We chat with Levi Baer, a facilitator and coach who believes that joy, justice, and community are all at the heart of meaningful progress. His work focuses on creating welcoming spaces that are grounded in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices and anti-racism. Levi shares with us that trust is a foundation for equity work, as well as collaboration.
We chat with Levi Baer, a facilitator and coach who believes that joy, justice, and community are all at the heart of meaningful progress. His work focuses on creating welcoming spaces that are grounded in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices and anti-racism. Levi shares with us that trust is a foundation for equity work, as well as collaboration.
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*This is an automated transcript. Please excuse any errors or hilarious mistakes.*
Episode Teaser / Levi Baer (guest):
“I asked my question, my students, a trick question. I sent it on a scale of zero to a hundred. What percentage of time should be spent on relationship building in a team versus getting the work done. And I got every answer under the sun, a hundred percent, get the work done. Zero relationship, 50, 50, 60, 40. It, the answer truly is it depends, but the point of the question is that we need to at least consider that some amount of relationship building is probably necessary for any team. And so I do my, my, my thoughts here, my advice or my guidance is find the ways that make sense for your group to build and deepen those relationships.”
Episode Intro:
One of the landmark programs here at the Center for Care Innovations is Catalyst — a training program where our participants learn and practice human-centered design to explore strategic challenges within their organizations. We often invite experts from the field to share their insights and discuss their own projects. Listen as our longtime collaborator, Chris Conley, interviews one of our special guests.
Chris Conley (host):
Hello, everybody. I am so happy to have a guest with us today, who is someone who I've recently met, who I believe we should have met long ago, because I'm so impressed with the work he's doing. And the things he's been able to accomplish so far. We have Levi Baer, and Levi as a DEI and anti-racism facilitator and coach who believes that joy justice.
And community are all at the heart of meaningful progress. He works with corporations, nonprofits, and community groups to guide them, to find the motivation, shared understanding and strategies for social justice change. He believes that people should be celebrated for who they are and all they are valued for what they can give and receive and included regardless of what they believe and how they move through the world.
It is indeed an honor to be with you here today, Levi. And thank you for taking time to share your experience and expertise with myself and the Catalyst community.
Levi Baer (guest):
The honor's all mine, Chris. I'm really, really happy to be here.
Chris:
Awesome to have you here. Why don't we get started just by having you introduce yourself a little bit and your background and your journey into DEI and social justice work.
Levi:
Sure. I'll try to keep it brief. You know, I, I like to start by mentioning that I grew up on a farm in Northern Minnesota. And I do mention that because I think for all of us, there's a place where we find our roots in this work. And for me, the roots of collaboration, of community, of caring about the world around you, started in a space where growing up, kind of out in the woods, we had to share and interact with others.
It took a community to get along. So that's where I got my first taste of this and then an immersion into thinking about how we connect us and ecosystem. Since then I've gotten two degrees in communication studies. I've always been fascinated about how and why people talk to each other the way they do.
So I have a a master's degree from DePaul university in organizational and multicultural communities. I use that degree to go into consulting and team building consulting, community, building consulting. My first round of this was building games and training experiences to quite literally sometimes bring people skills and interest and communication style.
To the table, whether that's something like a personality assignment or assessment or, or a you know, I have one that's the four animals of communication. So just trying to find different approachable tools and methods for bringing people into constructive communication spaces. From there, that work of building that that first round of consulting for myself, I got into the world of entrepreneurship, which led me to.
Yeah. Ultimately found a coworking space called second shift. And for those that don't know, co-working spaces are places for people who work remotely or from home to instead, we kind of under, well, a lot of us now are experiencing that with dependent. And it ends up that working from home there's distractions, there's loneliness.
And there's that lack of human connection that I think many of us have experienced over the last couple of years in various ways. So coworking has been around for about 15 years and has served as that platform. Yes, for wifi and coffee and phone booths, but really for human connection. Right? And so that's what we set out to do with second shift is build an inclusive community and that word community was huge for us.
And we can talk more about how we did that later on in this conversation, but really making collaboration part of the business model, part of the community, part of the way people interact. So I co-founded that with my friend, Nicole Vasquez. And I, I was the person on site managing and running that for three years in the last two years, we've had a partner come in and manage that, and I've been able to take a step back from that coworking operation.
