“I never leave the pizza boxes:” Ally Actions with Karen Catlin

When you think of being an ally, what comes to mind? Are you thinking that being an ally means being respectful to everyone? Are you thinking about a scenario where someone is being bullied or insulted and you stand up for them or stand with them? While those are both important, they are not enough, if we really want to create cultures of more inclusion and safety for everyone. 

In this action-oriented episode, Michael interviews highly acclaimed workplace influencer, speaker, and four-time author, Karen Catlin. Karen went from 25 years building software products and serving as a vice president of engineering at Adobe to now being one of the most widely-known thought leaders on the topic of allyship. In this episode, Karen answers questions that so many people have about allyship. She clarifies how allyship really means taking action and how allyship is essential for building workplaces where everyone thrives. She also shares some examples of ally actions that from her newsletter that goes out to 40,000 people every week, including the example from the title which is related to the common occurrence of men leaving “office housework” to women in workplaces. Along the way, she talks more her journey and her optimism about the ripple effect that ally actions can have for our workplaces and for the world.

Resources mentioned:

• Karen’s TEDx talk on women in tech
• The Wake Up book by Michelle MiJung Kim
• Sign up for Karen’s Newsletter
• More information about Karen’s books

Transcript

“I never leave the pizza boxes:” Ally Actions with Karen Catlin

Is your company struggling, navigating through high turnover, toxic leadership, or a culture that's holding your team back from reaching its full potential? Well, you're not alone. So here's your host and guide, Michael Baran.

Michael Baran Hello everyone and welcome to the Culture Advantage podcast. I am your host, Michael Baran, and today I've got another wonderful guest to introduce you to, Karen Catlin, author, speaker, advocate. I bet many of you know her already, either from one of her four books or her TEDx Talk, or maybe on her mailing list, five Ally Actions.

The conversation is all about this important topic. We've [00:01:00] already mentioned on the podcast allyship. Everyone kind of knows what that means, but there's really more to it than most people think. And this episode is gonna do a deep dive on that. And one of the things I really love about Karen's approach is her understanding of allyship as action.

Including taking proactive action to make sure that workplaces work for everyone, to make sure there's equity for everyone, to make sure everyone is valued in the same way, and it's often little things that maybe you wouldn't have thought about before. But then also what I think is so important about this topic and Karen's approach to it, is that she makes it clear that this is everyone's responsibility.

Now, of course, it certainly matters. A lot for leaders. Even more for leaders maybe 'cause [00:02:00] they are the ones who really do set the culture for their teams. At least they have a big role in doing that. But everyone also has a role to play and the sum of our collective actions along with of course, policies and procedures.

That's what sets the culture for our organization. And I was thinking about the interview today as I was editing it, and Karen and I didn't really talk about this, but one of the things that comes out of an allyship practice, like the one Karen's talking about is a mindset. That is, it's about not just being nice or pleasant to people, but one of really watching out for everyone what they need, not what you think they might need, not what you need, what they need.

And it, it might sound to you like [00:03:00] work, a lot of work if you're not used to doing this. With practice. It kind of becomes a second nature to think like that, and there's something incredibly beautiful about it. It's feels sort of like, Hey, we're all in this together. We need each other and we can have each other's backs.

And by now, if you've been listening to the podcast, you know that the trust that that builds up. Is invaluable for our relationships and for our work together. So, okay. Without further ado, here is my interview with Karen Catlin.

Okay, everyone. I am so thrilled to have a conversation today with Karen Catlin, somebody that I have been following for years now, and I'm excited for you to hear some of her insights. Welcome to the podcast, [00:04:00] Karen. Michael, it's my pleasure. I can't wait to spend some time with you this morning. Yay.

Okay. Now let me tell y'all first a little bit about Karen. She is a highly acclaimed workplace influencer, speaker, author. She's published four books. I'm gonna tell you what they are 'cause they, you should go out and get 'em. Better allies everyday actions to create inclusive, engaging workplaces, belonging in healthcare, the better Allies approach to hiring and the better allies way.

And she's also got this incredible newsletter that goes out to 40,000 subscribers every week. It's called Five Ally Actions. I have subscribed to it for. As far as I can remember, and it just brings so much value every week and literally every week, like without fail. Now, before all of that, right? So you get, you're getting a hint.

We might be talking a lot about allyship today, but before all that, Karen spent 25 years building software [00:05:00] products and serving as a vice president of engineering. At Adobe, which is really interesting. During that time, she witnessed a sharp decline in the number of women working in tech, frustrated, but galvanized.

She knew it was time to switch gears and focus on creating better workplaces where everyone can do their best. And thrive. So Karen, I'm so excited. It's your journey already. Sounds fascinating. With that little bit that you teased us, that jump from software and engineering to this thought leader on allyship.

Can you tell us more about that. Can you fill in that story a little bit more? How did you get to be where you are now?

You know, it's interesting. I mean, you call me a thought leader. I never set out to be a thought leader on allyship at all. I was working in tech. I witnessed a sharp decline in the number of women in this industry. There used to be a lot more women, computer scientists, when I started my [00:06:00] career as a percentage than what we have today.

And. While I was still at Adobe, I felt a responsibility to do something for women across the organization. So this goes back quite a ways, but I started our first women's employee resource group and I started sponsoring that organization, mentoring a lot of women, just getting involved in making sure that women were being, given the same opportunities that men were in the meetings I was attending in the Influence spheres I had.

Michael, I'll tell you after doing that work for a few years, as well as being a VP of engineering, you know, one of them I was more excited about doing and it wasn't being a VP of engineering anymore. I just wanted to help women, not just at Adobe, but kind of across workplaces everywhere. So. The journey from me leaving Tech actually started as a leadership coach.

I wanted to coach women on leadership skills and I still do that work today. Love it. But early on, and this goes back more than 10 [00:07:00] years, I realized that if I really wanna help my coaching clients be successful, 'cause they're all amazing people, but to really help them. I needed to make their workplaces more inclusive so that they could grow their careers in the way they wanted to.

In the same, you know, with the same fair opportunities that men had. So. Literally, I started a Twitter handle to change the world. I started a Twitter handle, I called it Better Allies, and I was just tweeting these like things that I saw were simple everyday actions people could take at work to be more inclusive.

