Dr. Diane L. Dixon is a facilitator of learning, author, consultant, adviser, and speaker. She has dedicated her career to human and organizational learning, focusing on leadership and organizational development for more than 30 years. Her experience includes designing and facilitating leadership development programs and processes; developing change management and transition strategies; facilitating strategic planning meetings; and team development. Diane’s work in healthcare organizations and research on hospital CEOs inspired her interest in minority executive leadership.
Diane's Website & Her Latest Book
Quotes From this Episode
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
Quote by Congressman John Lewis
Dr. Diane L. Dixon is a facilitator of learning, author, consultant, adviser, and speaker. She has dedicated her career to human and organizational learning, focusing on leadership and organizational development for more than 30 years. Her experience includes designing and facilitating leadership development programs and processes; developing change management and transition strategies; facilitating strategic planning meetings; and team development. Diane’s work in healthcare organizations and research on hospital CEOs inspired her interest in minority executive leadership.
Diane's Website & Her Latest Book
Quotes From this Episode
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
Quote by Congressman John Lewis
My guest today is Diane Dixon. Diane, I think we have we may know, have known each other now for probably 15 or 16 years.
Diane Dixon :I would say that's accurate.
Scott Allen :Yes. And so I'm excited today. We reconnected probably about a month and a half ago, just to catch up. And then you started telling me about some of the research you've been doing. And I think I think our listeners would be fascinated about this research.
Diane Dixon :What I've been looking at, or what I recently did research conducted research on was, you know, how did racially and ethnically diverse CEOs navigate to that level? You know, what were the lessons learned so that I could translate that into practical tips that could help people who are interested? So a little bit about me, um, let's see. So I've been in the field of leadership and organizational worrying for 30 plus years. And as you said, I met you, Scott through the International National Leadership Association. And at that time, when I first joined that organization, I was actually working on my doctorate, focusing on transformational leadership, which is my interest and my passion. I'm a leadership and organization development consultant, advisor, author of a new book, Diversity on the Executive Path, which is what I was just referring to when I was talking about the research. You know, I think that's basically it. I'm a good friend. I'm a godmother, a daughter of a 95-year-old mother.
Scott Allen :Well, let's, let's talk about the research. Let's talk about the book, and maybe you know, we could even explore just three or four findings or interesting things that you came upon in that work.
Diane Dixon :Okay. You know, I've been pondering for years after I finished my document, when I did my doctorate, I focused on my dissertation was on hospital CEOs transformational leadership and how that correlated with hospital performance. There was no diversity in my study. And there were a lot of reasons back then there wasn't there was even less diversity then than there is now in the C suite of hospitals and health systems. Well, so finally, after pondering that, and teaching health care, leadership, and communications for a few years and a Master of Health Administration program, University of Maryland's School of Public Health, did you know I really want to find out who are the healthcare CEOs, racially and ethnically diverse CEOs, how did they navigate there? How did they get there? I did qualitative research - phenomenological study lived experiences of 12 CEOs and in that study for African Americans, four Latinx or Hispanics, men and women both, and four Asian Americans, and so equal men, an equal amount of women and men in each of those in those categories. And basically, what I did, is I'm really simplifying all it took to get to identify them and also to get them to agree to sit down with me, my interviews one and a half hours for each, so a total of three hours of interviewing face to face, to learn just that, "how did they navigate what were the living experiences that they had, along that executive path that facilitated their trajectory to the C suite?" And so that was, you know, that's a short form of what the study entailed. And I will be forever grateful to them for agreeing to spend that amount of time to share their stories, which were just really fascinating. So what I did with the research, when I got all the stories, I and went through the, you know, the typical research methodology process, finding, identifying those themes, I looked at the common themes among those 12. And they really interesting they had, they had a lot in common. Really, what I found was "sponsorship," really made the significant, the significant difference.
Scott Allen :Well, so tell me how you're distinguishing between those two terms. I think that's interesting.
Diane Dixon :Mentorship is or mentor, just start there as someone who supports you during your career. So in that, you can trust someone who may have more experience than you and who can give provide guidance. And as I said before, support on the career journey very important, and by the way, they all had mentors and identified mentors. A significant, you know, component of their career trajectory. What I heard though, which was interesting is about sponsorship and sponsorship is what's different is that a sponsor will actually, you know, put you in that position, I suggest that you be on a high visibility board or task force or committee or team and you know, in the health system. They are introducing you to other executive leaders who are facilitating the career they give you most importantly to leadership opportunities that help you to grow, and you and I know, about 70% of effective leadership development is really what happens on the job.
