Cultivating an Inclusive and Productive Workplace Culture with Chrysta Wilson (Ep. #98)

Announcer: Welcome to the building Better managers podcast, where we talk with top leadership professionals about strategies you can use today to create a happier, more engaged and productive workforce. Now, here's your host, Wendy Hanson, the co founder of New Level Work and, the chief of culture and community.

Wendy: Welcome to building better managers. As chief of culture for new level work, I am passionate about organizational culture. Today, I get to talk to an expert in DEI and culture as we explore the need for people to feel cared for and feel like they belong in organizations. Such an important topic. Did you know company culture is an important factor for 46% of job seekers? I know in our organization, people always ask about what the culture is and when they're going through a job interview, they're trying to determine if they feel the culture. So that's an important thing that people need to realize. Also, positive culture is a vital aspect of running a business. More than 50% of executives say that corporate culture influences productivity, creativity, profitability, firm value, and growth rates. So if you haven't paid attention so far, you better pay attention today, because you're going to learn a lot of great things from Chrysta Wilson. 

So let me tell you a little bit more about Chrysta. Chrysta Wilson, MPA, PCC, is a DEI expert and organizational culture change consultant who is committed to empowering leaders to create equitable and inclusive workplaces. She coaches leaders to reimagine how they lead and how to create, spaces where people have the opportunity to thrive. And isn't that what we all want to do at work? She is the founder of Wilson and Associates coaching and consultant, and a 16 year old consulting firm, host of the Recipe for Transformation podcast, and creator of the School for Transformation, which houses e-learning programs such as Disrupt your DEI and DEI dinner party. Ooh, that sounds interesting. So, when she's not gardening to make vegetables for the dinner party or scuba diving, she's got a very active life. You can connect with her on LinkedIn. Welcome, Chrysta. I'm so happy to have you.

Chrysta: I'm happy to be here.

Wendy: Yeah. We're going to have a nice discussion today and help people see the integration of caring and DEI and how that can really influence culture. So I'll start with, you know, you're a DEI, culture expert. What's the connection between DEI and care? Because I see when we talked originally, you put those two together a lot.

Chrysta: Yeah. Well, to me, it's a recipe, that makes so much sense. But I often, call out how the ingredients go together. So if you think about it, diversity, equity, and inclusion. They're not just these sterile terms or activities. They're about people. Diversity is about people. Equity is about people who maybe have or haven't had access to things. And ideally, we're trying to help them have access to things. And inclusion is about people who maybe have experienced real life experiences of being excluded. And, so care is also about people. So I always say that if we're doing DEI work, it's because we deeply care that something unfair has happened, that harm has happened, and we want to do something about it. And so implicit in DEI, at least I, think it should be, is a real commitment to care. And DEI, to me, is care in action.

Wendy: I love hearing that because I haven't heard anybody make that connection before. But the way you explained all that and that care is the basis of it, make people feel like they belong and they're cared for in an organization that's so great. And is care the same as emotional intelligence? Tell us the difference from your perspective.

Chrysta: Yeah, it's related, but it's a little bit different. So this is me getting into my, trainer nerd hat. But I think it's important. So, care. And I think sometimes when we get into the professional world, especially me as, ah, a trainer, we just built this training catalog. I think there's 50 different trainings we've done over the last five or so years. and so I can get a little bit of that trainer habit sometimes. I also look back at my elementary, age nephew, and I think grade school kids, they get care and taking care of each other and being nice because they have those awards for being good classroom citizens and all that stuff. that's care, just being a good friend, being kind. Emotional, intelligence uses a lot of that, but it's also very different. So, in emotional intelligence, scholars and us trainers know that there's five domains, there's five components of emotional intelligence. And I believe that in order to be diversity, equity and inclusion champions, it's a lot of work, but we have to build all five of those domains. And just quickly, it looks at empathy. So empathy and care, you can see how they're related, but they are a little bit different. But then there's also self-awareness. You know, I coach a lot of leaders, and I even include myself in that. Sometimes we don't have the best self-awareness. How are people experiencing us? How are our words and actions landing or impacting other people? Are we aware of it? And the third component is also, self-regulation. So sometimes we need to learn, when to pull back, when we need to put our own selves in check and regulate ourselves. That's another part of emotional intelligence. the next one's motivation. Are we able to motivate, rally, cheerlead, inspire people? That's different than care. And so I think just those four alone show that there's so much more emotional mastery of ourselves and others that are really required for DEI, really, any people leader, really. And, care is a critical part of it, but it's not the full story.

