In this episode, we talk about getting to know and taking care of yourself better, as a leader. As well as, where to start when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
In this episode, I talk to Faith Clarke, an Organizational Health and Inclusion Specialist.
Our conversation was rich and we covered A LOT of ground, including but not limited to:
- How leading through a crisis can teach you to be hyper-present
- How to get to know and take care of yourself better, as a leader
- How to hold collective space and honor rhythms, energy, and needs (yours and those of others, in life and at work)
- How inclusion starts with us
True diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) has to be flexible. And, it has to include us first.
Faith suggests that we start doing the work by asking ourselves: who's not allowed to show up IN ME in this space?
From there, we can start to work outward--building that muscle at micro-levels (in our families and on our direct teams). Faith suggests paying attention to "who is at the party but not dancing."
For all the good stuff, you'll have to LISTEN IN. I enjoyed this conversation immensely and know that you will too!
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To learn more about Faith Clarke and how she helps women leaders in social impact organizations cultivate peak performance, create inclusive culture, and lead thriving teams visit https://www.faithclarke.com/.
- I'm Celine Williams and welcome to the Leading Through Crisis podcast. A conversation series exploring resiliency and leadership in challenging times. My guest today is Faith Clarke, who helps business teams increase their productivity and engagement, while helping each team member thrive. Her academic research and her numerous experiences with organizational teams, have helped her curate a high touch systematic approach to human thriving and teamwork in the workplace, which has helped her clients improve operations, maximize productivity and double their revenue. She is particularly committed to supporting businesses by and for people with disabilities. Faith, thank you so much for joining me today.
- Celine, thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation.
- Me too, per usual, in the pre-conversation which happens before these recordings start, we always go on a nice tangent. and it was really interesting. So I'm excited for you to share with the listeners, because I think your experience and your lens is extraordinarily fascinating. So, the first question I always start with is the big and broad one, which is, when you hear the concept of leading through crisis or leading in challenging times, what comes up for you? What sort of springs to mind around that topic?
- Well, I think for me, it starts at home this idea of leading, right? And I think about myself as a leader, as parent, as leader. And as you know, my son who's now an adult has autism. And one of the things that you get really adept at with classic autism anyway, and we have a bunch of challenges that we deal with, is that anything can happen at any time. And that's been scary many days. And so, I remember a particular day when my son just, I was watching him and he popped a magnet in his mouth and swallowed it. In a microsecond the whole life has changed. It's like, what's going on? What do we do? And so this idea of leading through crisis, and he's fine.
- Great.
- I have many, many photos on my iPhone of X rays, where is it now? Where is it now? Where is it now? But there's a way that you have to, it's almost like it teaches you how crisis can teach you how to be hyper present. The thing that I've noticed with myself as a parent in crisis, is that I step out of the self that says I have no idea what to do. I don't know, I wonder if my, you know, imposter syndrome, my perfectionism, all the things that I struggle with, seem to step to the side and I become the person that I need to be to handle this moment. And giving myself the opportunities, seeing that over and over again is a great reminder to me that, oh, I'm from that stock of people that can be in the moment, see all of what's needed and then say, okay, this is what we need to do, and just act on it, you know? And so, when I think of leading through crisis, I think of being hyper present. And then I think of trusting that all the information that you need is right there in that moment. I also though think about the fact that, to be prepared to leading crisis, you have to be really, really, really good steward of your own energy. A good steward of your own, of yourself, like knowing who you are, knowing what you love, knowing you enough to have given yourself enough practice, so that you can recognize you in action. You know, like I know that I'm good with strategy, I know that I get a lot of information from environments. So in the moment I can trust, this thing I'm gonna pull in all the information I need. What's gonna show up in front of me is a plan. I can execute that plan, I can know what I need to do. So I don't know if that's a roundabout answer, but that's what came to mind when I thought.
- That's not roundabout at all. I think that is very astute. I love the idea of being hyper present in those moments of crisis. And I think a really important piece of being able to be hyper present in those moments of crisis, is that, when you're not in the moments of crisis, it is doing that work to know yourself, to understand yourself, to be really clear on here's what your strengths are. And here's what I can lean on when everything seems like it's falling apart around me and I can't control the externals.
