The year is 1984. In a small northern town in India, a little girl with her sister is sprinting down the street in the evening. She is late for her responsibility of bringing the milk, and she is eager to reach home as quickly as possible. About a hundred meters from her neighborhood, she is stopped by the two men on their bicycles. She is asked: What’s your name? Can you help us with this address while pointing to a scribbled word on their hands?
Being a girl and being out after sunset, this young girl knows why she shall not stop to answer their questions, and she shall locate the nearest safe house to get into.
Some more questions: Where are you going? Why are you running? Some more running.
That young girl was me with my sister. But this story is far from unique. I daresay that every girl in small or big town has her own version. Change the date. Change the town. Change the names. This story has been played out and continues to play every day in its ways. And not every time is the person “lucky” enough to have been in a safe neighborhood.
Today, we honor PRIDE when we desire an equitable, just, and inclusive world for ourselves and our children. We celebrate and embrace diverse facets like culture, color, race, country, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, and many more differences.
Of course! We need to stress differences because the failure to focus on different stories results in a failure to see our own discrimination and own biases. And one cannot fight what one does not see.
But we are missing something – the unconscious of the fact that when we come into spaces, we change those spaces, and very often, because of folks who are uncomfortable or fearful of what our presence means to them.
This is “the talk” that we need to include. The talk of sameness. The talk of self-protecting stories.
We all are more the same than different. The more we look within and know ourselves, the more we create space for others.
Home’s where you go when you run out of homes. ― John le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy.
For those who may say, How I see life is my story. How I got to my station in life is my story. But, the kind of space I take up and, before uttering a single word, how the consciousness of the fact about how folks in this space are going to react to me, my spoken words, and my embodied space takes over me is not only my story.
You may be thinking, “women aren’t the only ones who have been stopped for an unsportsmanlike intention.” That may be true. But what may also be true is that if you are a man, you have never experienced being interrupted in the board room because of your gender. Or It didn’t matter to you this much if interrupted because you embody a different story; you got a different version of “the talk.”
Had I not followed my parents’ advice on that evening in 1984, I would probably have had dangerous consequences. I take tremendous care not to break my girls’ spirit, but I want them to come home safely at the end of the day.
The way we all live and share our stories, we choose to be on a progressive or a conservative side of the system.
Finally, after much reflection, the question remains: what are “the talks” that we shall celebrate? Which talk is an urgent and necessary part of life in creating an inclusive world where everyone belongs?
Create space for every story – both the self-protecting silence and courageous call-out. If a courageous call-out is a beautiful tapestry of different colors, the self-protecting silence is the base thread underneath the unique tapestry.
We need to create spaces for both distinctions and similarities without generalizing them. We need to seek the balance of courage and contentment; celebrate the individual capacity to embrace and respect their connection with grace. We need to dispel the fear that feeds the discrimination.
Live “your story” with pride, and seek within; as Dr. Tiffani Jana says, “Awaken your inner Inclusionaist.”
]]>When asked if there is one transformational moment in my life where I can pinpoint change happening, there are many that come to mind. The day the 3-year-old me went to the post office alone. The day I chose engineering over teaching. The day my daughter was born. The moment I saw the lifeless body of my cousin’s 10-year-old daughter.
While those moments have been the shaping moments of my life, nothing has impacted me as much as when I tripped over my status quo.
It was like when you look into the mirror, the person looking back is not the same.
When you change, everything changes!
I can’t remember the name of the resort on the outskirts of Hyderabad, India, but I remember I was in a critical management role for a significant transformation project, and I was having a gala time there with my colleagues. This offsite was for senior management, and they had come together to work on the business growth strategy. Most colleagues were two ranks higher than me, and I joined them on a special invitation as a high potential future leader.
A strong business leader, who was sponsoring this offsite, had already told me about the panel’s decision about my promotion – it has not been in my favor – and the feedback for me was, “Things didn’t work out last year when you were doing them a certain way. Now you should pay close attention to people who have done it before you and learn how to do it.”
I knew it was coming before we would disperse and get on with our business as usual. Still, the moment the promotions were announced, I rocked off balance. I felt the sensation on my cheeks. My eyes were leaking, and I wanted to disown my tears like a lifeless waste.
Everyone was ready to catch their taxis to the airport, so I picked up my bag and left without saying anything. I didn’t say goodbye. How could I? I was sad. Beyond sad. I was cold too.
That one little thing changed the course of the next five years of my life. It was indeed a life’s ‘grab you by the wrist and direct you where to go’ moment.
Interestingly, change is not linear for human beings. There is the moment before and the moment after the decision is made, and what we choose in those moments gives life to our choices.
This one action or non-action – my decision to receive everything without judgments and listen to the dissonance between my inner and outer voices – catapulted me into unknown territory and towards exploration.
Since elementary school, I have always favored subjects like science and mathematics over humanities. My instinct was always to regard these subjects as more solid and growth-oriented. In hindsight, I see the role of the environment too – when one couldn’t give the correct answer, why-to-bother-attitude from the MAAs and PAAs of that field (teachers or parents or specialists) was common.