Wendy: Yeah, no, I love that. And, you know, we know how successful, empathetic leaders are and that, you know, I care, being kind of, if they're empathetic, hopefully they care and they take action on caring in the organization. But I love how you spelled that out for people that maybe didn't understand the distinction. And how does incorporating care for employees enhance, like, the traditional way we think of DEI or culture change efforts in organizations?

Chrysta: Yeah, well, I think this is something that I have experienced. So when we just think of diversity equity, inclusion as tactics, just things that we do, like sending a newsletter, you know, okay, we'll put out a statement, or we'll put some diverse pictures on our website. the people for whom diversity, equity, and inclusion aims to support, those of us, we can feel it's empty. It doesn't feel true. And so I think when we lead with care, that's a feeling that actually transmits through the effort. So I think one way how, you know, incorporating care through DEI and culture change, people can feel it. I think another thing that I've actually seen in my work, and also I've seen it in, you know, Harvard, business review articles about this, is that it starts to facilitate trust. People begin to believe the organizations when they say, we're committed to fostering and honoring diversity. People trust it. They believe it. When companies say that we believe and we're fostering inclusion and belonging and we care about it, that it's mission critical, it begins to foster trust. You know, I just read this study, that someone posted on LinkedIn, their PhD, that studies culture belonging. and this builds on a 2022, HBR. Our study that also came out, but it noted that women of color and black women in particular are really struggling in corporate America. And what they noted is that women of color and black women in particular need to feel cared for, and that, we as leaders, have to foster cultures of care and respect. So the way it goes together is we know that for women of color, that's both a racial identity and a gender identity in addition to all the other identities that they could hold. And if, we're doing programming to support those groups, care and trust and respect have to be woven throughout all of them if they're going to benefit the folks that are their intended audience. So it really, they have to go together like peanut butter and jelly. I don't know why the food metaphors today, but they have to go hand in hand. And so, you know, I think that's the thing that studies are starting to tell us, that it's not, a nice to have or something soft. It's actually critical for the success of DEI, and culture change programs.

Wendy: Yeah. And I love, you know, your example. If a company just goes and puts up nice pictures and does things, I think it could almost do more harm than good, because people will feel, as you say, the shallowness of it, but you want them to feel cared for. What are some examples of what companies do and leaders do to make people feel cared for?

Chrysta: Yeah, you know, I had a client and they said, you know, we don't have a big budget. We don't have a care budget, Chrysta. you know, and I think that's right around the time. And I love an acronym because I know mnemonics help people remember things. You know, I come from a generation where, when we were remembering, well, this was back when Pluto was a planet. Well, we had this acronym to remember the planets and the line. And so I love creating things for people to remember. And so I created this idea of leading with love. and l o v e is actually how I invite clients to think, how can they do what you ask me? And so the first is listen. That's a no cost thing that employers, managers can do that actually demonstrates care. You know, I had a manager once teach me and train me how to become a manager. He told me, listen to your people. Like, what they have to say is the sweetest thing that you've ever heard, even if it's an employee that you don't like that much. I thought, wow, okay, that's the self-regulation part, by the way. But, when people feel that you care what they have to say and that you're listening to every word, and they feel for those five minutes of a busy manager, that they matter. It matters. So listening, really listening. And then the o of the lobe affirmative framework is offering support. Again, no cost offering, support is, how can I help you with that? Or what support do you need? And just the active offering doesn't mean that if your employee or team member says, you know, 15 things that you have to now deliver on all 15 things, because I think that's also what I hear from managers. Well, what if I can't deliver and all the things that people ask for? It's the act of offering, how can I support you? That's what matters. And then it can be. Okay, of that list, let me see what I can do. Okay. This one right here, number three, I think I can do that one. It's just offering the support because so many of us really feel unsupported, particularly those who don't have access to sponsorship or mentorship in organizations. So these are going to be folks who are from historically marginalized groups, under recognized, under resourced groups. So just that offering support is another. And just quickly, the last two, v is value. So I was just talking with someone about employee recognition and sometimes valuing people. Take what I mean by that is offering our branded coffee cups or the logo fleece. I'm not knocking that, but value is letting and showing people that you value their work. So it could look like public emails, acknowledging, like, look what this person did. Isn't this amazing? Giving them actual public recognition in front of their peers or integrating their ideas, giving people a pedestal on the platform. But this is the flip part of it, too. And this is actually about equity, empower, building a core e of the DEI strategy. It's how do we make our companies valuable to our people? Right? In the exchange, we have to make companies places where people actually want to work. So how do we make this place valuable? And that's how we demonstrate here. Like, we care that this place is good to you, we care that this is a good job. We care that this company provides meaning. When we know that maybe 70% of, Americans seek meaning from their job, then part of our responsibility as leaders is to create meaningful work and co create it with our people. And then e is emotional intelligence that we've already talked about. So I think that's how we can start to demonstrate care. And that's not even having to open up the pocketbook or the wallet, right.