And in that time, I was also learning, starting to get my footing in equity. In social terms, I was starting to give talks on race and ethnicity and diversity and inclusion and coming out of the coworking work, I spent a year as the director of training at Chicago United for equity, which really gave me that grounding.
Yes. Systems work for equity change, where I worked with Nikita Bharara and other people to really think about systems change when it comes to these terms really kind of solidified and honed my understanding of some of these concepts. And now in the pandemic, I have been a full-time DEI anti-racism consultant working for myself.
And as you explained at the beginning, guiding teams through thinking about, you know, we've had this big surgence of what I called the post- George Floyd world, where the world kind of turned around and said, what might we do about this in our business? Is our workplaces ask themselves for the first time in my lifetime, at least as seriously as this, what is our role in all?
So I may, I see myself less as here's how you hire more black or brown people. If that's just one maybe initiative we might take. But really my favorite place in this role is why do we care about this? And how then can we build a space for us to act on our care. What does it mean for us to come together as a group and share these terms?
Our personal identities, our relationship to these concepts or disagreements, our agreement and our shared efforts as we move forward towards a world that many of us are imagining and dreaming about. So that's why I see myself. That's kind of the overview of my trajectory. Lots of little side things in there, like adjunct, adjunct instructor.
I've been a bartender. I've been everything in between. So lots of work to lead up to getting to this.
Chris:
Nice. Yeah. What a wonderful journey. I'm thrilled that you've taken this path and, and are leading the kind of change and guiding and mentoring people into this kind of change. That's so desperately needed in the world.
And I think you're right. There for me, I've always been interested in this work. It goes way back but I've never been able. I didn't have the courage early on to be more forward with it. And I feel like we do have that. Are I now have that opportunity and responsibility to be more active with this type of work, because it is the, it is the kind of change that society needs and, and will lead to wonderful things.
And I think people were blind to how much beauty is on the other side of equity anti-racism and, and justice.
Levi:
Yeah. And I commend our early adopters who I was not one of them who have been doing fighting this fight in a lot of different spaces, whether that's social, you know, community spaces or workspaces or workplaces, like I've been, I think there's been a lot of people who did do this work along the way earlier.
And now we do sort of have the social motivation, the shared motivation to undergo as a society. At least I think enough of us to make that change.
Chris:
Yeah. Nice. You mentioned, you know, the, the importance of community and a co-working space. I love the, what you said, you know? Yes. Wifi and coffee, but more importantly, the human connection and community.
Why are you so adamant that community as it is that the basis is almost a first principle of work in life.
Levi: Yeah, it really is a basis. I see it as a foundation for, for many things. I mean, one tangible example for me right now is as over the last couple of years, I've gone into organizations to help guide and lead DEI initiatives and, and growth in that space.
I've frankly seen a lot of organizations not able to do. Make the progress they're hoping for, because if you think about building something new and constructing something new to use a metaphor, what is that foundation? And you need things that we can describe pretty plainly like trust and collaboration.
You need those things in place to be able to build new things on top of it anti-racism is really complex. There's a reason why we haven't really done this society wide yet. It is very complex. Sometimes scary. It takes a lot of patience and understanding to kind of fold oneself into it, let alone full the group of people into it together that are also trying to meet a social mission or make profits.
And so that gets really complex when we start to blend all these things together. Now, if we can't talk about what are our fears or what are our hopes and dreams or what it means when I disagree with you or what it means when somebody's. Done something harmful to me and we don't have the ways to restore around that, to talk about that, to build together with that, we will probably not be able to do some of this kind of more complex work that a lot of us are setting out to do.
So that's just one way I think about it now. That's very tangible as it's going to be hard to construct and change and build without some of these foundations in place, but I'll just also mention. Because of joy is a part of my work. It actually is kind of hard for me to describe all of the benefits that come from this stuff.
Sometimes I feel like I'm almost making things up of like, you know, at second shift we had people start podcasts together, share babysitting tips together. We had one person buy their parents' house from one another. Taco recommendations in the city. There really is no end to the number of possibilities, the amount of possibilities that come from a space where people get to be themselves share freely and be authentic and how they engage with those around them.
Chris:
Holy cow, that was so perfectly stated. And I got the chills because I'm I'm a proud builder of a company that I think the crowning achieved. It was not the successful consulting business. It was the culture we built where people could be themselves. And I've always said that your coworkers are far more interesting than, you know, and encourage people to explore with each other.
