So that’s the first thing. The second thing is they, these folks are scrappy. They don’t shy away from risk, and at the end of the day, entrepreneurship is about betting on yourself. And so it’s a challenge, it’s easier said than done. But I think folks that say, you know what, I trust myself to figure this out good, bad, or ugly, those are the traits I’ve seen with myself and my entrepreneurial friends. The other thing I’ll say in terms of success is like, you know, entrepreneurship. It’s a long game. This is not short-term. I know we’re used to the Zuckerberg and all of these, like rags to riches stories. And in 18 months, so-and-so did $2 million, you know, but it’s really a long-term, it’s a marathon only the race will be won by neither the swift, right, nor the quick, right. Well, don’t let me get the scripture going, but those of us who can endure to the end, the ups, the downs. Pivot, not be so married to your idea that you’re willing to throw it out back, take it out back and shoot it and then start again. Those are the entrepreneurs in my network that I look up to. And even myself, I think have been pretty successful.

Donald04:29

That is really powerful, connected to the why. And I’m going to carry that with me, because there is a lot of ups and downs when you create a business and once you go live, whether it’s a product, whether it’s a service, what have you, the market tells you where you may or may not need to change.

A lot of people are emotionally attached to their first game plan, versus the end state, the why they’re doing it. One of the things that I try to encourage entrepreneurs that I work with and remind myself is if you keep the impact, you’re trying to make in mind. How you get there maybe different than you understood but you get there, right?

That moment that meaning that you’re chasing is still there.

Dr Brandi05:11

Yeah. I love what you’re saying there. And it just reminds me of like a couple of things, you know, one is when you think about you know, being an entrepreneur or working a nine to five or whatever it is, you know, your identity can’t be caught up in what you’re doing, who I am and what I do is two different things. And once I got clear that I’m Brandi, regardless. Take Dr. Brandi off, take my companies off, take accolades and all that stuff away. I’m still worthy. I’m still okay. I’m still amazing. Either way you cut it, you know, and it’s those aspects of who I am before I launch into any of this stuff that makes me special.

You know, that just is the icing on that. So I think when your identity gets caught up in your day job or in your entrepreneurship, it can really trip you up because you will mistake a business failure or a learning opportunity or learning moment with like something being wrong with you. Yeah, that’s all.

Donald06:03

That’s a, but that’s actually a big, a big statement, a big piece of advice and learning in whether you’re an entrepreneur or there’s somebody that’s listening. That’s an executive, somebody that’s an emerging leader within your company, right? That per-fake-tion is something that we all deal with. Right? And then the second piece I want to talk about is just that mental health and that understanding of where you are as an individual. As a leader, and as I grew up in business, Hard-charging former athlete, all of that good stuff. Leaders now have to be connected with the whole person of the people that they lead.

Dr Brandi06:37

Absolutely

Donald06:37

My question is what advice would you give people that grew up in a different environment of leadership, that grew up in a different command and control area of leadership?

Leave that personal stuff at home, do your job, this is what I pay you for, that are now being asked to think more holistically about their employees in a different way. What advice would you give to those leaders that are struggling with that transition?

Dr Brandi07:04

Sure. I think the first thing is kind of reconnecting with what leadership is, right?

Leadership to me, is about your character over your title. It’s how you make people feel when you interact with them. It’s acknowledging them as a real person. It’s not using your title and flaunting your title to behave or show up in some different way. Right? So when you are a leader at work, you really should be yourself.

You know, you may have to set more boundaries, but it should be an extension of the core who you are. And I think a lot of these leaders that may be used to that command and control environment, or just taught that way. You know, keep that boundary, you know, we’re not here to be friends. And things like, well, you don’t have to be friends, but you can be personable.

And I think if you trust yourself as a leader, to be able to set boundaries with people to be direct, but also respectful, you know, like there’s such a fine line there where I think some leaders get caught up and I think the first step is like giving themselves permission to redefine what leadership means for themselves and starting with their character.