Wendy: And it demonstrates it much better, as you say, you know, listening, you and I know as trained coaches, you know, that's the first skill that someone learns as a coach. Managers. Yeah, managers need to learn, if they only listen and really listen without having, like, what am I going to say next going on in their head, then the people can feel it. And I love that. You know, when you talk about recognition, everybody does often go to, what do you send people? You know, do you send them a pizza? Do you send them a mug with the name on it? No, it's really these other things that don't cost anything, because we want people to feel like, this is a company where I can thrive, and only if those things happen. Can that be true.

Chrysta: Yeah.

Wendy: You've had so much experience. any examples of how prioritizing an employee well being has positively impacted culture or diversity, equity, inclusion in a project that you've consulted on? As you know, people always learn from stories. So tell us a good story of a project that you worked on.

Chrysta: Yeah, so I was called in. You know, I would say sometimes with consultants and coaches, you get called in. I say, two main ways. One is because there's an aspirational vision and they want support in that vision. Or sometimes there's a fire and there are more fires coming. So this is a story about the fires. So I was called in because there were some culture fires. There was conflict, there was tension, there was some identity based harm, and there was lots of support that was needed. And luckily, leadership had the foresight, okay, we need some support. And so I had some relationships, so I came in to provide some support. Now, it's very common in these instances to jump right to tactic. So we need this structure, this policy, this reorganization. And instead, what the client decided to do was to say, we need to ask our people, what do they need? What do they need? And they were in the midst of doing, a large, in their language, racial equity, diversity and inclusion effort. So there was a big push from a lot of their internal leadership and the board, well, we've already been engaged in this ready work. We can't stop it. So they had lots of pressure to keep with their momentum. They had a big marketing campaign, all of the stuff. And leadership still had this real clarity that if our people aren't well, then none of this stuff is going to go well. And that clarity, you know, I like to say that, there was a little bit of maybe grease on the glasses lens for those who wear glasses, you know what that looks like. So I helped them get some of that clarity. And so what they did was, it was really spectacular. They gave me the leeway to do some employee engagement, sessions, and people weren't comfortable to talk in an open forum yet, so I had some private sessions, and the, company gave the people, the employees, that space to start to name what was happening, what they were feeling, and to also not just have it be a griping session, because I think this is sometimes the fear for leadership. We don't want to just have a gripe session, and then nothing happens of it. And so we focus it to also be around. I love this question. If you had a magic wand, what would you create? And so that's what we have, these magic wand sessions. What would help bring, repair, what would help foster a sense of well being? And it was such a spectacular, I would say, sessions to start to pave the Runway, to build, the larger employee forums for these visioning sessions to occur. And here's what happened. By pausing to create the space for employees to name what was happening, the conflict, attention, the demands, all of the things. Employees for the first time, not just because it's in their mission statement, employees have a voice. That was one of the values, but it wasn't a value in action. Employees, actually, in a survey that we did, they named that. They felt heard, and they felt supported, and people kept saying, for real. We felt this for real or actually. So I think that was one of the, like, intermediate outcomes, of this effort. The values were then put in action. People felt cared for, they felt listened to, they felt heard. It also helped, like, tamper down the heat. You know, I always say sometimes these situations, there's such a, like, a hotness that can come in that even though I'm an outsider, I used to say, like, I didn't do it. I wasn't there. I wasn't involved. But there was still, like, a backlash of that fire that, you know, I could feel. And so that fire was starting to squelch, and stress was reduced. You know, somebody had mentioned in one of the anonymous comments, like, I don't have this feeling of stomach tension that I've been having for two months. And I didn't know I was having that stomach tension until it was gone. You know, kind of forget that our bodies hold such stress, and we just bypass it because there's so much work to do. We heard a lot of that, too. And the other thing that happened, because the company prioritized well being and actually caring for their people, it allowed them to have enough goodwill to have a fresh slate, to then talk about strategy and the marketing campaign and the ready efforts that they were starting to do. People said, okay, actually, yeah, you want to do this ready work? And we've promoted to our clients, and. But now we actually think you do care about equity and inclusion and people, because you demonstrated it privately with us. Okay, now we can go with this work. And there was a big feeling of reduced stress. Now, I'm not saying everything was solved in that two and a half month period, but there was enough measurable care that happened in that window that it created a foundation for the rest of the good work to happen. And I will say this is something that I noticed a year later when I checked in. There was reduced turnover. They had been seeing a large turn. and the people that were engaged in that process, they largely stayed. And so, obviously, we can't tell everything. It's all causal, but we believe it was because this investment in people and listening and beginning to remedy the harms that people had been experiencing and making a commitment and taking accountability for what happened, that it, reduced the turnover. People believed, okay, they're going to try to not have this happen again. Let's wait it out and see. We're willing to ride this out. So I think these are the kinds of things, and not just in my experience, the data bears this out. Research on workplace culture, toxic culture bears this out. but it's why I believe so deeply that when we. Not that we have to be perfect, you know, I think that's so much of the pressure when I say we have to care for people and be equitable, inclusive workplaces, because we have such a culture that is, I think, addicted to perfectionism, m that we don't understand that, of course we're going to be imperfect. But what's our commitment and our values? And if we make a mistake, how quickly can we recover? Right. That's what this client demonstrated.

