The Need for Male Allies: The Journey to Better Together with Ray Arata and Joe Rafter

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Jennifer Brown:

Hello, Will to Changers. It's Jennifer and I sit with this question, why does it seem increasingly difficult to be in conversation with each other and who's missing from these conversations as a result? We all know it's become more difficult than ever to practice the imperfect art of allyship however we identify it because there are few spaces where we can return to the building blocks of inclusion, places where we can deepen our self-awareness. We can analyze how trust is built and unearth our story and practice both sharing and listening. As such, we are very excited to announce the very first Better Together Conference, a series of virtual conversations and workshops aimed to foster in learning, connection, trust, and empathy, with the intent of articulating a vision for true partnership that includes and enlists all of us.

So whether you're looking to level up your allyship or aren't sure where you fit into the inclusion equation, this two-day event will enhance your competence and confidence to hold meaningful and authentic conversations that build bridges across differences. So I would love to see any and all of you joining us for the virtual two-day event. The date are October 18th and 19th, 2023 so it's just around the corner and you can learn more about the conference and secure your ticket at jenniferbrownconsulting.com/better-together. That's jenniferbrownconsulting.com/better-together. We hope you'll come back to the conversations that matter.

Joe Rafter:

I don't believe I use my white male privilege to any advantage. I never believe that. And I'll tell you, in some regards in my life, I have felt prejudiced against in my experiences in life. That doesn't resonate with me, therefore I don't have it. And my wife said, "That's so wrong. You have it because you are who you are." And that's when I finally ... She got me across that second step to say, "You have it." And then Ray, after that, I came to you, you and I went on a hike out in the mountains of Marin and I said the same thing to you and like, "Help me with this. Do I really ... I'm not that kind of person who has white male privilege, because I think for a lot of guys like myself, that's a pejorative way of looking at it." You're a white male privilege [inaudible 00:02:47]. No, I'm not because I don't act that way and I think I've learned to accept it.

Speaker 3:

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 advise top companies on building cultures of belonging in times of great upheaval and uncertainty.

And now onto the episode.

Doug Foresta:

Hello and welcome back to The Will to Change. This is Doug Foresta. Today's episode features a conversation with Ray Arata and Joe Rafter as they talk about masculinity partnership and institutional transformation. You'll hear about the pivotal role of support and accountability in the journey of allyship. And you'll also hear details about the upcoming Better Together Conference, which is presented in partnership with Jennifer Brown Consulting. All this and more. And now onto the episode.

Jennifer Brown:

Hi, everybody, it's Jennifer, Ray, and Joe Rafter here. And we are excited to be going live with this conversation on this topic that the three of us are so, so passionate about and answer questions and just kick ideas around with these two incredible leaders that I have the privilege to know, Ray and Joe. And I just want to say for those of you that are joining in on my front with my LinkedIn audience, you may all not know Joe. You may know Joe from the Better Man Conference, which Ray and I have been involved in producing in the past. And Joe, you are such an incredible light and unifier and convener on this topic and instigator and catalyst in your professional role and also on a personal level. So I just am in much appreciation for you and your involvement with the conference historically, which we'll get into in a moment. And then, of course, hello, Ray, my collaborator and friend.

Ray Arata:

Hello, Jen.

Jennifer Brown:

Hello. So Ray, you know Joe best, so I just would love you to start and dialogue a bit and help our audience understand who Joe is to you and also to our efforts.

Ray Arata:

So thanks, Jen and Joe. We broke bread on Friday here in Marin County and now we're looking at each other through the screen again. It's not the same. But in any case, so I met Joe at a Berea Council event. Berea Council has been a wonderful supporter of the Better Man Conferences in the past. And we struck up our bromance just like this. And I started telling him about what we were doing. And before I knew it, because he was working at PG&E, he had secured a sponsorship for PG&E and arranged for us to do a filming of The Mask You Live In put together by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, our first lady, the governor of California. And we were off to the races. But where the real intrigue for me was when I came up with this idea of the Bannerman converts, I knew corporate was an important arena, but tangentially, sports, entertainment, things of that nature were absolutely necessary to have other people with microphone with other audiences, not guys in corporate jobs.

And so I put together a sports panel and I had Joe on the panel, Don McPherson, Philadelphia Eagles, if I'm not mistaken, Joe, you're back in Philly, was a Heisman Trophy runner up. Jan Hutchins, another man of color who was a newscaster. And I'm forgetting the fourth person, but be that as it may, it was our first exploration. And that's pretty much where I hooked Joe. It was the first Better Man Conference and here we are seven years later. And so I say that before I turn it over back to you, Jen, that this whole idea of being an ally, it's a journey. It never ends. And Joe will tell you that he has a lot to learn and that was just where he started and now he's got bigger visions and we're going to get to hear from that. But I just want to acknowledge you, Joe, for hanging in there. And if you're willing today, there was a conversation where you asked for my counsel around how you were vilifying yourself for being white.