Scott Allen :Yes, so it's much more of an active role a sponsor is it's almost an advocate in a way an advocate for your career, is that accurate?
Diane Dixon :I would say an advocate. Yes. And just as the term suggests, really sponsoring you that they actively are giving you that opportunity for that job to coordinate the merger integration task force, for example, or putting you in that department where the department had just left and say, "you know, you now take over that department in the interim." And this, I'm thinking about somebody early in their career, who may not have led a department before, but here's an opportunity to do that in an intimate way, and demonstrate your leadership, your ability to mobilize a team and, you know, move towards achieving collective goals. Those were some of the stories that I heard,
Scott Allen :Sure, so it's, it's stretch assignments, it's, in some ways, and we just said it, I mean, it's advocating and...so, tell me a couple stories that really stood out for you. When it comes to this topic of sponsorship, what did some of these CEOs say that maybe even caught you by surprise or just was highly interesting for you?
Diane Dixon :I think the thread that ran through all of the stories were the positions that sponsors put them in. And so often they were positions that they had not had experience in before, and having to work through the inner emotion of saying, "Can I do this? I've never done this before. Am I going to fail? Should I take this on?" And you know, all those cases they did take it on and were able to demonstrate that, but I think that was an interesting thread that they were often given opportunities that they had not had experience in before, and really just jumped. Now, I think the important point here is they weren't just putting And then left to fail. We say they were put in, but they were they had the guidance and the support of the sponsor. Often the sponsor is a boss, in many situations that you know, that do that. So they had that support and guidance. And they also had the mentors, who were who they could go talk to, you know, as they were figuring out, you know, what to do in these positions. And the other interesting point about their stories and you know, sponsorship, were the times that they really had difficulty where they struggled. Yeah, because you know, everything isn't perfect on the executive path. And there were times when they took positions, and I can think of a story about one of the women who was given a very, very tough health system, multi-hospital health system, and she was asked to take the leadership will have a very difficult situation hospital that was having financial difficult called these difficulties with physicians. And she took that on, she did very well, and then the direction the strategic direction of that hospital was shifted, which caused her some issues. And she had to discern again, whether, "do I stay in this?" now that the path that this hospital was going in that was shifted by that same CEO who had been a sponsor throughout her career? And had been responsible for putting her in various positions where she had been very successful, which is why I asked her to take on this very difficult situation, which she was turning around, but then for whatever reason, he shifted what he was expecting. And that created some difficulties, I think, in this case, particularly with physicians, so she made a decision.
Scott Allen :Hmm, everything you're saying is reminding me of this article that I've used in class for years. And Michael Lombardo from the Center for Creative Leadership. At the time, and Robert II King or and I think it was called 88 assignments for development in place. And what's interesting is I don't know if you've ever come across this article, Diane, but it's really fascinating. I'll make sure that it's in the show notes. But they highlight 11 developmental challenges that, again, if we're if we have an opportunity to make meaning of these experiences, and if we want to develop, I forget what the exact is that CCL that says, you know, it's 70% experience 20% I forget what the 20% is 10% classroom, but it's a 70/20/10. I'll also put that in the show notes. They basically had these 11 developmental challenges, and so I'm hearing some of those in what you're saying. Success or failure are both possible and will be obvious to others; that's one. Requires aggressive individual take charge leadership that's two. Involves working with new people, a lot of people are both. Creates additional personal pressure. Requires influencing people, activities, and factors over which the manager has no direct authority or control. Involves high variety. Will be closely watched by people whose opinions count. Requires building a team starting something from scratch or fixing a turnaround. Is a major strategic component involves interacting with an especially good or bad boss. And then, "something important is missing, and they need to fill it." So I'm hearing shades of some of that article in what you're finding. It's fascinating how they mirror one another.
