A Dog Called Diversity
Creating belonging….with Justin Reinert
Based in Chicago, Justin Reinert is a Coach & Talent Development Leader who is clever at consulting, facilitation, training, organizational development, and talent management, and he recently became an author.
Justin has written Creating belonging: a practical guide to accelerate belonging in organizations and communities. In his book he also explains his belonging model which will be useful for D&I and human resource practitioners around the world.
Listen in to learn all about Justin’s lived experiences, the process of writing his book and how important belonging is in organisations and communities.
Get in contact with Justin here
The Culture Ministry exists to create inclusive, accessible environments so that people and businesses can thrive.
Combining a big picture, balanced approach with real-world experience, we help organisations understand their diversity and inclusion shortcomings – and identify practical, measurable actions to move them forward.
Go to https://www.thecultureministry.com/ to learn more
If you enjoyed this episode and maybe learnt something please share with your friends on social media, give a 5 star rating on Apple podcasts and leave a comment. This makes it easier for others to find A Dog Called Diversity.
A Dog Called Diversity is proud to be featured on Feedspot's 20 Best Diversity And Inclusion Podcasts
Thanks for listening. Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
Based in Chicago, Justin Reinert is a Coach & Talent Development Leader who is clever at consulting, facilitation, training, organizational development, and talent management, and he recently became an author.
Justin has written Creating belonging: a practical guide to accelerate belonging in organizations and communities. In his book he also explains his belonging model which will be useful for D&I and human resource practitioners around the world.
Listen in to learn all about Justin’s lived experiences, the process of writing his book and how important belonging is in organisations and communities.
Get in contact with Justin here
The Culture Ministry exists to create inclusive, accessible environments so that people and businesses can thrive.
Combining a big picture, balanced approach with real-world experience, we help organisations understand their diversity and inclusion shortcomings – and identify practical, measurable actions to move them forward.
Go to https://www.thecultureministry.com/ to learn more
If you enjoyed this episode and maybe learnt something please share with your friends on social media, give a 5 star rating on Apple podcasts and leave a comment. This makes it easier for others to find A Dog Called Diversity.
A Dog Called Diversity is proud to be featured on Feedspot's 20 Best Diversity And Inclusion Podcasts
Thanks for listening. Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
Welcome to A Dog Called Diversity, a podcast from the Culture Ministry where we explore the themes of diversity, equity and inclusion through sharing stories of personal and powerful lived experiences, including how people have found their feet and developed their career in diversity and inclusion. We're so glad you're listening in and if you need some help or support with your diversity and inclusion work, go to wwwthecultureministrycom for more information. Based in Chicago, justin Reinhart is a coach and talent development leader who is clever at consulting, facilitation, training, organizational development and talent management, and he recently became an author. Justin has written Creating Belonging a practical guide to accelerate belonging in organizations and communities. In his book he also explains his belonging model, which will be useful for D&I and human resource practitioners around the world. Listen in to learn all about Justin's lived experiences, the process of writing his book and how important belonging is in organizations and communities. Here's your host, lisa Mulligan. Here's your host, lisa.
Speaker 2:Mulligan Really excited today. I've got a fabulous guest. Welcome, Justin Reinhart, to the podcast and you're joining us from.
Speaker 3:Chicago, which is a place I'd love to visit?
Speaker 2:Yes, and you're very clever and you've written a book called Creating Belonging, and would you like to talk the rest of the title, because I didn't see your book's called yeah?
Speaker 3:it's called Creating Belonging, and would you like to talk the rest of the title, because I didn't see your book's called? Yeah, it's called Creating Belonging A Practical Guide to Accelerate Belonging in Organizations and Communities. But yeah, creating Belonging is just fine, yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's a really great title and I want to, through our conversation, understand how you came to write this book. But I love, on my podcast, to really understand people a bit more and learn about a bit about where they grew up and their experiences that you know. That got them to the point that we're talking about today. So I wondered if you'd start by introducing yourself, Justin, and then telling us a bit about your story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. Justin Reinert was born in rural Iowa. So for our global listeners, iowa is in, you know, right in the middle of the United States, and what often is referred to as flyover country, that's. The town that I grew up in was about 1600 people, was the population, and, yeah, so very small, very small community. And you know, when it comes to I always like to refer to, you know, my exposure to diversity. When I was a kid, you know, everybody, everybody that I grew up with, you know, looked like me, behaved mostly like me, right, and to me diversity was religious diversity, but that was whether you were Baptist or Catholic.
Speaker 3:you know different sects of Christianity, like all the religious diversity that we had in our small town, and so you know, when it comes to diversity, there wasn't a lot of it in my exposure growing up. But I then I started college at Iowa State University in Ames, iowa, and I actually lived in a dormitory that was a year-round dormitory. It was open year-round so, like most of the dorms would close during breaks and people would go home. But living in that year-round dormitory allowed me to live with people from all over the globe, because people were needed to stay there, because they weren't afforded the luxury of going home for the weekend or for a week over a break. And so I went from my small rural town in Iowa to this dorm with, I can recall, a woman from Turkey that lives in the dorm building and just the exposure to understanding her and her culture and then people from all over the world really. And so I kind of got thrown right into that and had that exposure to diversity.
