A Q&A with Ryan Clopton-Zymler about Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging.
"I think my goal is to make people think about people other than themselves, more."
In the intro post to Rhapsody, I wrote that part of the newsletter’s origin story was my exploration into how to be a better manager. I wanted to learn how to motivate people, and theories of motivation are rooted in understanding human behavior. Literally what moves people. Also, how can I ensure people are content and fulfilled? Can those things be related? This led me to Self-Determination Theory, which suggests the best way to motivate people is to support their basic psychological needs. Give them paths to feel competent, autonomous, and included and they’ll perform better, for longer, than if you simply give them wads of cash. They’ll also be more content and more fulfilled. In other words, common sense notions that people need prodding to do things or to be baited with monetary incentives are wrong.
Humans are social creatures and the workplace may be the most pervasive social context in our culture. So to me, it’s important to ask how we can improve workplaces so that they support rather than thwart psychological needs—so that they are not just transactional relationships where pay is exchanged for labor. That simplistic, outdated arrangement is a wasted opportunity at best and psychologically damaging at worst.
So naturally, I’m very interested in efforts to move workplaces beyond just labor for pay. I was on LinkedIn recently and I saw this video of my friend Ryan Clopton-Zymler talking about his new job in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging. I hadn’t encountered the “belonging” piece before but I was intrigued. He says in the video he said “I think authenticity is probably the most important thing someone can bring to their job.”
In SDT, “being your authentic self” is critical to wellness and really can only be achieved when psychological needs are being met. So I was very intrigued, and I reached out to Ryan to see if I could ask him more about what he does.
(This interview is pretty long, so I made a table of contents here. The major discussion areas are numbered and the question that kicks off that area is bolded. I hope this makes sense : ) )
Table of Contents
Introduction
What is Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging?
Why is DEIB so controversial and divisive
When working with an organization, where do you begin?
On real change vs virtue signaling
On common issues organizations are trying to address and the pushback often encountered AT organizations when trying to address those common issues
On what kinds of organizations are leading on DEI and why
Examples of common DEIB initiatives
DEIB vs Affirmative Action: How social justice has evolved since we were kids
On what has changed in DEIB since Ryan has been in the space
On the challenge of making ‘The business case”
On dealing with the enormity of systemic injustice as a single individual
On Psychological Safety
Rhapsody: Hey Ryan! Thanks for doing this. Want to just start off by introducing yourself?
Ryan Clopton-Zymler: I am Ryan Clopton-Zymler. My pronouns are he and they. I am the Assistant Vice President of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging for OhioGuidestone, which is Ohio's largest community mental-health organization. I'm also a consultant. My company is called Sage & Maven. We focus on similar issues around social justice and leadership development.
My background is in mental health. Fresh out of undergrad, I worked in residential care and then I did community outpatient, and then I kind of veered away into—in social work we call it more “mezzo-macro” level. So when we're talking about social work like direct-practice therapy—that's micro level. And then when we're talking about things like training and education, which is the realm that I've moved into—that's more macro level. So that's where advocacy education comes in and that's where I spent probably the last decade or so in terms of my professional career—just getting in front of folks and trying to provide some tips and skills. I feel like I change how I talk about my job all the time just because I feel like I get different language. I used to refer to myself as a trainer. But I think “training” is actually a really weird word because you train dogs and horses. You don't train people because it's not stimulus-response right? I mean, I guess part of it is but I think my goal is to make people think about people other than themselves, more.
General loudmouth. I also like to scream into microphones as a drag emcee and a burlesque show emcee. And that’s it.
Rhapsody: So there's like a few things there already that I'm super interested in and we'll touch on. First thing though, how do you describe Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to people?
RCZ: I don’t. I try not to. No, I’m kidding, kidding. I can describe the terms—and maybe I don't need to define the terms—but I can in a second. But, honestly the work that I do is people focused. It's trying to create workplaces where everyone can be their most authentic self. Ultimately, with successful outcomes for whatever that company, business, or organization is doing. So for example, working in the field of mental health.
