How to create a truly inclusive workplace (w/ Master Fixer Stephanie Creary)(Transcript)

[00:00:00] Anne Morriss: You ready to roll, Frances? 

[00:00:03] Frances Frei: Oh baby, I was born ready. 

[00:00:07] Anne Morriss: Hello everyone. Welcome back to Fixable from the TED Audio Collective. I'm your host, Anne Morris. I'm a company builder and leadership coach. 

[00:00:15] Frances Frei: And I'm your co-host Frances Frei. I'm a Harvard Business School professor, and I'm Anne's wife. 

[00:00:21] Anne Morriss: Frances, on today's show, we wanna talk about diversity, equity and inclusion. Let me start by setting the scene here. We've seen a lot of breathless headlines about companies rolling back their DEI initiatives. The latest is Walmart. I do wanna say upfront that I don't think these headlines are telling the whole story. Yes, companies are evaluating their DEI strategies in a new political climate, but also with the benefit of additional experience and data under their belts on the effectiveness of their strategies. And that's how change works. You would adjust as you go based on what you've learned. 

[00:01:00] Frances Frei: And nobody is gonna say it was working optimally. And so let's use this opportunity, even if we wouldn't have picked the way it came about, let's use this opportunity to fix it, to make it better, to improve it.And as you have taught me, let's never waste a crisis. 

[00:01:16] Anne Morriss: A hundred percent. You and I have written about DEI many times. We've seen organizations make important progress. We've seen them stumble along the way, and I think this is a perfect moment both for us, I think for our listeners, for the state of the world to bring someone in who's a real expert on this.

[00:01:37] Frances Frei: I think we're also modeling what we would invite leaders to do in every organization, which is, you probably have good instincts about this. We have great instincts about this. We even have some experience. And even we need to rely on the people that do it 24/7 for decades. And that's what we're gonna do.

And I encourage everyone to please lean on—pay them—lean on the experts in this, um, in this moment. 

[00:02:07] Anne Morriss: Beautiful. So Frances, today we're talking to Dr. Stephanie Creary at the Wharton School of Business. She's an organizational behavior scientist who has been studying DEI and what gets in the way of the goals of diversity, equity inclusion for a long time, way before it captured the zeitgeist in 2020.

[00:02:26] Frances Frei: And she's a Fixer at heart. And so I'm really looking forward to this conversation. 

[00:02:31] Anne Morriss: Our conversation today with Stephanie is gonna focus on how DEI strategies have evolved over the years, why everyone wins when organizations get this right, and some practical ways we can go about making workplaces more inclusive.

[00:02:44] Frances Frei: Just feels like the most beautiful way to spend an afternoon. 

[00:02:49] Anne Morriss: A hundred percent. Dr. Stephanie, welcome to Fixable. Thank you. 

[00:03:02] Stephanie Creary: Thank you. It's great to be here. 

[00:03:03] Anne Morriss: We could not be, uh, happier to have you on, uh, especially today. There is a lot to talk about. We are recording this the week after America just voted in a divisive election where DEI was a flashpoint. Before we jump into the deep end on this conversation, we'd love to give our audience a chance to get to know you a little bit better.

We know you, we love you, but let's start with how do you describe your expertise and the focus of your work? 

[00:03:36] Stephanie Creary: Yeah, so, well, first and foremost, I'm an organizational behavior scholar. So people who are in this field are dedicated to pretty much understanding people's workplace experiences, how they interact and engage with one another. I'm a person who studies the problems so that we can understand how to fix it. Uh, so my research is, is, focused on solutions to workplace problems. Now, the specific types of problems that I'm interested in are those related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. And I have been studying these types of problems for almost 20 years.

[00:04:14] Frances Frei: Stephanie, I would say you have a fixable mindset, if I can just— 

[00:04:17] Stephanie Creary: Absolutely. 

[00:04:20] Anne Morriss: For sure. I think that's why we have been so drawn to your work from the beginning, is that orientation towards progress. Yeah. I'd love to try to establish what good looks like, so what meaningful inclusion feels like. And, and then if, if I am listening to this and wanna know if I'm on the right track, so define the goal here.