Speaker 3:And, of course, growing up as a queer kid out in the cornfields, it took me a while in those first years at Iowa State to really come to terms with my own sexuality and understanding my identity, but then continue to live in central Iowa for about 10 years and then move to Chicago nearly 17 years ago and yeah, and you know obviously Chicago very different experience in you know who I'm around compared to the small town that I grew up in. But that's, I don't know. That's a bit of my journey to today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for sharing what made you move to Chicago. I'm assuming employment, but what was it? I'm assuming employment, but what was?
Speaker 3:it. It was yeah, it was so number one. I actually recall the first time I visited Chicago was when I was 18, living in Ames, and one of the women in the dorm building that we lived with was from Chicago, and one night, like randomly at midnight, she's like let's go to Chicago. It was Friday and so we drove. It was like a six hour drive and we arrived in Chicago at like eight o'clock in the morning to her parents' house, and they're like wait, what are you doing here? And so that was my first weekend in Chicago and ever since that first visit I just knew that I wanted to visit Chicago more, which I did, and then knew that I wanted to move there and so I moved, uh with a job. So at the time I was working for um HSBC global bank many are probably familiar with um and uh was offered an opportunity, um with a promotion, to move to Chicago. Uh, and so did that um and never looked back. I've always enjoyed it here and never looked back.
Speaker 2:I've always enjoyed it here, love it. I wanted to talk a bit more about being a queer kid in the cornfields. Did you have any? I guess, people that you could look to growing up Like? If you know you're a little bit different, if you know you're attracted to different people than the rest of the people around you, like you know, how did you work yourself through that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I can remember when I was younger and just thinking about my attraction to men and you know, at the time I thought of it, or reconciled it, as something that everyone felt but nobody talked about, and so that's kind of you know, one way that I thought about it. But I do recall one gentleman who lived in my hometown who was rumored to be gay, who was rumored to be gay and you know, I didn't know anybody who actually really knew him, other than there was a lot of negative gossip about him, right. And so when it comes to, you know, people to look up to or role models you know thinking about, you know, growing up in the 80s and early 90s there wasn't really even decent representation on television to look to. So no, growing up I can't think of anyone that I saw myself. You know, imagine myself having a wife and two kids and a white picket fence, like that was just the only option really that I could see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you know what? My husband and I and our two kids moved to Auckland in New Zealand in March last year and we live in a suburb called Ponsonby, which is quite close to the city of Auckland, and all the houses are white timber, white houses with white picket fences and it is so disturbing to me? It's, I think, because of that stereotype, of that you know perfect, you know husband, wife, two kids in a white picket fence. I often, you know, I walk my dog and I think do people know what's going on?
Speaker 3:We digress.
Speaker 2:I wondered if you would talk a little bit about your career, because I think the work that you've been doing in Chicago has led you to write your book, so I wondered if you would talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So once upon a time, many years ago, I thought I wanted to work in hospitality, and so when I was living in Ames, I was working in restaurants, bartending, serving, was a restaurant manager for a while, and then, after not long, realized this is not how I want to age, and so and no offense to anyone who works in hospitality it was just not for me long term, and so I had an opportunity to go into a sales role, and that was actually when I joined HSBC. I went into that sales role for two years and then moved into a sales training role where I was traveling around and delivering sales training, and that's where I really started to cut my teeth in the training world, which is kind of the backbone of my career. And then it was when I moved to Chicago. That role was I was delivering. I moved to Chicago to work for the North American headquarters at HSBC and was delivering leadership courses across our population of at the time we had about 55,000 employees, and so that's where I really started to learn. I always joke that was where I got my first master's degree, was working alongside some just really amazing people who were top in their field in learning and development, in leadership development, and I can remember back then delivering my first foray into the world of diversity and my first diversity workshop.
Speaker 3:I I talk about it a bit in the book where you know, by today's standards, that workshop was a little probably cringeworthy, um, you know that workshop being 17 years old, um, where we would actually show photos of people and have people like, essentially, you know, go in and stereotype them Like here's, here's this, you know blonde woman who appears to be in her mid twenties, right, her story, right, and um, and then of course, later we reveal here's their real stories and you know, of course you've got to have some shock factor and and the real stories don't match up with the common stereotypes. And so, you know, that was all then about you know, kind of stereotypes and bias. And then we would talk about, you know, holding people in a place of acceptance. And we had this, I recall, pulling out the box that this training like was in, and on the front it said they had the award-winning tolerance scale, and so I thought that was an interesting marker of that time that, you know, tolerance was in the middle of this kind of spectrum that they talked about and that tolerance wasn't enough, so that was great.
