Welcome to Intentional Conversations, where we intersect diversity, equity, and inclusion with leadership and business.

This week we welcomed Dr. Adriane Johnson-Williams to Intentional Conversations!

So, grab your headphones 🎧, press play, and let the conversation begin!

** Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our channel because we're all about keeping the great conversations flowing. **

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM DR. ADRIANE:

1. What do you want your company to do for people so that when you’re putting your strategies together, they are human centered.
2. Strategies can shift when you think about the people at the heart of your work.
3. Human beings are not machines.
4. As a leader how do you lead something you don’t live?
5. If you are the most powerful person in an organization and you don’t understand at a personal level, why having people from all sorts of backgrounds is vital, then it is going to be very hard to lead.
6. Everybody has “average-ness” in their group.
7. What does it mean to be a team that institutionalizes equity… changing what you’ve done as a team would require disrupting core operations. If you’re really working as a team and you’re weaving in equity principles into everything you do, it becomes virtually impossible to back out of it.
8. You can call it whatever you want, words don’t matter any more, but do the work.
9. Look at every aspect of the way we function, all of the policies, procedures, hidden rules, that is where inequities live, and that takes work. It takes you to be clear headed and honest.
10. That attitude isn’t applied to how people make money, if Apple did things the way they did in 1994, no one would be paying attention to them anymore. BUT… they will say it all day long about policies and people.
11. If you’re serious about getting where you want to go, equity is in there.
12. Take care of yourselves and activate the joy that is within her to effect her work.
13. Reflective practice works - think about what’s working, think about what’s failed, not just for you, but for the emerging field.
14. You cannot do clear level reflection if you are overstressed, overwhelmed and trying to take care of the world.
15. In this current climate, now is not the time to worry about how you talk about things. It is the time to worry about how you DO things. Don’t talk about it, be about it.

CONNECT WITH DR. ADRIANE:

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Listen to her Podcast

Get her book - Not Your Father's Capitalism

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Welcome to Intentional Conversations, where we intersect diversity, equity, and inclusion with leadership and business.

This week we welcomed Michael Paciello to Intentional Conversations!

So, grab your headphones 🎧, press play, and let the conversation begin!

** Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our channel because we're all about keeping the great conversations flowing. **

KEY TAKEAWAYS MICHAEL:

1. When building a website, build a mindset of "think accessibility", then it becomes easier, it will be built into your digital environment.
2. Most companies come to them because there is a level of urgency, a lawsuit, the real thing comes back to how do we get the C-suite folx to indoctrinate a culture of inclusivity? 5 - 10 years, is using the accessibility maturity model. If you start with this, you’re saying Who are we? What do we have in place where disabilities and inclusion are concerned? And where do we need to improve?
3. Be sure your leaders buy into this! This is where the crux of the problem comes in.
4. Making it accessible in theory sounds easy, but that’s not true.
5. Marketing has been built based on the “trust marketing ethic”, be truthful about what your products can and cannot do, and who they serve.
6. There is a difference between making something accessible and making it usable.
7. #1 challenge is bias in AI - it is all about math.
8. How can we scale accessibility? Get better and better every day!!

CONNECT WITH MICHAEL:

On LinkedIn | Facebook | X | YouTube

Learn more about Audio Eye

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Welcome to Intentional Conversations, where we intersect diversity, equity, and inclusion with leadership and business.

This week we welcomed Katrina Jones to Intentional Conversations!

So, grab your headphones 🎧, press play, and let the conversation begin!

** Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our channel because we're all about keeping the great conversations flowing. **

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM KATRINA:

1. One of the ways we cope is by disconnecting, but in that you miss the opportunity to be present and be with what’s right in front of you.
2. A common misconception is that DEI is short term work, it’s work you can set immediate goals and money around and it will be fixed within a years time, but it’s taken centuries to get to where we are now. Setting goals and giving a timeline is not going to happen.
3. As much as it is about having a plan, it’s about doing so for the long term.
4. DEI serves everyone… not just certain communities.
5. People want to go where things are good.
6. People need to understand the optics of DEI are bigger than people know.
7. The partners we’re working with don’t fundamentally understand DEI and if they don’t understand, they don’t necessarily believe.
8. It can sound like organizations have stepped back from their commitment to DEI, but does that mean they’re eliminating everything? Absolutely not.
9. Extend more grace to folks, we don’t know anyone’s individual situation or what commitments they have, sometimes, they just cannot speak out.
10. I always ask myself am I the best person to talk about this? Is there work I can do in other places? It might not be seen, but it will have an impact.
11. Rest instead of burn yourself out!



