00:00:00 Introduction
00:07:43 Personal Journeys: From Self to Collective and Back
00:21:31 The Art of Deep Listening
00:28:25 Retraining Our Attention: Listening to the Margins
00:34:02 Equity: The Surprisingly Taboo Conversation
00:59:22 Building Bridges Through Human Connection
01:08:40 Collective Actualization: Evolving Beyond Individualism

Living Multi-Centered
In this thought-provoking episode of Stepping In, host Adam Klein engages with DEIB experts Dr. Kevin Sansberry and Fran (he,she,they) about the evolving landscape of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Their conversation explores the delicate balance between individual identity and collective transformation in today’s increasingly divided world.

Episode Highlights
Personal Journeys (00:07:43)
Kevin shares his path of self-reclamation as a Black man in systems not designed for him, while Fran describes evolving from seeking personal safety as “a super weird queer kid” to seeing their “liberation tied up in that of someone else.” These contrasting yet complementary journeys illuminate how both self-knowledge and collective responsibility serve the same goal.

The Art of Deep Listening (00:21:31)
The guests explore transformative listening that pauses, suspends judgment, and creates space for change. As Kevin explains, effective leaders must “suspend preconceived judgments” to be genuinely changed by what they hear. Fran adds that we must retrain ourselves to hear perspectives different from our own equally.

Listening to the Margins (00:28:25)
Fran emphasizes the importance of attending to voices “at the margins,” sharing how a CEO dismissed concerns from a small group of Black women employees as “just a few people.” Their powerful response: “The nature of this perspective is that it comes from a minority of your people, and that is why you should listen to it.”

Equity: The Surprisingly Taboo Conversation (00:34:02)
Kevin expresses surprise at how “taboo equity is” in many contexts. Using the example of a wheelchair ramp, he illustrates how equity creates access rather than unfair advantage. The conversation directly confronts the myth of meritocracy, revealing how career advancement often depends on “pre-existing relationships” rather than performance alone.

Building Bridges Through Human Connection (00:59:22)
As DEIB faces political headwinds, both guests emphasize authentic connection across differences. Fran notes that “our remit headed into this new calendar year is to bring folks closer,” while Kevin observes that many divisions stem from “narratives and not real-life experiences.”

Collective Actualization (01:08:40)
The conversation concludes with a vision of “collective actualization”—evolving beyond individual self-actualization toward systemic transformation. Kevin brings things full circle: “If you don’t even know who you are in this space… it’s gonna be hard for you to join the collective.”

About the Host and New Ventures West
Adam Klein is an Integral Coach, facilitator, and educator dedicated to creating spaces for transformative learning. As faculty with New Ventures West, Adam brings deep expertise in Integral Coaching to his work with individuals and organizations.

New Ventures West is a premier coaching organization founded in 1985, dedicated to developing coaches who can meet complex challenges with wisdom and compassion through their innovative Integral Coaching® methodology.

Transcript:

Adam (he/him) (00:00:06):

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Stepping In Podcast. I’m your host, Adam Klein. In this episode, I’m joined by Fran Benjamin, who’s a new ventures West graduate, as well as a faculty member. And they are a managing partner of good works consulting that centers equity, diversity, and inclusion in everything that they do. They’re also a parent of Isadora and Frida, spouse of Jason and a certified HAHA yoga instructor. Outside of those things, they also are a cabaret and drag performer as well as a singer. And I’m also joined by Dr. Kevin Sansbury, who’s a behavioral scientists executive coach who finds joy in supporting organizations to build inclusive, authentic, and healthy workplace cultures. He’s also the host of the Toxic Leadership Podcast and enjoys hiking with his wife Barbara, as well as being an avid power lifter and aspiring runner. This is a really enriching conversation I found myself in. With these two, we really get into some of the history of what is now called diversity, equity and inclusion work, as well as stories from their work as they’ve both been in this for quite a long time and where they see it heading. So I’m excited that you’re tuning in and look forward to hearing from you in the comments.

Adam (he/him) (00:01:33):

Kevin Fran, I’m so happy to be in conversation with you two today.

Fran (he,she,they) (00:01:38):

Yes,

Adam (he/him) (00:01:39):

Hi. And we were, I know we were doing a little warmup conversation before I push record here, and we may have to do a part two based on just some of the things we were seeding in the front end here.

Fran (he,she,they) (00:01:53):

Sounds

Adam (he/him) (00:01:53):

Good. So I’d love to start kind of just jump right in, really, and one of the things we were talking about earlier is as you’ve been involved in the diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging space, it’s either evolving, there’s always learning going on, and I’m curious for yourselves, how you’ve been impacted in what you’re learning, say even just in the last three or four years.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:02:20):

Go ahead, Kevin.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:02:21):

Yeah. Well, for me, I kind of started off really idealistic, to be honest. And I have so many sticky problems I want to solve for from a legacy standpoint. And I started off really large of, I wanted to solve toxic leadership in the workplace, and I started my own podcast and started doing that kind of work. And I actually did my research in that area and I wanted to work in a lot of inclusion spaces, and I wanted to, anytime somebody was in the news for something like aberrant, I wanted to be there to help and fix it for me. As things evolved around me, whether it was political or in the culturally, where I really started diving into is the change within me and really looking at my own mental wellbeing and how I show up. And so to be honest, my aperture got smaller as I’ve been in this work for the better. And I’ll share more about that, but that’s really how it’s sum up what I’ve been thinking about.

Adam (he/him) (00:03:31):

Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, we’re going to go back to that in a moment, but what about for you, Fran?

Speaker 4 (00:03:40):

Gosh, I mean, I will say that, so I started in this work a very long time ago. In many ways it’ll be kind of, let’s say 20 years this coming year. And when I started doing the work that is now often referred to as diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging justice, there’s a lot of words that are appended to this acronym. I was working for a global corporation kind of by accident. I didn’t want to be working there, but I was working, I did some nights and weekends volunteer work for a department that was then called Valuing Differences. So we didn’t even talk about diversity, we were just trying to value one another. And at the time it was really focused on things like trying to use inclusive language, trying to gain domestic partner benefits for same sex couples on a state by state basis. It was anti-harassment training.