- Yeah, one of the things that I think about too, I probably don't think about it in the crisis but I know now that maybe it applies. Is that, the signals I get from my body that I've gone too far, are always signals that are way before the danger point. You know, you've seen those experiments or whatever, where they say, you know, hold your breath until you feel like you have to breathe. And then that moment, when you feel like you have to breathe is like a minute away, two minutes away from when your body is really starting to have a panic. So, I had this moment when I was pregnant with, who was I pregnant? I have three kids, I was pregnant with my littlest. So I'm holding my daughter in my hand, she is maybe one, one and a half. And my son with autism is four, I'm holding him with the other hand. He runs off and runs up a little incline and I'm seven months pregnant and I hate heights. I just am not, I have these stories about my glasses falling off if I go up into high places. But I just put her on the ground and said stay, ran up the incline with my large self and grabbed him. And I only recognize that, wow, look at what you did, afterwards. And so part of me also notices that when I hear that voice that says, this is too far, you can't, that's really far away from where I really can't. So I can kind of just keep going and push through. You know, I mean, I can apply myself, because I'm not really in any danger.
- I think that's such an important. I mean, I wish we all took more time to reflect on moments like that the way that you do. 'Cause I think that's a really important lesson that we get after crisis and to, you know, I think of most change our body thinks is crisis, right? So we go into this, like, there's a change crisis mode no matter what it is, right? 'Cause it's not familiar. It doesn't make a difference what it is, it can be the best change in the world, it's not familiar. So, you know, I think it's really important that after those moments, being able to think back and reflect and say, oh, that wasn't as bad as I think it is when I'm not in the moment or that wasn't as scary as I was preparing it to be when I heard about it. Whatever, whatever the thing is. And I think that's part of leading in those challenging times really effectively.
- Right, I think it's too, there's noticing that the people we lead that's what's going on for them, but there is so much, more is caught than taught, right? So, it's us kind of really being deliberate about, okay, I'm getting hyper present, I'm anchoring myself in the moment and I'm going to almost transmit this hyper present to you. Like, this is the way to be in this moment while we move ahead. But with compassion, it's not like, cut it out. But, you know, just like, this is how people are feeling. So let's model a way to move forward with deep, like almost creating that space that feels safe to feel where we feel, but yet we move into action to take care of what's needed.
- Yeah, I love that. And I think the other thing that you said that really resonated, was that idea that, that you have enough information in the moment to do the best thing in the moment, right. I think that when we think about challenging times, crisis change, whatever you wanna call it, we are a lot of people and I'm not saying everyone, but, do we have all the information we need? Do we have , what else is there becomes the kind of brain protecting itself story that we have. I mean, I think the best thing that we can all do is be aware that we can make a decision with the information we have now, that is the best decision based on this information. Doesn't mean we don't get different information in the future that we can say, oh, if I'd known that I could have done something different. I mean, if you don't have it in the moment, it shouldn't stop you.
- It's not relevant, yeah. I used to be a computer engineer in another life. Parts of the thing about building efficient software, way back in the day before apps, parts of the thing about building efficient software is this idea of how efficient is it? Well, can we save this amount more memory? Can we make it this amount faster? And real and truly, it is as efficient as it can get by the deadline, within the number of hours of work I can give it. Like, there are these constraints and it's going to be what it is based on the constraints that we have, and it's the same for all our decisions. This is the moment I have whatever the crisis is, the decision is now. And so I can make the decision and trust. Of course, when I'm not in crisis it's harder for me to remember this, I am- But do I really know? And so I have to just pretend, you know what, five and four, now, okay, good. We'll take the decision.
- Well, sometimes it's why those arbitrary deadlines are so good, because there's a constraint put in place, artificial or not. If it's there and other things are reliant on it, we follow it, right? In film, editors will always tell you that no movie is ever done being edited. It's just, it was due. If you were to give them another six months, they'd all tinker around and edit more and cut things together and tweak things the way that they wanted them. And then nothing would ever be done.
