Imagine Belonging at Work

Beat Burnout and Conquer Toxic Ambition w/Angelic Williams, Founder of Toxic Ambition

I'm guessing if you call yourself an inclusive leader, a DEI professional, or a social justice champion, that you likely set bold and ambitious goals….and after achieving those bold goals, you may have the tendency to move the goal posts further down the field.

If you can relate, then this interview with Angelic Williams, Founder of Toxic Ambition, is one you must listen to. This conversation examines the root causes of toxic ambition, and their dangers if they remain unchecked. If you find yourself feeling unhappy, no matter how many goals you accomplish, you will gain valuable insights from this interview.

The biggest question you are encouraged to explore today: how can you set meaningful goals without burning yourself out?

Angelic Williams is a published author, entrepreneur, startup ecosystem builder, changemaker passionate about elevating BIPOC and queer voices. Her career spans several realms, including startups, writing, and architecture.

A few key highlights from this conversation include:

• Learn what toxic ambition and burnout are, how they are connected, and why some of us are unhappy no matter how many ambitious goals we accomplish.

• Explore Angelic's experience with toxic ambition syndrome, burnout, and ways she identified, managed, and recovered from burnout's underlying symptoms.

• Examine why toxic ambition and burnout is so pervasive in workplaces around the globe, and why DEI professionals experience it at a disproportionate rate.

• Identify the role goal setting, perfectionism, and boundaries can play in contributing to toxic ambition and burnout and how they can also serve as a remedy for it.

• Gain strategies on how to identify the signs of burnout, how to manage it once you know it's present in your life, and how to recover from it.

Savor this insightful talk, and if you're looking for ways to connect with inspiring leaders like Angelic, be sure to join the Belonging Membership Community – a community of leaders committed to advancing their DEI goals while practicing community care.

Members of our community have the opportunity to participate in live podcast recordings and engage in a private Q&A session after the recording is complete. Your membership is appreciated as it helps make this podcast possible.

You can learn more here: https://www.belongingmembershipcommunity.com

Want to know if you ambition is toxic? Enroll in Angelic's course, Conquering Toxic Ambition Syndrome, and use the discount code BELONG20 to receive a 20% discount! https://www.toxicambition.com/

Transgender Day of Visibility Day (TDOV) is an annual day of recognition observed around the world on March 31st. It's a time to celebrate the contributions and successes of transgender and nonbinary people.

It's also a time to shine a light on the work ahead to end the disproportionate level of violence and discrimination transgender people endure, particularly BIPOC trans folx. With an onslaught of legislation attempting to bloc trans people from receiving basic rights, there's a role you can play.

You can begin by showing up as an ally, or a person helping to build a more gender inclusive world. This matters given that nearly 500 anti-transgender bills are actively being considered in nearly every state across the U.S., many of which target the health & well-being of trans children.

Our guest today, Dr. Lulu, is a board-certified pediatrician and CEO of Dr. Lulu's Life Coaching Lounge. She is a queer mother of a transgender adult and life coach for parents of LGBTQ+ kids. I first discovered Dr. Lulu when she shared a powerful LinkedIn post during Black History Month entitled, "10 things the #BlackTrans Child wants you to know."

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7034233960419237889?updateEntityUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_feedUpdate%3A%28V2%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7034233960419237889%29

During this episode, we discuss the connection between legislation targeting transgender children and the dangers it poses to the future of work. We'll also explore ways allies, and those on their way to joining them, can help stop this legislation from being enshrined into law.

A few key highlights from this conversation include:

• Exploring how Dr. Lulu's background as a pediatrician and mother of a transgender children shapes why her business focuses on supporting parents of LGBTQ+ young people.

• Discussing the onslaught of anti-transgender legislation predominantly targeting transgender children, and its impacts on the future of work.

• Considering the role employers could play in denouncing anti-transgender legislation, by making a real commitment to attract, retain, and advance transgender and nonbinary talent.

• Naming the actions workplaces can actively take to build more safety, trust, and belonging for their current (and future) transgender and nonbinary employees.

