Merit is Not the Opposite of Diversity: Removing Barriers to Employment

While employers unpack new regulatory direction regarding DEI efforts, many are left wondering how to lawfully maintain their recruitment activities and stay true to their organizational values. Tune in as we chat with Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby, Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, international speaker, & Founder of Simply You Solutions as she explains the evolution of inclusionary efforts from past to present. She also shares why diversity is essential to merit-based hiring (the larger the talent pool, the greater the chance of finding the most qualified candidate!), metrics employers should be looking at, where she sees the workplace equity landscape heading in the future, and tips for fostering authenticity and belonging in your workforce.

Transcript

DirectEmployers Association (00:00):

Get ready! The DE Talk podcast starts now, insightful conversations and dialogue, helping you put the human factor back in HR.

Mikey Meagher (00:09):

Hello, I'm Mikey Meagher, DirectEmployers Manager of EEO and Organization Strategy. And in this episode I'm excited to be joined by Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby for a thought-provoking discussion on building workplaces rooted in merit, fairness, and equal opportunity. Dr. Shelby's research and expertise and workplace authenticity and experience of underrepresented employees have been featured in peer reviewed journals and publications like the Harvard Business Review online, and she has taken the stage at TED Events. In this conversation we'll explore the evolving landscape of workplace equity, what organization should prioritize moving forward, how to foster fair and inclusive environments, and the role of data in driving sustainable performance-based change. So let's dive right in. Thank you, Courtney, for being here today. I would just like to open up, if you could share with our listeners a bit about your background in industrial-organizational psychology to help set the stage for our listeners.

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (01:22):

Thank you guys so much for having me. So happy to join you today. For my background, I got my undergraduate degree in psychology from Tuskegee University, which is in Alabama, and I got my Master's and PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Michigan State University where my research specialized in diversity and discrimination in the workplace. So I really was trying to key in on the experiences of marginalized populations and get to a point where everyone could have an authentic experience at work, whatever that meant for them. And then I was able to work in corporate, but I also own my own consulting firm and I've helped different organizations, government organizations, nonprofits, classrooms, people in the education sector think about what is diversity, equity and inclusion and what does it mean for them in their workplace.

 Mikey Meagher (02:17):

Awesome. And I know you just touched on the practical experience in HR roles within corporate America and also you're the founder of Simply You Solutions to help companies identify and eliminate those barriers to equity. So can you talk a little bit about the work you do through your company?

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (02:37):

Yes, absolutely. So one of the things I do is speak in events and that can range from just an hour of education of what are we even talking about when we're talking about authenticity in the workplace or diversity, equity and inclusion. Or they can actually be workshops. For example, I walked a board of directors of a nonprofit through talking through integrating DEI into their values of the board that they were a part of. So I mean some of it is on the 101 side, like an intro class, but also I do deep dive options as well. So if we really want to dig into what is authenticity, how do we do it, how do we use it to make a better workforce for topics like intersectionality, that one is a little deeper of a topic, but I think a lot of the work is about trying to help get organizations in touch with the human side. How do we get organizations to be a place where everyone can simply be you? That's where the name came from. You can be you at work and that's okay.

 Mikey Meagher (03:48):

Yeah, that's clever. And I have to ask before we move on, because I find this intriguing specifically with industrial-organizational psychology, how did you land on that and knowing that that was even a thing out there? Because I just find that so fascinating.
 
 

Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (04:05):

Yes, really good question. It was a journey to find it. I knew very early on I was a people person. I wanted to do something where I felt like I was helping people. So that's why I was psychology. But I also had some early experiences to let me know that I have a bleeding heart, I'm not very good at the therapist role, that's not for me. And so my parents actually both worked in corporate America as I was growing up and they were telling me stories about their experiences at work and my mom suggested one time like, well, what about a cross between business and psychology? And I said, oh, that's a good idea. And I tried to look into what would that actually be and found industrial-organizational psychology. Surprisingly at that time, I-O psychology was not very much mentioned in the intro to psychology or the AP psychology classes.

 (04:57):

There has since been a big campaign to include them so that students get early exposure to that as a career option. So happy that more students will even know what it is if you take those intro classes and can make their way there. So my undergrad university didn't even have anyone who did I-O psychology, and so then I kind of had to bridge the gap on my own to figure out how do I get into that research space, how do I talk to professors who are doing the work, what does that work look like? It was a lot of exploration. So I did a few internships with people who had those types of degrees, did some summer research programs and was able to go to grad school after that.

