Designing for Identity, with Author Jessica Bantom

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Jessica Bantom:

It's interesting because I'm in a lot of workplace discussions with that overlap between workplace culture and DEI, and then weaving in this other element of design has been interesting. It's funny to me to be on panels in front of white audiences when they're like, "Well, why don't people want to come back to work?" "I don't get why people are pushing back against this so hard." "This is what we did before." And I was like, "People with certain lived experiences did not find the office environment welcoming. Why would we want to come back?"

Doug Foresta:

The Will to Change is hosted by Jennifer Brown. Jennifer is an award-winning entrepreneur, dynamic speaker, bestselling 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. And now, on to the episode.

Hello and welcome back to The Will to Change. This is Doug Foresta. This episode features a conversation between Jennifer and Jessica Bantom. Jessica is an author, DEI practitioner, and interior design expert. And she is the author of the new book Designed for Identity, How to Design Authentically for a Diverse World. And in the conversation, Jessica reveals what it means to design for identity, why that's important, and what it means to work at the intersection of DEI and the design process. A very interesting and unique conversation, of course, all this and more. And now on to the episode.

Jennifer Brown:

Jessica, welcome to The Will to Change.

Jessica Bantom:

Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad to be here, Jennifer.

Jennifer Brown:

I'm so happy to have you. So we share a very treasured person in common, Jenn Grace, who is publishing your forthcoming book, Design for Identity, How to Design Authentically for a Diverse World. And I love it on so many levels. I mean, design is near and dear to my heart, but I suspect we have different lenses on the word design. And yet, funny enough, my master's thesis years, 20 years ago, I studied workspace design. I don't think I understood the need for inclusiveness per se, but it always intrigued me. Design always intrigued me. But whether that's physical space or learning design, or how those things work together, and then especially now with return to office and companies really struggling with that and employees really struggling with what does that mean and do I like it and can I be productive there and et cetera. I think space, right? Space design and designs of workplace arrangements, our relationship to the physical space that we do our work in, and who we do our work with, and designing teams and work product, and designing workflow.

There's so many questions I'm getting now about inclusive design for this new world of work. So your book is coming out at the right time I think to help us think that design matters, reminding us that we can design these things differently. We can design everything differently. And we need to design everything differently because the old designs are no longer relevant. So I'm very excited to talk to you about this topic near and dear to my heart. And so your book, April 4th, everybody. So let's support Jessica's release. And I just want to hear more about how you came into this work. Tell us about your design experience as a design professional. Who have you designed for, what have you been designing, and how did the whole DEI overlay occur on this topic to motivate you to write a book that's specific to this?

Jessica Bantom:

Got it, got it. I hope you have [inaudible 00:04:08]

Jennifer Brown:

We got the time.

Jessica Bantom:

It's been quite a pen, I will say. So the majority of my career has been in management consulting. I originally got into IT consulting as a technical writer, and that morphed into business analysis, systems design, and all of these things that were interesting, but still didn't resonate with me personally. And I had always had an interest in design. My mother was a designer at one point during my childhood. I had an artistic background. Once I got into the real world and saw what it really was, I was like, hmm, I might want to do something also that fulfills me. So I decided to go back to school for my Interior Design degree when I was a few years out of undergrad. And ever since then, I've been in these two parallel worlds of IT, and management consulting, and interior design consulting, with a specialization in color.

And it's interesting. So in my management consulting path, the last few years I really got into DEI in a formal capacity. It was always something that was interesting to me, but it was also something that I saw in many organizations I had worked in where it still seemed to be this thing that was set apart from everything else. We talked about it during Black History Month, we talked about it during Women's History Month, et cetera, et cetera. But I didn't see where the ERGs and where all those efforts were put in a position to really make impact. So that was always something in the back of my mind. And I was also often one of very few people who looked like me in many of the environments I was in as a consultant. Especially getting into IT, I was the only woman on my team. I was the only person of color on my team when I first got into that. And that was not uncommon.

