A Whole World under the Waterline: Jennifer on the Iceberg, Surfacing Identities, and Driving Deeper Belonging

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Jennifer Brown:

In the workplace context, I was helped so much in lowering my waterline. I was first proud, I think, of being LGBTQ because through a series of employers, and as the conversation evolved, this became something that became important to employers. I saw the pride flag, I saw the investment, I saw the out leader at the executive level speaking about it, or I saw the allyship and the number of allies that showed up to ERGs. I experienced all of that. The message that I get then from that is, it is safe to be me. Imagine if we could do all of this for so many of these identities that we have that are hidden today and that are stigmatized.

That really is my hope that that same journey is going to be undertaken, that I was able to avail myself of, that allowed me to put the pieces of me together and understand that actually this is a powerful part of how I lead, how I developed the competencies that I have.

Doug Foresta:

The Will to Change is hosted by Jennifer Brown. Jennifer is an award-winning entrepreneur, dynamic speaker, best-selling author and leadership expert on how organizations must evolve their cultures towards a new, more inclusive workplace reality. She's a passionate inclusion and equity advocate, committed to helping leaders foster healthier and therefore more productive workplaces, ultimately driving innovation and business results. Informed by nearly two decades of consulting to Fortune 500 companies, she and her team advised top companies on building cultures of belonging in times of great upheaval and uncertainty. Now, onto the episode.

Hello, and welcome back to the Will to Change. This is Doug Foresta. Today's episode features Jennifer talking about the iceberg model and looking at what's under the waterline or those aspects of our identity that may not be readily visible. Jennifer also talks about the connection between the iceberg model and the inclusive leader continuum and shares her thoughts about her vision for how the iceberg model could be used to create cultures of safety and belonging. All this and more, and now, onto the episode. Hello, and welcome back. This is Doug Foresta, and I'm so excited to be with you, Jennifer. Always, always a pleasure.

Jennifer Brown:

Oh, agreed. Looking forward to this, Doug.

Doug Foresta:

Thanks. Today, we are going to talk about icebergs. We're going to talk about-

Jennifer Brown:

Look at that.

Doug Foresta:

People are like, "Well, what does that mean?" The waterline. Before we get into all of that, can you just explain a little bit for our viewers, listeners, what is the waterline? What are we talking about here when it comes to DEI and waterline?

Jennifer Brown:

Okay, so the iceberg in various permutations has been around and used by teachers all over the place for a variety of reasons to make certain points as a metaphor. Of course, the concept of what you can see versus what you can't see, and what you can't see being potentially massive and potentially dangerous. What's hidden, what's not known to the self perhaps even, and what's not known or perceptible by others. Unless it is revealed or unless we disclose or make visible. Sometimes we don't have a choice. Sometimes we are exposed against our will. Sometimes our identities, if we think about it in that sense, are things we can cover, are things that we can hide.

Like being LGBTQ, for example, which is always the example I use because I'm very heterosexual passing. I can walk through the world and never really need to come out. I choose to. But that is something that takes many years to get comfortable with. Then, to disclose that more and more publicly, bigger, bigger stages, bigger audiences. That's a progress of bringing something that's deeply maybe way, way, way under the waterline of the iceberg. Bringing that up to the surface and then putting it above the surface and keeping it above the surface. There's this dynamic, this movement of identities where we place them and it's situational in terms of what situation we find ourselves in, how comfortable we are, how much we trust people around us, and what kind of work we've done on ourselves to really grapple with, what does this mean to me?

How important is it to me? How important is it for others to know about me? How important is it for me to be my full and best self to have it be known? Those are the steps, sort of one, two, three in our growth. Ultimately, you get to this place, I think, of fearlessness. You get to this place of full, this nirvana of full authenticity, Doug, which easier said than done. Then, I think that is a product of many, for many of us, many years of work, honestly.

Doug Foresta:

Yeah. Well, tell us a little bit about what has been the reaction that you've seen to this model, and as you talk about this.

Jennifer Brown:

Yes, people really love this and you know why? I think, and my iceberg in particular, what we've been doing is over the hundreds of talks that I've given and polls that we've done in many, many rooms across all different industries and identity audiences, is just kept adding to the identities. I have now this huge list of identities under this waterline of this iceberg. We've selected things to have above the iceberg that are those perceptible things, that we may or may be right or wrong about in terms of what they are, but they are often perceived about us. I have things like gender expression, for example. I walk through the world, I'm assumed to be female because of my gender expression.

Now, that happens to be, female happens to be my true gender and how I experience my gender, I'm a cisgender woman. Pronouns are she/her. But gender expression I put above the waterline because the world sees me in a certain way and the world actually is comfortable with my gender expression. I would call that, for example, a privilege that I carry or an advantage that it doesn't cause me trouble, challenge, microaggressions, perhaps, stigma, potential danger, for example. All of that can escalate quickly when our gender presentation does not make other people comfortable. I have that above the waterline. It's something that we can see, we think we see.