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Welcome to Intentional Conversations, where we intersect diversity, equity, and inclusion with leadership and business.

This week we welcomed Dr. Karen Hills Pruden to Intentional Conversations!

Dr. Pruden ended the Intentional Conversation with this challenge - "Let’s create our own community, be a part of a community and let’s soar!"

So, grab your headphones 🎧, press play, and let the conversation begin!

** Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our channel because we're all about keeping the great conversations flowing. **

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

1. What you’re known for is more important in the workplace, now more than ever.
2. When I say community, I’m talking about someone you can have an unfiltered conversation about what you really feel.
3. Those of us in leadership may feel we don’t have a safe space because lots of eyes are on us.
4. A trusted person can be 1 person, you don’t need 50.
5. Intersectionality is important - we cannot look at our employees without this. As a business or as an employer, you need to understand that individual. No more surface relationships. You need to know your people.
6. What you don’t measure can create a problem, you can’t hold people accountable.
7. Tying the metrics for DEI into leadership, we have to hold people accountable. If you believe in it, it needs to be tied into the metrics for our leaders.
8. If organizations keep in mind the business case for DEI… they tend to be more profitable, they tend to be viewed better, get feedback from customers / workforce, and their workforce is more representative of their customers.
9. You cannot dispute quantitative data.
10. Biggest misconceptions I see is equity and equality are synonyms for one another, they are not.
11. Tips for making employees feel seen & heard: Talking to employees, email that employees can use, town halls, regular departmental meetings, and messaging happens to the masses.
12. Walk in and talk to your people, we miss lots due to communicating through email.

CONNECT WITH DR. KAREN:

On LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram

Visit her website

Learn more about the upcoming Sister Leaders Conference

Feedback and FREE Download Link: 10 Ways to Stand Out in an Anti-Diversity Workplace:

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Welcome to Intentional Conversations, where we intersect diversity, equity, and inclusion with leadership and business.

This week we welcomed Zach Nunn to Intentional Conversations!

So, grab your headphones 🎧, press play, and let the conversation begin!

** Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our channel because we're all about keeping the great conversations flowing. **

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

1. Let’s get away from the jargon, that I did not create and let’s figure out what it is… it is about experience!
2. EVERYBODY deserves a fair and respectful experience.
3. When you’re working with clients or your own team, there will always be opportunities for misalignment, but when you level-set up front, uncomfortable conversations become not so uncomfortable.
4. 99.999% of the time, when you’re up front and honest, regardless of race, it is all good.
5. A lot of the ideas are cute in presentation… every seat isn’t equal. One of the most invisible letters in DEI is “P”, for power. The truth is the meeting has already happened before the meeting.
6. A lot of people are just happy to be at the table, so they can say they were at the table.
7. Leaders have to be comfortable in sharing power, people receiving the power have to have the courage to be courageous and then have the ability to use the power.
8. If you’re just trying to reserve your seat, your not going to give, but you’re not going to receive either.
9. Giving full opportunity of success to others, means we have to share power.
10. Curiosity is how to give everyone a spot to be heard.
11. An attitude of service and support is easy to build an environment of inclusion and excitement because feel like they’re being considered. Be quiet, ask more questions and listen more than you’re speaking.

CONNECT WITH ZACHARY:

Visit his Linktree to access ALL Zach's got going on

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Welcome to Intentional Conversations, where we intersect diversity, equity, and inclusion with leadership and business.

This week we welcomed Jelisa Dallas to Intentional Conversations!

So, grab your headphones 🎧, press play, and let the conversation begin!

** Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our channel because we're all about keeping the great conversations flowing. **

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM JELISSA:

• Remember to let your soul work, be your best work, to a better you.
• Fear of failing and success can coexist.
• GO BRAVE FRAMEWORK - this started out being for me first, a personal revelation that I needed to work through

G - Growing your mindset

O - Optimism

B - Boldness

R - Resilience

A - authenticity - own who you are and operate your authority

V - Victory / Virtue - always operating in integrity

E - Empower people in their purpose PRACTICAL WAYS TO GO BRAVE

• Always learning! When you stop learning, you stop growing. Be willing to unlearn things that have been rooted as fact or truth.
• Rest! Not just sleep, putting phone down, taking walks outside, etc…
• Recognize what we have and being grateful for that… not just what we can leverage like credentials, but who do we have.
• Rest and resilience - sitting in the moments of adversity and saying what was my responsibility and what wasn’t. We take it all in and try to move forward with all the baggage, but it does nothing for us.
• We can only control ourselves and influence others.
• Give Courageously - our giving can be from the cup and not from the overflow. Typically when we give, we reduce the amount of what we’re giving. Take a step away from life, as much as you can, need to identify it, what gives you reprieve. Only from a place of overflow, can we give abundantly. We don’t do much work, it just naturally comes from the overflow.

CONNECT WITH JELISSA:

On LinkedIn | YouTube

Visit her website

JELISSA'S BOOKS:

The Emotional Intelligence Guide To Allyship

Soul Work

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Welcome to Season 5 of Intentional Conversations, the place where we have discussions that inspire inclusive cultures, belonging and excellence! Led by award-winning author, speaker and practitioner, Dr. Nika White and team.

We're so grateful you're here. Let the conversation begin!

For Episode 1 of Season 5, we welcomed Kellina Powell, and WOW! Kellina is deaf and an advocate/coach/mentor, mainly for the deaf community.

BIG TAKEAWAY FROM KELLINA: Do not be afraid to come out of your comfort zone, you have one life to live.

So, grab your headphones 🎧, press play, and let the conversation begin!

** Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our channel because we're all about keeping the great conversations flowing. **

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM KELLINA:

• She chose to go into coaching, teaching, and writing because she wanted to let deaf people know they are not alone in the world.
• Deaf people need paper and pen.
• I noticed when people do a workshop, they will use someone who is not disabled, be mindful to bring the right people and the right topics.
• Build a good networking space
• Be cautious with your surroundings.
• Be sure emergency indicators flash or have some type of visual / or accountability partner
• Build a relationship with someone who has a disability.
• Best way to ask companies is to say “Please educate me.”
• Policy review needs to be consistent.

What do you never again want people to say, think or do regarding deaf people?

• 1 - Replace the term "Hearing impairment" with "hard of hearing" or "deaf". It is ok to say "deaf".
• 2 - When speaking with someone, be sure your face is forward so they can read your lips.
• 3 - If you’re wearing masks, find the clear masks or take off your mask.
• 4 - Do not shout, talk softly.
• 5 - Don’t rephrase what you’ve said, just repeat it. It’s not an understanding issue, its a hearing issue.

CONNECT WITH KELLINA:

On Instagram | FB | LinkedIn

On Youtube

Visit her website

Get her book "Everday I Am Just Deaf"

LET'S STAY CONNECTED:

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Welcome to Intentional Conversations, where we intersect diversity, equity, and inclusion with leadership and business.

This week we welcomed Valda Valbrun to Intentional Conversations!

So, grab your headphones 🎧, press play, and let the conversation begin!

** Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our channel because we're all about keeping the great conversations flowing. **

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• The role of education is to make kids curious!
• A big part is not just about making sure the curriculum reflects it, but that the school experience is not one that feels so isolating.
• Think through how do I accept my students as they are and how do I learn from them and incorporate that into my instruction.
• When I engage in content, I should see myself in it.
• When we think of being culturally competent, how do I as a teacher or leader invite students into that?
• Most students of color experience up to 90 microagressions in school.
• What culture have we created where self advocacy gets you in trouble?
• We never know what someone is experiencing in their world, everybody has something.
• For educators, we need to realize that we don’t know all there is to know about them, especially with young people.
• Students spend more time at school than they do with their families… schools should be an environment where they can come and be their full self.
• Culturally relevant books are being banned and that’s ok because we can still talk about it.
• If I learn something that is relevant to my life, and I can make it work with my lived experience and culture, it is enduring understanding.
• DEI work is important, but I’m not going to allow it to take away from the things that I know are important, not at the expense of my health and well-being.
• Real inclusion is saying who has been left out that we need to include.
• Given where we are, who do you want to be?

