Episode #47: Inclusify to Build More Innovative Teams
In this episode, Dr. Stefanie K. Johnson, PhD talks to us about her Wall Street Journal Bestseller Inclusify: The Power of Uniqueness and Belonging to Build Innovative Teams. You will learn the most transformative leadership skills of tomorrow, how to build stronger relationships with your team, practical strategies to become an Inclusifyer, and how Inclusifying is the key to innovation, growth, and success.
Episode Recap
In today’s fast-paced, competitive business world, the importance of building innovative teams cannot be overstated. One crucial element that is often overlooked in this endeavor is the power of uniqueness and belonging. On episode 47 of the Two Marketing Moms Podcast featuring Dr. Stefanie K. Johnson, a leading expert in leadership and management, the concept of inclusifying was explored as a key strategy for fostering innovation through diversity and inclusion. Here, we’ll unpack the insights from the podcast and discuss how you can leverage the power of uniqueness and belonging to create and lead innovative teams.
Understanding the Concept of Inclusifying
Inclusify, as coined by Dr. Johnson, goes beyond the basic notion of inclusion. It’s about actively creating an environment where every team member feels valued, engaged, empowered, and accepted. Dr. Johnson’s research, which spans working with renowned organizations like NASA and the NFL, highlights that many companies successfully increase diversity through hiring practices but struggle to retain this diverse talent. This struggle stems from a lack of inclusive practices that make employees feel genuinely included and valued and different perspectives are embraced.
The Benefits of Inclusive Teams
Creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels they belong leads to numerous benefits:
- Enhanced Creativity and Innovation: When team members feel their unique perspectives are valued, they are more likely to share innovative ideas.
- Improved Employee Retention: An inclusive environment reduces turnover rates, saving the company the cost and effort involved in hiring and training new employees.
- Better Decision Making: Diverse teams bring different viewpoints to the table, leading to more comprehensive and effective decision-making processes.
- Greater Productivity: All of the above together elicit greater productivity of the team overall as team members empathize and understand the needs of each other, taking the “me” out of “team.”
Steps to Creating an Inclusive Team Environment
1. Foster Open Communication & Belongingness
Encourage team members to share their ideas and perspectives without fear of judgment. This can be achieved through regular team meetings, anonymous feedback channels, and an open-door policy.
2. Provide Diversity Training
Implement training programs that educate employees on the importance of diversity and inclusion. These programs should also provide practical strategies for fostering an inclusive environment.
3. Recognize and Address Microaggressions
Microaggressions, or subtle forms of discrimination, can severely impact an employee’s sense of belonging. Create a safe space for employees to report these incidents and take them seriously.
4. Encourage Uniqueness
Recognize, celebrate, and encourage the uniqueness of each team member. Diverging opinions are important.
5. Tailor Opportunities for Professional Growth
Offer tailored opportunities for professional development that cater to the unique strengths and interests of each team member. This not only enhances their skills but also shows that the organization values their growth.
6. Lead by Example
Leaders play a crucial role in fostering an inclusive environment. Demonstrate inclusive behavior in your interactions and decision-making, and your team will follow suit.
Call to Action
Building innovative teams requires more than just hiring diverse talent; it involves creating an environment where everyone feels they belong and their unique perspectives are valued. By implementing the strategies discussed, you can harness the power of uniqueness and belonging to drive innovation and success in your organization.
Episode Transcript
Kelly Callahan-Poe
Welcome to the Two Marketing Moms Podcast. Today’s episode is called Inclusify with special guest Dr. Stefanie K. Johnson. Stefanie is the Director of the Center for Leadership and a Professor of Management at the University of Colorado Boulder, my alma mater. She writes for popular press outlets, including the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Bloomberg and she is the author of The Wall Street Journal national bestseller Inclusify: The Power of Uniqueness and Belonging to Build Innovative Teams. She has lent her expertise to enhance leadership capacity to organizations like the World Economic Forum, NASA, the NFL, and the Conference Board. Welcome Stephanie.
Stefanie Johnson
I’m excited to be here and go Buffs.
Kelly
I’m so happy you’re here because I read your book when it first came out in 2020. And then I recently reread it, to prepare for our discussion. And the content continues to be an extremely relevant one in leadership circles. I wanted to ask you some initial questions about what was the genesis of the idea for the book. And what was your aha moment that made you create this book?