And then, got into the design world, and that was also the case there. I think even to this day, the industry across disciplines is only 10% people of color, which has always been disconcerting to me just because as I sat in those classrooms where I was one of few that looked like me, with all white faculty, I started thinking about how designers design for everybody. So how can there be so little diversity in the actual profession? And I was looking around and wondering, I think it was being in that design environment where I started really questioning who's designing for me and on what basis. Not that all designers will have the exact same experience as the people they're designing for, but I was like, there's no one here in the mix that looks like me.

And then I got into the professional world, got out of my design program, started going to industry conferences, association meetings, walking into design showrooms and getting that look like, what are you doing here? And always just feeling like I was in these places where I wasn't welcome or maybe even expected to be there. So fast-forward to where I really got into DEI in my management consulting career, I started really thinking about this intersection of DEI and design. And in my DEI work, I noticed that a lot of what we focused on, a lot of what we talked about usually was in the context of the operations of an organization. So it was a lot of internal workings that we examined when we're talking about DEI. How are people engaging with their colleagues? What kind of efforts are being made around diversity recruiting? Not enough discussion around retention, but still a lot of the discussion was internal facing in terms of how organizations operate.

The dialogue wasn't translating into what we do at work, what do we do as professionals. So in design, I was like, well, as designers, once again, going back to that idea of we design for everyone, a question came up about why we're not talking about identity in the design process. Why aren't we talking about how these values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging show up in the profession in our everyday what we're doing with clients, what we're doing for clients, how we're engaging with partners. Why weren't we talking about it in that regard? So that's where the seeds started getting planted for the book because I really started looking around and thinking about that more. How do we really activate these values of DEIB in what we do as professionals?

And that's where I really start looking at the design process itself, how we engage with clients, the conversations we have with clients. And I also had, because I've had a unconventional career, I've had exposure to different disciplines of design. So my background formally as an interior design, but through my work in change management, I've been in a lot of spaces where product design was the topic or UI and UX design. And with my marketing background and communications, had a lot of interaction with graphic designers. And I saw that the issue was still the same. There was still little diversity among the people doing the work, but we are designing for everyone. And there was also, once again, in each of these spaces, little conversation about identity.

I will say in product design and then that design thinking world where human-centered design is the thing, that it was spoken about more there, but that still goes back to the fact that a lot of the outcomes could still come off as performative if you do not have people with lived experience actually in the design process, so that's what my book is tackling is how do we start weaving identity into the design process itself as a topic? How do we start having conversations with it among design teams and with our customers? And then also, how are we making space for the designers with lived experience to share that in the process as well? How are we making all of us feel safe to share those perspectives that are key to moving from performative inclusive design to respectful, impactful, really truly inclusive design and outcomes.

Jennifer Brown:

That's right. Oh, I love all that. It brings to mind, and I wanted to ask you, there's been a big debate as we have been critical of organizational processes especially over the last couple of years when we've been shown that, and some of us have known this for a long time. It didn't just take 2020 to know that things need to be redesigned through a different lens, and in some cases dismantled and redesigned, or redesigned from the baseline. So I've wondered in your book, what was your intent in terms of structuring? Where is the most ripe spot for redesign or rethinking or re-imagining, or really dismantling and designing from scratch?

Because to me, the debate was and the tension is, do we tweak, we incrementally change, right? Or do we rip it, rip things up by the roots and really, really rethink it? And design, the whole concept of design comes to mind for me because I never know, there's no one answer to that, and it also probably depends on the organization. Some organizations, I mean, bias is everywhere, so that's a fact, because we did not have a complete group of designers at the table when all of these things were designed and they were likely designed many, many moons ago. So we know that wherever we look, there's work to be done. But I wonder if you are an absolutist around redesign or whether you believe that you work with the system that is, and designing can be tweaking for improvement, and how deep you reach into the tissue of the organization.

