Kim and Wesley welcome entrepreneur, investor and author, Ellen Pao. They talk about what inspired Ellen and her co-founders to start Project Include nearly 10 years ago.  Historically, many firms have some sort of "bias busting" training session and then feel as though they have checked the box on this complicated topic.  It has become especially challenging in recent years with notable pushback against diversity initiatives.  The good news is there are still organizations that see it as a strategic advantage to their company's performance.  

Ellen points out how critical it is to get CEO ownership from the get go.  Many diversity initiatives fail because it is delegated to a mid-level staff person who is not empowered to make any changes.  So as a starting point, Project Include, will not engage with a company unless the CEO attends the planning meetings.  One early effect they noticed was many CEOs feel pressure to "know everything about everything" and yet most knew very little about how to run a successful diversity program.  So, part of the CEO coaching and buy in is to get them comfortable at not being the expert in this particular area.  They would push CEOs to evaluate their diversity efforts as any other business project: What is working well and what is not, who is on the team, what are their metrics, what tools are they using, etc.  Then, use this information to adjust as necessary. 

About Ellen Pao:

Ellen Pao is the treasurer of the board of directors at Data & Society. She is the former CEO of reddit and the co-founder and CEO of the award-winning diversity, equity, and inclusion nonprofit Project Include. A long-time entrepreneur and investor, she is the former chief diversity and inclusion officer at the Kapor Center and a former venture capitalist for Kleiner Perkins and Kapor Capital. Her 2017 memoir, Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change, was shortlisted for the Financial Times and Mckinsey Business Book Of The Year.

https://www.ellenkpao.com/

Today, Wesley and Kim welcome Elizabeth Blass, an executive with 15+ years of experience in Customer Success organizations in a variety of fields.  They discuss Leadership in general and specifically, how it can be hard to receive feedback as a leader when you do something that unintentionally causes offense.  How do you discover that it happened in the first place and then, what can you do to address the situation?  Kim and Elizabeth point out that it is important to accept criticism in public gracefully, though that can be incredibly hard in the moment. 

About Elizabeth Blass.  

Elizabeth is a two time Chief Customer Officer with 15+ years of global leadership experience in the technology sector.  She has built and led Customer Success teams for companies such as Verizon, CME Group and TrustArc.  She is currently the Chief Customer Officer for Karbon. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethblass/

Kim also mention DARVO during the episode.  Here is a link to explain more.  
https://www.jjfreyd.com/darvo

Kim and Wesley speak with WeAreLATech founder and podcaster Espree Devora about her experience as young tech founder.  Espree talks about how her early passion for technology, art and business and how this set the foundation for her future endeavors.  While she did not know or even understand the traditional rules of how to start a business or how to raise funds, she did not let that deter her drive to succeed.  She let her strong, creative vision be her North Star and guide her day to day decisions making.  She also discusses how to manage energy as a founder, especially when one can feel they are never doing enough.  It's important, though difficult, to "sit in the discomfort" and "don't close our own doors of opportunity".  

About Espree Devora:

A prolific podcaster since 2013, Espree Devora aka “the girl who gets it done” is a force in the Los Angeles tech scene, founder of WeAreLATech and championing  Women in Tech globally, she’s also a founding member of the Audio Collective  the hybrid live-audio creator community.  Host of multiple podcasts and one of the first Clubhouse icon faces, Espree has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Harper’s Bazaar, Inc and more.

https://espreedevora.com

Today Kim and Wesley welcome Shalini Shybut. In recent years, non-profit organizations have worked very hard to hire leaders of color who reflect the communities they serve.  Kim and Wesley discuss with Shalini the additional challenges and pressures faced by leaders of color at non-profit organizations, especially the "entitlement gap".  Why do these leaders sometimes struggle to thrive?  What can be done to help them succeed?

Link to Shalini's essay where she talks about her learnings in more detail.

