Hi there. My name is Avil Beckford, and this is the latest episode of the One Problem podcast. There are tons of problems in the world. We will not tackle all of them. We're going to tackle one problem at a time. My very special guest today is Gena Cox, and she was referred to me by one of my Ellevate sisters. Now Gena is an organizational psychologist, executive coach, speaker and author. And on October 11, her book Leading Inclusion came out. I got my copy. I pre-ordered it, but I haven't read it yet. Over to Gena.
Gena Cox
Thank you so very much for having me on your show. It's really an honor to be here. In the work that I do and have done for over 30 years in corporate life, I have advised senior leaders in organizations. And one thing that I learned from those years of experience is that often, top-level leaders don't really understand the experiences of employees in their organizations.
They think they do, but they get such a filtered perspective from the people in their inner circle that they're usually under-informed. And that really came to the fore for me after George Floyd was killed. The conversations about inclusion increased because I could see leaders attempting to do things I knew would not work. And so the big message and problem that I really would love your audience to understand and have some new ideas about is that all efforts that leaders make to drive inclusion and diversity and these different outcomes will typically fail unless they are led from the top.
Gena Cox, Organization Psychologist
Unless leaders recognize that inclusion tops diversity, which I will, of course, explain. And then the third opportunity I think leaders have is to make sure that they pivot from traditional training such as implicit bias training, to behavioral coaching, that will really help leaders understand what they need to do differently.
Gena Cox
So let's talk about these three potential solutions to this big problem that I see in large organizations. In particular, I said we need leaders to lead these conversations from the top. What happens when they don't lead the conversations from the top is that they have people in their organizations who have good intentions?
Sometimes they're called diversity and inclusion professionals. And they're doing the best that they can. But they're lacking a strategy that comes from the top of the organization. So they're taking what I call ad hoc actions. They're doing A, they're doing B, they're trying to see what will stick. And unfortunately, when that happens, they never get the benefit of seeing a strategic benefit from all of this work.
And then people who are the beneficiaries of the work, they don't see any difference. So it's important to lead from the top so that there is a strategy, there is a plan for what are the desired outcomes. So everybody else in the organization can get into lock step and focus on those things and deliver them leading from the top. The second thing that I mentioned as a really big opportunity is that I say inclusion tops diversity.
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And, you know, there's a lot of alphabet soup out there about these issues. Diversity, inclusion, equity, belonging. You know, you've heard about justice and so on. And by the way, I call my model, everybody has to have a model, right? I have one. I call it redee, R-E-D-I. It's a respect first model. The first letter in the acronym R stands for respect. And I did that because if you ever get to read it in my work, you see that is actually the outcome that people like me or people from traditionally underrepresented groups say that they want first.
Gena Cox
So anyway, I say that inclusion tops diversity. And the reason I say that is I see organizations increasing their representation of people from different ethnic groups, races, people with LGBTQ plus status, people with disabilities, and so on. That's wonderful. Those people deserve all those opportunities. But what happens is if you go out and you do this recruiting of people that you have not tried to understand. And you bring them into the organization en masse. What tends to happen is they still have people giving them sideways glances, ignoring them, not including them in critical conversations, not promoting them, not giving them access to training, and so on.
So I say inclusion tops diversity because it is really important that you create a culture in your organization from the very beginning. That's respect first, that says whoever enters our door or our physical door, or a virtual door, at the very least, they will have a certain level of respect. And I'll hold you accountable, manager and leader and colleagues, for always doing that. Because if you have diversity without inclusion, it's like somebody inviting you to a dinner party. And when you get there, you discover there's no place setting for you.
And then the third thing, after May 2020, there was all this focus on implicit bias training. I mean, the words implicit bias training, if you did a Google search, you would be amazed at how often those terms were being searched and still are, because yes, implicit bias is real, but all humans have implicit bias because it's all about the way our brains function. So it's not just certain people in application to certain groups of people. Everybody has this implicit bias weakness because of the way our brains work.
Gena Cox
But that's okay. There's nothing wrong with teaching about implicit bias. But the problem comes when the learning, the training is focused on just awareness and education. Telling people that implicit bias exists. Showing them what it looks like. And giving them examples so that they are aware. That's great. But what is necessary to create the change that we're talking about is that you've got to teach managers what they're doing today that's working. So they know what's working for inclusion. What they're doing is not working, or that is creating a problem. And third, what are the things that they are not doing that they need to do, which usually is what I call they're failing to exhibit 100% leadership?
They're only leading the portion of the population that looks like them or that they understand. And everybody else just has to figure out how they're going to get ahead. So you have to teach managers and leaders what they need to do differently. And there can be implicit bias elements, but behavior change is what we really need. So lead from the top. Inclusion drives diversity. And just make sure that managers are getting the training that can help them change behavior.
Avil Beckford
Thank you so much. I love doing this podcast because every guest is so different, and it's a learning opportunity for all of us, and I appreciate your time. Thank you so much, Gena, it's been.
Gena Cox
A pleasure Avil to be here with you.
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