welcome." "I feel welcome when I go to church. Everybody's nice to me." And she said, "So tell me about a time in the school where you didn't feel welcome." "Well, when I walk in the door, the woman at the desk act like she can't see me or say hello. And I don't ever see... They only call halfway through the year and tell me my kid hasn't been doing anything all year. What am I supposed to do then? I don't ever see anything positive on the world, but... "

0:37:50.6 S2: So all of these are data points. So my daughter created something called Black Parent Night at the school, and of course at first, there was a whole thing online, this is self-segregation, she goes, "Well, what do you think PTA? That's a White parent night and nobody seemed to be having a problem with that." So it went back and forth, and finally the Black parents first couple of times there was gripe sessions, they were mad, they're... And then all of a sudden, they started getting ideas about what they needed. So what the principal did was he started saying, attaching to their performance review, the performance review of these teachers, "How soon you got in touch with parents?" The next thing you know, there are little postcards going out during the summer, "Come to our ice cream social. Come look at where your desk is gonna be," because he attached it to something that meant something to them.

0:38:43.0 S2: Then as a result of that, of course, all of these Black parents are now coming in the building, Latinx parents are showing up. They closed the achievement gap, 18 points. That wasn't even what they were trying to do. Closed the achievement gap by 18 points simply by listening to the parent, root cause analysis, it wasn't a welcoming place, they identified why it wasn't a welcoming place, they identified the real problem and they were able to solve it. But if you were to start with that first analysis, "Well, Black parents don't care about their kids. They don't wanna come to... They don't come to back-to-school night or parent-teacher conferences." The reason I point that out to you, my daughter did and got asked, it was so successful that other schools in the area said, "Well, can you come and do it at my school?" and she said, "No. I can't do it at your school because I don't have a connection to that school." It's about relationships. It's about context. So you've gotta find out from your school, from your people, from your parents, what they think and feel, and until you do, you can't take this and put this on top of that school and think it's gonna work.

0:39:52.5 S2: So again, it's really recognizing... My actual model is called the relationship approach. It's all about relationships, period, relationships of parents to the schools, to the teachers, to the community. It's a village. It really is. And if you wanna heal, you gotta heal the village, everyone.

[music]

0:40:20.4 TORIN  : So the ending is so rich in insights and thoughts and Dr. DeGruy, she actually talked about data points. Off the top, she mentioned the data point. She also mentioned folks being mad about the focus on Black parents, and we've heard that on a number of occasions, particularly after the George Floyd incident over the last 18 months or so, a number of individuals are wondering whether or not we are spending too much time talking about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and are we spending too much time focused on certain audiences? But Dr. DeGruy mentioned, "Yeah, there was an issue with the focus being on Black parents, but in the end, we kinda ironed all of that out." She talked about how the principal started to take alternative actions. I love that. The principal said, "I'm going to attach contact rates to your, as an educator, your performance evaluation, your performance metric." We talk about that all the time in the DE&I space, how we need to have accountability.

0:41:29.6 TORIN  : What do I say often? I say we need a declarative statement from our leaders, we need to have a reallocation of resources, and we must hold people accountable. Dr. DeGruy talked about how the principal made the decision to hold people accountable. And once the school started listening to the parents, they wound up closing the achievement gap through increased participation, like a major lift in performance. But most of all, Dr. DeGruy talked about not looking to replicate what was done at this school and ad hoc taking it to another school, because what the daughter said was, "I can't make the same leaps of improvement because I'm lacking the relationship in your school that I have in my children's school."

0:42:32.7 TORIN  : How many times have we looked at diversity and inclusion efforts and asked for best practices? How many times have we gone out on Google and we've said to ourselves, "Well, if this company had this particular approach and we just change a word or two here, we might be able to do the very same thing in terms of our DE&I strategy"? How many times have we said we're going to put unconscious bias training at the core of our DE&I efforts, and once we do that, that we are miraculously going to see a lift in... How many times? How many times have we tried to short-circuit, shortcut the effort and not invested wholeheartedly, fully, completely, thoroughly, substantively? How many times has that happened in your organization or organizations where you might have some influence or a bit of sway? I hope that you enjoyed the five minutes because Julie and I were really going to get into that and just talk about it, even though it focuses on parents and parent-teacher conferences in an academic setting. It is so absolutely applicable to the work that we do each and every day.

0:44:03.1 TORIN  : Quick commercial, promise. We'll be right back to close the show. So our Her Voice segment is where we amplify women making moves, and this week we have three incredible individuals, first and foremost, Suneera Madhani, she is the co-founder of Stax, it's a subscription-based payments processor that hit unicorn status this week. The Orlando, Florida-based payment processing company, Stax, announced a $245 million Series D round, valuing the business at more than $1 billion. And DocuSign actually hired Iesha Berry as its first CDO and Engagement Officer. And finally, the last amplification for this week is a little bit different, and depending on how you see the issue surrounding Brittney Griner of the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury, well, it would depend, or shall I say, determine how you go out and try to do a bit of research, but Brittney Griner is believed to be detained in Russia, and what I'm hoping is that by my saying, amplifying her name, Brittney Griner, that you will do a bit of research, that you will contact your senators, maybe someone from the Embassy State Department, a Russian connection if you have one, I just want you to be aware, because when you read all of the news stories, this doesn't seem to me to be an issue of epic drug proportion. Quote of the week: "To not employ swathes of women from 45 to 60 has got to be a real issue, otherwise, you're missing all the insight from that particular generational category."

0:46:07.5 TORIN  : That was said by Liv Garfield, the Chief Executive Officer of the British water utility, Severn Trent PLC. And that was connected to the stat up top of this episode around menopause. Listen, no name drops, hopefully, the resource link for the Kapor Center's Zoom meeting is something that will be included in the show notes. Jay, continue to gallivant and enjoy yourself. We'll be back next week, same time, same place, new issue on Thursday. I close reminding each and every one of you to share the pod with your digital tribe, and to find your voice. Be a better human. Let's create better culture teams and work places. For now, Jay and I are ghosts.

0:47:01.7 S3: See you.

[applause]