But I really want to emphasize that what we think we see is often not true, it's so important. I have physical traits above the waterline. I have skin tone. Now, again, skin tone I see doesn't speak to someone's nationality, someone's ethnicity, someone's cultural identity, right? How they identify. This is just surface, appearance, work style, accent, how we speak, what people hear in terms of how we present ourselves. These are just some of arbitrary things that I pulled above the waterline when I teach it. Then, below I keep adding and adding and adding. I'll talk about some recent things, I've added sober and in recovery because I have a very good friend who has not been truthful over her many years as a career.

The fact that she is in recovery and makes up stories about why she's not going to work events, doesn't want to be around alcohol. Now, it's more and more out and has brought that above the waterline. But that's, again, the product of many years of feeling that we can trust the people around us with our truth. I have political affiliation, which is a whole thing, Doug. Very much the third rail of inclusion to include all points of view, all political beliefs in our approaches, while at the same time emphasizing the importance of inclusion and valuing of all different identities in the workplace. It's like this really difficult tension.

During the pandemic, I heard a lot about grief, loss, trauma, mental health issues. We've added those under the waterline because they are still so stigmatized to talk about. Yet, this is our work, I think, ahead. The work ahead is to de-stigmatize some of these things, many of these things, and begin to have the conversation. Then, begin to lower the waterline and bring more of these above so that we can deal with them, so that we can educate around them, so that we can, I hate the word normalize, I prefer maybe usualize these identities that are being experienced so universally and so frequently, and yet never named and carrying with them a lot of fear.

Boy, so many other things, disability, neurodiversity, conviction history. We've done a lot of podcasts, everybody that's listening on. Those who are formerly incarcerated and the tremendous number of gates that people need to clear to get employed, when they have those things on their resume and all the bias. Yet, the enormous and talent pool that's available to organizations from those who have conviction histories. We have single parenting, so we have all kinds of family orientations, single parent, grandparent raising children, divorced, widowed, and which by the way relates to grief and loss, which again is two things I don't talk about.

I've had people come up to me, when you open up this conversation, people just, they disclose things that even today take my breath away and are powerful reminders of human experience that we don't know how to make space for in the workplace. I think our generation, Doug, doesn't probably think there is space for it, and this is what I want to change. I really want to invite organizational leaders to consider in themselves and also in this sort of, the generations that come after us, what is not being talked about, what is not being dealt with therefore, and what are people then making all this effort to not bring to the surface, to not talk about, to not incorporate into their leadership story.

Where the rubber really hits the road with all of this in terms of our ability to build trust with each other, because we talk a lot about inclusiveness, but if everyone is hiding and everybody is keeping that waterline really high, we're not going to get to this place of trusting each other with our dimensions that we have been fearful around disclosing historically, and getting to that next level with each other. Also, getting our cultures to the next level in terms of being able to have a more holistic and accurate conversation about what makes people tick and how might we, as a workplace, be a place where people can solve in a way for their own journey. Because I came out, in the workplace context, I was helped so much in lowering my waterline.

I was first proud, I think, of being LGBTQ because through a series of employers, and as the conversation evolved, this became something that became important to employers. I saw the pride flag, I saw the investment, I saw the out leader at the executive level speaking about it, or I saw the allyship and the number of allies that showed up to ERGs. I experienced all of that. The message that I get then from that is, it is safe to be me. Imagine if we could do all of this for so many of these identities that we have that are hidden today and that are stigmatized. That really is my hope, that that same journey is going to be undertaken, that I was able to avail myself of, that allowed me to put the pieces of me together and understand that actually this is a powerful part of how I lead, how I developed the competencies that I have.

How I role model for others, how I get comfortable being uncomfortable. All of that is because I received the message over and over and over again, that this is something we do talk about. This is something we do think is important. This is something we do value in our leaders. I had to hear that. I think this is the work ahead for a lot of these new emerging dimensions, whether that's mental health, whether that's different family orientations, whether that's neurodiversity and all of the things that live in that category. Whether it is mixed identity families, mixed identity humans, whether it's socioeconomic status and how I don't carry the same education that others have around me. I hide that I had a previous career or may not have the qualifications that a lot of people have here.

There's a million directions that we could go with this, but it's so rich and people... I think the evolution, Doug, we're going through here is that unfortunately or fortunately, we're at this place where we've been talking about diversity of perhaps race and ethnicity and gender, and maybe sexual orientation for many, many, many years. As a result, it has unintentionally excluded many humans from seeing themselves on this iceberg.

Doug Foresta:

Well, that actually is a good segue.

Jennifer Brown:

That's the unlock.

Doug Foresta:

Yup. That's a good segue into my next question about how people see themselves in this model. Yeah, and your experience with that.

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah, this is often the first time that people in my audience say, "I can see. I share some of those identities." They see themselves in the conversation. They see themselves as having something to contribute. Then, immediately, Doug, they go into the fear mode of, how could I ever talk about that? Also, they go into fear mode around, if I say, well, by the way, the system privileges you if you share certain of these identities. You feel more comfortable because perhaps you're a tall person, so you have height privilege. Perhaps you are light skinned, you have skin tone privilege. Perhaps you speak in a way that you don't have an accent because you are a native English speaker.