Just in the meetings they were in the hallway conversations, their kind of local work culture. What are the small things that we all can be doing to be more inclusive of anyone? Based on gender. Definitely. That was the mindset I initially had, but. Also based on any part of an identity that makes someone underrepresented.

You know, maybe their race, their religion, their sexual orientation or identity, their age, their [00:08:00] abilities, and so forth. So I try to look at the whole spectrum of what might make someone underrepresented, overlooked. Marginalized and underappreciated, underestimated, what are those things that might show up as part of their identity?

And then what can we be doing as individuals to make sure they feel included? So that's what started all was this Twitter handle. And then just very quickly, I'll say, I started getting speaking requests to like speak about this allyship work. That led to people asking me like, do you have a book?

That was a good talk, but we want more. Do you have a book? And I was like, well, no, I got this Twitter handle. Follow me there. Anyway, long story short, and as you mentioned in your kind introduction, I've written out four books on how people can be better allies. And I love this work. I love this topic.

Yeah. That's amazing. I love the organic growth of it. I mean, that's how you know you're onto something, right? I bet a lot of listeners would be surprised by what you're talking about in terms of fewer women in tech. I [00:09:00] bet people have this idea that we're just getting better and better and there's more and more women in tech.

Like, do you have a sense of why that was happening in a way you could explain to people? Definitely, and I literally have a TEDx talk on this topic. Say that assignment. Go read that TED Talk, so, and. I've gotten very comfortable with sharing my approximate age. It's not a big deal, but, what I'm about to tell you will help place my age.

I got my computer science degree in the mid 1980s, 1985. So if you're good at math, you can tell about how old I am. And that year was actually very significant. It was a peak year for women studying computer science and getting these degrees across the us. The Department of Education, if that website still exists, has data showing it was 37.5% of the computer science graduates that year, 1985 went to women.

It did decline after that. [00:10:00] But imagine me. Sitting in my classes and seeing a lot of gender diversity. Imagine me joining my first organization and it just being normal. Didn't matter what gender you were, you could be successful in this field. It was amazing, but it did drop off and I don't know. I mean, the reasons are varied, in terms of, there might've been more of a macho culture. There might've been more focus on teaching computer science and coding skills earlier in education and it being more something that the boys did. I mean, true story, and this is a little embarrassing, but there was one year when my children were younger and there, they're adults now, but my children are younger.

I was planning summer camps for them. You get this big long list of all the things, a patchwork quilt of week here and a week here and a week here, and there was one week. That my daughter went to sewing camp, which she wanted to do, and my son went to robotics camp, which he wanted to do. [00:11:00] Yeah, that's an example of, but as a parent, I was making those decisions on their behalf.

I was sending them to those camps and maybe reinforcing a little bit of the gender bias there. Funny story though. Fast forward to today. My daughter is a computer scientist and an engineering manager at a startup, and my son is not in tech at all. So anyway, there you. There you go. Yeah. That's awesome.

Sometimes it works out, but I think society, as society, we started biasing our decisions about who should. Study computer science, who should go to coding camps, who should do this work? And that very quickly shifted so that there was a lower percentage of women getting computer science degrees. It dropped to a low of about 17% in the, I think it was in the nineties.

And it's inching back up. But we still have. As a percentage, more men getting CS degrees and frankly more men being favored in terms of AI jobs. We, maybe we can talk about AI a little bit in this podcast too, but, there's bias all around us, Michael. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:12:00] It's so interesting. It's almost as if it was so new back in the mid eighties that like, it hadn't had time to get.

Biased yet, like people, it didn't have a stereotype yet about who was supposed to go into those jobs? Most likely. I think so. Yeah. Interesting. There's no time like the present. You wanna talk a little bit about ai? Like what were you thinking when you said that? Well, you know. So you mentioned my newsletter that I send out every week.

So as a newsletter author, sending out a weekly newsletter called Five Ally Actions, I Need to Find, find Five Things every week. Yeah. And little side note here, there are times I wish I had called it Three Ally Actions, I must admit, but I stuck with it. I'm five ally actions, that's what I do. And so I am constantly looking for.

What's newsworthy, what new research has been published? I am someone who is curating, no, curating, doesn't even sound like the right word. I'm triaging. I'm triaging content that I am seeing [00:13:00] online and figuring out, well, that research study was just published. What's the nugget that I can take from that?

That becomes something actionable, something that someone, an individual can do in their workplace. So most recently, and I'm always. Just happily surprised by the research that scientists do. Recently I came across research that found that women and older workers in youth dominated fields like tech, women, and older workers who use AI in their jobs, like for coding, they are seen as less competent than men who use ai.

For their jobs such as coding, and the mentality is like, oh, I didn't, I knew that they really didn't know their job. They didn't know their stuff. And now look at the proof they have to use ai. That's for women and older workers. Whereas the men, the bias might be, oh my gosh, look how brilliant they are.

They figured out how to leverage this technology to be more efficient, to be more effective, whatever. It's one of [00:14:00] these things, you're doomed if you do and you're doomed if you don't. Right. Anybody working in tech these days, and probably any field that is trying to stay abreast of this fast pacing AI world, the change of it all, , if you're not embracing AI and figuring out how to leverage it, you're gonna be left behind.

Yet. When some people do it, they get this double penalty basically. Yeah. Of doing it. So just. FYI. The ally action then is to look out for this, like, look out for this bias that might be in play. And if you hear it, speak up. Speak up. Saying, you know, would you say the same thing to a man who used AI in this project?

Or, and I heard from one engineering leader that what they did is when they heard about the research that I shared in my newsletter, they told me, oh. I actually need to change our engineering level description document where it outlines the responsibilities for each level of engineering. I need to change that competency [00:15:00] document to talk about how.

That AI is valued so that it is something that we assess, fairly in the annual review process or in those one-on-one check-ins with employees. So there are things people can do. Yeah. Yeah. That, I love that. I mean, I don't love the bias, but, and it's amazing how adaptable that gender biases. Like, it just, it morphs, we get a new technology and then it. Takes that over and makes it so people aren't getting judged fairly. You know, it reminds me of all the studies about that they did, where they taught a script to men and women to do job interviews, exact same script. And then they had people watch the job interview and with the exact same words and the exact same tone and everything, the women were judged.