- My younger two are artists and we do, they illustrate children's books and stuff like that. And so I'm the mom manager, the kind of, they're the talent. And I'm like 65% done, no guys, 65%- No more of this like reflection, like, we're done. We're handing this in.
- I love that, also-
- 80%.
- Awesome, I love all the different things that you've done, that you computer engineer, you're getting your PhD, you work with business teams, you also manage your children's art career.
- I think I love the human story. I think that there's so much wisdom in all of our stories, that I love to land myself in a moment and just say, what's going on here and what do we learn? And I'm in a moment and then I remember, oh wow, this is what this client needs. That's interesting or better still, for me anyway. This is what I need in that other moment that I was like waffling about. And so I tend to immerse myself in different situations. And part of why consult, is that I get so many stories. It's a story hog heaven, you know, you get all of the different life situations to extract wisdom from.
- I think that it's really important. So I say truly, I love that you have all these things that you do and you talk about them all and you bring them all together, because we are all humans and we are all multifaceted and multidimensional. And I think too often we focus on the work persona or right, this thing, and we separate it out and that's not who we are.
- It's not , it's not real.
- That's right. So, you know, we talk about, I don't know, we talk about the moment that we're in right now and this is the thing, and not acknowledge all the various things that got us to where we are now. And so, I appreciate this very much in how you talk about your life and what you do, even in just this part of the conversation we're having, because it's very clear that you are multifaceted and these things are brought together to make you who you are, to have brought you to what you're studying and what you're working on today, right? All of these things matter together, it's not one or the other.
- Yeah, and I think that too, like right now in the world there's a whole lot of conversations around inclusion. And a lot of the work that I do with teams is kind of founded on some of the principles of inclusion. And for me, inclusion really is this honoring of difference and this process of integration. And I think we have to become, we are good at integration, but the false structures in academia perhaps and in business world that kind of says, this thing fits in this box, this thing fits in that box. This is marketing. Like this way that we've broken things out has created in our brains, I think the difficulty with how to connect. And the skill that's needed is to be able to say, this is this, this is that. And when we weave it together, this is this. So that everything is an integration of so many things. And that would help us tremendously with the conversations around difference in the workplace or difference in society and about creating spaces where people feel like they belong. We wouldn't be so, this thing is for here and this thing is for here. A friend of mine asked me this question. As a team leader since, you know, she was saying you do work with teams. As a team leader, sometimes I feel like I'm focusing too much on the personal stuff with the person and not enough on the task. And I was like, I mean, I answered the question. I was like, is that real though? Can we be focusing too much on a human's capacity to do the work, and therefore not enough on the work itself? When the two are, like it's a human doing the work, it's one thing, right? You know, and if the human can't do the work because of a thing, and you are moving that along. Why even that , Why even the false binary, right? But we've been told that that's, you know, it's the work and I should keep my personal things away. Like I'm not the person.
- I love that you said that I have a leader that I've been coaching for a little while, and generally we're talking about team stuff and leadership development, all that kind of thing. And last year sometime, there was a pandemic as we are all aware and he came onto one call and he was in tears practically, and he had personal stuff happening. And he was like, I'm so sorry, this is what's top of mind, just give me a few minutes and, you know, we can get into something else. And I was like, hold on, you are a whole and complete human being, if that is what's top of mind, that's what we talk about. This is not a, you can't bring that to this call because this is a work call. That's not how this works. And it was so interesting to have that experience of, of even inside of some very inclusive organizations that encourage people to, to not separate these things out as much as they can from an organizational perspective. It's still so ingrained in people's heads.
- Yep, we all drink the water. I tell people that we're all drinking the water. So it's like, we're all affected, co-opted and then reinforcing it in just really subtle ways. And the more we're aware, I think the more things are shifting, but it's, yeah. It's been interesting for me to just notice when I feel guilty about caring for another human. I feel guilty about caring for a human, you know, because I should be working.
- Yup, yup.