Perhaps your, like I said earlier, your gender expression is something that people are comfortable with. When I begin to then go into that and say, so think about what you have been that has helped you without even perhaps knowing that, something that has been acceptable about you, something that is in the norm, something that is in the majority, something that the leaders that you see in your organization or your industry, you share that with them, that has enabled so much. Those are those tailwinds versus the headwinds of things that are under that waterline. I begin to move into that area with this model. I hope that it takes the sting out of the discussion of, what do I have that also enables me to feel more welcomed and feel safer.

Then, beginning to say, it doesn't make you a bad person that you have benefited from these things. It's more, the work is more noticing what I've benefited from, and then beginning to utilize that. We'll get into that in a moment. But anyway, I want to begin to put all this on the table with my audiences and de-weaponize some of these very scary words like the P word, that literally puts people back on their hackles and just causes them to stop listening, and I [inaudible 00:16:55].

Doug Foresta:

I think a lot of times people hear it as you're saying that I've had an easy life or that my accomplishments don't matter. People get very defensive, oftentimes. They take it as a personal affront to their...

Jennifer Brown:

That's right, affront to their hardworkingness. Look, we all work hard. Some of us just do it with a different set of tools that give us fewer challenges along the way of working hard. Right?

Doug Foresta:

Right, I thought about this the other day. It's funny, I was thinking about this about, I used to be really into running and I could run pretty fast, but I'm five seven, and if you put me against someone who's six seven, who can move just as fast, their stride is just greater than mine. I got my little feet.

Jennifer Brown:

Right. It's like it's the bicycle slide we all teach from in our world, where it's the bike that's built for you. How can we ever be competitive and utilize the best of who we are if we don't have the right equipment and the equipment doesn't fit?

Doug Foresta:

Yeah. This is so great. What I love about the model is that it's such a great way to conceptualize things in a way that isn't, like you said, that doesn't create this inherent friction. It gives people a little bit, they can breathe and they can feel safer talking about things. That brings up the question, how did you come up with this?

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah, so the question then is, and what I really would love to get to, is that we could all use something like this as a way to open the door for new conversations. Because the fear that people have around identity and disclosure, by the way, generationally our generation, Doug, Gen X, and the baby boomers certainly before us, this was not safe for work. This was stuff that we did not articulate. I still get the question when I teach this iceberg model, "This is not okay from an HR perspective, Jennifer." We have been told this is not appropriate. This is not okay to ask about. That depends actually on the company. I can't go into that now because I'd have to be, every company draws lines in the sand in different places.

Around what do we want to encourage people to talk about here and how do we avoid probing or creating an uncomfortable situation for people when they don't want to disclose? I get that question sometimes to say, I want to give my people room around their iceberg. I have an introvert on my team. I have somebody who I may know their diversity dimensions, but nobody else does. Or, I may have a colleague who isn't out about an identity, but really struggles with it and they're in their process. I think there's a lot of opportunity to challenge us to get comfortable being uncomfortable as we grow, because growth is uncomfortable. It's always going to be, and I think that's how you know you're growing. It is literally the definition of it.

The thing that we think we can't do, we challenge ourselves to do it. Then, we do it and we say, "Oh, okay, I did it good for me." Uncomfortable, got an unexpected response. What did I learn from that? Maybe that I am making something a bigger deal and that I'm not actually getting the support I need, and I'm also not, even bigger than that, I'm not shining a light on this so that I can lead, so that others can feel seen. I think that is the big missing opportunity. When we keep our waterline high, we deprive others of seeing someone who shares their story. That to me is why organizational cultures don't change, because there's not enough of us doing the uncomfortable thing.

There's particularly not enough of us doing the uncomfortable thing who are leading, who are leaders. Like, I would say senior leaders, because that generation, which tends to be more older millennial, Gen X, is the least comfortable with this whole model. Whereas, we've got young people coming in and their waterline is low from the very start. Unfortunately, my guess would be that a lot of people come into organizations from school where, academia in school is where you discover yourself, where you're all the things. There's a very progressive, I would say very, very authentic conversation going on in those years of your life now, because schools are a hotbed of identity discovery and being loud about it and proud about it.

Then, you come into workplaces where it's a whole different system and you go into that system and you go undercover. Your iceberg actually changes, and then your iceberg changes again depending on what manager you work for and the tone that they set and the conversations that they have with you, and the environment that they create and the psychological safety they understand how to build or don't build. So that your waterline is continually toggling. Then, there's the internal team you may have, there's the external clients or customers that you may be interfacing with. There's your family, there's your community. If you have kiddos, you've got your school. It can be very situational.

It's good that we have this flexibility, but it can feel like you're constantly shape-shifting. There's a whole podcast called Code Switch on NPR, one of our favorite podcasts. We always mention it, code switching. It's just constantly like, do I say this? Don't I say this? Did I tell them the truth? Did I not? Who did I tell that to? What was our last conversation? What was their reaction? I think this is the exhaustion of the iceberg, that management and the navigation and the constant becoming that we are all in the process of doing, and yet the effort it takes to suppress or to reveal or to disclose or to hide or to keep track of what we've done with whom and in what situation. I think that takes a ton of energy from us.