What are you geeking out about? What's your hobby? What do you like tell me stories from your life, because there's so much richness there and serendipity. Connections and value and joy, like you said, that that come from that. So I really like this notion you have that community is a foundation, a relationship with each other as a foundation for this work we want to do.
And especially the challenging work it has to be there. Otherwise we're never going to be able to make the kind of change that we want to be.
Levi:
Absolutely. And one last part is I know some people will roll their eyes. When we talk about the workplace being a place of community or some people use the word family.
And I do think we should be careful about pushing upon others, a sense of connection that isn't there. But I think what has come to start contrast for a lot of people in the last couple of years with the pandemic with the racial unrest is that we don't stop being ourselves. When we go to work. So if I'm a black person, who's seeing racial unrest in the news that affects me personally.
And I guess I could speak as a black person, but it does affect me when I see a terrible videos in the news. And then, if I have to go to my workplace, Just produce work and be, you know, be a cog in the machine. That's not how any of us are. And so, it's not that we have to be a family all the time at workplace, but there can be a sense of humanity or recognizing who people are and what's going on with them.
And sometimes that's going to be fun and we're going to share hobbies and neat things. And sometimes we're going to be sharing the harder stuff too. And all of that is a part of that, that work and that growth.
Chris:
Very nicely said. the catalyst teams, you know, there are three or four people working within an organization, often collaborating with another organization. Can you talk a little bit about, and, and your work and you have a lot of work in, what was the acronym you used when we spoke a couple of weeks ago? DNI?
Levi:
I use DEI diversity equity inclusion, but there are a few regulations.
Chris:
No, the learning side of it, the. The L and --
Levi: L and D - learning and development.
Chris: Learning and development. Yeah. So you've been in learning and development, and I love that you've designed games and we'll talk about that a little bit later or tangible ways for people to engage in conversation. But just thinking about these teams and them kind of establishing a foundation.
How, how can they do that as they begin working together? Some of them may not have collaborated on a project before some of them, well, we all know they're all type a high achieving, very successful people in community organizations and healthcare organizations. What, what, what do you think of, and what, what would you questions would you ask and advice you give to teams as they begin to work together?
Levi:
Yeah. I have two things that come to mind and they fall under this umbrella of building trust. When I was an adjunct instructor at DePaul and I was teaching a communication class. I asked my question, my students, a trick question. I sent it on a scale of zero to a hundred. What percentage of time should be spent on relationship building in a team versus getting the work.
And I got every answer under the sun, a hundred percent, get the work done. Zero relationship, 50, 50, 60, 40. It, the answer truly is it depends, but the point of the question is that we need to at least consider that some amount of relationship I think is probably necessary for any time. And so I do my, my, my thoughts here, my advice or my guidance is find the ways that make sense for your group to build and deepen those relationships.
So for example, two things, you might do one don't start. If, if you have the, if you can afford the time and kind of really ask yourself what that means to be able to afford the time, but really don't start any work meeting or gathering without social. Programmed into it, not just the five minutes on zoom or we wait for people to sign on and the last person gets there and we go right into the work.
If you have an hour, build five to 10 minutes in for maybe an ice breaker, maybe a show and tell we're all at home. Now during the pen limit some sort of thing where you get to share about yourself. So structured time, build structured time plan for it to socialize. The other thing then is to choose prompts and questions and discussions that peel back the onion just enough.
We don't want to do something too scary. Like what's the most vulnerable thing you've ever done. That's maybe a little bit too. But we also don't want to stay too shallow. What's your favorite color? Who cares? Right? Let's actually find that middle ground. I love ice breakers actually, because when you really get into again, I think that a lot of people roll their eyes at a, another ice breaker, but when done well, there's an art form to it.
One way I like to think about it is when we're done checking in, when we're done with the circle, I should want to talk to somebody more about something. So some, some of my favorites are things like, where was your mother born? No matter what people's relationships are to their mother, everybody's mother was born somewhere and it starts this question of identity and culture and history.
They're like, oh, I didn't know you had background in this and that. And it starts, you know, just vulnerable enough where I normally wouldn't talk about that, but it starts to unfold peel back that onion a little bit. You can even just start with what's on your mind today. What makes home home for you? Where do you get your energy in the world? These are the types of questions that make you think just a little bit more and share a little bit about your personality that goes beyond. I think what we normally do.