About Shalini Shybut: 

Shalini is an executive coach, consultant and entrepreneur in Washington DC with two decades of expertise in education, nonprofits and the private sector. Shalini has sat in a variety of seats, starting her career as a teacher in New York City and moving on to serve as a consultant to public and private (Fortune 500) organizations, a school system leader in Washington DC, a board member at multiple nonprofits, and, most recently, a philanthropist at DC’s largest education funding organization. Across these experiences, Shalini has consistently worked to shift systems to increase the equity of opportunity (and outcomes) for the most marginalized communities, and empowered people and teams to get there. Currently, Shalini is an executive coach supporting leaders, especially leaders of color, at the most senior levels of mission-driven organizations, in navigating complex systemic challenges, with a particular focus on how race, gender and power play into leadership. She also established a leadership cohort for DC nonprofit CEOs who identify as people of color. Shalini received her coaching training from the Teleos Leadership Institute, where she completed a PCC-level Coach Development Program, and has also been trained on Coaching Through Trauma by the Center for Trauma and Leadership. 

Kim and Wesley welcome Amy Gallo the author of "Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People)".  They all tell stories about working with someone especially difficult and what they learned from these situations.  They also review some of the archetypes from Amy's book: the know-it-all, the tormentor, the political operator, the insecure boss.. to name a few.  Amy discusses how to navigate these situations, even when to salvage something valuable when there is quite a bit of power asymmetry and leaving is not an immediate option. 

About Amy Gallo:

Amy Gallo is a workplace expert who writes and speaks about effective communication, interpersonal dynamics, gender, difficult conversations, and feedback. She is the best-selling author of Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People) and the HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict, as well as hundreds of articles for Harvard Business Review.  She also co-hosts a podcast called "Women at Work".  

www.amyegallo.com/about

Today, Wesley and Kim welcome Susan Fowler Rigetti.   She talks her experiences at Uber as a young software engineer and the challenges when dealing with bad behavior.  What can you do when you try to speak up when the internals systems are setup up to protect the "high performers"?  They discuss what to do when the culture of the company is not aligned with your personal values and how to speak truth to power without blowing up your career.  Susan also mentions her prior life experiences in "terrible life situations" made her ready to stand up for herself.  

Susan received high media attention in 2017 for taking a stand to speak out against the leadership at Uber about the harassment she was experiencing while working early in her career as a software engineer at Uber.

About Susan Rigetti
Susan is a novelist, journalist, screenwriter, and the author of three books.  In 2017, Susan's blogpost about her experience as a software engineer at Uber sent shockwaves through the industry.  She went on to write a critically acclaimed memoir, called Whistleblower.  She is also the author of a novel, Cover Story.  She has written for The New York Times, TIME Magazine, Slate, Vanity Fair, and have been an editor at PhilPapers for nearly a decade.

www.susanrigetti.com

There's no doubt that mental health in the workplace has become increasingly destigmatized in recent years. While conversations about its importance have now become commonplace, they can fall flat if people don't know how to engage in these conversations effectively. In this episode of the Radical Respect podcast, Kim and Wesley speak with Melissa Doman, who unpacks her playbook for how to talk about mental health at work without messing up. 

about Melissa Doman:

Melissa Doman, MA is an Organizational Psychologist, Former Clinical Mental Health Therapist, & Author of Yes, You Can Talk About Mental Health at Work (Here’s Why And How To Do It Really Well). Melissa works with companies across industries around the globe – including clients like Google, Dow Jones, the Orlando City Soccer Club, Microsoft, Salesforce, Siemens, Estée Lauder, & Janssen. She’s spoken at SXSW and has been featured as a subject matter expert in CNN, Vogue, NPR, the BBC, CNBC, Inc., and in LinkedIn’s 2022 Top 10 Voices on Mental Health.

Athletics and the workplace are alike in their reliance on strong teams, where the health and performance of each group hinge on individual contributions. In this episode of the Radical Respect podcast, Kim speaks with athletic consultant Dr. Kensa Gunter. Drawing on her experience in the sports world —  consulting with coaches, trainers and athletic administrators — Dr. Gunter explores how leaders can cultivate an organizational culture that allows every individual to thrive.

about Kensa Gunter:

Dr. Kensa Gunter is a licensed psychologist and a Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC) who works at the intersection of mental health, performance, well-being, and culture and is committed to humanizing conversations about mental health. She holds leadership and service roles in various professional organizations and through her private practice, she provides counseling and consultation services to individuals, teams, and organizations.

drkensagunter.com

Experiential and cognitive diversity help a team thrive. Specifically, an organizational culture that welcomes neurodivergent people limits groupthink risks and helps to foster innovation, translating into a competitive edge. To reap these benefits, companies are realizing they need to do more to both support their existing neurodivergent employees and recruit more.