So Jen, I want to make sure that I don't forget that we bring that in because there's a lot of guys out there doing that and why not talk about it? Back to you. Okay.

Jennifer Brown:

Beautiful. Thanks, Ray. Well, Joe, yeah, I love that origin story. And there are so many different domains, Ray, that you just listed, where there are perhaps toxic masculinity narratives going on and where they're also being challenged. And Joe, you're one of those people who's challenging these. And the conference has always been about bringing those voices to the fore and centering men and male leaders who are challenging, who are bringing the message, who are leading this conversation in their domain. And I love how holistic it is because it's not just the workforce, it's in our families, it's in our hobbies, it's in our passions and community endeavors. It's in all of it. To me, it's a holistic endeavor because it's not just the institutions we want to change, but it's ourselves that we want to bring forward.

But Joe, give us a little bit more background on your history in this conversation and what's most top of mind right now in your role. And maybe give us a taste of what is really up for you and the people that you are fostering at the moment and the institution that you're fostering, too, in this journey that you have been on for quite a while, but you're probably just like a lot of us finding we're bringing others along and that takes a particular skillset and a mindset and a heart set to do, particularly when you're living into this vision that you've had for a long time, but realizing that we are but one part of how a whole system changes over time.

Joe Rafter:

Right on, Jen, appreciate it. And just a pleasure to be here with both of you and an honor. So when Ray and I ... The story of he and I meeting each other, that was the abridged version. There was an important chapter in that conversation and that was when I was at Pacific Gas and Electric and I invited Ray to come to my office. And we started talking and Ray said, "Do you think you have a paternalistic culture? Do you think here in this organization you have a challenge with a male-oriented way of living and working?" And I remember I looked at him and I said, "Well, what do you mean?" And then we continued to have a conversation. And the truth of the matter is I didn't see it until that point. I didn't see the ... And I didn't see it in that institution, I didn't see it in the world, I just didn't see it.

And through that conversation, and then I read a book and maybe another book, that's where I would say my journey with this type of work, including this type of work in the work that I do for a living, happened. Just as a quick introduction, 30 years in business, half in consulting, half in industry, all of it, helping companies reshape their business model using technology. As I've moved on in my career, I've become more and more involved in coaching leaders and helping leaders to develop new ways of thinking, and acting, and behaving in business, in the institutions that I work in. And so when Ray and I had that conversation, now, all of a sudden, there's another lens that I have that I see things by and that's a male, female, an allyship, gender partnership, healthy masculinity, whatever, yes to all of that, whatever label we want to apply to that.

If I'm talking to a bunch of men, it's one conversation. If I'm talking about men and women, I might have a slightly different conversation in terms of how I approach it. I also say I'm a novice in this. I do not profess to be anyone necessarily to follow, but I have a story. I have an experience to share. I read Ray's second book. And I was driving somewhere with my wife and I said ... And in Ray's book, it talks about male privilege and white privilege. And to be honest with you, I had rejected that. I rejected the fact that I had white male privilege because I don't feel like I act that way. That was what was inside of me. I don't believe I use my white male privilege to any advantage. I never believe that. And I'll tell you, in some regards in my life, I have felt prejudiced against in my experiences in life.

And so I thought, that doesn't resonate with me, therefore I don't have it. And my wife said, "That's so wrong. You have it because you are who you are." And that's when I finally ... She got me across that second step to say, "You have it." And then Ray, after that, I came to you, you and I went on a hike out in the mountains of Marin and I said the same thing to you and like, "Help me with this. Do I really ... I'm not that kind of person who has white male privilege, because I think for a lot of guys like myself, that's a pejorative way of looking at it."

You're a white male and privilege [inaudible 00:13:23]. No, I'm not because I don't act that way and I think I've learned to accept it. Yes, I do, I have it. I can't change color of my skin, can't change or I'm not willing to change my sexual orientation, my gender. So that's what I am. That's who I am. Okay. So I accept it. Now, I move on and Ray's next piece was, well, now you have to use it to help others. People will give it to you whether you want it or not because that's the way the world works sometimes. By the way, I'm not saying that's the right way the world should work. I'm just saying that's the way that others work in the world, some of them, some of us. So when that happens, how do I know it, see it, feel it, and then what do I do with it? How do I act accordingly?