As, you know, egotistical and bossy and you know, you would never wanna work for them. And the men were just confident and secure and great leaders, with the same script. So, yeah, frustrating. It adapts. It's so frustrating. And I love [00:16:00] your focus on practical, immediate application. That's what this podcast is all about.

Like that combination of deep understanding, why are we doing this? With what can we actually do right now? Not just like vague things like go and go, reduce your bias. Well, okay, but how do we do that? And so we've been talking a little bit already and we've used the word allyship. I imagine everybody listening has an idea of what they think allyship is, but I wonder if it's the same idea that you have, like, you've done so much writing and thinking about this.

What are people missing, do you think, in the way they're thinking about allyship and what definition are you working with? You know, in one word it's action. Allyship means taking action. To create something that's gonna be more inclusive. And as I said, it might be a conversation, it might be a meeting, it might be the way the work gets done, maybe the way you hire, [00:17:00] what is something actionable that you can do to make a better workplace where everyone can thrive.

And to answer your question. It's more, Hmm. Not people are missing, but maybe they've just never thought about it. And it's something I emphasize a lot is that we need to realize as allies that. There are going to be different. People are going to experience the same workplace as us differently because of their identity, their experience, their background.

So just because someone tells us, oh, so and so said this, and this is how I felt, or this is happening and we've never experienced it ourselves, or we've never thought that that was a problem, we need to understand it's a problem for that person. And so when we can put. And it's really understanding privilege, understand the privileges that we bring to work, allows us to experience the workplace in a certain way and realize that other people have different sets of privileges or lack thereof in some cases that [00:18:00] makes their workplace experience just very different.

So that is just a key part of allyship. So, it's something that, you know, once you explain it. People get it. But we also, and I need to remind myself of this regularly, we also need to remember, oh, just 'cause I wasn't offended or disturbed or felt any kind of discrimination because of that.

Someone else is telling me they did. I need to listen to them. Yeah. That's hard for people to get. And we notice that a lot when, even talking about things like s subtle acts of exclusion or microaggressions where people can dismiss what somebody's experiencing by saying. Well that wouldn't have made me mad.

I don't see what the big deal is about that. And it, you know, again and again, we have to tell people you can't use that filter when you think about these things 'cause it's not about you. And not everyone has this. No. You know, another thing from reading your newsletter for so long, I know another thing that in the way you approach this is similar to one of the things that we do that.

That I think people do sometimes miss where [00:19:00] they have this idea of allyship as, you know, , something horrible and noticeable and immediate happens and then you show up, right? Whereas in your tips and in the way you talk about that in. Certainly is that, but also proactively taking steps to make your workplace more inclusive.

Nothing immediately observable has happened, but you are still taking action to create that culture, anyways, proactively. Yeah, I love that. And Michael, I wanna share my favorite allyship story when I was on the receiving end that demonstrates that proactiveness that you just mentioned. Good. I had just recently joined Adobe.

I was in a large engineering leadership meeting, probably about 40 people, 39 men and me anyway, and I heard my manager say at some point in the conversation. Well, what I learned from Karen Catlin about the topic we're talking about is the [00:20:00] following, and he went on to summarize something I had probably shared in a one-on-one meeting with him the previous week, but the fact that he spoke up and said he had learned something from me, the new person made me feel great in the moment.

And I think it helped me build credibility with all the guys around the table. And frankly, I was gonna have to start working with all of them on cross team initiatives, maybe budget haggling that happens, and so forth. So that is such a simple way that we can be proactive and help build someone's reputation by simply sharing something we learned from them.

Yeah, absolutely. And there are many more examples, but that's the one I wanted to share. That's a great one. And especially impactful because of what we know that women especially often don't get credit. And so that's especially important. That's great. I love that. Do you have any, I mean, any other things that might be surprising for people that maybe, you know, you've learned over the years but might shock people [00:21:00] or.

Something like that. Yeah. You know? Things that might be surprising. It kind of depends on where you are on the allyship journey. You know, for me, I'm paying attention to these things I'm learning every week, and many people are at the same level. You clearly are. And, others might never have thought about some of these things before.

So I'm not casting any judgment here. It's just more like, you know, we only learn what we've learned. Right. A thing that recently has been surprising to people, even people who work in the diversity and inclusion space, is this trend on social media, especially LinkedIn of using special characters to get formatting into our posts.

Mm-hmm. Things like old characters or italic and, I don't know, I've shared this in the newsletter. A few times I think, but the way you do that is you use a tool and that tool inserts mathematical characters that when a screen reader comes along into that post, it reads out each of those special characters like [00:22:00] mathematical symbol.

Three mathematical symbol, H, whatever it might be for the bold characters. So a person listening to that post and accessing that post via a screen reader isn't going to hear the word that you actually think is emphasized. Or some screen readers will just skip right over it. So that's a surprising thing and it's so easy to just not do that.

Right? Right. If you've never had to use a screen reader, how would, you just wouldn't know. Right, right. And literally, I don't have screen reader technology on my laptop, but everyone has it on their phones. It's very easy to turn this on our phones and listen to posts. So if you're ever curious, that's a really easy, accessible way to, you know.

Learn a little bit about the experience of using screen readers. Oh, I love that. That's great. Yeah. Oh gosh. So many things. I mean, you can't, you just can't know everything about what everybody goes through. Right. There's so many examples that come to mind of something [00:23:00] like that. You know, I often share this example.

One of the things I did is go out and interview hundreds of people about subtle things they've experienced that make them feel bad and other people wouldn't know. So one that's real, a real light bulb for people is a guy who's blind talking about walking down the hallway at work and people silently flatten themselves up against the wall to get out of his way.

And he says, look, I get it. You're trying to be helpful. I totally understand that, but it makes me feel not normal and like a burden. And if you just said hi, that would solve it all. Like I could get down the hall, I could be able to talk to you. I know who was passing me. We might be, I might have a thing I need to ask you about related to work.