Diversity, equity, inclusion—my title and Belonging. Diversity, if you think about it, is like a photo. It's a snapshot. It doesn't really have a lot of value beyond representation, like you might see a photograph and be like wow— that's beautiful, look at how many people are in there, look at how many different types of people that are in there. But then if you were to zoom in, as if that were real life, you can use the analogy of a room where decisions are made. So diversity as you take a snapshot and it's like you've got folks with disabilities and women and people of color and gender diverse people, etc. But that doesn't really do anything in terms of power structures, and how the decision is made. So inclusion would be welcoming those people to sit at the table and trying to make them feel comfortable at the table. But again, ultimately, inclusion is not really the end goal. It definitely is more of an outcome. Diversity is a state, inclusion is an outcome but equity is an actionable thing. Equity is essentially giving people what they need to be successful.
In the realm of professionalism we have these adhered-to expectations around what “Professional” is. When I use this example of the room where decisions are made, historically the people in positions of power have X number of degrees, they have X personality style—we can kind of craft what the contemporary image of a professional person is. And we also need to completely unlearn what professionalism actually is. Just because I might not be a stellar orator, I might not be the person (I personally, Ryan—I'm a great orator). But like if I were expected to get up and give a presentation and that isn't my style—I'm really going to woo you with my written word as opposed to my spoken word. Creating those opportunities for people to be able to lead by how they choose to lead instead of adhering to principles of what “professionalism” is.
Then belonging is more of the cultural component. But if I were to summarize full circle diversity, equity, inclusion initiatives are efforts to dismantle structures that keep people out, keep people under, and rethink in new ways how we live our lives and how we treat people and all the facets of who we are because if you just think about it in the workplace—it's a moot point. You have to be willing to internalize these ideas and thoughts in order to actually see real progress or change.
Rhapsody: When I hear you break down each of the terms and ultimately what you're trying to do it's incredibly innocuous and good. Why do you think it is such a lightning rod of an issue?
RCZ: That's a great question. I really and genuinely think that the lightning rod component of it is just obfuscation. I don't know if that's the right word or if that's the way that you pronounce that word but like it is intentionally misleading people as to what these concepts are. For example, Critical Race Theory being this major conversation point. Critical Race Theory is not being taught in elementary schools. It is not being taught in middle schools. It is not being taught in high schools—maybe in some pre-college courses or something. Critical Race Theory is a legal framework that was developed by a legal scholar to be taught in law school. It means something to say Critical Race Theory. Words mean things. You can't just call anything that is an effort to make things better Critical Race Theory. It's dog whistling to try to fire up the wrong people. So the intentional obfuscation of it, I think, is what makes it such a lightning rod. But beyond that at its core I think the reason that it can be divisive—because in and of itself these concepts are not divisive, like you said—if I said “my job is to make people feel comfortable at work,” sure there would be a small subset of people would be like “work isn't about comfort, work is about work.” That's an archaic way of thinking and if people are listening to that and getting offended by me saying that's archaic then they're probably not going to like anything I'm saying. But the core there of just like trying to make people have a better lived experience is not something that is divisive.
What is divisive is how concepts like the patriarchy and white supremacy and homophobia have taught us to see power and influence and rights as if it is subtractive as opposed to additive. So the idea that if we teach accurate history, like if we teach history as things happened, that it will make people feel bad. Okay sure I can understand your aversion to not wanting to feel bad. However, it is the reality of it, and until we get to a point of owning that and understanding it we're going to continue to see it as something that pushes us apart. I think I got a little sidetracked with the analogy but essentially it is not a divisive concept but people want to hold on to their power. People want to hold on to some semblance of control, and it's easy to do that by keeping certain people under your thumb even if you don't realize that you're doing that. So some people only see power as power over—like I'm only able to maintain power if that person has less than me when in reality our great thinkers have pretty much always told us that it's better when we're in community/ It's better when we're together.