- So I'm curious, do you have that ever? Do you see that? I mean, I think this is an obvious question, bear with me. But do you see that people have that same guilt around caring for themselves? And is it more or less, especially leaders when they're "busy" and they have all these things to do. Are they really struggling with caring for themselves more or less than, or equal to caring for other people when it's out of "work capacity"?
- Yeah, I think that there's a story, I can just tell my story. There's a story that I have that I can cope with it. I can cope with it, and then I help the other, right. It's funny, I'm grateful that I have kids because they reflect me and as I'm supporting them, I'm like, oh my goodness, what is that? what am I doing there? You know, as my daughter said to me recently, I feel so foolish to be saying this still. And I heard myself to myself saying this is dumb, that you would still need this or that you need this is ridiculous. And yet to her, when I am expressing it, I don't feel it's dumb at all, this is actually perfect, this is exactly what is needed. I think the struggle with self care for us as leaders, isn't really self care, is a struggle to acknowledge the self as with valid needs. We've somehow kind of created a hierarchy of needs for the self and maybe the need for, you know, five or slightly more hours of sleep. But when I, like, I have no peopling times. And when I want to not people and people want me, my need to care for people, trumps apparently, my need to not be with people. And I think that it's really important that we all notice that we have this ranking of our own needs as further down. And then what do we do about that? So I define self care as anything that moves me away from the states of Baymax in "Hero 6". I don't know, okay, my kids are into animated movies. So "Big Hero 6" Baymax was plugged out and he was kind of. And I said, anything that moves me out of that state, no energy, tired, or even depressed and lackluster, that's self-care, and therefore that's other care because I cannot be, like I tell people, evil mommy show up when she's not caring for herself. In which case, evil team leader shows up, evil consultant shows up, evil, you know. And so my reframe to help me, is that my best care for others is that, you know, knowing myself well enough to know what do I need in this moment? And that's even when it comes to setting boundaries with clients, which I am, I need work with. But then like even saying, no, we're not doing this, or yes, we're doing that. To see that as an act of love, because it's love to me which puts me in a place to be of better service to them. That's kind of the reframe that I'm working with.
- I think that's a really powerful reframe for anyone who has tendencies towards people pleasing or putting, you know, putting other people. I saw that, I liked the smile there. The, you know, putting anyone above yourself even if it's not people pleasing, if it's that shame or guilt where you have to. I think women do this a lot more than men to be fair, but it's not exclusive, where it's like, you have to be the nice girl, you have to do for others before you do for yourself. It's not even necessarily people pleasing. It's like, this is part of being a nice girl. This is part of being a good woman. And I recognize that men have it as well. I'm not to discredit that, but I just think it's more common in women. And I think that that reframe of self care when you're getting that recharge actually serves everyone more, including yourself. It is not to the exclusion of others, it actually is better for everyone. I think that's a really powerful reframe for people to work with.
- Yep, and I think too, that as leaders we have to back to, more is caught than taught. That when we're not modeling this well then there's this exponential effect, especially during back to crisis and back to difficult times, where people don't have habits of attending to self, then the scattering effect in the collective is massive. And no one's modeling it for anybody else, we're all modeling this looking outward and solving the things so we can get a break. And that's cool, solving the things so you can get to break is nice for short-term spurts. But most of us aren't in a short-term spurts in many things. Like we move from thing to thing, to thing to thing. You know, these short-term spurts is overlapping with the other short-term spurts. And so, having these habits of work-rest, work-rest of figuring out what your rhythm is and honoring it. And then collectively we honor each other's rhythm. That's just so much healthier. My kids sang on a chorus, a pre-professional chorus. And so it was they toured around and did lots of concerts in big venues. And when they're were doing some of the big shows, they would do these ridiculous long, like a, you know, a note that's extended beyond. I'm like, how are you guys doing that? It's like with tandem breathing. And is like, there is a way for a collective to hold the space, while people go into their rest-work, rest-work with them, and we all honor that for each other. And yet the show continues because it looks. It's fine, everybody gets what they need, even though my kid is taking a breath, this other kid is holding the notes, you know? And I think that's the practice we want to develop, help each other develop.