And that's one of those light bulbs like, ah, I never thought about that. Thank you for sharing that. Is that in your book? I'm, I've started reading your book, but I haven't finished it. It's probably in the book and definitely in [00:24:00] my TEDx talk I talk about it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's just so enlightening for people.

Yes. Yes. And there's so many examples like that. Yeah. But just say, hi. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And it, it doesn't mean that every single person who's blind is gonna want the same thing. Right. But that's a good indication that maybe that's a good step. Another thing that I notice people finding surprising about allyship is, how can I phrase it?

I'll phrase it with an example. I'll start with an example. A lot of times I've heard people say something like, they're in a big meeting, something happens, which is really making them feel exclusion, making them feel really bad. Nobody says anything. And then they, you know, the meeting ends, they go back to their office and then people start coming by the office and sort of whispering like, oh, I'm so sorry that happened to you.

And, gosh, I noticed that. And the [00:25:00] person will often say, you know. That's better than nothing for sure, but like where were you when I really needed that support and that idea that you can't just wait and do it privately, that you might have to do it when it's hard is sometimes a surprise to people.

Yeah. Yeah. I call that being an upstander. In my books, I have seven ally archetypes, and I think the hardest one is being the upstander is really standing up to either, the bullies, sometimes that might be the case or standing up and speaking truth to power. And in a large meeting, often there's someone with a lot of, responsibility and power in the organization who is speaking right.

Or running the meeting. So it can be uncomfortable. I get it. And there are times where. Yeah, we don't feel comfortable. We're the new person. We don't have the political, or organizational clout yet to let us speak up. We're worried about our job. We're worried about our, visa status. A lot of things [00:26:00] can cause us to feel that we don't want to speak up and yeah, because of that fear, a lot of the times though, I encourage people to think about how it compares to the person who is being.

Discriminated against or not included in the meeting. Like, you know, you gotta balance your uncomfortableness with what they are dealing with and hopefully take action. But the second thing I would encourage people if you don't do something in the moment because you don't feel comfortable, you don't know what to say, you don't even know if the person wants you to say anything or do something.

Mm-hmm. If you don't feel comfortable in the moment and you do go back to someone later and say, Hey, notice this happened. I'm sorry that happened. Also say. Do you want me to do something? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's great. Yeah. Simple. Do you want me to say something? I'd be happy to follow up with the thing.

It's basically asking for a little bit of a redo on the conversation that didn't happen, and that's okay too. Just to go back and let a leader know or let a program manager who might have been running that meeting or whatever, just like, Hey, not sure you [00:27:00] realize this, but when you did that. Some people were cut off, some people couldn't share their thoughts.

We lost some good ideas, whatever it might be. Yeah, it's okay to do the redo. Yeah, I love that. And by the way, I wanna acknowledge, Michelle, mj, Jean Kim, and her book, the Wake Up where she talks about give yourself permission to do the redo. Ask for the redo. , So I learned that from her, and I wanna give Michelle a, a shout out here.

That's really great. Yeah, it's interesting. Then there sometimes there are immediate redos like that, and I've also seen people that have, years later something has been weighing on them and after some encouragement have gone back and asked somebody, you know, Hey, I. I noticed this and he didn't say anything, but I wanna acknowledge it now and ask, you know, and just having people report back about how good that felt, like, how much it had been surprisingly weighing on them for that long.

So it's never too late. Well, and I love that and I also. I'm a little [00:28:00] cautious about it because you have to remember, why are you going to go tell someone years later? Is it just to make you feel good? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Or is it to do something in support of them and make sure that you're not just making yourself feel good.

This shouldn't just be therapy on someone like someone else now has to relive that if it was traumatic or you know, bringing that up. So just ask yourself, why are you doing it? Yeah. That's a really great caution. Of all, I mean, you mentioned the persistence of the five tips every week, so there have been so many, I don't know if you've calculated the totals, but of all of those, do some come to the top of your mind as ones that have really resonated the most with people?

Yeah, and it's based on stories people tell me. I remember being at a conference. Number just before the pandemic and someone approached me and said, Hey Karen, I heard you speak at this event and I wanna let you know. [00:29:00] I never leave the pizza boxes in the conference room after a lunch meeting anymore.

'cause that was something I talked about how, there is always office housework that needs to get done and it often falls or expected to go to women. And especially women of color, there's research backing that up. And so he said, once I heard about that, I realized I had done that all the time. She's like, oh, someone's gonna take care of the pizza boxes.

You know, put them in the kitchen with a note on them, you know, up for grabs or whatever. Yeah. He said, I always am that person now. And he was a senior director at a large company. So he doing that can cause kind of a ripple effect if people realizing, oh, that's part of what people do here. People in leadership, they don't expect that kind of work to just be done by, you know, the last woman that's going out the door.

So that's one. That's great. Yeah. And another I'll share has to do with language. And in fact, I'm working with my, I'll mention it's my, male. Newsletter provider. It's MailChimp, [00:30:00] and I'm working with them on an issue right now. And they, in our correspondence, said, can you ask that client to include your email address in their allow list for their website or their IT infrastructure?

So they used the term allow list. Well, five years ago. That would've been a white list. Mm-hmm. There would've been a white list and a blacklist. And a blacklist means it's bad. We need to block it from our infrastructure. And a whitelist means it's good. Well, in the wake of George Floyd being murdered, a lot of people started paying more attention to race and racist words and their origins and, was language inclusive.

And this is something I think the IT industry, for the most part has embraced. It was industry standard. Blacklist and whitelist. We're now using block list and allow list much more prevalently, not a hundred percent, but we're getting there. So that one clearly has resonated. I'm not the only one who shared that tip, but I know that people have read it in my newsletter and told me that because it [00:31:00] was in their, they have advocated for that change in their, within their company.

Oh, that's great. Yeah, there's, do you, sometimes I get this and I wonder, I would imagine you do, but I would love to hear too, do you get people sometimes with stuff like that saying, oh my gosh, like, what's the big deal? You can't say anything anymore. Haven't we gone overboard with this? Someone just the other day on a video I posted called me the word police, because I had spoken up about something similar.