[00:04:41] Stephanie Creary: So I'm gonna talk about averages because you know, life isn't amazing every day for any of us, but you can still be doing pretty well, right? So on average, I come to work and I feel respected. I feel like people, um, want me to contribute. And when I contribute, they at least entertain what I'm saying. Um, even if they decide that it's not the right opportunity to consider my ideas.

So that's respected. I feel like the parts of me that I'm willing to bring to the workplace are accepted, and then I feel like I'm thriving. And thriving is very different from surviving. Surviving is like, I'm getting a paycheck and you know, we still have a roof over our head. Or I come to this job and it's not horrible every day. Thriving is, I feel like I'm growing and developing and I'm gaining something fundamentally by being part of this organization. So respect, belonging, and thriving is what's happening on average for people, including people who are underrepresented. 

[00:05:47] Anne Morriss: I love it and I love, I love that last point.

The objective is that, just for the record, right, everyone has a fair chance at feeling all of these things. Absolutely. This is not about advancing one group, right, uh, ahead of the other. The goal is that everyone has a fair shot at thriving. So one of the things we love so much about the, your work, as we've talked about, is you, you really bridge these complex ideas and objectives into actions that we can all take. So let's get into some of your tools and frameworks for doing this. So talk to us about your LEAP framework and, and how it can help leaders create the types of workplaces that you just so beautifully described. 

[00:06:35] Stephanie Creary: Yeah. So LEAP stands for looking, listening, learning, engaging, asking questions, and providing support.

The ideal is that you are as a, as a human being, as an individual contributor or a manager or leader in your organization, you're looking, listening and looking, listening and learning for opportunities to connect with someone who might be having a different experience than you're having in the organization.

I think we all need someone who provides encouragement, advice, right? A shoulder, uh, to lean on. Empathy. Right? So things like psychosocial support, which is what we call those, or more tangible forms of support like opportunities or something like advocacy or protection, speaking up, um, when someone feels like they're being treated unfairly, um, or they're being, um, you know, criticized in some way that is not accurate.

[00:07:33] Anne Morriss: Um, on, on your podcast leading diversity at work, you describe something called covering, which happens when employees feel like they can't be their authentic self at work or an authentic version of themselves at work. What's the cost to organizations of this dynamic? And if I'm a leader, why should I care that my employees aren't showing up authentically if they seem to be getting their work done?

[00:08:00] Stephanie Creary: So covering is a term that's attributed to Kenji Shino, professor at NYU Law, and I love this term, and organizations love it too because it's, you can see it right? For Kenji Yoshino, he talks about covering as people concealing, or not disclosing, uh, parts of themselves in the workplace. But what we know to be true is the reason why people do it is because it doesn't feel safe to show up as the thing, the person, who they really feel they are for a variety of reasons, it feels like it could potentially be penalizing. And so clearly we understand what the potential consequences are for individuals, right? Lack of wellbeing there. Probably many will quit that job because they don't feel safe there. Uh, so there are lots of costs to individuals, but there are also costs to organizations when people cover.

Um, and we're just starting to, I think, understand those better. But for example, let's just say we actually take that for granted and believe the research. 

[00:09:03] Anne Morriss: Yeah, and and for the record, the research is quite persuasive on that point. 

[00:09:07] Stephanie Creary: Yeah, we believe it because we believe in good science, right? Yep. If we believe that, then we don't just assume that through osmosis or just because we're all in a room together that we're going to understand people's backgrounds and perspectives. People actually need to share that information in some way, shape or form, verbally in writing, et cetera. If we have people on a team who are unwilling to share information about their diverse perspectives or their backgrounds, how are we even going to get to better decisions?

So we have a true disclosure issue. If people are covering, they're not disclosing. If people are not disclosing, they're not sharing the information that we need in order to make better decisions to, in order to be, um, more creative. So the whole equation falls apart when people are covering. 

