Purpose For Life
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Purpose For Life
Beyond the Diversity Box-Checking - Dr. Melissa Crum
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In this riveting episode, Suzanne Roberts sits down with cultural strategist and author Dr. Melissa Crum to explore how the unspoken stories we construct about others fundamentally color our real-world interactions. Tracing her unexpected evolution from 3D animation at Ohio State to founding the Mosaic Education Network, Dr. Crum breaks down the crucial difference between checklist diversity and deep institutional equity. Discover why conflicting cultural definitions of "respect" break workplace dynamics, how to build the muscle required to receive corrections without defensiveness, and how to create protocols that actively drive systemic liberation.
Welcome to the Purpose for Life podcast. I'm your host, Suzanne Roberts, author of It's Deeper Than That and founder of The Great Reconnection. I'm excited to have with us today Dr. Melissa Crum. I know you're going to be inspired listening to her today, and thank you so much for being with us, Dr. Crumb. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. I know Dr. Crumb. I attended some of her book clubs about books with complex things in them. And I know the work that she does. It's powerful and amazing through her company, Mosaic Education Network, and her uh skill at bringing communities, cultures, and organizations together to help people truly thrive, not just check off boxes, but create practices and protocols to be able to thrive. But what I didn't know was that she started out in animation. So can you talk about your journey? And I know this is a big question, you can break it apart, but going from animation to mosaic education network because that's a journey. And the ability for you to pivot pivot and change and grow and to sustain and develop and design is amazing to me. So let's start with animation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I was I love watching movies and I was fascinated by 3D animation. I feel like the first one that I remember watching was Toy Story, and I got really interested in that work. Um, and I came to Ohio State to uh get a degree in animation, and DreamWorks came to work with us, uh which was really exciting, and they screened Shark's Tale. Uh it's a movie that occurs underwater, everybody's an animal, but it was clear that we were supposed to racialize some of those animals. You saw Will Smith, who we we know is voiced by Will Smith and we know Will Smith is a black man, but it was like we're supposed to read his fish also as a black man because his introduction to us, he has his hat turned, like his baseball hat turned backwards, he has his gold chain, he cites this like Wu-Tang or like Method Man lyric. And it's like, huh, okay. The jellyfish had this, like these interesting Caribbean accents, the sharks um was doing this kind of Italian mafia stereotype. And I got really interested around what's the role of media and how it shapes stories for different groups of people for its viewers. And there just wasn't any space in that program for me to explore that. They're more interested in me learning how to make the gold chain on a fish more realistic rather than questioning why is the gold chain present in the first place. Um, and so I changed programs to African American African Studies and study media and the history of the power of media, particularly cartoons. And then I said, Well, I want to make movies, like I want to make really conscious and thoughtful movies to make sure that folks are getting like good, complex stories. And then realize, like, I didn't like doing that. I didn't like it's kind of like it's kind of like seeing Nataj Mahal and decide you want to be a Mason, and then you're just like, no, I just like the building. I don't really want to, I don't want to build it. That is great. And so I was like, nah, I don't want to do that. So then I became interested in how can I use art as a tool to help people question the stories that they have? And so I started working with um museum educators and K-12 teachers to help them think about the visitors and the students and the communities those folks come from, and how is the story you create in your head coloring your interaction with them?
SPEAKER_00Can you just say that again? Because that's a powerful statement. Story in your head.
SPEAKER_02How is the story you created for the communities that you're serving coloring your interaction with them? What assumptions do you have around the students that came from this neighborhood or the visitors that are looking look like this? That also is shaping um docents or museum educators' choices and the art pieces that they go to. So if you've ever been on a tour in a museum, you don't look at all the art, right? So they're taking you to the art pieces that they've chosen to take you to. So they're also making assumptions around what I think you're interested in or what I think you can grapple, what I think you can comprehend, or whatever kind of decisions and assumptions that they're making. And so then nonprofits and companies start to say, hey, well, we aren't teachers or museum educators, but we need to be thinking about the stories that we hold about our folks, the folks we work with, who's getting promoted, who's getting hired, who's getting fired, who's getting on a pit, who's getting a second chance, who's getting on stretch projects. And our leaders need to be thinking about the stories that they hold because that's shaping the dynamics of the workplace culture. And these are these are things that are outside of the actual policies of the organization. It's how we treat each other, usually can't be uh put into rules. It's it's what's seen as normal, how we engage. And so now I work with organizations to help them with their workplace culture and help them slow down and realize what assumptions might be coloring their decisions.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for saying all of that. That's a journey to get to where you are. Um, when you're talking about a PIP, that's some kind of performance review. And I once worked with an organization where every single person of color was on a performance review and the white people were getting coaching, leadership development. And that's a pretty direct example of how biases shape how we're treating people or their performance or um looking into social conditioning that might shape the way they're performing and not looking at everything that needs to be looked at. So um, and what are some of the ways that you help organizations do that?