So I find myself intervening more in conversations. I find myself paying more attention to the dynamics in the calls I'm in so I have comment. I step into this work from two places, one, two hats, so to speak. One is a corporate guy, vice president of Capgemini, global, $23 billion company, 360,000 employees all over the world. There's work that I do in there that is inclusive of this. And then I also happen to be pretty involved in football in our country. I've run youth organizations on both sides of the country. And it just so happens to be that, over the weekend, I got asked to coach at my high school, which is where I'm coming to you from right now. I literally stepped off the field. I'm in my former high school in the biology lab, as you can see the beakers behind me. In between camps, we opened camp today. So this work for me, back to some of the opening comments, it's something that, yes, there's a place to do it and a way and a conversation, a dialogue in the office. And it's similar but slightly modified, age appropriate and contextualized as well on a football field, whether I'm working with 7-year-old kids, boys and girls, or whether I'm working with 18-year-old kids. That's my background. Those are some of the contexts of how I got here and the context in which I'm currently engaged in this work.

Ray Arata:

I want to say one thing, Joe, before I kick it back over to you, Jen, to offer everybody, men, especially, that the reset for us to identify as white male is this notion of privilege, consider humanizing it as opposed to demonizing it. Consider that there's nothing wrong with you. And so just whatever that feeling is that has you want to go like this, take a breath. There's nothing wrong with you. And to Joe's point, once you acknowledge that you've got these advantages, then you get to ask yourself an answer, what can I do with them? Or how do I want to be experienced by others? I just didn't want to miss that. So I'll go back over to you, Jen.

Joe Rafter:

Ray, just I'm born with it.

Ray Arata:

Yeah.

Joe Rafter:

I'm born with certain things. God ... I'm graced and blessed with certain things that are undeniable.

Ray Arata:

Yeah.

Joe Rafter:

I choose not to deny. This is who I am.

Ray Arata:

Yeah.

Joe Rafter:

And others see that, they experience that. And so how do I show up? And if people want to place that privilege on me, how they relate to me, that's where that dynamic starts to show up. And so being ... A lot of my leadership coaching and advisory and guidance is a lot about self-awareness. That's the core. And so that self-awareness is another piece here that if I'm in this dialogue or if I'm in a dialogue with eight other people on a video call or I'm in a room with 400 people and I'm speaking, there's a situation and there's context being applied both ways. I can't deny who I am. And so I'm not going to deny that some may place white privilege on me. Some may hold it against me. That's okay, too. If that's where they are, that's okay. There's nothing I can do about that either. So it's this process for me of letting go of that context and the situation and just acknowledging it, accepting it for it as it is and as I am.

Jennifer Brown:

That's so beautiful. And I think, too, the ... Well, seeing you both gives me so much hope. I mean, you're really role modeling what it looks like to be someone in your identities, if I can say, using what you've been given and using that to leverage change in the system and doing that unapologetically, doing it consistently, loudly, persuasively, your commitment to stepping what I see in looking at you is you're stepping outside of what might be comfortable because the privileges that make us insiders are, by definition, the comfort zone for us. I mean, they are the familiar, they are the places we are most perhaps automatically understood and listened to. Who would want to step outside of that and say, "Wait a second, I might have benefited from that and I might be an insider in that, but I have so much power if I step outside of it and try to break those barriers that mean that only some of us get access to certain things and others don't."

When an insider steps out and begins to agitate it for change and lay out a different way, it is so powerful for both of you to step out in a different way than if I were to step out. It's very powerful for me, too, with certain aspects of my identity. But for you both, it's so unexpected. And there is power in that surprise, in that, "Oh my goodness, I've never heard a leader say these things before. I've never seen someone put themselves out there." That's what you're doing and you're really normalizing what that looks like and saying, "Hey, it's" ... You aren't saying it's safe, but I would argue actually given, Joe, your position, you are in a degree, you're very senior, you're very established, and you will be followed. What you do really matters. And every choice you make, everything you say or don't say, it's all watched and it all sets a tone.

And so I'm sure you're really cognizant that you wield a lot of change tools in who you are, not just what you say, but who you are. And I'm just so curious to hear ... This conversation may be a 3.0, but we go back and we bring along folks that are the previous version of ourselves where we were years ago. So who were you ... How did you emerge into this and did you have these moments of courage? I'm assuming you're the most courageous you've ever been, but what is that evolution and what's most important, I guess, for somebody that's inspired by seeing you and listening to you and says, "I could be that someday, but I have some points in the path that I need to go on and I'm scared and I don't want to get started even just to see what's on the other side of this."