- I have never heard of tandem breathing before, but that is an incredible metaphor to use. I mean, I think you should be using that in articles. Like truly that makes so much sense as a visual, and I've never heard it before.
- I better look to see if it's called tandem breathing, but I know that there are. What are you? 'Cause I'd be studying and I'm like, what are you all doing? How're you holding that note? No, Lucy and I are holding it, but I, you know, and the two top sopranos are hold and like this is fascinating but I hear the geese or whoever do it with the flying, you know, the , the wind. And so same idea, I think, learn from nature that we can hold the collective space and cycle in and out of the thing that we're doing.
- So, this brings me back to something that you mentioned earlier as well, that around managing your own energy, being aware of your energy as a leader. And this to me is like the collective energy, this is how we can manage collective energy, right. And so I'd love to hear a little bit more about, I guess, kind of your lens on how leaders can manage their energy better so that you can collectively and that might not be the right question, but like, there's something in here for me that I'm curious about around leading in a way that's creating energy, I guess. For yourself, for your team, so that you have this space, so that you are tandem breathing, as opposed to sucking all the energy out of something, which we all know leaders who do that.
- Yes.
- Let's just call it what it is.
- Yes, well, yes. Well, for me, parts of how I began to understand my energy was around, as a parent of a kid I had lots of needs that didn't seem to be the typical ways of replenishment available to me. So first of all, my kid didn't sleep at nights. It was just like, there's just, before o'clock in the morning, I just be praying for other women, like all y'all who are dealing with this right now. Like, you know, good energy to you 'cause I know you're not sleeping. And I would be up at four on Facebook saying, who else isn't sleeping and autism moms all over would be like, me, me, me, you know. So there is this, that was, has been in my life the sense of, if the typical ways of getting energy don't work, are we up a creek? And as I kind of investigate this and maybe fortunately I was also doing the PhD, so I was redoing some of the readings. So separate from myself. I realized that energy is created when needs are met. And so we eat food and it transforms into energy for the body. And I say, so what are my needs? And when I meet them, how do I meet them in a way that intentionally creates energy for me? And that led me into an exploration of like we were talking about earlier, who am I? And what's my jam? And so did a lot of work on personality, like I created a bunch of archetypes of myself. And interrogated, which version of me is showing up here and which version of me is not showing up. And what does that version of me that's not showing up need, why she's not showing up. So I've done a bunch of that exploration of self and landed on this idea. If I meet my basic needs, I create energy. So then I designed my work to meet my basic needs. I'm a deeply relational person, I love connecting in a very human deep way. So I had to cut out the aspects of my business that wasn't that, in the times when I couldn't just take a vacation, when I stopped doing my business, I was home dealing with all the things. I couldn't depend on, at home I'll regroup. So, my business has to be a place that fed me as much as I was giving into it. That meant product design, that meant interactions with partners and contractors and everything. And then really figuring out how to make sure 80% of what I needed I got right here. And so when I take that on the team level, I think within the collective there's a, my friends call it the it. There is a collective sense of what a team needs that when we meet that need through how we design workflows, through how we do the action planning, through how we actually execute the work, it energizes the team. And so, having a model that says our work is like an energy battery, we can create what we need just by working. Then makes you curious about, well, how do we do that? How do we investigate and interrogate the core needs here? And then what do we need to layer into our work that makes sure those things are met within the work. And that's separate from off-sites, retreat, you know, whatever other things, parties. But there is a way to design the work so that it meets the need. And I think if we're willing to throw out old models, I was gonna say be flexible, but that sounds . If we're willing to just say that was the way we did work then. How can we do this work now that satisfies this? Can I let go, for example of our, team meetings where we're running through lists of tasks. Instead, can we run through a list of tasks on video and use the team meetings for things that like, use the in-person time or use the synchronous time as a way that is satisfying something that the team actually needs. If the team really doesn't need to kind of sit and nod. As we say, "Yeah, John, did you do that?", "Yeah, yeah." "Susie, you did that?", "Yeah". And so there is a way to think about all of this and say, these 10 people on this team, what do we need? And being willing to do that also means being willing the 10 people change, to we've lost two, we've gained three. How do we recalibrate and get a new sense of the collective and the collective core needs and then reorganize ourselves so that we're meeting those needs. That just means that a modern organization needs to be fluid and more, you know, adjustable than these boxes that we thought were the way we should go.