Yep. I'm happy they called you that and not a word Nazi, for example. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so words do matter. Mm-hmm. Words do matter. They chose words that, yeah, they labeled you in a certain way, but they used words that, don't reference a terrible part of our history. Right. They used words that didn't necessarily, disparage anyone.

Maybe you felt disparaged. I don't mean to speak on your behalf, but , I'm used to it. Yeah. But word Nazi, you might. Have been, more offended by, or more disturbed by and [00:32:00] so forth. So I do think words matter. Can we take it too far in one direction where we really can't say anything? Sure. We can take it too far.

I was just listening to a Reel by Molly Burke and Molly Burke is a blind activist. And she talks about like, she went to a school for the blind from maybe age nine on, she had her sight when she was young and she lost it due to a disease and she went to a school for the blind and she said. You know what we said in the halls, like, see you later.

Like, you know, we would say that to people. It's okay to use that phrase, see when, even for people who can't literally see because it just means something else. It means we're gonna get together later, we're gonna connect later. So we can take it too far. And I have had people, you know, actually give me feedback of, did you know you should use more inclusive language?

Don't use the word see 'cause everyone can't see, or an all hands meeting. Everyone doesn't have all their hands. And I think, are those [00:33:00] taking a little too far? Maybe I have both my hands, so I don't know. But I think that we need to be careful and realize that we should be listening to the people who are part of the group that might.

Have this, be non-inclusive and listen to them. Yep, yep. For sure. And the way we speak up about it matters so much like you can, you, there can be really serious things that happen that in the way that you share that feedback with somebody can make them feel. Valued and like you're calling them in.

And then there can be things that might not even feel bad, but you can, by the way you say it, you can make them feel alienated. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Michael, I'll share with you that my favorite way to give feedback to someone and call them in, as you're talking about, and this is especially prevalent or relevant to language, is.

Seek common ground and educate. Hey, I used to think it was perfectly fine to say that too, but [00:34:00] I've since learned this. I used to think it was perfectly fine to call someone articulate when they just expressed an idea or gave a good talk, but I have since learned that many black women don't feel that's a compliment because like who are you comparing them to?

Why wouldn't they be articulate? So I used to think that too. I've since learned it is a great way to seek common ground with someone and call them in. Yeah, absolutely. That's great. Yeah, there's so many ways to do that. I sometimes I'll just wait, wait, wait. Do you have a favorite? Like, that's, that's my favorite.

You said there's so many ways. What's your favorite? I am just thinking about sometimes, asking a question like, I was out with a group of friends not long ago and somebody, was trying to describe the actor who plays and or in the Star Wars series, I think his name is Diego Luna, if I'm remembering that correctly.

But they were asking, oh, is he the one with that FU Man chew mustache and. We were out and having drinks at happy hour and I just sort of gave [00:35:00] a quizzical look and I was like, I don't know, but that sounds like maybe something that is not a great thing to say. And so we just sat around googling it. So it was just more like, I'm not sure about this either.

I'm not trying to educate you, but could we explore it together? Yeah. Love that. Yeah, I love that. Not sure. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Now. On the flip side, have there been any actions that, maybe seemed like a good idea at the time, but now you've reconsidered, because of whatever reason, because of changing circumstances in the world or the country or because you've gotten some feedback or just time has made you think differently?

Absolutely. And part of being. A better ally and being on this ally journey is realizing when you make mistakes, when something used to work and it doesn't work anymore, it's not relevant, it's not accepted, whatever, or you've just really just made a [00:36:00] mistake. So, there's a lot of things that have changed in the 10 years I've been working on this.

Definitely. The, here's an example of something I thought was a good idea until someone gave me feedback. I at one point recommended attending the dry run of a presentation that someone's giving to give them feedback and support them and, you know, help them get better. So when that's a great ally action is attend those dry runs.

Well, a subscriber of my newsletter pointed out like, well, maybe this advice is assuming they aren't already good. And that they need your feedback. Maybe this feedback sounds a little bit like you're trying to be a savior. Like, I'm gonna go in and save that person from having a bad presentation.

And so better guidance that I wish I had given or I, now I think about is. Ask the person what kind of feedback they want. If they are going to be giving a drive run, they just might want time practicing it. Yeah, they might want specific feedback, so ask them what kind of feedback they are looking for so [00:37:00] that you can show up in a way that is going to be the most helpful to them.

Kind of common sense. But it unfortunately, and I do this too often, I think, but unfortunately we can get that savior mindset of, I'm gonna use all my privilege for good and I'm gonna help other people. And. Yeah, we wanna help other people, but let's make sure the help is what they want. Yeah, I love that.

I mean, I think sometimes our brains just get kind of fritz too. Like we start to spin. Like what's the, I wanna help so badly. Like what's the best thing I could do here? And while our brains are spinning, we forget that we could just ask, you know, we don't have, it's, the answer's not in our heads.

The answer's with the other person. Exactly. Yeah. Excuse me. Alright. You want one more mistake or something I've learned. Of course, of course. Okay, here's another one. Eye contact. So in my book, better Allies, I have a list of 50 ways you might have privilege in the workplace, and I list all these different things.

And one [00:38:00] of them was your manager makes eye contact with you. I think it, you know, as I was writing that, I was thinking this is a way to show respect. And I had heard from more than one person that they'd be in meetings and their manager would just like be looking at the floor or would only look at the man in this, you know, maybe a three person meeting would only look at the other man and not the woman.

I heard stories about this, so I knew it was important, but what did I not understand is that. There are many cultures where eye contact is not showing respect, and for people who are neurodivergent, it can be a challenge. To have eye contact, for them. And it might be if you're on the receiving end also, you don't wanna have that eye contact 'cause it makes you feel uncomfortable.

So I now, I think I've changed it. I haven't really released the book, but as I have on my website, I have downloads of this 50 ways you might have privilege and I think I've changed it to my manager, makes me feel, listened to and valued. [00:39:00] Not describe the physical way that might show up, but just what's the re being on the receiving end?