And it’s your brand. You know, I talk a lot about people developing their leadership brand. And at the end of the day, you have to make sure that your communication, you know, economic data shows that if you’re a great communicator, you actually will earn more over your lifetime. Like, it, they’re literally is specific practical exchange value in being an amazing communicator and not in this kind of “cast the vision for your team,” like sort of way. It’s, it’s literally being able to adapt your communication. If you know that Donald really prefers straightforward communication, he likes his feedback on the spot, he doesn’t want you to wait for that annual review or whatever, adapt to that. If there’s someone else who, you probably need to set a meeting with them, because if you give them feedback just on the spot, it may throw them off. Are you able to adjust? So communication’s first in conflict is the second, your conflict management skills as a leader is important.

And so when you’re thinking about leadership, may sound negative, but I always think of it from when things are not going well. Right? Like we don’t have to talk about leadership and like the ideal environment where you have buy in, in this, and everyone’s on the same page. Like we need to be training on leadership for the opposite, because what we find is when the going gets tough in our workplaces, the leadership character goes out of the door a lot of times.

And so we need someone to do the, the tough thing. And the hard thing, but I think the first step, just to answer your original question is redefine what leadership is and understand that character needs to be at the core of, of you operationalizing that, you know, for yourself.

Donald09:32

One of the things, and one of the reasons I really enjoy doing these podcasts is I end up with a page full of notes and the MPA on the hustle.

You know what I mean? Like, and you said a couple things that I just want to extend for our audience. Right? Give yourself permission to redefine what leadership is for you. And a lot of leaders, haven’t done that in a while. What they have done in the past, move them up the ladder. And there hasn’t been that realization, right.

That the ladder is now moved. Right? And then there’s a different journey that’s at stake. I was talking to a leader, billion dollar firm, and doing some executive coaching with them, and one of the things we talked about it’s super simple. And I said, let me tell you a couple of things you’re probably doing, and you let me know if I’m wrong.

Right. And he was like, OK. You know, we’re playing a little game. He was like, all right. You know? And I said, you’re probably emailing your team after hours, and on weekends. He would be like, “yeah…” You probably don’t ask your team questions. But when you’re in staffing meetings, you tell team what you expect before you let them speak.

“I have to set the stage, I’m the leader.” I said, no, I’m not finished that. He said, “but I’m two for two. Right?” He was like, “yeah.” I said, third, you think you’re super personable? “Well, I am, I have great people skills.” I said, okay, now here’s, here’s some problems and opportunities: one, no, one’s going to tell you the full truth as a leader.

Dr Brandi10:56

Correct.

Donald10:57

And so the reason he thought he had amazing people skills, is because people parrot it back, what he thinks of himself back to him. And it took some internal reviews, right. To show them otherwise. The second, and I, and I lived this and then I have a question. I lived this, we thought, I thought, if I sent you an email at two o’clock in the morning, you didn’t have to read it.

I don’t expect I, it just was on my mind. So I just wanted to get it to you. So you were ready. Instead of being other centered in saying any interrupt from the boss or somebody in power creates stress, anxiety, different emotions. And so as we opened up and then here’s my, here’s my question. How do you help leaders be more self-aware? This individual has the ability, the wherewithal and his company has the money, right? To hire me as an executive coach or other folks, but all leaders or companies don’t have that disposable dollars to help their leader grow and develop. How would you help leaders be more self-aware, if they want to, but they don’t have the ability to hire $500 an hour, $400 an hour executive coach?

Dr Brandi12:05

I was going to say something that you just said, you said if they want to. I was going to start there. Okay. You like, you can become more self-aware when you decide that you’re ready to get feedback, that you’re ready to actually change. And so, you know, I really love the value of an ‘iron sharpens iron’ mentality that leaders just have to have. If your identity and how you see yourself is so fragile, they, you can’t receive feedback about how people are perceiving you.

And here’s the thing you have to know the difference between who you are and how people are perceiving you. I always tell, you know, and share that with leaders who I’m speaking with, because your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room, that’s how you can boil down what your brand is.

And so, as you get feedback from people about how they’re perceiving you, how you’re showing up, what they would say, if Donald asked, tell me about Bob. You know, if a doctor Brandi asks, tell me about what are the first three things they would say. When you hear that feedback, what tripped a lot of leaders up is that the “I’m not like that at all.”