Speaker 3:And then understanding that appreciation and acceptance is where we needed to move people, and so that was, you know, really the foundation of my career in leadership, development, learning and development and getting into this work. That really, then, you know, evolved into the book that I wrote last year. And so, you know, throughout my career I have always been in some sort of learning and development capacity but have kind of dipped into all the arms under the HR umbrella and, definitely through my own identity, have been passionate about and gravitated towards diversity, inclusion, equity, belonging. You know areas of interest, and so that's, I think you know kind of what started to set the stage for the work of creating belonging.
Speaker 2:I love that, that you've written a book. I think there's so much to know in this space and I think not one person has all the answers, and so, by people writing books and contributing to the diversity and inclusion knowledge base, I just think it's such a positive thing. So tell me how you came to write the book, what was the point where you went? I'm going to do this. I'm off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love. I want to touch on something that you just said, though, and kind of contributing to that. You know, diversity and inclusion space, that, like, there's many voices and there's lots of different things that we can contribute. Writing the book I really wanted to was thinking about my identity as a practitioner and how I wanted to represent myself as a practitioner. I wanted to represent myself as a practitioner and in fact, you know, in working with my executive coach recently, we've been debating like my own brand in, you know, do I fit in diversity and inclusion? And I'm still not willing to hold that torch. I think that I've contributed work to the space, but I'm, you know, I never want to hold myself up as a quote unquote expert. I think there are people that have done much deeper study than I have. So I appreciate that you say we all have things that we contribute, because I definitely see my work as a contribution, but definitely not all encompassing.
Speaker 3:So the book started actually to back up for a second. I had set a goal that I was going to write a book by 2020. I had no idea what the book was going to be about. I just knew that I wanted to write a book and there were no subjects that were getting me excited to just sit down and write. Concurrently, around the same time I had been developing a presentation or a talk workshop kind of however you want to position it and pitching it for some diversity and inclusion workshops.
Speaker 3:And it was never accepted and so it just kind of sat on the back burner and I would think about it. It and it never really kind of fully came to life until a couple of years ago A dear colleague sent me an email and I love how she positioned it in, just very like not coming out to ask me to do the work, but just saying hey, justin, do you know anyone who would be interested in speaking to this LGBTQ ERG at the firm that I work for? And I was like, are you kidding me? Of course me, I'm raising my hand, it's me, you can ask me, but I really appreciated the fact that you know, before directly asking me to do that emotional labor, she did it in a more neutral way, right?
Speaker 3:And so I said, yes, I would love to, and I'm going to resurrect this idea that I've been working on, and so I started further developing this workshop as it started. And I don't know how you are with ideas sometimes, but I have this cycle that I go through where I'll wake up at two in the morning and it's on my mind like it's been baking for a while and then the timer goes off on the oven at like 2 AM, the timer that's in my oven of my head, right, yeah, and I, and it's ready, and so I got up. I don't even know what day it was, but I got up at two in the morning and I just started writing because it all kind of the model, the creating a belonging model, just kind of appeared and it's so weird how it happens. And so I sat down and I drew out the model and then I named the quadrants in this model and then I hand wrote the definitions for each of those areas in this quadrant model and then I named the quadrants in this model and then I hand wrote the definitions for each of those areas in this quadrant model, and those definitions are actually what stuck and they're in the book today, I think mostly unedited from that original version at 2am.
Speaker 3:And so that's where the where this idea. I, oh, I'm really excited about this workshop, and and then I sat on it for a couple of days and then I realized this is the book, this is what I'm supposed to write about. And so I remember emailing this colleague that I was working with at the time and I was like, hey, here's the idea, and I also, I think it's a book. So, thank you, and I owe you a copy when it's done.
Speaker 2:Have you delivered on that I?
Speaker 3:have. I think she was one of the first copies I shipped. Probably yeah, I think she was one of the first copies I shipped. Yeah, so yeah, that's how the book kind of got its start.
Speaker 2:So I am going to get you to talk about the model, but going from a model that you've defined at 2am to having a real life you know, tome, that's out in the world there's a lot between a four box model and creating pages of content Like how did you do that? I'm asking because I want to write a book at some point and I love the process that people go through. So how did you do?
Speaker 3:it. Yeah, yeah, I um, I'm good at writing short things, I'm not. I uh, it was a struggle to write something longer like that.
Speaker 3:So you know, for a while I would, I would develop ideas and just sit down and write paragraphs on them. You know, as an idea would come to mind and I didn't even have the outline of the book yet I was just writing like I have this idea or I have the story I can tell, and so I would sit down and I would write that story and then I would just let it sit kind of on the digital paper, if it will, and then eventually, I got my post-it notes out and I Eventually I got my post-it notes out and I, on my closet doors that I use as my like post-it area, I started to then kind of lay out the outline of the book and what were the chapters, and so then I turned that into my writing and working outline and then started to dig in.