Rhapsody: There's a meta-narrative or a meta concept that I think is latent in everything you're saying—and you mentioned in the beginning: self-determination and ultimately this approach is about helping people. I'm trying to interpret what you're saying: helping people be the best versions of themselves, which ultimately help organizations be the best versions of themselves. I'm curious if when you're talking to leaders, though, if just the direction of that is foreign to them. I think a lot of business owners are used to a top-down approach. As opposed to lifting people up. So I guess this is a long-winded way of me asking where is the entry point when you're dealing with organizations. Where do you start?
RCZ: Yeah, the approach is not unilateral. Working for a mental health organization. One of the pretty consistent components of my elevator pitch is, social work, the mental-health field—this is social justice. At the end of the day whether or not you see yourself as a person that is involved in social justice, that is really what our work is. We are actively combating the systems that keep people unwell. So it is easier in the helping professions and nonprofit organizations, it’s a little bit easier to do more of a value-based approach. And also no one likes to have their values called out right? So when I need to have conversations where there could be potential conflict or it might be tense, I use an approach called like universally held beliefs. For-profit lingo is not my specialty but if I were to talk to the CEO of a major hospital system, my universally held belief approach would be, “Do you agree that every single patient deserves to get the care that they want and need to feel their best?” No one is going to say no to that. Okay, so we have agreed on something we have agreed on a core value. So every point of our conversation can and should come back to that core value of, okay, well we agree that we want people to have self-determination in their care, we want informed consent, we want people to be able to access the care that is best for them, and you're saying that you don't think it's appropriate that our physicians introduce themselves with their pronouns. Okay, cool. But that's not creating an environment where people who are trans and gender diverse might feel comfortable establishing who they are or how they want to be received. So I think that is one one approach.
I chuckled a little bit because when I first got into this work. We used to talk a lot about making the “business case.” That was before 2020 when it really became more about virtue signaling to have this stuff even if you didn't actually care folks were putting on workshops and whatever. But ten years ago when I was doing trainings, I had people in the room actively pushing back against me and telling me, “well, why does this even matter? Why are we talking about it?” And so again, it does vary by the industry but I think by and large, the lightning rod nature of it, the contemporary social conversations around it—I think that's enough of a motivating factor that most leaders are willing to at least hear the conversation. I don't know if that answered it entirely.
Rhapsody: You mentioned something there about virtue signaling and I'm really curious about this as a subject because a lot of companies, corporations—they, I think, it seems that they conflate DEI initiatives and generally social justice initiatives with PR campaigns right? So there's often a gap between what they publicly will say—like changing their avatars or whatever—and then what's going on in the company right? and I think that this type of stuff can be harmful to these movements especially when quote unquote “progressive companies” engage in that type of behavior. So how do you talk about that with people? The difference between communications and action, and how they're not the same. Maybe I'm wrong and they are.
RCZ: Yeah I think you’re right. I think part of it—to self-reflect on the last question—they have to be willing to hear it. There are people who genuinely think that changing their avatar to have a rainbow filter over it is showing solidarity and I'm like, girl you have three followers. No one even knows you changed your avatar. Your marketing department is suffering. But I definitely think there's the intention versus impact conversation there. So I can think of a nonprofit in Ohio called Equality Ohio that is a statewide LGBT legislative advocacy organization and in 2014/2015 when Black Lives Matter became a visible hashtag they they shared that image, they shared a black lives matter image on their facebook page and it caused some backlash or whatever but that that meant a lot to people and those of us in the organization also knew that—I wasn't in the organization at the time but I was tangential to it—those of us there also know, okay you also are severely understaffed when it comes to black people. So there is some face value there showing that solidarity. Even when we joke about “rainbow washing” because I think that is probably one of the best examples of it because queerness and and sexual orientation is a lot more palatable, it is a lot easier to get people to buy into LGBTQ stuff than than anything related to race and that's just my own personal opinion.