Chris:
I love it. I'm just reflecting on one of the teams I work with and there is always--
The "let's check in at the beginning together." Just we like checking in, but I almost feel like it's stayed at the, you know, the first time or the second time. It's fine. And then if you just only do that and you're not working to maybe ask a different question or have people share something different than just how they're doing today, which again is always an important question.
Like, how are you feeling? How are you doing? But I like that notion of. Being creative with the questions, where was your mother born or something like that because it reveals more and more of the onion over time and builds that relationship with each other. I really liked that notion that's and again, when done well, these, this is part of, one of the things that catalysts are learning.
You know, we're giving them different techniques and every, you know, even something like brainstorming gets a counter-reactive force at some point like, oh, brainstorming is the wrong thing to do. It can't really lead to good ideas, blah, blah, blah. There's research that showed all of these things when done well, thoughtfully in community with others, thoughtfully, is an art form and can create amazing value done just by running through the motion.
To get the work done. It's not gonna, it's not gonna be that valuable.
Levi:
And it takes just a little bit of work can go a long way there, you know, that art form, I think some people might think, well, I'm never gonna learn all the things that maybe a professional facilitator has learned. I just go, I literally just Google icebreakers, you know, put it into Google, unique icebreakers.
You need intro questions. You'll see them. I've just happened to have collected some of my favorites. I can recall them and use them many times. But in, in three minutes, you can find the next icebreaker. You want to use that your next team meeting.
Chris:
Nice. Love it. You, on this notion of community, when we first talked and we were talking about getting together today, you said you had the - I'm going to get this wrong -
I'm trying to reference the six elements of inclusive community building. I thought it would be fascinating to hear a little bit about that and use that as a basis for some of the other things we'll talk about. But first I just want to say, I love that you create learnable models for people and things that can be shared.
And, I think that's a real talent and very important as this work moves forward. It's sometimes we, we talk a lot, but we don't share kind of. Something that that people can hold onto longer than just the conversation itself and maybe go try something. Is that something you'd be, you'd like to share with us today?
Levi:
Yeah, I would love to share it. It, you know, the, the full thing goes kind of deep up. We'll just, we'll just introduce it today and hopefully everybody can find maybe at least one, one thing they want to take away and try next.
Okay, I'll go ahead and give the brief overview to the six elements of inclusive community blank, which comes from my time in DEI work, but largely in what we did at second shift at the coworking space. And in other communities, I built to really think about what it means to bring people into a space where they can be themselves.
So just a brief, brief overview. Versus building that culture of trust. We've already talked about this. So it includes many of the things we've already talked about, but doing things like taking the time to get to know each other being able to be yourself, which we'll also get into an inclusion in the next one, but just being able to be yourself which is easier, the more different marginalized aspects of identity people have the more.
Intention that needs to be put into designing for that and creating space for that, but really working with people to make space for folks can know that the organization is looking out for them and trust each other. And the space that they're in. All right. So I'll be brief on each of these. If you have follow-up questions, we can, we can go deeper for any of them.
I see the sec, the second one. Once you start, and that culture of trust is an ongoing thing. I'll say that's worked for, for a long time after that, thinking about inclusion and access, access, and inclusion, designing for your specific community. So my definition of inclusion means designing.
For people really. It's not just a seat at the table, but it's what do people need to really feel welcomed at that table? So how do I think about access people's body? The way people's bodies move the way their eyes see the way they hear what kind of language they speak? What are the different things I need to think about.
When they come in the door, they're going to say, or they sign on to the zoom call. They're going to say this was made for me. They really thought about me at one of my needs. Were. So people being able to see that very, very clearly. One thing we did a second shepherds put faces of everybody who worked there on the wall.
So people's personalities and aspects about them. A little profile about them was on the wall and our guests and our community members really like seeing literally that, who was a part of that community built into the fabric of this. Number three is platforms and events. I like this one because we tend to have a culture of descheduling things to do, and to sending people into slacks or Facebook groups or group texts, it's almost a default.
Let's make a Facebook group. Well, all I'm saying, and this one is that we need to be very intentional and think about what do events and platforms actually do for our community. Our platform. So let's just take that by itself for a second platforms. Meaning S our spaces like Facebook groups, or text messages, or email lists, which ones work for our groups.
