3 Secrets of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Leadership | Brianna Johnson | TEDxNewAlbany

when I was in fifth grade my family and I lived outside of Little Rock Arkansas and I remember a school assignment from that year that completely changed my life my teacher told us this story of a boy named David odad who was 17 years old during the time of the Civil War now David was found to allegedly be spying on Union troops who were stationed in Little Rock at that time and subsequently he was executed after his death David became known as the boy martyr of the Confederacy so for our assignment we were instructed to

conduct a research project based on this story we had to then write out The Narrative of the story in our own words draw the illustrations sewed together the pages of the book to form the binding glue those pages to a hard cover and then cover the hard cover with a fabric of our choosing as I began working on this assignment I couldn't help but notice that something just didn't quite feel right I had read about the Civil War and I knew that the Confederate soldiers in part were fighting to keep my ancesters enslaved while the

Union soldiers were fighting in part to set them free so for me to write a story that was honoring the Martyr of the Confederacy it just felt like my identity in my Heritage weren't being fully taken into consideration I felt like I was in some ways excluded from being able to fully participate in this assignment so what I did in response was I used the fabric as my way to enter into this assignment I chose this fabric that you see here for its colors and designs and shapes and patterns that reminded me of African and

africanamerican culture in history I didn't know it at the time but this was one of my earliest memories being faced with an organizational practice that left me feeling on the margins and I realized that as I continued in school I wasn't the only student to feel this way I remember a time during my senior year of high school talking with some friends and we were discussing that it seemed odd to us that our school wasn't quite doing anything to celebrate the upcoming Dr Martin Luther King Jr holiday it was really going to be another day

business as usual classes were going to be in session there weren't any schoolwide celebrations or anything like that so my friend Jamie and I we decided to take matters into our own hands a little bit and we talked with our school administrator to see what we could do and we decided that together we would plan our High School's first ever Black History Month schoolwide assembly and that's exactly what we did Jamie and I contacted some Community organizations and we invited performers and musicians and singers and we even invited some African drummers and dancers all to

our high school gym and we invited all of the students and all of the teachers and everyone came and to top it all off Jamie and I did a poem recitation of Maya angelus's Still I Rise and at the end of that school year Jamie and I were the two student winners of our high school's impact award and we were also listed in our local newspapers 18 under 18 list that recognized the city's brightest and most ambitious young people at the time time I learned from that experience that by collaborating with others and by using

my voice that I could have an impact on an organization and that that impact could then Ripple out into the community now I don't share these stories with you to suggest that there is anything inherently wrong with my schools in fact I truly loved learning and my schools really were places that nurtured that but in this era that we're in in society many organizations not just schools but also colleges and universities businesses and nonprofits and even communities as a whole continue to Grapple with these questions around race and around diversity equity and inclusion as a

chief diversity officer and as someone who has conducted my own research on diversity equity and inclusion I've had a chance to talk with people from all while walks of life about these very issues and questions whether it be a parent who asks me how they should talk with their three-year-old about race or whether it be a police officer who asks me how they can be a part of this solution perhaps the top question that I get from people is this how can I Advance diversity equity and inclusion in my organization and community and my response

to that is through diversity equity and inclusion or Dei leadership now let's break that down just a little bit shall we we all know that leadership is very important to organizations and in fact research tells us that leadership can play a huge role in things like culture and values employee motivation and even organizational performance and diversity equity and inclusion are also very important to organizations McKenzie and Company they released a report that detailed the findings of a study and this study included over 1,000 large companies from around the world and part of the findings show

us that for companies who ranked in the top tier for diversity in terms of gender and ethnicity these companies also had above average PR profitability especially when this diversity was in their executive teams so putting these together we get the idea of Dei leadership now I Define that as the ability to guide and influence others towards achieving diversity equity and inclusion goals and the beauty of it is that anyone can be a Dei leader now there are three important components of Dei leadership and the first one is this understand your context now this really is

about understanding your organization and your community and what's important to it and then understanding exactly how diversity equity and inclusion fits into that and then spreading that message broadly let me give you an example from my research I conducted a study where I talked to 19 diversity equity and inclusion leaders who worked in a higher education cont context now these were individuals who did things like run Dei workshops or manage programs that supported students from underrepresented and historically marginalized backgrounds or who did things like serve on Dei task forces and committees I wanted to understand

