Diya Khanna- The Importance of Community within DEI-iGfDhV39jcU-192k-1644464357206.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe

Sacha Thompson is a respected and certified DEI coach. For the next 30 minutes, we'll get an exclusive look at some of her conversations with others in the field. Welcome to DEI After 5.

Hello, everyone, and welcome DEI After 5. I am absolutely excited. I'm thrilled to have this conversation today. As many of you know, when I left corporate, one of my last roles was in a global role and having to look at DEI from a global perspective. And so one of the people that I worked very closely with was on my team, but with someone that I also respected in this space because that global perspective is so important. And so today, we are going to have a conversation with one of my favorite practitioners, Diya Khanna. Welcome, Diya.

Thank you so much, Sacha. And yes, lots of memories from being on the same team together and absolutely sharing the same respect. Back to you as a global practitioner. So excited for this conversation.

Thank you. So let's just dive right in. Right. So we've had several conversations about this. And as we're having more and more organizations talk about diversity, equity and inclusion, it's been very much this US framed space. Right. This is lens. Talk to us a little bit about where organizations could be missing the boat a bit, for lack of a better term, when it comes to DEI in a global context.

Yeah. I think this is an interesting trend that we're seeing in DEI. We've seen it. We'll continue to see it. And it's something you and I relate on, that there's so much there's a wealth of knowledge and experiences that we have from all different parts of our lives. And some of them is where we're from, perhaps where our communities are from, where our families are from. And for a long time, not being from the US myself, I've seen us place a lot of emphasis on the US way of doing things, which is great. But there's so much more that we can add to the conversation, such as what's happening in Europe, what's happening in parts of Asia Pacific, even in the Latin American countries. And I'm really eager for us to start leading with those learnings and tapping into a place of humility where we say we may not have all the answers, but we have a shared curiosity that can allow us to embark on this work together.

Yeah. I think one of the AHA's that we had in doing this work was just even the simple framing of pronouns. Right. And we had our pronoun pins, and we were all excited about these pronoun pins. And then you go into a Latin American country and they're looking at you like, what? Because it's such a gendered language and "they/them" just does not translate as far as pronouns. Right. And so it's going into this global being US based companies doing DEI work from a global context, but not taking that global perspective into consideration. I'm starting to see so many companies doing that, like they have good intentions. But yeah, it's just kind of missing the whole being seen, heard value piece. Right. We're there, but not necessarily. You're not listening to us. You're not hearing us. You don't understand or have the cultural competency to know what this looks like here.

Yes. And what you're saying is something that relates to the entire DEI industry. I think we both agree that when we make decisions or design solutions without people at the table that have those experiences, it's not a complete process. So for us to really do this work from a place of authenticity, but also taking these opinions and experiences into consideration, we need people that have lived those realities there that can speak and even challenge us. Challenging each other is not a weakness. It's a strength, and it allows us to create better products and services and solutions. I really stand behind that. Like you said, there's no one way of doing things. Life is more complex than that. It's more nuanced than that. So leading with that is so important in the work that we do.

Yeah. And it just reminds me some of the challenges that I hit in doing this work was having people in some of these diversity roles outside of the US, but still not necessarily having the historical lens of what DEI looks like within that context. So, for example, doing work in France and talking about racism. Right. And how do we address racism in France? And then the people that we're working with.They're like, oh, well. That'S not an issue here. Right. That's a US issue. And I was like, okay, well, let's talk about ethnicity. Right. Let's talk about the cultural differences and nuances and how colonization. Right. My word is getting mixed up today shows up in that space.Right.And it's a different mindset. And so many people aren't ready to have some of those deeper conversations get to the root of the problem. Right. It's like, oh, we could just talk about gender. Let's talk about you can't even talk about sexual orientation in some places. Right. And so how do we as practitioners with global lenses, start to have some of those conversations when people aren't necessarily ready to even admit that there's a problem?

Yeah. It's a challenge because there is no one right way. But I think that understanding that we don't have all the answers and leading with that curiosity can really take us down that path. What I find interesting also is as an immigrant to the US, there's a degree of learning that I have to commit to. And there's a narrative that I've been told for a lot of my life that white is at the top and black is at the bottom. And immigrants have this space that we take up in the middle and we can either buy into the whiteness or we can move away from the blackness. And I think that we need to purposely counter that narrative and create a more promising and healthy progression ourselves, which say collectively and globally. We are also facing a lot of the same challenges. Racism is all over the world. The effects of colonialism are all over the world. The residual effects, for example, the caste system. We continue to see this as migration patterns continue. And we need to continue having these conversations and learning from the US, but also having the US learn from what's been happening elsewhere.