CONNECT WITH VALDA:

On LinkedIn

Visit her website

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Welcome to Intentional Conversations, where we intersect diversity, equity, and inclusion with leadership and business.

This week we welcomed Yolanda Webb to Intentional Conversations!

So, grab your headphones 🎧, press play, and let the conversation begin!

** SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel for sooo much more content! **

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Attention is a choice. Intention is a choice.
• Attention bias is being very selective about what you’re focusing on.
• What you focus your attention on is what is going to be the outcome.
• At the end of the day, when you go to bed, recall every single thing you did. It helps you to redirect your attention.
• The debate is not that DEI is wrong, the debate are the letters.
• I don’t chose to give time and energy to the people who have said this has no value.
• The opposite of courage is not cowardice, but compromise.
• Goodwill is measurable. It is selective attention.
• Small acts of goodwill refocuses our attention. The folx who don’t agree with me, now see my humanity.
• So much of our attention is internal and it needs to be more external.
• Tools we can use to change our attention to focus on something new:
• Embrace your vulnerability and your authenticity.
• Expand your view. Look at new resources, listen to something new.
• We have to focus on the small stuff!
• Purpose driven culture - The final decision should rest with you, but the decision making shouldn’t rest with you. All of your people should have a voice in any decision making.
• Purpose driven - I already know when I start my day what I want my outcomes to be, that’s purpose driven.
• Helping your team internally to get to the outcomes externally you want, if your team is unhappy internally you will not get to the external outcome you want.
• Performance evaluations is not an evaluation of your culture.
• Where do I need to create space for growth? We can only grow when we are self aware and vulnerable. The first place we show up vulnerable is to ourselves. But often times our ego gets in the way of the vulnerability.

CONNECT WITH YOLANDA:

On LinkedIn | Facebook

Visit her website

CONNECT WITH NIKA WHITE CONSULTING:

Connect on LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | X

Subscribe to the NWC YouTube channel (New videos and more weekly!)

Visit the NWC website

Get your copy of Inclusion Uncomplicated

Get the weekly newsletter!

Welcome to Intentional Conversations, where we intersect diversity, equity, and inclusion with leadership and business.

This week we welcomed Natasha Wade to Intentional Conversations!

So, grab your headphones 🎧, press play, and let the conversation begin!

** Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our channel because we're all about keeping the great conversations flowing. **

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM NATASHA:

• Its important to have a sacred brave space to name your shame, fears, and name your calling.
• Your activism and advocacy should be grounded in your lived experiences.
• "I’ve never lost when investing in Black women."
• When it comes to Black women we are not allowed to be anything but perfect…with Natasha Wade Black women are invited to be vulnerable and human.
• There is nothing at all wrong with centering Black women with our work.
• One-on-one coaching is powerful. However, cohort-based learning is on the rise for 2025 because of the community aspect ingrained within it.
• “Act our wage”, it is important to be able to express yourself without being career limited.
• I am not doing this to you, I am doing this for me.
• A lot of the times we go into our businesses due to what we lack.
• We (Black women) are often fueled based on what we missed out on.
• Sometimes when we work in silos, we think our reality is the reality and that is not always the case; that is why community is important.
• Never rob yourself of any resources you can have from the resources you have access to.
• How do we reimagine our workspace? What does a liberated workspace look like?
• In a liberated workspace, Black women are very unapologetic about the people we bring inside our organizations and ask them the hard questions.
• A one size approach is not going to get the job done, we have to learn our people one-by-one to create human-centered approaches.

CONNECT WITH NATASHA:

On Instagram

On her website

CONNECT WITH NIKA WHITE CONSULTING:

Connect on LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | X

Subscribe to the NWC YouTube channel (New videos and more weekly!)

Visit the NWC website

Get your copy of Inclusion Uncomplicated

Get the weekly newsletter!