Diane Dixon :Yes, I would agree with that, Scott. I think all that you said and those 11 developmental challenges. Certainly were faced by the participants in this study. It was interesting when you talk about the boss. And you know, I had said it a few minutes ago that in many cases the bosses were also sponsors. There were times when bosses, even though they may have been sponsors in terms of, you know, giving them opportunities to leave at times the bosses were also challenges and presented challenges. And I heard that in many of the, you know, many of the stories and how did you know how did they do that? And they, I think, the persistent thing among all of them. And, you know, I have a whole section in the book about these different types of personalities, that is that they stuck with them, that they found a way to manage the relationship. I can remember one story where a CEO earlier in his career said he had to understand how that boss learned and received information and how that was different from how he delivers information and how he correlates and pulls together information. And so he became very aware of that and said, you have to really understand, and he shifted, and that made a significant difference in their relationship. They were really at odds until he was willing to really get that self-awareness and also open up to learning rather than focusing on the negativity that were developing in that relationship. How can I work with you? And he did.
Scott Allen :I can't think of a more difficult context to lead in from a day to day basis. Then healthcare, whether it's the regulations, whether it's, if there's a mistake, it wasn't, "you know, sorry, I put cheese on your burger." Oh, we were supposed to we were supposed to do surgery on the left leg? You know, it's that stuff. And so whether it's the regulations Or whether it's the 24 seven nature of the work, the complexity, technology, innovation, I mean, there's so much baked into that whole leadership role. I mean, these men and women are heroic in their ability to lead these very, very complex challenging...can you think of a more Have you worked with an organization that's a more difficult context than healthcare?
Diane Dixon :It's non stop is, I think, from my experience, both my own personal, professional experience of working in a couple of corporations consulting, I would say that hospitals and health systems, just as you described, are extremely demanding and complex organizations, very adaptive systems, really complex adaptive systems, that often sometimes are still in that bureaucratic, hierarchical, traditional way of operating, but yet they are complex adaptive systems. So there's that tension that's going on, I think between that as they're growing and learning. So I think you're right about that. And I would say, Now, of course, in the midst of COVID-19, I've been listening to American College of Healthcare Executives, interviewing varieties of CEOs and just hearing you know, what, how are they navigating all of this, you know, just amazing stories. So you have an already very complex and demanding system that now has become even more complex, demanding and the importance of learning, in this learning in the moment and quickly, adapting and I think that and as I'm listening to these current stories, I think that's the huge lesson. I think you gotta adapt very, very quickly. I want to go back to the minority CEOs for a minute and talk about them in this context. Yeah, demanding and complex hospitals and health systems. I think for them in the stories that I heard, they have all of the that any CEO has, you know, all of this, that they're doing leading and that you're managing all of these dynamic issues going on all at once in people's lives in the community, being so much the center and purpose of their work, but as black and brown people, they have the additional challenge of navigating in systems that, you know, still are struggling as we've very much today we're talking about and recognizing systemic issues of racism and the need for more diversity and inclusion, which is a big opportunity now. And particularly, the American College of Healthcare Executives is really working with this American Hospital Association with their Institute for Diversity is and Health Equity, are working with this. So in all of these cases, these men and women, diverse men and women, were able to...that did not hinder their careers. And I think that's notable. Not all of them, but many of them talked about some of those challenges, but all of them were able to manage that and not let any of those disparities or stereotypes or microaggressions diminish their careers.
Scott Allen :Will you tell us some stories? What did you hear from them about some of what they experienced?
Diane Dixon :Well, I think about one. This just popped in my head. One gentleman who, I'd say probably he was mid-career, he was the only African American in that particular department or division, I think at that point was a division. And, he talked about what that's like and needing to...not everyone believing that he could do the job...not everybody believing that he belong there. And needing to be, you know, to demonstrate that I have to be the best of the best, "I really have to be really top-notch in my performance and in my work." And also and that was shared, I think in other stories too. And also the importance of developing relationships, recognizing that so much of misunderstanding is rooted in people not having the experience of meeting difference, people who are different than them, and in the importance of developing relationships and not focusing on, you know, as one of the women said if I focused on every microaggression, and this is an African American woman, and I also told a story about it about a Latina who had an interesting kind of blatant experience. But anyway, back to what that quote, she said, "If I focused on that every day, I couldn't do my job." I'm here to serve this community. I'm here to serve the patients. "I'm here to serve, to work with the staff. So I need to focus on that." And, and I think all of them in their own way, spoke to that, that they focused on their work and they were very purpose-driven. I want to tell the story, a really difficult story where a physician told this was a Latina woman who came into a situation hospital facing some physician challenges. And there was one physician in this particular department, and the performance was poor. They had been complaints or not just performance in terms of clinical performance, but also complaints in terms of his particular behaviors. So she had the job of performance management. Yeah. In that feedback and essential ready, because of the nature of those clinical results, closing that, closing down that particular specialty surgical specialty. And so he threatened her. And he actually said to her, you know what your problem is, I'm going to have you fired. Your problem is your race and your gender.
