Our guest, diversity strategist Stacey Gordon, is an advocate for change and works to create a culture of inclusion within organizations. John Hollon sits down with her to discuss the work she does including turning on the lightbulb for organizations in terms of how they approach diversity and inclusion initiatives. This often includes taking a step back to look at WHY you want to make a change to truly address why it needs to happen in the first place. They talk about sparking these dialogues, the biggest red flags within an organization and becoming aware of bias. We hope this episode acts as another reminder to be better and do better.
For further reading and your action manual on next steps enjoy Stacey’s recently published book UNBIAS: Addressing Unconscious Bias at Work available at https://www.unbiasbook.com. Connect with Stacey on LinkedIn, Twitter @StaceyAGordon, or at https://reworkwork.com.
For more insightful conversations, visit www.talentexperiencepodcast.com. We hope you enjoy this episode of the Talent Experience podcast!
Our guest, diversity strategist Stacey Gordon, is an advocate for change and works to create a culture of inclusion within organizations. John Hollon sits down with her to discuss the work she does including turning on the lightbulb for organizations in terms of how they approach diversity and inclusion initiatives. This often includes taking a step back to look at WHY you want to make a change to truly address why it needs to happen in the first place. They talk about sparking these dialogues, the biggest red flags within an organization and becoming aware of bias. We hope this episode acts as another reminder to be better and do better.
For further reading and your action manual on next steps enjoy Stacey’s recently published book UNBIAS: Addressing Unconscious Bias at Work available at https://www.unbiasbook.com. Connect with Stacey on LinkedIn, Twitter @StaceyAGordon, or at https://reworkwork.com.
For more insightful conversations, visit www.talentexperiencepodcast.com. We hope you enjoy this episode of the Talent Experience podcast!
John Hollon 00:26
Hello, I'm John Hollon and welcome to TalentX, the talent experience podcast. Today's guest is Stacey Gordon. Stacey is a diversity, inclusion and career strategist and the CEO of Rework Work. At Rework Work, Stacey works to reduce bias in recruiting and barriers to hiring. She focuses on reworking how companies work by creating inclusive workplace cultures. That includes how they recruit, hire and engage women and professionals of color. Stacey is also a highly rated coach practitioner, who has facilitated coaching of Chief Diversity Officers and other diversity and inclusion practitioners.
01:11
Stacey is also the creator of the second most viewed course at LinkedIn Learning, quite an accomplishment and Stacey is rapidly nearing the milestone of having reached more than 1 million unique learners. Her unconscious bias course has been translated into several languages, and has been featured by LinkedIn, Microsoft and Virgin America, which is now part of Alaska Airlines. Stacey earned her MBA from Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business and Management. So we have that in common because I graduated right before she started with an MBA as well. And she also has a SHRM, SCP certification, as well as the SHRM inclusive workplace culture credential.
01:58
Lastly, Stacey has a book coming out later this month titled, UNBIAS: Addressing Unconscious Bias at Work. It's a resource for employers, managers, and HR professionals seeking to create and sustain healthy, inclusive and equitable workplace environments. Sounds like you're pretty busy. Stacey, tell me a little more about the book and when we can get a copy.
Stacey Gordon 02:22
Yes, thank you. I am excited about the book because it is coming out in just a couple of days, March 30. You can actually preorder it now available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and all your favorite booksellers and retailers, so that's really cool. And the book, it's really sort of an action manual to help people after last year, everything that was going on, in terms of social justice and Black Lives Matter and after George Floyd was murdered, you know that everyone was, it felt like the dumpster fire because we had the pandemic on top of that, too. Right.
John Hollon 03:01
It was quite a year.
Stacey Gordon 03:03
Yeah, it was one for the history books, indeed.
John Hollon 03:08
That is great to hear, writing a book and having it published - huge accomplishment, so congratulations on that. I look forward to reading it. We have a lot to talk about right now and our time is tight. Why don't you talk a little about why companies bring you in and hire you and to help them with their diversity and inclusion practices. What do you talk about when you first show up on their on their doorstep?
Stacey Gordon 03:37
Well, the interesting question is, first, yeah well why do they call me right? Why I show up and why they call me are sometimes two different things. And so I am usually getting called because they've started a DEI Council and not quite sure what to do or they are looking to offer unconscious bias education. And then the other reason is that they want to hire a Chief Diversity Officer, they're like, Hey, we need somebody in charge to manage this process. And so what we find is that those are the three main reasons that I get called.
04:15
What happens though, is when I go into the company, and we start to talk about it, I'm usually like those are great but we need to back up a little bit and we need to really look at why do these things need to happen in the first place? Right? Why do you need to hire a Chief Diversity Officer? Why have you started the DEI Council? What's going on within the company that we need to talk about? And that requires us looking at engagement surveys, talking to employees, and really getting at the heart of what the culture looks like in the workplace.