That's another really key point that I make to leaders, which is, do you want people putting all this energy towards identity management? Because we have not created an environment where all of us and all of what's going on for all of us is acknowledged, named, supported, educated around, celebrated, valued. All of that is not going towards then the productivity that is unleashed when we feel like we truly belong. In order to feel like we truly belong, we need to have all of our very important identities and lived experiences, our acquired and our inborn identities known and celebrated. I think I want to have that scene because then I trust others around me that I can be trusted with their truth and they are trusted with mine.

Then, we can talk about and lead from this place of, here's what that meant for me as a leader. Here's what that shaped in me. Even privileges shape something in a leader. That's where I really want to get to, is for me having two master's degrees, having grown up in a house where I wasn't the first to go to college, have the gender presentation that I have and being able to choose when I come out or don't come out, for example. These things are part of my toolkit to be extremely humble about and also acknowledge that they've enabled things and they're things that I can teach from. Because I can explain my allyship today in the context of what is easier for me to do and what is not so easy for others to do, but I have to contextualize my allyship.

I have to say, "Well, what have I benefited from and how am I utilizing that to then create other opportunities in the rooms I'm in and open doors for others, et cetera? Why does it matter to me?" If we could get to that place and enable people to feel comfortable and not, by the way, have them feel they're at risk for speaking that. That is the environment, unfortunately, that a lot of people believe they're in. I think whether that's true or not, I think the fear is overblown a bit or perhaps a lot around, "But Jennifer, how do I speak in the way you speak about this or in my own-"

Doug Foresta:

That's where I was going to go, is you're giving us a hint about how you would do it. Then, I imagine someone going, "Okay, Jennifer, but if I'm a leader, how do I do it?" How do I use-

Jennifer Brown:

Right, in my words, right?

Doug Foresta:

Yeah.

Jennifer Brown:

That's where we go next. We just did this presentation at the forum, maybe I saw some of you there that are listening to this, but it's in Minneapolis every year. It's a great DEI conference. I came up with some thought starters and some language for leaders who are stuck in the... I'll do the ones under the waterline dimensions first. Then, we'll get to the ones that carry more advantage in our system. I'll talk about how do I begin those conversations. I'm literally boiling it down to the language because I feel like that's where people get stuck. I wish, Doug, and sometimes we have time to do this, but not often, is to role play and practice with someone. Here's how I would start that conversation.

Here's what I would say about my iceberg and the elements of that and what both the ingredients that carry stigma, the ingredients that have made my road easier. How can we sit down with somebody or launch a conversation with a team, for example, or even open up a work event, for example, and do the opening remarks? I think this stuff is wonderful to scaffold our talking points on and begin to, if you're a senior leader, begin to get comfortable being uncomfortable and vulnerable about it. Some of the things I wrote down are things like something I don't often share about myself and my story is, or what you might not know, and I carry some shame that's under my waterline around that I'm afraid to share with you today.

This is how I see the different parts of who I am and how I'm evolving. Because I think a statement like that shows, here's where I am in the inclusive leader continuum. Here's something I've never said before. Here's something I don't often elaborate on. Here's something I'm evolving to speak about more. Here's something I'm realizing is a big part of who I am and how I lead, but that I don't often identify. Another one is, what I don't yet know and understand about the identities that I carry. I like that one because, to me, I hear in that I'm just beginning to identify it. I'm just beginning to discover it and pull it up to the light, to the surface. I don't yet know what it means for my leadership.

But what I do know is that it's important to me. What I do know is that it's built fortitude in me, that it has forged empathy in me, that it is a challenge that I look now at as a gift. I think of my own journey of LGBTQ, feeling this scary, exciting, challenging, stigmatized thing that needed to be hidden. Then, over the course of the years, you understand the benefits of what it forged and built in you because you were an outsider, because you didn't understand, because you didn't have what was expected. You had to work around, you had to get creative, you had to get resilient, you had to get flexible, you had to be more agile. You had to be able to build trust even when perhaps you were not feeling so trusted or trusting.

That is a tremendous process to go through. It leaves us, I think, deepened as people to go through that soul-searching, the dark night of the soul, the hero's journey. I love that too. Then, lastly, the thought starter I thought is something that scares me to share in the workplace setting. You'll hear in all of these, I'm acknowledging the fear. I am saying I'm in process, I'm a work in progress. There are things I don't yet understand. There are things that I'm proud of, but I haven't disclosed or named. There's things that are beautiful about my culture, my identity, things that I'm extremely feel very seen about in certain environments, and then in others I don't. There are things that I have grappled with that I am in many ways on the other side of, and I want to bring you into that journey that I've been on.

This could be kid with a disability. Here's a journey that I've been on my family. Here's a journey I've been on of my family changing in its structure. Here's a journey of parenting I've been on, of caregiving that I've been on. Here's a journey of mental health that I've been either directly involved in or in a supporting role. Here's how I came to disclose here that I have a different education, that I have a different... not enough or too much, you're not the right one. Here's how I have heard microaggressions, that I've never really shared what that feels like for me or what the impact is on me. By the way, a microaggression can be, "Oh, you're so privileged. You don't have anything to say. You do not know anything about diversity in your life."