what their experiences were what their challenges and successes were and ultimately how was it that they were able to advance diversity equity and inclusion one of the administrators ERS that I spoke with let's call them Jay told me about their their experiences increasing the number of gender inclusive bathrooms on campus at first Jay told me that he wasn't really getting a lot of traction on this particular issue because there were many colleagues on campus who didn't quite understand exactly why this was needed so what Jay decided to do was talk with some students about how

this was affecting their experience and through those conversations Jay learned that students were having to travel out of the way to find a restroom that they were comfortable with in between classes that meant that they left class walked the opposite direction and then walked back the other way to get to their next class and this was a fairly large campus and so having to do that had a significant impact it meant that when they got to class they were frazzled and out of breath and not quite in the best place to learn so Jay shared

this information with with his other colleagues and guess what over time it worked in Jay's own words he said I made it a Student Success issue people responded so what Jay did was he helped others in his organization understand that by working on this diversity equity and inclusion issue they would be able to also help to advance the overall organizational goals the second component if you want to be a Dei leader is to build meaningful relationships especially with people who are different from you now this is important for two reasons it helps us with problem

finding and problem solving so when you talk to someone in your organization or your community who has a different experience from you about their experiences in your community or organization then you really get a much more nuanced understanding of how your organization and Community functions and that also helps you to understand exactly where you need to Target your Dei efforts and on the other hand with problem solving as we saw in the story with Jay many times Dei efforts require collaboration with many people and sometimes collaborating with people who don't fully understand what diversity equity

and inclusion is all about or maybe they do support Dei but they may not understand the particulars of that particular issue that you're working on and so building relationships and having conversations is a great way to provide that education so that they can get on board let me give you another example from my research I talked to another administrator let's say their name is Tai and Tai managed a tutoring and academic support program on campus that was housed within the Dei office now Tai ran into some issues where he was getting questions from others on

campus who also ran tutoring and academic support report centers outside of the Dei office and they were asking why is it that we need a tutoring center over here when we already have some in other places so Tai decided to build relationships with him and have conversations and explain to them that students really did need a place to get academic help where they felt fully seen for all of their identities and where they felt they could be very vulnerable because when they're most vulnerable that's when they're able to ask the questions that they really need

to be asked so over time Tai was able to collaborate with the other colleagues who also ran tutoring centers and this meant that students had multiple options of where they could go and get academic help and overall this led to students having even better grades and better Student Success outcomes the third and final component of Dei leadership is maintaining an unwavering sense of hope now many of the Dei leaders that I spoke with they shared with me that even though there were definitely times where their Dei efforts maybe weren't quite moving as fast as they

wanted to or maybe they experienced some challenges along the way that they were able to maintain Hope by watching the students that they worked with and seeing them flourish on campus and then seeing them graduate and go off and do amazing things once they left for me my sense of hope it comes from reflecting on my own undergraduate experience at my institution there was a dynamic administrator by the name of by the name of James E McCloud now Dean McLoud was in my view the quintessential example of a Dei leader and Dean McLoud is sadly

no longer with us but his legacy of knowing Everyone by name and by story continues to live on now at my institution Dean McLoud served as the dean of the College of Arts and sciences and as the vice Chancellor for students at the same time and from this prominent position on campus Dean McLoud saw the need for a special program that served students who were dedicated to diversity equity and inclusion and who were dedicated to serving their Community I had a chance to be a part of this program all four years and it truly felt

like a family I I remember the relationships I remember the mentorship and the advice rising and feeling fulfilled and being able to get academic help but also social support and all kind of holistic support and in reflecting on that for the first time in my undergraduate experience and in my educational Journey as a whole I no longer had to carve out a space for myself because Dean McLoud and other Dei leaders had done that work for me so all I had to do was be a college student and it's that experience that gives me hope

today because I know that this is possible and I know what it feels like to be a recipient of that so as we all think about all the organizations and communities that we're a part of I invite us to all consider embracing these three strategies of Dei leadership imagine what it would be like if we all decided to understand our context and to understand exactly how Dei fits into that imagine what it would be like if we all decided to get to know people who are different from us and imagine what it would be like

if we all decided to maintain an unwavering sense of hope even when things get a little bit tough I believe that if we did that we would be able to bring diversity equity and inclusion from the margins of our organizations and communities to the center and when we do that we bring people from the margins of our un of our universities and our institutions and our communities to the center of those things and when people are at the center and when they feel included that is when they are best positioned to give their resources and

ideas and skills and talents and those are the things that make our organization strong and they also make our communities that much richer so let's all embrace the idea of Dei leadership and create a better world we can create a world where not another person has to carve out a space for themselves and together we can all rise thank [Applause] you