Scott Allen :Wow.
Diane Dixon :He actually said that to her. And her response was, you know, "I'm sorry, you feel that way. I understand your feelings. My role here is to serve the patients. We're here to do our best to serve our patients. And that is what I need to do here. And that's why I'm doing it."
Scott Allen :I was recording a podcast with Stephanie Johnson. I think a couple of days ago, and she wrote a book called Inclusify. She's at the University of Colorado. And we were reflecting she was sharing some stories, that that it's just hard to believe it still exists. It's hard to believe. But these men and women, kind of consistently, would you say Diane experienced this as they were rising through the ranks, all of them had stories of this nature, whether it was micro-aggressions or outright just...
Diane Dixon :Not all of them. It's interesting. And I was very careful with that. When I asked the question, did race did your race or ethnicity affect, and that wasn't the exact question, but affect your your career trajectory? And not all of them said that is interesting. There are a couple of incidents where they were not the minority that they was one incident where the woman was not. There was a high level of diversity in the public health system that you worked in. So she felt this though she didn't really experience, what others might experience who were in a less diverse, so they were and it was a story where Hispanic community where again is generally said, "I'm not a minority in this community, I really haven't experienced, you know that in terms of impact impacting my career." It was interesting the example of the Latina that I talked about when I asked her that question. She said it was really gender that impacted her impacted her during her career trajectory, more so than her ethnicity. So not all of them spoke in terms of that, and not all of them had those kinds of, you know, the story that I just recounted blatant experiences. But the others who did say, "I did have some experiences along the way," as I was just alluding to, they were less blatant. Yeah, that they were more money. Grow aggressions or people just hadn't had the experience of working with Asian American woman as and when I say that with this particular woman said that someone said to her in a in one of her situations very successful CEO and several organizations that, "you know, they're nearly not ready for you here." So really are ready for you they've never had anyone like you here, and she is an interesting person because she really didn't talk a lot about her race agenda. She told her, and I walk they walk through their entire career trajectory. We just took their resume, and I asked information, and they'll tell you a story about that position. She didn't talk about it that much as she was telling her story. You know, she looked back, and she said, You know when I asked her because I didn't ask about race and ethnicity early in the interviews. That was the second part. And so she said, You know, when I thought about it, Because this is a two-part interview, and in that case, I had traveled. So I'm seeing her on the second day. And she says, "You know what I thought about this. You know, when they said that to me, they're not ready for you, maybe that was something to do with my gender." But she said at the time that that happened, she really wasn't thinking about them. She was very one of the ones who talked a lot about the other example I gave the African American woman as an Asian American woman if I focused on my, my race and my gender, race, I just didn't focus on it. I focus on my work. I focused on what I needed to do to serve this community, to serve the people. So just interesting. I don't know what I answered your question.
Scott Allen :You did. You did. Well, and what other themes came up in your research?
Diane Dixon :I think one of the key themes is their ability to learn. These people were really learning leaders is Peter Vaill, I think he's that use that term, share learning, learning, learning leaders, they really demonstrate that I mean, as again, as we, as they talked about their story of, you know, going through their resumes, everything pointed to their ability to learn and to learn quickly and to adapt. So that's another thing too, you know, to adapt to the variety of situations that they were in and as they made those, you know, made those moves along the career path. So learning and adaptability, and I think the other is resilience and metal. I think they kind of go together. Metal being the kind of courage to stick with it in tough situations. Yeah. They all demonstrated that and finding in that I heard no even in the stories that were, you know, the difficulties I have a difficult boss. I did not hear angle I did not hear, I heard forgiveness. Well, yeah, I heard forgiveness. I heard, 'what did I learn from that?" So again, back to that, "I learned so much from that situation, or I learned so much from working with him even though he was difficult, she was difficult. I just look back at how, you know how I'm so glad I stuck with it" You know, resilience, metal, I had the courage to like the situation of you know, firing a doctor or shutting down a service, you know, I had the courage to do it. So those are some of the, you know, some of the other common themes and I think to taking risk. As I said, they were so often put in, particularly as they were in the earlier stages, and maybe even in the mid-career put in positions where they didn't have, you know a great deal of experience, but yet they had demonstrated so much potential, that the person who the sponsor said, "go do this." And that was that came up several times. They say, "just go do it." And I said, you know, I'm gonna go do it. I'm going to try it. I'm going to do my best and see what happens. And this is actually quite I did it, and I was successful. So that kind of spirit, that kind of initiative, that kind of mindset, I think really helped them to, you know, move on the executive path. Scott Allen Yeah. So tell me the next steps. Diane Dixon It's, it's out there. It's the Health Administration Press.