But even rainbow washing—that means something to some people. I think about the kids who go to Target and see the gay stuff. Is Target a social justice organization? No, but that does mean something. But for those of us who are perhaps more invested or more aware and, I think, have maybe a raised social consciousness, we also have to be willing to investigate how much that actually is reflected in their organizational practices and policies. So I think part of it, part of how you get companies or businesses, or even just leaders, to see that connection, part of it is unfortunately natural consequences and accountability. So if you have a company that has a pride campaign and it completely flops—the move is not to abandon the pride campaign. It's to examine why your pride campaign did not work because lots of places do pride campaigns and they're wildly successful. But that reality check of, okay so we might not have a huge queer consumer base that are interested in a pride campaign. We might have relied on our 22-year-old, straight, white girl who is an ally who has gay friends—we might have relied too heavily on her to try to appeal to queer lingo or in community language. We might not actually be an LGBT friendly organization—looking at you Chick-Fil-A—we might have a reputation that is larger in the anti column than the pro column. I think to try to neatly close the answer, getting leaders to see the difference between the PR campaign of it all and the actual reality of it all is equal parts personal consequences and actual numbers to be able to say this is or this is not working people are or are not responding. You have to be willing to see it all the way through in order to actually decide whether or not it is impactful.
Rhapsody: You mentioned you had to help leaders understand that and I'm curious if there are certain issues that come up time and time again when you're talking to organizations. Like going in, you're going to have to have this conversation then you're going to have that conversation and with some of those, you have common resistance that you face when you're talking to people. What are some of those things?
RCZ: A clarifying question, frequent issues I face in terms of things that companies are trying to address or frequent issues in terms of pushback? Or both?
Rhapsody: I was thinking I was thinking of pushback. But since you separated them I am interested in both of those things. Yeah.
RCZ: Both. Yeah, well I think I can give an example of one that works into both. A frequent example of an issue that I'm asked to address is recruitment. How do we get a more diverse staff. Super common. If people are reading this and they're in that boat, I think that is one of the things that I actually don't mind placating people about, it’s like, no it is an issue that a lot of people are facing, and then that other point, usually the the falsely conflated ideas or the pushback is like “Well, there's just not a talent pool” or “we need to develop a pipeline.” Yes, those things can be true and the largest part of it—well not the largest part of it—one of the main parts is, okay so what does your recruiter's network look like? How tapped in is your recruiter to people that aren't just like them? And I think even when we're talking about diversity in terms of recruitment we have to think of it really broadly. It's not just race, and even when we're talking about race it's not just Black and white. We have to look at the depth and breadth of diversity because if we're talking about companies that are predominantly Black, how many of those people are disabled? How many of those people are women in leadership? How many of those people are queer? So I think the common pushback that I often see is this complacency that because it is an issue that everyone's experiencing that there must not be any real way to address it.
And fortunately, or unfortunately, the nature of social media, the nature of visibility and employee visibility, like we actually know most of the things and reasons why people don't stay where they are or want to go where they are and it's because we now have access to information. If you're not putting your salary on a job description, you are behind. You are behind the trends of recruitment. People want to know how much they're going to make in that situation. It's also an equity practice because if me and Joe are going for the same job and we don't know what salary is being offered, they're able to rely on their own bias to decide which one of us deserves a higher salary, which one of us is going to take the offer for a lower salary, which one of us is more likely to bring in some type of additional network or whatever, but if you and I go in fully informed it levels the playing field, and most leaders and companies are not ready to be on a level playing field with the people that they're trying to hire. Again I will say it is an archaic way of thinking that an interview should be some type of power play but in reality I think more employees are beginning to see, “you need me, I don't know why you are trying to make this harder for me, you need me” and so I think some of the pushback to—or the common pieces of pushback are—the notion of tradition or that's just how it's always been and, breaking news, how it's always been hasn't worked so I don't understand why that is even a consideration anymore.