Speaker 4 (00:04:54):

And that has evolved so much since then. And I sort of see these phases since then in the 2016 era of DEIB, we were seeing unconscious bias training or implicit association training as the thing that will solve for all people. Everyone will have an inclusive environment, it will have great diversity if we can just address our unconscious biases. And of course that’s insufficient. And for me, most lately, I’ve seen the experience of my own identity as a white queer, non-binary person be wrapped up in the liberation of others. And that’s sort of my learning edge as I think about the work. I’m always drawn to the quote, and it’s attributed to several people, but we are not one of us free until are all free. Emma Lazareth, also Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And so now my work is to always be thinking about how do we disrupt systems? And when I say systems, I’m talking about resource flows, policy programs, practices, decision-making authority such that we can liberate the human experience as a collective and see our own liberation tied up in that of someone else. I don’t know that that’s fully answering your question, but that’s kind of my journey, my arc and what I’ve been trying to learn and be better at lately.

Adam (he/him) (00:06:40):

Yeah. So one maybe follow for you, then we’ll come back to Kevin. How have you been impacted by that trajectory or over the last few years?

Speaker 4 (00:06:54):

I mean, I think how I have been impacted is a journey from kind of self and safety to release of self and identification with the collective. So I entered the work because I was a super weird queer kid, frankly at the time, working in a staunchly conservative corporate environment. And I was like, I don’t feel safe here. And so I started doing this originally volunteer work, and then I moved formally into a corporate diversity role because I was like, I have to protect myself. I’m doing the work for me. And then I think that how I have personally been impacted by it over the past 20 years by doing the work is seeing the ways in which I am safe, seeing the ways in which I do have power, seeing the ways in which my power can be shared or even relinquished for the betterment of those that are marginalized sitting right next to me so that this whatever collective I’m in can thrive is how that journey has impacted me and a million touch points along the ways and things that I’ve personally experienced or been witness to. But maybe we can get into that down the line.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:08:23):

Well, that’s a really juicy juxtaposition about how I feel. I like that you said that, Fran, it’s more so relinquishing of self for the basis of collective and collective growth and things like that. I actually took the opposite approach because I haven’t felt like systems that I were in were conducive to me as a self. So my journey has taken me to the opposite end of I’ve had to mask myself or I felt like I’ve had to mask myself to survive in so many different environments that I lost who the self was, I guess I would say personally. And my journey has been more self-oriented for that basis of reclamation and reclaiming and rediscovering who I am, sas the system, you know what I’m saying? And becoming my most powerful, my most powerful version of who I am. That’s kind, it’s really interesting difference. I wanted to point out, one thing I’ll say related to that is kind of how people talk about they want to take their space, they want to be seen, want to take their own.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:09:51):

Basically, I’m taking the metaphorical microphone back to, because there have been so many times in this work over the past 15 years where I felt like myself and people that looked like me were erased out of the data, our experiences as a black man, my experiences were not, I don’t feel like my experiences were necessarily brought to, they weren’t real because it was only 3% of black men in this environment. Oh yeah, you’re the minority voice here. So that’s not the experience of this employee engagement survey. And so for me, I just want to express that’s really cool that I liked the differences that I’m hearing.

Adam (he/him) (00:10:37):

One thing I’m hearing is maybe, well, I’ll check this out with you too and see if it resonates or not in both of what you’re sharing. If I’ll go back to what you were saying, Kevin, the self-oriented journey, so to speak, but in a way you can’t really give to others if there isn’t something to give. So in a way, you are coming back to let me collect, I’ll use the word, collect the different aspects of myself so that they’re cohesive and they’re with me so that I then can go and support others and give myself in that way. And that’s what I heard, what Fran you were up to is like, this is not safe. I have to figure out a way to hold myself here in a way that I can somewhat do something similar, which is feel my individuality, feel okay, feel some sense of safety. And then when that’s true, there’s something to stand on to go take action differently. So it’s interesting, there’s two different ways around it, but there’s this thread in that you’re both nodding your head. I wonder what’s going on for you?

Speaker 4 (00:11:51):

I’m just thinking a lot of people make way as practitioners to the work by way of their own identity.

Speaker 4 (00:11:59):

And when I was starting in the work, this is problematic and many ways, but it wasn’t uncommon to see corporations appoint an executive in charge of fill in the blank acronym diversity and inclusion, perhaps let’s call it for them, because they were someone whose identity was underrepresented in the organization. They had already proven themselves as an executive in a different function. And they’re like, ah, so and so can do it. So and so is queer, so-and-so is black. Put them in charge of DEI, and they step into it by way of their own identity. And it is sort of from that place that one has to expand to learn the trade, the practice, the methods that yield equitable outcomes for the people involved in whatever system that you’re working in.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:13:11):

And in that standpoint, you kind of have the hope in that role that your organization actually thought about that role as a strategic pillar versus programmatic or versus just this initiative that we’re going to put somebody on. So it’s like not only there are a lot of folks who fell into, people fall into a DEI role in their corporation and yet find out they don’t have budget, and yet find out it’s only you. You’re not going to be able to hire anybody to find out you’re now in charge for all the heritage month celebrations or the corporate cookbook of here’s the dishes from all where people lived in our company. We’re celebrating diversity. You’re in charge of that stuff when you thought you were going to be doing something different. So that experience that friend described really reminds me of sometimes that opportunity that a lot of people get turns into kind of a trap almost in a way. Yeah.

Adam (he/him) (00:14:08):

And if we pick up on this thread here, what are some stories where it’s been maybe different than that where people have found traction with what they were up to? And maybe even for your own sake where you were working with an individual person or a corporate client, just some stories of real transformation or change or impact, however you want to classify it, but where things have moved, where there’s been movement

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:14:41):

Go first.