Am I trying to send a group of people into a slack that I'm used to using, but maybe it's a group of community members that email or text message or phone call. It might be more appropriate for them. So I want to really think of. Blending that access into that platform of what is going to work for folks.
What makes sense for us and the people that I'm trying to reach, not just for me and then events, just thinking really intentionally again, putting in that little bit of. Do I just schedule events and do bingo nights and do happy hours and do workshops just to do that, or is there something there that, like, what is the purpose of our community and how does that event fulfill that purpose at second shift as a coworking space?
For a while there, we were following the pattern of other coworking spaces of doing workshops. And in that space, it was a consultant kind of like myself now would come in and give their hour long. Talk about the thing that they were an expert in. That's a wonderful little experience. We didn't have a lot of people coming to those.
And as the creator of that space, I had recognized that those sorts of events didn't actually fit with the purpose of our community, which was community building, getting to know. So, you know, people would go to places downtown, like 1871 and other spaces for those events. And that was fine. That's where they could go.
For those for ours is more about being yourself, being a connection with other people. It's just thinking about what is the purpose of that? Number four is innovation and feedback. Making space for growth within and around and through the community. So a community that sets out guidelines that makes a code of conduct that has somebody in charge or a group of people in charge that community is going to still need to grow.
Even if you do a lot of the workups on like we've talked about before, and I should've mentioned, sorry, just let me pause for a second and say include inclusion and. We can do some things upfront, like make community guidelines or community agreements upfront. That will be a part of that work. So now.
And we come back to our number for innovation and feedback. We're making sure that the community can share their voice and shape what is happening there. That could be a suggestion box, whether digital or in real life in anonymous place for feedback, not just the performance reviews with staff, but you know, I think of these as like coffee chats.
When do you really like grab that coffee cup, cup of coffee and say, how's it really going for. This, this might require our leadership, our bosses to not be the person asking that question because there's a power dynamic that gets them there. So this is one, one kind of takeaway here. Action item is if you're that boss, if you're that person giving the performance review, maybe there's somebody else, a mentor or somebody else in the organization that can do that kind of deeper dive with some of your staff and say, how's it really going here?
What could make this place work better for. Awesome. So just in general culture feedback, revising, building, knowing that work is cyclical and we can always revise. And the last thing I'll mention here is this is really where we can see equity come alive as well, which means building with, and for people who have been typically left out of that power structure.
So how can I take the voices and inputs and needs of people who have been left out? We've been marginalized. We haven't had access and actually. I think what I think they need, but hear from them and bring their voice into building. What, what works for them. Awesome. That's equity and action. Number five is ecosystem another one that we often skip over because we're like, okay, I've done the community agreements.
I've picked some good icebreakers. I've built my space, but how does our space connect with the broader system around us, with the communities around us? You can see on the screen, I called this collaboration over competition. Because sometimes this is kind of challenging and are often profit driven or grant driven or timeline driven work in ecosystems in the environments that we have now to say, what if I shared my ideas?
What if I shared and connected with others? What if our nonprofit was trying to solve something that other people have also tried to solve? And what if we came together? And I know this is easier said than done. But didn't focus primarily just on the grant reporting and acquisition cycle, but on connecting with others to say, here's what we got done.
And how does this look for you? What did you get done? What could we learn from one another? So just staying connected with the folks around you with the broader ecosystem, not staying siloed inside of the spaces where we.
And lastly, our champions, I love this one because people often say, well, you know, I'm the person who's making things happen here.
Or I see somebody in the community really cares about this space in the work. So the champions, the leaders in the lifters, this is identifying. And, and sometimes being those people that are going to be the tent poles of the work of the cause of the organization, sometimes I call it, for those are familiar with the Dr. Seuss book. These are the Lorax, the people that speak for in the lorax, it's the trees, but in our real world, maybe that cause of equity or diversity or the thing that your organization works on, whether it's, you know, health in the community... So the champions are the folks that are going to do the rest of this list.
The champions are going to push for access and inclusion. The champions are gonna push for innovation and feedback. What we can, when we think about this, my brief intro to this is maybe you're that champion now. And what we can do is identify the other champions along the way and lift them up so that I don't have to always be the one doing all that extra lifting.