Speaker 3:There were some areas that you know I had stories and I knew kind of how I would continue to develop those stories. And then there were other parts where I needed to do some research and so, you know, dug out my old research skills and, and you know, worked on that and it it really I would say the number one thing that helped me move it forward was forcing myself into a daily practice, like, no matter what I have to write for 30 minutes today, no matter what, like even if it's a paragraph. And there were some days that I would write that one paragraph and I'd be like, oh my gosh, that's all I can get out. Thank goodness I'm done for today, but it was really for me. My process was then, you know, just forcing myself to that regular practice of daily writing.
Speaker 2:Sure, and at what point do you decide how to publish? Like to either self-publish, find a publisher? Was that at the start? Was it once you had the product?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so this is where you know a part of the book I talk about is authenticity, and for me I knew from the beginning of it, given that authenticity was a theme of the book. I knew exactly where it was going to be printed. I knew exactly how it was going to be published, because when I was growing up, my mother worked in newspapers and so she worked at a newspaper in her hometown. She owned a newspaper in my hometown and she also worked in the print shop in my hometown that I grew up in, and so to this day, my mother has her own marketing and publishing business and I knew that she had to be the one that would help me publish my first book. And so you know the.
Speaker 3:I would say that you know, having your mother do your editing is a little challenging. So I'm like, like mom, you can be mean, like just like, tear it apart, it's okay. Of course she doesn't want to do that, but you know she was, she was really great to do that work with me, and then we worked with the printer in my hometown to have it printed, and so for me it was. It was right at my core of like roots, of authenticity that the book was. You know, worked with my mother on it and we had it printed in my in my hometown. So yeah, that was for me so cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there wasn't really an option of like am I going to go fish this around to publishers Like this is how I have to do this Brilliant.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's get back to topic. Thank you for sharing. I'm always curious how people write books, so tell us a bit about your model and how it works in the book.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we start with and, by the way, I'm going to do a quick aside here Anybody who knows me knows I'm a little tongue in cheek at times and a little silly, so I've already decided my second book is going to be called tongue in cheek at times and a little, uh, silly, so I've already decided my second book is going to be called a Venn diagram and a quadrant, the two models that save the world.
Speaker 2:I've just written a workbook that has a Venn diagram in it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and it's so, you know, a Venn diagram and a quadrant, like, if you want to have a model, if you want to publish something, that's, that's all you need, right.
Speaker 2:That's entry level. Right Tickets to play.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes. So so back to topic. We start with just the two concepts of authenticity and acceptance and then build on that premise that the intersection of those two things authenticity and acceptance is where belonging is created. And so when I talk about authenticity, it's really about understanding who I am and not being afraid to bring that out into the world.
Speaker 3:Um, and I do spend some time in the book, um, really defining authenticity and what it means to be authentic. Um, because there was and I think the stories in the book there was an executive that I used to work with and we would talk about authenticity this is before the book and um, and he would say you know, I just I don't, I can't get on board with this authenticity thing because, like, if you're an asshole, then you're just going to be authentically an asshole. And I was like so I hear what you're saying, but I don't think that that's the spirit of it, right? And so I do go into defining authenticity in, you know, being more about being in touch with ourselves, being aware of ourselves, and you know that if we truly want to be authentic, that's not going to be disparaging of others or get in the way of others, right, it's about being authentic for our own service, but not others, and I think that's a much better description than we often say in organizations.
Speaker 2:We want people to bring their whole selves to work. No, we actually don't.
Speaker 3:We don't want them to bring their you know asshole tendencies.
Speaker 2:We don't want them. I have a friend who says you know, my work doesn't want me to bring me yelling at my kids on a webinar. They don't want that. So I think. I think authentic is a much. It's a better word because you still have to be respectful. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think respectful, but also a word that I find myself using a lot is intentionality. There's when we're being authentic with intentionality. I think we're being our best selves, right? Like you know, I don't have kids, but I would imagine that most people that yell at their kids don't want to regularly, regularly yell at their kids, right, it's a reaction and they would probably admit it's not when they're being their best selves and so the kids aren't being their best selves either.
Speaker 3:Their best selves either? No, but I think that with authenticity there's an element of intentionality in you know, being aware of ourselves, who we want to be, and showing up in a light that is flattering for ourselves, you know, for who we are and kind of all the dimensions of who we are. So we've got authenticity. And then we have acceptance. And I often talk about this idea of radical acceptance because I think when we say just the word acceptance, we don't get the gravity of like what I really mean with acceptance. It is, it is.
Speaker 3:Acceptance does not mean that I have to understand you. Acceptance means that I just accept that you are who you are, without other judgment or imposing my own value system onto you. Right. So you know, I would say in my own experience, growing up as a gay kid and you know, talking to people in my coming out process and you know, often met with that like you know, like look, justin, I get you're gay, but like I just don't understand it. And then, following that, I just don't understand.