In this episode, author, cognitive scientist and neurodivergent business leader Maureen Dunne joins Wesley and Kim to discuss the benefits neurodiverse employees bring to the workplace and how leaders can build a culture that allows them to succeed. 

DR. MAUREEN DUNNE is a bestselling author, cognitive scientist, global keynote speaker, faculty member, board director, and neurodivergent business leader driving systems change in business, technology, education, and public policy.

As CEO of Autism Community Ventures, a neurodiversity consultancy firm, Dr. Dunne has been retained by some of the world's top brands, Fortune 500 companies, leading start-ups, and global non-profit organizations as a neurodiversity expert and organizational change leader with over two decades of experience.

Her work has been featured widely in major media, including Forbes, Bloomberg, MIT Sloan Management Review, Fast Company, Big Think, Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, SHRM, TechCrunch, People Management Magazine, Chicago Tribune, DiversityQ, UNLEASH, Guy Kawasaki's Remarkable People, and Inside Higher Ed. Dr. Dunne has been a Keynote Speaker at the United Nations, Stanford University, London Tech Week, the National Science Foundation, and other prominent venues. She has also served as a featured speaker at The Atlantic Festival, the Global Education Summit, TechCrunch Disrupt, The Next Web Conference, Cornell University, Young Presidents' Organization (YPO), and LEGO Foundation.

Maureen is also the author of the 2024 bestselling book, The Neurodiversity Edge. The Neurodiversity Edge made the USA Today National Bestseller List (Top 150 books across all genres), Barnes & Noble Top 100 Books, Porchlight Book Company's Business Book Bestseller List, as well as #1 New Bestseller in several categories on Amazon, including Human Resources and Personell Management, Business Diversity & Inclusion and Autism Spectrum Disorders. SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) selected Dr. Dunne's book as one of twelve to feature on its recommended 2024 summer reading list. It was also selected as an Editor Pick at Audible to be featured during Neurodiversity Acceptance Month.

She is the first community college graduate to be awarded the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship for study at New College, Oxford and is a former National Science Foundation Fellow. She currently serves as a faculty affiliate at the Discovery Partners Institute, a billion-dollar public/private partnership to drive economic development through business innovation and entrepreneurship and as an advisory board member at Cornell University. She is the former President of the Illinois Community College Trustees Association where she drove the legislative and policy agenda for the state of Illinois, the third largest community college system in the United States with 48 member colleges, serving over 700,000 students. At the national level, she represents the interests of more than 12 million students in the USA and beyond. In these leadership roles, she has driven real-world change in workforce development, education, and policy, paving new economic opportunity pathways for neurodivergent people around the world.

She received joint BA/MA degrees from the University of Chicago, her MSc from the London School of Economics, and her doctorate from the University of Oxford, where she attended as a Rhodes Scholar.

About Maureen Dunne

Kim and Wesley have a conversations with author and sought after speaker, Henna Pryor about her recent book, Good Awkward.  They talk about the lost art of conversation, a skill that atrophied for many of us during Covid.  There is a lively discussion of what one can do to rebuild these important workplace conversational muscles.  

About Henna:
Henna Pryor, PCC is a dynamic Workplace Performance Expert who speaks and writes about performance mindset, interpersonal dynamics, high-impact communication, and embracing bumps in a world that keeps optimizing for smoothness. She's a regular Expert Columnist for Inc. Magazine, 10x award-winning author of Good Awkward, and an in-demand global keynote speaker. Her playful personality and insightful talks blend 2 decades of working with corporate leaders and teams, with a fresh, science-based approach to taking more strategic risks and boosting social and mental fitness for success at work.

pryoritygroup.com/about/

Wesley and Kim speak to Diane Kalen Sukra about her experiences working with local leaders and the challenges she has experienced.  She talks in detail about the rise of bullying and harrassing behavior in local government.  Once a community finds itself in "Bullyville", the community's ability to communicate and collaborate is dramatically inhibited. In more extreme forms, this affects how vital public services are delivered.   

It is easy to feel there is no way out. But Diane talks about pathways to follow to return to an environment where vital public discourse can happen in the public arena.  She discusses how culture isn't something just happens.  It is something communities need to cultivate.  She talks about how to build respect between civic leaders and citizens and how to foster a culture of self-governance in our communities.