That, that gives me privilege if I feel my manager respects me. Yeah. Oh, that's great. Yeah. As a cultural anthropologist, you're speaking my language. I love it. And it's so helpful too. And like you say, you know, it's such a great ally action to recognize that you can make mistakes and you can admit that and change, and it, it just, I think that.

That idea, that sense of vulnerability, authenticity. It helps everyone just relax a little bit. 'cause you don't have this pressure of feeling like you always have to be perfect and you have to walk on eggshells or else, you know. Yeah. And Michael, I don't think I could send my newsletter out if I had that mindset of.

I have to be perfect because I am not, and I make mistakes in my newsletter, and I will share them the following week. Like, I got this feedback. Thank you. I appreciate every single person who reaches out to me, and here's what I've [00:40:00] learned because I wanna share that too. You know, I, I wanna say one other thing here.

The poet, Maya Angelou. Is credited with saying, we do the best we can until we know better. And then when we know better, we do better. And I think those are words we can all live by as, as allies. Trying to navigate this whole thing. Yeah, for sure. I love that. What about not just individual actions, but kind of organizational cultures, and so I wanted to ask you, what have you learned about how organizations can really build a culture of allyship?

Or, and is that even the way you would talk about it? Yeah, I talk about it that way. And while my focus is on individual actions, I also have individual actions to influence how the organization is cultivating this. So I, it's, here's how I show up always is thinking of what can someone do? And so examples of what people have done that have led to organizational support for [00:41:00] allyship is, in a.

Newsletter that might go out internally, you know, some sort of internal newsletter. Have a spotlight on an allyship action, that someone reports, , you know, or reports up to the editors of that newsletter and it gets spotlighted because when we. Hear about those examples. It might give other people ideas, myself, ideas, whatever, of what we could be doing differently too.

So I love like spotlighting examples of allyship that could also be done in a, um, you know, town hall kind of meeting, you know, where everybody's getting together. It doesn't have to be a newsletter. Second thing that people have told me they've advocated for and made happen is an allyship ERG employee resource group.

Mm. And those, you know. Employee resource groups, first of all, are still lawful activities. In fact they are helpful activities and groups for. Reducing discrimination and showing, having a company show their support for inclusion and diversity in [00:42:00] across their organization. So, employee resource groups are lawful.

I'm not a lawyer, but this is what lawyers have told me. Yes. With one caveat, right? That that the guidelines are. That they should be open to everyone, which is open to, related to, you know, in at least inviting allies in and not closed groups. Exactly. So thank you for adding that. So we can make our employee resource groups for a certain demographic, but open to all, and the same can be done with an allyship.

Or an Ally's, ERG is have a regular forum for people getting together to talk and learn and, share their questions in a safe spot and show support for each other and so forth. So that's a second thing that I have heard from people that they have advocated for. It's making a difference. And the allies ERGs can then be.

Tapped basically to help support activities in other ERGs too. We're sponsoring a speaker like, you know, Michael Baran or Karen [00:43:00] Catlin, and we, would love your help sharing it with your group, to get more people to show up. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Love that. I often think about too, the importance of leaders doing those actions in front of everybody, right?

Because of how we are so good at not just listening to what leaders say they value and prioritize, but what do they actually do in those moments? And it's that ripple effect. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. That's big. , Okay. This is so great. Over the years of speaking and writing about this, what are the most common questions you get asked and how do you respond to them?

Okay, so it's often some form of how do I tell a coworker they did something that wasn't inclusive? It's some form of that. And what's so interesting to me is like they're asking. How do I tell someone and I'm like, Ooh, you've never learned to give feedback, have you? I mean, really this is not an [00:44:00] inclusion or an allyship skill.

This is just a basic workplace skill to give someone feedback to. And you give people feedback so that everyone grows, you know, and learns together and the team gets better and everything. So, , it's interesting to me, it's like this is just. Not common. Is it common sense? It's not common sense, but it is a common practice that we need to learn so that we can apply it in all sorts of circumstances, allyship and inclusion related or otherwise.

So that's just interesting to me. How do I answer that question when I get it? Well, sometimes if I have actually shared a, an approach like I've already done in this podcast, you know, seek common ground and educate, I will share an approach like that to help someone get started and to think about how they can apply it in their setting.

Another one of my favorite techniques is. Be curious, not furious. Mm. Be curious about when someone that's catchy. Yeah. Just, isn't it? When [00:45:00] someone has done or said something and you wanna give them feedback, be curious, ask 'em a little bit more, tell me a little bit more about what's going on or what you notice that made you say that about the candidate or whatever it might be.

So be curious, instead of assuming that there's bias at play or discrimination happening, and have a conversation. You know, that's another thing. Yeah. That's great. And the flip side of that is, we find that we often have to do a lot of work with people on how to receive the feedback.

That sometimes the feedback is given in a lovely way, but it's received in a way that is kind, that is defensive or argumentative or shuts down or does not hear what the person's sharing. And those are the folks we need to work with. Yeah. You know. As long as we're on the feedback topic too. One thing I've learned, I don't think I've always done it this way, but I've learned is it's okay that if you have feedback for somebody is to ask before you give it.

I say, Hey, I've got some feedback, [00:46:00] or is this a good time? You know, they may be rushing off to something else. They may be hangry, you know, just hungry, angry, and not in the mood to get feedback or whatever. Most people will say, yeah, sure. What's up? Some people are gonna say, this isn't a good time. Can we talk tomorrow?

Mm-hmm. I don't think you're ever gonna get like, no, I don't want feedback. So just check in before you give it so that they are in the right f frame of mind to receive that feedback. It can make a huge difference. Yeah. Oh, that's good too. You know a question I often get asked about this topic and you mentioned this earlier, is that one about how do I know if somebody would want.

Me to say something, right? If we're in a group and something happens and they're not saying anything, even though I think they probably, I can see on their face that maybe they're not feeling great about what just happened, how do I know if they would want me to do it? Yeah. So there's some situations where we have the opportunity to ask [00:47:00] someone before we take action.

And that's what we talked about before. Yeah. I think is, you know, circle back with someone. Ask them if they want you to say something or do something in support. But there is going to be. Things that happen in the moment where you really just have to speak up as someone who cares about making sure your workplace is gonna work for everybody.