My decision to listen and accept the dissonance had pushed me to the edge. Thanks to the dissection skills that I learned in the Zoology lab!
Another story of my relationship with serious subjects: my father wished me to study medicine; my grandmother wished me to study engineering. And I wanted to be an engineer. With the hope that I might develop an interest in saving lives if I studied biology in high school, my father used his parent’s authority to sign me up for both mathematics and biology. I dissected many rats, frogs, and cockroaches with a dizzy head and shaking hands.
So I studied the feedback I received at the business event, like the open body of a white rat pinned on the wax tray, down with anesthesia, still breathing with life. “Things didn’t work out last year when you were doing them a certain way. Now you should pay close attention to people who have done it before you and learn how to do it.”
The words’ attention’ and ‘learn’ stood out, and I saw myself from the observer’s eyes after a long time.
I have taken pride in designing high-performing products and teams and raising my daughters with poise, and I have been doing well with highs and lows. Why was I ashamed of not being promoted? Why is this dissonance? I saw myself gazing back on those window gazers and pondering how listening to so many window gazers’ perspectives has affected my ability to listen to the subtle inside voices.
“Only with the heart can one see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
While this newfound insight inspired me to oscillate between being and becoming, it also terrified me. The unknown presented an odd rarity; it sounded like reentry into a child’s mind, who is silly, witty, kind, and compassionate but still lacks discernment. I would cry alone in a dark room where no one could see me. I would pray to be found and rescued. I was someone even I didn’t want to be around.
Shame became anger and self-doubt, and I started questioning my leadership, parenting, and everything I associated myself with. The spiral of thoughts inside me felt like an intractable muddle.
Looking back, I can only laugh at that phase, thankfully temporary, but back then, my muddle was real. If the answers to your problems come from authority figures, you want to believe in the solution and try it. In those moments, finding someone who listens to you without any advice, who could hold the mirror at the angle from where you see your inside beauty is bliss.
There were many moments of grace from friends, family, and (then) strangers in the conversations I consciously chose to have.
I expanded my perspective by learning human psychology and specializing in child psychology; I did executive coach training and learned the Inclusion & Diversity frameworks from industry experts. I integrated the parts of me, piece by piece, similar to the Japanese tradition of Kintsugi, the art of embracing the broken and the whole.
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, I can change.”
Carl Rogers
It wasn’t until many, many conversations later that I realized my mirror moments experience began well before I could appreciate the coaching language in any meaningful way.
Beaches are my pristine places; I can sit there from sunrise to sunset and from dusk to dawn. I will throw the tiny pebbles and shells in the sea and track how far the ripple goes with waves. It is ironic that while creating those ripples, I remembered a joke from my friend “You throw a stone, near or far; I can’t tell you if you will find the stone, but you will find a coach.”
We talk about coaching with such alarming needs and often interpret it in such superficial ways that we have diluted the word’s meaning. When people wield the word coaching, it tends to fall on deaf ears because we hear that word so much that it rings like a privileged noise.
While I committed to staying true to myself every day, many people have held the mirror for me and contributed to my capacity to see through the mirror. They spoke to me and nudged me from another side of the mirror. Some of them did it conscientiously, and some did it naturally. They, through their questions, offered me a unique lens through which I could see the seeds beneath the sprouting behaviors and make better choices.
The butterfly can only appreciate the process and the pain that the caterpillar needs to go through to become a butterfly. As a caterpillar, butterflies quite literally do not exist.
Five years later, I have come a long way. I have become a student of life. I am having a gala time with my leadership role and parenting role, and while doing that, I am making an effort to hold the mirror for myself, my family, my team, and my community.
One of my wise friends, a leadership coach, once told me, “Transformation happens in a moment, and I can’t comment on how and when you see that moment.”
I would say that every moment when we are present to the music of the mundane could be that transformative moment for us or others. It is choosing to shift our view from the window-gaze to the mirror, from being a window gazer only to a mirror holder.
I can’t speak for all, but for the leaders and parents I have talked to in the last five years, I found the need for the mirror moments, the capacity to listen to inside whispers and outside songsters, and the need for discernment.
The thoughts of others imprison us if we’re not thinking for ourselves.
The mirror moments, created conscientiously by mirror holders, allow us to see beyond others’ window views and see what is possible. When we understand our behaviors, we also claim our power. This decision gives life to our choices, and we can see if the existing behaviors make sense. Often they don’t.
My journey has equipped me with a unique lens to understand and hold the listening space for an individual and create the mirror moments that match the need for different expansions during different times in their journeys.
As a leader who has experienced both the advantages of privilege and the sting of stigma, I challenge leaders’ assumptions about self, leadership, and others while providing frameworks that help them take inspired action today for a more inclusive tomorrow. I welcome you to my inclusive leadership mirror space to you. You can reach out to me at shalubajajahuja@gmail.com. Why? Because more than anything else, we need to know we are not alone. Like Brene Brown says, “I thought it was just me. But it wasn’t.”