Because I think that dictates different work processes and different ways forward. It's fundamentally philosophically, how do you look at the modern workplace and who it serves, who it doesn't serve, what we're missing, who's not at the table. And sometimes it can feel very overwhelming if you take the view that everything needs to be completely pulled out by the roots. Some people leave that. It just feels like, to me, an overwhelming amount of work and also what are we designing in its place feels so unknown, and yet the need for it arguably exists. So anyway, that's a lot. Anything that stirs up for you or philosophies that you can share about as a designer?

Jessica Bantom:

Sure, sure. I have a couple thought bubbles, all those places. One to start with is that my approach in the book is about evolving the existing design process. So not completely shredding what we have to pieces, but applying a lens of cultural competence to this standard design process.

Jennifer Brown:

Got it.

Jessica Bantom:

And what I mean by that is looking at the typical phases of a design process, which is literally what I did in creating the design for identity blueprint in the book. It's overlaying those different phases and adding new questions. At the beginning of a project where we are first interacting with a customer, because this is, a lot of these activities aren't anything necessarily new. They're just things that could stand to be tweaked and expanded, activities and practices around design. So for example, near the beginning of the design process, we typically engage with a customer. But in interior design, for example, we can't leave programming, which is what we typically call that phase of the work, and that the exercise is where we're trying to really get into the details of how users use a space. That's a prime opportunity to start asking about identity. That's where I bring in questions like how would you like to see your identity represented in this space?

Jennifer Brown:

What a beautiful question that is.

Jessica Bantom:

And it's funny too, because of the questions associated with the design for identity blueprint, as I was thinking through it, it was like, this isn't really about giving dos and don'ts, it's not about a recipe for you design this way for these people, you ask these questions to these people. It is about expanding the dialogue, which I think a lot of our DEI work is in general, and creating the opportunities to talk about these things that we typically sweep aside because they make people uncomfortable or because people are afraid to say the wrong thing. So that was why I wanted to introduce questions. So at that phase, as I mentioned, we'd ask the customer what they'd like to see represented about their identity and the product. And then we also have another set of questions that we ask internally among the design team like do we have the right people in the group to have these conversations?

And by right people, I mean people who can relate to the end users and the customers that we're designing for, people who are comfortable having these conversations, people who have essentially some of the DEI skills that we practice all the time around emotional intelligence, communication skills, that growth mindset. Who on the design team has those skills and the capacity to engage in these conversations in a respectful way, and in a way that's going to bring about building trust and just creating that space for customers to really feel like, okay, you're listening to me, you're really invested in my responses, and you're going to do something with the answers?

Jennifer Brown:

So don't ask if you don't plan to follow through and you know how you followed through.

Jessica Bantom:

Right. We've seen that before.

Jennifer Brown:

Totally. And the psychological safety thing is really important when we think about belonging and really feeling safe enough to contribute, to make that contribution. Because we often talk, you talk about the difference between D and I, right? Diversity is who's at the table. Inclusion is how do people feel. To a degree, do people feel a sense of security and a strong foundation to give their input? And their honest input, not just the yessing, but the literal, the hard truth too, because as a person in this community, this is the way I, this is what I think is missing, or this is what would turn me off, or this is where I don't see myself represented. The courage to say that, especially when you've had a time after time of not being included or being included performatively to check a box, because, let's face it, that has happened. But to really be engaged, because we must know how you see this new product or this process through your lens.

By the way, it's not just what and what you studied, it's who you are. The knowledge that comes from walking around the world and this identity, looking at something critically and saying, poking some holes and being devil's advocate or whatever it is. That is a source of our wisdom as well as what we might have studied or whatever discipline that we have expertise in. So I'm sure you go into that in the book, and I know you believe it, and I know you agree with it because you can't really have one without the other. You have to do that inclusion piece really well. So how do you flush that out?