Rhapsody: How often are companies coming to you for help? I guess let me come at this a different way. Is it always companies coming to you for help and if it is the case that these initiatives are “opt in” does that create a situation where companies that are not opting in can kind of like dominate the space because they can just refuse to change and refuse to get help and then there's like knock on effects where like smaller companies are like “Why should we do this? Or try to change?” when the bigger companies are not changing. You get what I'm saying? It puts companies that want to do better at a disadvantage. Disadvantage may not be the right term but that kind of dynamic?
RCZ: Yeah. No, I feel where you’re going. But I think the interesting reality of it all is that the huge companies are the ones that are actually starting to do better because there is so much visibility on them. So I often quote like IBM, Google, Apple—all of these major companies are including the salary range on their job descriptions like you are behind the 8-ball if you are not doing that as per the companies, like, the big gals, they are the ones that are doing it right. So I think it is sort of the inverse around the bigger companies leading the way.
I also would not say that they are being proactive. I don't think that. In my world I don't know many DEI practitioners or consultants who are stepping into these roles and being like “Oh my God, everything's already done for me, I don't even have to do anything.” We are often coming in and undoing a lot of things that have already been done. So even if they are “proactive” with giant air quotes around it, in the sense that they're trying to bring someone in before, I don't know, bad PR strikes or even if it's just like a market analysis to be like “people understand that we do not have a diverse staff or people don't want to come” blah blah blah—I still wouldn't say that's proactive because we are talking about centuries-old systems that we're trying to fix. So it's like no and double no. And also yes, because yes there are these companies leading the way. No, I don't think they are proactive but they are trying to do better and the folks that are probably leading the way are the ones with the smallest microphones. So I think about—and again my world is social service so like I I'm certain that there's probably more appropriate—but I'm on the board of directors for Preterm, which is our our local, nonprofit abortion clinic in Cleveland and some of the most radical approaches to taking care of staff members are in these radical spaces. And because their missions are already social justice-aligned, it makes it easier for them to follow those values and be like “okay well how do we live into this? If we're saying our mission is X are we really living that mission on a day-to-day basis?”
Rhapsody: What are some examples of—just to get a little bit concrete for a second—What are some examples of initiatives that you implement or that you encourage companies to implement to get better in these respects, in these areas?
RCZ: Yeah, Well so there's there is I think to again to self-reflect, a lot of times when DEI practitioners are coming into these spaces we are having to undo a lot of, I don't want to say damage, but we're having to do undo a lot of work before we're actually able to try new things. So I think that is one of the barriers to seeing real, long-lasting DEI change within companies and organizations is we're not starting at Beauty Base Zero, to use a “Hunger Games” reference. We're far behind. We have to catch up before we can advance forward. And some of those things are things that you would be so surprised— or maybe not—that haven't been already put in place.
For hiring and recruitment, I like to say rigidity is the enemy but uniformity is our friend. When we are evaluating resumes, for example, I create rubrics: X number of points for this, X number of points for that, X number of points for this, and that uniformity is helpful in continuously evaluating people on the same wavelength.
One of the other techniques is also committee-based interviews and hiring procedures. If it's just you, Joe, that is responsible for marketing and recruitment, you have your own individual biases. Everyone has their own individual biases; just to really hammer down a point: we all have biases. We all like people who are similar to us and we all have a tendency to believe that we are the good as opposed to the bad. So even if you are a wildly socially conscious person, you still have biases that you have to have enough time to slow down and consider. But when we have a committee and it's three different people and the committee meeting has to come together and discuss out loud why they scored certain candidates for these reasons it has an effect. I can't remember, there's a psychological name to it, but it's essentially accountability. If I ranked someone super low because of their writing style and completely missed all of the substance in there, but you caught all of the substance and were like “I don't really care how many commas they used. I think what they wrote was beautiful,” you and I can now have a better conversation about if this is the type of candidate that we're looking for. So that level of transparency, I think, is one that's really big in hiring and recruitment.