Joe Rafter:

Yeah. So I'm my own worst enemy. I hold myself back more than anyone else holds me back, in my humble opinion. That's how I feel about myself. I'll go to my football coaching context. So I was running a youth organization here in the Philadelphia area and I read a book by Joe Ehrmann. Joe Ehrmann was a defensive end for the Baltimore Colts in the 1970s called the Season of Life. If there are parents on the line, particularly of boys, it's a must read. I tell every parent of boys that I know that they have to read that book. I handed out to coaches who I coach with.

I read that book. And other than my father and the coaches who coach me, Joe Ehrmann's had the greatest effect on me as a football coach in terms of my philosophy. Joe Ehrmann has two rules on his football team. Rule number one, the coaches love the players. Rule number two, the players love each other. This is football we're talking about. When I was running a youth organization here on the East Coast, I just got into that. I just read the book and I was president and I came up with two rules. Rule number one, coaches care about the players. Rule number two, players care about each other. I was reluctant to use the word love myself. No one ever told me. No one ever told me, "Don't use that word." It was there in the book. I read it. By the way, he's got a separate book about his entire coaching philosophy, which is he's been referred to as the most important coach in America.

So again, with my football hat on, I go to California, I step into a president role there, and I say to myself, "You're holding yourself back." I became aware that I was holding myself back around coaches care about each other. And I said, "The heck with it, I'm going to go for it." And I went for it. And I put those two rules in place. Using the word love for a man to tell 200 people, players, parents, that I love you, coach, I love you, players. Everyone says, "I love football." That's okay. It's okay for men to say that. It's not okay for a man to say to another coach, "I love you." It's not okay for me to say to a football player, a 10-year-old, "I love you, brother," because we wear the same logo. So I put myself all the way in on that.

So I moved back here to Philly a year ago. I took four days of vacation to go coach youth tackle football last week. That's what I call fun. And I went back out there this past week, that's where I had a chance to see Ray. And those coaches are calling the players in these big circles with 200 football players and 200 parents, 400 people in a circle, what's rule number one? And these 160 boys and 40 girls are saying, "Coaches love the players."

What's rule number two? 160 boys, 40 cheerleaders, players love each other. I gave a speech out there and I was even so bold, I said, "Our society says it's not okay for a man to say he loves another man as a brother. And that's not the way this program works." And so for me, walking across that bridge and stopping myself from holding myself back, that's all the self-awareness pieces and putting my heart out there, I had the benefit of going through some pretty significant leadership development while I was out in California. That was my job, was to develop some new leadership styles. So that was a benefit in my professional life that translated into my football life.

Yeah, totally, it's a ... I love Ted Lasso. So here's where I would say one of my speeches that I used to give, what's the most important 18 inches in football? The [inaudible 00:25:15] head and your heart, right? And you say that to 160 7-year-olds through 14-year-olds, "The goal line, coach," "The first down, coach," they start yelling things out. And then you say, "No, it's the distance between your head and your heart," and it's how are you in relationship with your [inaudible 00:25:35] and yourself. That's a relationship with yourself. And in my leadership space in corporate America and on the football field, I always say, "You want your head, your heart, and your hands all connected." You want them operating in synchronicity, whether you're blocking somebody, tackling somebody, putting a PowerPoint presentation in place, conducting an oral presentation to win a multimillion-dollar deal, or doing a one on one with your mentor or mentee, you want to make sure all three things are aligned.

And so this men's work, I think, one lens into it is keeping those three things connected. Because as men, we always got the body, we always got the muscle, right? Broad brush stereotypes, we always got the strength and the muscle. My wife's always like, "Hey, can you move the sofa? Can you take the trash out?" That's my role. That's what I do. And I [inaudible 00:26:36].

But having the connection between ... I'm not just the body. And I'm not just my brain. It's not just my cognitive intelligence, it's my heart-based intelligence. That is the intelligence that I've focused on developing. And so if we can all one takeaway is a quick hack for the men on this call and the women, but from my point of view, stepping into this, how does a white male step into the privilege that we have? Don't worry about the privilege. Worry about your heart and your hands being connected and being in synchronicity, and you'll start going down that path. You can start acting ... That's a way to think about the behavior and actions that you want to take. Then you have to behave and act your way into the change. It's not enough to think about it. You have to start to put that behavior and action into play.