Speaker 4 (00:14:46):

I think I’ll come back to this theme of maybe the theme is maybe letting go, let’s call it. And so I talked about it from sort of self to collective, but there’s also this element of power acknowledging one’s own power and learning to share it or relinquish it. And so the successes that I have seen have come when folks have been willing to do something significant and counter-cultural to what we have historically been trained, socialized, and rewarded for at least in the, I’ll say the west, the global north in the US corporate environment in particular. So an example that comes to mind was working in a coaching dynamic with a couple of executives who were sort of jointly but unofficially leading by way of influence over similar domains within a corporate environment. But it became sort of that turf war dynamic between ’em and there were significant identity politics involved.

Speaker 4 (00:16:09):

So both gender race were involved and both leaders were highly qualified, highly experienced to lead this function that they were sort of vying for. And ultimately what was effective in the work between a conflict that had arisen between them over the domain territory that they led was a process of acknowledging first the power involved by way of identity. So with my whiteness comes a certain amount of access to power, a certain opening of doors that is implicit in because of who I am, acknowledging that power, acknowledging the positional power, acknowledging the deference that comes to me if I’m male presenting, let’s say, and then sort of blowing that up and imagining something different. So in the case of these two leaders, we worked together to understand that maybe a non-conventional organizational design might yield greater results. And so it led to a co-leadership model over the domain that they were both sort of buying for and some beautiful results.

Speaker 4 (00:17:45):

So the organization didn’t have any other co-leadership models in place, and it wasn’t something that this industry, and it was a life sciences environment that the industry was very accustomed to. And it took a lot of codifying of sort of rules of the road and how one would engage in a co-leadership model. But the two leaders brought with them a beautiful followership they brought with them because of the diversity that they brought to the table, the team diversity. So those that were brought into the organization were brought in because they were excited to work for the diversity that was represented in this co-leadership model. And so the organization, the discipline, the domain, the department that they led was had greater gender and racial diversity as compared to the rest of the organization above benchmark gender and racial diversity as compared to the industry and the region. And that took some time, but I think that a big part of that was these leaders letting go. So coming back to this letting go theme, like letting go of the self in service of the collective and being willing to share and relinquish power for the benefit of the team. So that’s one example that kind of bridges the personal and the organizational because there was a journey that was involved in overcoming the conflict.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:19:23):

Yeah, I got a similar theme I guess as I think about the story. So to go back to what I was talking about, how sometimes individuals fell into that role and later learned that they may not have strategic positioning or they’re essentially planning parties and stuff. I had a person I was coaching in a coaching capacity, and she had to have this conversation with her executives and to the theme of letting go. This didn’t come out explicitly, but it was letting go. The executives really listened to her and they then went on a listening campaign around the organization around what are the needs from an inclusion and equity standpoint, basically trying to get from the people, why do we need this? Why is this important to everybody? And through that conversation, the leaders, it was about four of them that did this leadership team leadership listening tour.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:20:20):

They then went back and worked with each department and created specific goals. They weren’t DEI goals, they were business goals, but the equity and inclusion was part of it, innately part of it. And that made it much more real for the organization, sustainable for the organization, and it became a part of the work. This was like an environmental justice organization. Well, actually they were like environmental protection, but later changed the names environmental justice became more of the focal point now, but this happened in the past two to three years, but it’s something that they’re still doing because they made it a part of their work. And so now going back to the person that started that conversation, when she got the role, she started asking those effective questions, she’s still there and she’s thriving not only because the role is strategic and she’s able to do her job and contribute to the organization as a whole and as a collective.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:21:24):

She got that example of being listened to and that became a theme in that culture of being listened to, being seen, being valued, being heard, and she’s thriving in that role. But that took leadership to Fred’s point, that took leadership to let go of ego, let go of these positional titles and to actually say, Ooh, let’s hear what you have to say before we just put you into this symbolic role. Why do you feel weird about this promotion? It’s a promotion. They listen, they pause, they reflect it, and they took effective action. And so that’s something that I’ve seen happen in a short period of time, but it was really effective.

Adam (he/him) (00:22:05):

Okay, there’s so much here to explore. Where are we going to go? One thing that’s coming up for me is there’s a theme of letting go. So that’s one thing that maybe we’ll go into. The other thing you named Kevin was this person asked, she asked effective questions. So I’m wondering what are effective questions in this space? But maybe the place to start is listening. They felt listened to in both stories. There was a quality of listening that took place. And that’s to me, sometimes a word that gets thrown around without a lot of definition around what do we mean when we say listened to? Because there is a quality of the listening that you both were talking about, that something took place because of how people were listened to the way in which the listening occurred. So I’m wondering maybe if we go there first, what was the nature of the listening?

Speaker 5 (00:23:11):

I can start

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:23:13):

In my example. You picked up on that spot on, you picked it up because those exec, I’m going to tell you I may contrast it. Those executives could have listened to that person and said, no, DEI is the thing right now. We’re going to do this thing. Just get into the, they could have listened and already had an answer before they actually listened, right? They could have did that, but they chose not to. I specifically stated they paused. So before they made any more announcements, but before they took the role and made announcements and did all the news press release and stuff like that, they paused and they asked questions back, what makes you feel this way? So I would say it’s more empathetic. It was more empathetic. And to me it was compassionate, meaning the person that they heard from when she got this promotion, they heard her where she was, and they suspended kind of preconceived judgements that they may have.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:24:15):

And by doing so, it shifted the trajectory not only of the role that this person was going into, which was like an inaugural DEI VP role, it shifted the trajectory of what that role could actually do and be a part of. It also shifted the organizational culture in a way because a lot of organizational cultures are defined by critical incidences, and a lot of times we think about the negative stuff that happens, but this was a positive critical incident that occurred where now other projects that come up, they say, Hey, remember that listening tour? They point back to it positively, but it really did start by, they listened empathetically with compassion. And the behavior there that manifested was they were not afraid to pause and to slow down and to actually reflect on what they heard.

Adam (he/him) (00:25:07):

Yeah. Fran, what would you add or how would you say it?

