ep30 | the artisan podcast | desmond lomax | humanizing connection | equity, diversity, inclusion & belonging

Desmond Lomax is a Senior Consultant, Master Facilitator, and Implementation Leader in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion work at the Arbinger Institute.

Find Desmond on Linkedin

Arbinger books: Anatomy of Peace | The Outward Mindset | Leadership and Self-Deception

What I especially appreciated was how you were able to take this topic that is top of mind and many people out there are talking about it, but you were able to humanize it and you were able to allow the audience to be able to connect from a human to human level. That obviously is so important in every environment, every circle that we’re in. 

For our conversation, I wanted to bring that into the workplace, specifically hiring and integrating new people into the mix. But before we get into that, I'd love to just know how you get involved in this line of work.

Desmond: I started in the prison system. I was a therapist for the prison system and it was my first introduction to marginalized people struggling to make it in society, outside of my personal experiences.

I can't think of too many things more difficult than coming out of a prison system and returning as a citizen of the society and not feeling that you have the capacity or the resources to be able to do that successfully.

So I went from a therapist to a manager, to a state director where I was in charge of all the programming outside of the prison in the state of Utah. From there, I started teaching courses in Forensic Social Work at the University of Utah. I'm a Licensed Clinical Therapist, so it all came together.

I started doing many podcasts and videos about the things I've learned, and then my son passed away. I lost a child, he was a freshman in college. He committed suicide. I found myself in this unique position where I was like okay, Dezzy, you’ve been through some stuff now, you know what it's like to lose a child to something horrific. What can you do differently in society to create a greater sense of inclusion and belonging?

I think that's what motivates me. My son seemed isolated and alone, even though we talked every day. We had a lot of communication and people cared about him, but there just wasn't a sense of belonging for him. I wanted to do something about that. I just took all of this background and my knowledge and as I was working with Arbinger, I joined their design team, and we created the curriculum called Outward Inclusion and I spent the last few years sharing the message of what it looks like in your organization and in your space where we can, 1)  see the humanity of another person, and then 2) understand our impact on that humanity.

As simple as that sounds, there are things that we all have that interfere with our ability to do those two basic things. I've been working all over this country, all over internationally, just doing the work, being motivated by the loss I've experienced and the knowledge that I've gained.

Katty: Thank you for sharing that and heartfelt condolences. I don't know how long ago that was, but it's always fresh in the heart of anyone who's lost someone. Thank you for sharing that with us. I appreciate that you took something so devastating and you were able to turn it around and then bring positive impact to others from it.

Desmond: Yes, I hope so. What I've learned is that loss is energy. It's bonafide energy and either you do something with it, or it does something with you. I would like to say there are all these other options, but either that is the same energy that is just really hard. I've seen both of them in my life so I'm not trying to say I'm on one side or the other. But loss is a lot of energy that you need to transform into something or else that loss will transform you. That's what I've learned and that's what I'm trying to do.

Katty: Thank you for doing that and thank you for including us in that conversation. Let's go back to the two-pointers that you mentioned. The first one was seeing the humanity in each other and the second one was impacting humanity. Can you talk a little bit more about that and how it impacts the workspace, specifically as we bring in new people into that workspace; a brand new hire joining an existing team that's been together for a long time?

Desmond: I love that, Katty. I always say to people, good people, good hard-working people are often blind to their impact on others. The first step to understanding my impact is to humanize aspects of the workplace. If I'm not humanizing the workplace, and I'm seeing people as objects, either vehicles that are doing the work I need them to do, or obstacles that aren't doing the work I need to do or relevancies. When I see people through that lens, what’s happening is that I'm spending a lot of time justifying my view of a human being good enough, and spending a lot less time understanding that human being in a way in which I can be more effective.

Thus, the new employee coming into the workplace my view and my objectification of that new employee can impact my ability to improve their life-work situations.

If they approach it like “Here comes a new employee. It’s going to take nine months to get them on board. Three months to do this and one month...” If all they are is a problem that I now have to carry until I get them to a point of efficiency, they will sense that and they will resist. What we've learned is that all people will resist being objectified.