Jessica Bantom:

Well, I think, once again, that goes to a lot of conversation too. You had mentioned whether this could be something incremental or it just needs to be completely start from scratch. In one regard, I think this can be incremental in that no matter where a design team is, for example in the design process, this could be in fashion design, interior design, product design. No matter where they are in the process, there are questions that the blueprint provides. So they could be further along where they've already started engaging with the customer, now they're at the point where they're coming up with a concept. There are questions then that are presented about how, as a design team, are we sure that we're on the right track? But what resources are we looking at? Are there other perspectives we should get internally on our team and maybe outside of our team, but still within our organization to see if we are getting this right?

And at the same time, also creating those opportunities for validation with the customer to say, this is what we heard, this is how we, as designers, have interpreted it. Did we get it right? Once again, are we on the right track? Are we presenting these concepts or these ideals in a way that resonates with you and is respectful and honors your identity? So I think part of what I'm intending for this process to get to as well is that designers ego and our tendency to think, well, it's on me to come up with a creative solution. So you tell me what you want, and then let me work my magic. Yes, we can work our magic, but we still need to validate it to make sure that it is still representative of what the customer wants to see and what is important to them and what is respectful to them.

So there's that opportunity, as I mentioned, to start asking questions throughout the process. And there's also an opportunity for organizations to step back and look at this overall approach and say, okay, is this what we're doing? Is this something we want to be doing? How do we make this a part of our overall philosophy? Does this align with our values as we've stated them? If not, should we restate them? Do we need a new design philosophy that incorporates all these concepts and tells the world, yes, we value identity? Several organizations say that we think DEI is important, but we also are committed to applying it in the work that we do to honor humanity.

So there are many different ways that it can play out in organizations, and it will ultimately, as we see in all of our DEI work, depend a lot on the leadership and how much they're willing to commit to this process and make sure that it's something that is consistent throughout the organization. There can't just be pockets of this like one team's okay with it, another team isn't. One leader is fine and diving right in. Another team is just like, I'll hold off on that until they make me do it. Which, as we know, with any kind of change, there's going to be those pockets. But also, with any other change, there has to be some concerted effort in planning and management around the best ways to do this. And I fold in some of those concepts as well in the book because I have a change management background as well as design thinking. So all of those things weave into how I framed this approach and how and where you can jump in.

Jennifer Brown:

I love it. I also have that change management background. Before I ever did DEI, and when people say, how do I get into DEI, I say, actually, you need to go and study change management.

Jessica Bantom:

Exactly.

Jennifer Brown:

It is. I mean, because designing for, for example, designing for buy-in, you just brought up the example of different teams or functions or whatever not being similarly on board. Forget the best design in the world. That can torpedo an effort. So even just designing the change management process, communicating the process that was used, inclusive design, think about what does that really mean and how deep do we need to go and how much time will it realistically take in order to not just get input, but gain and create buy-in and consistency across the board because we know we don't want this to fail. All of that is I think a design consideration. And you also mentioned egos. That really resonates with me because we just come up against our own egos and everybody else's, which is there's right or wrong. It's always this binary thinking that we do like, oh, this is the right or the wrong way, or this is impossible, this is possible.

There's also the, well, we already did that or we're done. And I would imagine sometimes, the more you dig for inclusive design, the more you find needs to be addressed or included. So it can feel a bit like one step forward two steps back to get it really right and to make sure that we're designing with a representative group in a representative process. And so egos though, just giving up the need to be right or even, dare I say, finished quickly, I think we also have a bias for action and bias for speed. And while I don't want to say that inclusive design necessarily takes longer, it wouldn't take longer if it were customary for us. If it were just the way we design, it wouldn't. However, I think what you're talking about is so, it's so innovative sadly. It's innovative because it's not practiced I would argue.

Different goals I think are present and a totally inclusive result is not necessarily the north star. That people who have very little time, people who have big egos, they want the most expedient, they don't want the most representative and the most inclusive. And yet, this is one of those examples I would say, go slow to go fast. Go slower. If you need to go back to the drawing board, if you realize that you were missing perspectives, if you invited those perspectives, but you haven't, you just mentioned gone back and re-calibrated and said, is this what you mean? Does this speak to what you were, the input that you gave, and closing the circle and continuing to work in these concentric circles for however long to determine this. But I don't think it's a bad thing to go slow because we are literally redesigning our design process and as such, I think we're breaking the new ground.