It can be the way you might have felt dismissed from having something important to contribute and how that felt. It can be that too, because I've had those moments, Doug, too. Those are hard moments when I've dedicated my life to this work, and yet somebody is like, "Why is she talking to us today?"

Doug Foresta:

Well, because they're only seeing, right, they're only seeing, like you said, they're seeing the tip of the iceberg, right?

Jennifer Brown:

Right.

Doug Foresta:

They're seeing what they can see. But as you had said, what you can see is very tricky because-

Jennifer Brown:

It lies.

Doug Foresta:

It lies. Yeah.

Jennifer Brown:

It lies.

Doug Foresta:

You remember the, what was it, the transformers? Anyone who's an '80s kid remembers that it was more than meets the eye.

Jennifer Brown:

That's right. That's right. The secret talents and identity. It just happened to me too many times to count. I count myself in that group of people who are underestimated or misestimated or just not seen, not fully seen. I think a lot of us, all of us can relate to that. The question is, from a leadership perspective, can we story tell around that? Can we lead with that? Can we disclose that? Can we talk about what it's felt like? Can we talk about the impact on us? Can we talk about maybe where there was a positive intent, but a negative impact on us? Can we talk about, by the way, how we missed somebody's story, but how we didn't perceive, how we made assumptions, how we didn't fully give someone a chance and space to tell us who they really are, because our bias was so front and center for us?

I might say our lens, I prefer maybe speaking of bias as lenses, it's how we understand the world. It's how we make sense of a lot of complexity. It is informed by our limited life experience. That's it. It doesn't make us a bad person. We all have them. We all have them.

Doug Foresta:

Well, you mentioned story and getting people to open up more about their stories, talk about how can I, as a leader, use storytelling to get at, to help people to move this along, to see below the waterline, to get people to lower their waterline.

Jennifer Brown:

Yes, hopefully, because leaders have to go first. This is the thing when I speak to leaders in particular, I say, you cast a long shadow. You are watched, you set the tone. You give cues all the time in what you say, in what you don't say, in how comfortable you are or uncomfortable you are. People can see the gears grinding for a leader, whether something is practiced or whether something is new and awkward. It's not bad to show the new, the awkward and how the gears are grinding. I think that establishes so much trust in saying, here's, and I'll flip to some of the other thought starters that I gave in the session at the forum, here's how I'm evolving. Here's what I'm learning. Here's what I don't yet understand.

Here's what I want to understand more. As a leader, to stand up and say, "I am learning about the importance and significance of sharing my pronouns." It is something that I don't, I'm not yet in the habit of doing. It is something that I'm coming to understand is important for others, and here's what I do know, and here's what you will see me doing. Here's what you will see me grappling with. Here's what I can use feedback on, my language, my own evolution. I know I can't evolve alone. I think the ask for help is a very powerful way to establish trust as well. To just open that up and say, "I am recognizing and learning. The more I know, the more I don't know." You could talk about your generation. You could talk about the things you heard when you were growing up.

You can talk about the ways in which you're discovering that the systems around you are built to be very comfortable for you. You can talk about the ways, the things that you don't face, the tailwinds. You can talk about all of that. I think it's extremely powerful to do that. I don't see a lot of leaders, Doug, able to do this. This is my vision because I think they're so frightened to admit things that are under the waterline. Both the stigmatized things and also the advantages, and what might happen in terms of turning people off. In terms of turning people against you, in terms of naming the thing that people suspect about you anyway. It's interesting to me, leaders are like, "Oh, this is so risky. I can't do this. How could I ever do it?"

I say, "Well, how can you not do it actually?" Because the risk to leaders of not lowering the waterline is that they are out of step, they're out touch, they're viewed as they don't get it. They miss the opportunity to build more trust, which is how work gets done. Trust is the engine of the workplace. Our relationships with each other enable things to get done. We can measure things all we want. We can push down metrics, we can demand. We can do command and control all day long and hide ourselves behind a curtain. We may get compliance with that, but we won't get full embodied buy-in. We will not get the full contributions of people unless they feel that they belong. Truly, that is the unlock for all productivity and all innovation. Otherwise, I'm going to give you 30% of me and what I can do.

Doug Foresta:

It's hard to build trust that way, isn't it? Because people may not know. I may not know what's under someone's waterline, but I think as human beings, we have a really good innate built-in sense that there's more to the story that we're not getting. You're right. It's like when you say to someone, "How are you doing?" And they go, "Great."

Jennifer Brown:

Oh, so tell me about your weekend. Oh, it was fine. I'll go back to the closet. It's been said, you know when people are a little bit fake or keeping things on the surface in their workplace interactions, that can mean a lot of things. I think that's an opportunity to say to yourself, that person doesn't feel safe. They're not telling me about their life. I don't know a lot about them. The problem with this, by the way, everyone, is not only is this person not doing their best work because they're working double time and managing the identity, implications of identity in addition to trying to do what they're trained to do and what they could do and their skills are in, but also that they will not shine in a way that elevates them as a potential future leader.