SPEAKER_02I started wanting to go right into the complex, like difficult, hard work of what I call brave space and asking the hard questions, the complex questions. Uh, but I realized that most people need a real grounding foundational work. So I spent a lot of time doing what I call DEI one-on-one. And it's like, what exactly is diversity? What is inclusion? What is equity? What is equality? What is white supremacy? What is racism? What is all these different things that that was coloring the engagement that people were having? So I imagine let's just say that this organization where all the people of color were on pips and the white people were being coached. If the black people were calling out white supremacy or calling out uh patriarchy or something, and all they hear is, you think all the white people here is you think I'm racist. I'm not racist. I have a black friend or whatever it is people say, you know, it's like that's not what this is. That's not how this, that's not, that's one way it shows up, but that's not how it's showing up here. And so giving folks language, and so I've now kind of I still do that work, but now I made it into an asynchronous course so people can go and like take that. Uh so now I prefer to work with organizations who've kind of laid that foundational work and they really want to uh really think about how their policies align with their values and their mission and ultimately uh determine behaviors that is uh shapes the expectations of the folks that are working in the organization. So you say you have the uh the value of respect. But if you haven't defined that and associated behaviors with that, that can look like a whole host of things. So there's one assessment that I do around conflict and communication, and I use myself as an example. I'm a direct expressive. So that means when I talk, my voice is gonna go up and down, my hands are gonna move, like it's gonna be that. And also I'm gonna go straight to the point to whatever it is I'm talking about, right? Now, if I said to you, let's say I'm your supervisor and I say, okay, Suzanne, I need this report. It I need it in at this amount of time, these are the resources that you need in order to get it done. Uh, let me know if you have any questions. Okay, cool. In my mind, that directness was respect because I'm not wasting your time. I'm I changed this one-hour meeting to 15 minutes. Now, if your definition of respect is building trust on the front end of that conversation, which might look like, oh, Susanna, I heard you went out of town. How was a vacation? I heard your dog was sick. Is everything okay? Like, how are you feeling? This kind of trust building on the front end, if that's what you call respect, then you're gonna see me as disrespectful, right? Because we have two different definitions and two different behaviors. And so what would happen is when if we do 360 evaluations and you do the evaluation on me as your supervisor, you say, Melissa doesn't care about her team, or she doesn't care about this work getting done. She don't care about us as human beings. And in my mind is like, I care about you so much, I don't want to waste your time. And also, I'm letting you know I'm here. Like I will give you whatever you need, but we don't, we don't need to spend 30 minutes talking about how you went to Aruba. No, we're not doing that. Right. But what we can do if we have language around these are the multiple ways in which respect can show up, right? Respect can look like having this conversation on a front end, respect can look like this directness. So, what is it like for us as a team to talk to each other about the kind of respect that we that we require or that we need and being honest about that? So I might say, Hey, I want to respect you by having this meeting 15 minutes, and you say, Well, I really want us to get to know each other. So I so we might decide, all right, we can change this meeting from 15 minutes to 30 minutes. And that first 15 minutes, we do our icebreaker. Every meeting we do an icebreaker, every meeting we go around and we ask an important question or something like that for us to get to know each other. Now we're flexible. So we came to this conversation with grace. We came to this conversation with curiosity instead of condemnation. And when we do that, we can we can build and we can reshape what's expected of us. But what happens, many organizations will have these kind of lofty terms like integrity, innovation, care, honesty, whatever, but they don't define it and they don't align behaviors with it. And those be and those behaviors are gonna change from uh from uh or or from person to person, right? Depending on where you are in the org chart and how much power you have. So really thinking about how do we lay those out and hold people accountable to those, to those clear standards.
SPEAKER_00So if you were gonna hold like a team or an organizational accountable around respect, there would be like protocol around engaging with one another about the way that you do it and making sure you're having a shared agreement so that people are coming together to to include one another, not dominate in one another, but include one another for the best outcome. So people can still be themselves and still create together or build together. Is that what I'm hearing?