We are not in the space that we could proudly hand over to future leaders. Our humanism, systemic thinking, and integration duties are more important than ever to create an inclusive world. My hope for us is to make a new pathway together, break our old thought patterns, and redefine what it means to truly belong—in the workplace, in families, and in communities.
]]>“Your significance will always be a mystery to you.”
R. Buckminster Fuller
When the part of me, probably coming from my Granny’s genes, wanted to respond, ” Write your XII board exams excellently, and become who you want to become.” But a part of me, from my learned experience, replied, “love yourself the way you love me, your dad, and Nishttha (my little one), always. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Probably, loving and caring for people around us more than ourselves is something we women got from age-old celebrations, which is excellent, but not enough.
While I take pride in my value of “celebrating others,” I also love antique jewelry more than myself. But it doesn’t stop me from challenging antique patterns of caretaking & homemaking responsibilities seen any less than office work.
Every mother is a working mother – the only difference is where they work and what they do.
So, I and my sister and my brother were raised by a working mom. Being the eldest of three, did I become the third parent as a 4-year-old? Yes. Was I scared some days? Yes.
When my grades were terrible in social studies, my mom was my teacher in school, and I was to stand outside the class. My classmates might have felt sorry, and my mom would’ve felt guilty. I never felt anything wrong about it as a child. I loved every bit of my life – my fights and trades, being a counselor didi to my siblings’ friends, and whatnot.
One of many memories that I hold is when we together used to select the embroidery and print patterns to turn her plain sarees to match the trends of the time. She also taught us to engage ourselves in interests like embroidery and others. Almost all our relatives have one or more teddy bears made by my sister – whether it is out of love or force, that is a different story.
The memory of my 5-year-old brother mopping the floor, my sister cooking for the first time, and I going to take the LPG cylinder from Bharat Gas Agency (which was a 3-4 hour exercise of waiting in a queue, loading it on the bicycle, and getting home without hurting myself) has earned a permanent place on the festive meals together.
These productive ways of dealing with our time, decision-making capacities, and powers helped us immensely, even as adults.
Yes, I missed my mom many afternoons. I used to feel happy when she took the day off, and I could come home to my favorite pulav and a warm hug rather than a cold meal to warm for myself and my siblings. Still, I never experienced that as the primary role of women.
Fast forward years later, we three are now on three different continents; My sister and I are two working moms holding key positions, raising next generation Bahaar, Nishttha, and Avira, and have been doing very well.
Bahaar and Nishttha, if one of them is doing something which might raise parents’ brows, the sisterhood is an unsaid silent contract, and another one would do everything to prove the deed right. I think Avira will sign up for their unsaid agreement soon, as they are not accepting thumb impressions yet. Also, we all are waiting to hug Avira outside of facetime.
Despite having a supportive family and being raised by working women, did I not feel the guilt? Of course, I get on the guilt trips. Quite often. Still, I am proud to pen three nonnegotiable manifestos for my daughters, Bahaar, Nishhtha, and Avira.
1. Reject the idea that motherhood and work are mutually exclusive. Do what you love.
2. Gender roles are absolute nonsense. As one of my favorite authors, Chimamanda Adichie, says, “Because you are a girl is never a reason for anything. Ever.” Whenever you feel guilty, ask yourself, “Will I feel the same way if I were the other parent?”.
3. People will selectively use tradition to justify anything. Go by your discernment.
I don’t want a SuperMom title from my daughters and messages with ten hands tending to ten different things from my well-intended friends and colleagues. I am not an image of a perfect mom and office going (working from home these days). No provoking of any guilt trip in me, please;
All I request this Mother’s Day is: for moms to be nothing less than proud and for partners and families not to talk but walk the walk and support. We together will explore ways to build more inclusive families, workplaces, and communities for ourselves and future generations.
Happy Mothers Day! Make it wholesome in your small ways!]]>
Since morning, I have been getting International Women’s day messages from all over. And I call all of us to act in support of creating an equal, inclusive world for our children, our future leaders.
We are all on a journey of self discovery - as we grow aware, and discover more about ourselves and others we must make some decisions on how we will proceed with on our path - its really up to us.... Once we see the light how will we respond?
Awareness is a start, and I offer today as an opportunity to observe, tune in and tune out. Listen to your inner voice and others’ voices at the same time.
Prejudice
I will not give you another definition, I promise. Let me tell you a story. Not once upon a time story of holocaust survivors, but how the old tale is redefined for the lessons needed today.
There is a museum of tolerance in Los Angeles. When you walk into the museum, you gather in a small group and wait for the guide. The guide says that there are two doors through which you can enter the museum. On one door, it is marked as “prejudiced” and the other as “non-prejudiced,” and you choose the entrance based on how you feel about yourself.