Stefanie
That’s a great question. I think in reality, it’s something that I just love, love, love popular press management books. I think I read them all. I read two books a week. And I think you always get some little nugget. So, I wanted to write one because I love them. But I think that why this content is I worked with many companies, you know, some of the best companies out there, in, you know, the 2010s, who were focused on increasing diversity and had made great strides through hiring practices to successfully increase the diversity of their talent pool. And they found great results, right, they’re getting a ton of benefit from having more diverse talent. But here’s the kicker, they were losing them at higher rates than their majority group talent. And so, this is suddenly becoming a less good investment, right? That’s because it’s expensive to replace talent, especially when we’re talking about top talent. And so, when I’ve worked with these companies, and heard this story over and over again. What are you doing to promote an inclusive environment? And they’re like, what are you talking about? There was no book out there on the idea of inclusion doing something active to make the workplace work for everyone. And so, I’m like, Oh, this is it. This is what I need to write my popular press book on. This is very basic strategies that leaders can use to create more inclusive workplaces.
Kelly
You came up with the term inclusify. What does that mean?
Stefanie
Well, the idea behind the word, inclusify is supposed to be more of an active term than an include. So, if you want to create inclusion, do you include people? But as I talked to some of these CEOs and managers, they would say, Well, of course, we included them, they’re here, right? They’re included. And like, well, that’s not really what it means to be inclusive, you need to, it’s, I need a word. So inclusify, you need to do something active. It’s not that people will just naturally feel included, if they come to work for your company, because they’re there, right? They have, you have to create an environment where people feel included. And so that’s the idea of inclusify.
Kelly
I love that. And you have some personal stories about kind of this has greater meaning to you as well, right?
Stefanie
Yeah, for sure. Well, both of us are women, moms, and I’m Mexican American. And so there are many ways in which I experienced the exact things that I’m talking about, you know, experiencing microaggressions, or having to reprove myself much more than other people. And so in putting the book together, I’m like, this is I hear these stories from people because a lot of its qualitative I met with leaders and employees, like their direct reports, to see what did people say versus what’s the experience of their team. When I started to see all the data, I realized maybe for the first time that this was not, like what happened to me. I thought that was me. Not something that just happened to everyone. And so, I thought, I mean, for me, I thought it was like super valid waiting to have the realization that I’m not the only person who gets talked over in meetings, right? It’s like all women, all people of color, all women of color, all non-native English speakers in an English-speaking environment experienced the same thing.
Kelly
One of the stories that you tell in your book is, after you got back from maternity leave, you were in your office, and you were trying to get some work done, so you shut your door. And you heard someone outside your door saying to another colleague, oh, she’s still out on maternity leave, because he assumed you were gone. After all, the door was closed, and you were trying to get to work. And you made the point that they wouldn’t have said that about a man.
Stefanie
I know. Ironically, that was one of the colleagues, with my favorite colleagues who he was like, super supportive in every way. And he meant, you know, for sure, no, ill intent and sure, making that assumption, but it just occurred to me that, you know, my I married, I have a husband, and he also had a kid the same day, I did go figure, right. But he never had that experience where anyone believed he wasn’t in the office, or he was around less because he had children. And I think that’s true for all men, like people don’t assume oh, he’s his, he’s going to be daddy tracked now on his, your child. The data on parents show that for every child, a woman has she earns less. Whereas for men, it’s the opposite. When they have kids, they earn more. And I have some, you know, theories. And there’s some data to say why, but they don’t suffer the mom penalty.
Kelly
Yeah, I did a podcast on the book called Power Moms, where we talked a lot about that topic. So it’s a very important topic. But to diverge a little bit. You’ve studied the last 15 years about the intersection between leadership and diversity. What does that mean, exactly? And what have you learned? And I know some these topics are going to start to come up again.
Stefanie
For sure. So, you know, now I think it’s been 25 years that I’ve been studying this, and just seeing the changes is so interesting. So, I think some things that are, you know, just foundational things to understand is that for the success of diversity to achieve its success. In the workplace, we know that having diverse perspectives and different viewpoints, having people on your market, or having marketing people whose demographics mirror your customer’s demographics. But not always. So initially, I would say when I started doing this research no one talked about this, and then there was a, hey, this can be beneficial identity, gender, race, ability matters for something right can be beneficial. But then there was like, No, it doesn’t always benefit you. And then I would say the most up-to-date, research says, diversity has a positive impact on outcomes, wherever they are stock prices, when the environment is inclusive, so you’re able to put a spotlight on or lend a microphone to those diverse perspectives, you get the benefit, if you don’t have an environment that supports everyone to have their voices heard, you don’t get the benefits. And in fact, when you don’t get benefits, there are also reasons that diversity slows things down, that you can create more conflict, and it’s sometimes easier to make decisions when everyone’s the same. They’re not the best decisions, but they’re easy, right? So today, I would say, I think, everyone agrees that there is a real benefit to diversity for individuals, companies, and society. If you look at the World Economic Forum’s data, yeah, yet, you need to make sure you have inclusive leadership to realize all those benefits.