About Diane Kalen Sukra: 

Diane is a best-selling author, speaker, and culture transformation expert, sharing insights from over two decades of civic leadership, including her award-winning tenure as city manager. She is the founder of Kalen Academy, an online training institute for civic leaders. 

Diane’s published works include Save Your City and Civic Resilience, as well as regular columns in Municipal World and Public Sector Digest. She is a political philosophy graduate of University of Toronto’s Trinity College and earned a master’s degree in political science from York University.

https://www.dianekalensukra.com/

It's launch week for Kim's new book, Radical Respect.  Also, Kim and Wesley talk about how important it is talk understand workplace systems to succeed.  

Kim and Wesley talk to workplace culture expert Denise Hamilton about her new book, Indivisible: How to Forge Our Differences into a Stronger Future. Denise reads passages from her book, prompting some real conversations. Are you trying to figure out how to gear up mentally for this election year? Denise's new book will help you!

Denise Hamilton is the founder and CEO of WatchHerWork, a digital learning platform for professional women, and All Hands Group, a workplace culture consultancy. An in-demand speaker and facilitator, she has consulted for and presented to dozens of Fortune 500 companies, including GE, Apple, IBM, Shell, BP, and Meta, among others. Her thought leadership has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Morning Joe, FOX, Bloomberg, s+b, Newsweek and she is a regular contributor to MIT Sloan Management Review.

Failing to call people on their BS breeds problematic overconfidence that can harm collaboration and team confidence, especially among team members who are systematically disadvantaged. In this episode, Kim and Wesley discuss bloviating BS with Hollywood attorney Tyler Chou, who shared her experience working under a boss with no entertainment experience but strong connections in the industry. Even though she was more knowledgeable, his BS made her feel gaslit and afraid to speak up.

Tyler Chou has been a Hollywood attorney for the last 15 years. Having worked in VP and SVP roles at companies like Disney, Skydance, BuzzFeed and Open Road Films. As well as large law firms. Tyler has been the lead attorney on 16 feature films including Saving Mr. Banks and Cinderella. She has some battle stories to share about how brutal it is to work as an Asian woman in a white, man dominated industry.

Now, Tyler is the Founder & CEO of Tyler Chou Law for Creators and her life’s mission is to protect creators. She’s deeply passionate about helping young creators with millions of subs grow their businesses to 6-7 figures and functions as a fractional COO and GC. She is a thought leader who discusses the intersection of Hollywood and digital media and believes YouTube is the new Hollywood.

A year ago Tyler started her own YouTube channel as a creative challenge and has been blown away by how quickly her channel has grown. Her channel focuses on creators, helping them build out their businesses. https://www.youtube.com/@TheCreatorsAttorney

Many of us have experienced the office "bloviating BSer," an overconfident coworker who takes up more than their fair share of airtime in a meeting, even though they are often not the most informed person in the room. In this episode, Kim and Wesley discuss this behavior with Minette Norman, who shares how a bloviating BSer drove her to leave the software industry and become an advocate for the inclusive leader.

Minette Norman is an author, speaker, and leadership consultant who previously spent decades leading global technical teams in the software industry.

Minette knows that when groups embrace diversity in all its forms, breakthroughs emerge, and innovation accelerates. Her most recent position before starting her own consultancy was as Vice President of Engineering Practice at Autodesk. Responsible for influencing more than 3,500 engineers around the globe, she focused on state-of-the-art engineering practices while nurturing a collaborative and inclusive culture.

Named in 2017 as one of the “Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business” by the San Francisco Business Times and as “Business Role Model of the Year” in the 2018 Women in IT/Silicon Valley Awards, Minette is a recognized leader with a unique perspective.

As the author of The Boldly Inclusive Leader and the co-author of The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human, Minette is committed to helping leaders unleash the full potential of the people in their organizations.

Minette holds degrees in Drama and French from Tufts University and studied at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris.

People don't care how much you know, unless they know how much you care. As a leader, you should give out that care, taking the time to pause and consider if your feedback delivery is coming across in the way you intend. In this episode, Kim and Wesley chat with Ron Carucci, who reflects on how giving feedback at the bank made him grapple with his understandings of racial and gender privilege.