 Mikey Meagher (05:38):

Well, I'm sure that the companies you work with and organizations you've been a part of are definitely happy that you broke into that space and were able to discover it and kind of pilot that for the rest of your career. So that's awesome.

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (05:53):

Thank you. I'm glad that that was the journey for me.

 Mikey Meagher (05:57):

Yeah. Alright, so let's dive in a little bit more now and kind of get into the past and present of DEI and so over the past several decades we've seen DEI evolve in response to social, economic, and political factors. What do you think are the biggest lessons that we've learned from past approaches to DEI?

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (06:22):

Yes, there's been a lot of different waves of DEI and what they've looked like and they continue to evolve and overlap in response to the civil rights movement. There was this compliance approach to DEI, which is where the laws changed and told companies what they had to do. And some companies were doing it very begrudgingly with integration or whatever else that might have looked like for their workplace. And we learned a lot from the compliance approach. It is never received well when companies do it because you have to do it, it made people feel like the effort was forced and not genuine and it doesn't make for a good culture, it doesn't make for a good work experience. And so we learned that that actually does move the needle forward. We did get diversity out of that effort. We did get laws we're following EEOC requirements, but it did not make for a very good culture.

 (07:20):

The culture was divisive. What was actually DEI training at the time, that was very early version, people hated it. It was not something people wanted to do, but it made a difference. Sometimes you have to pull people towards a direction and it worked for a while, although it did not do well at first. And then we have the business approach, which is actually still the most commonly used approach, which is that diversity is good for the bottom line. Diversity, equity, and inclusion now is what they say is good for the bottom line. And if people have this sale that the more diversity you have, the more money your company is going to make or the better your products are going to be. It is the most effective way to launch diversity, equity and inclusion programs. So we know that that is the most valued by companies.

 (08:13):

However, it does make it so that diversity, equity and inclusion is one of the first things on the chopping block when you're talking about profits. Because to them, if it doesn't make dollars, then the company can easily pivot or deprioritize. And it also, I mean from a more justice mindset, it makes people seem like a commodity. We only want you here because you're going to make us money, which could be said about anyone. But if you're talking about a specific population of people that can feel dehumanizing in a way. The alternative approach that was presented before is this justice and values approach, which is we do diversity, equity, and inclusion because it is the right thing to do. That means that your values is why you do it, not because it makes you money, not because the laws say that you have to do it.

 (09:05):

And so what we learned from that approach is that it is more lasting. It is going to survive the waves of time more than the other approaches. But it is also the most difficult, I think to permeate throughout an organization if the organization was not built from that, if the organization was not built with the mindset in the first place, it is really hard to integrate that type of approach because the people that you hired may not share those values. And so a lot of times you cannot make them share those values, if you will. And finally there is also a learning approach, but again, similar to the justice approach, the organization already has to be that organization. And so the learning approach is where an organization has a learning mindset, they have a learning frame of mind, they lead with curiosity. And so if diversity, equity, and inclusion is taken from that perspective, it can be really effective of I want to learn about you, I want to value you, show me how to do it. It is a very accepting culture, but it again has to already be the culture of the company in order to work. So it is also not commonly used, but is a very effective approach to DEI.

 Mikey Meagher (10:24):

Yeah, and it sounds like back to referencing the early initiatives surrounding this, it's almost like those early corporate diversity efforts that focused on compliance, the focus was avoiding lawsuits rather than fostering the true inclusion.

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (10:40):

Exactly.

 Mikey Meagher (10:41):

And then making that shift towards now the business case for diversity and how diverse teams outperform non-diverse teams.

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (10:50):

Exactly. That's exactly where we're at is even though over time we've shown that the business approach is not the most effective, it's the most popular. And I at least appreciate the shift away from compliance because that was a rough place to be. But there's other approaches out there that companies can take. It just takes a lot of intention, but I think that it's worth it in the end.

 Mikey Meagher (11:15):

Yes, absolutely. And so what data trends stand out to you when you reflect on how workplaces have changed in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion?

