0:00

You don't have to love nature

0:02

to visit Tennessee. You

0:04

also don't have to love whiskey. You

0:07

don't even have to love music. Well,

0:10

maybe just that last one. Your

0:12

vacation is now playing in Tennessee.

0:22

Hi everyone. I'm Anne Helen Peterson

0:24

and this is Work Appropriate.

0:40

There are so many acronyms for efforts to

0:42

increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in the

0:44

workplace. There's DEI, IDEA,

0:48

which you can also pronounce idea, D&I,

0:51

whatever you want to call it, or whatever it's

0:53

called in your workplace, you likely

0:56

have two major buckets of thoughts. First,

0:59

yes, of course, more, more

1:01

equity, more inclusion, all

1:03

of it. But also the way

1:05

we're going about this work is pretty

1:08

dysfunctional,

1:08

which is frustrating

1:11

and dispiriting. But

1:13

also if this work were easy, we wouldn't

1:15

still be doing it. The

1:18

status quo of the workplace, which is foundationally

1:20

inequitable, not diverse, not

1:23

inclusive, is really, really

1:26

hard to dismantle. The work

1:28

is hard because the work is worth doing. And

1:30

today I have the perfect guest to think

1:33

about how to keep doing that work, even

1:35

when you feel like you want

1:35

to throw up your hands.

1:40

My name is Samira Kapila, or Sam

1:42

is fine too. I am a product

1:45

designer and an author of the

1:47

book Inclusive Design Communities, and I live

1:49

in Austin, Texas.

1:50

So tell me more about your book, Inclusive

1:52

Design Communities. My book, Inclusive

1:55

Design Communities, is a sort

1:58

of a study to everything that's kind

2:00

kind of happened in my career. I started in

2:02

advertising after school, like after

2:04

undergrad, and then moved into

2:08

going to grad school and thinking I was

2:10

gonna do the Mad Men style art director

2:12

thing. And instead, so that I

2:15

could get in state tuition and be able to afford

2:17

going to grad school, said I was okay with teaching

2:19

in the undergrad design program

2:22

and ended up staying in education for

2:24

a while. From there moved from public

2:26

to private education, into

2:28

consulting, into being in a product

2:31

company now. And this book is basically

2:33

a culmination of everything that I've seen during

2:36

that time, being in these different design spaces

2:38

and noticing where the gaps and opportunities

2:40

are and trying to surface them. I

2:42

think that a product designer and

2:45

your work as a product designer and all your work

2:47

leading up to that time is actually like really

2:50

great experience to think about creating

2:52

inclusive environments in the workplace

2:54

more generally. Like it might not be the thing that

2:56

people would be like, oh, that person

2:58

is going to be really smart about inclusive environments,

3:01

but I feel like you get the tools in a lot of ways. Can you

3:03

talk more about that? Oh yeah, absolutely.

3:06

I think there's a lot of overlap

3:08

specifically in the UX and research

3:10

area

3:11

and the gathering of a lot

3:13

of anecdotes, quantitative data,

3:16

qualitative data, stakeholder

3:18

feedback to use all of those design

3:20

terms. And I think that's where a lot

3:23

of this book came together was seeing these

3:25

parts of the designer self and

3:28

thinking, well, we could do a SWOT analysis.

3:30

I've done that with a client before and figured

3:32

out their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

3:35

What if we took that step back and did a

3:37

meta analysis of our own setup and

3:40

what we can improve? And it was a lot of that overlap

3:42

of tools, opening mirror boards or Fig

3:44

Jams and mapping things out

3:46

of where there are opportunities. What's something that's

3:48

going to be high impact and take

3:51

time to like make work for a team

3:53

or can

3:55

we whiteboard our entire hiring

3:57

process and then look for the gaps

3:59

between and whiteboard that in, well

4:02

I guess in Miro and the online

4:04

world that we're in today. So I

4:06

saw a lot of overlaps that way and I think the other

4:08

part is the, there's a lot of designers

4:10

that are into the systems-based thinking and having

4:13

to take that like zoomed out bird's

4:15

eye view approach or working on

4:17

a design system where you have to think about everything from

4:19

a button to a card to

4:22

a, I'm gonna delete my membership

4:24

flow. That sort of thinking just came

4:27

naturally I think into a lot of the

4:29

diversity and inclusion related work that I got

4:31

into. And I think this is so fascinating

4:34

because something like a hiring process,

4:37

I think often people don't think of it as something

4:39

that is designed in any way. It's

4:42

like, oh, here's what we do. Here

4:44

are our steps, but they don't necessarily

4:46

think of it as a design, right? As

4:49

something that has been created,

4:52

maybe created like iteratively,

4:54

but it has been created and that

4:56

people can change it, right? It can change

4:59

in really dynamic and interesting ways and

5:01

you can start it over. Like

5:04

you can blow up the process and start it again, but

5:06

sometimes if you don't think of it as something

5:09

that has a creator that has been

5:11

created, then it's harder to get into that head space.

5:14

Yeah. And I think it's harder to figure out kind of who

5:16

owns that area. Is it one

5:19

hiring manager? Is it a recruiter? Is

5:21

it like HR teams as a whole?

5:25

And then how does that impact the rest of the company

5:27

if two different teams are hiring in different

5:29

ways? And that's a

5:31

big challenge. And I think I've had a lot of conversations,

5:34

especially in the last few years where companies have

5:37

paused hiring because of what's happening in the

5:39

tech industry currently, or with the start

5:41

of the pandemic and lockdown, those are

5:43

actually the perfect times to kind of blow it

5:45

all up and start over while

5:48

none of those roles are open instead of laying off

5:51

teams and teams of HR and recruiting

5:53

folks.

5:53

Right. I mean, that's the

5:55

hard thing, right? So like, those are actually the opportunities

5:58

to do that really hard work. sometimes

6:00

that's like the moment when instead

6:03

you are understaffed, you are ill-equipped

6:06

to do that sort of work. Not

6:09

all companies, but some companies are still

6:11

pretty new to even thinking

6:13

about equity, inclusivity,

6:16

all of these terms. By the way, is there

6:18

a term that you like to use? Because I know some of it, like

6:20

I always have heard it as DEI, but so many,

6:22

like the questions that we get in, you use so

6:25

many different acronyms. Yeah, I saw that.

6:27

I've seen IDEA, I've seen DEIB,

6:30

which is DEI with belonging at the end,

6:32

and I think IDEA was inclusion, diversity,

6:35

equity, and accessibility, which I think

6:38

is a big part of the tech conversation.