In terms of programming, that's also something that a lot of folks want to see us come in and do because that does create a culture within organizations around uplifting the most marginalized and raising awareness. In community organizing there's this concept called “consciousness raising” that was created by feminists in the 70s where it was literally just having conversations about what feminism is and isn't. It was not the principle—well I guess it is the principles. It's not theories. It's not the change makers. It's not the waves of feminism. It is just raising your consciousness around the concept of feminism. I do a lot of consciousness raising conversations because I truly think that people overestimate how much they understand about this world of diversity, equity, and inclusion. One example I want to be mindful—because I don't know who reads Rhapsody so I'm going to talk kind of broadly. But as a consultant I got brought into a company where their product is very blue collar. So there were a lot of white men of a certain age. Labor-based work. Really not even a lot of diversity just in age, like it was just white men from like 31 to 52 or something like that. And we were brought in to do a DEI 101 training and I'm standing there in this room full of white men of a certain age, most of them like actively dipping. Some of them have FJB hats and like Let's Go Brandon hats on I'm just like “this is just absolutely wild that I agreed to be here.” But we did these trainings and I wouldn't call it successful. I don't think we actually raised consciousness in that situation. However, they circled back during another month that was heritage and history month themed and I said no. I turned them down because this program is not going to be effective. You do not have buy-in from the people that you're making come to these things. And then on top of it, you're asking a person who holds these marginalized identities to come up here and give this presentation to blank faces, blank-bordering-on-hostile faces—if you are having culture issues I promise you a workshop is not going to fix it. If you are having culture issues, you have much deeper things to fix. So two major initiatives that I think it often brought up are hiring and recruitment and culture by way of programming.
Me: In the beginning of this conversation, you defined Diversity, and Equity and Inclusion and you mentioned that diversity is like a snapshot and I thought that was a really interesting way to think about it because I think in a lot of the situations you're talking about, I think companies are looking for a snapshot because a snapshot is what you can send out and you can say you did it and it's a box you check.
RCZ: Correct.
Rhapsody: And so I'm especially interested in the equity and inclusion parts of this because I feel like in the course of our lives, this has been an evolution in how we talk about social justice. Like I can remember being a kid and it was affirmative action was the big thing right?
RCZ: Yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes, right.
Rhapsody: And it's basically just like a quota right? And now it's like well, representation is good, but it's not enough, right? And so how do we get here, I guess? How do you explain that to people—that it's not just the representation, it's about the equity, and making people feel like they're part of it?
RCZ: Yeah, I think I'll first go back and say I think affirmative action as a quota was also obfuscation. I think that was very much so the 90s version of “diversity hires”. Working for Ohio University’s College Of Medicine, we would field a lot of emails from parents who felt like the programs that I ran were like affirmative action. No, these people got in on their own merit. It is about what we are considering to allow people in. So how did we go—I don't really know that I could make a connection in terms of how that trajectory has changed. I think being a millennial I'm going to rely on that and honestly the innovation of the internet and social media. We are able to share a lot more. A great guiding document that I use is Tema Okun’s “White Supremacy Culture”, and one of those characteristics is isolationism. So we're able to hold power by keeping people separate from one another, keeping this sense of urgency that we can't pick our heads up from our desk to even acknowledge our peers—let alone talk to our peers about what's hard and what's going on. We have slowly moved away from that. But what we have also created is a way for people to connect outside of that, a way for people to share their stories outside of that. And so a major corporation like Starbucks, for example, where they're having unions pop up all over the country—that is equal parts just the progressive movement around unionization where people understand what unions are, and where and when they are effective. And also franchises, whole unions within each individual Starbucks are creating Instagram accounts to talk about their unionization process. This actually happened while I was at PreTerm. We are wildly—I don't even think progressive is the right word, we are a radical organization—and we and staff still felt like they needed to unionize and they created a PreTerm union account on Instagram and laid everything bare. Everything that was happening they were putting on the internet, and for better or for worse, it held the board of directors and leadership accountable in a way that we didn't used to have that type of power. So, I think one of the things is that level of visibility and the way that people are able to connect and combat isolationism.