Speaker 4 (00:25:12):

I have a couple of thoughts. The first thought is related to the example that I gave, which to be clear, and I wasn’t clear about this, the example that I gave was not about a diversity, equity, and inclusion function. It was about a scientific function where it yielded diversity, equity, diverse, equitable, and inclusive outcomes. I think that in that example, the quality of the listening that occurred was I think related to letting go of frameworks or beliefs that no longer served in order to understand the fullness of the person that was before each executive. So there were a lot of preconceived notions about the path that it took for the other person to arrive to their role. And this is where bias, I think does come in bias about the amount of effort that I had to invest to get to where I am today.

Speaker 4 (00:26:22):

And also, I’ll use myself an example as a white person, I worked hard to get the degrees that I did. I worked hard to land in the role that I did, and me sharing power doesn’t mean that we’re invalidating the amount of effort that it required of me to arrive to that place. What it acknowledges is that someone else had a different path and is worth sharing power with because of their unique experience, because of the unique value that a unique humanity that they’ll bring to leadership in this scientific role. So I think that the type of listening that was required in that was the listening that you can only hear when you’re able to let go of those frameworks or limiting beliefs about human beings that are different than yourself. So that’s one type of listening that comes to mind for me. But the other thing that came up for me when I heard you highlight this listening piece, Adam, is that oftentimes in the realm of DEIB, we need to show our work when we listen, and I’m not talking about the active listening methodology where we restate what we heard and we nod and we share our understanding, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (00:27:56):

What I mean is usually to demonstrate you’re listening, you act accordingly. And so I have a client right now who one of the challenges that the team is facing culturally is that the folks of color on the team feel unlistened to unheard because the ideas that are acted upon tend to come from employees that also are white. And so listening in that context requires that you then acknowledge the ideas for the sources from which they came, that you act upon the ideas that are emerging from among the team equitably, irrespective of the identities of those that are held. But it’s going to require that you listen differently. So we are trained to listen to those that are similar to us. That’s just an innate sort of heuristic. It’s like homophily love of self. I’m more likely to listen to those that are similar to me and give credence to their perspectives.

Speaker 4 (00:29:05):

And so it’s going to have to retrain that you listen differently to then act upon the information that you’re given. So that’s how you’re proving your work, showing your math, so to speak. Another thing that comes to mind for me is we have to listen to the voices that are oftentimes decentered or at the margins of the work that we do. So I was in a conversation with a CEO once sharing the perspective of a small group of black women that had been presented to me as a challenge to the system. And the feedback that I was given to this white man CEO was that sounds like it’s just a few people. Can we see if this bears out across our population? And I was like, it’s not going to. I can tell you it’s not going to, and that’s why we need to listen. You might not get statistical significance when you have a small sample size. I’m sort of talking in hyperbole here and metaphor. But yes, the nature of this perspective is that it comes from a minority of your people and that is why you should listen to it and why you should act upon it and show your math

Adam (he/him) (00:30:28):

In a way you’re pointing to. For me at least in some of the evolution of terms, which you’ve named both of you in different ways, like unconscious bias was one way it started. I don’t remember how long ago when you were naming that Fran, and now the words are more diversity and equity and inclusion. Those to me, it’s ways of training our listening. Are you listening for these things like identity, like diversity, like equity? Can we attune our listening to be really clear to include things that we don’t normally include in our listening, but you both named something important. I think fundamentally even there though is that there’s room. There’s room to receive what the person’s saying, like room in your mind. If you’re access, you can feel it room in your body, room in your heart, but that there’s a way that you can be imprinted on if you’re clay, the person’s words are actually printing themselves on the clay or silly putty, silly putty. You could lay it on a newspaper and then it would pick up the newspaper, but really changed by what you’re hearing. And this other thing of, and I love what you’re pointing to, Fran, there’s particular ways that we all filter what we see and what we listen to. And that’s not going to just change automatically

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:31:56):

What you hear. And to do that, we mentioned another term is justice. That whole process of being able to look at a population and be like, I might have a minority group statistically speaking, I might have a smaller group of folks that have a certain experience or what have you in order to invoke justice. I can’t discount that experience just because I’m not experiencing it. And that’s something that’s really important. And it does require individuals in that positional power to really look in the mirror a little bit at that because that’s part of relinquishing power is amplifying those voices. Another thing I’ll add to that from what Fran was talking about is there are times where I’ll hear from a group of black employees or a group of even Gen Z employees, I’ve heard it from an age standpoint too, of this is our experience and we don’t feel like we’re being heard or what have you.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:33:00):

But then leadership does this thing where they filter it into their own words or it loses its narrative justice. And so I think it’s also important as individuals in power utilize their power appropriately by not changing the language or speaking for people and those kinds of things. So that’s another way to take what friend just said. That’s another way I see as other organizations and people showing their work is they are metabolizing it but not altering it, not editing it, not changing it to be comfortable. And so you must have that lower, that ego drive into a point where you can be like, Ooh, this makes me uncomfortable, but I see the benefit for the greater good. I’m centering not my comfort, but the comfort of others. And that does require a little bit of, you got to give yourself grace to do that because you’re not perfect anymore, remember. So I think, but that that’s a necessary evolution for folks that are in these formalized power positions to even do what we’re talking about.

Speaker 5 (00:34:19):

Totally.

Adam (he/him) (00:34:22):

Now, I have other ideas of where to take the conversation, but I’m curious if the two of you have a place you want to go from here that feels alive for you.

Speaker 4 (00:34:32):

I’m on the ride with you, Adam.

Adam (he/him) (00:34:36):

Well, I want to go to this thing that we were talking about earlier. The way I framed it is what are things that are taboo or untouchable or too hot to have in a conversation around DEIB, especially these days? And there’s many entry points for this, and I think the intention I’m wanting to do by exploring this is maybe demystifying something that feels taboo if we get to know it a little bit closer, taking the energy out of it so that things can move. And maybe there’s nothing, but I did want to see if there’s anything that feels alive for you two in that kind of framing that would be helpful to talk about.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:35:24):

I have something that’s surprisingly taboo. Does that count?