Jessica Bantom:

Exactly. And it's interesting too because that question has come up about, well, how long does this take to implement? I don't have a solid answer for that. It could vary from organization to organization. Just like for any change, you can never predict if how long it's going to take to take root. But it's interesting too because, in design, and I will say once again specifically within interior design, I'm sure when sustainability was a topic that popped up, that was another thing where there was pushback. How are we going to have time to do that? How are we going to incorporate that? Well, we've done it. There are whole certifications around sustainable design. Why can't we do that for inclusive design? And it's interesting too, the narrow scope, well, I will say the varying scope of what inclusive design encompasses is interesting to me from space to space, and I'm sure from design firm to design firm. In design, I think just like in any other industry, there's a tendency to focus on what makes people feel most comfortable or what's maybe familiar with them or the most solvable issue.

So in interior design, there's been a lot around accessibility, physical accessibility of space, and there's a lot of talk about neurodiversity, which of course I will never say that those things are not significant, but that seems to be the comfortable edge that designers are okay with getting to. And we have to understand that there's a lot more that needs to be included. All of these many dimensions of humanity, there are religious factors, there are socioeconomics factors. Around gender, there are issues around sexual orientation that show up in spaces. So how I do you ignore that, and just say, well, but neurodiversity is going to be it. That's how we'll check that DEI box.

Jennifer Brown:

No.

Jessica Bantom:

No, you can't limit yourself to-

Jennifer Brown:

Well, I want to get your thoughts then. The statistics which keep just coming out I feel like about black women in particular's feelings about return to office. I just think it's so fascinating. I have to ask you, how do you hear that? How do you feel it? And then what is the design response to that? What do we do with that information from a design point of view? Because I want to know of course, okay, so what do we do about that if literally return to office is so difficult and fraught and there's so much pushback and there's pushback based on identity? Those of us who carry certain identities were particularly for particular reasons not comfortable in that environment. That's one of the things we must solve for. Otherwise, we're never going to get, well, employers are never going to get what they want, which seems lately to be we want everybody back all the time.

Jessica Bantom:

Exactly.

Jennifer Brown:

Right?

Jessica Bantom:

Exactly.

Jennifer Brown:

Which, I don't know, that's probably going to happen. But even just for part of the time, but what's the point of pulling people back to something that they don't feel comfortable in because of identity? So I just wondered what you thought about those statistics that continue to come out.

Jessica Bantom:

It's interesting because I'm in a lot of workplace discussions with that overlap between workplace culture and DEI, and then weaving in this other element of design has been interesting. But it's funny to me to be on panels in front of white audiences when they're like, "Well, why don't people want to come back to work?" "I don't get why people are pushing back against this so hard." "This is what we did before." And I was like, "Just to your point, people with certain lived experiences did not find the office environment welcoming. Why would we want to come back?" And to actually have those dialogues and break that down and then just see the shocked faces, but then still, five minutes later, but we need people back.

Jennifer Brown:

Okay, okay. That's fine. But...

Jessica Bantom:

Exactly. Wow, that's interesting. So next week, huh?

Jennifer Brown:

So next steps.

Jessica Bantom:

Exactly, exactly.

Jennifer Brown:

I mean, if you could wave your magic wand from a design point of view and give them insights about, well, here, even the really big things that need to change. I mean, do you think the physical office can be made in such a, can be designed in such a way that experience can be designed that is more comfortable? Or do you think the whole thing needs to be scraped and rethought? Because, I don't know, it feels like the innovations are incremental because we're still dealing with this office with four walls and people standing in open plans and/or hoteling. I always feel like we're missing the bigger picture here in what we're considering and we're tweaking, but it's not really addressing what we were just talking about. And I don't quite know how to get at that either. What would you say?