- It's so interesting because I think cross functionalization, that whatever language they wanna call it. 'Cause I know it's changed 85 times. I think helps with that to some extent, right? Because it starts to break down some of those silos. It's so interesting what you're saying through my lens and I will fully own my lens, because I do a lot of work with culture and culture design and organizations. I'm constantly forcing this idea of it has to be flexible. You're basically creating the guard rails saying here's the structures and how we work, these are the expectations around how we communicate whatever it is, but it has to be flexible, because new people come, new people go, people .
- It has to be responsive.
- It can't be this rigid structure that is gonna break automatically if something is outside of it, or it's gonna not allow people to actually get into it comfortably. And yeah, sorry, go ahead.
- I was saying, or just as forget this whole thing about diversity, equity and inclusion. Like if it's going to be rigid, then just own that, that's reflective of whoever created that and we like it here and this is it. But if we are going to say, hey, there are going to be humans who are different from us. Or even if we would dare to acknowledge we might be different from us in a few years. Then we have to be willing to say, well then, the shape will have to change. Or, you know, unless we're saying, well, you know, I'll just stop working here in a few years when I change. And so many of us don't want to acknowledge that we're changing, 'cause we know the system we've created or the system we're in won't honor us changing. So we don't even include ourselves in the structures we've created.
- That is incredibly powerful. And I have never heard it put that way and it's so resonates with my experience of people in organizations. Whether I've been in them or founders of companies where it is often times unfortunately what they've created has not included the ability for them to grow in any way. And then they feel stuck, but they can't acknowledge it 'cause it's their thing that they've created. It's really heartbreaking because, I think, I mean, this is such an obvious thing to say, but, if we're really thinking about diversity, equity and inclusion, that includes ourselves, it includes any difference at all.
- Yup, yup. And so much of the ways that we've designed things, you know, we have this monolith idea even of ourselves that's like, this is who I am, right?
- I hate that so much. It's like such a pet peeve when people are like, my identity is this fixed thing that will never change.
- That's why when I was saying earlier, like I know I sound like a crazy person when I'd say I have these archetypes. But it's like, I have to see, oh I'm this way in this situation, this way. And just kind of embrace there's these four or five different ways that I show up in the world, that interact together to be Faith. And being able to own that and how they shift and change. But inclusion starts with you, and we don't have the ability as much as we could put policies in place and all the structures, we don't have the ability to include in others what we can't include in ourselves. So this constant interrogation of who's not playing at this party, in me. Like under this skin who have I not allowed to come to the party and why? And being willing to kind of do that work, creates the space for me to allow other people to be themselves. And that's where that psychological safety comes in. And I think even when, if I'm working with a team that says, hey, I want to be more diverse. I say start with inclusion. And when I'm saying, start with inclusion, I'm like start with inclusion with you so that we can, in this team, be more inclusive. So that then if more of you are showing up and there's variety, if you all look the same and act the same, the team isn't inclusive. If we can get you looking and acting different and still showing up and getting the work done, then we're like, okay, we were on the way. And we can then include other people in that conversation who are even more different. And I'll say to people like, you can't begin to include autism if you can't include yourself when you have PMS. Let's leave autism to the side a bit. And it's like, what do we do?
- You know, it makes me think of how, how are you going to include anyone who thinks, speaks, looks, believes something different than you, if you can't even include all emotions? That's always the thing that I find astonishing. I feel like I get, I preach a lot, I'm like, all emotions are good, there are no bad emotions. It is okay to express any, I mean, you wanna express it effectively and not, you know, go break a window or something, right? Like it's okay to feel anger and it should be okay to say you are angry. It should be okay to cry, it is okay to feel sad or hurt or upset. If you can't include all emotions in the spectrum of the work that you are doing and the team that you are on, how can, 'cause we all have all those emotions. We're not exempt from them.