To me, that is a problem then from a pipelining perspective. You get into a talent review and everybody's sitting around saying, "Oh, yeah, I don't really know that person that well. Oh, I don't really know a lot about them." Yes, should we be evaluating this in performance reviews and talent reviews and promotion and advancement? No. However, the higher up you get, the more important these kinds of, what kind of relationship do we have with this person? How much do we know about them? It becomes important. The skills are table stakes, but I feel like, and this is just stating it as it is, is it fair? Is it best practice? No. But is it important? Yes. How much do we know about this person?

How much do we know about their family? Are they going to be able to commit to this big stretch assignment? How reliable are they? I think that's code for, the things that are not being said is, how much do we trust this person? How much do we know about them? How much can we count on them? We as humans, I think relationships become really, really important as we grow in responsibility. As our scope grows, people are buying into and vouching for us as all of us. When we are hiding and giving people a little bit, because we don't feel safe, we are not going to shine. We're not going to be fully powerful. Then, we're not going to really, I think, be seen and appreciated and promoted, I think, as all of who we are.

Really, I guess there's not a lot of trust and faith when we are arms length. It feels like we're not all in. It feels like we're not committed. It feels like we're an enigma and we're not fully powerful. My story enables me to feel very powerful. It makes me feel that I belong and that I inhabit a place of strength. That my tree has deep roots in every place that I stand. People perceive that as power. They perceive that as alignment. They perceive that as conviction. They perceive that as, I might even say professionalism. I know that's a tricky word, but professionalism is authenticity too. It's authenticity that we believe in, that's practiced, that is present. Our ability to be present is what builds trust.

If we're distracted over here, we're not as able to be present and make someone feel they completely have our attention and that we are deeply listening and deeply focused on the problem, on the challenge, on the opportunity, on the dialogue. I don't think we can do that as well, and so we don't show up as well.

Doug Foresta:

Yeah. No, what I hear you saying too is it is part of a leadership. It's part of a work skill. It's part of a life skill, but it's part of a leadership skill. Anyone who's familiar with your work, Jennifer, knows that you created the inclusive leader continuum. People can go back in the Will to Change and listen to episodes about that. They can see lots of work out there about it. Talk about the connection. Is there a connection? If there is, talk about the connection between the inclusive leader continuum and the waterline in the-

Jennifer Brown:

Yes. Yeah. If we think about unaware, aware, active, and advocate, which are the four phases of the continuum, in unaware, the iceberg, if I asked you to fill in your iceberg, you wouldn't really be able to, I would imagine. You might not have given a thought to what are the identities that are visible about me? What do those carry in terms of permission, or safety, or acceptance, or belonging? Then, under the waterline, it may not even be known to self. It may be that you haven't really thought about the expanded definitions I put up right in front of people of, "Oh, you mean I never thought about a diversity dimension as being around grief, loss, chronic illness, being a single parent. I just never thought about it."

That might be unaware or a lack of willingness to look at it. It would be like this doesn't matter. The assumption that in unaware, we hear a dismissal of the importance of this, we hear, can everybody get along or whatever, hard work is equally rewarded, a meritocracy. Or, it can sound also like, "Oh, I'm my full self. Everything is above my waterline. What you see is what you get with me." By the way, that's probably never true. Or, if it's true, it's not very artfully done. We all know people like that, right?

Doug Foresta:

Yes.

Jennifer Brown:

Sometimes it's a little annoying, but in a lack of acknowledgement that we can all be in the same environment having an extremely different experience. That's unaware of iceberg. Then, if we bring into aware, which is phase two, okay, now I'm starting to understand there are the accepted identities, and then there's a very different experience going on for people here who are the only one of few, not really sure if they can disclose, because there's stigma and fear. Our company doesn't support X, Y, Z, we've never talked about it. It's not spoken. We begin to flesh out both our own model and dimensions in aware, but we also realize that we really don't know a lot about what might be going on, and the extent to which it might be going on for others.

There's our own deep dive in the iceberg, and then there's the iceberg of others. Even the organizational iceberg, thinking about in aware, I think we should be looking at, "Okay, so what are the norms here? What is rewarded? What is promoted? What identities do we have a preponderance of at the senior levels of the company?" Which by the way, send a signal about what's normed. We send a signal about what's rewarded. We begin to, I think in aware, step outside of the system and look at it more critically and get more detailed and more nuanced about it. Collectively, what do we keep under the waterline here in our culture today? What kind of impact does that have?

Then, in aware, I think asking ourselves about our advantages, questions we can begin to ask ourselves as an element of privilege that I have, and what has it meant for me? Unpacking that. In aware, Doug, you know that this is, I think aware is often more personal work. We haven't gone public yet, which comes later in the continuum. We are in this self-reflection and reflection of same storm, different boats for people. We're looking at, why don't I know that about other people? Why am I not aware of that? Why do we not talk about this? What might those conversations sound like if we were to have them? I think then we go from there and we say, "Okay, so now in active phase three, okay, so how can I begin to talk about what I'm learning, what I'm seeing for the first time?