“This isn’t me. It doesn’t represent me.” Well, that’s fine. That’s why we’re trying to figure out the perception gap. So you’re somehow in the period of time, couple hours every week that you’re engaging with your team, this is how you’re coming across. And this is how they are perceiving you. The great thing is we can all control our brands as professionals and as leaders.

So what changes do you need to make? What attributes do you wish they said? And what do those attributes look like in action? “Oh, I want to be seen as resourceful. I want to be seen as personable and respectful or inclusive.” Okay. Well, what does that look like in the staff meeting and how you manage the communications after hours and on weekends or during the day and how you manage your team, you know?

And so if they are willing, number one. Number two, you know, the self-awareness sometimes, sometimes you need others to tell you, you have spinach in your teeth. And so the whole concept of the 360 review and that feedback and whatever tool that you choose, I think is necessary. And then just pushing through that kind of emotional barrier, through that self-sabotage, where you’re so focused on the details of what people are saying about you, that you can’t press forward to change.

And here’s the thing with leaders, and I think high-performing entrepreneurs leaders as individuals, you have to not care what people say about you. Like to the point that it stops you from moving forward. Like there’s a part of me, I value certain people’s opinions who are in my network, who are around me to hold me accountable.

Outside of that, one person that sees me on the Donald Thompson podcast and hates this interview is not going to shake my entire identity and being, because in order to be a leader, you have to be willing to not be liked. You can be a very effective leader and have everyone not like you, but they can respect you and you can treat others with respect.

So many different ways we can take it. But I think that self-awareness piece has to do with exactly what you said, making a choice. If you’re willing and you go, “okay, here we go. Here we go down the rabbit hole. Go ahead and give me some feedback.” If you can really take that on the chin, turn it into a positive and take control of what you can control, which is how you show up, you’ll be A-OK and the rest will kind of fall into place.

Donald15:12

Thank you for your Ted talk.

Dr Brandi15:22

Let’s pass the collection plate around while we’re at it as well.

Donald15:27

That was really good. And I was just checking off the questions that I had, but you were hitting on different things. And I think we won’t do it today, maybe another time, but I feel like I could talk leadership with you for hours and learn, and grow. I want to be thoughtful of your time and our audience’s time.

I want to move the conversation to what is certainly a macro topic today in corporate American, our world, and it’s diversity, equity and inclusion. And I’m going to move to a hotspot question to see how you answer it.

Dr Brandi15:59

Okay.

Donald16:00

A lot of times I’ll talk with leaders. I’ll talk with people that are building DEI programs, and they’ll ask me about critical race theory in a DEI conversation, like they’ll, they’ll bring up something that’s like in this Fox news talking point around DEI yeah. So whether it’s critical race theory or something else like that, how do you help people that are on the edges of a conversation versus the work of DEI, which is to create workplace excellence.

How would you help them move from that hyper negative space to a more curiosity space?

Dr Brandi16:41

Um, wow. Such a good question. Okay. A couple things. One, I think I have to educate them when I’m doing a lot of DEI work with the companies that engage with me. The first thing is helping them to really establish a baseline with what DEI is.

And so when you’re talking about the workplace context, social justice strategies- I would not apply to changing or improving your workforce. I would take an organizational development approach and what I would call a psychosocial approach, helping employees understand how they can change their thinking in order to change their behavior in a social context.

Right. Psychos, how we think. Social, and how we interact. And just like, I wouldn’t take a psycho-social organizational development approach to community organizing. I wouldn’t take a social justice approach to organizational development. Right. And so no judgment to either, but that’s where I start the conversation.

Let’s be clear here that all DEI is not created equal. You have to know the lense. The perspective of the various kind of subsets and different areas of thought leadership inside of DEI. And so once I established that, they go, “oh, okay.” And I say, it doesn’t matter. I have no value judgment, you know, as a DEI consultant or advisor to what you think and what your perspective is.