6:41

I don't use one. I'm kind of interchangeable

6:43

between all of them. I do like to talk

6:45

through a little bit more about the

6:47

differences between the words. So

6:50

you can't have inclusion without

6:54

the start, like the concept of diversity in itself

6:56

is this magical end goal that

6:58

kind of looks like a university

7:01

course catalog brochure where everybody's got the different

7:04

sweatshirts and they're sitting under a tree and everybody

7:07

looks like they're from different places. And

7:09

that's fine, and that's a very okay

7:12

starting point, but the inclusion work is the actions

7:14

that you take to even get to that end

7:17

result. And then equity really talks

7:19

about not necessarily equality,

7:22

where you would just give everybody the same toolkit to

7:24

work with, but realizing where historically

7:27

there are some setbacks that some people have

7:30

faced

7:31

and that we need to accommodate for those as well. One

7:33

thing I think about, and I don't think that this is

7:36

a substitute for diversity, but I do think

7:38

that diversity in an institution

7:40

also has to account for, do we have

7:42

people who are caregivers and not caregivers?

7:44

Yes, huge. Because

7:46

what if you're the only person in either of those buckets

7:49

or one of the few people in either of those buckets? And not

7:51

really understanding what

7:53

responsibilities other people have

7:55

or that intersect with their ability to

7:57

do the work that they want to do.

8:00

All right, so I feel like we could actually talk

8:02

about like even just the foundation of all of this

8:04

for so long, but I think that our questions

8:06

will lead us in a lot of these directions.

8:10

So this first question is going to set the tone.

8:12

It's about doing the quote unquote,

8:15

right things, but the vibes at the organization

8:18

are still off. This comes from Angela. What

8:20

does an anti-racist workplace look like?

8:23

I work at a very well resourced

8:26

historically white, small nonprofit

8:29

that has recently used its position

8:31

of influence to try to advance

8:33

racial equity in its field, a

8:36

field that has lately received a lot

8:38

of negative press and drives

8:40

for unionization in response

8:43

to the decades upon decades of

8:45

systemic oppression it has perpetuated.

8:47

Internally, we've

8:50

had a lot of DEI training and

8:52

leadership has made efforts to address unconscious

8:55

bias, such as removing

8:57

biased language from job listings and

9:00

adding gender pronouns to email signatures.

9:03

We now have an equity statement and a

9:05

land acknowledgement that staff were

9:07

involved in crafting and are

9:09

both currently posted to our website.

9:12

But on the whole, the changes

9:15

feel like virtue signaling with systemic

9:17

inequity very much still baked

9:19

into the sauce.

9:20

We remain very hierarchical.

9:24

And while our leaders are currently reviewing

9:26

our benefits to assess them for equity,

9:29

they're doing so behind closed doors and

9:31

have handpicked a small number of staff to

9:33

weigh in. Before 2020,

9:36

we had one staff member of color.

9:39

We have started hiring more employees

9:41

of color, but it's mostly in low level

9:43

roles with zero room for upward

9:45

mobility. Microaggressions

9:48

are rampant and staff of color

9:50

privately express feelings of tokenization.

9:52

And to be clear, I am a white,

9:55

cis woman.

9:56

Meanwhile, our leader, who

9:58

is white and wealthy,

9:59

talks a lot about how we're

10:02

an anti-racist organization. It's

10:04

exhausting.

10:05

So in your opinion, what

10:08

would it look like to transform into an

10:10

anti-racist organization and workplace

10:13

with of course the understanding that this kind

10:15

of work never ends? And please

10:17

be specific. What practices

10:20

and what staff benefits are

10:22

necessary for an organization to claim

10:24

that it's anti-racist?

10:26

All right, so we're gonna start pretty basic

10:29

in asking who gets

10:31

to declare if a workplace is

10:33

anti-racist?

10:35

Yup. It's one of those things.

10:37

It's like anti-racist and allyship.

10:40

Both A words are words that get

10:42

thrown around or labeled very liberally.

10:46

And they're not necessarily

10:49

words to self-identify as. We

10:51

can want to be an ally.

10:53

We can want to be anti-racist, but

10:56

it's really when the actions speak for themselves.

10:58

And I think one of the ways that

11:01

I think about those are

11:03

like what are the passive things? And I think we heard

11:05

a few examples of passive

11:07

actions like, okay, land acknowledgement.

11:10

Okay, but what follows that?

11:12

Right.

11:13

I feel like anti-racism, which I'm sure we can get

11:15

into the definition a little further, is a lot more

11:17

active than that kind of first step.

11:19

Well, and something that we've talked a lot about on this podcast

11:22

is that like,

11:24

whether you call it anti-racist, or if you're just trying

11:26

to dismantle white supremacy in some capacity,

11:29

oftentimes it means it requires

11:32

giving up some of the privilege that you have. And

11:34

that is so much more active and

11:37

does not seem to be what the leaders

11:40

in this organization are necessarily interested in. They

11:42

want other people to be part of their organization,

11:46

but not to give up any of their power and privilege

11:48

within the organization.

11:49

And I think that's

11:52

too relatable. And I

11:55

get it. It's

11:57

uncomfortable because there's a lot of folks

11:59

that are...

11:59

hearing about this or dealing

12:02

with this for the first time and it is overwhelming

12:04

to suddenly open

12:06

this Pandora's box that a

12:08

lot of people knew about that you didn't and it's new

12:10

to you. But I think that's even

12:13

more of a reason to not self-proclaimed

12:16

or self-label and really

12:18

work on active ways to go

12:21

about that. One of them is yes

12:23

to hear people at the company to not

12:25

just invite people behind closed doors but

12:27

have an open call and be really

12:29

clear with what you're looking for. I think

12:32

of Beverly Daniel Tatum. She is

12:34

a author and psychologist

12:38

and her book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting

12:40

Together in the Cafeteria. She

12:42

talks about that example of a

12:45

walkway like at an airport where you kind

12:47

of just get on you're holding your like wheelie

12:49

luggage and checking your phone and just kind of

12:52

saving up on some of those 10,000 steps you

12:54

were going to take that day. And she talks about

12:56

the moving forward and standing still very

12:58

much sounds to me like this, like

13:01

we're good, we're doing great. But the thing is you're

13:03

still moving towards this like racist

13:07

end goal. It's the fighting back against

13:09

this and walking in the other direction of said

13:11

walkway that is the anti-racist

13:14

work and that means constantly,

13:17

regularly going in the opposite direction.

13:19

And this example

13:21

just makes me think a lot of that.

13:23

And I think it's often hard in these smaller

13:25

organizations where like part of

13:28

the business model, they're often

13:30

understaffed in the first place and

13:33

rely historically or in the

13:35

present on unpaid internships.