Speaker 3:It is a is just a litany of their own values and whatever. Right. So acceptance, real acceptance, real radical acceptance, is acceptance without the need to understand Right, it is I, I accept you and you know what. Maybe I do want to understand, and not that that means that I'm going to be who you are someday, right, but that I want to understand you a little bit better. But I don't have to understand to accept you. And so the core of the book is those, those two things. When we have a balance of authenticity and acceptance, it's the intersection of those two things is where belonging is created.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love how you explain radical acceptance. I think when you can do that, it often means well. Well, when I'm doing diversity and inclusion work, I talk to people about being curious and about learning about other people, which is about understanding, but sometimes it means that we ask questions that don't aren't accepting and are not helpful and don't build radical acceptance of that person they can. You know, some curious questions can create defensiveness and are just not helpful. I think, yeah, so I've had to learn. There are things about people I don't need to know. Of course I'm curious, but if I just accept them, well, I don't need to know that thing, yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3:No, it absolutely makes sense, and I'm going to offer up an example, and again I like to. In these types of situations, I like to speak from my own experience. So I'm going to bring up being gay a lot. In fact, there was someone that I know gave the book to one of their parents and they were like they said you know, it's good, it's interesting, it's good, but like I don't know why he has to talk about being gay so much, I don't know.
Speaker 3:So like, that's kind of the point. But anyway, um, uh, the what I wanted to riff on that you had mentioned was, you know, in the questions that we ask, not understanding how they might be damaging, how they might be, um, you know, it's, it's our like need to try to understand, but from our limited perspective. So there's that common question that comes up like oh so you're gay and you're in a relationship, who's the man and who's the woman? Well, so there's a few ways that we can interpret that right. Are we talking about gender stereotypes and like, who does the housework and who brings home the paycheck? Is that what you're insinuating? Or are you asking about our bedroom habits? Because I am not asking you about yours, right? And so it's interesting when there's questions like that that are asked that impose someone's values or their limited view of the world. So like, and I'm all for asking questions to help understand, but like, sometimes we've just got to stop and think about both the question that we're asking and what the implications are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so true. Have you started workshopping your book, like using your model in delivering programs?
Speaker 3:delivering programs. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I've delivered. I've delivered a few kind of presentations or keynote presentations at various conferences, as well as have turned it into a workshop. And I've delivered that workshop in a few different organizations because you know the, the outline of the original workshop, the place where the idea came from, that really then became the blueprint of the workshop and then also the blueprint of the outline of the book, right? And then, you know, just had to continue to go deeper.
Speaker 3:So, yes, so we introduced the. We start by introducing. We actually talk a bit about identity to begin with, because I think you know when we do this work and we're talking about authenticity and acceptance, we need to understand like we're talking about identity and people's various identities that they're bringing to the table of. You know, the understanding of why we need that balance, and then we get into the deeper quadrant model or four box model for the different areas that we might find ourselves in relation to belonging.
Speaker 2:Right, could you talk a little bit more about those quadrants?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and maybe some examples. Yeah, so you know as you, you know as we're familiar with any quadrant that we're building.
Speaker 3:You've got a horizontal axis, you've got a vertical axis, right, and so we've got on the horizontal axis we have acceptance, and on the vertical axis we have authenticity, those kind of two axes. Then build the four boxes that we take a look at. The first one is what I call recluse. It's when we're low on authenticity and we're low on acceptance. When we're recluse, we're really not very engaged with that community. Let me pause for a second.
Speaker 3:So in the book I talk about organizations and communities, but kind of the core term being communities, defined as a group of people who are converged for some purpose or another. So a community could be your workplace, your community could be a family. There's lots of communities that we belong to on a regular basis and our identity kind of collides or meshes with those communities, right, and we also might find ourselves at different places in relation to belonging in those different communities. So you know, at work I might be in recluse, but in my bowling league maybe I might be in belonging, right, because those are my people, those are who I've chosen to be with and create community with. But work is just where I get my paycheck Right, and so I might be in recluse there. So important key term to add in there is this concept of communities, so that we understand that you know we're not. When I say recluse I don't mean that you're just a recluse. 100% of the time you are, by definition of the creating belonging model, sitting in a place of recluse potentially. So that's when we're low on authenticity, low on acceptance, so we're not really bringing much of ourselves to that community. We're showing up, we're keeping the seat warm, and so we're not really bringing much of ourselves to that community. We're showing up, we're keeping the seat warm, and so we're not getting to know others, people aren't really getting to know us.
Speaker 3:An important thing with recluse is that it's not bad to be in a place of recluse, because I think that there's. You know, sometimes we want to put a virtue on, like oh well, you shouldn't be there, you need to be in belonging, but not everyone's in that place, right? Like, if we're talking about or examining a community which is a workplace and someone like needs to just survive right now, then they might be in a place of recluse at work and that's okay, right, but it is when you know we're not showing up with with a lot of ourselves. You know what's funny I can think of.