Where I'm situating myself in my iceberg, what this culture is missing, what we're not speaking?" Some of these, I think, language is so important in the phase three, which is where have I been operating from a privileged place? How am I beginning to recognize that? Given the access I have, what am I holding myself accountable for? Where am I feeling more empathy and feeling more energized to utilize what I do have access to? Where am I feeling still more, I'm trepidatious about disclosing? How can I support others in changing where their waterline lives with what I have in my story? How can I shine a light? How can I role model? How can I make this a norm? How can I build in a psychological safety to encourage all of us to examine what our waterlines and what our icebergs look like?

It's really a neat opportunity in phase three to go more public, to disclose more, to begin to maybe declare and begin to have these relationships with one person and then two people, and then five people, and then a team. Then, in maybe an all hands. Leaders begin to get more public with these things as they are in phase three, but it's awkward. It feels really uncomfortable. It is absolutely like learning to ride the bike and struggling to stay on the bike, because you have to pay attention to every little thing you're going to fall off. You're going to feel, "Boy, that didn't go the way I thought it would." Or, "That went so much better than I thought it would." In phase three, it's the experimentation.

It's the agility and the resilience we need to not know how something's going to turn out. To begin a conversation about a new topic that feels really squishy and not know it may turn out better than we thought. It may really be appreciated, but we may get feedback that it wasn't exactly the most artful way to approach. I think in this phase two, we have to give our ourselves a lot of grace and each other a lot of grace because this is new. Then, the iceberg, what does the iceberg look like in advocate phase four? Literally, I'm so comfortable speaking about where I am comfortable being seen and what gives me certain access points. But here's all the things you don't see about me, and here's how I use those things.

Here's how I use the combination of these things to educate others, pull others up through the continuum. Here's how I am charting a course and helping the company and holding each other accountable for fleshing out those dimensions that are below the waterline that we've never spoken about. That we've never resourced, that we need to put on our radar screen, that we need to prioritize, like mental health, like a lot of these emerging issues. I think people at phase four are making a lot of noise about what that next year or two looks like. At the same time, as we're continuing focus on the things we know we have challenges in, which is usually gender and race and ethnicity and disability and gender identity. We know a lot of that, and that work needs to continue.

But we also need to, especially at the leadership levels, need to be even more expansive, looking into the future and saying, "What will we be talking about a year from now? Where do we want to be in terms of having built the support system for and the psychological safety so that people are lowering their waterline collectively, and that our culture has moved from here to here, and how will we really know? How will we measure our success? At the advocate level, a leader in that level is assertively keeping everyone's eye on this, holding ourselves and others accountable, introducing measurements, asking questions about what success looks like. Saying, let's get to the root cause of why aren't we more supportive of mental health issues?

Where can we be doing work in the organization, manager training, elevating awareness around the EAP and other support systems that we have. How much is not disclosed that if it were disclosed we could then resource it? Everything starts with disclosure. I think everything starts with... You know how many of us, Doug, don't ever say, I'm in the LGBTQ community, or I identify as non-binary, or I identify as this ethnicity. We get our HR forms and we don't disclose. We don't disclose our disability. That is the very first step, because if we can't, unfortunately or fortunately in the business world, we got to be able to count it.

We have to be able to see it in the numbers to then make it important. But unfortunately, many of these things we've been talking about today don't show up in these-

Doug Foresta:

Right, there's no people with disabilities in our-

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah.

Doug Foresta:

Nobody checked the box.

Jennifer Brown:

Right, so clearly we don't have any people who are transitioning here, or clearly we don't have neurodiverse individuals.

Doug Foresta:

No one checked the box with.

Jennifer Brown:

Which meanwhile, I can tell you, there are some estimates and I'm not going to get the statistic right, but really, 10%, 20% of our workplace and our workforce is neurodiverse on some level. You talk about a completely unknown in most companies a very new conversation. People don't even know what I mean when I say that word. This to me speaks to that we've been having these very important but single or dual focused conversations on what diversity means, and it needs to be much broader. We got to build a much bigger tent. We need a bigger boat, much bigger boat, and that's a great thing. It's a great thing, actually, because I think there are so much more potential to be unlocked if we can get our heads and our hearts around all of these dimensions.

Not to overwhelm us, but more to be more complete in terms of our strategies and make room for everyone. Because, sadly, there is enough stigma to go around, and it is related to all kinds of things, but what a beautiful opportunity to truly update this workplace in a way that includes everyone, so that we can all feel like we're a part of building what's next. That it's not just being built by this ERG, that ERG, that identity group, et cetera. We're tired, too. I think the traditional groups that have been pushing the boulder uphill and doing a lot of the work of organizational change and education are coming through the last couple of years and feeling really like, "Oh, can we get some help here?"