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (11:29):

Good question. Because so many things have changed as far as not only the composition of the workforce, but specifically for the United States, the composition of the United States, even the legal landscape has shifted a bit since this work first began. But definitely think diversity in itself has evened out or stalled out since the nineties where we saw a really high success rate of diversity. It was the first time really that women were making their way into management that people of color were making their way into management positions where people were just now recognizing people with disabilities as an integral part of the workforce. And we were just talking about more rights for people of specific populations like pregnant women. So I think that was really kind of the highlight. And since then the trends have evened out and part of that is just related to our, again, continually evolving population, but I think that there's still lots of change to be had in positive directions.

 (12:35):

I also think that it's very interesting, the words used to just include diversity or even before diversity, we called it that until the nineties, but it was a lot around affirmative action and integration. And then we kind of moved to diversity, but then there was diversity and inclusion, and now we have diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is an interesting change because I think we do talk a lot about diversity and we do talk a lot about inclusion, but equity being the newest name that has been added, we actually don't talk about what that means a whole lot. And I think that's an interesting trend to see what are the efforts that we are doing that describe the names that we are using attached to them. So I think that over time we will see a bigger focus on equity. Actually a lot of the basis of what the lawsuits are about is about the equity part, but we really only talk about the diversity part of it.

 Mikey Meagher (13:34):

Do you think there's any connection between the word merit now that's being thrown out there along with equity and maybe that the equity part of it kind of just being lost and they're trying to translate it now into a merit situation?

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (13:50):

Absolutely, and I think merit has been around in the conversation a long time with affirmative action because there was an underlying assumption that if you were taking affirmative actions towards diversity, that that was the opposite of a merit-based system, which is incorrect. It goes off of the assumption that there are certain people that belong there because of merit, which is not true because there's merit all over the place, but you have to put the effort in to look. So for example, if we have a marathon and we're looking for the fastest runners, if our marathon only allows people in our city, then sure, maybe we will find the fastest person in our city. But if we're really wanting to know the fastest person in the world, we have to open up our race and invite people from across the world to participate. Another thing is if we are holding this marathon and entrance fee is $2,000, then we cannot for sure say that we found the fastest person, if maybe the fastest person is not able to afford to enter the race in the first place. So it's not really about merit. And it's interesting that people make the dichotomy. It's more so about removing the barriers so that everyone is able to show their merit on a fair playing field.

 Mikey Meagher (15:16):

Yes. It's interesting too because when we talk about, and kind of shifting gears just a little bit, but you hear to make money with your investments, you have to have a diverse portfolio, which means you're not going to get more, it's not going to grow. It's the same thing with teams, and that's to draw that conclusion. It's just like your organization will grow with a diverse team and mindset and the way you communicate with each other just the same way you want to have a diverse portfolio for your financials.

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (15:50):

That's exactly right. Diverse portfolios have also been extracted to a lot of other situations, including the psychology of your minds, the places that you derive joy should be diversified. You should not only seek joy from your partner, for example, you should have many things across your life that give you joy. And so it's like this theory of diversified portfolio, it applies to people, it applies to your finances, it applies to your happiness, so many places. But for some reason when we apply it to people and say it is a great idea to have a lot of different people, even the law of averages is based on having a lot of different people contributing to that average. But I don't know why it becomes so controversial once you open up that door.
 
 

Mikey Meagher (16:41):

Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure either. And I think you just bringing up some of those points obviously shows that you specialize in using the research and analytics to improve the workplace experience. So to further that a little bit more, what are some of the key metrics organization should be looking at to measure real time progress with DEI?

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (17:04):

Yes, that's a good question because I think right now companies are afraid to share to either record or to share metrics because that can be tripped up in the law if things are not going the right way. But I think in order to measure progress, you have to start with where are you right now in the hiring space? I definitely think you have to have metrics for every single part of the funnel of the hiring process, and that can take a lot of intentionality and a lot of work. But in order to know if you're doing things right, then that's the way to do it. So for example, starting out with your applicant pool, what does your applicant pool look like? You can even go a step before that of who is attracted to your organization and what does that say about you and your brand and how you are advertising yourself to the world, or how does your brand stand out in the community?

