Imagine a scenario where a white person is riding in a cab and notices the driver has brown skin and seems to be from a country in Asia or the Middle East. So the passenger thinks "I like to be friendly, I am going to ask this person where they are from. Maybe they are from Pakistan or India and they like cricket. I love cricket so it would be fun to talk to them about that." For some people that seems like a completely innocent, maybe even kind of act of making a human connection. For others that is a microaggression that is asking a person of color (who also happens to be in a situation with an uneven power dynamic) to make their personal info available to appease a white person. Is one of those people right? What is the responsibility of the passenger and/or the driver in that situation, if any? How big of a problem is this?

These are all questions I find fascinating, important, and very complex. That is why I enjoyed so much the conversation I had with Leyla. As way of background, Leyla is the founder and CEO of Diverse Minds UK Ltd. where she enables organizations to create mentally healthy and equal workplaces through coaching, training, speaking and consultancy-- not just because it is the right thing to do but because it improves productivity, innovation, and results. We talked about this exact "cab driver" scenario and many others in our personal lives and professional lives. Given Leyla's experience and thoughtfulness on the topic it made for a really rich, insightful discussion. We tried to understand how she applies her value of "constructive change" to her work and her personal life to make the world a better, more equitable place. But we didn't take the easy way out, we tried to answer the hard, meaningful questions that get to the core of why this goal is so incredibly difficult. 

At the end of the day, Leyla is a believer that we have to start by making people be more aware and more humble about the idea that sometimes the way we think or the actions we take hurt other people without us even knowing it. She believes that there are principles we can apply to be more thoughtful and considerate to those around us and if we all take small actions every day in alignment with these principles the world should be a better place. I really hope Leyla is right and that is why we spent so much time pressure testing and examining that theory. As I mentioned, these are incredibly complex and nuanced problems, so I am not sure how realistic it is for us to "solve" them; but I do agree that if each of us can exhibit a little more humility, it will help move us in the right direction.