Scott Allen :Ok. We will make sure that that's in the show notes! What else are you thinking about right now?
Diane Dixon :Well, I'm, I'm thinking, continuing to think about leadership in this the context of the time we're in now. COVID 19 What's been going on in our country in terms of since George Floyd's death, we all witnessed it multiple times on social media, and TV, and other blacks who had been who have died in police custody. So I'm greatly disturbed about that. And so that takes me to thinking about how can leaders and in the organizational context...because if it's going on outside if people are talking about it, it is being taught is everywhere, you know, this is everywhere they talk about racism now has, you know, it's been undiscoverable. It's now all over social media and everywhere. How can leaders talk about that open up and create cultures within their organizations where people feel safe to talk about what they're thinking, what they're feeling, and turn that into really productive conversations, not just productive? How do we in the healthcare context, health equity. How do we achieve health equity for all everything all hospitals across this country through the AHA, American Hospital Association and, and American College of Healthcare Executives who have that is a key goal - health equity for all. How do we really achieve that? And how do we all have this that we're going through right now in our country, how do we acknowledge what's going on in the communities that we serve? How do we talk about that within our organizations in a way that helps us to achieve that health equity for all emphasis for all strategy, and how do we make more of a social impact in our community? So that's, that's on my mind. And I've even I'm proposing writing an article about that, that's under consideration right now. That's all I'll say about that. But I'll say a little bit more. I'll say that I talked to to a couple of leaders who are actually are doing okay have done that. Yeah, they did it right after, you know, George Floyd and protesting immediately did that. And then I just read it, someone sent me an article about another CEO who wrote a compelling letter to his health system acknowledging this and who are we and what are we going to do? Why are we here to serve? So that's what I wanted. That's feminine thinking about that's what I'm hoping I'm going to write about and get published sometime before the end of the year. I think that's you know, I think that top of the top of my mind, I just think we have such an opportunity in leadership and in the field of leader and leadership development, to help leaders to do these difficult, you know, they deal with these difficult realities that we're that we seem to be faced with now in our, you know, in our country, and I know that there have been other periods of time in history when there's been a difficulty, but it just seems like in my memory and I think I'm a little older than you are. This seems to be an extremely difficult time that - it's the most difficult time that I feel like I've experienced. And so I think about how can we help in our field? How what can we do to help leaders in leadership to in this time to address these issues? And we know that our organizations, whether it's healthcare or whenever an organization is an open system. And I think that sometimes what we do internally is say, "well, that's out there, you know, now that, you know, this is you know, it's in the news." And there's maybe fear as a strong word is fear. If we open that up internally and start talking about that, you know, "how I handle What do I do with that? You know, how did that what do we do?" You know, so I think that's where we have a lot of opportunities now, leadership being just so challenging in the midst of all of this in these times to really, you know, how do we help? How do we make a difference in our field? Enhancing leader and leadership development? To really and I think to say, it sounds like almost a cliche to lead in challenging times. It's not a cliche. Yeah. It's a reality. It's harder than ever. Yeah. And are we are there new competencies that are emerging, and we're learning very quickly that leaders need to be and only do as we think about doing what good leaders need to be. As people, to be able to lead effectively and help the people back there. You know, teams that they're leaving, cope, and to be effective.
Scott Allen :It's such an important topic. I said the other day on an episode I heard from a listener, I think I said something to the effect of, because we were talking about this conversation, potentially the gap that exists between a lot of the traditional leadership theories like transformational leadership that was developed by white men studied on white men, and the research was analyzed by white men, and the gap that can exist, and the gap potentially for leadership educators in facilitating some of these conversations, because and I think I made a comment that I felt a little bit unprepared to do so. And that has levels to that comment that I just made. But I heard from a listener, and she sent me some material, and it was really, really helpful. I literally she sent it to me, and I sat there, and I read The document she sent, and there were some really nice tools about how to think about some of those conversations or facilitating some of that dialogue. Stephanie Johnson, who I mentioned a little bit ago, she said, You know, it's about creating space where people can be authentic and honest and humble and, and creating an authentic space for that conversation. But as you were speaking, I was thinking of I watched the documentary on Congressman Lewis, the Good Trouble, I'd never seen images of men and women being pulled off of stools at some of the sit-ins and having food thrown on them. And these graphic images of hatred. And of course, we saw those images again in recent months.