Some intellectuals opted to enter the museum through “non-prejudiced.” Yes, you guessed it right! It was locked. None of us is free from prejudices.
You have that. I have that. We all have got this. And there is nothing wrong with it.
Awareness
Prejudices are our natural leanings. These create our unique perspectives and shape our being.
What makes one different from others is their observation of seemingly uncomplicated responses, like accent we naturally like and, the accent that gets on our mind, the skin tone of a person we walk towards in a gathering.
Be aware. Listening to the inner voice is the key to awareness.
Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones. ~ Charlotte Brontë
Leanings take power from us and start getting in our way when we stop listening to inside voices.
Beware!
Most of us, and the child in us, want to be heard. So we sing a joyous song that could help us in vocation and life. We create these tunes to support our professional or personal goals and engage in positive affirmations intentionally.
Here is where the tale gets interesting and sometimes dirty. This intentional behavior holds unintended consequences for an individual’s morality.
Tuning in, unselfconsciously, may create an inner song that can impact one’s moral purity — a psychological state that results from viewing oneself as clean from an ethical standpoint.
It can make us feel mean, selfish, and prejudiced.
Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends. ~ Harper Lee in the book Go Set a Watchman
Get over awareness
To “feel prejudiced,” one needs to have a level of self-awareness. But being aware gets you to the light that you have the power to switch on now. See the forked road.
While one pathway leads to analysis paralysis, the other leads to the next right.
Take the next right and use “Self as Instrument.” In developing ourselves, we grow within ourselves capabilities that can sense and respond to the developmental patterning happening in others.
All inventions and no integration makes Newton a dull boy.
It is like inventing something powerful and die protecting it.
The butterfly only can see other butterflies. The butterfly only can appreciate the process and pain that the caterpillar needs to go throw to become the butterfly. As a caterpillar, butterflies quite literally do not exist.
If you take one thing
What we cover educating ourselves is good. Practicing awareness is excellent. The power lies in integrating the identified part of us.
What part of you — that you identified — you commit to integrating? #breakthebias
]]>Take pride in being yourself!
Trick or Treat?
Well! Before I bring in my story, let me open the window for you to the platform I am standing on. Maybe not standing, but on a continuous discovery for my space and place. Who is this strange woman doing the talking?
How the courageous woman and her audacious demand of new institutions — institutions for mood management, relationship management, and how to raise less damaged children — slipped from her first children’s book Nooh Finds His Lost Whisker, clear thoughts of “Noodlie Moodlie assemble right… Red, Yellow, Blue, and White!” iinto that dark Muddly Muddle zone, and she couldn’t write for many months.
What I know is that here I am, back out of the Muddly Muddle, with my story of muddle.
If you are wondering about my language, I urge you to read along; this is one of the times when I and my lingo are exploring the uncharted zone with you.
Excuse me! What is this muddly muddle, again? Is it Chaos? Is it Clutter? Is it fog?
He who gives you many dreams is a great master, and the foggy weather is such a master! ― Mehmet Murat ildan
When I was a little girl, young and excited with life, I was laboring on my dream of seeing places. I don’t even remember how many times the vehicle of the house, my dad’s bicycle, caught my pajamas and plopped me down into the muddle.
Whether I cursed the pits or screamed at the bicycle’s manly design, the answer from my mom was the same: Keep your mind on balance, not the muddle; you will learn to avoid the muddly pits.
Eventually, I learned to navigate the muddly pits. And just then, another facet of muddle came into my life.
My dad approached the best school in the city for my admission; this school prepares the children for a world beyond cultural boundaries.
“I can’t give her admission. Her English is little, and she would not be able to absorb a bigger worldview that our school offers,” the principal said. My dad, a man with big dreams for his children, responded, “Lotus grows, glows, and radiates the sweet fragrance in any muddle, without catching a particle of mud onto it. Give her a chance, and she will be an example for many others that how to tread the muddle and bring expansion in life.”
I was admitted and a 15-year-old dreamer learned to dream even bigger Muddle is the mess of my life, and I need to develop skills to tread through the muddle.
Muddle is the temporary mess of life, and we need to develop skills to tread – trick or treat – through the muddle.
More than two decades in that definition of the muddle, and I became the parent. I loved my work and financial freedom as much as I wanted to be present to my daughters.
I worked a full-time 40 hours week plus 10 hours of commute time; I was dropping and picking up girls from daycare, taking care of the kitchen and laundry while trying to guard my dreams.
Vanilla. Strawberry. Nutty chocolate. Americano. You speak the flavor; I would have got the language feedback in that flavor in my different roles in the corporate world.
I started to learn the language. Slowly but unwillingly, I learned to speak with others’ tongues and the theories of what others expect somebody to talk about. My words sounded as brass and tinkling cymbal to my ears. Word begot words. More words. But my inner muddle stayed.