Speaker 3:I could name people. Obviously I'm not going to I can. I can name people that I can think of that have been in a place of recluse, but because there's um, otherwise you know then the very minimal um exam, like description I provided, there's not a lot of stories I can tell about individuals who I know or can think of that were in a place of recluse, right, because we don't know them very well, they're not showing up much and they're not trying to engage and so I don't have, you know, and I talk about this in the book I don't really have a lot of good, relevant stories for people who are in recluse because, that's you know, there's not a lot of overt behavior that we're observing.
Speaker 2:What I liken it to because I sometimes think about. Well, when we think about community, I think about seeing people and being with people, I guess, but also we have online communities and we have social media. You know, when you were talking about recluse and there's not many examples I was thinking about. There's different communities that I'm in online where I'm a recluse. I'm sort of just observing what's happening. I'm not contributing, I'm not posting, I'm not.
Speaker 2:I'm just kind of there, I don't know why I'm there and maybe if I'm in that recluse I should just leave that community. But there's a bit of FOMO like fear of missing out.
Speaker 3:But yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 2:That's where I think I'm at recluse, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's definitely a perspective to take on that and I definitely have those groups and some of them I unfollow and they get to be too much right, but, yeah, that's what I think of as recluse. So then, moving our way around the model, when we go high on authenticity but low on acceptance, so we're just moving straight up from recluse, it's what I call overbearing, and overbearing is when we're showing up with a lot of ourselves but we're not really thinking about how we're landing on others or the impact that we're making on others. Right, we also make a lot of assumptions about our values and the values of others. So we make assumptions that you know others share our values and in the book I talk about, this is really where, when we see kind of privilege, this is where privilege lives. Right, privilege is everyone else is like me, like I can say whatever I want and and everybody else should be okay with that. Right, and you know, as someone who grew up in a very small town in Iowa, I've had a lot of overbearing moments in my life. Right, because there's a with privilege comes a lot of blinders and a lot of blind spots. Right, and we make it a lot of assumptions about the rest of the world without really questioning it or thinking about it, and so that's where you know what I think of as as overbearing is that it's. It's highly related, I think, to privilege A lot of assumptions there, and one of the stories I'll share that I think is in the book, one that I share often when it comes to overbearing is I know someone who they were and think you know this is during the pandemic, and so, like there's lots of forced fun on Zoom, right, and we're like well, um, um, it was around the holidays and the the head of this group had a mandatory coffee chat, uh, on, like you know, like the week before the Christmas holiday and uh, okay, so mandatory, like coffee party, um, and it wasn't like holiday, it was like mandatory Christmas coffee on Zoom.
Speaker 3:And so we see this like starting to, like you know, go maybe not in a great direction, but what really just like put it over the edge for me was that the director of this group had a game, trivia game, and it was trivia about the birth of Jesus, and not only was it trivia about the birth of Jesus, but people were scored and ranked by.
Speaker 2:No, and this is, and this is in a work setting right.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:And you know I I'm not, I'm not sharing that story in a way to say anything negative about any religion, but the point is that the individual who had this, you know, hosted this mandatory fun Christmas party, made assumptions about the knowledge that people had coming into the meeting and then also publicly ranked and praised or ashamed those who did or did not have the presumed knowledge, and that, to me, is a very stark example of overbearing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great example, and just having to do a coffee thing on zoom would, yeah, without even the religious stuff which I like.
Speaker 3:I don't think religion should be in the workplace, but that's my opinion, but yeah great, I mean if you work for, if, if you work for a church, great like yeah, yeah, yeah, fine, fine.
Speaker 2:I think what's great about it's not great, but I think most people can identify with someone in that quadrant. That sort of overbearing privileged doesn't think outside. I mean, when you were talking, I was thinking of a couple of people, so I'm sure that one resonates well when you're running workshops.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I really, I really challenge people to think about when they have, you know, when they've been an overbearing, because you know, if we, unless we have like layers upon layers of marginalized identities, you know if we have any, any um, majority identities, um, we've probably sat in a place of overbearing and not realized it Right, um. And so that's where I really challenge people is, you know, thinking about, um, you know any privilege that you might have and privilege being, you know of, you know some majority identity, um, or you know identity that holds power. We've probably been an overbearing and I would. I can admit you know there was a lot of work writing the book to do my own reflection and think about all the times that I've been an overbearing and the shame that I unpacked going through that. And you know, even today I can think of you know it pops up right, there's not, it's not necessarily intentional and, again, you know, when we're being our best selves, we're probably not being intentional but yeah, so that's overbearing.
Speaker 2:Perfect, and I can think of examples when I've been in there too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3:So then the going to the opposite end of the spectrum, if we go high on acceptance and low on authenticity, this is what I call minimizing.