[00:09:59] Anne Morriss: Beautiful. I'm gonna say this very mildly. But historically, people who are most underrepresented, most marginalized in the workplace are often the ones to bear the burden of doing this work. From a practical standpoint, how do you make the case to people with more social capital to be a part of the solution here? 

[00:10:23] Stephanie Creary: So this is actually the, the, uh, the underlying set of principles behind the Radical LEAP is, you do need people who look like us informing what strategies and solutions you're trying to create for us. Because what goes wrong sometimes is organizations get this feedback and then it's like they leave all of us out and they create these solutions and they don't work and they're not for us. Um, and so what a Radical LEAP is, is saying, you actually need our input. You need us. You need to understand how we're feeling. You need to know what we like about it, but we don't have to take care of all the implementation. Right? And if we, let's say we want to, right? Because there are many people who are just passionate and they do wanna get involved in the implementation. That we're actually getting rewarded for it. 

[00:11:17] Anne Morriss: It's not a hidden tax of work. 

[00:11:19] Stephanie Creary: It's either like, financially you're getting paid the extra work that you're doing, um, or you know, I think for so many organizations they started putting in like Diversity Champion of the Month awards. 

[00:11:30] Anne Morriss: And you're saying, just to be clear. Trophies are great, but also consider compensating people for their time, effort, and leadership on these issues. 

[00:11:38] Stephanie Creary: I would also say, 'cause I've been advocating this, I'm not the only one, but I've been advocating this for years, is the, the number one way in which organizations often determine who gets the, the big prizes, like a promotion and compensation is through the performance evaluation process.

So what would it look like, and what I'm suggesting should happen, to have diversity related work be something that is evaluated, um, on a performance evaluation that you're given anywhere from a zero to a five, just like you are for any other competency. And it's factored into all of those key decisions around compensation, promotion, and whatnot in developmental opportunities.

That's really the ideal for A-level organizations. 

[00:12:28] Frances Frei: It, it, it totally aligns with our, with our experience, um, we are in promotion season at HBS and we discuss the two main things that matter. Teaching and research is, wouldn't be a surprise to you, but then we discuss colleagueship. 

[00:12:42] Stephanie Creary: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:12:43] Frances Frei: And we systematically spend time, um.

[00:12:47] Stephanie Creary: Yes.

[00:12:47] Frances Frei: On it to make sure that it's considered because otherwise we would episodically do it, and for sure people are coached on colleagueship now because it's so explicitly done. So I think your point of, if you make it part of the criteria, we will come up with habits and practices to make sure that we're systematically doing it 'cause we're achievers.

Uh, so I really, what you're saying totally resonates with me. 

[00:13:13] Stephanie Creary: What I'm also saying is many organizations have like five areas that, of competencies that they track. Um, the best organizations know the relative weightedness of that in a decision, and they're ex, they're explicit and they're transparent about it.

I'm not saying your contribution to diversity work should be 90% for everyone. But I feel like it should be something. And in many organizations it's currently nothing. It's not factored at all. And people are doing a lot of it. And the organization is winning from all these people doing this invisible labor around diversity work.

They're building culture, they're creating better experiences for people, but yet they're not getting assessed or evaluated or compensated, uh, fairly for this work. 

[00:14:00] Anne Morriss: That seems like there's a, a lot of practical room here for common ground, uh, for this to actually bring people together rather than divide them.So how do leaders do this work and talk about this work in ways that really, that really do bring people together? 

[00:14:22] Stephanie Creary: It's really quite simple, and basically what we found is when anyone, no matter who you are, feels like you have access to, which is code word, can benefit from diversity related practices, you're actually more likely to engage in all of the things that people who create and champion diversity practices want you to engage in. And you're also more likely to feel like your own workplace experience is a good one. Saying that, allowing everyone to benefit from diversity, equity, inclusion practices isn't saying don't pay attention to the gaps.

The gender gaps, the, you know, sexuality gaps, the racial gaps. It's saying that when we don't have a healthy workplace culture and we don't have policies and practices that support workers, the people who are more likely to lose first are the people who are historically the most marginalized. But what we find is, is when we put those practices in place, everybody wins because the practices in and of themselves are really important, period. 