Adam (he/him) (00:35:27):

Sure.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:35:28):

Can I go that route? Okay. This is surprisingly, this is surprising to me. I didn’t realize how taboo equity, to be honest, is or is becoming. I don’t know if it’s becoming or is because I’ve thought let, let’s define, I was just going to say, you go to Google. If you go to Google, everybody will find that picture of the people at the fence. And I think they’re little kids and I think they have to, at first, they don’t have the boxes and then you give ’em all the same box. Okay? So when we think about what equity is, we’ve been trained for equality, whether it’s on the playground, whether if you listen to the constitution, equality has been at the forefront, meaning everybody gets the same thing, no more, no less. Whereas equity brings into a phenomenon where people get what they need to be successful.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:36:31):

And it also requires, in my opinion, it also requires a understanding that there are systemic barriers in place that may be preventing people from getting what they need to be successful. And so you have to not only understand that people may need different things. You also have to understand systemically there’s probably a reason why people don’t have the same thing in the first place. So it requires a little bit of both of those understanding when we conceptualize equity. So where I get surprised is in certain circles when I talk about equity, I talk about it really normal. Like, yeah, you understand what equity is because when I walked in here, there was a ramp that went to your front door. That’s literally an equity tool because not everybody can use the stairs. I assumed this notion of giving people what they need to be successful, I thought everybody was on board, not naively, but I just assumed I made that assumption like, yes, we’ve passed that one, we got that, but behind closed doors, I’ll talk to folks and they’re sharing with me their worries.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:37:37):

And their worries are this equity stuff doesn’t seem fair. And I’m like, what do you mean? Well, we are having a women of color leadership conference. Why don’t we have a male leadership conference? Why do they get a leadership conference? And I’m like, well, this conference y’all have been sponsoring for the past 15 years. It’s important for women of color. You strategically created that. I’m telling them their own strategy, but I’m like you strategically created that to ensure that you’re giving everybody a fair shot because historically speaking you weren’t. But people started. Yeah, it started to seem taboo.

Speaker 5 (00:38:18):

And what fascinated me was it seemed to me that the very notion of equity manifested in people

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:38:34):

That they were losing something. And it’s like, you already got 120, so you given that 20, or you’re not giving, you not having that 20 anymore. You’re at a hundred now. You felt like it’s like all doom and gloom. All of a sudden you didn’t see the 120 is not fair. But see going back to a hundred as total unfairness. So it just fascinates me of that level of, I guess I’m going to just say what I’m observing is a lack of awareness of the whole. That was fascinating to me. And my cynical side was like, is this purposeful? But I guess on my more humanistic side understands human psychology too. But that to me, I’m surprised. Well, I’m not surprised. I’m actually, it’s surprisingly taboo, but I’m not surprised it’s happening. I’ll just say it like that.

Speaker 4 (00:39:40):

I have an example that I think is helpful to, because I have the same surprise I have. Here’s what I’ll say. I have a frustration if I’m being honest. I have a frustration. Say it

Adam (he/him) (00:39:58):

Fran.

Speaker 4 (00:39:59):

Yeah, I have a frustration. I wish that I was more surprised perhaps. But I think that when I’m talking with folks about the concept of equity and helping folks sort of bridge their understanding of it, there’s a couple of examples that I think are helpful. It is not atypical for organizations to institute a sponsorship program. And now this is another thing that requires a definition. So sponsorship as distinct from mentorship, as distinct from coaching is having someone whose responsibility is to pound the table for your career development and advancement. So this is someone who is going to stick their neck out to support your moving up in the ranks. You are getting the exposure that you need. You are getting the experiences that you need to advance your own career different than a mentor who teaches from their own experience, different from a coach who helps you on your journey in your own development path.

Speaker 4 (00:41:13):

It is also not atypical that there are sponsorship programs that are geared towards folks who are underrepresented within the organization. So folks of color, queer folks, women sponsorship programs. And what I have heard is that seems to Kevin’s point, that seems unfair. Why wouldn’t everyone get to participate in this program? Well, it turns out that a lot of majority group members, and in particular white men and nothing against white men to be clear, have sponsors defacto because organizations are oftentimes well-represented by white men. And so it becomes natural that I spoke about earlier this notion of homophily like of self. It is natural for folks who feel comfortable with folks that are like them. So it’s natural for a buddy to bring along a buddy through the corporate ranks and pound the table for them. It is less natural for a leadership group who might be majority white men to become a sponsor for someone who is very dissimilar from them, who does not share commonalities around culture, who does not share commonalities or as many commonalities, as many commonalities about career path, family upbringing, access to education, things like that.

Speaker 4 (00:42:44):

And so an equitable process does is it creates the pathways that Kevin was talking to when they don’t exist for certain groups. So a sponsorship program for women of color, for example, creates a pathway that’s not naturally there, but it happens to be there de facto for a bunch of people. And so I think that that’s what I find frustrating, if not surprising in this current sociopolitical climate where we’re getting a lot of pushback on equity. Because what equity does is it corrects for historical disparities. And so the pushback that we’re experiencing now is we don’t need to correct for those historical issues, let’s just let them persist. Some people are thinking about that actively. I think some people are allowing it to occur.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:43:45):

Yeah. Well, and then on top of that, there is a very real belief of a meritocracy and just to provide definitions, meritocracy indicating that basically you get out what you put in essentially you can work hard, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and things will happen positively. And that’s a real belief. And I’m not saying that’s not I want to marry, I wish there was, to be honest. I’m not saying I’m anti, I want people to work hard and stuff like that, but we can’t discount the fact that some of that defacto sponsorship happened because your dad knew the VP and that’s how you got your job and y’all boat together or something like that. Real stuff that I’ve seen. I was working a client based, well, I was working with a client and they ran into this notion of management being treated differently based off of other relationships and cronyism, which is like nepotism basically.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:44:49):

But it was on the basis of race though, because those managers who weren’t being heard were demographically dissimilar. They weren’t white men. And the white male managers got heard more and received more promotion and their issues were taken more seriously. And so you started to see that. And it wasn’t about performance, it wasn’t about who operated best, it was about who had prior relationships and stuff like that. So we can’t say in that system, oh, it’s meritocracy. You get listened to if you do a great job. That wasn’t the case. It was based off of preexisting relationships. It was based off of social connection. It was based off of other things. I’m not saying that’s not a bad thing, but I’m just saying that’s not a meritocracy. So I think I’m just calling that elephant out because not only do people purposefully and or not uphold some of this inequality and inequitable systems, other people may also have a really very real belief of meritocracy and other forms like that.