Kelly
Let’s talk a little bit about stats. And going back to the, you know, where we were in 2028. As to where we are today, in 2024. When you wrote this book, there were 5% of women in Fortune as leaders of Fortune 500 companies, the number has risen to 10%. Yeah, it’s not a huge number, we’ll take it. But these numbers are more challenging for people of color. What are your thoughts on some of those numbers in the progress that we’ve made over the last five, or four years?
Stefanie
Yeah, so you know, I think if you look at the Fortune 500 it’s 10%. That doesn’t feel great. It’s 50 women. If you look at all companies, c-suite leaders are women. But as you point out, Kelly so astutely that numbers, only one in 16 for women of color. So there’s still we still have a long way to go. And I don’t know how you felt in the last couple of years, but I feel like any inch toward progress, I think it is progress. Right? We should, you know, maybe the demographics of companies should mirror those of society, like, just naturally, yes. But anytime some progress is made, it seems like there’s overwhelming backlash from certain segments of the population who feel like someone else’s progress hurts them. So they see these lawsuits against entrepreneurial angel investors that are funding black women, they were just sued. Anyway, 13 attorneys general got together and wrote letters to companies that they felt we were using diversity in a discriminatory way, and questioning practices that promote equality, threatening to sue them. To be fair, many more attorneys general wrote a letter back saying like, No, you still have to promote diversity, because you know, any progress does not mean that someone’s been engaging in illegal practices. And I’ll, I’ll give you an example. But I wonder is this just me who’s seeing this?
Kelly Callahan
I mean, how many months ago was it that the Supreme Court eliminated race as a checkbox on college applications, which has implications for colleges trying to attract people in a range of races? So you’re absolutely right. Some things have started to pull back, let alone the whole women’s rights issue, but we won’t even go there today.
Stefanie
I know. But it’s so for me, it’s interesting, I’ll tell you about a project I did with the Hubble Space Telescope Time Allocation Committee. So, this is part of NASA. And they have had, they had for a long time, disparities in the number of men and women, principal investigators, applying for telescope time. So we’re talking about astrophysicists here. Yeah. And if you want to study supernovas or black holes, you need to use a telescope. And so you have to apply and you get money. But really, the benefit is getting time to answer your research questions. They had consistently found that male astrophysicists were outperforming women in terms of getting access to funding and telescope time. And this was their, you know, kudos to them. This was their realization. And there, they reached out to me to help solve this problem. So I’m not coming in to criticize them. I’m like, Okay, you notice this time, it was a small disparity, but it was so consistent. Yeah. And even in the number of men versus women, it was that percentage, because very few of the applicants are women to begin with, right? Yeah. So after like, we studied it, we tried different things. And finally, we just removed names from the application. So you don’t know if it’s a female astrophysicist or a male astrophysicist. And in fact, we instructed people not to discuss who it is because it’s a small, you know, how many astrophysicists are out there? Right? It’s a small community. Maybe you can figure it out. But instead, we’re like, focus on the science. So don’t talk about, wow, this person, you know, I don’t know if they have the expertise. And so they did that at Hubble. In the very first cycle, it eliminated all gender bias. Yeah. And now they’ve applied this across NASA and someone just published a more updated study than mine, showing that the effect persists. And it’s even greater, that younger scientists and female scientists are getting more access to this. So that’s great, right? We can do these interventions. There’s no way you can say, there’s bias, in that we’ve taken the names off right now. Yet, that decision or you know, making that change is met with a lot of resistance, because we reached out to scientists in the community to get feedback. How would this work, you know, and people say things like, you created a quota system for women to get access to telescope time?
Kelly
That’s a quota system?
Stefanie
That’s the opposite of a quota right? Is there a reality in that person’s view that if we removed male privilege women going to get more access? If that is their view, then great, right? Because we want the very best scientists who are going to leverage their expertise to create great scientific discoveries. It’s not, you know, like, so I feel like my point, it really, I don’t think it came through. But the point is, I think no matter what you do, even if it’s the least you’ll be criticized.