Like, if anyone has to honor the principles of the D the E and the, I it’s me. No judgement. You can think whatever you want at home on your couch, right? But here in the workplace for the purposes of making sure your organization become more inclusive and equitable, this is the framework that has less limitations.

And so let’s use this framework to move your organization forward. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is I’m very direct with the fact that- with sharing with our clients that politics may include DEI, but DEI doesn’t necessarily include politics and people have to know the difference between that.

And so I think because people are tuning into the MSNBC and to the Fox and on YouTube and Instagram and everything else, they’re getting this information from all sides, all parties, right? Have used and kind of hijack DEI for their benefit. And let me just touch on critical race theory, you know, and let’s hope I don’t get canceled after this.

No, just joking. Um, could care less. I’m not subscribed. You can’t cancel me. I’m not even subscribed y’all.

Donald19:01

That’s why I like being an entrepreneur. I’ll just start a different businesses and go again.

Dr Brandi19:05

Yeah, I’ll be Dr. Sandy tomorrow. “Dr. Brandi, is she going by a new moniker now?” Yeah. Whatever, like just leave. But I’m just gonna use this as an example, things like critical race theory I was introduced to as an African-American studies minor, I’m an undergrad and, you know, in my PhD program.

And so I think in general, something that professionals in particular need to understand is that certain theories that really are made for academia, that are made for, you know, a theory is an idea. That’s all it is, you know? So I will never, and I think probably the biggest thing I got out of my PhD program was this- just, they really just, in our heads, they made sure to remind us, they drove this point home. That your theory that you choose helps you to look at a situation differently. So you can, you know, when you think of critical race theory, it’s a lens to look at one particular interpersonal occurrence.

I can now take that critical race theory, lens off and choose to put an organizational development lens on and I will see something totally different. And so I think, you know, I’m using critical race theory to make a point. That we really need to, as professionals, stay in our lanes. I see so many people in the last two years that have given themselves a PhD in DEI from the news, from these soundbites.

And they really don’t know the origins of some of these theories and ideas and, and how they can be practically used and the limitations, every theory, that’s what we’re taught in academia. And so when you take a lay person and they’re whipping out all of this new concepts that they learned from the news, and will argue with you about something that they really don’t have the full research on. I think it really sets them back. It doesn’t set people like us back in the work that we do, but it can set folks back. So I’m very crystal clear with helping to provide our clients with the lens that will help them move forward on their level.

And last thing I’ll probably say to this is being very direct with asking clients or letting them know that they will get the best results if they stay in their lane. That’s the best way I can say it. I think of DEI advisors and consultants. in the same way that I would think of a lawyer.

Your lawyer wants you to mitigate your risk legally with certain things in your life and your company, your business, your financial advisor wants you to mitigate risk on losing your financial portfolio, helping you to build wealth. Same thing with the DEI advisor, we are here to help you mitigate the risk when you are going out, and doing a DEI initiative. And so in that same way, this is less about your feelings or emotion, your political affiliation or any of that. We’re telling you what to do to, to give insurance really, to how you go about your DEI. If you want to DIY your DEI good luck, but that’s what you hire us for. And if they can really see us as a part of that other group of advisers that people hold to such high esteem, I think more companies and leaders will be, um, a little bit more cooperative, and, you know, when listening to some of the D E I support that we would maybe give them.

Donald22:15

That was powerful. I don’t have anything to add, I think that was a great both answer and instruction point of the separation of theories versus a practice, right, in, in an organization. And so I love that answer a lot. What are some of the things that, you know, as you’re working with with organizations and they’re working on their journey, what are some of the things that hold organizations up?

Right. They want to do it, they want to put some investment, right? Maybe they’ve hired a chief diversity officer or a head of inclusivity. Right? Like they have the want to, and they’re putting some dollars behind it. What are some of the things you’ve seen that slows people’s momentum. When they’re going through this organizational change?