Cause this is all emotional, spiritual, physical And so how can we continue that cycle? It almost fits in with the innovation and feedback, build that cyclical nature. So more people come into that circle become champions, and the next generation of shapers comes onboard.
Chris:
Beautiful, love that one.
Levi:
So that's the overview. Those are my six elements that just, that I've seen in action in my community building spaces.
Chris:
Yeah, I think, I mean, just reminding everyone that we're talking about building community here, right? And so this is a thing that happens over time. And I love a lot of these resonate with me, for sure. The intentionality on the first three, I, I would say is really important. I, I really like how you asked the question about each element.
What role is this plane? What purpose does it have? Are we just doing them to do them or are we making selections? Are we asking the community, what kind of event where, how would resonate with you guys? I think that's so important and it's a missed opportunity for people. Again, they often think just in the doing of it is where the value lies, but in it's how you do it, what and how you do it where a lot of value can be created.
And then just in this last, this last one you were talking about, I think it's really important to realize that in any company. And many of these teams are going to be working on, you know, multi-year initiatives. None of this stuff is fixing something quick. It's multi-year initiatives. I want them to really take away this point that if you're doing a good job of building a community, you do have champions and leaders coming from the community who are so in alignment with what the community is about and the mission that you have that.
Take time, they bring their talents and leadership and to lift them up into make them part of that effort and to recognize them is a huge part of making it successful. I really liked that one a lot, because so often--
Levi:
Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, but just at a second shift, the coworking space again, where I have a lot of examples of this.
We had a community member who was this so involved? So great. One year we did a fun little award ceremony at our holiday party and we awarded her the most welcoming coworking member. Well, that was a champion. She was, she shared the values of our space, embodied them. So next year we brought her on as a community manager.
And then if you recall how I said, I took a step back from working at the corporate space. She ended up being the person to replace me. There was a perfect example of identifying those champions. It did take two years just like you said, it wasn't overnight, but when I was ready to shift my energy and attention, I knew exactly who could do it in my place.
Chris:
Nice. Nice. I love it. I love it. So one of the things we talked about as well, and I don't know where it fits into the six principles of community building, but you talking about how important it is to hold space. I think you use that term. And I think I inquired right away. It's like, I kind of get what that means, but what do you, what does it mean to hold space?
And then what's the value of it. And how do teams start doing that for themselves in each other?
Levi:
Yeah, absolutely. So I, and other people use the term hold space or for those of us that do it for anybody on, on watching this. Lead zoom calls or leads community meetings. I would say that you hold space or are a space holder.
And in that context, that means we are the people that plan design and then execute, actually do the gathering of others. We're the ones that starts the call brings the icebreaker checks to make sure everyone's doing okay. Thinks about the agenda and the timing and make sure the plans on, on track, but rather than just being space holding, we think about that metaphor, holding that space.
It's not just the person who's in charge of the agenda and the timing because. That's maybe the typical or traditional or age old way that we've done business space. Holding means we are embodying this space. We are in this space, as we talked about earlier as the full fledged human being that I am. And so I'm going to have reactions.
I'm going to have feelings. I'm going to have care cares. I'm going to think things about things. So how can I bring myself into that space? And how does the shapers, the designers, the meeting planners. Consider all of us in there and make that, that space meet its function. Maybe we come out of this meeting with three new ideas or a budget or a strategic plan.
And how do I feel now that I've been through that experience? And that's that's I think the big difference of space holding.
Chris:
Why is it important?
Levi:
Wow. So this is yeah, I was thinking, I was thinking in my head of like, how do we do it, but just taking a step back of a, why is it important? I mean, I guess it just hits on what we've talked about earlier.
That again, we, we don't stop being ourselves when we're in these spaces. Well actually just to speak a little bit more tangibly. We have a history of highlighting certain voices in our world and our not, especially in our professional world. So straight white cisgender men have gotten most of the airtime and decision-making power in our professional role, but in broader society.
So if we want to hold space, it allows us to think really intentionally about many things, but I think very importantly, How we engage and how to restructure, so we have not just, equity is a great concept and I want us to continue to strive for it. But when we really come down to the, where the rubber meets the road it's did, did, did everybody get to share, did everybody's voices contribute to this?