I think that you just hit on something. It's having the US learn from other places. Right. Because in so much of this work and talking to other practitioners, talking to other organizations, they're like, the US is leading in this space. And I'm like, yeah, and the US has a lot to learn right? There's this sense of, yes, we are leaders, but it's almost the blind leading the blind to some degree, because there's yeah, we talk about South Africa and apartheid and what was done there. But there's so many lessons learned in just admitting fault and what that looks like and how you can shift systems to fix problems that were built in systemically. And so it's that admitting piece that I think the US struggles with.

I so agree with that. You and I went to South Africa to get to work. And when you just turn on the television, I noticed that there was a conversation, a forum of people from different industries, and they were talking about post-apartheid and what that looks like and what that should look like, and that critical conversation. I wonder if people in the US may think that's uncomfortable, but the more frequently we have these conversations and the more ease with which we speak about them can allow us to tap into getting into solutions. And we have a lot to learn from South Africa, just like South Africa has a lot to learn from us. But sharing those best practices, it can take us to a place where we can really continue to do this work towards a place where we're actually arriving at solutions. Sometimes I wonder if we're spinning our wheels a little bit. Another thing I want to add, Sacha, that I find interesting, and I wonder how you feel about this. Is there's a lot of emphasis on the US, on individualism, and if we see success as how you are doing or I am doing, that may be great for you and I. But there's a third piece there, which is how we're doing as a society, how we're doing as a nation, how we're doing as a member of this wider global collective. And that's something that I would love to see us start doing is are we beginning to solve global challenges such as anti blackness and coming out of this global pandemic? How are we part of that unit? And how are we going to creatively arrive at those solutions.

You just touched on something that my mind has been playing around with for months now. Right. So some of the work that I do now, we talk about one of the aspects of American culture or US white male culture or even just male culture in some instances in global context. Is that rugged individualism, right. It's the Marlboro Man. It's John Wayne. I'm going to conquer the frontier by any means necessary and pull myself up from the bootstrap. But when you look at black and Brown communities, they're so community centric. Right. It's not about the individual. It's about how do we pull each other together? Like how do we come together and help each other rise as one? And it's absolute conflict in that. And so if US corporate culture is based on rugged individualism, yet you have communities that are built around this collective idea of work and value and strength, there's always going to be conflict. And I think that there's so much that can be learned from that community based mindset. Right. And I try to do it in the work that I do now is, okay, who can I pull in? Who can I get to be a part of this as I'm rising? Who can I pull up to be a part of that, too, versus, oh, I'm doing this. And so I'm going to do this and put myself in the spotlight. And even the folks that have helped me get there, I'm not going to acknowledge because that's their job. Right. It's a very different mindset. And I think as we do this DEI work, I'm starting to see it in our industry as well, too.

Yes. If you saw me, I agree with what you're saying. I'm sure you've heard this, too, that one of the most effective things we can do is take rest. Right. And the other really effective thing we can do as DEI practitioners is sustain and foster community, because then we can't be identified as a single person who may have an opinion that somebody can counter. We are a collective, and that means that we stand behind each other, we support one another even throughout history. One of the most powerful ways that we've brought down, perhaps like systems of oppression, is through community. It's through collective, it's through uplifting one another. So I stand behind you firmly that if we continue to do this work together, that's where we really see the opportunity for change and development in the industry towards a place of promise and opportunity. So I'm really excited about that.

Yeah. You just hit on something like not too long ago I did a four day lab with some clients, and it was this, AHA, moment of this one gentleman in the group who was a white male, who said, I came into this thinking about how does this work impact my day. Right. And thinking about that. And then as we went through the four days. He said, my world shifted because then I was thinking, okay, how does this work impact what I say to my children? How does this work impact my community? How does this work impact how we vote and all of these things? And it made him realize that it wasn't just about him being a rugged individual. It really was about thinking about how this one thing that I can do can impact so many other people that he had. I'm sitting there watching his wheels turn right, and he's just like, it just clicked for me that this isn't just about work. This isn't just about this nine to five. This is about life and not just my life, but the life of the people that I claim to care about. Yes. And I think those are the moments that we need to have and as practitioners, it's how do we take care of each other and the decisions that we make. Right.