Speaker 3:And so this is when we make ourselves smaller to accommodate others, essentially where you know we might have, we might hold marginalized identities, and we aren't bringing all of ourselves to the space so that others are comfortable, or so that we don't cause a wave, or so that you know, and maybe we don't want to be uncomfortable because of that, and you know it's interesting, as I've gone, you know, taken this workout and had conversations, um, there's one identity that comes up a lot, that sits in minimizing culturally, um, and actually I'd be curious to see, you know, how it resonates for you. Um, but I have so many women, um, that tell me like, hmm, yes, I've, yes, I didn't even realize it. But I have so many women that tell me like, yes, I've, yes, I didn't even realize it, but I have had many comments. I didn't even realize that I was in minimizing, but I've been in minimizing. I'm curious your thoughts on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as soon as you said it, I went women and and how, where? I don't know where it comes from, but there's a culture of keeping women down, I think, and that we take on that and we embody it. And there's even a physical manifestation of that, I think. When I, you know, I live in a household of men and you know I've got two boys and my husband, and when they sit somewhere in public, they will have their legs as spread as much as possible. They'll be taking up as much space as they can, and I will have my legs together. So that you know, even just that physical thing that I notice in my family, I'm like, yeah, they're, for some reason, males are taught to be bigger and women are taught to be smaller. So I definitely, definitely agree with that, and we see it in meetings where women will go.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm not sure if this is a great idea, but I was thinking that maybe we could do. You know, it's all of that kind of language where you're really minimizing something that could be really great, and because we do that, then people don't pick up on those ideas. Other people have them. So, yeah, I completely agree, and in certain cultures where women are much more subservient. I think that comes out even more so. I've lived and worked in Asia and you know definitely the culture is much more deferential to power, to positions of power. So you'll see it in male and females, where they'll minimize who they are and what they think, but particularly for women?
Speaker 2:I think yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I think it's definitely built up in, you know, the way that our cultures perceive gender roles and what they're to contribute, but then also, as you bring up kind of um marginalized identities and those marginalized identities in relation to power, um, you know, often sitting in that place of minimizing, yeah what's your story for this space?
Speaker 3:oh gosh, um, there's, you know, and this know and I've got to come up with some more stories because this is another religion-based story but it was, I think it's one that's interesting where I had a coaching client that I worked with and he was invited to this like big executive meeting and, like you know, was expected to go, and it was very much like, hey, your career needs this, you need to be there. But it was also scheduled during I was on Rosh Hashanah and you know, typically he would be with his family and have the day off and do things with his family, and, and we talked through kind of what do we do in this situation? And he chose to not take the day off and spend it with his family, as he normally would, and go to the meeting because he didn't want to cause a stir. Right, and so for me, that is that's minimizing it is.
Speaker 3:It is, um, hiding a part of ourselves, um, so that, um, we don't cause a stir, so that we're not seen as a troublemaker. Right, we want to just kind of blend in Um and uh, you know it's another one of those that, uh, again, um, I think that you know it's. It's important to speak up for ourselves and honor ourselves, because in that scenario, like it wasn't just himself, it was also his family that he was impacting Right, and so when we make those choices, we are impacting those around us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm wondering in that situation, was it safe for him to say no, interesting yeah yeah, um.
Speaker 3:So that's, uh, a story that I often share with minimizing. And then that takes us to belonging. So belonging is, um, like we said, at the intersection of authenticity and acceptance. Um and uh. So we're high on acceptance, high on authenticity, where we're showing up as our full selves and also accepting others without judgment, without imposing our own values, where we're all kind of comfortable co-existing. But it's also around designing spaces where everyone can feel welcome, where everyone can feel like they belong, without highlighting difference in a negative way. And that leads to the story that I always tell about belonging and, by the way, I always have to give this caveat. So this belonging story is about me and I fully recognize that I'm only telling positive stories about me and the other stories are not about me. The other stories are not about me. I just like to acknowledge that before anybody else acknowledges it.
Speaker 3:So I, several years ago, I was leading a team, and it was a distributed team. We lived in four different, four or five different cities across the United States, and so we would come together, typically on a quarterly basis, for a meeting, and we would usually, you know, do something with each other afterward, and we kind of got in this habit of or ritual of, whosoever city we were in, we would do something that reflected the city, that reflected them, what they enjoyed doing and what you know what they might do on a typical night or what they would enjoy doing. And so there was one time when everybody was coming to Chicago and I love entertaining, I love cooking for people, I love food and I love going out to concerts. And so, first off, making sure that everybody's going to be okay going to a concert Check, yes, everybody's okay. And so I decided I'm going to entertain at my home, which, again, I can't think of anything more authentic than inviting people into your own home. And then I was going to cook everyone dinner and in the group we had someone who was pes, was um, pescatarian, someone who had a nut allergy, um, and someone who kept mildly kosher.
Speaker 3:And so here I am thinking, like you know, kid from Iowa, I'm like meat and potatoes, right. And so I'm like, oh, what am I going to cook? What am I going to cook? And some people are like, oh, just order like cheese pizzas and call it a day. And um, and I was like, no, like this isn't that big of a group that I can't make everyone happy. Like, I've got to be able to come up with a meal that that serves everyone's dietary needs without needing to have a conversation about it. Right, there's.