• Underscoring the importance of everyday actions allies, and budding allies, can take to show up for the transgender and nonbinary people in their lives.

• Sharing resources that will empower you to successfully show up for the transgender and nonbinary people in your life.

Savor this insightful talk, and if you're looking for ways to connect with inspiring leaders like Dr. Lulu, be sure to join the Belonging Membership Community – a community of leaders committed to advancing their DEI goals while practicing community care. Members have the unique opportunity to engage with our guests 1:1 after our podcast recordings where they can participate in a private Q&A session with our guest.

You can learn more here: http://www.belongingmembershipcommunity.com.

Design a Workplace Where Everyone Thrives

In Rhodes Perry's bestselling book, Belonging at Work, he helps readers distinguish between the terms diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. All of these terms are outcomes: diversity is a people outcome, inclusion is behavioral outcome, equity is a structural outcome, and belonging is an emotional outcome.

Minal Bopaiah's bestselling book, Equity, builds from these distinctions by taking a deep dive into what it means to work in an equitable organization. She writes that "equity means fairness…where all people have unbiased access to education, dignified livelihoods, and the ability to participate fully in society."

Minal has a passion for talking about equity, particularly because she believes the conversation is short lived given that so many DEI professionals "treat equity as a middle child, skipping over it to get the warm, fuzzy feelings of inclusion." Yet equity is the critical element to building organizations that successfully leverage differences skillfully.

During this conversation, Minal and Rhodes discuss ways leaders can embrace their power to build a fair workplace where people get what they need so that they can do their best at work. Much of their conversation will help anyone at work operationalize how to design a more equitable workplace where everyone can thrive.

A few key highlights from this conversation include:

• Exploring why many DEI professionals overlook or outright avoid conversations to avoid addressing systems, policies, and practices that institutionalize unfairness.

• Recognizing that engaging in equity work requires us to "do the hard part first," to dance with uncertainty, and to summon the courage required to entirely redesign our workplaces.

• Naming equity's promise when DEI work centers the principles of targeted universalism – embrace the universal goal, while taking targeted interventions designed to upend unfairness.

• Underscoring how to achieve equity by using your relative power to influence how to transform your workplace culture by using concrete tools and embodying inclusive behaviors.

• Clarifying the practical, everyday actions you can take – no matter your role - to connect your colleagues to what they need to thrive at work.

• Sharing guidance on how leaders can effectively raise awareness of systemic bias and craft new systems, policies, and practices that can lead to better outcomes and lasting behavior change.

• Offering strategies on ways DEI professionals can utilize Minal's book, Equity, to begin the hard work of designing an organization where everyone can truly thrive.

Savor this insightful talk, and if you're looking for ways to connect with inspiring leaders like Minal, be sure to check out the Belonging Membership Community – a community of leaders committed to advancing their DEI goals while practicing community care.

You can learn more here: www.belongingmembershipcommunity.com.

Grow the #BelongingMovement by Empowering a Generation of Little Justice Leaders with Shelby Kretz

Public schools across the U.S. have served as the decisive testing ground for some of the most contentious social and political issues. Everything from mask mandates and teachings about racial justice, to the discussion of LGBTQ+ rights, and the opportunity for transgender athletes to participate in sports – these flash points have emboldened a movement demanding a return to parental rights at the expense of exposing students to different people, beliefs, and cultures that can help them unpack their own conflicting beliefs while learning in a more reasoned way.

For DEI professionals, we recognize the value of learning and connecting across our differences. When we respectfully engage with people who are different from ourselves, we have the opportunity to build real and psychologically safe relationships with them. Increasing our proximity to differences – whether these differences are because of a person's identity, beliefs, or behaviors, we have the opportunity to grow our empathy skills and practice them real time.

Yet, if our public schools fail to teach these important skills, largely because of censoring historical events like the genocide of Indigenous People, or the transatlantic slave trade, how can younger people have the opportunity to learn about human and civil rights movements that are not included in the public school curricula?