Diane Dixon :Yes.
Scott Allen :And, I think you're exactly right. I think you're spot on. How do we help as leadership educators, the process of influencing others towards a common vision...How do we help others navigate some of those complexities because it's complex. It's adaptive. It's a wicked problem. Right?
Diane Dixon :Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I think, I think when you talk about the leader, you know, the theories and that we teach and white men, you know, who writes the books, you know, the books with textbooks that we use? And, you know, how do we change that Jean Lau Chin, who you may know, I suggest her work because she's done some work in this area about diversity leadership, and speaks to this and has done research on that. I have to say, I didn't bring that down in the things that I thought I might refer to and talking about this, but talking about diversity does and how do we include them in the conversation too. Including them when we talk about leadership and what is leadership needs to be, and what are we to be and do in these times, and then to speak to your comment about conversations. I mean, I feel the same way you do about, you know, being equipped to facilitate a copy of these difficult conversations. And by the way, you know, there's a book on that, and they're called Difficult Conversations. There is a book, Courageous Conversations about schools. I, it's, I see it, but I don't want to get up because I'll have to unplug. But his name is Glenn Singleton. And I need to really go I've actually borrowed it because of this article that I'm hoping to write and get published about conversations, racism as it relates to health equity. So but he's, he's written about that, and ways to do that. So you might want to take a look at that in terms of school equity, which is certainly an issue an opportunity for us adaptive challenge. Yeah. So I think you're right, Scott, I think that we, in our field, we are learning and have opportunities to continue to learn and create the I don't like the word tools because it sounds so much so mechanistic, but what can we do to support? What you know what books, what handouts? What can we develop that we can...our students, our clients, our community, friends that will help them to become comfortable with having conversations like this. I think I think that's the key I think in my life experience so much misunderstanding I think comes from not you know, just not listening and learning and exposure and willingness to open up to hear diverse of different opinions or different outlooks. I was talking with a friend last night, talking about some, you know, some things that are going on, so that there are people who have a different lens that they're looking through. Yeah. And rather than criticizing that lens, how do we learn to seek to understand that lens? The Stephen Covey, you know, "seek to understand rather than be understood," how, you know, how do we do that? And how do we teach others to do? How do we teach that? How do we facilitate that? How do we create spaces, as you were referring to Stephen Johnson, that enables people to feel comfortable and that this is a place that I can space that I can trust? And I can be honest about what I'm thinking, and I'm feeling? So we have it. I think the good news about all of this that we're experiencing now is that we have so much opportunity to be helpful. Yeah. And to serve.
Scott Allen :I agree. Yeah, I agree. I think there's there's a lot of learning that can happen, and hopefully, that learning turns them into action. But your comment about listening and then we should close down a little bit. I think we How long have we been going down almost 45 minutes?
Diane Dixon :I know we've been going!
Scott Allen :But what I'm seeing in the system right now, I did this podcast with Tony Middlebrooks yesterday, we recorded it, and we were talking on some of these types of issues, but there's just a lack of empathy, a lack of empathy, and, and right and wrong and good bad this that there isn't a lot of both and there isn't a lot of to your point, "seek first to understand," to empathize. Whether that's what people in urban America are experiencing, I think many areas of rural America are experiencing trauma. And I think there's a lack of empathy. And it's it's this tribalism that is going to get us nowhere. It's going to absolutely get us nowhere. We will rot from the inside.
Diane Dixon :I agree with you, 100%.
Scott Allen :And if I can't, if I can't, I don't understand. I don't understand the people who are bringing machine guns to the capitol building of their states. But I'm trying to figure out what is the lived reality that is causing them to think that that's the good option in this moment. I need to try and at least understand that because there's something there. There's something that's a result of something. Right? And I believe it's it's similar in a lot of what we've been discussing how can I work to empathize and try not to understand, even though it hasn't been my lived reality, there's something there that I have to pay attention to and I have to learn about because it's unhealthy. It's not right.