13:37

So you're already setting this bar for

13:41

who is able to gain access to the ladder

13:43

into this industry in some way. So that

13:46

makes me think of like, you know, the question asker,

13:48

I think

13:49

their heart is in the right place in terms

13:51

of please give me specific

13:54

steps that we can do to do this. And

13:56

like she has a modicum of power in this situation,

13:58

it seems like, but also

13:59

So there's a part of me that says, oh,

14:02

well, the step is to blow up your entire

14:04

industry. So how can you essentially

14:07

blow up the way that

14:09

your industry functions while

14:11

not freaking everyone out in

14:13

the organization, especially the

14:15

leadership, or how do you suggest that in

14:18

a way that doesn't seem like you're saying, everyone

14:20

should quit? I think one of the

14:22

first steps, if I am understanding the

14:24

situation correctly, is looking at

14:27

all of the ways that that company

14:29

functions and looking for opportunities

14:31

like,

14:32

okay, let's say this company has quarterly goals.

14:35

Can we set some measurements

14:37

or metrics that we wanna track

14:40

to make some progress and then move things forward

14:42

on a more regular basis? Can there

14:44

be other,

14:46

maybe executives or people in leadership

14:48

positions that could be allies

14:51

that

14:52

continually bring this sort of stuff

14:54

up? There's also the checking in with other companies

14:57

and seeing what they're doing. How much are

14:59

they getting paid? How are things working

15:01

at their companies? So reaching out to other nonprofits

15:04

and looking for that cross

15:06

nonprofit,

15:07

like what can we share? What can we learn?

15:10

There's a lot of different ways. Of

15:13

course, I always lean be like, get an

15:15

external audit. But I

15:17

think teams have to be open to that, especially

15:20

if leadership is saying, we've already done

15:22

this checkbox and we're

15:24

like done. I think

15:27

it takes a lot of convincing that way. And sometimes

15:29

that means having that initial conversation with those

15:31

external consultants to audit and

15:34

then have something to take back

15:36

to leadership to then convince them on why.

15:38

And sometimes that includes how much time is this gonna

15:40

take? Is there training? What

15:42

does an audit look like?

15:44

And maybe getting some more of that external

15:46

support. One thing I've seen is that

15:48

companies like this decide that

15:51

if we try to fix hiring, then

15:53

that fixes our problem without

15:56

understanding what happens once someone is in

15:59

the organization.

15:59

Can you speak a little bit more about how, like

16:02

let's say they decide, okay,

16:04

we're gonna recruit from larger

16:07

pools of applicants, we're gonna like really

16:09

look for more diverse hiring practices

16:11

and all this sort of thing, but then how do you change the

16:14

actual culture? Angela says there

16:16

are microaggressions all over the place, there's

16:18

no place for advancement for those people once they're

16:20

hired in.

16:21

That's one of those areas where I think blowing up

16:23

the hiring process is a good idea, but

16:26

it has to be followed with a retention strategy

16:28

and they have to be worked on at the same time. I

16:31

think it's a myth when we say like, oh, hiring will

16:33

like fix the issue. If we just hire this many

16:35

percent more identifying as blank,

16:38

people will have solved the problem.

16:40

And I think that's a huge issue for multiple

16:42

reasons. One, it assumes that the hiring

16:45

someone is enough. It also

16:47

puts an extra burden or pressure on those

16:49

people who are brought in, who are still

16:51

in the minority to then be representative

16:54

of an entire very large group

16:57

of people that are actually very different, but we're

16:59

grouping together them

17:00

into one bundle and saying like, oh, you're

17:02

minoritized or you're marginalized, so you represent

17:05

everybody else who is. Right. And

17:08

that's extra pressure that no one should have.

17:11

In the example of hiring interns

17:13

or right out of school,

17:15

if you want to retain people or

17:17

get a turnover to reduce,

17:20

pay interns, they're

17:23

doing work just like everybody else. And just

17:25

because they may be coming out of college or they're making

17:27

a career change, that still

17:29

contributes to the work and sometimes bringing in

17:32

folks that are coming in earlier

17:34

in the career and can build up and grow in

17:36

that job, tend to want to stick around

17:38

because they are growing and want

17:41

to contribute to the overall company.

17:44

But

17:44

that means that they need sponsorship,

17:47

mentorship, paths for

17:49

success.

17:50

So we have given, I think,

17:52

really good advice. I think the

17:55

question asker, Angela, is gonna be like, this is

17:57

really good advice, but also,

17:59

how do I wield this advice

18:02

if my boss already thinks

18:05

they're anti-racist?

18:06

That is a great segue into our

18:09

second question. So hopefully we can address some of those

18:11

issues as we address the second question.

18:14

It comes from Shauna and our producer, Melavi is going

18:16

to read it for us. I work as a management

18:18

consultant in the IDEA space,

18:21

inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility.

18:24

Although I'm proud of the advice I give to other

18:26

organizations on how to promote inclusion

18:28

and belonging at work, my

18:30

employer doesn't take their own advice. Our

18:33

leadership seems disconnected and disinterested

18:35

in the impact that IDEA and knowledge

18:38

work has on our team, which is staffed

18:40

with many racialized persons and women with

18:42

disabilities. We have been undermined,

18:45

disrespected, poorly trained, and

18:47

overworked.

18:47

It has led to high turnover

18:49

rates, including six different managers

18:52

over the course of a year. A recent

18:54

HR complaint was brushed under the rug and

18:57

denied mediation.

18:58

The processes and procedures we analyze

19:01

and provide recommendations for every

19:03

day for our clients have failed us

19:05

at our own workplace. I am

19:07

the sole income earner for my family and

19:10

don't have the privilege of quitting outright

19:12

without a new job lined up. So

19:14

how do I get my leaders to listen up

19:16

and make a change? Is it time to

19:18

call it quits and take my chances?

19:21

All right, Sam, what do you think here? Is

19:23

there any hope? Wow.

19:26

I think potentially. Yeah.

19:29

I think there's a lot here to talk

19:31

through and work with. I

19:34

think to start, again, this is one of those areas

19:37

where if I was looking

19:40

at this externally as someone, maybe in

19:42

the same role, I would say hire someone external

19:44

to do that internal audit, set some

19:46

things in place because I think it's extremely

19:49

common, especially in the consulting world. And

19:51

maybe this is just true to tech, but it sounds like

19:53

it's true in this space as well

19:55

is, you know, it's easy in tech

19:58

to be like, yeah, we're consultants for your app. your

20:00

website, we'll do all that stuff for you and then we tend

20:02

to ignore our own marketing

20:04

site that gets us clients or as a designer.