John Hollon 04:46
Do you find that company's organizations and leadership teams, do they actually know how much that they need to do or you sort of that they know that they do something and you sort of are a wake up call for, yeah, you need to get into this but there's a lot more here that you need to dig into.
Stacey Gordon 05:07
It's a mix, right? Like some companies know that they've got some issues, they know that they've got some leadership issues, or they've had some issues within with employees in the workplace. Others are doing it because they know they have to do something, their employees are asking them, and they're a little bit I don't want to say uncertain, but they're really unaware of what's going on. And so when you have employees telling you that we probably should do unconscious bias education, okay? That's telling in and of itself, right. And so if your employees have to come to you and tell you that you need it before the leadership has really said, Hey, this is something we should do, that's a problem.
05:49
When we will hear a lot from leaders who will say, well, we don't actually have any issues because no one has said anything and I think that's the biggest red flag there is. Because if no one is talking at all, that's a huge red flag, because people should be discussing what is happening and if you're not even talking about it, that's a problem. It means that people don't feel safe to talk about it. So people come from all different avenues and we have to kind of meet them where they are and show them how the view that they have might not be the right vision at this time.
John Hollon 06:25
Would you say that the work you do is short term, let's say under six weeks, or is it long term or does it just vary a huge amount when a company brings you in?
Stacey Gordon 06:40
Yeah, it definitely varies. And it's funny because I was just having this conversation with one of my consultants today. We don't like to do the one and done kind of let me just come in and do one unconscious bias education. But what we find is that people do have to start somewhere and there are lots of companies that have never tackled this issue at all, they've done nothing. And for some of them, they have to start there. They do have to at least have some awareness, there needs to be a conversation starter and we do something called sparking a dialogue. Where it's just being able to get in and start to have a little bit of conversations, and you really you're just stepping your baby toe into the water to see what that's going to look like.
07:23
But for others where they know that they've been doing engagement surveys, they have some data, they understand that they might have some issues, they've done some education, it's a longer term engagement. We are working with their executive leaders and doing coaching, we're working with their individual contributors and doing learning labs and workshops and we're working with their talent acquisition teams and helping them with their recruitment efficiencies.
John Hollon 07:54
You know, we were talking a little bit about what a rough year 2020 was, what's your perspective on the impact of the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown on diversity and inclusion in the workplace? And does the fact that we have so many more people working remotely today have any effect on that?
Stacey Gordon 08:15
Yeah, I mean, there's a study that's been done that shows that women have been impacted greatly. We've been set back between 10 and 20 years in the workforce, all the gains that we've had are just gone. Because many times it's women who were the ones who have either left their jobs so that they could be the primary caregiver in the home because the children are at home 24/7 now. I know my own, my fourth grader wasn't in school for an entire year, it's literally been a full year that she has not stepped foot on her campus. So that is definitely an issue. And then you also have where both parents might be at home but the children are still going to the mom as the primary caregiver, so she's in a meeting and she's the one that's being interrupted repeatedly. They walk right past their father, and go to the mom. Now, is that happening in every household? No. But is it happening above the norm? Absolutely.
John Hollon 09:13
I want to talk about your new book for just a second. I was reading some of the marketing materials for UNBIAS and one that jumped out at me said that, although it's increasingly common for businesses of all shapes and sizes to appreciate the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace, many are often unaware of bias and the cultures they've created. Can you talk about that a bit? I think you sort of touched on it a little bit about when you go into companies and they say they haven't seen any problems. But can you just expand on that?
Stacey Gordon 09:46
Yes, definitely. Because what we see is that there is a pervasive sort of myth that workplaces are equitable. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, I'm going to go into work today and I'm going to be discriminatory and I'm going to exclude people and I'm going to ensure that nobody other than white men get promoted. That's not what happens. What happens is the systems, the way that things are set up, they're just set up to work that way. So when, for example, and I'm going to use the name John, right. John goes into work, and because I'm sure you've seen the statistic, that there are more CEOs named John I believe, than like all female CEOs in total.
John Hollon 10:41
Isn't that crazy, I mean wow.
Stacey Gordon 10:47
It is, it really is. But you know, John goes into work and John is taking his friends to lunch, he just says, Hey, I'm taking my friends to lunch, you know, pre pandemic, right. And he doesn't see that as exclusionary to anyone else or anything wrong with that, because he's just going to lunch with his friends. And there is nothing wrong with that. However, in that lunch is where he's going to talk to these co-workers, and they're going to get additional information from him. They have access now to information that other people wouldn't normally get access to.
11:17
And it's as innocuous as that, in that this group of people that you're consistently with, they're the ones that get the benefit of your knowledge, they get the benefit of the information, they get the benefit of hearing about things first. And get the benefit of proximity, we pick people who we know, and who happened to be close. It's like, Oh, you're right here, you know what, Bill, take this client and go work on this project. It's not because you favored Bill, over Jenny, it's just because Bill happened to be there and why is Bill there is because you're always with Bill.