 (18:00):

And then once you go to your applicant pool, it's then who passes the first round? Maybe that's just a resume check. What does that look like? And then who goes to the phone interview and who passes the test? I have a colleague who told me that they were able to solve an equity problem by looking really deeply at the funnel in all credit to her for telling me this story, of course, but they had a manufacturing job and they were like, we just can't get women into the job. We can't get any women. And so she started asking questions about the applicant pool, and it turns out they said, oh, well women are not passing the test. And she said, okay, well what about the tests? Aren't they passing? And it was like, oh, well actually they're not taking the test. It was like, okay, well why are they not taking the test?

 (18:49):

Turns out the test was not mobile friendly and most of these people did not have internet access in their homes. So women who had to stay at home with the children were the ones who were not able to go to a library or public setting with wifi and actually take the test. And so when you break down the steps to every part of the funnel, you're able to identify and remove barriers to access. So that's a really easy way to track progress. I think also when it comes to who's staying and moving up in your organization, again, measuring who's identified as high priority talent, how often are people moving or how often are they staying? We used to talk a whole lot about the glass ceiling, but now we talk a bit about a broken rung. So there's this ladder, but there's a step that's broken because women tend to get stuck at the first level of management and never move past that.

 (19:44):

So analyzing, what is it about that middle management or first level to management that is not allowing people to move? I say all of those things as far as just numbers. And a lot of times people think that numbers can stand alone and tell you what's going on. It definitely can help you measure progress, but knowing how your culture is evolving is really important, and measuring culture is extremely difficult. I think the most common way that people do it now is with an employee engagement survey or an employee experience survey. And those are incredibly important, but deep diving, what those qualitative answers are saying how they are giving context to the numbers that you're seeing, but they can tell you what's happening in your organization and they can also describe progress. So people who have been there long enough or even just breaking it down into people who've been here less than two years, what do they think? People who've been here more than five years, what do they think? So having that extra bit of context is really to understanding progress as well.

 Mikey Meagher (20:51):

And I think some of that too might go into, sometimes people might ask, what are some of the most common misconceptions that people or organizations have about DEI data? But really it's just almost looking, is it because the data's not in real time? So by the time we actually go in and look at things, you've either dropped off in your morale or you have top talent that's leaving, but you don't know why. So there's nothing to point to in the moment of exactly what's happening there.

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (21:24):

And that would definitely be a weakness that organizations have if they're collecting data and sitting on it, they're not doing anything with it or they're not moving at a timely manner, which one of the biggest reasons that people don't participate in surveys is because they know organizations are not going to act on them. Why should I risk telling you all of my trauma, all the things that are wrong if you're not going to do anything with it.

 Mikey Meagher (21:51):

Exactly. And yeah, I think right now too, we're seeing the shifts in how DEI is prioritized in organizations. So how do you think companies can maintain meaningful DEI work even as external pressures and expectations evolve?

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (22:10):

Yeah, that's a really good question because a lot of companies are reacting or creating proactive plans of how to deal with the external environment. One thing that, I mean, this might be a little bit hippie dippy of me, but I definitely think organizations should step back and decide what side of history do they want to be on if they plan to be around for a long time. History is kind to the people that stand for the right thing. And there are lots of examples about that in real life, about what companies did or did not do, the types of legacies that they left in times of difficulties, how they used and wielded that power that they have. And so I would challenge organizations. Organizations are not people, so I don't know how much that would be, but I would challenge the leaders to make decisions that will last through time.

 (23:08):

And there was an article that came out a long time ago, I wish I could remember the name right now, but it looked at companies that stood their values over time despite what was going on in the external environment. And those companies were more profitable in the long run. Of course, maybe not as true in the short run because there might have been some bumps in the road, but over a long period of time, they lasted longer and they made more money. And so I would really encourage companies to think about how to keep and prioritize their work. Now that said, I recognize that companies at the end of the day have to please their shareholders. And so if it has to be a protective mechanism, maybe that means beefing up your legal team and having them fully aware of everything that you are doing and advising you on how to keep doing that, giving you a risk profile of if we do it this way, are we susceptible to incoming lawsuits?