[00:15:35] Frances Frei: Um, I wanna just test a couple of things with you and then get your help. Uh, I find myself, I think in any company that I have spoken with over the last 10 years, I have had, I have said some form of as an operations professor.

[00:15:51] Stephanie Creary: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:15:52] Frances Frei: I know of nothing more powerful than inclusion. 

[00:15:55] Stephanie Creary: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:15:56] Frances Frei: And that is because with no new people and no new technology, I can supersize engagement and team performance. 

[00:16:05] Stephanie Creary: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:16:06] Frances Frei: And after every, almost every time that I have a, a talk, which, for which that's part of it, people come up to me afterwards and say some form of, “I hadn't thought about DEI the way you talk about it.”

[00:16:21] Stephanie Creary: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:16:22] Frances Frei: “That is, I thought it was this boogeyman.” 

[00:16:24] Stephanie Creary: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:16:25] Frances Frei: Um, and. My language for what they're doing is DEI has become weaponized in my mind when you talk about, I like what you are talking about, but the DEI part, like I gotta, that that's not the message. And I think this was part of Anne's losing the narrative.

So here's my, here's my question. I'm gonna start with an observation and then my question. I've gone in to help turn around toxic cultures. I went to Uber back in 2017. Many of their original values, which were awesome, 

[00:17:00] Stephanie Creary: Mm-hmm. 

[00:17:00] Frances Frei: had become weaponized, right? My experience with them and with others is that the attempt to say, no, no, this is what it really means.

So they had toe stepping as a value. Right. Very famously. And it was such a good value. Oh my gosh. If you have a great idea and your manager won't listen to you, you can step on your manager's toes and go above them. 

[00:17:22] Stephanie Creary: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:17:23] Frances Frei: In practice, people used to step beneath them, not over them, and it got weaponized.

And I remember the former CEO kept trying to just say, no, this is what it means. And my experience now has been, once the word is weaponized, it's gone. You can spend your whole life trying to reclaim it, but there are so many words in the English language. My advice has been, and so I wanna test it for this, is once it's been weaponized by external forces, you can lament it, but come up with a new phrase.

[00:17:55] Stephanie Creary: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:17:55] Frances Frei: So. Given all of that context, I know of nothing more powerful than inclusion, and people are reporting to me that in their spheres, DEI has become weaponized. 

[00:18:04] Stephanie Creary: Mm-hmm. 

[00:18:05] Frances Frei: What's the next step there? 

[00:18:07] Stephanie Creary: So I wanna say that DEI wasn't a word until 2020. The, the, the fear by diversity related champions or people who are marginalized and for whom the D and the E really speak to them is that I will be made invisible as well in this process.

And so how do we talk about inclusion in a way that says. We're trying to create this environment where people, no matter who they are, can come to this organization, contribute, feel valued, feel like they have a chance to be at the seat at the table. When we do the all thing in the US, it quickly hides the experiences of people who are from historically marginalized groups.

So. If we move to inclusion because that's our value in our organizations, we wanna lead with that, fine. But how do you do that in a way that doesn't allow us to cloak the experiences of the people who often get left behind? That's the dance we're trying to accomplish. It don't matter what you call it, right?

It, it says, can we still make visible? Can we, will we still go looking for the people who are on the margins and try to help them feel like that value is recognized as a universal for them as well? 

[00:19:18] Frances Frei: You said in the beginning of this, I took note when you did exactly that, when you said this is for all, including underrepresented folks. And I, I found it really poignant and lovely. And it makes sure that we're not forgotten, um, with it.

[00:19:35] Anne Morriss: I love that. 

[00:19:36] Stephanie Creary: So Wendy Smith at the University of Delaware is, has written this fantastic book, um, Both And. Um, and she's a long been a Paradox scholar, and paradox theory is about the Both and the And.

And inclusion often gets talked about as the sort of, the Both slash the All, right? Um, but the And often gets left behind, right? And so by saying inclusion for everyone who works here and including, right, people who are underrepresented, you're remembering the And part of the “two things can be true,” and they should. The complexity is really important here. 