If we can start looking at the resistance in our lives and how we are seeing people and their resistance to us, we can start to recognize that maybe there are ways in which I see this person, ways in which I objectify this person that might be creating some of this resistance.

Katty:  You're saying that they're resisting because there's a feeling of sensing something coming from us that's creating that? They're putting their guards up. Is that what's happening?

Desmond: Absolutely. Well, it's twofold. One thing, yes. A lot of times when we have resistance, it's because people have a sense of objectification. They see us objectifying them.

The twofold is this, we may be doing things to objectify them and they may have emotional luggage that they bring with them to the circumstance where they've been objectified in the past that can also create some of those feelings. It can be twofold. It's not necessarily all on our side.

As leaders, as people who are supervising, people who are co-workers, and we have a direct impact on people, we can only work on the latter part; our impact. How we impact these folks so that they feel seen, they feel valued, they feel they're a part of the process, and they feel amid all the difficulties that come along with work, that they matter to us. That’s the part that we can control.

Katty That we can hear their voices, right?

Desmond: Yes. We can read a lot of books like, “How to Influence People and Make Friends,” and gain all the tools in the world, but people have a sense of when you acknowledge their humanity or not. What we’ve recognized is that in the hustle and bustle of work, when we’re trying to accomplish what we need to accomplish, at times we are not humanizing the process. We do not see people as people and they are responding in a way that's resistant to us as their leaders or co-workers.

Katty: What would you recommend both from the person who's starting their job, as you said, they're also bringing their baggage into the mix. We all have them, right? We travel with them. Hopefully one day we can set them down and lose that baggage.

We're bringing that with us into a new role and our teammates, supervisors, all of them, everybody has their baggage of life with them. Right? How do we go about creating a space and creating dialogue around not allowing that to permeate? I would imagine that even during the interviewing phase, that probably can show up. Right?

Desmond: Yes, this is something I've recently done in my whole life. I recently moved to a beautiful little town on the border of Maryland and Pennsylvania side of the base and Mason Dixon Line. 35 minutes from Baltimore. Amish countries. I get the best of both worlds. I can have a fresh pretzel one night and a crab cake the next night. Anyway, I'm in heaven.

We've been here for a year. We spend more time inside of our house fixing up our house may be engaging with the community. I go to my wife, like, “Hey, it's the Fourth of July. The Lions International Club is looking for volunteers. Let's do some social exercise.” Let's just get out and meet people and connect with people. It's a social exercise. We went out there for two days, we volunteered, flipped burgers and prepped hotdogs and hamburgers, and met a lot of people in the community. We have our social baggage; we have our challenges and fears that are associated with connecting with new people and being in a new space.

In the midst of all that, we have to practice social exercise, social work, and our ability to connect with others in meaningful ways. If I'm the new employee, I may be disappointed if I'm waiting for someone to engage me positively. I remember one of my first days at the prison. I worked as a correctional officer for many years and then became a therapist. The correctional work wasn't for me. I wanted to help and I didn't feel like I was helping, so I became a therapist. On my first day as a therapist, one of the supervisors goes, “Hey, what are you doing here? Don't you work somewhere else now?”  I said no, I came here. He looked at me and he goes, “Why would you do that? This is horrible.” That was my first day at work. Sometimes, the social exercise we get from others is not the most positive thing.  Sometimes, as new employees, If we don't socially engage multiple people, we'll find ourselves in a situation where the people that are engaging us can be bringing a lot of negative energy. For the new employee, social engagement and social exercise, meeting new people communicating with people, sharing your background, and gaining a deeper understanding of others is just a great way to acclimate very quickly into the process.

For new employees, it's the same type of work. For every person that comes in, there should be a system in place. We can understand them in a way that extends beyond the work and what I mean by that is when people feel seen and valued, you understand their role, and they feel supported, they work at higher levels than those that don't.

There's this generation that I come from, where it’s like I care about you because I give you a paycheck. That's my way of saying that you've worked, good job. You get a paycheck.