Did the person who didn't graduate college didn't graduate high school is the most, maybe vulnerable in the way that we look at social work. Did their presence matter and did their voice contribute and space holding with intent with the right intentions care and planning allows us to do for that allows us to have the CEO, executive director that makes six figures and the person who's representing the community have equal footing in that, in that space, and be able to share with the same amount of impact.
Chris:
Nice.
Levi:
So that's why it's important is it allows us to rewrite some of these scripts that are just been running for a long time,
Chris:
A hundred percent. And I, and by implication, it leads to better information, richer information, a better understanding of what's really going on, which is a big principle we have in the Catalyst, which is, you know, we, in order to do things efficiently, we all characterize and generalize and stereotype things at a very superficial level and say, we think we understand it - where the goal is to really go, what's really going on, what's really happening. And I think you learn that when you hold space for others who normally don't have a voice and "well, if you don't speak up, then you know, then it's your fault." Right? No. Leaders today have to intentionally bring people into the conversation and give them the space.
Levi:
And be proactive. And let's, let's break it down. Let's be really clear for a second here. A lot of organizations want to do this work. But sometimes the motivation comes from different places.
So space holding as a craft. That's something we care about and put energy and money and human resources into allows us to maybe meet some of our diversity and inclusion, social justice calls, but also we could make more money and more profits. If we create a stronger workplace and a better processes. We could avoid legal trouble.
We can avoid public discourse. It's not going to be good for us. We can avoid social media call-outs or you know, bad things that happen from somebody who comes into our-- buys, our product, or attends a meeting or something like that. So they talked over me. They, they harassed me. They such and such... Space-holding is good for the world, but for many other reasons can also be good for our organization.
Chris:
I totally agree with that. And I think that's the mindset, mindset shift that people need - may need - to consider that because it's been far too long, but it does feel like the momentum has shifted where a lot is coming at people who traditionally haven't had to think about it or embrace it or address it in their organizations.
And so there's a lot of defensiveness or just being a little overwhelmed, like what does this all mean? I, you know but there's a simple mindset shift that I think is to be made, which is what am I afraid of? There's so much value. And meaningfulness and relationship building on the other side of this, what am I really concerned about losing power?
And that's what I'm going to defend. Like when there's so much, and it's, it's, it starts to be. And I, I, I like going in this direction, it starts to be negligent from a leadership standpoint. If you're not doing this now you're actually harming shareholders. You're because this is where the world's going.
And if you're not a leader, You're being negligent in your leadership. Yeah. That's powerful. Go ahead.
Levi:
No, but, but I, I didn't mean to cut you off again, but that's such a great point. And, you know it's, we're seeing the numbers and data that diverse. Groups of people not, I try not. I try to be careful not saying diverse people.
We just mean people who are not white or not men that these diverse communities that people want to work at diverse places. Yes. And so if your organization is saying, we don't care about this, we're not going to do this. You are going to lose up - because it might, it might be that you, you hire some black, brown queer differently abled such and such folks...
But again, what we're seeing, especially a year and a half after George Floyd's murder is that folks are burning out or not getting the care and attention or space-holding they need, and they are leaving or finding places that are doing that. So the places that are investing in equity, in diversity inclusion in space-holding they're retaining the multifaceted talent that makes the workplace richer, that makes products and services richer, that makes trust and deeper communities possible. And so it is at this point, if nothing else, it's a business strategy. It's a competitive edge. If not just the right thing to do.
Chris:
A hundred percent. I want to be conscious of our time and ask maybe at the end here, one last question about as these teams move forward how can you encourage them to, or in what ways can they hold space as they move forward with this work? What can they do intentionally to start incorporating some of this in their team, even though they're part of an organization and there's lots of politics and dynamics going on, how can they move forward a little bit?
Levi:
Yeah, it's a few things that we've already kind of hit on, but I'll recap some and maybe introduce a new one, which is definitely building, building regular consistent time for kind of social sharing or unstructured sharing. So whether that's 10 minutes out of our monthly staff meeting, or do you need to add another time?
I know it's tough right now during the pandemic and zoom and all those things, but building that time to, to share with each other. Bringing in voices that have been left out again. We mentioned this, but if you're creating services that impact people, how are you bringing people in upfront so that they get to be a part of crafting what that service and the experience looks like?