Ray Arata:

I got to say something. This is why I love Joe right here. And I played around with care, love, love, care, and I said, "Screw it," and I started saying love, but there's an application here around for all of us as allies, and you just centered it when you said heart based. I write about my six heart-based leadership principles, emotional literacy, vulnerability, authenticity, inclusivity, accountability, and love. And people ask me, "Why do you say love?" And I said, "Well, when someone sees me, hears me, understands me, respects me for who I am, that's love, baby." And so when you're in your leadership role, it's a no-brainer. See them, hear them, respect them, honor them for who they are and they will follow you. And so I just ... Joe, rock on, brother.

Joe Rafter:

There's real social limitations.

Ray Arata:

Of course.

Joe Rafter:

So when I'm coaching a football team, I can stand in front of these guys and these cheerleaders and I can say, "I love you." And I can stand to 25 coaches who are volunteers, say, "I love you, coach," and they say it back to me, "Love you, too, coach." That's okay. Professionally. Now, let me take the football hat off. Let's go into the office.

Ray Arata:

Yeah.

Joe Rafter:

Right. So how does that work in the office? So Joe, do you tell your people that you love them? I don't tell them that. There might be some people I work with on the call. I don't know ... Some people, some people who I work with, I have told them I love them. What I try and do in the office is show people.

Ray Arata:

There you go.

Joe Rafter:

It's the behavior based. Well, how do you do that? Well, Ray talked about his principles. One of my favorite principles is vulnerability as leaders, allowing yourself to be vulnerable and leaning into that in appropriate ways. I tell people, you're stronger if you show vulnerability. The weaker person refuses to show their vulnerability. So when we do hard things, when I'm involved in doing hard things, and that could be lots of different things in the office, closing a big deal, delivering a large project, having a difficult conversation, making a difficult HR call, doing that with some vulnerability in the appropriate context, like talking to my leader, talking to my mentor, talking to a peer about how I feel about certain things, what I'm pretty sure of and what I'm not so sure of, and asking for advice on what I'm not so sure of, and asking for advice on what I'm sure of as well. I'm pretty sure about these things, but I'm not so sure about those. What do you think? Getting that feedback. I think that's a way to be vulnerable.

The other thing I will say is I do profess as a manager and a leader, I tell people I care about them. I say things like, "I care about you and your family. Now, you don't know me. We're getting to know each other. Just give me time. Work with me. And if over that experience of working with me, you feel like I don't care about you or you are family, then tell me. Say, 'Dude, your actions don't follow your words.' Okay, that's fine, then give me that feedback." But I try and put those words out there and then I act my way behind it so that people feel in the way that they're cared for and that they're loved without necessarily having the bumper sticker that says, "I love you as an employee."

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah. I think you learn by doing, Joe, what you're saying is it's practice and it's figuring it out between each other. What does support and love look like for you, too? And I'm sure you're really tuned into this tenant we always return to, which is, for each person, they need different levels of support. We see differences. We don't paper them over. We see the impact of race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender expression, and identity. We see gender. We see the impact in the system on certain people that you may not be feeling, Joe, but that you're not just acknowledging that other are experiencing it, but you're leaning towards it and saying, "If I could make a difference to you, what would that look like?" So it is a little bit of taking a stab at it and guessing, but it's also revisiting and checking in and calibrating and saying, "Is this what you need?"

It's funny, I think it's the golden rule and the platinum rule. It's like do unto others as you would have them do unto you centers our own definition of love. But I think that next level is, how do people want to be loved? And what can I do as a leader to support that? How that is defined by someone. And now for some of us listening to this, it may not feel the most scalable thing in the world because the golden rule was much easier. I'm going to go according to my definition, but I think what I hear and what you're saying is that you've been changed by this. You're expanding your leadership capabilities with every single interaction like this because you're probably being shown a lot of new needs and discovering in the privileges that you carry, new ways to support that may not have occurred to you. So it's very expansive.

And I wonder ... You must believe that this is literally the core of the transformation that all leaders need to go through, not just on the topic of equity and healthier companies, but in general. I wonder if you think this is the evolution of leadership at its core is the what you're learning from this work is something you can apply to all the domains that you touch on a regular basis. I wonder if you think these are the ingredients of leader transformation.

Joe Rafter:

So great question, Jen. So my philosophy with leadership development is born out of integral theory. You can Google that if you don't know it. I won't spend time in that. But in my coaching, how that translates into everyday coaching and action, there's things you do really, really well and there's things that you don't do so well. The dull side of the diamond. We all have flat spots, it's not the most comfortable thing. So I'm not really good at conflict or I'm not really good at leading a team or I'm not really good at speaking my truth to power or I'm not really good at making a hard decision. It could be any of those things. Your transformation as a leader is through that path. It's through the things you don't do well to become a better leader.