(24:13):

I mean, the reality is a lot of these people that are suing are saying that things are illegal that are not. I think just recently Starbucks was sued for making their organization more diverse and the person said it's illegal. And Starbucks said, actually, that is a misconception of what's actually happening. So we will see how that plays out, but I would say hunker down and ready your legal team, but keep doing the work. And then my last advice, meaningful diversity, equity, and inclusion work is embedded within organizational strategy. It is not all standalone programs that are called DEI. It is just sometimes simply about doing the right process. Meaning when we're talking about the hiring process, do you have structured interview questions? Do you have a behavioral rating scale that you are sticking to as you are judging? Do you have meetings where people are bouncing off one another to eliminate the likelihood of bias from one person? If you are having those calibration meetings, it is less likely that bias from any one person will be able to creep in into the final score. So some of it is just about building the systems the right way, and that can never be up for debate. It's easy to target things that have a sticker that say diversity, equity, and inclusion on them, but if you're just doing the equity, if it is a part of your organizational strategy, it's not up for debate.

 Mikey Meagher (25:47):

Yes, I love that having that embedded in there. And that's as a process, DEI cannot be performative. It's more organizations that tie into the long-term strategy and sticking to that.

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (26:02):

That's right. I think where it can get tricky is when you are catering to your consumers because then you do have to sway with the wind a little bit. Target, for example, they have products that are supposed to go to a certain demographic, and sometimes that can be tricky to get that balance right. A couple years ago, they had to scale back their pride celebration merchandise for LGBTQ+ populations, but realistically, people were coming in and harassing their employees, threatening and physically harming their employees because of these displays. And so it did feel right to size for the safety of their employees of where and how much of this pride merchandise they sold. But now they're in a different position where people are boycotting them because of their lack of support for businesses from Black and Brown people. I think that was one of their efforts that they started in 2020 to contribute towards racial equity and now that their program has ended, and they're receiving a lot of criticism for that. So that's a tricky balance for people who are playing towards consumers and not just employees, but some research needs to be done about what the direction for that should look like.

 Mikey Meagher (27:25):

And sometimes those experiences that either that organization or employees do experience can also have a hold on which direction that they take the one avenue having done that, tried that and hasn't gone well.

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (27:40):

So

 Mikey Meagher (27:40):

Now it's like, oh, what can we do to shift that? And sometimes it's just like you were saying earlier, just staying aligned and not moving away from those processes you've put in place as an organization. And I guess that kind of goes into a little bit of this next question of what kind of pressures or anxieties, if any, do you anticipate that recruiters will face in this changing landscape?

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (28:07):

Good question, because hiring is a big target right now, and I definitely could see anxiety and pressures around where people recruit currently. I mean, there's so many places to recruit for new employees commonly at the college level, there's some purposeful recruitment from historically black colleges or universities. There's all types of HBCU job fairs and efforts. I would definitely recommend people do not scale back on those because again, anybody can attend those. There's nothing illegal about going to different schools, no matter the school's demographic. There's nothing illegal about that. Similarly, we have organizations that recruiters go to like the Society for Hispanic Professionals. There's NSBE, the National Society for Black Engineers. There is SWE, the Society for Women Engineers. But again, there's nothing wrong with recruiting at these conferences. There's nothing that says that men or any other demographic are not welcome at the Society for Women of Engineers. They absolutely are. And when you take a look at the numbers and what the demographics of the people that you recruit from that conference look like, they're often diverse. And by diverse, I'm not describing one population that is not what diverse means. Diverse means. When I look at the people that I recruit, there's a very great mix of men, women, races, ability level languages, school background, all kinds of things. And so I would encourage recruiters to not give into those pressures to scale back on those efforts.

 Mikey Meagher (29:53):

Do you think some of that also has to do with maybe a new recruiter in the industry and you're hearing everything that's going on, and do you think that there's some anxiety that they might feel like they're making mistakes in terms of their approach to recruiting and I guess not wanting to make a mistake or feel like that they've done anything to maybe get the organization in trouble or something like, because there's just so much talk surrounding it?