Diane Dixon :I agree with Scott, and you know, and when you talked about the machine guns, and you know, I worry about what's going on recent has gone on recently in Chicago. Yeah, with the looting as the mayor and the police chief said this is not peaceful protesting. Yeah. Where is that coming from? What is that about? Yeah, what you know what, you know, what is breaking into? I mean, and I understand it to some, you know, on, you know, anger. How do we channel, what do we need to do? Again, rather than criticizing that, what do we need to do? I mean, it's not right and wrong, to be looting. That's not peaceful protesting. That's not the protesting that John Lewis was doing. No talking about And speaking about to the end of his life, that's not the peaceful protest that we saw the Black Lives Matter protest, peaceful protests. So what do we do with the people? How do we seek to understand the people that are doing violence and looting randomly? What do we need to do to help them to understand them that motivation and to help them to channel whatever that anger is? Whatever that anger is about?
Scott Allen :Yep. Because there's a lot of anger. There's a lot of
Diane Dixon :all around, you know, how do we channel that anger into something that is, you know, again, understanding and positive and doing something positive, for the greater good? It's not just about what happened in my neighborhood, and I'm angry about that. How can I think more about the greater good? And how can I demonstrate that what would happen what I believe was wrong in my neighborhood or what I believe is wrong in this country in a way that's positive and constructive, that will make differences in the community policy differences, changes in policy changes in systems, you know, education, health care, you know, all of the systems that you know, you know, have food insecurity, all of these things, joblessness, how do we channel our upset, our dismay, our anger and demonstrate that in a way that's constructive and purposeful to really make a difference that will be for the greater good, how do we reach the people with the guns? How do we reach the people who are looting and breaking store windows on the magic mile? How do we meet reach them? How do we understand them? How do we help them? And when I say that now, I don't want that to be misunderstood is that you know, they certainly when you commit a criminal act, and you do something that's wrong, we have systems. We want just systems to manage that by just systems, not unjust systems, which is part of the anger. There is justice and certainly racial injustice and other injustices. How do we try to create ways that that doesn't happen again?
Scott Allen :Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of the system isn't working for a lot of people and increasingly large factions of different people. Right? Yes, not working.
Diane Dixon :Yes.
Scott Allen :And, some of that is I said this yesterday, to Tony, some of that is long term systemic, systemic, horrible. Some of that is more recent because of offshoring or digitization. But the system as designed right now is yielding some results that are not healthy results, not sustainable. And, I think we leave listeners on that right there. Because that's a big question, that's a big question. And I don't purport to have the answer. But that's what I'm thinking about learning, reflecting, trying hard to empathize and understand. What are the conditions that bring a group of human beings to feel like this is the option? Because that tells me that there's some conditions in place that aren't good. Right?
Diane Dixon :Yes, there are conditions in place that aren't good. And we have to look at those conditions. Yeah. And we have to I want to go to John Lewis quote here, as we're, as we're closing, we have to look at those conditions that are not good. Honestly, we have to look at them, honestly not paint over them, not gloss over them, not make excuses for them. Because if we make excuses, then we don't deal with the systemic issues, the root causes of those issues. And take a hard look at them and create ways to collectively and collaboratively to address them. And I agree with you, Scott, about being we need to be better listeners and let's not criticize, let's say, how, what do we do about this?
Scott Allen :It's easy for me to criticize, it's easy for me to criticize. I can go there quickly. It's harder for me to empathize and truly try and understand that's harder work. It's more difficult. Yes, tell me this quote!
Diane Dixon :Well, he said, You know, this is the essay that he sent to the New York Times and told them to publish it after his death. And so it says, "together you can redeem the soul of our nation. Though I am gone, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe," And he said at the end, "so I say to you walk with the wind brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide."
Scott Allen :Wow. Let's, let's end there. Diane, I can't thank you enough for this conversation today. It's the highlight of my day, the highlight of my week. It's been a lot of fun. It's been fun to reconnect with you hear about your research. Go by the book, and there's a sale! And her research is awesome. And I loved that conversation. And then and then I love Our conversation this last 15-20 minutes, I think. I think it's conversations like this where we learn, grow, and develop. Thank you.
Diane Dixon :Thank you so much, Scott. This is just it's been wonderful—just wonderful being with you.
Scott Allen :Yep. Be well, take care.
Diane Dixon :Be well. Take care.