What you experienced and this person, that's the power of DEI. It's shifting from the problem solving to the opportunity. When we begin to see and think outside those boxes, the compartmentalizing, the checkboxing towards how we can do and create and innovate and share. I think that's the really exciting part about this work that we're going to see a lot more of, hopefully in 2022 where we're not just there to put out fires, we're there to actually create sustainable, exciting, opportunistic solutions. Let's start leading, right? Once we start developing that collective and we start taking that mindset dismissing of the savior complex where we're just here to save people, if we start opening these doors or creating these access points, which we have been doing. But if we continue doing that, I think we're really going to get to a place where DEI is one of the top leading industries that people want, not because they're facing somebody said the wrong thing, but like, it's actually a critical part of their business model. It's a part of their organization, it's a part of their vision for the future. That's what I really look forward to.

You hit on something around the saviourism. Right? Because that's a conversation that I've been having with folks a lot. But I'm doing this work. We've donated to all of these places. And I'm like, okay, so let's take money off the table. What else are you doing? How are you changing systems? How are you impacting the most marginalized without money? And that stumps so many people because they're like, oh, but we're giving money. That's resources. But that's not the only resource that we have. And so when you talk about driving systemic change, it's like, how are you dismantling inequitable systems? When you start thinking about that, then there's the conversation around, okay, well, somebody's going to miss out. Well, people have been missing out. Yeah, right. So that shouldn't be the issue because people have been missing out. How do you create a system where no one is missing out. Right. The most marginalized are now being centered in what's happening. And that doesn't mean that the majority is going to miss out or the majority is going to lose out. It just means more people now have access.

Absolutely.

And so.It's a total mindset shift that needs to happen. But the flip side of that and you and I have both seen this is many of the people that are in decision making roles and positions are still in that mindset of someone's going to miss out.

Yeah. The scarcity mindset. Right. Scarcity is there's only space for one. And if it's going to be anyone, it's going to be me or somebody like me. Whereas the abundance mindset is there space for everybody. I mean, kind of like when you're creating a scalable company where it creates more jobs. So if we share that piece of what DEI is, then hopefully we start bringing along more people that support this work. And it's interesting that you talk about money because I often share this with my family and my friends that there's money and there's wealth, right?

Yeah.

Money is a part of wealth, but another part of wealth is your network. It's your resources. And that's what people that are underrepresented really need access to. We need access to the wealth where we can create, where we can share barrier free. Often when I think about DEI work, the way I also think about it is you want to do two things at once. We want to create the opportunities, but we also want to dismantle the barriers. So someone's like a gear shift, you want to do both, and then you create these pathways where we're really left up to our own work ethic. Right. And what we create out of that can be incredible, but we just need the barrier free, opportunity uplifting environment to do. So. I wanted to add that again, coming back to the immigrant piece, a lot of immigrants come to the US with this promise of the American dream, and you can be anything you want to be. And we're very quickly shifted into and I saw the book behind you. It's an amazing task where you are told, okay, there's actually a preexisting invisible ladder and this is your place within it. And I want to hold my own community accountable, too, to say we're not really wealthy. If we are getting those resources ourselves, we have to bring other communities along. And some of us are more locked into this invisible caste system than others. And that's just a call to action that I wanted to bring into this conversation that I hope more immigrants, more Brown folks like myself of the South Asian community are starting to see that it's our responsibility to use our mobility within this caste system to also dismantle the oppression that were there before we got there. We are pivotal in this work as well and turning a side eye and saying, oh, I'm just going to focus is not really doing our part. Right.

It's not my problem.

Exactly. We need to dismantle of that and start having these critical conversations and seeing where they go