Said another way, going through the difficulty, going through the obstacle, going through the discomfort, going into it, staying in it, working with it, and getting out the other side, that's how you become better as a leader. So if you're really good at not speaking truth to power, then you need to start practicing that. And that might be simple as next time you go to a restaurant and you have a meal and it's not exactly the way you want it, you give them feedback on it. It could be that simple. That's a practice now that you start building that muscle when you go back into the office and you need to tell your boss that maybe they didn't do things the way you wish they should have or the way you think they should have. Now, you're starting to build that muscle to speak truth to power. So all of this comes back to in this context. One of my flat spots was my relationship with my white privilege.

I didn't want to go there. I didn't even want to accept it. And so I went, "Okay, what if I" ... There's a saying, what you resist persists. What you embrace ... I forget the rhyme, but what you resist persists, what you embrace, what you take on, you can grow through. So I just leaned into it and said, "Man, I'm really resisting this." So for folks on the call, what is something today that you're really resisting? Think about that. Take out a post-it note, a piece of paper, pen. Start writing down all the things in your life that you're resisting. And then look at that and say, "Which one of these can I lean into? Am I willing to take on and embrace and no longer resist? I'm going to change my relationship with it and I'm going to take it on for a day, for a week, for a month, and see how that works for me."

And as you do that, and hopefully maybe you pull in being an ally, maybe allyship is the one thing that you're uncomfortable with within this context you're going to take on, then go be an ally. Go have a conversation with someone of an opposite gender. Just get to know them. Take that on. Do that a couple of times. Just by doing that, just by generating in that conversation, in that exchange, you'll give yourself the opportunity to be changed. And then notice, you embrace it. You have that conversation. Let's say you have those four conversations. You come back and you go, "But I did what Joe said and he's full of it." I'm resisting that even more. All that means is you got to go into it more.

Jennifer Brown:

Good news and bad news.

Joe Rafter:

In order to change, you must persist through the discomfort. In order to change, you must persist through the discomfort. Oh, by the way, that's what I'm telling these offensive linemen on this football field. They're getting in a stance and they're like, "Coach, my legs hurt." I'm like, "Stay in that stance." It's the same thing. That's where the growth comes. So for this context, find a place to practice being a better ally. It could be with your daughter, it could be with your wife, could be with your neighbor. Find a place to practice it. Get into it. Stay into it. And then watch yourself, see how things grow, and change and how your mind starts to see things a little bit over time.

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah. And Joe, I just have to say, perhaps the support of others is particularly important in those really uncomfortable initial stages, I would imagine, because you just want to give up. It doesn't go well and you're like, "Ugh, I'm never going to be good at this," or "I don't want to try," or "I'm afraid again," or whatever. And I think we're our own worst critics in those early days, too, because we don't tolerate that imperfection very well. I wondered, who have you leaned on? And I think our relationship with allies in training like you two, as a cisgender female, I want to be helpful and I want to know how to provide that support, especially in those tricky early times as someone is trying on the new.

So I wondered how do you see ... And Ray, I'd love your thoughts, too. How do you see our role in supporting and standing by and standing alongside? I feel like an ally to both ... I hope you both consider me an ally, right? But I want to make sure I'm supplying what you need at the critical moments when the give up is present and in the air and it's like don't give up or whatever that looks like because we need to help us in partnership. I think both have to travel this together if we want that result.

Ray Arata:

So here's the phrase and a bold invitation. The phrase is, what I learned in men's work, called support accountability. What does that mean? What that means is, and this is an invitation to everybody, not just those that identify as men, when you decide to put yourself on the path, give advance permission to those around you to give you support accountability, which means if you go to sleep and you say something or you do something and you need reminding because we're human, we're going to make mistakes. I'm going to take this size 13 shoe and put it in my mouth sometimes, give people advanced permission to say, "Hey, you got a second?" And then they share what's going on. And the most important thing, to your point earlier, Joe, around resist even more, pay attention to the fact that you might want to resist and that's the juice that you need to pay attention to. Go over and ... When that happens to me, I'll go to Joe and say, "Hey, I got this feedback, I didn't like hearing it, but I know I need to work on it." This is what happened. This is what was said. And then I get the feedback. So there's a lot there, but support accountability is one I wanted to invite us to consider. Joe.

Joe Rafter:

Right on Ray. Jen, feedback is a gift.

Ray Arata:

Yeah.