11:52
We have to look at our networks, we have to look at who we're around. So those are the systems that we have in place and the only way to actually change what we do is we have to deliberately make a decision to make a change. We have to actually say, Wow, I'm not going to pick on Bill this one time, I'm going to make sure I bring everyone together and I give everybody an opportunity and I really look at who could be the project lead for this project, instead of just picking Bill because we happen to go to lunch together and I told him about it and Bill said, Hey, I'd like to do that and I was like, Sure why not? Because that's how it normally happens.
John Hollon 12:28
That's a really great insight. And I'm sure we were talking about this and you had a quote, which stuck with me. And I'm sure it has a lot to do with what you just talked about what but you said I want to be the grain of sand in your shoe. Talk about that a little bit? Because that's a great quote. Although I think it means a lot of different things. Talk about that somewhat.
Stacey Gordon 12:56
Yeah, I mean, not that I want to be known for being annoying, but I really want to be that irritant. I want to be the reminder to you that you've now heard me say these things you now cannot unhear them. So you can't go back to your workplace and say I didn't know, you can't go back to your workplace and say, Well, I didn't intend to do this because now you know, you are aware. Ignorance is not bliss and so now that you know better, you have to do better. And I really want to be that reminder.
13:30
Like when I hear people say fit, I always say fit is a another word for bias. When you talk about cultural fit, you really mean bias. Like now that you've heard me say that you can't unhear it. And you can't ever say the word fit again, without hearing me say what you actually mean is bias, which means you now have to do something about it. Or you have to admit that you're acting out of bias, it's one or the other. So it's like I just want to be like that little devil or angel, whoever on your shoulder going, Hey, we've got to do better, we got to change our behavior. We can do better, we should do better and especially if you're a leader, you are, it's your job to do better.
John Hollon 14:12
Well, and the whole grain of sand analogy I think to me it's about pushing to get out of your comfort zone. Because when you get out of your comfort zone, you'll learn a whole lot and suddenly, you're exposed to a lot of different things that when you're in a comfort zone, you just don't get exposed to. It kind of has that has that flavor to it so I like that a lot.
Stacey Gordon 14:39
It definitely works for that too.
John Hollon 14:41
Yes. Tell me just for a moment, what was the driving force behind your book? Because books take a lot of work so it's a real gigantic accomplishment.
Stacey Gordon 14:57
Thank you and you know the driving force behind it was just the idea that they said I want to reach as many people as possible, I would like to get these concepts into the minds of as many individuals as possible and the best way to do that is. Obviously, I have the Unconscious Bias course on LinkedIn as you mentioned in the beginning, it's hit a million unique learners and actually, to be 100% transparent, not just the Unconscious Bias course, that's the course, in addition to the other three that I have, I have four courses total. But 50% of that, actually more than 50% is learners to the unconscious bias course. So my goal is just I just want to be everywhere, reminding people that we can do better. And so that is, the goal of the book is to give people a guide, some information, a reminder of the things that we can do, because we get into a space too where we are kind of like, Oh, woe is me, I really can't do anything. And I'm like, Yes, you can do something. We all can do something, regardless of our role in the company, we can all do something. And so we have to get out of that mindset of it's too big of a problem, it's too large, what can I do? There's tons of things that you can do. And I've detailed quite a few of them in the book.
John Hollon 16:15
Well, that's great. And I know a lot of people will want to read it just for that, if not for all the rest of it, too. But yeah, it's getting people out of their comfort zones and challenging them and let them know that they can make a big difference. Those are really important things. So I can't wait to read the book so that's great. And finally, these things go really quickly, as I warned you before we started. So we're down to the end here and here at the TalentX Podcast, we wholeheartedly believe everyone should have a job that they love, one that they're passionate about. So Stacey, what do you love about what you do?
Stacey Gordon 16:54
Well, I think you can all hear that I'm very passionate about what I do. I love this work, and I love what I do. And the reason I love it is that I get to really just turn the light bulb on for people. I love being in a session and you literally can see the light bulb come on, when you're talking to individuals, people who have had one way of thinking of things. And I think what I love about what I'm able to do is show the other side, show how to have some empathy. Also just thinking about just that mindset shift, showing how that that that small shift can make a huge difference and so being able to have some impact in that way is huge.
John Hollon 17:41
Well, Stacey, thank you so very much for spending a little time with us here. Great to see a fellow Pepperdine MBA doing so well and we're really looking forward to your book on bias, addressing unconscious bias at work. And I know you said it's going to be on Barnes and Noble and amazon.com and all the usual places. I know it's gonna do really well.
Stacey Gordon 18:02
Thank you. Thank you.
John Hollon 18:04
We appreciate you being here a lot. So for the Fuel50 TalentX Podcast, this is John Hollon. Thanks for listening.