To help us answer this question, I am honored to introduce you to Shelby Kretz, the creator of Little Justice Leaders, an organization that makes it easy to learn about social justice. Little Justice Leaders wants to make it easy for parents and caregivers to teach elementary schoolers about social justice because Shelby and her team know it can be hard to talk with young children about these topics, and they want to make it easier for you!

During this conversation, Shelby and Rhodes discuss the challenges that educators have in public school settings to teach about social justice movements and leaders. Rhodes explores Shelby's approach to solving this challenge with some of the services her organization provides.

A few key highlights from this conversation include:

• Learning about the costs of censoring social justice topics in elementary schools and how these costs, if left unchecked, harm the development of a young person's reasoning skills.

• Discussing the origin story of Little Justice Leaders, and why it was created to support parents, caregivers, and teachers talk with young children about social justice topics.

• Exploring how Little Justice Leaders' learning kits are created, how learning materials are carefully selected to help guide a student's learning on important social justice topics.

• Recognizing how the lessons help young people identify when conflicting beliefs arise, and how they might help students notice and then unpack them.

• Sharing guidance on how DEI professionals can incorporate some of the Little Justice Leader lessons into their own learning & development work.

• Discussing learning approaches that can help any learning & development professional simplify the purpose, outcome, and processes to designing effective educational experiences at work.

• Offering a vision for the future where adults have more ease and skill engaging in respectful discourse across differences, and how that will impact our sense of belonging at work.

Savor this insightful talk, and be sure to check out this gift from Shelby, the 10 Simple Tips for Talking to Little Ones About Social Justice: http://www.Ljl.education/perry.

If you're looking for ways to connect with inspiring leaders like Shelby, be sure to check out the Belonging Membership Community – community of leaders committed to advancing their DEI goals while practicing community care. You can learn more here: http://www.belongingmembershipcommunity.com.

The past 3 years have underscored the importance of taking care of our mental health, working with professionals to maintain a robust sense of mental health, and talking about mental health in workplace contexts. Even so, the recent emphasis on taking care of our mental health and talking about it in workplace settings can't immediately erase decades of stigma surrounding this topic.

For DEI professionals, we have an even greater challenge to facilitating conversations about mental health, considering how our own mental health can become challenged with the combined threats of secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, and burnout.

To help us end this stigma, and to begin talking about the importance of taking care of our mental health at work, the Belonging at Work Team is thrilled to feature the thought leadership of Simone Walsh, Founder of Essence of Mind, a nonprofit that offers tools and resources to support individuals navigating mental illness.

During this conversation, Simone and Rhodes explore her commitment to eliminate the stigma of mental illness in our workplaces. Rhodes explores Simone's approach to ending this stigma through wellness activities, seminars, and special events.

A few key highlights from this conversation include:

• Learning about Simone's personal memoir, Poetic Diary of a Bleeding Heart, and why she decided to share her testimony of escaping the darkness to begin her healing journey.
• Discussing the negative impact bullying and harassment had on Simone, and how these kind of behaviors showed up in her workplace experiences.
• Identifying the personal practices Simone found most helpful to catalyze her healing journey that has helped her emerge from the darkness and share with others.
• Learning how the workplace can actually be a sanctuary that can begin connecting individuals to mental health resources that can help fortify our mental health.
• Exploring why Simone believes serving as a possibility model to support other people overcome clinical depression and anxiety can help reduce stigma.
• Recognizing how not speaking about the importance of mental health can create further stigma, and what we can do to disrupt this kind of silence.
• Sharing guidance on how DEI professionals can encourage their workplaces to end the silence around mental health and begin including this topic in the broader work.
• Making the specific case as to how business leaders can promote the mental health and well-being of their employees and why that will help them become employers of choice.

Episode 28 – Mental Health

Savor this insightful talk, and if you're looking for ways to connect with inspiring leaders like Simone, be sure to check out the Belonging Membership Community – community of leaders committed to advancing their DEI goals while practicing community care.