Kelly
There’s a similar study that gets talked about, it’s not even a study, it’s been in been executed, whereby national symphonies are having people do their rehearsals to enter the symphonies. And they’re doing it blind behind the curtain, and they’re making them take their shoes off. So they can’t tell if it’s a woman walking in heels or a man. And it has significantly increased the amount of women in national symphonies. So that’s an example.
Stefanie
So that’s where we got the idea. Yeah, for the NASA thing. I was like, well, like, you know, what they did in the National Symphony was, we don’t even have to remove shoes for this. And so for NASA funding, in almost every director, writer, almost every application process, we call it, we call it double-blind, usually, because you don’t know who’s reviewing you. And the reviewer doesn’t know who the person is. And it’s used in a lot of areas of science. But yeah, if that works, how can I not think it cures everything? So if, you know, for your listeners, they’re like, oh, shoot, why don’t we just do that? I don’t care. I’ll try. It doesn’t cure all the problems, because there’s also who gets access to PhD programs, to even become an astrophysicist. And, you know, who’s encouraged to go into STEM fields? And so it’s not the ultimate panacea. But if you show that that works, you have to wonder like, it’s like proof, right? It’s proof that there’s still bias persisting. And so when people rage against efforts to reduce bias is reverse discrimination. It’s like it’s not reverse discrimination. It’s just trying to get like, clear away.
Kelly
Yeah. Well, what are your thoughts on why it’s so hard for companies to attract, retain, and engage diverse teams?
Stefanie
I think there are so many things. So I don’t know if attracting is as difficult. That is, you know, through gender decoding of language, for example, or the same thing with race, if you highlight that your organization focuses on, like, people’s ability and their contributions to get ahead, I think you can quickly eliminate deterrents to people applying right? You know, sometimes people say women have to meet all of the job requirements to even bother applying. Yeah, I think there’s truth to that. So you can move more things to the nice to have some organizations for internal promotions have switched to automatic applications. So everyone eligible for this promotion will be entered unless you withdraw yourself. And they find that then you don’t get the gender bias, because women are going to go through the effort of I’m going to take my name off the list, they just want to put their name in the list, right? Yeah. I don’t feel like that’s the problem. I think the problem is that if you have never experienced, not feeling included, not feeling like you belong, having microaggressions against you for something, you know, for an accent, or whatever it might be, it’s hard to understand that perspective because we’re not inherently good. I understand my perspective, but I don’t understand your perspective, right? And we don’t always take the time to listen, and try and see other people’s viewpoints. So I didn’t ask the reason we see this higher turnover, it’s lack of respect or ability to get ahead, feeling valued. And until we, you know, I think we can fix this through leadership by having leaders who take the time for their own good, not even like because they want to help others, but just for their benefit. If we invest in those leaders invested in themselves to be more inclusive, they would reap the benefits because you’re only as successful as your team.
Kelly
Absolutely. And that leads to the topic of unconscious bias. Can you talk a little bit about how, you know, how do we address unconscious bias and what lessons we need to know?
Stefanie
Yeah, so conscious bias. Because if it was unconscious, how do you know it’s happening, right? And that was like with the NASA example. No one thought they were being biased when they were doing the reviews, they would say, No, we were basing it on science. But because it’s unconscious and pervasive, it has, you know, maybe tiny effects. But it’s in those tiny margins that we choose, who gets into the high-potential program, who we tap on the shoulder for a leader development opportunity or a promotion. And it’s, I mean, what it comes down to is like, you have a prototype of what it means to be, you know, a successful marketer. And when people act like or look like or talk like your prototype, you assume that they’re going to be successful. And so the way our brains work, if I assume you’re a CU buff, I think you’re going to be awesome in every way because you have a great education, I will notice all the things that you do to confirm my pre-existing beliefs, sir, and discount the things that you do that don’t affirm what I believe. So how do you deal with that? I mean, I think you can make structural changes, like the take the names off resumes, I try to be can’t take the names off everything. So I try to track things, if I have a spreadsheet of who have I given recognition to who have I given high profile assignments to. And so I can be aware, if there’s say, I’m not giving any recognition to this one team member? Well, there are two potential problems there. One, I’m biased against them, I’m not noticing the things that they did that are excellent. Or two, they’re just doing a terrible job, right? Either way, it’s my job as a manager, to be paying attention to that if they’re not doing a good job. It’s my it’s on me, to support them to improve their performance. So you have to look, follow up, and do the work.
Kelly
Yeah, it’s very challenging. You had three lessons about moving from unconscious bias to conscious bias. Do you want to chat a little bit about that?