As we have talked over the past couple of years. Especially the last few months. Right. We had George Floyd and Ahmad Aubrey and Brianna Taylor and all of these things that kind of happened right around the same time. And we had some conversations around how tired like, that was the one word that just kept coming up, like how tired we were. And it clicked for me because we were also still in a pandemic. And so it's like you're dealing with this pandemic, you're dealing with just all of these shifts. This racial unrest happens. And within the corporate space, we became essentially frontline. Right. The front line workers of, okay, how do we fix this? How do we put a bandaid on this cancer? Right. And me, I was just like, look, I'm out. I can't deal with the foolishness, because what I was seeing was just that, let's put bandaids on this cancer. Let's not think about or talk about how we are causing the harm, but let's talk about there's harm. Right. That's happening out there, but turning a blind eye to what's happening internally. And so, as you know, we were having some of these conversations and we realized like, okay, we're tired. It was a struggle. And so now that I'm kind of like on the other side of this, one of the things that I've started to incorporate has been or I realized was important to me in this space is how do I take care of myself? Because so much of this work, so many people that are practitioners are feeding in and helping and supporting others. They're supporting leaders that want to say and do the right thing, but have their own learnings to do so that's kind of a double conversation that's happening there. They're having to meet goals. Right. Because all these companies came out with all these goals that they wanted to accomplish. All of a sudden they were now important. And so these are the same people that have to now meet these goals. And you're now dealing with those folks that within the organization are the most marginalized that are feeling the impacts and needing that. And so it's like you're running triage. Right. They're just doing all of these things and not taking care of self. And so I wanted to talk to you about what does that impact like? What does that look like? Because we can both share that it wasn't just a physical tired.

Right.

Talk to me a little bit about that.

Yeah. This is a very near and dear issue, I think, to both of our hearts and many others. I'm so glad you brought it up. So appropriate for DEI After 5 because I think this is something that

I have my wine for today.

Exactly. So I think people like yourself really have taught people like me. And I hope people like me are teaching others that fatigue is not weakness, it is not failure. It is us being at the receiving end of systems that weren't designed for us. And so experiencing that within community means that we have that cushion. And I highly advocate for that. Find the people that uplift, you find the hobbies and do it unapologetically for. Every person that engages in that piece of healing or that piece of taking that time and does it without saying, sorry, that's giving somebody else that ticket to do the same that needs it. And then I also think, Sacha, there's a practical piece to this. Like, one thing I've been talking about with a couple of other really powerful practitioners, including yourself, is how do we come up with a code of ethics that maybe DEI functions behind so that we're not tied to our employer, so that we're doing this work from a place of not having to defend it all the time. These are the principles of the work, and we stand behind it as a collective. So I think that there's different pieces to this. And then another piece I wanted to add is often people that are looking to this work, and I just posted about this recently are asking for three things, and they're unreasonable. One of them is high quality. So that's reasonable. Yes. Doing it quickly and then doing it at a low cost. But they expect us as DEI practitioners, to deliver on all three. And what I struggle with is we're going to continue to burn out as an industry, employers themselves, people that are looking for this work. And we know by now that this work is so important, we need to compromise on how this work is being done. Are we upholding DEI practitioners? Are we prioritizing their mental health? Are we understanding the impact that it has on them? A great piece that I saw somebody do recently is in the amount that they were offering a DEI practitioner, they offered a line that was for the emotional labor. And I thought, you know what? We deserve that because we are doing work for the world, not just for an employer. We're creating a different way of doing things. So with that comes compensation, like financial compensation, but also the compensation that comes for our healing and our time and our health. So I think you and I are very aligned on this. And I invite others to come in this journey unapologetically prioritize your health and well being. And let's make this the norm going into 2022. Yeah.

So what do you do to fill your cup?

Well, conversations like this are one of them. And also, like yourself spending time with family and really reconnecting with my values. That's something that when I do wake up I feel better and in those moments when I feel misaligned or disconnected I take the time and I do so from a place of this is what I need and it will allow me to perform better. So whatever that looks like for me I'm sure in some cases it's similar to what it looks like to you but having these conversations is one of them. So thank you thank you so much for creating the space for us to express ourselves holistically and fully so that we can heal while we do this work.

Thank you. I think it's Audra Lorde that said self care is not selfish or something to that extent and I really believe that especially in this space what are the things that we need to do to fill our cup? Yes, mine is filled with right now but sometimes it is taking time away with family and reconnecting sometimes often for me it's aromatherapy. I have some essential oils behind me right now. Sometimes it's just taking a walk in the middle of the day and so doing those things that allow you to just fill yourself up so Diya, I want to thank you so much for this conversation today. We can always just jump on and talk about anything especially in this space because there's just so much to be done. So thank you for being with us.

I want to thank you too. I think that what you've created here is a space for us to continue to develop this work so not just function where we are but see how this work can be done and bringing our ideas together and bringing the practitioners together and leading with your principles and values has been really motivating. So thank you in return and thank you to everybody who's listened and we would love to learn from you just in the spirit of innovation and collective.

Thank you all so much for joining us today. Truly honored to have been part of the this conversation and we will see you on our next episode. Have a good one.