20:06

I'm happy to design for anybody else,

20:08

but if you want me to update my website or remember

20:11

to write a blog post, that's going to be last

20:14

on my list because my dog wants

20:16

to go for an extra long walk or I want to do

20:18

something with my family or whatever else. I

20:21

think that that can be very

20:23

true for a lot of consultancies, but

20:26

this is kind of concerning, especially

20:29

when there are things

20:29

that HR is not

20:32

addressing. It

20:34

does make me wonder what sort

20:36

of internal, are there,

20:38

is there an internal DEI council? Are they

20:40

reporting to HR? Are they reporting to somebody

20:42

else who can then be said

20:45

ally? I think

20:46

the burnout part of

20:49

being the people who noticed that or experienced

20:51

it or had to go through something

20:53

difficult because of these actions,

20:56

I just want to acknowledge that that burnout is real

20:59

and it's not necessarily

21:01

your responsibility to do more

21:04

work than the leaders who are

21:06

in power to move the company forward,

21:08

but I also think it's ingrained in a lot of us

21:10

who do care about this work to want

21:12

to impact that change because we do feel

21:14

like we maybe have the tool set or

21:17

observations or anything

21:20

like that to move it forward and it's a hard place to

21:22

be. I just wanted to acknowledge that as

21:24

a part of this, that be

21:27

mindful of that burnout for you and

21:29

I think that's where the decision making

21:31

to maybe step away would be. It's

21:34

also hard to do that in an industry right

21:36

now that is sort of suddenly being ignored

21:38

because so many have

21:40

reached a fatigue stage, for lack of

21:42

a better word, where it's like they either think

21:45

the work is done or they

21:47

thought it would reap results

21:50

sooner. The

21:52

HR part is a little concerning. The high

21:55

turnover of the managers, too, sounds

21:57

like burnout is ingrained.

21:59

That was a big flag for me because

22:01

to me it points to the fact that this is a shitty job.

22:04

For whatever reason, it has turned into a crappy

22:06

job. I think as you also

22:09

point out, some of this might be market-based

22:12

in that there's not as much money

22:14

coming through the front door because

22:16

there's not as much demand as say

22:19

2020 for this sort of consultancy. They're

22:22

trying to do more with less. That

22:25

is a formula for burnout.

22:28

It has turned apart from the work that they're doing,

22:30

it has turned into a burnout

22:32

scenario. And then you have layered on

22:34

top of it the cognitive dissonance

22:37

of trying to help other companies do this work when

22:40

your company is just so bad at it.

22:42

And that would be just like smacking

22:44

your head against the wall every day,

22:47

right? And so I wonder if there's

22:50

something to be gained and underlining

22:53

that

22:53

it undermines the work that they're doing.

22:55

It undermines their legitimacy as an organization

22:58

that they're not walking the walk.

23:01

So as an individual, how do you

23:03

speak? How do you make that feeling,

23:05

that sentiment pronounced while

23:07

also protecting yourself?

23:10

Melody our producer came up with the idea

23:12

of potentially of an employee survey

23:14

or floating the idea of what if we do an employee

23:17

survey? What are your thoughts on employment

23:19

surveys just generally? I think they're

23:21

great, but I think they should be run by

23:23

this like third party or consultant.

23:26

The consultant needs a consultant. Yes.

23:30

You know, I have this conversation with my therapist

23:33

who says all

23:34

therapists likely have a therapist

23:36

that they go to about their own stuff. And

23:39

I think that's true for consultancies. That's

23:42

something when I was at a consultancy, we hired

23:44

a consultancy to help us with DEI stuff. And

23:47

that meant that we had to prepare ourselves

23:49

for hearing something

23:52

we didn't want to hear, whether it confirms a inkling

23:54

we may have a perspective we didn't have

23:56

before. But the reason that you want to

23:59

do the external. part is if

24:01

it's somebody just internally building that up,

24:03

that threatens job security. If

24:06

that person can glean who it is, DEI consultants,

24:10

and they probably know this, will

24:12

tend to go with anonymous surveys, ways

24:15

to anonymize any

24:18

results that they gather. And so that

24:21

just makes it a little bit safer. And

24:24

if this consultancy is working in partnership

24:27

with that external consultancy, they will outline

24:29

goals to the company on why they think

24:31

it's important. And that means acknowledging some of

24:33

the issues they have.

24:35

If you want to improve the workplace

24:38

day-to-day retention, if you want to avoid

24:41

burnout, part of that is feeling heard.

24:43

So I would really hope that this organization

24:46

would be very open to the idea to

24:48

partner with an external

24:51

DEI group, perhaps even a competitor,

24:53

so that there's not the like, oh, it's just two DEI

24:56

companies where the leadership

24:58

know each other, they've worked together before,

25:00

and then they're sneaking them some whispers,

25:03

actually hiring someone who is fully

25:06

removed from the situation, who can really

25:09

create a safe space for anybody who needs to communicate

25:12

it, but also for leadership to know that

25:14

they're going to get a very rational, honest,

25:17

outside perspective.

25:19

So I think our advice

25:21

to Shana would be, if you hear this advice

25:24

that Sam just gave about an employee survey about

25:26

hiring an outside consultant, and

25:29

your reaction is, oh, I could see

25:31

this maybe happening, then

25:33

the job is salvageable. If

25:36

you hear that advice and you think there's

25:38

no way in hell that we would ever

25:40

do that, like if that's the

25:43

immediate knee-jerk reaction, it's like, this

25:45

is not something that we are willing

25:47

to

25:48

look at about ourselves, then it's

25:51

time to start looking for another job. And that

25:53

doesn't mean you have to quit your job. It means you can start looking

25:55

for another job. Yeah, I think

25:57

that's a very important point. And

25:59

to your earlier point too, that is really

26:02

concerning and it's

26:04

a risky move for that company

26:06

to not address internal

26:09

stuff, especially because if that

26:11

word gets out, that really messes

26:13

with their legitimacy. So it would

26:16

behoove them to follow that.

26:19

And ways that you can communicate

26:21

that if you're worried about sort of bringing

26:24

it up yourself directly to,

26:26

let's say, a group of executives is finding

26:28

those co-conspirators, whether

26:30

it's like other folks at the company that are willing to bring

26:33

it up as a group, host

26:35

an open conversation if you're willing, find

26:38

the managers or skip level managers that

26:40

can also be folks

26:43

that can bring that up in different ways. I think

26:45

power in numbers if you're really wanting

26:47

to find a way and

26:50

stay there because it is

26:52

impactful work. And I think that that's

26:54

really important. And especially if you're seeing the

26:56

results with clients that you work

26:59

with, you want to foster that internally,

27:01

find the people that you can work with

27:04

and bring it up together.