SPEAKER_02Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And um, that means people have to be willing to have the capacity to build bridges with people different from them and not see their way of engaging as the only way. Because it can be the reverse. I've also seen the reverse. The leader has a two-hour meeting where the 90 minutes is about us like talking about our childhood best friend and things we like to do for hobbies. It's like, and the people who don't need that on the front end of a meeting, they feel disrespected because I could have been doing work. Right. Right? Like I could have been doing something else. I want to get to know y'all in another setting, but right now we got to get this work done. And so, what does it look like for the person who thinks we should talk about our lives for 90 minutes and not see shrinking that down as now disrespectful? Because there they see their way as the only way. And so that means people are gonna have to expand what what right looks like. They have to expand what what appropriate team building or team engagement looks like. And so uh that sometimes is the hardest part. People can't get past themselves.
SPEAKER_00Especially, do you find that true when people have more power in position places? Does that make sense? Do you find that harder or not?
SPEAKER_02Harder in a different way. So if you have more power, then there's less push for you to be different. Because there's a good chance however you were is what got you to that position. Um, there are people with less power who might feel very adamant about how this team interaction is showing up, but there's no outlet for them to share that information. So they end up sharing it with me. And then you do the coaching.
SPEAKER_00You do the coaching with the leader then.
SPEAKER_02Well, I'll do the coaching with who whomever, right?
SPEAKER_00So um But if the leader's not doing it, it doesn't matter. I mean, some the as above so below, the leader needs to be engaged and hold themselves accountable and hold the team accountable. Is that true?
SPEAKER_02Yes. So in an ideal situation, I'm working with the leader to reshape their lens. What happens if the leader is not open to that, they'll say, so-and-so needs to be coached so they can get on the pro get with the program. And so then I'm coaching the person with less power or to like think about how do you apply healthy assertion in your dynamics with your manager so that you know you aren't burned out. So they they can change their lens too. So they're thinking this two-hour meeting is disrespectful. What how can you change your lens and say, I I don't need a two-hour meeting, but I understand what this this leader is trying to do here.
SPEAKER_00Will you talk about how you got the name for Mosaic Education Network and what each of those components means to you?
SPEAKER_02Actually, the name came from uh a homeschool co-op that I uh co-founded with some other parents. This was part of my dissertation. My dissertation was focused on how do you use art and community resources to teach uh for parents to teach their their students, their young people. And so um we call ourselves Mosaic because we're all different kinds of folks, um, putting our ideas and capacities and uh abilities together to support our children. Um, of course, we're educating and we wanted to build this network, not only just across the city, but across um the nation. Uh, and so when we stopped the co-op, I still like this idea of um this complex way of thinking that multiple things can be true at the same time. We can source multiple uh points of information and we can educate ourselves in a way that helps us move throughout the world, move throughout various networks, for us to be with each other in a more healthy, stable, consistent way that may not be, well, not may not, it won't be conflict-free, but uh what does it look like for us to see that conflict simply as opportunities for growth as opposed to elements of uh of this like disconnection? Uh, and so really thinking about what does that look like in a lot of facets in my work, whether it's how do we pull from a bunch of different histories, different applications. I use art and I'm working with uh uh a nonprofit or I'm working with a a company, but we're still thinking about these same things and pulling from all types of sources so they can be educated and then they can take that information into their spheres of influence and kind of spread that information through their networks.
SPEAKER_00That's great. Thank you. It's uh you are making films, but not literal. Think about it. You are creating with you know, bringing in multiple resources, which would, you know, in a film, you have to bring in different lenses and different opportunities to see things, or how are you gonna portray this part of a scene, right? Or whatever you're gonna do. You're doing that with in a living dynamic way with people and organizations and teams and networks, and doing it through a process that's um I would say generative. Most people see conflict as destructive and um divisive, whereas conflict is an opportunity and and an opportunity for growth. We're not meant to agree on everything. That would that's boring. I you know I might like something you say and not agree with it. And I want to not I want to be able to not agree with it and still like it and be over my you know world where I get to hear you and like still have my view. Yes, we don't have to be against each other because of it.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Right?
SPEAKER_02And how we don't have to be against each other as long as your framework doesn't compromise my freedom.
SPEAKER_00Would you say that again? That's because I understand what you're saying, but that's a big statement that you just said, and I want to make sure our listeners can dive into it a little bit more deeply. So would you just say that again and say a little bit more about it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if if your truth suffocates my truth, then they can't coexist. Something has to shift. And I think what people believe is well, we can agree to disagree. And that's fine if we're talking about whether we want to put pineapples on our pizza. Okay. But if it's whether or not my rights are respected, whether or not I should have an equitable process when it comes to access to resources and systems. If your truth means it limits my freedom, then there's something going on here that needs to be investigated. We need to be a little bit more honest about how your truth is damaging.
SPEAKER_00And I, if I was doing that, I would have to have a deeper commitment to want freedom for myself and for you to do that kind of work.