And a classic example of this is the joke, the joke that is going to disparage someone, even if it's no one in the group that's hearing it, but it disparages an ethnic group, some sort of identity. It disparages an individual. It happens a lot and a lot of humor is based on making fun of other people.

So whatever jokes are, I think this is just a classic example. Yeah. And in those situations, I do encourage you to have a phrase that you can just pull outta your back pocket and use in the moment because. It can feel uncomfortable. We can also be taken aback. Like, did that just happen? Like, you know what, whatever.

So there are so many ways that we can do it, and it kind [00:48:00] of depends on our relationship with the people and our personal style and our personality. But there are things we can say like, you know, act, I don't get the joke. Can you explain that to me? And get them to kind of confront their bias. So that's one approach.

Another approach, again, depending on you and your relationship, it may, you may say something like, you know, Hey, I like a good joke, but that wasn't funny. Uhhuh, the last one, I would say is just use the one word. Ouch. You know? Ouch. Yes. It sends a, oh gosh, Leslie Aguilar, who wrote that whole book, the Ouch Method.

Oh, I didn't know that. Oh my gosh. Another book for my reading list. Thank you. The Ouch method. So anyway, I don't know what Leslie says about this, but, from my point of view, it gives you, you send the message, you're not comfortable with ju what just happened and you buy some time. Maybe if you kind of wanna collect your thoughts and say something more.

But, it's a pretty powerful little word. Yeah, for sure. And that is so important that you [00:49:00] have to find the way that works for you. So that it really could be something that you say that you really could imagine yourself saying. Because if you can't, and some people, you know, we have all these guidelines with, whole script that it seems like best practice.

But you can imagine people thinking, I would never talk like that. So, and that's fine. How would you say it? Right. How would you say it exactly? Mm-hmm. Exactly. That's so great. There's a lot of, and we've talked about this, a bit, but I wanna center on it directly. The fear that people have of actually doing it.

There's so much fear about it, whether that's, I don't wanna embarrass somebody, I don't wanna hurt their feelings. I don't know what I would say. I don't wanna draw attention to myself, even like. How do you help people get over that fear so that they actually can take the action step? Yeah, and I'm gonna acknowledge that fear is real.

I mean, less than a month ago, I was at [00:50:00] an event and it was maybe about 50 people in the audience, and the two people who were speaking were like, you all can hear us, right? We don't need to use this mic. And I'm like. And I'm kind of outspoken. I don't mind speaking up in meetings like that, but I also was like, this isn't my event.

I don't want to take the stage away. Like all sorts of things were going through my head, but I know I was sit seated next to someone who I could tell from talking to them ahead of time that there was a little bit of a hearing issue. There was also a really loud fan, just a couple seats next to me on down the side.

And so I did speak up even though I was like, do I do it or not? I just said, you know. Actually, I think we do need you to use the mic. There may be some people who need it, and chances are the person who needed it couldn't hear what they were asking anyway. Right? So I, right. Anyway, so I just wanna acknowledge the fear factor is real.

I feel it too. But what do I recommend? You know, a journey of a thousand [00:51:00] miles starts with a single step. So you gotta start somewhere. Start wherever you are and build from there. And I mentioned. In my writing, I have these seven ally archetypes, and I formed them because I wanted people to see themselves as allies.

In some form it may be that they are allies who like advocating for other people behind the scenes, you know, and like in, in singing someone's praises who make sure that they get their credibility and credit that they deserve. That's fine. If that's comfortable for you, start there and do more of it.

You might be someone who's, who loves learning. Reading, watching documentaries, whatever. If that's something that is comfortable and likable for you, do more of it and learn more about the experiences of people who aren't like you, and then share that knowledge with others, like, you know, like, that's fine.

So start where somewhere that's comfortable. I'm okay with that, but don't stop there. You know, keep exploring the other archetypes and. If being an upstander [00:52:00] and speaking up with jokes or raising, you know, saying We really do need to use the mic. If that feels uncomfortable to you, work your way up there, but get there.

Yeah, for sure. You know, you just reminded me of another thing that organizations can do, which can be helpful, is to have some, to have like a rotating role in meetings for someone to kind of keep top of mind. Is everyone being included here? Whose voice are we not hearing? Is anyone struggling to participate for whatever reason, but have it be rotating and assigned so that the same person, whether you know, like so Karen doesn't have to be the one to say it every single time, which can get to be a burden and can even negatively impact you and how people interact with you or see you.

I love that. I, you know, I've heard about that in some organizations, just on hiring committees. Mm-hmm. It's a rotating responsibility Yeah. Of looking out for bias and discussions of [00:53:00] candidates. But I love that in any meeting. Why not? Yeah, why not? Because, it can be like a burden to be the one always speaking up.

And, you know, I, you probably feel that I, because of what I do for a living, I feel that I'm often that person. And so it's really nice to have that. I, this is so helpful. I always like to ask people about like their fantasies about a world with more support and allyship. Like when you dream of what could be, what does that look like and how do we get there?

I definitely have dreams. You know, there's that saying, Michael of one bad apple can spoil the bunch. Mm-hmm. I think that. There is the equivalent or opposite, saying that there is one good ally that can actually lift the whole orchard. Mm. And we talked a little bit about that ripple effect. Yeah.

That ripple effect when anyone who has any sort of respect, starts doing more [00:54:00] allyship. I think it becomes a valued activity, a valued mindset, and that can really take. You know, take over and cause a lot more inclusion where everyone starts mimicking that person, creating more inclusion. I mean, that's, wouldn't that be amazing?

Unfortunately, we also have leaders, whether that's in our organizations, in our communities, or on more the world stage that. Can do the opposite and have a ripple effect of bullying, of non-inclusive behavior, of disparaging language and behavior. We have to make sure we're combating that by highlighting the leaders we see who are doing this well.

Yeah, so that's my dream is those leaders are effective and have that ripple effect and get a lot more people thinking this way. Yeah, for sure. Oh my gosh, you just reminded me of one of the hardest workshops I've ever done where I was working with an organization and all we were doing in the beginning was going around doing introductions.