I also think we are just—it's 2023. Even when I hear—we both laughed at the concept of affirmative action because we know differently now about what it was, or how it was presented to us, or whatever. Because of grassroots movements, because of organizers, we have these initiatives that actually create change at various levels and those changes are able to get on the wind and are carried by way of other community organizing and activists. And I don't want to give credit to the large institutions because it's not them. It is really and truly individual community organizers activists who stick it out and—I don’t mean to say “stick it out” like people quit—but stick it out because we don't often get to see the fruits of our labor. Realizing that the stuff that I'm putting in work around now is probably not going to benefit me but it might benefit a generation away from me people coming into this organization. So I think the power of the people. Ohhhhh, no, I didn't need to go there but like it really is, it's what changed, is the power of the people and ain't no power like the power of the people because the power of people don't stop.
Rhapsody: I'm curious how it’s evolved just since you've been working. I know language changes and attitudes towards strategies change. So, I'm curious—just in your experience—what's changed since you've been working in the space?
RCZ: Wow I guess I can only give as much as I've witnessed. I think much like the internet certain movements kind of well—no that's not true because I don't—I was going to say certain movements pick up speed and move quickly. But I don't think that's true. I don't think I could. I'm thinking about like 2013, the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and then it was just a couple years later that marriage equality came around. But one, marriage equality was never the mountaintop and like trans people are still being brutalized and murdered in the streets with no recompense for the aggressor and also that wasn't quick. Those two events—the repeal of DOMA and then Obergfell—those two were close but before that were decades between any type of real substantive movement. But for me I think the world of DEI just became professionalized in the last ten, twentyish years. Part of the reason that I I stopped doing consulting full-time was because I was seeing a lot of the consulting contracts dry up because organizations were beginning to bring it in-house and so I think that's one of the major changes over the last three-ish years if we're being honest.
And the racial reckoning that never really happened but started to happen that raised a lot of awareness for people. I think for me as an organizer and a DEI practitioner—I was actually talking to an intern about it earlier—one of the major things that I have personally committed myself to is figuring out where to best use my energy. So, Joey if you think back to me 14 years ago who was just a loud mouth on the internet, and only doing the best that I could, I used to use a lot of my energy to feel like I needed to educate people in dominant positions, which is still part of my job, about why they need to see the humanity of it all or why they need to care about these things and what I have realized is that is not actually what my role in this is. My role is to leverage the privileges that I have to create opportunities for people who don't have them. And to make space for the people that need to be cared for. So my energy, to oversimplify it, went from trying to make white people see racism as bad to taking care of black people who are victims of racism and I think that shift of realizing that nothing is new under the sun. The movements have shifted and evolved and the language has changed and all that stuff. But at the end of the day the core value for me that has shifted is like focusing on the community as opposed to the opposition. So taking care of my people
Rhapsody: You said that pre-2020 you would make the “business case” and I wasn't sure if this is actually what you meant, but it like ticked in my head which was this idea of like convincing people that DEI is good for their business versus convincing people that DEI is just important because people are human beings. So how do you balance that? Because I'm sure it's important and helps people to think that their business will do better, but it's also not really about that.
RCZ: Right? It's tough because part of it is you have to understand the industry that you are speaking to so I did a presentation on culture and belonging for a room full of people in finance and I don't even have my financial life together. I have no business talking to people in the finance realm. And because it is money and it's not feelings based, it's hard to connect with them on the business rationale behind it. I don't know the business rationale behind it. All I can do is focus on the impact of having a positive workplace culture. So, we're more productive when the workplace is positive. We have better ideas and more innovation when leaders are able to craft an environment of psychological safety. So I mean I think the balance is the transparency in being able to say, for me at least, I don't know what the business case for you is. I'm just going to use like JP Morgan or something—it was not JP Morgan—but I can't make the business case for a major banking institution to care about income inequality and predatory loans and shit like that's not my area of expertise. What I can help you understand is the impact that it has on your employees and how your employees will fare better, which will help your business fare better. So I think you have to see them as symbiotic.