Pick a few, you know, again, we said this, but pick a few of your, your, your new favorite icebreakers. Go find some and think about how you're going to warm up, warm up your next gathering and how you might share that responsibility. So it's not just one person every time, racking their head, trying to think of a, an intro question. Have that be a rotating responsibility.
Think about, think about where the personality and personal identity of each of you gets to come through in the workplace. It's going to be different. How much, and to what extent is going to be different in every different work setting. But, does it make sense to have a favorite cultural food food from your family day where you're showing until the foods that your family ate growing up?
Is it "what song is giving me through the pandemic?" Different ways that we can show up some are more personal or were cultural. Some can be distinct, you know, more general, but just how does your personality get a space to show up there? And how did we go into the intentions of like, again, everyone's on equal footing here.
So whether it's the executive director or it's the administrative assistant, we all have that same impact when we share everybody's stories have equal ground and funding. I would say those are a few things. I mean, just the main thing, thinking about. Making it possible for people to be themselves truly in the workplace.
And then the last thought on that, when I say that we're going to have some people that say usually this is folks with more marginalized identities, you know black, queer indigenous disabled. "I don't want to be myself here. It hasn't been comfortable as of yet." So we're really talking about those who have been holding different social powers in the different hierarchies that we have to be honest about in our world than in the United States.
The folks that have been holding different powers have to think about how they're showing up. And how they're making space for other people to be comfortable being themselves. The responsibility is on those who hold the most power. It's not just "speak up, be loud like us." Like you said, that applied to all these different aspects - isn't the way to go about it. How can we, if we need to be quieter, how can we pause longer? How can we make this really approachable for everybody in the different modes and modalities that they have?
Chris:
Oh, nice. I feel like you're touching on two very important aspects. One of them, which you just mentioned, which is self-awareness for those who have traditionally hold held power or do hold power.
I think our Catalyst team struggle with that often that the dominant leader kind of takes up most of the most of the time and air in the space and we really encourage them to, but again, it, you can encourage them as much as they want until they kind of self recognized like "holy cow I'm really-" and it, it may be coming from a position of genuine, good intent.
Right. I really want to solve this thing. I really, but that's exactly the behavior that has led to. Lack of understanding failed programs because there is a one dominant... So self-awareness, and the other is a little bit more, maybe insidious. I don't know. It's the, it's the belief system that we have when we're in our organizations.
And you, you said it when you're talking about holding, you know, making sure there's five to 10 minutes before. Social and relationship building. And a lot of people like, oh, we're working. We don't have time for that. And this, this this reaction that so many people have to changes in behavior, which where they think it's about time.
And I would just argue that's again, a mindset shift where you may be spending an hour in a meeting. Getting work done. And it's the most unproductive way you could spend that time because it's the appearance of doing work or it's the appearance of performance and building relationship leads to so many other types of value, better understanding, better communication, a better sense of...
When somebody is, non-verbally communicating with you, that you're aware of how they are and what they care about. So there's so much, that's high performance that comes from that socializing that has such a bad stigma in business or organizational conduct that I really want to, I think you're helping people challenge that and say, "no, there's nothing but value to be created there."
Levi:
When I can tell people when I'm on the clock as a paid consultant and I have 90 minutes, hopefully I get more than that. But if I only have 90 minutes and we need to generate with a team of 40, a new list of values that everybody in the room is going to contribute to a list of shared values for our organization in the last year, multiple times, I've taken half an hour to talk about what animal we are with how we communicate first. And it blows people's minds. I will say, how could you spend a half an hour at a 90 minutes talking about if I'm a lion, a puppy owl, or a turtle. In doing so we're rewriting the expectation, the script and the assumption of only certain voices are going to be able to contribute to this, only certain people are going to have influence here. And we, we deconstruct that in the first half an hour and reconstruct it so that in the next 60 minutes, everybody's all in, everybody's contributing. Everybody feels like they're actually is having their voice heard. Does have their voice heard. So I can tell you that when I'm on the clock, I practice this. It is possible. It does take a mind shift - mindset shift, but it is possible.
Chris:
Awesome. Levi, I want to thank you so much for your time today. You dropped a lot of wisdom, good examples. And it's just a powerful message that I think is really going to help our Catalyst teams...believe that bringing this into their work is going to make it better, more valuable, and create more community, which I think ultimately, as you said, is, is a real goal of this work.
Levi:
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. This has been fun.
Chris:
Awesome. Thank you.