Jessica Bantom:

Well, there are definitely some aspects of the physical space. So I would say even getting down to imagery, getting down to words, getting down to whose portraits are on the wall. All of those things send cues about who and what is important to this organization. So from a bottom line standpoint, we talk about being inclusive. Whose words are on the walls? Whose names are represented? Who is held in esteem clearly by naming spaces after them? We could also talk about how spaces are named in offices because that's become more of a thing too, like identifying neighborhoods whose input goes into those decisions. And then ultimately, not even just whose input goes into those decisions, because in those instances, usually majority rules, but what if the majority is not representing people in the marginalized group?

So once again, that's something I see played out in many, many different ways in organizations. Like, okay, well people said to be inclusive, we asked everybody, and then these were the top five answers. Yes, they were the top five answers because they were representative of the majority of your organization. So that's just one idea is how are you getting input about what cues your space is sending and from who, and then what are you doing about that?

Jennifer Brown:

And I've heard it said inclusive design is designing for those who struggle the most with the environment. And when we design for that, then everyone else has a better design. And that's why it's called universal design. So it's a classic. The curb cuts on the corner, street corners originally designed for wheelchair users, now are everybody's favorite thing because it just enables life to proceed and enables many of us of all different identities to best utilize a street corner. But it's designed from the perspective, I would almost say, and I wonder if you advise this, although I'm sure you get pushback, it's the survey and the sample size and who's in that sample needs to reflect those for whom the workplace has not worked.

Jessica Bantom:

Exactly.

Jennifer Brown:

Starting from that baseline and having that be as intersectional as possible, and then listening to that. And I would even say overweighting those responses because that's the piece you just don't know, and you're walking around not having the experience of another human in another body and another identity. And that's the piece we miss. And then we just end up repeating the same flaws in our design process that we always have because we're designing for the folks that are already most comfortable in an environment.

Jessica Bantom:

Exactly. And we are minimizing those few other opinions, other opinions, because they are others and oh, well, that's going to be challenging, or why would we change all of this to suit that small group of people? Because they voiced it and because it is a real concern for them. And that goes back to, I'm sure, about a lot of us space as DEI consultants is that unwillingness to accept somebody else's reality as real. And to actually honor that by folding it into the bigger picture because it's so easy to say, well, that's just a concern of a handful of people. Look at mother's rooms. They've become a common space in work environments. But it's interesting too, even in those, I still hear other designers talk about how they'll get pushback or they've heard of mother's rooms being designed without a sink, for example. It's like, did you talk to women about how they need to use this space?

Jennifer Brown:

My goodness.

Jessica Bantom:

You don't just change the sign on a closet and say, now it's the mother's room. There are actually functions that need to be done there. But that is a whole other conversation too about how design, how spaces could be more inclusive, is really talking to people about how they use this space. And prayer rooms are another thing that has come up. And I've heard people talk about, well, we have a dual purpose prayer slash silent room. No. Prayer is a very distinct thing. Worship is a very distinct thing. You don't just say, well, that's the cool room with the beanbag chairs and the cool music playing in the background. No.

Jennifer Brown:

No.

Jessica Bantom:

Very separate functions. Talk to your workforce about what they need those spaces to do. Even if you have a prayer room, is there space for prayer mats, for people to store prayer mats for example? Are you giving people everything they need to fully utilize that space in the way you're saying you want them to be able to use it? I look at things like kosher food storage. When does anyone talk about that in the break room? And these are things that you won't really get to the heart of unless you create a space where people can safely raise their hand and not feel like, oh, am I being the one who's going to be the troublemaker? Am I being the one who's asking for too much because there's only a handful of people who identify like me in this space? That can't be what we resign ourselves to because if not, we keep repeating these same design errors.

Jennifer Brown:

Mistakes

Jessica Bantom:

And ignoring and embracing the same identities.