Joe Rafter:

It's that simple to me. Feedback is a gift. If you see somebody being an ally in a way that you like, you appreciate, you respect, tell them. Just tell them, "Hey, man," simple things. To support the developmental process, we all learn, we all change by, we get presented with new information, we react to it, we respond to it, and then we do something with it. We move on. So when someone says, "Hey, look" ... Somebody shows up a little differently, Jen, and you say, "Hey, I really liked how they showed up as an ally," I mean, great job. Pat on the back. A metaphorical pat on the back.

And they'll be like, "Oh" ... Inside their head, they'll be like, "Hey, Jen just said I did a good job." They're reinforcing that internal dialogue that is creating the discomfort. Let's be honest, this discomfort, the kind of discomfort we're talking about here, it's cognitive and emotional. We're not talking about physical discomfort most of the time, like broad brush, right? When I'm coaching football kids and I'm trying to get them to stay in alignment stance, there's physical discomfort. In this case, when I'm in a call and there's four men, four women, and all the men are talking and none of the women are talking, there's no physical pain. But for me, there's an emotional, there's a cognitive, and emotional opportunity to step in and intervene. And it's like cognitively, [inaudible 00:43:25] I see, I can process that the women aren't talking. What do I do with that? Do I say, "Hey, Mary, I'd like to hear your point of view on this," and you bring them in. Now you're being an ally. It's that simple, you bring them in. But maybe you're held back because with these other three guys on this call, they're the stereotypical anti-allyship, I'll say.

And so I'm going to put myself out there and I don't know that I want to put myself out there. Well, when you don't know ... The hack here is, wherever the discomfort is is where you want to go. That's where growth is.

Ray Arata:

I got to say something here because this is a subtle nuance and some people might not like what I'm about to say, but this is a classic example of white male privilege potentially unexamined. If I'm in that position or any of you are in that position and you're worried about what people might think about you when you choose to intervene or say it with no physical harm coming your way, just whatever you're going to make up, I want to honor the fact that you might feel afraid to say something. What I've been very tempted to say in the past is to highlight for my friends of color and women, sometimes the fear of harm is very real beyond what people might think.

And we currently live in a society where everyone's like, "Oh, I shouldn't say that," or "I can't say that because of what they might think about me." And there's a part of me that wants to say, "Get over it." Take a breath, man up in a positive sense, and be responsible. Intervene, say something. Okay, they may not like what you had to say, but your life's not threatened. And therein lies the distinction and the privilege that I have as a white male. So there I said it. Now, if we're on social media, which we are, things could blow up [inaudible 00:45:38].

Jennifer Brown:

That was beautiful, Ray. No. No, it's be ... Let's tell the truth about who is really at risk. Tell the truth.

Ray Arata:

Not me.

Jennifer Brown:

Right. Exactly. And there are people taking risks with their own vulnerability about their own identities every day, every day faced with real consequences to doing the brave thing, like real consequences. Life and death, physical safety, Joe, to your point.

Joe Rafter:

Yeah.

Jennifer Brown:

So we really need to, I think, be honest and calibrate our level of risk more truthfully. And I hear the risk thing all the time, too. It's frustrating to say, "Oh, this is too risky, Jennifer, I can't do this when I don't have expertise and I don't know how" ... All the fear is based in not knowing how something's going to turn out. But my answer is, really, you have to do it to find out how it's going to turn out. And then often it turns out very differently than you expect. We are, as humans, I think more pessimistic. I mean, as an LGBTQ person, I can tell you, nine times out of 10, the coming-out conversation goes much better than I thought it would. We catastrophize what is going to happen to us and then we are pleasantly surprised or overwhelmed by unexpected support.

So there's something there, too, to be aware of our default position, I think. I've just noticed it that ... And not being able to predict human behavior and the human heart and what it's capable of. And Joe, back to your story, I never thought I could talk about love with the people that I support and now I'm doing it and they're following. They're following you. So they're literally agreeing to just because you made that decision. So we have so much power in this. And I don't want to see leaders give that power away before trying to step into it and use it because of the difference I know that it will make.

Joe Rafter:

Stepping out and using the word love on a youth football field was really scary. And I'll tell you, outside of my house, it's the greatest work I've ever done in my life. It's my greatest ... The work I've done there is just the pinnacle for me. And that's the other side of the discomfort, the other side of the fear. The other side of the risk is this incredible opportunity where it's not necessarily your strength, but it's something that maybe you don't do so well right now.

One other point of view, Jen, I learned this a while ago, but I fully believe that everyone is 100% accurate with their perspective. How you see things ... A lot of what I do is I'm working with large teams and leadership teams and trying to get alignment and agreement on things. And so in order to create space for all these diverse attitudes and perspectives, I set a ground rule that says, "Hey, look, everyone, you're 100% accurate with your perspective. So we want to hear it." And whatever you say is absolutely true because it's your perspective. Now, in order to get to the optimal answer, we have to make room for multiple perspectives.