There are [00:55:00] maybe 15, 20 of US leaders of this organization. And when it got to the CEO in as part of his introduction, he said, I don't even know why we're doing this. I remember when a man was a man and a woman was a woman, and why do, what do we even do in these days? Like that was part of his introduction.

So that did not sense. And you were leading a workshop on inclusive behavior or subtle acts of exclusion or? Yes, it was one of those times where it's good to be adaptive as a speaker or facilitator. 'cause you can't, you can't just go on with what you're gonna do after that. Right. You have to really address things.

But it just, it made me think of that when you talk about how a leader can influence things for good or not so good. Yeah. This is so helpful. I mean, it's, and so affirming so many of the things that, that you find are things that I've seen also in my work over the years. So many things you talk about are light bulbs [00:56:00] for me and I'm sure for all of your readers, and it's just such a value that you provide to folks.

This is such a huge topic because of the. The marginalization, the exclusion that continues to happen. You know, I mean, sometimes when people say, well, I don't even think people want allies to speak up, like they could do it if they want. I often tell them, you know, one thing we don't hear these days from people who are being marginalized or excluded is.

I'm just sick of all these allies speaking up for me all the time. I wish people would just shut up. Right. We don't hear that. But we do hear the flip side. We do hear people talk about the silence and the isolation that they feel. And encourage people if you're gonna air one way or the other, try airing on the other side for a while.

Yeah. Yeah. Such a big topic. Okay. [00:57:00] There's so much more to talk about, but I know that people can get so much additional value from reading what you've said and watching your videos. Where should people go to find you online to find your writings and everything else? Yeah, so Better allies.com is my website, and I'm also at Better Allies on like Instagram and YouTube and Threads and Blue Sky.

So you can follow me on maybe that fa favorite platform of yours there. And if it's. LinkedIn is your jam, then I am Ke Catlin or Karen Catlin, better allies. You'll find me by searching and I am very active on LinkedIn. So yeah, I'd love to see people there and my newsletter. I love having more people join my newsletter community.

So you can find that information@betterallies.com too. It's, you know, five, five ideas you can try out every week. So join me there. That's amazing. Now, I always like to assign people a little homework assignment if they [00:58:00] want to take advantage of that. Like what's one thing they could do this week based on what we have talked about here?

Subscribe to my newsletter. That's one simple thing. Love it. I'll take you a minute and you'll be done and you'll be enriched, I promise. I love that and I really highly encourage people to do it. It is so valuable and every week just super actionable and illuminating, and. It takes you no time at all to sign up, so just go do it now.

Karen, this has been amazing talking with you. So helpful. I just loved our conversation. I know we could talk for hours, but we'll cut it off there. Thank you for joining us, and have a great week. Thank you, Michael. All right. See you all soon.

Okay. That was my interview with Karen Catlin. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed having the conversation. It really is fun bringing on guests like [00:59:00] this. You've also got your homework assignment. Just we'll take a minute. I'll put the link to that site in the show notes along with a couple other resources that Karen mentioned and I should mention that if you go there and sign up for a newsletter, you can also look back at past.

Newsletters that she's put out. So check some of those out. And then another homework assignment. For any of you who are new here, I really would encourage you to go back and listen to the first couple episodes, learn who this host Michael Baran even is. What this podcast is gonna be all about. The podcast is pretty new.

It's just been a few months since the launch. But me bringing guests on the show is very new. The first 10 episodes are short and they're just me talking about specific topics, going in depth, trying to bring some deep understanding. As well as practical actions in every episode. Episode two, for example, that's all [01:00:00] about what culture even is.

I'm a cultural anthropologist, so I have a lot to say about that. After that episode, there's a three part series on those letters, de and I. What they really mean, what all the attacks are about. What's the real work that has happened under that umbrella of DEI and how can we move forward now in today's context?

So check some of those out. Anytime you wanna reach out to me, you can do that by emailingMichael@cultureadvantagepodcast.com, and I promise I will get back to you. All right, everyone, have a great week.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Culture Advantage podcast. I am your host, Michael Baran, and today I've got another wonderful guest to introduce you to, Karen Catlin, author, speaker, [01:01:00] advocate. I bet many of you know her already, either from one of her four books or her TEDx Talk, or maybe on her mailing list, five Ally Actions.

The conversation is all about this important topic. We've already mentioned on the podcast allyship. Everyone kind of knows what that means, but there's really more to it than most people think. And this episode is gonna do a deep dive on that. And one of the things I really love about Karen's approach is her understanding of allyship as action.

Including taking proactive action to make sure that workplaces work for everyone, to make sure there's equity for everyone, to make sure everyone is valued in the same way, and it's often little things that maybe you wouldn't have thought about before. But then also what I think is so important about [01:02:00] this topic and Karen's approach to it, is that she makes it clear that this is everyone's responsibility.

Now, of course, it certainly matters. A lot for leaders. Even more for leaders maybe 'cause they are the ones who really do set the culture for their teams. At least they have a big role in doing that. But everyone also has a role to play and the sum of our collective actions along with of course, policies and procedures.

That's what sets the, the culture for our organization. And I was thinking about the interview today as I was editing it, and Karen and I didn't really talk about this, but one of the things that comes out of an allyship practice, like the one Karen's talking about is a mindset. That is, it's about not just being nice [01:03:00] or pleasant to people, but one of really watching out for everyone what they need, not what you think they might need, not what you need, what they need.

And it, it might sound to you like work, a lot of work if you're not used to doing this. With practice. It kind of becomes a second nature to think like that, and there's something incredibly beautiful about it. It's feels sort of like, Hey, we're all in this together. We need each other and we can have each other's backs.

And by now, if you've been listening to the podcast, you know that the trust that that builds up. Is invaluable for our relationships and for our work together. So, okay. Without further ado, here is my interview with Karen Catlin.

[01:04:00] So that's it for today's episode and the Culture Advantage Podcast. Head on over Apple Podcast iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener. Every single week that posts review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes, we'll win a chance in the grand prize drawing to win a $25,000.

Private VIP day with Michael himself. Be sure to head on over to culture advantage podcast.com and pick up a free copy of Michael's gift and join us on the next episode.