[00:20:22] Frances Frei: I've heard of Both And, but I never metabolized it in the way you just did. And I'm, I'm having that experience with so many of these things. Anne and I often talk about a deeply simply form of communication, which is the people that understand things so deeply that they can then turn around and describe it simply.

[00:20:39] Stephanie Creary: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:20:40] Frances Frei: And what's powerful about that is when you do it, the ideas last into your absence. 

[00:20:45] Stephanie Creary: Absolutely. 

[00:20:47] Frances Frei: Many of us, when we take a complicated thing and we describe it in a complicated way, it requires us to be the messenger. And what I'm finding so alluring about what you are saying is you're equipping us and our listeners to, uh, have these ideas resonant into your absence, which is super exciting to me.

[00:21:07] Stephanie Creary: Thank you.

[00:21:23] Anne Morriss: How should all of us, particularly the leaders out there, think about advancing this work in this political moment? Is there anything you would add beyond what we've already talked about? 

[00:21:37] Stephanie Creary: Yes. So, you know, I grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada. 

[00:21:43] Frances Frei: Come on. 

[00:21:45] Stephanie Creary: I did, I did. I grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada. Nevada, the entire state, even the city of Las Vegas was a red state when I grew up there.

So that means that I, as a person who is, is not conservative nor a Republican, um. I have spent plenty of time engaging with people who have different political values than I have. And then certainly in doing this work in corporate organizations, knowing that many, many leaders have conservative values or, you know, identify with the Republican Party.

What I've come to understand is there is now, there are extremes. I'm gonna, like, not talk about the extreme version. There is a place where there are some shared values around diversity. 

[00:22:28] Anne Morriss: Yeah. 

[00:22:29] Stephanie Creary: And inclusion and equity between, let's just talk about Republicans and Democrats. The differences are on what do we do about it. Right? When we're not being extreme, what we're arguing around is what's the right intervention? Is it an individualized interpersonal, let's make better people better, right? Or is it at the system level? So I think where we're going to be, or the opportunity that we have in front of us is really thinking about what each of us can do in our own sphere of influence as an individual contributor, as a manager, as a leader for our team in order to create an inclusive environment.

That's where we are right now, and I, that to me is the opening in the non-extreme context. 

[00:23:18] Anne Morriss: I think it's beautiful, uh, and, and motivating framing. For people listening, uh, who are also motivated by that framing, what is one action that they can take to make their workplaces more inclusive? 

[00:23:35] Stephanie Creary: The biggest thing right now, I actually had to, I presented to a bank two days post-election and what resonated as, as I looked at the chat when people were writing all these things in the chat there, like more than 200 people attended this talk.

I actually suggested three different types of strategies. I feel like this is circa early two thousands. The head, heart, and the hands strategy. So that head, heart, and hands language around how do we create a better workplace environment was created back when we didn't know if there was gonna be a whole lot of structural changes happening in our organizations.

And so a head strategy, something that people can begin doing right now is, like, learning more, like taking advantage of the, the cadre of videos or trainings that exist on their internal learning platforms at their organizations, or picking up a book and learning about something. And it would be great if you learned about something that wasn't your own, just validating your own experience and see, have you actually encountered that perspective before because then you might understand what just happened. So that's a head strategy is like thinking, right? Learning more. A heart strategy is actually where my mind first went and then I was like, lemme go back to head is like empathy, right? It's this idea that understanding that if we're all in the same team together at in a workplace or around the same organization, we hope that there is a common goal around us all winning, in us all in our, in our organization, winning. And so what would it look like to just care about and show that you care about somebody's experience by saying, I hope tomorrow's a better day for you? So that's like a heart strategy, which again, is not, for some people, that's an easy thing to do because they're heart people.