27:08

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30:18

Our next question is about all of

30:20

these committees that were formed in 2020

30:23

in the wake of the murder of George Floyd

30:26

and the larger conversations

30:28

that started percolating at that time. This

30:30

is from Sarah, and our colleague Raina is going to read

30:32

it for us.

30:34

My question is about DEI committees.

30:36

How do we make them compelling? How do we

30:38

make them energizing? How do we remove

30:41

barriers so the folks on those committees can make

30:43

an impact and move initiatives forward? I

30:45

was on one of those for about 18 months, and

30:48

the forward movement was so archaically

30:50

slow that it was hard to get the folks on the committee

30:52

to be excited about the work and to

30:54

convince others to do the work. I

30:56

know shit doesn't change overnight, but there

30:58

must be a better way, right?

31:01

So if people feel burnt

31:03

out on this committee work, demoralized, like,

31:06

yeah, what is your experience with this? I

31:09

have quite a bit of experience on this, and I feel

31:11

like both of

31:13

these times were pre-2020, so

31:16

I do want to add that caveat. One of them

31:19

was at a private coding

31:21

boot camp. I was on the executive

31:23

team, able to work on this stuff. We were working

31:25

with the Obama administration at the time doing

31:28

national projects and things like that, but

31:30

we needed to work on a lot of stuff internally,

31:32

and it was something that sort

31:34

of landed in my lap because I was always the one talking about

31:36

it. I didn't know it could be a formal role. Up

31:39

to that point, I had been managing the instructors

31:42

and was occasionally still teaching design,

31:45

and then I kind of moved into manage instructors

31:47

and also DEI stuff, and

31:50

my first thought was kind of breaking

31:52

it down into what are the things

31:54

we can do for students, what are the things we can do for

31:56

staff, what are the things that we can do in onboarding

31:58

and recruiting, and that was actually one of the... few times

32:00

I was able to say, pause all hiring,

32:02

I have 30 roles open on my team,

32:05

we need to get this right and figure out the

32:07

right process and got the support in that.

32:10

But

32:11

that part aside, we were able to get to that point

32:13

because of how we looked at the structuring

32:16

of

32:16

what does membership in the council look like. When

32:20

I set it up with my coworker

32:22

who did everything on the operations

32:24

side outside of academics, we

32:26

basically said, we too are going

32:29

to be on the DEI council as an executive

32:31

team. We're not always going to be the chairs, but

32:33

we are always active members so that they know that

32:35

they have executive support. Then

32:38

we then said there needed to be, because there were eight

32:40

executives, two additional

32:42

executives rotating in and out so

32:45

that every executive has to be a

32:46

member, but not a chair where it

32:49

would be a maybe a slight awkwardness

32:51

of, oh wait, the executive's the chair of this, and

32:54

they're also the executive at the company. They had to be

32:56

just regular members in the council.

32:59

Then we rotated between regions, the

33:01

type of classes we were teaching and built

33:04

a council of 19 when

33:06

the company had a hundred people. So basically 20%

33:08

of the company was in the DEI

33:10

council at all times.

33:12

Wow. So that was like step

33:15

one and just like setting it up. The other

33:17

big piece was we weren't housed

33:19

under HR. HR was a partner.

33:22

Huge. Huge. Huge.

33:25

But HR is

33:26

representative of a company, not necessarily

33:29

the people in it, which is really confusing when there's titles

33:32

like people, resources, people,

33:34

operations, all of that. Yes, they're a part of your

33:36

hiring benefits and all of that, but

33:39

at the end of the day, they represent the company and they

33:41

can still play an important part in a council,

33:44

but

33:44

the approval should not come

33:47

unless it's like a legal thing where

33:49

it's like we are proposing that this is a new

33:51

benefit that the company provides.

33:54

That's when you partner together, but the approval

33:57

doesn't necessarily mean it has to come from them. Our

34:00

DEI council was structured under the CEO

34:03

for some time, and then to the CEO

34:05

so that it became a part of operations. When

34:08

we set our monthly or quarterly

34:11

KPIs and all of the metrics

34:13

and goals and acronyms that we use for those,

34:16

these were woven into every single one. So

34:19

if we're saying the goal is to have this many

34:21

more students, okay, then what are the DEI

34:23

parts of that?

34:24

Well, right now in tech, the

34:26

least represented groups are Latinx,

34:29

Black, and Indigenous

34:31

developers. So what are the things

34:33

we're going to do to actively seek them out? That

34:37

was really structuring

34:39

how it's going to function from the start and anticipating

34:42

all of the roadblocks along the way and

34:45

working that in.

34:46

The other part of this is we taught Monday through

34:48

Thursday, so that allowed for a lot of admin time

34:51

on Friday to say,

34:53

rather than you working 60 hours a

34:54

week, a lot

34:57

of your Friday if you're on the council, is

34:59

now protected for this work.

35:01

Wow.

35:02

While we couldn't necessarily

35:05

say like, oh, we can increase everybody's salary

35:07

for the time that you remember, reducing

35:10

the rest of their coursework so

35:12

that they could be a part of this, then that's something

35:14

that I carried over into the consultancy which I was

35:17

in, which is not a DEI consultancy,

35:19

but a tech consultancy.

35:22

Similar to that Google's old way

35:24

of work, it was Monday through Thursday

35:27

was the regular stuff, and the last 20 percent

35:29

of the week on Friday is internal projects.

35:31

I know for Google, that's where Google Maps

35:33

and Gmail and some of their well-known

35:36

products today came from. So we

35:38

called those investment days and we

35:41

talked about having talks

35:43

with every manager to make sure

35:46

that the consulting time, sure, that's client

35:48

work, that's billable work, but then any

35:50

other internal projects

35:52

needed to not be on their

35:54

plate while they're on the DEI council. If

35:57

they did need to be a part of other projects,

35:59

then there needs to be a part of it.

35:59

to be a reduction in the work

36:02

that they provide to the client.

36:05

And sometimes we have those conversations with the clients

36:07

directly. And that

36:09

would even come up on a sales call, where I'd say,

36:11

hmm, this sounds like a three to four day project

36:14

for a designer or developer. However,

36:16

the people I think that are the best for

36:18

this job are also in our DEI

36:20

council. And it's really important

36:23

for them to do that work. And it'll inform

36:25

improving the work that they do for you. So they're only

36:27

available three days a week.