Adam (he/him) (00:45:58):

Well, this is, as you’re both talking and feeling the difficulty of having someone recognize, to use the analogy of we’re all running around a racetrack, that they already have shoes on and other people. So of course they’re going to run faster. And they’re like, well, I want shoes too. They can’t tell that they’re already wearing ’em.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:46:25):

Or they want extra shoes, they

Adam (he/him) (00:46:27):

Want extra

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:46:28):

Shoes, they want extra shoes.

Adam (he/him) (00:46:30):

And that compounded with, so there’s that thing where we are unaware of the waters that we’re swimming in, which is I think why there’s been such a big, there was at least, and it’s still there, but dwindling around the white supremacist culture, dominant culture and trying to show how that’s real. But it also gets compounded though with, well, I want to be seen

Fran (he,she,they) (00:46:57):

Just

Adam (he/him) (00:46:57):

As an individual. I want to be seen as special. So you have two things. I’m just feeling that tension, my God. And it’s no wonder people have the reactions they have.

Speaker 4 (00:47:09):

Yes,

Adam (he/him) (00:47:10):

Everybody wants to be seen and nobody knows that they’re already wearing shoes. A lot of people don’t know they’re already wearing the running shoes. Go ahead. Sorry Fran.

Speaker 4 (00:47:20):

No, I’m interrupting you.

Adam (he/him) (00:47:23):

Yeah, so I was just feeling into that difficulty as you’re both talking and not to say, oh, we should give up, but wow, how do we work with this?

Speaker 4 (00:47:37):

Well, and I think the question that comes from me is what might it be like to have my own pain or to have my own need to be seen and recognized and have those things be true while also allowing for the space and reality for someone else’s needs and pain to be totally different than mine and totally valid and need its own salve, need a salve that is very different than the salve that my pain and needs require.

Adam (he/him) (00:48:19):

Yeah,

Speaker 5 (00:48:20):

Yeah. And

Adam (he/him) (00:48:32):

To me, it’s highlighting though some of the ways that we can help people, especially those who are in positions of power or privilege like myself, turning toward all the tailwinds that exist and becoming more clear about, whoa, there’s already tailwinds going on here, things at my back, and then how to have a posture of, and how can I

Speaker 5 (00:48:58):

Help others

Adam (he/him) (00:49:03):

Experienced the same thing?

Speaker 5 (00:49:07):

Speaker 4 (00:49:08):

Adam (he/him) (00:49:08):

That

Speaker 4 (00:49:08):

Note, go ahead.

Speaker 4 (00:49:11):

I mean, I was just going to riff on that for a second. I think that that is what is being called for perhaps more than ever, certainly in my lifetime right now in our sociopolitical environmental climate, mean climate, metaphorically and literally is this question of how can we help and how can we bring people in, bring people closer versus pushing people further away. And so I do think, I don’t think I know that DEIB has already been under fire for a couple of years with political and rhetorical backlash, particularly since the Supreme Court’s decision in the summer of 2023 to overturn race-based affirmative action on college campuses. It has only picked up steam and headed into 2025 with a Trump presidency will only gain traction. And I think that for those of us that can acknowledge what you just said, Adam, our remit headed into this new calendar is to bring folks closer, bring folks that are different than us closer and to build community and coalition because I think it’s going to be a long road.

Speaker 4 (00:50:40):

But for those of us asking, how can I help that is how to help, is to push against this tendency that we have in our culture for individualism, push against this tendency that we have for ourself, the one that I spoke about to some extent on the early end. How do I preserve my safety and my identity? How can I let others in to this project of thriving and love beyond myself? I think that without that, our organizations that we all spend so much of our time working in are not going to yield. Our efforts are not going to yield an inclusion, I mean inclusion, geez, nevermind equity. Yeah.

Adam (he/him) (00:51:34):

I want to say one thing, and this is a pivot to you, Kevin, because I think there’s a myth around the equity part that people feel like, oh, well, we’re just making it easy for people. And I love the wheelchair ramp example you gave of like, no, you’re not making it easy. You’re actually making it. Exactly. Because otherwise they can’t get into building, right? Right. So this isn’t a softening of standard or we just need to make it all. So anybody could do whatever they want and it’s super easy. And I’m reminded of something you said, Kevin, in the training we were in around how inclusion, and you were talking about in learning environments when we include different learning styles, how that actually elevates things. So anyway, I want to turn it to you and just around this myth of equity making things, I don’t know what the right word is, easier for others or No,

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:52:33):

I mean, so my bumper sticker for this whole conversation around this area is we lower the barriers, not the bar. And so what that means is everybody has a chance to operate as long as we can lower the barriers, I mean everybody needs to start at the starting line. At least that might be a belief I have. So that’s a bias I’m, I’m going to acknowledge that I have when I do this work. And so when I think about that, something Fran had shared made me think about there’s that competing value of individualism and collectivism that’s at play here. I think, and definitely in western society, we are conditioned in a very individualistic manner, which then sometimes hinders our ability to care about someone else’s plight or someone else’s positionality when I feel like I’m being slighted even if I don’t have evidence of it.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:53:41):

And so I’m really big on when I talk to organizations at least, how do we build systems to recondition us to think about the collective and kind of like a collective, we talk about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs all the time. So there’s at the top of it, self actualization. How do we get to collective actualization? What could that look like? And that’s just an operat question I’ll throw out there. What could that look like? How different could society be if we made thoughts into that direction? How different could our climate be both social and not if we thought into that direction of what a quick collective actualization look like. But again, things may sound dark when we talk about these things, but no, my hope is in the fact that there are a lot of people who are working in systems and doing the work to think more into that.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:54:42):

But to be honest, I think that’s going to be necessary going forward is more collective actualization kind of grounded and rooted thought processes because there’s a tax to empathy in a way. And altruism people are like, I don’t trust that you’re going to just be treating people right out of the kindness of your heart. I don’t trust that part. But what I trust is if we can operate around different value sets like collective actualization for example, if that can be the basis of where we’re going to plant a flag and be like, look, that’s what we’re going to try to do. We’re going to believe in that. Let, let’s go that route. I have hope for something like that because that’s true systems change and not some one-off thing. So that’s what I’m thinking about just as I think of root causal kind of things or root grounded things I would look at.