Stefanie
Yeah the ABCs, and the DEFs.
Yes. First, you have to admit it. I think that, Oh, I’m not biased, I’m a good person, doesn’t help anyone, because you’re just going to be less open to seeing the mistakes that you make if you’re like trying to push back. So I think that’s why a lot of this pushback is so toxic because it’s like, we refuse to admit our very human nature and saying, We don’t have biases, even though we can show it like in the lab, we can show it all through NASA as we do. It’s, it’s there. So start with admitting it. And it’s not like I admit it, and I, it’s okay, because I’m human, it’s like I admit it. And the next the B and ABCs, is that you have to block it. So if you admit that you have it, you don’t just accept it and be like, Oh, I’m biased, but you have to find ways, and if it’s removing names, or keeping track, block it, and then the C is counted. So like, measure if what you’re doing is having an effect or changing things. If not, then try something else. Like all none of these interventions, like say, you know, blinding, removing names. It doesn’t work in every case, like I did when I reviewed the literature on this, before proposing it to NASA, there are cases where removing names caused greater disparity. So it’s not a panacea, right, you have to reality-check things that in this case, are going to be beneficial.
Kelly
And the DEFs?
Stefanie
I can remember developing people. So if you’re in a leadership role, I would say what makes a leader is that you are investing in the development of other people. And so ensuring that you’re developing people equally. You could say, equally across identity, but like just equally, right? I know we have favorite employees. And I think that’s also human nature. And if you are going to be a successful leader, you need to develop your people. empower them is the E. If you want to make your life terrible as a leader, micromanage people, it makes them miserable, it makes you miserable. It’s ineffective. If you empower people and teach them how to make the decisions that matter. Then they’re going to perform better if that means you perform better, and then the F is fairly treat them so make sure that your outcomes are fair. You can look at its salary range raises bonuses. You know, we talked about gender disparities and leadership, but you don’t the data continue to show big disparities in pay. And even when organizations go in and do pay equity analysis, you’ll still find differences in bonuses. So we find ways to create unfairness in systems. But I think fairness is like table stakes for running a business. It’s illegal not to treat people fairly across, you know, protected class. So gender, race, religion, national origin. So you, have to be fair, right? Someone can demonstrate it and take you to court. So it’s fair.
Kelly
So we’re talking about some of them. But what are the key benefits of inclusifying?
Stefanie
Innovation is a huge one. So having heard those diverse voices on your team, and even if it’s, you know, if your team maybe isn’t particularly diverse, let’s just say you don’t have any women on your team, creating an inclusive environment where everyone’s voice can be heard, it’s still going to improve innovation, because as it is if people don’t feel safe to speak up, you’re going to have less innovation. So performance is another one, we see differences in performance and retention. I feel like so many organizations I work with, they’re like, Well, how do we show that this is beneficial, I’m like, Just run your turnover numbers, and your voluntary turnover in particular, that alone, you can show the ROI of creating a more inclusive environment, because turnover is expensive. And if you’re losing top talent, it’s going to cost you it’s going to cost you in training rehiring innovation, and performance. So turnover is a huge one. And then you can even take it all the way down the line to say, stock prices. Growth, like all studies, has shown links between diversity and inclusion and all those outcomes.
Kelly
So what steps can leaders take to be more inclusive?
Stefanie
Oh, so I mean, there’s like a million right, the I have an online quiz I took your quiz. Oh, good. We didn’t say, Oh, I’ll tell you later. online quiz. It’s free. Anyone can take it. It’s at https://inclusifybook.com and https://drstefjohnson.com/matrix/.
My daughter is doing Mary Poppins. And she’s, they’re trying to spell Supercalifragilistic expialidocious and song. Like, why is it so hard to spell? And then I can’t even spell inclusive fire? It’ll tell you like your maybe your natural tendency or where you are now. Yeah. Is it? Are you really strong at supporting uniqueness like that I recognize that people are different and I value that difference. Or are you really strong at promoting belonging, I can create the esprit de corps of my team, you could be neither, you could do both little bit in the middle, or you could be great at both. That’s an inclusive fire. And then it’ll give you the quiz immediately after taking it strategies specifically tailored toward your like where you are. But if I had to pick just one before I hear what your matrix scores are, I would say it’s like trying to elevate people’s voices in meetings. I feel like too many times, people are at work, they love their job. They love what they’re doing. They’re, you know, chicken, but their clients love them. And then they go into the team meeting, and they’re not recognized, their voice isn’t heard. No one listens to what they say. And they feel terrible. They want to go find another place to work. So yeah, I think that’s the easiest one.