36:28

Yeah. And getting that buy in

36:30

from clients and executives was huge.

36:33

Yeah. The way that you're describing

36:35

that, the way

36:36

that you thought about it, was that it was integral

36:39

to the foundation of the work

36:42

instead of a

36:43

new shingle on the roof of

36:45

the structure. It's not a side project.

36:48

It's something that is totally integrated

36:50

into everything else, yes. And I think the

36:54

times when you get that frustration, when you get that

36:56

burnout, that feeling nothing is happening,

36:58

is when it does feel like

37:00

it's like, oh, your fun little project,

37:03

as if it was superfluous. As

37:05

if it was like planning a birthday

37:08

party, instead of we

37:10

want to change the makeup and the way that

37:12

our organization

37:14

functions. Because if you look at the

37:17

diversity, equity, inclusion, those are foundational

37:20

elements of the way that an organization

37:22

should work. And you can't

37:24

shunt it off into a meeting once

37:27

a month with people who have so much on their

37:29

plates already. Exactly. And with

37:32

this question and the last one, I think of the

37:34

importance of, in a lot of these

37:37

companies, sure, you have a project list

37:39

of things you're trying to achieve in a quarter.

37:41

Why wouldn't this be a part of that list and respected

37:44

just as much? Even though it may be internal

37:46

and doesn't include an external client

37:48

force or anything like that, that still

37:51

has to do with your bottom line. That still has to do

37:53

with your company culture. That still has to do with retention.

37:56

So it being pushed aside for anything

37:59

else.

37:59

And with the second council, we did have that kind of at the

38:02

start. It's like, well, the client like messaged. And

38:04

so I need to drop DEI stuff. And

38:06

as someone who was in leadership to build

38:09

the practice of saying,

38:11

do you want me to talk to your client and tell them

38:13

why you're not available? Because I'm happy

38:15

to do that. And taking that burden off of

38:18

their plate, because they want to do

38:20

a good job for their client. They want to bring

38:22

in that money to their team. And

38:24

so it's really important for managers to

38:27

give them that permission, remind them that

38:30

is important work. And honestly,

38:32

a lot of the client work doesn't matter if we don't do that

38:35

internal stuff because then there's not a company to do

38:37

that work for them. So I think

38:39

our advice for our question asker, Sarah, would

38:41

be that

38:43

instead of thinking about ways

38:45

to like

38:46

energize the existing committee to maybe

38:49

take some time to

38:50

look at

38:51

how the committee is

38:53

integrated into the rest of

38:55

the company, but also the makeup of the committee, how

38:57

people rotate in and out of the committee, how work

39:00

is allocated for those people in the committee. So

39:02

that sort of zoom out look instead of how

39:04

do we fiddle with like,

39:06

I don't know, making sure people have

39:08

like coffee at the beginning of the meeting.

39:11

Like it's not a small fix. It's a big fix. Yeah.

39:14

And I think like little nudges like the example

39:17

of, do you want me as the manager

39:19

to speak up for you or

39:21

the training I did for managers whenever

39:24

we did rotate people on and off was what

39:26

questions can I answer about what that's going to look

39:28

like for your team member? Here are

39:30

the things we expect of a manager to

39:32

allow you to be an advocate for them doing this work.

39:35

We expect you to not add anything additional to their

39:37

plate or

39:37

to at least bring the conversation to the table with

39:40

us so we can find a compromise.

39:42

Are there ways that people can be compensated for

39:45

a short period of time if the workload

39:47

can't be reduced, which I understand

39:50

in this climate, that may be the case,

39:52

making sure that there's a budget just generally,

39:54

yeah, to making sure

39:57

that when quarterly goals are set at the

39:59

executive level.

39:59

that there is representation from

40:02

the councils so that they

40:04

can bring things up from the team and

40:06

be

40:07

a voice there.

40:08

I've never been a fan of just executive teams working

40:11

on company goals. I think there should always

40:13

be other folks at multiple levels

40:15

that are involved, reminding people

40:17

that this is a part of their professional

40:20

development too and that that's something they should

40:22

put on LinkedIn, on their resume, and

40:25

that it could open paths to management

40:28

or principal roles. Like I

40:30

see roles that are like in the leadership

40:32

realm. There's so many different

40:34

ways to talk about this.

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43:46

Our last two questions are about who this kind

43:48

of work belongs to. The first question

43:51

is from Michelle and our colleague, Julia is going

43:53

to read it.

43:54

I'm a marketing consultant who is frequently

43:56

tasked with helping companies often

43:59

in white male-dominated industries

44:01

with a more diverse workforce once you get

44:03

outside of management, develop employment

44:06

content. My clients often

44:08

have limited power in their orgs, but

44:10

they do have unique opportunities to advocate

44:13

for DEI.

44:15

Does it unduly burden diverse employees

44:17

to specifically seek them out to participate

44:19

in marketing efforts or share their stories?

44:22

How can we push for change without tokenizing

44:24

or creating burnout in those who do participate?

44:28

All right, so, you know,

44:30

we brought this up at the beginning about like the example

44:32

of the college admissions brochure and

44:35

how they found the most

44:37

diverse sampling of people that you could possibly

44:39

have that is not necessarily indicative of the

44:41

company as a whole and have those people

44:44

do the work of representing

44:46

the company. What are your general thoughts on

44:48

this?

44:49

I have a lot of thoughts. I guess

44:52

I've sometimes been in that position of will

44:54

you be the voice because of, and

44:57

then the words are not said, but it's sort of insinuated.

45:01

I think to answer their question, yes,

45:04

I do think it's a burden and can be tokenizing,

45:06

but I think there are ways to kind of, again,

45:09

take a step back. I'm a big take a step back

45:11

person. One part is if

45:13

it is, yes, that tokenized group, then let's

45:16

say somebody who is working with them or

45:18

wants to join that company and they suddenly realize

45:21

that what was shared with them

45:23

is not representative of the pool of the

45:25

entire company, that can be really

45:28

jarring and that's a marketing and

45:30

brand issue on its own. But

45:32

I think another part of that is because a lot

45:34

of us are willing to be advocates for

45:37

others, whether they're in the same identities

45:40

as we are or other ones that are maybe looked

45:42

over, that we'll be like, yeah, sure, I'll do

45:44

it. Like this will, representation matters.