Wendy: Yeah. And you also spoke to accountability, you know, when you take responsibility that. Yeah, we haven't done this so well. And was it important that you were on the outside, an outside consultant, rather than an internal, person, to have those conversations? Those, magic wand conversations.

Chrysta: Yeah, absolutely. I know this to be true. I call it the f and g card, the freaking new girl. I say that because in my experience, but also with this particular client, they tried. And I want to give so much credit to the leaders who come at this work with such big hearts, deep care, and are so authentic and wanting to make things better. And because you're part of the system that created the fracture, it's hard to leave that work independently, because broken trust. And it's not that you're a bad person or that you're not trusted, it's just hard to do that as an insider. And so that's why external support is so useful and so needed. and so that's what happened, you know, when I came in, I was able to have these anonymous, you know, I mean, I knew who they were because I was in the Zoom sessions, but they trusted that they could be open and candid, and that I wouldn't go and then have a meeting with leadership. Here's what everybody said, all of their concerns. I could aggregate theme what people said, and then what can we do with this really candid feedback? And I could say, look, people aren't trying to, throw anybody under the bus in terms of leadership. These are real concerns, and they're themed in a way that we could see what are some trends or themes that could be addressed. So, yeah, I think that's the benefit of having an external person. Also, I always say, like, I have no, people say dog in the hunt or skin in the game. I honestly, I wasn't involved. I'm here to really be in service of the collective. And so I think that that truly being neutral helps you see things more clearly.

Wendy: Yeah. Oh, I think those are such great points, and that it is so important to go back to the listening, the accountability, and not being afraid to jump in the ring. Because I think you're exactly right that people are afraid to bring things up and say, what can I do for you? Because they're afraid, you know, how can I support you? They're not going to be able to do it. So they don't ask the question. And it's just in asking the question that people feel like, wow, somebody really cares. You know, they're not going to give you a laundry list of 50 things and, try to make you look bad if you're transparent and they can feel your empathy. Yeah. Wow. So, you know, this is kind of something that we probably all know, but what's the benefit, even to an organization, of focusing on building a caring culture? You know, what's in it for companies? Because they're all, why should I do this? I was just writing an article on, you know, how do you talk to, CFO's and CEO's about getting funding, for leadership development? But in this case, how do you show people that what's really the benefit of having a caring culture and spending time building it?