Adam (he/him) (00:55:31):

So maybe if we could use this as an opportunity to kind of circle back, because where I started the beginning was asking you both to share what have you learned, what are you learning? And maybe just based on where we’re at now from here, how do you see this conversation and this work that we’re all involved in, where does it go from here? What does it look like? We’ve named a couple ways that it’s shifted just in the last, I don’t, 10 years or so. What do you see

Speaker 5 (00:55:59):

Now

Adam (he/him) (00:56:13):

Other than dark clouds?

Speaker 4 (00:56:16):

Well, I’m like, where to begin?

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:56:21):

I’m just thinking about don’t waste a good crisis. And I’m not saying it’s a crisis, I’m not a doom and gloom person, but it just says, if there is opportunity, utilize the opportunity. And to me, we are in a time of tremendous opportunity. And what that’s going to mean is the stuff that’s not working, that’s really surface level is not going to work. Lemme use an analogy. So lemme, let’s talk finances in a market, in a bull market where the stock market’s just going up, everything you can think of makes money because the stock market’s going up, everything works. But when the market’s going down, the stuff that really works will win out. So I take that analogy to say we’re not necessarily in a bull market anymore as it relates to DEI. Meaning the market’s not really thriving right now. People are hiding stuff.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:57:16):

They’re changing the name of different department, stuff like that. But guess what? This is the moment where we see what really works, what brings people together. This is the moment where the real stuff, the real cream rises to the top. This is the moment. And I think when everybody thought it was cool and they were giving money out to all these different groups and stuff like that, people were just doing stuff. It was the trend and it was in vogue and it was safe. Now the things that we’re going to see are going to be the most impactful things. That’s my belief. I think we’re going to see the true people that bring people together. We’re going to see those things work out because I do believe that I’ve talked to so many people myself that are not taking the current state as another way to look for how to survive. People are looking for how to thrive because we can’t just keep thinking in four year increments.

Fran (he,she,they) (00:58:12):

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:58:12):

Got a life to live. We have a life to live. And so I think there are a lot of opportunities to thrive still. It’s just the things that are really going to work are going to work right now. And I think more of that collective bringing people together, less of the performative, actually I would say none of the performative stuff, not less. I’m not a performative person. I really want to work in high impact and high alignment, and I think that’s really required now more than when everything was safe and jovial. So that’s my thought of evolution and where things are going or where things could go. I guess I’ll say,

Speaker 4 (00:58:58):

You go ahead,

Adam (he/him) (00:58:58):

Adam. I was just going to say I’ll share from the coaching space. I think it’s also true just in the more generic coaching space as well, that we’re in a place where it’s different conditions. I think there’s just a lot more of it happening. And with the sort of more saturation of the coaching space, what really works is going to survive and that’s going to be fine. And in fact, it’s going to get even better because we’re going to get more clear, more precise, maybe even more bold about what we’re up to. And the rest that doesn’t work. Yeah, we’ll fall away and in the long run, it’s a very good thing for everybody. Yeah, I share that interpretation, Kevin, that it may not be the funnest times when the heat gets turned up, but it does burn away what’s unnecessary

Dr Kevin (he/him) (00:59:47):

Because sometimes that unnecessary creates noise, to be honest, and to be honest, to be real honest, a lot of the unnecessary stuff in DEI didn’t agree with either. There’s a lot of stuff that happened in the d EI space that I had. I’m like, oh, I do not agree with that. So I think what’s necessary will stick around and become stronger because we’ll actually know what to double down on. And I’m really, I mean, that brings excitement to me at least.

Adam (he/him) (01:00:17):

Fran, how about for you?

Speaker 4 (01:00:20):

Oh gosh, I have so many thoughts on this topic. I think that just to affirm what you both have said, I think that for the organizations and people that were on board in 2016 and again in 2020 and are still on board hopefully, and what we’re starting to see with some of our clients is that they’re digging in, that they’re trying to differentiate themselves from the rhetoric that would move us away from the outcomes of DEIB. And so I think that this is what is sort of trial by fire, what works will persist. So I think that’s right. And I also though am concerned because I think that researchers have been making a business case for DEIB for decades now that organizations that are more diverse and more profitable have greater market share, yield, higher innovation, et cetera, et cetera. And so I do think that we’ll start to see some of that play out if organizations that start to deprioritize DEIB and the generation entering the workforce is not, they’re going to vote with their feet.

Speaker 4 (01:01:50):

I think that that is really true more so than generations prior. Now of course there is the complexity of geography and things like that, but I think that that is ultimately going to impact organizational success if folks pull back from DEIB. The other thing that I’m concerned about though is when I started in this work, we were advocating so strongly for our ability to enable self-identification along the lines of sexual orientation and gender identity within organizations so that organizations could know we wanted to see ourselves in the number to say, can we make sure that we are represented in your workforce now with the anti trans rhetoric and legislation, either on the books or proposed the pendulum is swinging the other way. And I just saw a lot of opinions circulating in my media feed about folks. I’m not filling out those forms. I’m not letting a single person know that I’m trans.

Speaker 4 (01:02:57):

What if that data gets published? What if that comes back to bite me? What if the anti-discrimination law in my state changes in 2025? And so I’m concerned what it means for people’s ability to dig in this moment. And so because of that, where I see things headed in the future, where I think things need to head into the future is much more relational and conversational and bringing what feels divisive back to together. And I love to harp on this very simple sort of academic principle called contact hypothesis, which is just the notion that by spending time with someone dissimilar from you, inherently your biases self mitigate. And so I think that if anything, if we can, we’ve been so polarized politically, but also on the topic of DEIB, that if in 2025 we can just sit down and it’s like, what was the Budweiser commercial? Where was it? Budweiser? I can’t remember where they brought people out with very different ideological beliefs, gave them a Budweiser, and they sat down for a half an hour and then by the end, they’re hugging. It’s a little overly simplistic, but some systemic version of that, some programmatized version of that where we’re just like, we talk, can we please talk one? Can I give a shout

Dr Kevin (he/him) (01:04:33):

Out for something like that?