My well-wishers poured the pile of advice dust on me: you shall focus on building your network; socialize every weekend and make sure to carve out time for fulfilling relationships; look young — go to a 90-minute yoga class every day, drink green juice and eat salad until you can’t have it anymore; use your kids’ swimming classes time to listen to a podcast.
I mean, really? When am I supposed to sleep, let alone do the work I love and make a living?
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t put different parts of my life into these neatly packaged compartments. I called up my mom and asked how to raise my daughters while working full time? “You have to go through this phase, and every parent needs to go through this,” she answered.
I will dishonor my privilege if I say that I went through that muddly phase like a pro. No. It wasn’t easy, and my parents have been my strength and support in raising my girls, but the new mom and ambitious woman in technology unclogged the muddle acumen further.
Fast forward today, 18 years of parenting, 21 years of a woman in technology working with diverse cultures, languages, geographies, the muddle keeps showing up, and the common one is self-doubt.
It is easy to doubt yourself because you look around at the structures and community of notions held by other intellectuals, and they make you blush with guilt.
We all need someone wiser, older to tell us that we aren’t crazy after all, that what we’re doing is all right. And when we don’t find the one around, the moment is difficult, a dreadful exercise, a terrible treading of the muddle.
All right, hell, exactly humane! How do you respond to your muddles
? Which option do you choose
? The treat of expansion
? The trick of avoidance
? Have you found another way
?
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Because, if tackled at surface level, it is nothing more than a dangerous fad.
I attended the poetry workshop a few weeks back, and the prompt happened to be “fairy dust.”
It was evident in people’s writings that “fairy” has become the trigger word for many of us, unselfconsciously.
For me, the discomfort with the word “fairy” developed over time, when people kept telling me how girls, or fairies, are expected to behave: “don’t act like a fairy, frilly dresses don’t suit your lean body (Oh my… where is that slim body, I want it back now, like NOW)”; “focus on building your beauty along with feeding your brain,” my friends in the university advised it to me ; and “go to a yoga class; drink green juice and eat salad until you can’t have it anymore,” is what my friends in the mom gang suggested.
While I thought that it was me, but everyone shared similar stories when they talked about poems’ impetus — stories of a recovering privilege, recovering religion, recovering caste, and many others.
No matter how hard everyone tried, no one could put the inside conversations into neatly packaged compartments and gravitated to the abstract vocabulary of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion).
Being a DEI advocate and the one who takes the implications of language seriously, I was deeply in the conversation. My mind started to wander in thoughts like, are we going to use DEI vocabalory and hide behind these words till these become trigger words? Scary and not at all useful!
Who amongst us haven’t disliked, sometimes frowned and probably hated the one who broadly comments on the diversity of the whole world and imposes personal opinions as the rooted identity of other individual. But Diversity, Equity and Inclusion discussion in that poetry workshop spoke to me on my face. I see that the need to understand DEI in the right way is REAL.
DEI, if tackled at surface level, is nothing more than a dangerous fad, which like other leadership strategies, will be debunked. Here I offer my DEI learnings and experience for all who are too busy to read big fat books yet seek a speck of (actionable) fairy dust to create a world of harmony, self-reliance, and innovation for our future generations — from my walks in the poetic world.
DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) for One and All:
My attempt is to provide understanding just what we all need to be fluent and ready for the conscious conversation with ourselves and others.
DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) literacy is no more good to have. It is a must-have.
DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) literacy is no more good to have. It is a must-have. Still, its understanding swing between poetic narration like, “If I were a super fairy, I’d capture all scheming villains and sprinkle the speck of the dreams dust on them, so everyone stands to defend peace and livelihoods.” and scientific explanation like “the N170 method of observing a reliable voltage fluctuation in our brain which happens exactly 170 milliseconds after we see a face and how it acts as a key window into our perception and our response to others”.
Before we proceed further, I want you to think of a most critical moment from your recent past. I can guarantee that it is not what you knew but what you thought and chose at that moment that makes it distinctive.
It is not what you know but how your brain is wired for thought that makes the real difference. — Jeffrey M. Stibel
Be skeptical in a positive way
The skeptic does mean who rejects everything. A proper skeptic is the one who questions what they are unsure of and also recognizes to change their mind when valid evidence is presented.
As said by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, “As areas of knowledge grow, so too do the perimeters of ignorance.” Like a scientist, a DEI-aware person have no room for intellectual laziness.
Empower yourself to probe knowledge and information out there. Get curious, inquire about the other person’s perspective, and actively listen — to find the objective truth. You and another person shall always back their truth with the evidence, and “Hmm. I think so” isn’t the evidence.
It is difficult to think outside the box because the thinking IS the box. — Michael Braun
Identity your roots of being, aka. your cognitive bias
If there is anything other than the flesh, bones, and blood that we humans are made of, it is memories. And memories feed our cognition and cognitive bias. There are many kinds of cognition bias and confirmation bias, optimism bias, self-serving bias, the Dunning-Kruger effect being the common ones.