Kelly
That makes a lot of sense. One of my favorite quotes that you had in the book? Can you kind of repeat the one about “to stand out and fit in to be me, but we.” What does that mean?
Stefanie
That’s the idea of uniqueness and belonging. So the belonging feeling is like I want to be part of Lee. But it’s human nature to also want to be different than we especially I think this is true in the US, but we appreciate individuality. So we don’t all want to look the same. We want to be recognized for our differences just as much as we want to belong. And that’s the magic and inclusion is not just creating blocks belonging by making everyone the same. But how do you make everyone feel valued? That despite their difference, along with the fact that they’re different and that their difference adds value. You.
Kelly
So another side question when you go into NASA, or one of these large organizations, is it really about spending time and doing research and looking at their current numbers and then doing analysis and then kind of parroting that back to them in terms of this is where I see the holes are and where you can improve? Or what is your process when you work with different companies?
Stefanie
Yeah, I think that I love looking at the data because I think that the data tell stories that are, you know, oftentimes hard to argue with, and, you know, oftentimes people don’t know. But then I also want to talk to people because their human experience adds its data as well beyond the numbers, if even if you have no, you know, pay in equity, if you’re female employees or employees from the LGBTQ+ community, feel less valued, they’re still gonna leave, you know, it doesn’t matter. If you’re like, well, you’re paid equally, you can’t leave, I look at the numbers. So it’s like, it’s both right. And it’s, I think so much of it, of creating change, or change management is getting the powers that be, you know, the organizational leaders, to see the value in making changes, but also the possibility like this, we can do this, it’s not, this isn’t impossible, we’re not trying to create world peace, that will be great. And I’m probably not the right person to do that. But by looking at the data and talking to people, we can make changes, that are going to have a positive impact on your team and your company.
Kelly
Great. Well, if people are interested in learning more, they obviously can read your book inclusive, and find the power of uniqueness and belonging to build innovative teams, which is available on Amazon, correct? And then, of course, you have two websites.
Stefanie
Kelly
And that https://inclusify.com is really more about the leadership training that you do, correct? And taking the test?
Stefanie
And you’re going to have to tell me what your inclusify scores are?
Kelly
You don’t know I can, but I read before I took it that you said that most people don’t have a high inclusion score. So, my inclusify score was 34%.
Stefanie
That’s good, right?
Kelly
I don’t know. I was surprised that I think I’m more on the shepherd’s side. So, what does that mean?
Stefanie
Okay, so shepherds are promoting uniqueness? You know, they value diversity and the difference that people bring? Yeah. And are, is, but I’m going to and, and the benefit for you would be focusing more on how to create cohesiveness on your teams, because, you know, for everyone to feel included like everyone has to be brought to the table. And so sometimes shepherds and white knights, that people who are really like we want to focus on diversity, are leaving out majority group members. And that’s where we get that backlash, right? Like any white males as well, in the US, in most like if you’re talking about.
Kelly
So there were some other questions about white males. Yeah, I probably definitely had a different answer.
Stefanie
Others might have on that in terms of if we’re told the future and inclusive in 2020. And I’m like if we put forth this effort to create an inclusive art environment, but we don’t support white men in this process. They’re going to quit too or they’re going to backlash. And then I’m like, oh, man, we have the backlash.
Kelly
So that is a challenge to make sure that they’re engaged, and they want to be a part of it. And they’re motivated to be a part of it. Yeah. And I think a lot of, you know, feeling without them feeling threatened by it.
Stefanie
You got it. And it’s like this, what I say to sometimes, you know, shepherds and say, Well, why is that my responsibility? And I’m like, Well, why, you know, why is it the white male manager’s responsibility to make the women feel included? It’s interesting. Maybe it’s because it’s the right thing to do, but it’s also just good leadership. Yeah, if you’re not bringing everyone along with you, and you’re making some people, right or wrong, doesn’t matter if they’re right or wrong, feel like they don’t have an opportunity to be successful. Then like, there’s something that you have the opportunity to change to make your whole team more successful.
Kelly
So everyone should go inclusifyer.com to take that test, the inclusify leadership quiz correct and then you’ll know what we’re talking about. Thank you so much for taking the time today. Stephanie. It was a fantastic conversation. I learned a lot and I highly recommend the book for anyone interested in learning more about the topic.
Stefanie
Thanks, Kelly. I love your podcast.