Speaker 4 (01:04:35):

Yes.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (01:04:37):

Shout out out to the human library. They’re based out of Denmark.

Speaker 4 (01:04:42):

Oh yes,

Dr Kevin (he/him) (01:04:43):

They’re fantastic.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (01:04:45):

So they do that. They do that. You meet people that are dissimilar from you, and these are individuals who may have been socially stigmatized for whatever reason or what have you, but you’re able to have these, I think they’ve done some of these things in the United States since the early maybe 2010s or something like that. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that is that they do that. And Fran, to your point, it is about bringing people together because I think a lot of people have been separated, not due to I, well, lemme just say not. I think people have been separated due to narratives and not real life experiences. And in order to counteract narratives, you have to have real life experience. So I think it is going to be necessary, to be honest. We got to get more human baby. And it’s like how can we get more human? I’m starting to believe the dead internet theory every day because I’m like, are you a real person or not on LinkedIn or something? So I think we must get more human. Be more human, be more together. Yeah. Contact hypothesis in action.

Adam (he/him) (01:05:59):

Yeah. I dunno if either of you have seen it, but Will and Harper on Netflix is like a, so it’s Will Ferrell goes on a road trip with Harper who’s a trans woman who was Will’s friend at I think Saturday Night Live or something.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (01:06:15):

Oh, Harper Steele.

Adam (he/him) (01:06:16):

Harper Steele. I couldn’t remember the last name. And they go on a road trip together and it’s about just becoming friends again. So it’s not the contact hypothesis, but it illustrates just what happens when you’re with someone and shared experience.

Speaker 4 (01:06:33):

Well, and I think that I really want to underscore this, the point, Kevin, that you made about where the divisiveness is in large part in reaction to a narrative. And so I’m glad that we in this conversation took the time to define equity because I think what a lot of people are reacting to is what is attributed to this acronym that we’ve been using for a period of time

Speaker 4 (01:06:57):

Without any grounding in the fact that we’re talking about processes that yield outcomes, specific measurable outcomes. And that it, it’s not the church of DEIB, it’s not an entity unto itself, but it’s how we go about achieving specific results. I think that that’s critically important. And then I just have one other point, which is there’s this book on tyranny by Timothy Snyder that looks at all of the tyrannical governmental takeovers over the past long time. The first principle is don’t obey in advance. And what I’m already seeing is people drop the E from DEIB, I’m seeing people drop DEIB altogether. Walmart is a great example. They’re just using belonging now. And I think that if there are leaders that have positional power on this topic listening to this podcast, I just want to impress, don’t obey in advance. There is nothing legislatively yet on the books that would prevent you from pursuing thoughtful employee centered practices that will make your organization much more successful. Your general counsel may have a different risk profile than I do, and I’m happy to have a conversation with them. This is a favorite topic of mine, but I just think that bring back humanity and don’t obey prematurely.

Adam (he/him) (01:08:37):

Yeah, it feels like to do so is fracturing even further rather than what Kevin was highlighting around. This is really about the strength of the collective in many respects.

Speaker 5 (01:08:50):

And

Adam (he/him) (01:08:50):

There are particular parts of it that need attention in order for that to take place. And honestly, the quicker we do it the better. Otherwise it’s just going to get longer and drawn out. But my sense is it’s going there anyway. It just might take a lot longer otherwise. So we have a couple of minutes left and parting things you all want to share that you haven’t shared already.

Dr Kevin (he/him) (01:09:19):

This work. Fran and I do a lot of this work professionally, but personally I want to share there. I think in a lot of spaces there is a deep emphasis on learning about ourselves and discovering ourselves and continuing to discover ourselves, which then is there’s outcomes of, there’s not a lot of emphasis on mental wellbeing in some spaces. And so I think for this work to be successful, when we talk about collective perpetuity and collective actualization, you got to be there for it. If you’re not there, meaning if you don’t even know who you are in this space, you’re not continually to try to discover yourself and watching yourself evolve and stuff like that, it’s going to be hard for you to join the collective. So I always want to emphasize the importance of individuals, people learning about themselves, not hiding from their biases, acknowledging your flaws, and just accepting those things because that’s the only way we’re going to be able to grow. I’m a big believer of continual growth, and I’m not talking about degrees of certifications. I’m talking about your human experience. And I think that’s a necessary thing so that you don’t become this tyrannical drone. You’re just going along with everything. You’re just letting things happen and letting things wash over you in a negative way. Yeah. Yeah. Just makes me, this conversation’s making me think about what is required of the individual

Speaker 5 (01:11:05):

For the journey. How about for you, Fran? Ditto.

Speaker 4 (01:11:15):

Leave it at that.

Adam (he/him) (01:11:19):

Oh man. Well, I am really appreciative of the conversation in many ways, I think we’re practicing some of what you were just talking about, Kevin together, where we’re sharing our learnings with each other. And I know I learn about myself and about this whole space just by being with the two of you. And in a way as we’re closing it, to me feels like we can only be a collective if we’re also individuals.

Adam (he/him) (01:11:49):

That’s what allows a collective to take place. So Fran, I was really impacted by what you said around this isn’t a doctrine or a mold we’re trying to push people into. It’s really an alive conversation and I felt that aliveness here just in how you all have been in this for so long and been changed by it and the conversation itself is changing, which is exciting. And yeah, there’s lots of external factors though that aren’t always thrilling, especially as we’re in the heat of some of those now and all the more reason to stay together. So I’m really grateful for you guys and you taking some time here. Really happy to have this conversation with you all.

Speaker 5 (01:12:36):

Thank you. Thanks so much, Adam. I.

Living Multi-Centered: Bringing Unity, Belonging and Equity to a Splitting World