Rhapsody: Do you ever—Let me figure how to ask this the right way. Does it weigh on you that—because I know you and I know things that you're interested In and you talk about—does it weigh on you, the idea that you're helping business after business, but ultimately the power structures are a lot bigger than any individual business right? I have to ask that because it's been in the back of my head all the time and how do you, I don't know want to say cope, but how do you exist with that?
RCZ: Well I try not to think too hard. I really mean that because if and when you pause to think about just how massive those structures are it makes you want to crawl into a hole. There's this documentary “Thirteenth” by Ava DuVernay that is basically about how slavery is still legal in the United States if you are currently incarcerated. I wish I could remember it and I'm going to do a terrible job describing it but there is this coalition of lobbyists and politicians who basically come together—lobbyists politicians and business people—who come together and create ideas to basically support the privatization of prisons.
So the stop and frisk law came from businesses who wanted to fill the jails so they worked with lobbyists and politicians to create more policies that would target black and brown people. To get them to fill the jails that they're all profiting off of. When I tell you they laid out the companies that were a part of that group I was like, “Oh it doesn't matter.” I've never felt more powerless than in that moment. So I legitimately try not to think about those things. The way that I kind of get through it is the small wins and the individual relationships that I have.
So when I worked at the center seeing 14-year-old kids come in—and I will never forget this—we have a library and it's filled with queer-themed books and these kids came in and they could not get over the fact that we had the books separated—like gay fiction, lesbian fiction, Trans history— and I don't remember exactly what they said, but at the top of their lungs they were like, “Oh my God! They have a whole section on Trans history!” Like that shit matters. That kid is more resilient because of the work that we created. I'm starting to get choked up but I'm not going to get choked up.
Me: That’s good!
RCZ: Ha, you say good!
Rhapsody: Well, emotion is good!
RCZ: The environments that I lived in and experienced— I wouldn't trade for the world. I think I am a really—excuse my language—like a fucking, cool, smart person with good people in my life and I wish I could go back to 20-year-old me and just hug me and be like, “You're fine. This is not you. This is where you are. These are the people that you've surrounded yourself with. These are the systems that are in place to make you feel this way.” I think most of us are just trying to heal ourselves. Every time I'm able to, with gusto, stand up to a faculty member—It's my own liberation for the times that faculty harmed me or every time I'm able to release a statement.
So, for example, I joined OhioGuidestone in December. I started at the end of December and then went on vacation and then it was the holidays and I came back and it was January. And like one of the first things that happened at the top of this year was the Lunar New Year shooting and I wrote a statement and just showed solidarity and offered resources and reminded people. Like this does have an impact on us. This has an impact on our clients and I got like two nice emails from people saying, “Thank you so much. This is the voice that we've been missing.” That's all I can do is just hope that some people benefit from the work that I'm doing even if it's not necessarily me. That's what it's about.
Rhapsody: Those two answers feel related in that you're talking about how you cope with things, you focus on the people you're helping and the positive impacts and not like the big apparatus. And then in the answer to the last question you said “I try to spend less of my energy like yelling at the people in power and helping the people I can help” so, it's a nice symmetry there.
We only have a few minutes left—is there anything that you want to put out into the world thatI didn't ask about or that I should have asked about?
RCZ: When we were prepping for this, we talked about psychological safety and I don't think we talked about it but I think it is a core principle for leaders to explore and it is essentially creating an environment where people are not afraid of the repercussions of failing or asking questions. Psychological safety is this concept that people do better and fare better when they work in environments—whether it's interpersonal relationships or professional relationships—where they are not afraid to take risks. I think we have unfortunately continue to uplift people into positions of power who are not good at working with people. They are not good leaders. They're just good at their jobs and people who are not good leaders often don't understand what that means to create that concept of psychological safety and so if there's one thing that I think bosses leaders etcetera should understand about trying to make their companies better, it's that you have to know your employees. You have to stop viewing everything as one size fits all you need to be willing to create new and different ways to connect with them.
Rhapsody: Thanks Ryan, I think this was great.
RCZ: No problem!