Somebody's like, “Desmond, I'm confused what’s with all this seen, valued, have a voice, and roles? Back in the day, you gave me a paycheck and I'm unhappy. People have changed. Pandemics will do that to them. People will change. They want more from their work environment. As leaders, a part of our social exercise is helping those people that we're supervising or co-working with feel that sense of belonging that's needed for work performed.

Katty: What would you say to the managers who are in charge of creating that welcoming, open environment, how do they go about humanizing that connection and roll out the carpet, that welcome carpet for their new people?

Desmond: I've got a great story about when I was a State Director. I realized that a lot of people didn't like me. So I was reflecting on what can you do when people inherently don't like you. Because I think it's the position when you are in charge and you make hard decisions. I think it's also the personality. Some people like my personality, some people can't stand me. It’s the nature of life. It's okay.

I realized that as a leader, the only way for people to see you or recognize your personhood is for you to make them a priority. So as a leader, everyone that got hired, I tell all my regional managers, you go to the HR to make sure they get all the paperwork done. You come right to my office. We have a 30-minute meeting to learn. I got to know and learn about that person and in that meeting, I got to learn about that person, I got to express appreciation for that person and I got to let them know I was there to support them. In 30 minutes, you can accomplish so much. Over several years, all of a sudden, I became a very, like well-appreciated supervisor. Because I simply took the time as we say in the DEI space, to close the proximity. Instead of being the supervisor over here (so far away in distance) now I'm the supervisor right here in support of you. You don't have to guess who I am. Right there. The proximity is closed and I'm right there to support you.

Katty: Close the proximity. I love that.

Desmond: Yes, supervisors need to close the proximity so that the people that are there being supervised by the other supervisees don't have to guess about the type of person they are.

Katty:Really showing up as authentic leaders themselves.

Desmond: Yes, if they are willing to do it. Some people don't like themselves. I work with hundreds of hundreds, thousands probably of leaders when you get down to it, who are very nervous, very insecure, and worried about how people are seeing them and their ability to lead. If I'm stuck in that space, how am I going to be anything for anyone else?

Katty: If one isn't open, if they can't close the proximity for themselves, it’s going to be hard to do it for somebody else.

Desmond: Beautifully stated. At the heart of most conflict is our internal struggles with ourselves. When we're treating people poorly, it’s simply a reflection of our self-worth.

Katty: It’s that baggage again.

Desmond: There we go. It's universal. Make no mistake, it's universal. We all carry things with us that we have to address, we have to acknowledge, and we have to love to work through them to heal. I spent many years as a therapist and the number one issue I saw was that people were so resistant to their imperfections. They were so resistant to the fact that they wanted to accomplish something and they couldn't. I spent quite a lot of time asking them can you love that part of yourself? Can we do that first? I think we can start making some grounds for changing the behaviors that you want to change.

Katty: Love that. That’s sometimes easier said than done.

Desmond: Katty, that's okay too. I have lifetime struggles that I'm currently dealing with that I'm trying to overcome. Things I'm trying to get better at and I struggle at those things all the time. Do you know what I call that? Being a human being. I am very human. They're just elements of my life that are very human and that I need to improve on and get better at, and things I need to love about myself that are hard to love and just going through that whole process.

Katty: Thank you for sharing that. So that was point one. Let's talk about that second pointer, humanizing or creating impact with that.

Desmond: I work with a lot of organizations and a lot of training has put us in this space. It's like, well, my intent is good. Let's just assume everyone has good intent. Let's just assume that we're all just, in the midst of our humanism, we all have good intent. Sometimes we're going to have conflict. I think that's a good place to start. But there's something we can do a little bit better, and that is having the courage, to understand how we're directly impacting the people who lead the Cowork in a positive and or negative way. I think that's the kicker. Do we have the courage to ask the right questions in a way, where we can get the answers we need to understand our impact? Because until we do, we're just kind of an ‘okay’ leader.

Katty: That is such an important point there. I was just talking about this the other day with someone about the interviewing process and how in some companies multiple rounds of interviews are necessary and multiple stakeholders are necessary to decide whether a candidate moving forward or not. The intent may be to include all stakeholders and that decision-making, but the impact on that candidate sometimes is either the company can't make a decision or they don't like me. They're not going to move forward with me. And we just don't sometimes recognize that our intent may be a bit intense, and the implication that it has to that person is a completely different one. Just having that awareness is so huge.