Want to feel special, be seen, soothed, and secure is human. Being human and being seen as special is not wrong altogether, but missing the objective truth is Cognitive Bias at play.
We shall catch our thoughts and have an inside conversation before addressing the outside discussion: Is my overconfidence or self-interest at play? What aspects might I have missed? Am I giving too much weight to specific parts? Am I ignoring relevant information because it doesn’t support my view?
Once we have answers to these questions, be doubly sure of how we speak. Ask again: Is it true?; is it necessary?; is it kind?
Know your reasons for becoming, as DEI measurement is a live thing
DEI is not a noun; it is a verb. It is a commitment to ongoing learning and taking courageous actions to create a more equitable & inclusive world. The number metrics like gender ratio, number of ERGs, or the percentage of URMs (underrepresented minority people) on leadership roles can provide the snapshot, like the tennis scoreboard; it can’t provide testimony to the whole journey.
Also, with the world evolving at a VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) ground and the human race getting more diverse — culturally and generationally — we all, especially people in positions of power like managers, leaders, and parents, need to be more empathetic and proactive in noticing where support and listening are required.
We need to ask hard-hitting questions: why am I doing this?; what personal ground do I stand for? Ultimately, finding why it matters to you personally is essential to keep you on this journey and help pick suitable quantitative and qualitative measures about the progress.
Develop your love for language
Clear thinking, genuine curiosity, and challenging our prejudices are essential, but it’s not everything. Being able to persuade and convince is equally crucial.
We have probably already noticed the DEI pendulum swinging between two extremes: one side is the woke activists who are intolerant to differing beliefs, and another side is people in the power position who feel blamed for having privileges even if it is hard-earned, and they choose to stay quiet when they shall speak. This dichotomy can make the life of DEI advocate even more difficult.
The dichotomy of DEI pendulum swinging between two extremes can make the life of DEI advocate even more difficult.
Being right can take us only this far. To create a real impact in people’s lives, we have to be effective and develop our love for language and storytelling.
People are rarely persuaded when we tell them they are wrong. We need to meet the other person or an organization where they are.
Finally, challenge the maxim that cooperation is better than the competition
I understand that competing over cooperate counters diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Still, I would challenge it because my attitude towards competition went through an evolution before I arrived at this point of view about competition.
Offering you the example from surfing, how the surfers compete against the waves they ride. How do they avoid the strength of the lock and exploit its weakness? The surfer is not competing with anyone, not trying to beat anyone, but striving to make it to the beach.
The surfer is not competing with anyone, not trying to beat anyone, but striving to make it to the beach.
People who think not competing with others and living contended is enough: We need to be present to our privileges and compete to create possibilities. Compete with the inferences of social media and loud voices and do not allow anyone to gaslight and displace our roots of being human, social, and explorers.
Our humanism, systemic thinking, and integration duties are more important than ever today to create an inclusive world. By being DEI literate, I hope we will not settle until we all make it to the beach.
What does DEI speak to you? Share your perspectives through your comments/ message.
Caring for and caring for the expansion of who you care for is not the same.
Mama and baby elephant were on the bridge over the river, and the mama elephant heard the baby scream. She turned back to find the baby standing at the weary end, frozen.
Evading the scary thoughts of baby falling in the river current, the mother elephant stepped towards him. “What’s the matter, my child?” she asked.
“I saw my lost friend in the river, and I will not move without taking him,” the baby elephant replied with worry.
The elder elephant controlled her grin of awe, assessed the river current, and pushed the baby towards the safe side.
Feeling frustrated, the young elephant raced off to the riverside trail without listening to his mother’s words. “I’ll find him, whatsoever,” he thought to himself.
Later in the day, the young elephant returned to the elder who was waiting for him and began to complain, “I followed the river and spent two hours searching for my lost friend today. What have you done? Nothing? Perhaps you don’t care at all.”
Unphased, the beloved parent looked at the young elephant, said nothing, and kept her gaze sharp at the river’s bank where animals were drinking water. Again, the angry young elephant strode off to another side to find his lost friend.
After another few hours, as the young elephant returned, tired and worn, he saw the parent elephant still in the same spot. However, something had changed — his friend elephant is ogling along.
Astonished, the baby elephant asked, “How did you do that? How did you find him?” With care and compassion, the parent elephant finally responded, “I did not run behind the shadow.”
I did not run behind the shadow.
Isn’t it that most of us behave like the child elephant. It comes naturally. It feels right to live by the WYSIWYG principle, aka. What you see is what you get. This principle works differently in different contexts, like web user interface design or as the law of attraction.
Everyone has moments of self-criticism and self-doubt, whether one is the most hardworking person in every room, the most assertive, or both. For me, it works like this, most of the time… I expect my efforts to double up with who I care about — family, work, and relationships. It took many lessons to smack on the face to learn that caring for and caring deliberately for the expansion of who you care for is not the same. It is life long practice.
The process is simple but not easy. Especially when society accredits hard work, the human race is shifting to more and more rational thinking, leading to individualism.