You can learn more here: www.belongingmembershipcommunity.com

It's budget season, which begs the question, is your employer investing in your career development to help you lead more inclusively in 2023? Whether you're looking for ideas on how to advocate for a professional development (PD) budget, or if you're curious about how you can put it to work, Rhodes offers powerful insights all about the importance of utilizing your professional development budget in the year ahead.

During this episode, you will discover some of the many ways you can invest your PD budget to gain the knowledge, skills, and confidence to transform moments of exclusion into moments of belonging at work. And if you don't yet have a PD budget, you'll gain clarity about why a PD budget is an essential element to ignite your career growth, how you can encourage your employer to budget for your very own PD budget, and ways you can put it to work as you grow into a more inclusive leader.

As a result of listening to this episode, you will:

• Learn 3 reasons why PD budgets are a key ingredient to belonging at work.
• Gain key strategies to help advocate for a PD budget (if you don't yet have one).
• Recognize the 3 common reasons why many fail to utilize their PD budgets.
• Gain a framework to clarify the specific skills you will need to lead inclusively at work.
• Avoid paying money out of your own pocket to gain the leadership skills you desire.

After listening to this episode, if you want to dive more deeply into the content Rhodes offers, be sure to register for his upcoming, Budget for Belonging workshop, where you can discuss these topics in greater depth with fellow DEI professionals and other inclusive leaders eager to advocate for PD budgets for their colleagues, and to put their own budgets to work in the year head! The workshop will help you build an even greater sense of belonging at work for you and your colleagues.

After you listen, please be sure to explore these additional resources:

• Register for the Budget for Belonging workshop: https://belongingatwork.kartra.com/page/nov-30-22
• Subscribe to the Imagine Belonging at Work Newsletter: https://www.rhodesperry.com/subscribe
• Leave an honest rating and review of the show: http://www.imaginebelongingatwork.com/

In Belonging at Work, Rhodes Perry's bestselling book, he writes about the power of being a possibility model to empower those of us who still find the idea of being a leader out of reach, out of sight, and even out of mind.

A possibility model is a person who reveals one way of being human in the world that deeply resonates with another person who may share a social identity and/or a lived experience with this person. The phrase, "you have to see it to be it," helps one recognize the power and significance of possibility models.

For those of us who experience exclusion simply because of who we are – perhaps we are BIPOC, LGBTQ+, a person with a disability, an immigrant, or perhaps we live at these intersections - possibility models matter when it comes to politics, entertainment, sports, and even the workplace. We have to see it to be it…

And we are extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to chat with Caitlin Copple Masingill, Founding Partner of Full Swing PR, who will share why she's on a mission to amplify the leadership of BIPOC, women, and LGBTQ+ leaders (and those at these intersections) so that they can make a positive impact on our world.

During this conversation, Caitlin and Rhodes explore her commitment to helping underestimated and historically excluded leaders unlock the power of their influence so that they can serve as the leaders we have been waiting for – leaders that fully reflect our rapidly changing workforce throughout all levels of large and small workplaces alike.

A few key highlights from this conversation include:

• Exploring what possibility models mean to Caitlin and why she's so passionate about amplifying the leadership of BIPOC, women, and LGBTQ+ leaders (and those at these intersections) in workplaces around the globe.

• Abandoning old models of leadership by transforming the narrative of what it means to be an effective, successful, and inspiring leader in 2022.

• Learning about the existing barriers that make it difficult to transform old notions of what it means to be a leader, and ideas on how to get started.

• Sharing guidance on how we can amplify this new narrative of what it means to be a leader in today's (and future) workplaces.

• Making the specific case as to why the lived experiences of underestimated and historically leaders is a "value add" for any organization as it works to remain relevant in today's rapidly evolving world.

• Overcoming imposter syndrome to empower any of us who resonate with Caitlin's message to fully share our talents with the world.

Savor this insightful talk, and if you're looking for ways to connect with inspiring leaders like Caitlin, be sure to check out the Belonging Membership Community – community of leaders committed to advancing their DEI goals while practicing community care. You can learn more here: www.belongingmembershipcommunity.com

The social determinants of health are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, workshop and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality of life outcomes, and they are traditionally grouped into 5 core domains including economic stability, education, health care, neighborhood and social networks.