Chrysta: Well, I think you can just look at the inverse. So I go back to this study that came out, in 2021, MIT Sloan, and they looked at the great resignation. And I know we have all this clarity now because we're three years out from it, but at the time, there were 40 plus million people who left their jobs. And the initial story was people are leaving because, well, they want better jobs. There's flexibility now because people are working at home because of the pandemic. And so what the researchers at MIT, Sloan, did was they actually looked at the exit interviews, and they did their own studies, and they found that people were leaving their jobs because of what they noted were these five toxic traits. It was a lack of these non inclusive cultures, particularly for, you know, racialized people, women, disabled people, people of the queer community, an abusive culture, which was marked by, you know, abusive language or other types of microaggressions. all of these components, cutthroat culture. People didn't have their back, a lack of support. And so this is what this article and this research pointed to. When we have cultures like that, that is rife of just not caring. We don't care about people because of their identity. We don't care how we talk to people. There was disrespect, was another one of those top, five people are being disrespected. And what did we see? We saw turnover. We saw stress. And we know the cost of turnover on a company. We know the cost of what it takes to recruit, to train up. We know the impact on, productivity. We also know the data shows that when teams are diverse, when people feel good at work, innovation skyrockets, collaboration skyrockets. When I like to say that is your workplace. there's a stress hormone called horsalabic (sp?). So, are you a stress culture where people don't want to work, they can't work, they shut down? Or do you want to be the happy hormone culture where people, they want to be there, they're, like, in flow state and producing and innovating. And if you're a nonprofit, that means you're getting closer to your mission, or if you're a for profit, you're maybe saving money, innovating, making more money because of the innovations or productivity. This is what's at stake. So I know that care and diversity and, equity and inclusion can feel like these fluffy things when really, we should be focusing on the real work. But actually, by focusing on leadership, by focusing on collaboration, by focusing on minimizing conflict and identity based harm, we actually. No matter what you care for, the profit side, productivity, innovation, or if you're for, m nonprofit mission, you will get there faster when you invest in these things. Right? And so that's what I.

Wendy: Yes, yes. I agree with everything, and I hope everybody's listening to all of these things that you could do, and they're easy to do, but it requires a change of heart and a change of mind. For leaders who want to take this on, what would be your advice to specific leaders? Especially in the C suite, there are managers who might see this on their team and say, wow, we need more of this. And I hope managers are listening to think, how do I care for my people? And how can this diversity of thought? Because that's the big thing. Ah, even the C suite, we certainly don't have enough people of color. We don't have enough women in the C suite that we need that. And how is it going to change an organization? So what's your advice to leaders striving to have this kind of culture? What else can they be doing? Chrysta?

Chrysta: Yeah, I think it really is. I always say, you know, what is your, why not just your mission and vision, but really, if you were to close your eyes and think about what is the culture, what is the experience I want people to have at this company? Forget about the beautiful words that your marketing team and copywriter wrote. You know, that I'm sure it was amazing. But actually, the feeling. How do you want people to feel? And why does that matter? That actually gets at the caring part, because nobody wants to work at a company that, excuse my language, sucks, that is harmful. That, you know, you hate your coworkers, that, you know, people are rude, that you feel like no one cares about you. You know, I had a. I had a project a couple of years ago, and we were talking about conflict that was happening across divisions. And oftentimes when we talk about care because of the gendered way that we talk about emotions and care, you would have. Not you, but some would have expected a woman to make this comment. But it was actually a burly gentleman that came on the microphone and said, you know, I spend so much of my time at work, I just want to know that y'all care about me. I'm cared for here. And it was actually one of the C suite leaders that said I hadn't even thought of that. Of all the things we could think about at this company, our brand and our products and services and our competitive edge, you know, and I want us to collaborate, innovate, and that we're disrupting markets. Care is not something that rises to the top. It just isn't. And I understand that. But that's why I invite C suite leaders to think about, from your director to your intern, what is their experience at your company? And that can actually be curated if we care not to use the word twice. But if we care, we can do something about it. And I think if we were intentional about it, we would. We would do it. We would make this face.