A significant percentage of the power positions (leaders, managers, parents) grapple with the protector epidemic. We feel pride when we can protect and rescue. We fancy creating the world for the child that we wished for. We feel a sense of usefulness when we run behind shadows, like the baby elephant.
We are good at silencing the inside voice who speaks that the ideal world is a delusion, and if silencing doesn’t work, we turn our ears to another voice coming from a shiny mirage.
We’re so preoccupied with protecting children from disappointment and discomfort that we’re inadvertently excusing them from growing up ~ LZ Granderson.
Care is not the protection. It is being present to what to care about. A leader’s/parent’s best gift to the colleague/ child is resilience and perseverance in their character. With that as a common ground, their relationship can survive any hardship and will only expand.
We need to ask ourselves what is important to us — to be the one who is always needed or partner to the character leading expansion?
Caring with intention is powerful. As unbelievable as this may sound, the humans that inhabited the Earth thousands of years ago were better caretakers. They did not just eat bananas or swing from one tree to the next. They lived the life of intention. They knew when to fight and when to let go of the urge and sit in peace.
Now, with all positive intent of rational mind, you may say that “how much do you know me? I have my story. From childhood. From betrayal. From dreams.”
I hear you! I know you had a bitter or tangy experience, which made you who you are. This struggle has existed in various forms throughout history in each one of us. The same question – we intend to lead and parent by design or default?
To see that reality clearly and live by design, we often need help because we are good at fooling ourselves.
I have noticed many of us using affirmations/ positive scripts like “It’s okay to be upset.” or “I am confident and strong.” Don’t get me wrong. I am not condemning the scripts. These scripts have their place; these protect us because of their association with the reptilian brain. Still, scripts aren’t the entire story. I would never attempt these affirmations with my daughters; they are smart and will immediately catch the incongruence of my words and expressions. Words beget words only, no actions. Words are such a poor veil to the intentions.
Indeed, the meaning of “intentions” is different for different people. Some people set intentions as they set the goals, while others set intentions more like guiding principles. Everyone’s process of finding what works for them is unique and personal.
For me, the “intentions” mean: what matters in the long term. I care for strengthening the character. Future is not promised to anyone. Time has tested our inner resolve and will examine our future generation as well.
Future is not promised to anyone. Time has tested our inner resolve and will examine our future generation as well.
When it comes to people/relations/work I care for, all that matters is health, happiness, well-being, the strength of character, and the ability to withstand turbulent situations. I am sure, if we do a mind-mapping exercise of our intentions for our children, their friends, and their friends’ friends, we all will get similar maps.
the “intentions” map created by the author
Once the “intentions” map is created, the leader/ parent can act better, like:
- Would my action make them empowered or entitled if I rescue them now?
- Will they grow as an inclusive or controlling adult if I act in this way?
- Would this fuel resilience or lower their self-esteem if I protect them from this situation?
All in all, we can choose to protect or be present, both with equal ease. But if we aren’t conscious of caring intentionally, we will be running on a treadmill, wearing ourselves down while getting nowhere.
You can learn how to care for someone, only when you put your mind to it. Care + Intention = Expansion
Without clear intentions, no leader, no parent, like the mama elephant, can deliberately wait until the little elephant shows up. The intentions map brings in an anchor to the future self and a filter to past experiences. With this, we can steer clear to our autopilot response and care deliberately.
While society tells us that we can achieve more by doing more, my invitation is to deliberately step away from the daily grind and be explicit about what we care for, what are our “intentions.” What did your “intentions” map reveal to you?
What is the difference between a house and a home?
This question has a special place in my becoming who I am. My guardian angel, Sethi uncle, our father’s friend, repeatedly asked us (me and my siblings). He is my first English teacher, my first role model.
During all those childhood flashes that I remember, his question stayed the same and held the space for my answer to develop.
When I was learning the language, my answer was that house and home start with the same letter but different logography.
When I was learning to make meanings of my thoughts and put stories, my answer was that the house is made of bricks, walls, and a ceiling, and home is where my family lives.
Later, my answer shifted from the description of a house and home to the feeling: any place becomes the home when common values connect everyone living in it, and all enhance part of each other’s life journey, bitter or sweet, Sethi uncle stopped asking that question.
Any place becomes the home when common values connect everyone living in it, and all enhance part of each other’s life journey, bitter or sweet.
I thought that he had stopped asking the “house and home” question because I am now grown up, until recently when I found the verb in the party of the loud nouns.
A role model is not a noun; it is a verb. It is who you chose to be and become.
Having a good role model is very important. Role models inspire us to work harder on our goals and become successful.
It is easier to follow the goals when we know how someone else achieved them. When we choose a role model, it usually means that they have succeeded in a specific field.
But isn’t the term “success” entirely subjective? It has different meanings for different people at different times. Each one of us has personal values & intentions.
Teachings from experts make us self-confident and encourage us to set bigger goals. To achieve the big goals, we tend to emulate another person’s actions and values.