Yet very limited research exists on how the nature of work, and our working conditions influence employee health and well-being. Fortunately, Dr. Brad Shuck, Co-Founder of Org Vitals developed a potentially new line of research within Human Resource Development called the Workplace Determinants of Health. The WDOH are organizationally attributable employment and related conditions that influence and group differences in health risk and health status.

A few key highlights from this conversation include:

• Why Dr. Shuck set out on researching WDOH and how he and other researchers came up with a potential structure for understanding WDOH, which includes four pillars: stress, capacity, physical and social environment, and meaning in work.

• How we can identify, assess, and address our WDOH, specifically examining these four pillars of stress, capacity, physical and social environment, and meaning in work.

• How Dr. Shuck's company, Org Vitals helps employers monitor, assess, and address WDOH for a larger workforce, and how his company helps to connect employers with solutions and resources at the right time to overcome poor WDOH.

• How meaning in our work connects to the ingredients of belonging – feeling seen, connected, supported, and a sense of pride in our work, and the opportunity Dr. Shuck recognizes when it comes to supporting employers trying to help their employees become more engaged.

• Why employers ought to consider their own organization's vitals, and recognizing the costs of failing to address elements of toxic workplace culture.

Savor this insightful talk, and then explore some of the resources shared during this conversation:

• Belonging Membership Community: www.belongingmembershipcommunity.com
• The Social Determinants of Health: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/hrdq.21468.
• OrgVitals: https://www.orgvitals.com/

When it comes to scaling and advancing our DEI commitments, technology holds many promises, and even more pitfalls. Many DEI-focused technologies make bold claims about their ability to root out biases, particularly in HR functions.

Yet, experienced DEI professionals recognize that while technology does have the power to advance and scale our goals, without important oversight, the very biases this technologies aim to upend can become exacerbated by them.

During this episode, Vivienne Ming offers oversight strategies to keep these technologies in check. Vivienne is a theoretical neuroscientist, technologist, and the co-founder of Socos, a company that combines machine learning and cognitive neuroscience to maximize life outcomes.

Rhodes and Vivienne engage in an honest discussion that introduces you to a few of the technologies being used by DEI professionals to help advance their goals, and they will also highlight their specific limitations as an important reminder that technology alone is not a panacea to overcome biases at work.

After you listen, please be sure to explore these additional resources:

• Read this Workforce Solutions Review, The Power & Pitfalls of Artificial Intelligence by Rhodes Perry & Bernadette Smith: shorturl.at/ktUX4.

• Subscribe to the Imagine Belonging at Work Newsletter: https://www.rhodesperry.com/subscribe.

• Leave an honest rating and review of the show: http://www.imaginebelongingatwork.com/.

According to the US Department of Labor, 47 million Americans voluntarily left their jobs in 2021. The number one reason these employees joined the Great Resignation was because of toxic workplace cultures – cultures where exclusion and othering thrive.

If you too have joined the Great Resignation and are seeking your next great career opportunity, you likely are also a part of the "Great Reflection." This collective reflection period encourages many of us to reimagine the kind of workplace culture we desire – one where our values fully align with our employers' values.

Yet, where can you learn more about a prospective employer's values, and how do we know if their stated values are more than simply lip service? If you're looking for answers to these questions and more, then be sure to give this episode of the Imagine Belonging at Work Podcast a close listen.

You will learn 5 simple actions you can take to earn your next great career opportunity. As you listen, you may want to write out your top 5 – 10 personal values that guide how you live and work. Knowing your personal values will help you get the most out of today's content, as you identify prospective employers that prioritize building more safety, trust, and belonging at work.

After you listen, please be sure to explore these additional resources:

• Grab your copy of Imagine Belonging: https://www.imaginebelonging.com/.

• Subscribe to the Imagine Belonging at Work Newsletter: https://www.rhodesperry.com/subscribe.

• Leave an honest rating and review of the show: http://www.imaginebelongingatwork.com/.