For other people, they're like, oh, that feels very uncomfortable. And then the hand strategy is actually the actions, the things that we do in order to improve someone's experience. And that can be something as easy as if you're an individual contributor, inviting your colleague out to lunch for a chat. Like that is not that hard to just talk about life and how are things going for them. For a manager, um, I always like to talk about meetings. 'Cause meetings is where things, things… meetings are where things fall apart a lot. But as a ma, as a manager, what is it to, to like really be hyper aware of who's contributing and who's not? And checking in with the people who are, and who's not contributing after the meeting and saying, I've noticed that you haven't, you know, spoken up in meetings lately and I just wanted to understand if there's anything that I can do to make it easier for you to speak up 'cause we'd like to hear your ideas. That's actually a hands strategy. So head, heart and hands, uh, for me is, is where we are. It's what I've been trying to teach people and it's been resonating. And again, this is just rewinding back in the past for how we used to talk about things that felt. Like we needed to be able to empower people to do when the structure, maybe the structural change wasn't going to happen as quickly as some of us might hope.

[00:26:38] Anne Morriss: I love it. First of all, thank you for all of your time and energy and, and wisdom and, and I think our listeners are gonna get so much from this conversation. Is there anything that you wished we had asked you or you wanna say before we wrap up? 

[00:26:53] Stephanie Creary: I just wanna express my gratitude to a number of role models who created this field of research, of teaching, of practice.Who did it when it was really hard. They made them make up the language and they had to figure out how to get people to care about it. That was much harder than this right now, this is horribly disappointing for those of us who felt like we were making progress. But I would say that's what's giving me, I think, hope, optimism, but also a little bit of grounding in what feels very hard to deal with is there are many, many, many people who have done harder things than the job that I have in front of me right now.

[00:27:35] Frances Frei: Can I express some gratitude as well, publicly? 'Cause, um, Stephanie, I'm staying with you. 

[00:27:42] Anne Morriss: Oh yeah. It's directed to us. Oh, we're all, we, we, we can't stop ourselves. No. We are all in on this record. As Frances said, you've, you've influenced, uh, us both the most important parts. 

[00:27:53] Stephanie Creary: Absolutely. Thank you both for having me. This was my pleasure and such an honor.

Thank you.

[00:28:05] Anne Morriss: I found Stephanie's energy around this work to be encouraging, to be energizing, to be hopeful. The thing that gets reinforced for me is actually how much room there is for people to come together. I mean, the fundamental goals of DEI are about creating organizations where everyone has a chance to thrive.

It's fundamentally about fairness, and I think the way this word has been weaponized is to signal the absence of fairness. And so I, I think my heart is more open to the idea that, yeah. Like there's, there's so much beautiful stuff at the heart of this movement, um, that really is about building the biggest tent possible inside your organization for everyone to show up and be able to contribute to the extent of their capacity.

And if we knew a new word for this, because the old words are getting in the way of people getting on board this train, then let's invent new words. Frances, you mentioned the example of toe stepping at Uber. So what happened? Next, did they give up the, the value? Did they rebrand it? 

[00:29:15] Frances Frei: I, I would say that it was rebranded.

Um, the, the values, if you look at the current values of Uber today, they are super similar to the values of Uber of old. They, as soon as they, as soon as they were put in print, they took off like wildfire. So really what was holding them back was the weaponization. But the fundamental ideas, the we want ideas to come from everywhere, still central to Uber. So the heart of the ideas are still there. There is an, absolutely a new language and a broader understanding of the global context within which they sit. 

[00:29:53] Anne Morriss: So for instance, you also mentioned colleagueship as part of the evaluation journey at HBS. Do you see parallels there and, and just practical steps organizations can take to promote these goals?

[00:30:11] Frances Frei: Yeah. You know, as we mentioned at HBS teaching and research matter, and so does colleagueship and citizenship. You use one word or the other. But we didn't ever formally talk about colleagueship and citizenship. 

[00:30:26] Anne Morriss: De define it in a way that was, yeah. 

[00:30:28] Frances Frei: We didn't, we didn't in the, um, in the review processes, when we would discuss people for promotion and we would have long conversations.