- And we didn't leave them at home. It's not like I'm at work, only feeling, you know? And then I come home and I feel the rest.
- When you said that, I was like, yes, because I feel like we can't. So many companies, so many teams can't even do that.
- That's a big deal, though. 'Cause you know, we can't include all the emotions. Like sometimes I'll ask people to share two things, you know, in an orientation exercise, like share one thing you're angry about and one thing you're hopeful of. And the angry about, even to acknowledge angry about you have to go all the way out to politics. You can't kind of bring it into this thing, right. So we're angry about the president, the, you know, the racial injustice. And that's true. It's like you can't kind of, yesterday I felt no, that's not.
- That is so inter, I mean you say it and I'm not surprised per se, but it's so interesting that people go that far external to be able to answer that question. That's really interesting. I do an exercise, I didn't come up with it, it's a very common exercise. But I do an exercise with leadership teams quite often. The joke is that it's become like my favorite thing to do with certain teams, 'cause it's the elephant in the room and it is the, everyone gets to submit anonymously the things that they, they think are obvious that no one's talking about. And then I get to capture them and we talk about them, right? The reason I do it anonymously, is 'cause I have learned if it's not anonymous to me people just, they don't, they're not truthful about it. Like it becomes these, you know, well, I dislike, I think our IT processes don't work effectively. What? That's not the elephant in the room. That's not the elephant in the room. And it just reminds me of that where it's like, it's so fascinating how we have demonized the ability to talk about challenging topics, to talk about things we're afraid of, to talk about what we're angry about. Something's, you know, a mistake that I made, whatever it is. It's like, we've really demonized it in the workplace. And these are the consequences of doing that. It's wild. Faith, you are fascinating, I could talk to you for 45 hours and I wanna be mindful of your time. Before we wrap this up, I wanna ask the question. Is there anything that we didn't get to that you would like to, you know, make a point of before we wrap up or something you wanna emphasize or end with?
- What I've been thinking about is a lot going back to teams, is that lots of people right now, perhaps, because of the climate have become more and more aware of their passion for, or their desire to have more equitable, inclusive workspaces. And yet we feel stuck on the how, and my challenge has been, let's start with our micro-communities, which are our teams. And so I really feel that instead, not instead of, but yeah, let's do the thing workplace wide, but you and the two people that report to you, that's a great place to begin to think through what does it mean to be more equitable, to be more inclusive, to be more human right here. And almost build the muscles for this noticing of othering, noticing of difference and the muscle to kind of bring that into the conversation. And so I think it's, we can't do our work without teams, so it's an easy place to start some of the harder conversations. And so that's been my challenge to people. Let's go there, let's stay there and let's keep building this capacity to say, like in high school, such and such is at the party but they're not dancing, why? Is it not such and such's responsibility? I keep hearing this so much, that when new people come on a team they have to prove themselves worthy of being on the team. And I was like, actually we have to prove ourselves able to include them in the team. To shift our identity so that they can be in. And so like, as we do that, we'll find that we're able to do this more naturally in all our spaces. And then we can kind of have a better world.
- Yeah, I love that. Thank you for your time. Where can people find you online? Where can they look you up?
- Faithclarke.com and unfortunately too much in social media, so Faith Clarke on Facebook, @faithaclarke on Instagram. But they've got .com is a good place, 'cause you'll be able to send email or just hit a button and something will happen.
- Perfect, we'll have all the links in the show notes as well, but in case someone's listening and they wanna make a note of it. Thank you for your time, Faith, this was fascinating. You were brilliant, and I really like what you're up to in the world and I appreciate this kind of deep discussion and connecting. So thank you for taking the time to do this with me.
- Thank you for asking such fantastic questions, which was so easy, thank you.
- [Celine] Thanks for joining me today on the Leading Through Crisis podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a minute to rate and review us on your podcast app. If you're interested in learning more about any of our guests, you can find us online at www.leadingthroughcrisis.ca.