No one person or personality type can be a role model. The approach they took, the behavior they demonstrated, the value they lived are role modeling. The starting point is finding who we follow to learn what we need to know to reach where we want to go. It’s important not to get obsessed with them.
Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. ~Oscar Wilde
We all face obstacles in our lives. Successful people, who we role model, have their share of hurdles to overcome and mistakes to learn from. Different people may discover other lessons from the same mistakes.
We are unique, and so are our skills, experience, and approach to achieve our goals. To acquire what we strive for, we don’t necessarily have to follow the whole of our role model, but role model (verb) the part of them.
Speaking to oneself and reflecting helps us see the path we have tracked until now and feel pride and self-compassion. Introspection also helps us not feel upset with the people around us and see everyone as discoveries-in-progress.
With developed stamina of not giving up on obstacles, respecting self and others, we develop the capacity to see the truth, beauty, and goodness in others.
No one in the world is perfect. We all are part of living and breathing space and finding our path forward.
Role modeling opens the pathway to new experiences, ideas, opportunities, and victories for ourselves and those around us.
Yes, the sweet victories are often hard. The REAL role models take the hard out and leave us with precious lessons and fond memories, like Sethi uncle.
People seldom improve when they have no other role model but themselves to copy. ~ Oliver Goldsmith.
The REAL role model knows that role modeling is a verb. They act as the coach, enable us to practice compassion, and see our growth. They train us until we learn what they are role modeling in the most natural ways. Like Sethi Uncle. Like Charles Barkley.
I’m not a role model… Just because I dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids. ~ Charles Barkley.
The feeling of being around them is one of the profound feelings, like finding oneself.
We usually know when we see the person who is role modeling. But there are some observations we can make to discern well:
- We can look for the people who achieved similar results as what we are going after.
- We can look for people who struggled with similar problems in their journey as we are facing.
We can try these questions too
- What kind of person do I want to be?
- What do I want to achieve, and find the circles of people who have achieved that?
- Who empowers me with their words, vision, qualities?
Everything starts with knowing what we are looking for and needing empowerment, guidance, direction, and inspiration. Who is your first role model? What does role modeling mean to you?
“So, what are we are going to cover in this one-hour webinar?” an attendee asked. The host, who happens to be the leader I admire a lot, responded, “It is not what we cover. It is what you discover.”
And… the attendee’s rectangular video frame dissolved into his well-groomed picture. Welcome to the virtual world — where we have the privilege to talk to the green dot on our screen and the power to switch off the video.
Something suddenly clicked on. Privilege? or a Prejudice?”
I will not give you another theory of pride, privilege, or prejudice, I promise. Let me tell you a story. Not once upon a time story of holocaust survivors, but how the old war tale is redefined by holocaust survivors for the lessons needed today.
There is a museum of tolerance in Los Angeles. When you walk into the museum, you gather in a small group and wait for the guide. The guide directs everyone towards two doors through which one can enter the museum. On one door, it is marked as “prejudiced” and the other as “non-prejudiced,” and you can choose the entrance based on your feeling about yourself. Some intellectuals opted to enter the museum through “non-prejudiced.” Yes, you guessed it right! The “non-prejudiced” door was locked. None of us is free from prejudices.
You are Prejudiced! I am Prejudiced! We all are Prejudiced, and there is nothing wrong with it. Prejudices are our natural leanings. These create our unique perspectives and shape our being.
What makes one different from others is their observation of seemingly uncomplicated responses, like, accent we naturally like and the accent that gets on our mind, the skin tone of a person we walk first towards in a gathering.
Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones. ~ Charlotte Brontë
Most of us, and the child in us, want to be heard. So we sing a joyous song that could help us in vocation and life. We create these tunes to support our professional or personal goals and engage in positive affirmations intentionally. And here is where the tale gets exciting and sometimes dirty.
Leanings take power from us and start getting in our way when we stop listening to inside voices. Tuning in, unselfconsciously, may create an inner song that can impact one’s moral purity — a psychological state that results from viewing oneself as clean from an ethical standpoint. It can make us feel mean, selfish, and prejudiced. It can push us off the equilibrium subtly, leading to ignorance or arrogance.
Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: both begin where reason ends. ~ Harper Lee
To “feel prejudiced,” one needs to have a level of self-awareness. But having the power to switch on the light and not act on its discoveries is like inventing something powerful and die protecting it. When we work on our prejudices, we also develop the capabilities to sense and respond to the developmental patterns in others.
The butterfly only can see other butterflies. The butterfly only can appreciate the process and pain that the caterpillar needs to go throw to become the butterfly. As a caterpillar, butterflies quite literally do not exist.
If you take one thing, I will offer that educating ourselves to gain awareness is good; practicing awareness is excellent, but the transformative power lies in embodying the discoveries.
The power lies in the integration. All invention and no integration makes Newton a dull boy.
What part of you — that you identified — you commit to integrating?