There was the teaching section and there was the research section. I think citizenship went up when we added a third colleagueship section. And so even just giving space to talk about it and, you know, we don't have like a, a metric of colleagueship from zero to 10. We don't ask people to numerically score, but we give space to discuss it.

And you can see how seriously people take it, right? And how they're using beautifully illustrative examples in order to discuss its presence or in some cases its absence. Um, and so I think giving, revealing that it's important, giving it its own space in the meeting, I think will, well, was the signal that mattered for us.

And so if I look at DEI, I want us to, when we have conversations, these people thrive. These people didn't thrive. Did everyone have equal access to thriving? Just give space for it. 

 If you just give space for it, I don't want you to have to hit a certain metric. I don't like any of that. But I want us to discuss, are we providing unequal access?

How could we provide more equal access tomorrow than we can today? Just give space for it. Our human instincts are gonna work. 

[00:31:49] Anne Morriss: Mm-Hmm. What I love about that too is it's not a, what you're talking about is not a political litmus test. 

[00:31:55] Frances Frei: No. 

[00:31:56] Anne Morriss: It, it's not, does, you know, does, does this person fit into a narrow set of, of values?

I think it, it's also a way to talk about, uh, you know, these, these levers that really matter to the health of a good organization. So if, if there is a, a, a, a manager who is very good at creating a context where there is well distributed opportunity for other people to thrive, I want a way to talk about that.

I want a way to, uh, we need a language to describe that cultural asset inside the organization. And if it's not gonna be DEI, then let's pick different words. But when you look at the, the health of a culture. You know, the, and, and then the, the byproducts of that culture where good people wanna show up because it is more likely to be a real meritocracy, that is critical to the performance of an organization.

And so, even like in the case, case of HBS, even naming it with a word like citizenship or colleagueship is a big step forward in ultimately being able to measure it, but even in the interim, being able to see it, name it, support it, promote it, uh, and I, I mean, I love that word. I dunno if it works outside of, of academia, but I think it's a very, I think it's a great example of, of the power of language to open up a conversation about something that really matters. 

[00:33:29] Frances Frei: And sometimes giving space is a substitute for, and even an improvement on metrics. Like if you came up with a citizenship metric, I don't think it would be nearly as culturally powerful as our holding space to make it discussable, because we then live up to a greatest version of ourselves collectively, and we get better and better and better at it every year.

[00:33:51] Anne Morriss: Yeah, and I usually, I, I find myself resisting these squishy words because it does feel like there's more room to kind of politicize them. But I think, uh I think when everyone is earnestly showing up, talking about this thing that we all collectively agree is, uh, an organizational good, then I think, uh, what you just articulated exactly right.

[00:34:13] Frances Frei: And I'll, I'll give a pro tip, operational detail with the illustrative examples that you provide help a lot. Mm-Hmm. So vague. They're great at this, right? Doesn't work. They're, they're good citizens. 

[00:34:24] Anne Morriss: Doesn't help. Doesn't help at all. In the absence of that detail, yeah. It, oh. 

[00:34:27] Frances Frei: As with all things sincere and specific, really wins.

Right. 

[00:34:33] Anne Morriss: Alright, Frances, that's our show. Fixable listeners, we hope you were able to take as much from this conversation with Stephanie as we did. I'm sure we're gonna keep talking about this because we can't shut up about it, and there's so much to cover here. 

[00:34:48] Frances Frei: We like to win too much. We have to talk about it.

[00:34:52] Anne Morriss: Fixable is brought to you by the TED Audio Collective and Pushkin Industries. It's hosted by me, Anne Morriss.

[00:35:00] Frances Frei: And me, Frances Frei. 

[00:35:03] Anne Morriss: This episode was produced by Rahima Nassa from Pushkin Industries. Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Banban Chang, Daniela Balarezo, and Roxanne Hai Lash. 

[00:35:10] Frances Frei: Our show is mixed by Louis at Story Yard.

[00:35:14] Anne Morriss: If you're enjoying the show, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast and tell a friend to check us out. And if you're really enjoying the show, don't hesitate to give us a five star review on your local podcast platform.