SPEAKER_02Yes, but most people don't have the capacity to do that. They think they do until the rubber hits the road.
SPEAKER_00Until the rubber hits the road.
SPEAKER_02What I call like, there are folks who want to get their social justice cookies, right? They want the ghost star. They've been doing for them, they've been doing all the things. And then someone calls them out. Like, well, you did a thing that was harmful, and they get defensive because they're not used to being called out. That's a muscle that has to be worked. That being called out and being able to stop to be able to slow down and be like, is this a legitimate like point? Like, did I actually do that? Right. What should what does repair look like? Instead, it's like, do you know I marched with Martin Luther King? And like I've heard, I've heard it all. Like, you know, you have. And it's like that no one's taking that away from you. That is true. And also, you did this thing that was harmful. And so are you more interested in us and you doing better so you don't hurt again? Are you more interested in me cacoddling your feelings?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I agree to everything you're saying. And as a white person who has been called out and called in, I'd say both. Um, you know, at first it was a kind of thing. And then I have to go, like, I am benefiting from a system that harms every day, and I'm acting out that harm right now, and that does not work. So I do that's why I'm saying, like, I I I'm never gonna be perfect. So I know sometimes I'm I hope my harms, you know, not a big harm, but harm's harm. You know what I'm saying? I'm not kluk's clam harm. Yeah. Um, but it could be who I'm um positioning in the email and where. That is something I've been called out for. Oh, you put my name third. Who did you put before me? It's like, wow, I didn't see that. And then also learning on my side how to go do the work myself. Not, you know, that's something else. Like at first, I you know, I'd say, like, you know, um, do you want me to know, let you know what I've discovered? And most of the time I hear, no, I don't, just go do the work, you know, and then, or we can have the conversation about what can what would repair look like.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00And then am I willing to do the repair? And do you have, are you willing to tell me what needs to be repaired, or do you need an intermediary to get to me because you don't want to deal with me because you've had enough of me or something like that? But there's all kinds of creative ways. But I think that if um if any of us really want to be as healthy as we can be, we have to be able to look at where we're harming, whether we're, you know, harming ourselves or each other, or we're never gonna get better together.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And I think depending on, I know you folks that are listening in the US and all over, being intentional about recognizing what are those oppressive dynamics that you might be taking for granted or as natural. So in the US, race and gender are big things, um, as they should be. But sometimes when we look, when we focus on that dynamic, we miss some other opportunities for marginalized people to recognize how they may be further marginalizing other marginalized folks. Right. Um, and so um are their dynamics in some other country might be completely different. They might not, race might not be a thing. It might be around ethnic groups, it might be around class, it might be around your region, what side of town, if you're in the country, if you're in the city, and how what what is that what does that mean? What are those things that we're kind of taking for granted? Um, or we've normalized so much that we've decided that we're not going to take a look at it, and therefore we are playing into the these harmful systems.
SPEAKER_00Well, Dr. Melissa Krum, I could talk with you all day long, but we're gonna have to wind down for today. Thank you so much. I love to ask my guests this question what do you think the purpose for life is?
SPEAKER_02I think everybody's purpose is something that you ultimately uncover that's connected to something outside of yourself. And that could be massive change that might happen, or it might be a small ripple that influences someone else. But really thinking about how you show up to ensure that not only you are continuing to grow, but that you are able to display that growth to others so it encourages them to be better in whatever way is necessary so that those folks around them can also grow so we can have the world that we that we say we want to have.
SPEAKER_00I love that. Thank you. When I'm listening to you here today, what I'm left with is that you're a fight for liberation for everyone. Not a fight against, but a fight for, and that you really believe through multiple sources we can educate ourselves and hold ourselves accountable to create a thriving living network of human beings. That's what I'm hearing, listening to you today.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. I believe it. I don't know, I don't know if we're gonna see it in my lifetime, but I'm just gonna keep working, working.
SPEAKER_00Keep working, keep working, keep working. But I'm so grateful to have you on today. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. How can people get a hold of you?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. You can go to my website, mosaiceducation network.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn, uh, Melissa Grohn.
SPEAKER_00I'd love to see you there. And in the fall in Columbus, will you say when your event is?
SPEAKER_02Yes, we have the Brave Space Leadership Conference happening at the Columbus Museum of Art on October 7th, a full day professional development opportunity for us to explore how emotional intelligence and our story making shows up in our leadership practices. So if you are a leader who takes sharpening your skills seriously, we would love to see you.
SPEAKER_00Great, thank you. And thanks once again for listening to us here today on the Purpose for Life podcast. I'm your host, Suzanne Roberts, and we are signing off for today.