The flip side of that, very germane, I think, in this space where I don't know what it's like to be a black female. I never will. That's not my perspective. I can't possibly understand that or a black male or an Indian female or I know what it is to be a white male. I don't know what that other role feels like. And so I'm just going to allow that perspective. I'm going to open myself up to hear that perspective because I could never walk in those shoes. And that switch in my head has allowed me to create more openness, willingness, more ability to listen to more different perspectives. Because when it's my turn to talk and I'm 100% with my perspective, I'm accurate, people are going to listen, but then I want to listen to everybody else, too.

Jennifer Brown:

That's beautiful. That's so validating. It's the letting go of the need to be right or even to know what someone's going to share. It's totally unpredictable and there's so much we don't know. And the gift of somebody trusting you with their truth, it is so sacred and there's so much in that of trusting and being trusted. But it is something ... I think you're talking about the process of earning it. [inaudible 00:50:26] earning it.

Joe Rafter:

The highest-performing teams have that in them. So for those of us who are in business and want to optimize our market performance, whatever that means to you, your market performance, you want a high-trust environment. In high-trust environment, psychologically safe environments, you make better decisions. That happens because you get more input, more perspective. No one's sitting on their idea killing the idea themselves because they think, "Well, I'm just going to be ridiculed if I say this." So all of this work, for me, helps organizations raise the game of their performance through some of the concepts that we've talked about.

Jennifer Brown:

That's right. We're talking about ... Yeah. Ray, we haven't even really talked much about the conference, but I hope everybody listening is feeling inspired to have conversations exactly like this one. So if you found this valuable, this is exactly what we're going for with our conference coming up.

Ray Arata:

So what comes to mind, and for those interested to take a look at a sponsor packet, we put some thought into what is it that we wanted to say there and what's emblazoned in my mind is, Katie, our program director, I assume between her and you, you came up with it. But the rhetorical question is, why is it becoming increasingly difficult for us to be in conversation and who's missing from the conversation? So that word, conversation, is just flashing. And so this conference is going to be a series of conversations and it's not about making anybody right or wrong. It's about meeting in the middle, it's about sharing our stories, and it's going to be a two-day event.

We're going to look at tools and techniques around allyship day one. And we are currently curating a series of conversations for there to be interactivity. And then the second day, people are going to roll up their sleeves, we're going to have a limited availability, I think 250 people max, where we're going to be using a lot of breakout rooms so that we can put people into these conversations with educating them on particular topics and allow what's going to come out of that to come out of that.

And I heard something earlier today, I was talking to our instructional designer friend, Dave Roth, who had curated some experiences in the background where they had topics. And he said, "There's only a couple of rules around these conversations. One, there's no debate, there's no convincing, and it's just to be curious." And when he said that, because after they had this one little meeting, the next topic they want to talk about is gender, because one of the women there said that it was male dominated, which gave light to the stuff that we're talking about right now. So I want to encourage everybody to come and attend. And even if you think you know, there's going to be a lot more there. So we're looking forward to seeing you there, but that's what came to mind. And bring your love. Bring your love.

Jennifer Brown:

I love that. Well, I'll wrap up for us. Thank you, Ray and Joe and everybody, for your comments and everything we did. This is a LinkedIn Live and I'll be sharing it on my podcast also, The Will to Change. But thank you both so much. I'm looking so forward to the conference and everybody out there who's waiting to be inspired, I hope especially Joe's description of the process made it feel that it was worth it and that there's so much transformation available for all of us and to get our head, heart, and hands involved in the work and trust that we are doing the right thing and that we can in no way of knowing the outcome but that it will potentially unlock so much for other people with that love. Dare I say it. Thank you both for saying that word. I appreciate you.

Ray Arata:

I just realized there's one thing we didn't talk about today that we don't have time, but what Joe is embarking on with several other male colleagues I know in other companies is starting a healthy masculinity men's ERG. And what I love about that, why I'm putting attention to it, is us guys need to follow the wonderful examples that we've seen a variety of folks from marginalized groups galvanize and come together. So what Joe is embodying is taking on the responsibility. If I had a hundred Joes or a thousand Joes, we'd handle this. So come to the conference because, Joe, I think we're going to have you talk about that at the conference and so you can come and learn more.

Joe Rafter:

Right on.

Jennifer Brown:

Thanks, everybody.

Joe Rafter:

Thanks, everybody. It's a pleasure.

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.

Speaker 3:

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.