Speaker 3:There's oftentimes where like, oh, like the pescetarian or the you know whatever, like they'll just not have this thing and they'll have something else. Right it's. It's that, like you know, when you've got a big office party and you order a sausage pizza for everybody and like two salads for the two people that don't eat meat or whatever it is, and, um, you know, if you're ordering for 100 people, that's really hard to meet everyone's needs with one single meal. Right, but this was like seven people in my home. I've got to be able to do this and so I did. I made a meal that met all of those needs and we didn't have to have a conversation about like, oh, like, you know, so and so can't have this or he can't have this. Right, everyone could partake in every part of the meal.
Speaker 3:And what I love most about the story is that you know this happened several years ago and so I loved the story anyway.
Speaker 3:So it went into the book and it's been used as an example, and I was having a conversation after I published the book, having a conversation with someone who was at that dinner, um, and she said, you know I was. I actually still remember that dinner to this day, and mainly because I've never had someone accommodate my needs in in such a way that it didn't have to be an issue, I didn't have to think about it, like we could show up and we didn't have to put a spotlight on this person's different. Yeah Right, um, and that's you know it. It seems trivial being a you know a meal, but I think, if we can think about our workplaces, about the teams that we're building in, how do we design spaces where we can set? I want to celebrate differences right, this isn't about ignoring differences, but I also don't want to put a spotlight on differences in a way that make people feel othered or uncomfortable, and that, for me, is is what belonging is all about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like that story because food is is such a part of your identity and who you are and you know it's super important. When I think of some of the experiences I've had learning about the Muslim culture, for example, and you know, breaking fast and sharing meals with Muslim people you know that is so special. So I think, yeah, that's such a great example of belonging. And of course you have such a great example of belonging and of course you have to tell us what you cooked. We can't go without knowing.
Speaker 3:Yes, so I had, um, keep in mind. I said mildly kosher, right, so for anybody who's picking this apart, mildly kosher. So we did have. We had like an appetizer that included a cheese tray, no meats, and then dinner was salmon, I think, with like a tomato sauce and some pasta. So it was. It was simple, but yeah, it was. I'm trying to think of the other sides, because there was probably some vegetables, but yeah, salmon, like a marinara kind of a sauce. Pasta, cheese, cheese is like has to be a part of every meal for me, Of course it does.
Speaker 2:Of course it does. And where did you go for your concert? I need to know that too.
Speaker 3:So we went oh my gosh, who did we see? I can't even remember who we saw, but, um, it was at the riviera. So the riv as chicagoans know it, okay, um, it's on the north side of chicago. Um, it's just a classic venue. If you've ever seen the movie the breakup with jennifer aniston and vince Vaughn, it's where Jennifer Aniston goes to like a concert one night, I think what, like she had tickets to see someone, um, and like Vince Vaughn's character, didn't go, and so then she was at the Rift by herself in the balcony. That's where we were.
Speaker 2:I wonder if your guests remember, and and I'm probably I'm wondering if they do, because every year at Christmas, when it's time to watch Love Actually again, which I know has perhaps not lasted as well and stood the test of time as other movies, but it's a tradition. I can remember seeing that when it was first out in London on a work trip with work colleagues and yeah, it was amazing.
Speaker 3:So that's so funny. I saw Love Actually in the theater in Des Moines, iowa, with a coworker.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's the movie. Maybe it's the movie Right. Maybe it's the movie, maybe right. So I'm interested to know how has writing this book changed your work and maybe you personally?
Speaker 3:yeah, um, me personally, I'll start there because I'm more intentional about how I'm showing up most of the time still not all the time, but I think I'm more intentional because I want to make sure that I'm not doing the work to service by, you know, showing up in a way that does it to service right, by showing up in a place of you know being too overbearing, you know, and so that's, I think, for me it's just being more intentional about how I'm showing up in different spaces so that there's not too much incongruity between what I wrote and how I'm being.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's number one. Number two, how it's changed. My work is I'm just continually like out trying to hustle, right, so like I made a choice to not go with the publisher, that also means you're doing your own hustle, and so just you know getting getting the word out there. So I think you know focusing on the book. You know, this year is really in the past six ish months and this year is really about continuing to get the word out about creating belonging.
Speaker 2:Well, I am so honored to share your message around belonging and the book sounds amazing and it sounds like it's something that's been, that's really practical, that people can pick up and understand and use. So thank you so much for sharing.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, lisa. Thank you for having me, and I know you have a global span of audiences and so the book is available on Kindle everywhere on the globe and in North America in print, cause I actually have the cases in the closet over there of the book. From here, you've got your own logistics business. Yes, I've got my system down though, so so yeah, check it out. It's on amazoncom or in creating belongingco.
Speaker 2:Perfect, and I will put all of those links in the show notes so people can find them.
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