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (30:22):

Yes, absolutely. No employee wants to be liable for the downfall or a lawsuit of a company because they feel like they did something wrong. And actually that same fear is commonly the fear for all diversity, equity, and inclusion work. Even when you're just in a workshop, people sometimes are afraid to say the wrong thing. They don't want to be seen as this bad or evil person or a person that's doing the wrong thing. So I would recommend that recruiters themselves really look into the research and understand what is legal number one and how to do these practices the right way. So for example, we are going back to the conversation about merit. Merit is not the opposite of diversity. And so I would encourage them to think about if your processes are seeking merit and seeking the best candidate, what barriers can you remove to getting the best candidate? What do the barriers even look like? If you have only applications on LinkedIn, how do you reach people without internet access, who still might be geniuses? How do you reach people that don't have a LinkedIn profile or is not filled in very well? How do you remove those barriers to finding the best person?

 Mikey Meagher (31:44):

Yes, that's a really great point. Removing the barriers, and that's exactly what this work is meant to do. And now, I know you're not a psychic, but I feel like all your research might point you in that direction. But if you were to predict where inclusionary efforts are headed in the next five to 10 years, what are the biggest shifts you see coming?

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (32:09):

Yes, I think it's funny you said I'm not a psychic because sometimes when I tell people I'm a psychologist, they say, well, tell me what I'm thinking right now.

 Mikey Meagher (32:20):

Doesn't work like that.

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (32:21):

That doesn't work like that. But looking at the trends, I think that there is a pendulum swing right now that we're in after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 when we were all in COVID lockdown, there was a lot of attention to racial equity, and diversity, equity, and inclusion work has been going on since the sixties in corporate America specifically. But a lot of people have taken that period of racial equity and equated it to diversity, equity, and inclusion. And so this, where we're at right now is a direct pendulum swing reaction to what happened then. And so my hope is that we regress to the mean that we come back to the middle, and that diversity, equity inclusion is not so politicized. That is more of a hope than a prediction though. So what I predict that will actually happen is that organizations will be in two different camps.

 (33:21):

People are going to have to decide with their dollars or with their livelihood if they are going to choose a side about where they stand with diversity, equity, and inclusion. I predict there will be a lot of lawsuits that will determine what this landscape looks like. But most of all, when we're talking about inclusionary efforts, I actually think it's going to be about equity. I keep going back to equity, but when we're talking about embedding practices into the organization, that has always been the goal of diversity, equity, and inclusion. It's always been the goal that we can do it automatically without thinking about it, without having to have a separate department that's focused on it. Our processes will work such that we will have a culture that is welcoming to everyone that is diverse and welcomes people of all backgrounds, and that our policies and processes are fair.

 (34:17):

That's the goal. And so if we figure out how to embed it and that is a natural cause, then maybe yes, there will be some rollbacks or eliminations of roles that are specific to what inclusion looks like now, but maybe we see at the end of like you said, five, 10 years that we've done such a good job of embedding it throughout the organization that it works all on its own. I might just have my fingers crossed about that one. It'll work out in a positive way, but that's where I see the efforts going in the next five to 10 years is really truly embedding it so that it is just automatic. It's part of what we do.

 Mikey Meagher (35:01):

Yes, I'm in alignment with you on that. I'm looking forward to those shifts. Something for organizations to think about maybe is generational shifts. There was a statistic that by 2030, gen Z will make up 30% of the workforce, not just expect DEI, but demand accountability over empty pledges.

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (35:26):

Absolutely. I agree with that. And back to the demographics of the United States, they are continually shifting as well. And so people are going to demand change, they're going to want good jobs, and I don't think that it should be hard for them to find them in the future. Let's have that accountability for doing the right thing.

 Mikey Meagher (35:48):

Yes, I love that. And so a lot of your research focuses on authenticity at work. What are some of the key takeaways for organization when it comes to creating authenticity and belonging?

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (36:04):

Yeah, I think that culture is the most important thing about the way you work. Organizations can really encourage authenticity by creating a culture where every person feels safe to be themselves, but what does that look like exactly? Those are agreed upon rules of how we all are going to get along here. And so there should be things like being respectful, being curious, or having a culture of learning accountability, as you mentioned, an emphasis on leadership and having those types of things as your central main agreement of how we are all getting along will allow people to still be themselves when the focus is not on appearance. It is not about the clothes that you wear when you show up to work or other unimportant things, such as using slang here and there. Maybe you have an agreed upon language that you talk to if you have clients or something like that. But if we are both talking about our weekends, and I throw in a couple slang words, it doesn't mean that you judge me for who I am. I think that there's a lot of things that are inherent in organizational cultures that people don't recognize, have intent to them, that make people feel like they cannot be themselves. But it's very simple things like what people wear, the language they use that make people feel like they have to fit into a box in order to be successful in an organization.