Wendy: I want to repeat that question again and underline it for people. How do you want people to feel in your company? Because that's very different. what are we going to do? What's our north star? How do you want people to feel here? Yeah, that's. So that. That really is the basis of what's going to keep people in companies and. And have us. Have us have diversity that really works, because we. We can have open conversations. People feel like they're, you know, they belong to this organization. Yeah. Wow, that is great. Anything else that. That, the last minutes or so that you didn't get to share, that you want to share with everybody?

Chrysta: Yes, I know.

Wendy: You have everybody listening so carefully now. Yes.

Chrysta: Yeah, I would say that, you know, I work across the country. I live in California. I probably sound like it, too, but I was raised in the southeast, and my entire family's there as well. And so I also want to lift up that I know that for many people listening, depending on the state that you're in, there's resistance to people who might be wanting to do work in any of that acronym. Diversity, equity, or inclusion or belonging. And I say that the work that we are doing around care is another avenue, another pathway to do this work. Without using the jargon when I ask that question, how do you want people to feel? Your strategy to answer that question could very well be in another multiverse. That's a belonging strategy. We want people to belong here. Okay. But we're not going to say belonging. How do you want them to feel? Okay, well, today's international, women's, pay equity, a lot of people are talking about that. But if you want people to feel that their work is valued and you want to demonstrate it, you might begin to assess their pay. But in some states, there's pushback on equity. So maybe you don't say that because you're trying to avoid resistance. So I'm just offering that sometimes, too. Why I like to play with language and concepts and feelings is that because then, no matter where you're based, even around the world, if we get just back to human basics and ask these questions of what we want people to m experience and what do we want them to feel? It doesn't matter what we actually call it. I actually could care less what we call it. But what I do care about is what are the conditions in our organizations? And are we setting folks up, to succeed and feel good and know that they're cared for? If so, then you can call it whatever you want. Let's just get to work.

Wendy: Right, right. Oh, I love that. Because, you know, sometimes when you say DEI, people are like, well, we don't have time for that right now. But DEI is really. That is business. That's part of our business. That's how we need to feel, and we need to listen. One of the first points that you made, and we need to find out how people feel and give them a safe place to be able to share that and say what would make things feel better for you. And, I love the fact of not using DEI language in some states because, you know, it may not be taken well, and you can still care for people. Love that. And I love your acronym for love. Yes. Very good. Oh, Kristen, this has been fantastic. I gave people so many things that they can do and not worry about these big recognition programs and spending a lot of money, but treating people well and caring about how they feel and being empathetic as a leader and doing something about it. So, it's really been great for you to share this. And we'll have the transcript in the show notes, everybody. And, Chrysta, how can people reach out to you if they have questions and tell us a little bit more about how we can learn more about getting involved with you?

Chrysta: Yeah, of course. Well, you can find me on LinkedIn. You can search me at Christa Wilson. I'm also, you can learn more about our programs@DEIdinnerparty.com. Dot. And from there, you can link to my consulting firm and also learn more about our programs, too.

Wendy: Great. And it's Chrysta. C h r y s t a.

Chrysta: That's right.

Wendy: Find the right Chrysta there. Okay, good. well, thank you so much. Thank you to all of our listeners for joining us today. And please go check out newlevelwork.com. We're a tech enabled leadership company, and we care deeply about culture and empathy and bringing people like Chrysta to you to help you get very pragmatic things that you can do in your organization, because we want to make a difference out there. Being a manager is not an easy job, you know, and being a c suite leader is not an easy job these days. So we really have to support people in the best ways they can. So thank you, Chrysta, again, for sharing your wisdom with us. And, everybody, tune in again, and please take care of each other. That's really what's important. Take care of each other and look out for people on your team and really make an effort to take on some of the things that Chrysta was able to give us some great stories about. So thanks Chrysta. Have a wonderful day, everyone.

Announcer: Thank you for joining us today. For more information, show notes and any downloads for today's podcast, please visit newlevelwork.com. Be sure to join us again for another insightful interview on how to support managers and leaders in taking their teams and organizations to a new level. Until next time.

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