45:47

And sometimes it's used against

45:49

people to like representation matters, but then again,

45:51

nothing else is being done beyond that. We've

45:54

hired the person, but then we're not gonna

45:56

support them in their career. So

45:59

I think it's important. to take a step back and I would almost

46:01

say, are there any things that as

46:04

a marketing consultant they can do to

46:07

vet or require of

46:09

the clients that they work with? Asking

46:11

if there are expectations about representation,

46:15

what are they currently doing to support

46:17

those team members so that this better informs the

46:19

stories that they tell? Asking

46:21

that they do have maybe a requirement

46:23

to do so and then refer them to some organizations

46:26

to work with. Even just the step back before

46:28

signing on with them. Let's say

46:30

there's already an ongoing client

46:32

and they're saying we want this, then I think

46:34

it's appropriate to push back and

46:37

say, we're not just going to reach

46:39

out, we want to have this be an open call

46:42

and maybe work together on

46:44

what the end goal is or

46:47

sometimes just saying no and

46:48

not being willing to work with them. But

46:51

I think I've had a few experiences where we've

46:53

done the, hey, to work with us moving

46:55

forward. We're doing some things we have in mind

46:57

and part of that is to protect your employees so

46:59

that we're not exploiting them. Part of that

47:01

is our company's goals and things that

47:04

we want to achieve. And so we're

47:06

really looking for partners that are into

47:08

the same type of work that we're doing and

47:11

being okay to say no, because sometimes that is

47:13

a risk. The other thing that this makes me

47:15

think of is

47:16

the ways in which

47:18

someone's experienced with a company or

47:20

the way that they want to talk about a company.

47:23

It's filtered through so many different identities

47:25

and so many different experiences. Just

47:27

because someone is a person of color doesn't mean that

47:30

they do or they don't want to talk about the company. The

47:32

same way that just because someone's white doesn't mean that

47:34

they want to be a representative of the company. And

47:37

I think about this sort of work, if you're putting yourself out

47:39

there, if you're the person who's like, yeah, I'll

47:41

talk to a prospective new employee,

47:43

I love to glad hand. That's

47:45

also the person who wants to be a mentor.

47:47

And it actually is in some ways setting

47:49

up these pipelines

47:52

of mentorship within the company.

47:54

And so maybe there are people who feel like, yeah, that's a

47:56

skill that I have that I like doing. It

47:59

makes the work meaningful to me.

47:59

And then there are also people who are like,

48:02

no effing way, like this is my

48:04

idea of a nightmare

48:05

to do this sort of thing. And

48:07

so I think you can also really be filtering

48:10

for that willingness component

48:13

as well, instead of just thinking about

48:15

like, oh, well, I only want to look at race

48:17

when I'm thinking about the representation of people in

48:19

the hiring process.

48:20

Right. It goes back to that definition we talked about

48:22

earlier where there's still this like oversimplified

48:25

version of what diversity is and that it

48:28

sits in the binary and the gender

48:30

side or it sits in the race side. And

48:33

so many of your guests have said this, so many people

48:35

in the DEI space have said this is like diversity

48:37

goes way beyond that. There are so many

48:40

physical, visible differences.

48:43

There are also parts of ourselves that

48:45

may not be clear, especially when we're sitting

48:47

in a box and you can't necessarily tell

48:50

on Zoom or Google Hangout what

48:53

somebody's story is. So it also does

48:56

concern me. It's like, how do you seek those people out? Are

48:58

you surveying them beforehand to self-identify?

49:01

Are we making assumptions? And

49:03

again, that goes back to that process that you

49:06

build in partnership with the clients that you

49:08

work with to say, we're going to take a step

49:10

back. We're not going to make assumptions. If

49:12

it is about maybe nominating

49:14

people who are usually quiet at the company

49:17

to be the ones to talk, asking them first,

49:19

asking managers first, who would you nominate

49:21

who you think would be a really great storyteller who

49:24

has not had that opportunity yet just

49:26

because there may be the more quiet person at work.

49:28

There's so many different ways to go about this, but I

49:30

think just directly reaching out

49:34

creates pressure again to

49:36

represent when you may or may not want

49:38

to, when you're tired, when something

49:40

really horrible has happened and you read about it in the news

49:43

and you don't even want to have to show up for work the next

49:45

day, but capitalism, and

49:47

then you're asked on top of that to do

49:49

this extra thing. Are they getting

49:51

time away from their responsibilities

49:54

to then provide

49:56

this work? There's so much more that comes

49:58

into it. And provide

49:59

this work to be clear for the company,

50:02

right? That's the thing is that you are working

50:04

for the company in your capacity of becoming

50:06

a storyteller, becoming an advertiser for your

50:08

company. And I think that it's

50:10

important to return back to that idea

50:12

when we're thinking about your ability to say

50:15

yes or no. So making

50:17

it opt in instead of an opt out

50:19

scenario. Right, exactly. Yeah.

50:22

All right. So our last question is on

50:25

the other side of this equation, and this is

50:27

from Jennifer and our colleague Ashley is going to

50:29

read it for us. Oh, this just gets to the heart of it,

50:31

doesn't it? What was your immediate reaction

50:33

to this question?

50:59

My immediate reaction was that

51:01

I related to it a little bit of,

51:04

oh, no, I hope they're not alienated. And then there's this

51:06

other part of me coming into

51:08

being in this space for six plus years

51:10

of like, why are we worried about alienating

51:13

leadership? Right? There is part

51:15

of it where it's like, I do want to

51:17

protect my job. I don't want this to

51:20

necessarily impact how

51:22

I'm seeing at the company or that it could impact

51:25

me having a job or a performance review or

51:27

a salary review.

51:29

If that's the case, that is very understandable.

51:31

If we're worried about alienating leadership, I have a

51:33

little bit less worry

51:36

about that. And I think there are ways to go about

51:39

it to make it less alienating,

51:41

to show them success stories from other companies,

51:44

to show them examples of other leaders that

51:46

are really doing a great job and that are vocal about

51:48

it, to gather some

51:50

data from like Kapoor

51:54

has a lot of studies of like people leaving tech

51:56

or why people stay at jobs

51:58

impacts of COVID.

51:59

COVID-19, there's a lot of good data out

52:02

there that we can use now and say, here's

52:04

some stuff we can learn from and actually

52:07

do. So

52:08

this is one of those times where I would

52:10

maybe recommend pulling things out from

52:13

your toolkit. So going

52:15

back to a SWOT analysis or

52:17

a competitive market study sort of UX

52:19

perspective, could this work be presented

52:22

in that way and then shared internally?

52:25

I think that makes it when it's like the language

52:27

that the company already knows it makes it a little

52:29

bit easier to enter that, but also

52:31

don't be afraid of alienating. I

52:34

love the point about trying to communicate

52:37

in a language

52:39

that is legible to

52:41

these executives.