Jennifer Brown:

That's right. That's right. And never to be intimidated. I mean, I say to people, when you find your voice and you begin to bring all of yourself as you're being told to do and asked to do, by the way, bring your full self to work. But there's so much education that we could be giving to workplaces in a design sense to improve. And it's funny, as you were speaking, I was thinking, are we speaking about the workplace of old? The break room. Are we dating ourselves? But I want to say it occurs to me too, that, well, so we have fewer people in the workplace and we have a lot of space that's not being utilized. What a wonderful opportunity to not combine a break room with a prayer room. Or to have gender, all-inclusive, all gender bathrooms.

It's funny how a pandemic and the stress on the system has actually, in this way anyway, created more flexibility because we have fewer people using the space. So this is an opportunity to make that space more inclusive because you do not have the excuse anymore to say, oh, we can't expand and we don't have enough. There's a lot of room now. In fact, it's maybe an opposite challenge of inclusion around building community, which is another whole other I'm sure we could talk about... very hard, right? Very, very hard when people are coming in to a workplace, they're the only person, they put their headphones on, they Zoom all day. It's really an unfortunate in between that we are in right now. And it's tough to figure out. I know we're in the midst of letting all that unfold. I don't think we have a lot of answers.

But I do want to ask, I know you're a huge fan of the inclusive leader continuum, and selfishly, for our audience, Jessica and I met actually because you reached out to me and said, "By the way, I'm teaching your model, and I'm using it, and I've added these things to it to help people understand how to move between the stages of the continuum, which are unaware, aware, active, and advocate." And for everybody who doesn't know what I'm talking about, just pick up the second edition of How to Be an Inclusive Leader. But Jessie, you're a fan of the model and the framework. And I wonder just in a nutshell, what do you find so helpful as a tool to use that for inclusive design? I'm just curious how you utilize it, deploy it, and what you run into, whether it's aha moments or resistance. Where are you finding people on their own journey as represented in the continuum?

Jessica Bantom:

Well, I think the continuum is valuable even in the way it represents the concept of growth and movement. I think when people are asked about, well, what do you know, even a leader, what do you know about inclusive leadership or how inclusive would you say that you are? Of course they're going to, by default, if as a result of panic or shame or anything, I say, oh, I think I'm very inclusive.

Jennifer Brown:

What? Did I do something wrong?

Jessica Bantom:

Exactly, exactly, exactly. But having that continuum to point to helps people see where they are on their own personal journey. We talk a lot about organizations and where they are on their DEI journey. But as individuals, we're often at different places ourselves as well. So I think it gives leaders a little leeway to say there's not one exact solid definition or north star around what inclusive leadership is. There are ways that you can flow into this. And understanding too, that there is that concept too that you mentioned around the continuum, that you may be at one phase in this particular space or instance, but in another context you may be over here.

So I think that gives people a little, just some movement and a little less rigidity around what it means to be inclusive, which I think is helpful because even in the context of doing DEI consulting for organizations and talking about their culture, when I show them a maturity model, it's like, oh, so you can be at different places, and that's what it means to be here on your journey versus there. Oh, okay. And that helps them visualize I can grow in this and this is how I can do it. I think that helps everybody to contextualize and say there is no one right way to do this, and that there is room to advance and grow in many different ways to become, for example, we're talking about a more inclusive leader. And I think that really, to me, I see a little, okay [inaudible 00:41:40]

Jennifer Brown:

A little breathing going on.

Jessica Bantom:

Exactly. And at the same time too, it can be challenging when you're unaware and you see what advocate is. But at the same time, it also paints a picture of what it takes to get there. And it presents that opportunity for people to reflect and be like, okay, well if this is where I am, where would I be, should I be aiming for? What's reasonable for me? And what could that potentially look like? And am I ready for that right now? I think it gives them a moment to take stock of where they are and how they're showing up, and also what the potential of all of this work can look like.