A few of us cannot be accountable for massive culture change. It's just not going to happen. We need the allyship, we need the partnership. We need everyone to step up and say, "Here's who I am. Here's what I want to talk about. Here's how I identify. Here's where I'm benefiting. Here's where I struggle. Here's where I'm evolving. Here's what I can do. Here's my ally journey. Here's what I care about. Here's what I wish I knew more about. Here's what I want to do more about. Here's what I'm willing to set myself accountable for." If we could script that and give that language to others and then listen to it and take it in and not criticize it because it's incomplete, because it's still evolving, because it's not... There's no necessarily competence, let alone expertise yet.

But if we can celebrate the tendrils of how we grow and how other people grow, those little shoots that are coming out of the ground, let's protect that very new plant, that new branch. Let's protect it, because those new branches grow into entire trees. That is where we need to get to, where people feel like that branch is strong, that it's been tested. That's the phase four of the continuum, is that that branch that can bend and blow with the wind and hold onto its leaves and be the resilience of a tree, but it didn't start that strong. Let's make space for each other and for ourselves to grow when we're still fragile and nurture that and protect that fragile seedling into what it could be.

Doug Foresta:

All right, so I can see how powerful this is and how it's a really great companion to the inclusive leader continuum, right? They're connected. My last question for you is, what is your vision for this waterline tool, for this conversation? What do you want to see come from this?

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah. I would like to welcome new people to see themselves in the work, in this work, and really personally feel that there's something that can be unlocked in them that they've never named, used, valued. That has never propelled their leadership, and move that from this place of deeply being buried to being a part of their toolkit. To do that, we need to broaden all these definitions as I've shown, and equip people with new ways of looking at their life experience and their lived experience and what they were born with and what they've acquired. Then, to say, "This is part of how I lead, because I want to build trust. I want to be a part of what a particularly incoming generation of workers want to see, want to feel."

In order to create that feeling, leaders need to get comfortable with all of this. It needs to become a part of our language. Leaders who reject it, leaders who resist it, leaders who are so uncomfortable that they're sitting on the sidelines, those are the leaders I worry about. Because the relevance that they are not going to have to others in terms of their leadership style is going to be a liability. It already probably is. My hope and my vision is we have droves of leaders stepping into something that is, yes, uncomfortable, but is integral to their growth, is integral to their success at building trust and relationships to get things done, and to do those things innovatively.

To continue to build these amazing teams that have that wonderful creative abrasion, that exists when you have all kinds of diversity at the table and folks feel that sense of belonging. That's when we create in the most beautiful and important way. Everybody wants to be that leader. I think everybody's looking for the answer to how to do that. I think that what we've talked through today is one of those ingredients. It's one of those. It's not the whole thing, but it is a huge part of how I think leaders will need to show up in the future, will need to transact with their team, its needs. Particularly, in a hybrid world, how do we do these things without being in the physics, sharing a physical space?

How can we do them with these wonderful virtual tools that we have? Which by the way, for some people actually feel we can get even more intimacy when we're not in the same physical space with somebody else. Some of us are very not trusting of being in the same physical space, because of things that have happened to us because of our physical presence. Whether that's our height, our ethnicity, our gender presentation, our disability. Sometimes in some ways, this hybrid world that we're now in is a wonderful opportunity to have more intimate conversations to ask, what is getting in the way of belonging for you, for me, for everyone? Why does that matter? Because it feeds productivity.

How do I start? I think we've spent our whole time to today together, Doug, giving some language with which to start and to begin to build that muscle and to strengthen that muscle so that we can include this in everything we do. I see this as a thread that runs through our leadership on a daily, hourly basis, and that we're able to lead with all of these colors, with all of the individual and the human experience, because honestly, that has never been part of the workplace. I think to our detriment, we are expanding what it means to be in an organization, what it means to be creative from a very human place. Being creative from all of who we are is going to be a deeper kind of creativity and a deeper kind of retention of people that we all are struggling with.

Why would you want to go anywhere else if you feel that sense that I belong here, I am considered, I am known, I am seen, I matter, all of me? Everything that makes me who I am is part of what makes me so brilliant, makes me able to contribute, makes me want to stay here. That's what we want. Any leader that doesn't resonate with that, I'm not sure you should really... Maybe you should consider another career.

Doug Foresta:

You should probably look at your waterline.

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah, let's start there. Thanks so much for this, Doug. Thanks for letting me walk through this. This was really fun to do.

Doug Foresta:

Well, thank you so much. There was so much richness and wisdom in what you've shared. Yeah, thank you, Jennifer. Just an absolute pleasure.

Jennifer Brown:

Thank you. Hi, this is Jennifer. Did you know that we offer a full transcript of every podcast episode on my website over at jenniferbrownspeaks.com? You can also subscribe so that you get notified every time a new episode goes live. Head over there now to read my latest thoughts on diversity, inclusion, and the future of work, and discover how we can all be champions of change by bringing our collective voices together and standing up for ourselves and each other.

Doug Foresta:

You've been listening to the Will to Change, uncovering true stories of diversity and inclusion with Jennifer Brown. If you've enjoyed the episode, please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. To learn more about Jennifer Brown, visit jenniferbrownspeaks.com. Thank you for listening, and we'll be back next time with a new episode.