Dr Brandi22:58

Sure. Wow. Okay. I gotta keep saying, wow. Cause I have so much to say here. Okay. So a couple of things, and I’ll try to distill this in like a step-by-step. So I think the first thing is having your employees charging the DEI initiative or the strategy rather than leadership. So while I love the idea of empowering employees, frontline employees who are passionate about DUI, they should not be leading the charge. You cannot be a patient doing surgery on yourself. And so you really need to make sure that leaders are taking the lead and then using an outside or external consultant to help get everything on track. I’ve seen some nightmare situations where the employees- it got a little out of hand, then you try to reel them in.

It’s like bad, it’s a bad look. So that’s the first thing. The second thing, I think that holds people up is making decisions that are outside of data. You know, database decision making is important. Who said you needed a DEI committee? “Oh, well, we just knew that was one of the things in the Harvard business review that…”

Okay, go ahead and just pause the committee, you know, and then they don’t want to pause. They don’t want to stop. They don’t want to course-correct there’s a thought leader that I listened to and he says, going fast in the wrong direction is just as bad as doing nothing. So you don’t want it to just be doing things you want to be purposeful.

So that will be the second thing. Also like copycat DEI. Oh, you know, you see what your competitor’s doing? Oh my gosh. They just signed the CEO action thing. Let’s- got to sign that, you know, they just implemented this thing. Oh, we gotta do that. It’s like what? Two different organizational context, never participate in copycat DEI as a shortcut to figuring out what you need to do.

And I’ve seen that happen. Another thing I’ll say in terms of holding up progress is starting off on the wrong foot without creating a communications and internal communications strategy for the engagement. So what we like to do is we actually require that we have an all staff kickoff meeting before we start engaging with any client that helps us control the narrative and answer any questions because inevitably there are going to be people that go, oh gosh, Wokeness just made it to us.

Finally made it here. Let’s see what this is about. What type of democratic this, or what type of, uh, divisive that, or, you know, all these things that people are thinking about. And it allows us to come in knowing who the people in the audience are, the people that are super passionate, people that are like, “oh no,” and everyone in the middle, who’s like, “oh gosh,” you know, “okay, I’ll show up.”

So it helps us be able to control the narrative, um, and position the entire engagement and answer those questions and help people understand, you know, what we’re doing, why we’re doing it. And then the last thing I’ll say is things that kind of hold up the progress for companies, if they start off not really being inclusive.

Um, so if you use, for example, companies that are starting their DEI initiatives as if DEI is black- white relations. That’s not even inclusive. So, so don’t call it a DEI initiative. If you’re only focusing on black- white relations, call it a racial, call it black -white relations initiative, like call it that.

Don’t say you’re doing DEI and spend a year and a half talking about black- white relations. Because what you’re doing is you’re alienating a lot of people in your workforce. What about the people that have different abilities? What about the people who have different religious beliefs or veterans or so on and so forth?

Can they get into the discussion? And then I’ve seen a client that we previously had where that’s what they did. And then when we came in to take a truly inclusive approach, people were saying “you’re diluting the racial equity work. I mean, this is ridiculous because,” and it was a lot of performative feedback any way.

They weren’t really thinking that, but just felt like something to say. But what we said was no you’re diluting the true diversity and equity and inclusion work because you’re alienating and then people, you know everyone else, hang on. “Oh, okay. All right now, we’re ready to listen now,” you know, so those are the things that can really- they’re stumbling blocks that I’ve seen and that, I now become an expert in helping companies work through through.

Donald26:53

Absolutely. And I mean, I’ll just recap for the audience, right? It should be leadership led not employee led. We want to employee engagement. Right. But leaders have to show up, right. And lead the initiatives. Data-driven and we’re big on that as well, we absolutely need to listen to the data because that’s your truth and it helps you manage your own bias. Right. And so you’re spot on there. Copycat DEI- why, why would you copy your competitor and then talk about innovation and everything?

Dr Brandi27:21

Right.

Donald27:24

Innovate, innovate, innovate. Okay. Let’s do it like they do. And so no copycat DEI.

The internal comms so that you manage the narrative and people in all levels of the business know what’s going on and why. And then number five was… what was number five?

Dr Brandi27:40

I think what was the last one? Black white relations.

Donald27:44

Make sure that your DEI initiative is inclusive, right? Like, which it seems super obvious and ironic, but, but you’re exactly right.