Ron is co-founder and managing partner at Navalent, working with CEOs and executives pursuing transformational change for their organizations, leaders, and industries. He has a thirty-year track record helping executives tackle challenges of strategy, organization and leadership. From start-ups to Fortune 10’s, non-profits to heads-of-state, turn-arounds to new markets and strategies, overhauling leadership and culture to re-designing for growth. He has helped organizations articulate strategies that lead to accelerated growth, and design organizations that can execute those strategies. He has worked in more than 25 countries on 4 continents. He is the author of 9 books, including the Amazon #1 Rising to Power and the recently released multi-award winning To Be Honest, Lead with the Power of Truth, Justice & Purpose. He is a popular contributor to the Harvard Business Review, where Navalent’s work on leadership was named one of 2016’s management ideas that mattered most. He is also a regular contributor to Forbes, and a three-time TEDx speaker; one of which, on the topic of power, has been viewed 1.3M times. His work’s been featured in Fortune, CEO Magazine, Inc., BusinessInsider, MSNBC, Business Week, Inc., Fast Company, Smart Business, and thought leaders.

We're constantly bombarded with the message that leadership and bullying go hand in hand. But in reality, bullying destroys the workplace environment, making it impossible for employees to do their best work. In this episode, Kim discusses workplace bullying with Janice Omadeke, who reflects on the emotional duress caused by a bullying boss early in her career.

Janice Omadeke is a proven leader focused on data-driven decision-making focusing on strategy, innovation, and cultural change management. She created The Mentor Method, an enterprise software that transforms company culture through mentorship. Janice was named one of Entrepreneur Magazine's 100 Women of Influence in 2022 for her accomplishments. As The Mentor Method's founder and CEO, she became one of the first 100 Black women in the United States to raise over $1M in seed funding for a tech startup. Janice is the first Black woman in Austin, TX history to have a venture-backed exit. She is recognized as a thought leader and advocate for mentorship and entrepreneurship by Forbes, the Harvard Business Review, and Inc., among others. Janice is certified in Entrepreneurship from MIT and is PMP-certified with over ten years of corporate leadership experience in Fortune 500 companies.

A leader’s job is to foster an environment where people can collaborate productively. Prejudice, a belief that some sort of false stereotype is true, gets in the way of a respectful workplace culture. In this episode, Kim and Wesley discuss prejudice with Dr. Tina Opie, who shares her experiences with prejudice from her time as the youngest employee and only Black woman in the workplace.

Dr. Tina Opie is an Associate Professor of Management, and an award-winning teacher and researcher, consultant and speaker. She is the founder of Opie Consulting Group LLC, where she advises large firms in the financial services, entertainment, media, beauty, educational, and healthcare industries. Her research has appeared in such outlets as O Magazine, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and Harvard Business Review and she has been published in multiple academic journals. She is also a regular commentator on Harvard Business Review’s Women at Work podcast and Greater Boston’s NPR affiliate television station WGBH.

From a young age, we're taught the golden rule: treat others as you would like to be treated. In this episode, Kim and Wesley advocate instead for a platinum rule approach, which encourages treating others as they would like to be treated, acknowledging that every person has different needs and preferences. Wesley draws upon his experiences as a neurodivergent person in the workplace to discuss structures that can maximize every employee's ability to do their best work.

There's no doubt: Pointing out bias is awkward. That's why it's helpful to make bias disruption a norm. In this episode, Kim and Wesley discuss how to disrupt bias with Dr. Philip Hickman, who shares a story revealing how parental biases can impact the school environment and student wellbeing.
Bio: Dr. Phil, is a renowned educational expert, EdTech visionary, psychologist, author, and entrepreneur. With a strong academic background, including five postgraduate degrees and doctorate, he has held various leadership positions in both rural and large school districts in the USA.

As a distinguished public speaker, Dr. Phil Hickman has presented at national conferences and workshops for organizations such as the U.S Department of Education and Columbia University. He is a prolific author with three books that showcase his groundbreaking methodologies in leadership, personalized learning, and emotional intelligence.

Dr. Phil is a versatile entrepreneur, having created Plabook, an AI powered reading technology solutions firm. He has also co-founded multiple nonprofit organizations and played a key role in successful edutech ventures.

His most recent accomplishment is founding Plabook, a multimillion dollar company that uses AI, gamification, and speech recognition to help children learn to read. Dr. Phil continues to develop cutting-edge technology to enhance personalized learning and immersive reading engagement for students in the 21st century.