Mikey Meagher (37:42):

Yes, and I believe that that's something you can talk about what the code switching is and the impact on wellbeing. So yeah, it's just creating how can organizations create cultures where employees don't feel the need to code-switch in order to succeed? Not even just, I guess, fit in somewhere, but the opportunity to succeed like that, not bringing that feeling into work every day.

Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (38:08):

Yes, absolutely. So code-switching is when people feel like they have to be someone different or they have to wear a mask in order to blend in or succeed in an environment. And so if you want to build a cultural rope where people do not feel like they have to code switch, I mean, one of the things that you can do is role model authenticity from different angles. Allow your leaders to not all be cookie cutter leaders, but to be themselves at work as well. And so people understand that that is an okay thing to do. I was watching someone talk about how one of their leaders would come on with bright pink sparkly cowboy boots, and that was her thing. And you could think, well, it's okay for her because she's a leader, but if then she sees someone else bringing their bright red cowboy boots and she's like, yes, we love it.

 (39:01):

It's awesome to see. Then that type of support and comradery encourages people to feel safe and being themselves, but also in addition to role modeling it, having diverse leadership in the first place, sometimes if you just see people that look a certain way and you don't look like that, you're automatically othered. And it's not that you are hyper aware of how you appear. That can be true, but it's mostly that you're hyper visible because you are an other, you look different. And so people notice you a whole lot more. There is a possibility that you can be hyper invisible. It's kind of a double-edged sword of people don't notice you because it doesn't have to be because you take an effort to hide, but it can be because it's hard to find you in this sea of very similar people. So I definitely think role modeling, authenticity, having diversity, those are key things that we can do to make it so that people don't have to code-switch. But most of all, I mean, this is really hard to put into scientific terms, but being nice to people, being respectful of all people, which is the end goal of what we mean when we say inclusion. That is really what we need. It just has to be where you respect people that may not look or think or feel like you.

Mikey Meagher (40:30):

Yeah, and I know we had touched a little bit on that and just a conversation that we had had a couple weeks ago, but just being a good human, why is that lost on us? And not that it's insane, it's intentional on everything, but there's just all the external pressures surrounding it, make it seem like you have to question yourself even and how you're handling certain things. And I feel like that also brings an environment where you want psychological safety and encouraging those honest conversations without the fear or retaliation.

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (41:03):

Absolutely. And a lot of what comes to be an attack on certain people comes out of fear of not being treated well, yourself, people feeling excluded is why they then feel like they have to attack other people. And so if we maybe start this cycle of having fair organizations transparent policies and everybody understands that this is a place where everyone belongs, then that'll be something that's good for us. I read a study and it caught me by the name when I first read it, but it was called, "What About Me?" And then it had a more official title, but it was about perceptions of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. And they tested different titles being like multicultural, but it was the one that was called All Inclusive, multicultural, that featured images that included everyone that the test subjects, which were I think white people or white males that they responded the best to because they could see themselves in it as well. They didn't feel othered by those efforts because they were a part of it. And so I think that that's what we have to do is understand that we're here for all people. Diversity, equity, inclusion is not about just one population. It's about getting to a place where we are all on the same level. We're all here together and treating each other as good humans, as you said.

Mikey Meagher (42:30):

Yes. I absolutely love that. And I think that's a great place to end this awesome conversation. And I love the work that you do, and this was very insightful, and I know our listeners will think the same thing. Where can people follow your work and how can they connect with you?

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (42:49):

Yes, good question. I've stepped out of the spotlight a little bit, but I'm coming back after having a baby and spending some family time so people can find me on LinkedIn at Courtney Bryant Shelby, and hopefully I'll be more active in the upcoming following days. And that's where you could find information about Simply You Solutions if you're interested as well.

 Mikey Meagher (43:15):

Awesome. Well, thank you so, so much for joining us today, Courtney. Again, your insights have been invaluable to help guide employers forward and creating spaces focused on access and belonging. So we really appreciate it, and I always enjoy speaking with you.

 Dr. Courtney Bryant Shelby (43:32):

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

 DirectEmployers Association (43:38):

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