Because if you start off with your employee resource group, that’s focused on racial equity, but there’s no time attention for, as you mentioned, disability inclusion, for those of us that are from single households or single parents, there’s a lot of different things you could do, but starting with one, uh, severely limits the business and the outcome.

So those are five fantastic. Kind of ‘do’s and don’ts’ to, to think about,

Dr Brandi28:22

And let me add this, let me add this Donald, just as a caveat, because I feel like I can hear listener thinking this. I’m not saying don’t start with one, or don’t start with racial equity, but if you do make that clear, we’re starting with racial equity.

We’re choosing to start here because we know this is one of the areas of diversity we really need to put as a high priority. And so that you’d leave that door, open that at some point we may shift a little bit, so you can start there, but don’t call it DEI, you know, be very specific about the reason why you’re choosing this one kind of area of DEI.

Donald28:56

Got it.

Dr Brandi28:56

Yeah.

Donald28:58

So I want to give you space to hit any points that I might not have asked you about. Or talk about something that you’re excited about in your practice and what you’re launching, what you’d like to promote, how people can get in touch with you. I want folks to be able to reach out and continue a relationship with you if they’re jiving with what you’re putting out.

Dr Brandi29:18

Absolutely. So a couple things, you know, I think Dr. Brandi.com all spelled out D O C T O R Brandi with an I dot com is where you can find a lot of information about what I’m doing, my thought leadership, our companies, and things like that. So that’s the hub. I would drive every one to. Three things I want to highlight, one to the first half of our conversation about leadership.

I would launch the leader ish pod cast, and it’s really geared towards having conversations about leaders. Redefining what leadership is, quite frankly, for the millennial generation, those of us who were told to just go to school, get straight A’s and go to college and do- you know, but our generation has experienced two recessions in a decade.

And you know, a lot of what we were told will make us successful has not really panned out in our experience. And so with a lot of millennials getting flack too, for being delusionally ambitious, and things like that, I’m getting us all the way together, the whole generation on the leader ish podcast. And then to the second half of our discussion, I launched the diversity and confusion podcast where I can be a little spicy, you know, I was on good behavior today for the Donald Thompson podcast. So we can keep you on brand, but that’s where I really am going a little bit deeper into the discussions about DEI and just some thought leadership, you know, I’m not regurgitating facts and statistics from somewhere else, but really some things that I’ve experienced doing this work and yeah, great stuff.

Great. And it’s above board of course. And last but not least if. If anyone, you know, was listening and they are interested in DEI and they’re thinking about how they can be an ally for racial equity. I did recently publish a book called Authentically, but it’s, it’s authentic ally, ditch the guilt, stop performing and take purposeful action as an ally for racial equity.

And it really is that basic level foundational response to people who have been feeling like the last two years, they’ve been aimlessly trying to shoot for this target, that they can’t quite pin down in terms of how they can be supportive to their colleagues and coworkers and community around racial equity work.

Super simple, quick read, but I think pretty practical and we’ve been getting some great feedback. So that’s where you can find me and what you can dig into.

Donald31:26

Oh, that is wonderful. And we’ll also make sure that those information and links are in the show notes, because we do want to develop and grow partnerships. And one of the things folks will ask me is, well, why would you have other DEI leaders on your podcast and different things?

I don’t have competitors, right. I have partners there’s just too much at stake in this work that has to be done beyond chasing like-minded people to learn from, grow from, shared leads with, and try to get it worked out. And that’s just my perspective on this. I really have enjoyed getting to know you and speaking with you.

And I really thank you for lending us 30 minutes of your time. And this was great. If we didn’t have algorithms telling us they only need to be 30 minutes-

Dr Brandi32:16

Please!

Donald32:16

It would be much longer, but your vibrancy, your directness, but also the grace that you deliver that directness just comes through. And I see why people want to hire you, want to work with you, want to learn how to lead from you and, uh, Dr. Brandi, thank you.

Dr Brandi32:31

Thank you! I had a great time. Appreciate it. Thanks Donald.

Donald32:35

You’re welcome.