Jennifer Brown:

That's right. I love that question. What am I ready for? That's fascinating because that can come down to, well, we say the skill and the will. You and I are both org people. So when you analyze how does change happen? Well, there's the skill, there's the competency, and then there's the will. And I'm fascinated by the will because it's like this bubbling up of the want to be different or to evolve. And I think there's a restlessness in that with the current state that bubbles up in us where we've come to realize, wait a second. What I'm doing isn't working, or I didn't know this, or not knowing this hurt me or my relationship with someone, or not doing this well and not spotting this prevented, I don't know, this team from achieving or innovating. Everybody arrives at it in different ways, but we have to have an eye both on the skill, which is the competency piece, and then nurturing the will.

The will is not something that's taught. It's something that I think is awakened and invited and nurtured. And I know you're probably equally fascinated with the intangibility of that, but also the mystery of it, which draws you to it because I think how do you design to awaken the will? I think skill development is fairly straightforward. It's like, well do this. Don't do that. Know this. Say this. And sometimes I find myself scripting. Write this down. If you don't have a pen in your hand right now, I'm literally trying to help you. And not that I always do it perfectly. Trust me, I'm sometimes groping in the dark too for my own language. But the will, designing a process in which, buy-in. We were talking about buy-in earlier and the change management process. Engendering someone to care, someone to feel empathy, and then to move from empathy to compassion.

I've been talking about this a lot and thinking about a lot. This is a paradigm difference that I've been made aware of recently. The empathy and compassion are different. Empathy is I feel, I want to feel your pain and I'm going to jump in and feel it with you, but that it actually, it traumatizes us in a way that is not helpful in terms of our ability then to problem solve and have hope. And then compassion is I see, I feel, but to a degree. But what is most important in compassion is problem solving and where are we going to go from here? What are we going to do together? What can I contribute to address this? And to me, that is allyship in a nutshell. The awakened empathy, but then the move to compassion. And if we design with that in mind, we carry that empathy with us and we never forget it. It's a deep, deep feeling. But out of that comes commitment. And if we could carry that as an energy into our design processes, I think we'd be far better off.

But oh my goodness, we're out of time. But anyway, everybody, Jessica's book, please pick it up. April 4th. Design for Identity, How to Design Authentically for a Diverse World. I love the title. Anything else you can tell us about where to find information on you, any exciting plans for the launch that we can support you in, where we can find you so that people can maybe even attend whatever, attend launch, or get on your list or whatever and support the book?

Jessica Bantom:

Sure, sure. Everything is at jessicabantom.com. You can go there and check out some upcoming events. I do have a launch event planned for April 11th, that would be exciting, at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia. So I'm looking forward to that. It would be great to be in the room and actually get to engage with people who have gotten to read the book. It is available for pre-order as well. It has been available for pre-order, so hoping to really engage and get all the questions and start having all the dialogue. And also at jessicabantom.com, if you are interested in reaching out about any potential speaking opportunities or consulting or partnership opportunities, you can contact me through the website there as well, and also on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Jennifer Brown:

Awesome. Wonderful. Well, I just am cheering you on. I think this is your first book. Is that a correct statement?

Jessica Bantom:

It is. It is.

Jennifer Brown:

Congrats and hats off to working with Publish Your Purpose Press, which is Jenn Grace's publishing imprint and the publisher of my first book, Inclusion. Everybody back to 2017. Gosh. So someday, Jessica, you'll have the whole, your space on the bookshelf will grow, right? I fully expect that. But for now, enjoy the moment. It's such an exciting time for a first time author to feel the love, but also design is everything in where we are and where we're going. We must do it differently. We must include different voices. We must create enough psychological safety for those voices to be heard. And we must, we must flex and change and listen and adjust and calibrate to all that great rich generously given information and never forget it and believe it the first time. And in designing our workforce and workplace of the future, I think your insights are going to be just really important for all of that. So thank you for what you do. Thanks for joining me today.

Jessica Bantom:

Thank You. Thank you for having me. It has been great.

Jennifer Brown:

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.