Welcome to Intentional Conversations, the podcast where we engage in bold dialogue at the intersection of diversity, equity, inclusion, leadership, and business.

I’m Dr. Nika White, your host, and I’m thrilled to have you join us!

This week, we had an inspiring conversation with Janet Stovall, diving into

So, grab your headphones 🎧, hit play, and let’s get started!

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KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Taught lesson vs. bought lesson… it is the one place that it has the ability and true incentive to do the work. It is not going to be easy, but I think people will figure out they need to keep doing it.
• Infinity groups are about identity, ERG’s are about advocacy and that’s when you provide value to the company.
• ERG's don't happen organically, if you don’t support your people on the first 2 levels, identity and advocacy, they will never get to the 3rd level of value.
• “Companies can mandate diversity, but they have to cultivate inclusion.” We focus on getting bodies in the building, but that’s not enough. Inclusion has always been the most important of inclusion, diversity and equity. Most of us think inclusion as feeling, I define it as behavior.
• Diversity is not a problem to solve, it solves problems. Inclusion is not feeling valued, it is being able to deliver value. And equity…
• You cannot just create a “space” of belonging, then you say “sense” of belonging, but the onus of inclusion is on the person that has been excluded. The only way to create belonging is you have to focus on inclusive behaviors.
• If you’re trying to decide whether you’re going to go public and say something, ask yourself 5 questions, is it: Deliberate, Educated, Purposeful, Tailored, Habitual?
• Sometimes we go up, then we come right back down. In 2020, we went way up, but now we need to expect that we’re going to come way down. What gives me hope is we are still moving all along the continuum.
• I follow what pisses me off, I don’t follow what makes me happy.
• What keeps me in this work… understanding who I uniquely am, where I am doing the work, and identifying the unique barriers to inclusion.
• The data shows up Black women are effected more than anyone else in the workplace.
• Everybody has some aspect seen or unseen of diversity.
• Being a communicator is incredibly important because you have to help people understand how it effects them.
• The heart and mind will never change as long as the behavior doesn’t change.
• We have to keep doing this work, but it has never been easy. We live in an inequitable world, and in that world, equity is a disruption. If we don’t, we see where the world would like to be!

CONNECT WITH JANET:

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Get her book - The Conscious Communicator: The Fine Art Of Not Saying Stupid Sh*t



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