52:43

And I think that that makes it so that it

52:45

starts as a conversation, right? You're

52:48

like, here's language that makes you feel comfortable or that

52:51

feels very clear to you instead

52:54

of operating in what I

52:57

often feel that executives

52:59

chafe at, which is the realm of feelings. Or

53:02

that it's abstract in any way because it quote

53:04

unquote can't be measured or it's measured

53:07

differently than how you may track

53:09

something like analytics on a website. Right.

53:12

And I think the real, the easy pushback

53:14

is, oh, that's your experience

53:17

instead of, oh, this is an experience that's

53:19

widespread at the company. So how do you show that? You

53:21

have to, I think, look at that bigger data

53:24

picture in order to communicate.

53:27

What do you think about like that general question

53:29

about whether people of color should be the ones

53:31

doing DEI work or if it's incumbent

53:33

on white people just generally

53:36

to be doing this work themselves? Like

53:39

that's always a hard tension. I think it is a hard

53:41

tension. And I feel

53:43

like I'm in the position as someone who identifies

53:46

as a South Asian in tech

53:48

that I am

53:50

not marginalized in some

53:52

parts of my identity and marginalized in others.

53:54

But the Asian, South Asian

53:57

in tech part is not where I feel marginalized.

53:59

And so I find it really important to

54:02

look back and bring

54:04

others up rather than just,

54:07

this is the path in front of me and I'm gonna get in

54:09

through all the doors and shut the door behind me. But

54:12

at the same time, that is not for every, I mean, I'm doing

54:14

this professionally, so I'm

54:16

gonna be doing this for a while and

54:18

I've managed to find times

54:21

where I am completely burned out or managed

54:23

to look at times where I like currently

54:25

don't wanna be a manager, don't wanna be on a DEI

54:28

council and just want to work on being a

54:30

designer and like reset so

54:32

I can continue to do this work in other ways.

54:35

Yeah. And I think it's important

54:37

to identify those moments. At

54:40

the same time, I do find,

54:43

especially, I understand history

54:45

throughout the world is different, but if

54:48

for a lot of US-based folks, I think

54:51

it is time for white folks to stand

54:53

up and work in partnership

54:56

for the goals or what

54:58

the needs are of marginalized

55:00

folks or maybe not just white

55:02

folks, just anybody in power, I think looking

55:05

at the demographics of the company, looking at

55:07

where the majorities are, where

55:10

the marginalized communities are,

55:12

maybe starting with that survey from an external

55:15

company that can do the anonymous

55:18

identity-based survey here to then

55:20

give you data to work with and then figure out

55:23

where to start. I think it's important for anybody

55:25

in the power of position

55:27

or majority to

55:29

do work. Absolutely. And I loved

55:31

your point about how you

55:34

can feel really passionate about this work.

55:36

Like it is so important.

55:38

That doesn't mean you have to be doing it

55:40

all the time. And that's, we've had

55:42

conversations on the podcast with other hosts about

55:44

like, how do I not burn out of my

55:46

passion job?

55:48

How do I keep doing work that I think is so important

55:51

and so much of it often involves

55:53

rest from that thing?

55:55

And so that can I think include in this capacity,

55:58

like, oh, that's not my...

56:00

a huge component of the work that I'm doing in

56:03

this season of my life right now. You

56:05

can come back to it

56:06

if you need that rest. Yeah. I think

56:08

it's important. I think with a lot of this

56:11

when we hear systemic

56:15

racism or systemic whichever-ism,

56:17

or we just hear institutionalized, it

56:19

can be really overwhelming in

56:22

some ways. Those are important words for

56:24

us to recognize that this has a

56:26

lot of different components to it, and

56:29

that's what I want leadership to learn is it's not a

56:31

checkbox and done.

56:33

You've done this at your company, but when you

56:35

get together with all the other CEOs at some

56:37

CEO summit, are you having those tough conversations

56:39

there too? Or are you just saying, my

56:42

company did great, we're not going to share how we did it? Do

56:44

you feel like they're looking

56:46

at the work that you've done, the reception to your book, like

56:49

where we are right now?

56:51

Can you, as we've talked about in this episode, take

56:53

a step back and think about what

56:55

gives you hope about actual

56:58

systemic change happening? Are things that

57:00

you can see that are hope-giving

57:03

or is it all frustration?

57:05

It depends on the

57:07

day that you ask me. Yes. Where I find hope

57:09

and where I also feel like we can start

57:11

to break down these institutions is

57:14

by looking at one, what we

57:16

are personally capable of. Yeah. One,

57:19

what tools we have in our tool belt

57:21

that we can use, and focus on that thing and do that

57:23

thing as best you can. Because I think if we're

57:25

all trying to

57:27

break down the monolithic

57:29

thing in front of us, it gets really

57:31

overwhelming and it gets really discouraging. But

57:34

if we're in one space and we can make one

57:36

change, I think that's such a start. If

57:38

we're trying to get to the end goal right away, that

57:41

feels a lot harder to achieve. So

57:43

I have hope and encourage

57:46

a lot of folks to try to focus

57:48

on the thing that you can do, that your strength

57:50

is in, and do as much as you

57:52

can in that as openly as you can.

57:55

This has been really wonderful and I'm so grateful

57:57

that you took the time to come and address. these

58:00

difficult questions. If people want to find

58:02

more from you on the internet, where can they find you?

58:05

The best place is samkapila.com.

58:08

But if you really want to get into some of

58:10

the like things you can do in these different spaces,

58:13

a lot of that's going to be in the book, inclusive

58:16

design communities, we put together

58:18

a little coupon code for all the listeners. So

58:20

that coupon code will run from September 6

58:23

to September 20 for 50% off

58:26

the book. And the code is work one

58:28

five, the number one five, like 15.

58:31

So it is 50% off, but the code

58:33

has a one five in it. It's work one

58:35

five. And that's at a book apart.com.

58:38

Amazing, amazing, amazing. Thank you so much.

58:40

Everyone go check out this book. And I hope

58:43

we can have you back on the show again. I would

58:45

love to thank you so much for your time.

58:49

Falls just around the corner. And you know what that

58:51

means. Pumpkin spice, sweater

58:53

weather, and more incredibly

58:56

important elections for abortion rights.

58:59

In Virginia, we've got to maintain a majority

59:01

in at least one chamber of the legislature to

59:03

block the extreme anti-choice agenda.

59:06

Meanwhile, Ohioans will be voting on whether

59:08

to codify reproductive freedom in the state

59:11

constitution. Visit votesaveamerica.com

59:14

to learn more and find out how you can

59:16

get involved.

59:18

Thanks for listening to Work Appropriate. If you

59:21

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59:57

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59:59

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