Desmond: It is and like I said, that's just one aspect and just look at how powerful it is. If I can just address that aspect, we can figure out a system to interview people in a way in which they feel that they're joining a meaningful work family, joining a group of people that are willing to support them, instead of running them through this gauntlet. You can interview me six, seven times, but each time if I feel more at home with the organization, I'm fine, but if you're interviewing me five or six times, and I'm feeling unseen, I'm feeling like I'm more or less going through a process instead of being a part of a process. It's going to create the consequences you're talking about. That's why when we talk about this humanization, how does a human feel going through six interviews?

Why don’t we ask them and understand their impact? Leaders are busy and sometimes they just feel they do what they think is right and they’re not asking impact questions. They're not figuring out the pros and cons. So they're just decent. Not great. Hopefully, they're good, but they're just decent leaders who are unaware of how they are impacting people. Or even worse, I really know I’m having a negative impact but I don't know what to do differently, so I'm just gonna keep an emotional distance from everyone, continue to do my job, and do it in a way where I can maintain my job and stay blind to the impact because if I dug deeper into it, it would come up in a way where I might need to change.

Desmond: The most liberating thing we can do in life is change. It’s okay to be different. I work in spaces where people are waiting for me to say or do something wrong. Many of us work in those spaces. If you're in the DEI space, the Inclusion and Belonging space, and it's become politicized, people are waiting for you to say something to validate their view or to be in opposition to their view.

In situations like that, I have to be willing to humanize that process and say, “Yeah, I did say that and that's not appropriate.” Or, “Hey, I didn't understand that.”

As we say at Arbinger, it's not about being right, it's about getting it right. I can be my most authentic if my mindset is if I make a mistake, I'll just work on getting it right. Some people are so hell-bent on being right, they can't move to that stage of getting it right which would greatly improve their capacity to lead others or to work with others.

Katty: That's powerful. That recognition itself is powerful, to come to that as a leader of an organization and as a manager of a team, and recognize just what you said, that DEI space is about belonging and to have not only the foresight, but the strength to step into this unknown, or maybe it's uncomfortable, but that's okay. Because growth comes from that and that's a good thing.

Desmond: I would add the DEI space is about office and work productivity. We neglect that part of it sometimes. It is about work productivity. Research has been out for a long time about how people perform when they feel a sense of belonging.

We have to stop putting this DEI thing in a separate space. This is one of the things I talk about in my ADT talk. If I'm a leader, DEI is over here, away from me and I'm just doing the training. I'm trying to do this inclusion training to make sure my organization is going to be productive, but I haven't included myself in inclusion work.

It's about the other folks, it's about the females, it's about the people of color, it's about people with different sexual orientations than I am. We're missing the main fact that it is about you, no matter what your background, orientation, or beliefs are. If we all are working on inclusion, instead of it being something these marginalized groups need in my organization, that's when it fails. It fails when I don't include myself in the inclusion process as a leader. And I'm somehow supporting and helping all these other groups, not recognizing that when I feel included in those groups and we’re all feeling included, then productivity is a direct result.

Katty: So powerful. It takes me to me. I'm an immigrant and I came here when I was in high school. In the middle of 9th grade, we immigrated to the States. I felt so excluded. I'm from Iran originally and this was in the middle of the hostage crisis. Probably not the best time, I felt, not the best time to be Iranian at that time, but I just felt very excluded. But I don't think anyone excluded me. I excluded myself because it felt like it was my protective layer of letting me exclude so that nobody says anything because that may hurt.

Desmond: There may be a twofold thing there, Katty. I'm going to protect myself because that's a lot easier than opening myself up to criticism and there's also the second part of it that could be I literally came from a different country where maybe society doesn't see it as a great place, and because of that, I might be susceptible to things that aren't nice. So it can be twofold, and that's the complexity of the work.

There are certain circumstances whereas an African American male, I'm probably a little overcautious. Like in how I engage people and how I communicate with people. I have bosses that are like, “Dezzy, you are way too agreeable.” I'm thinking in my mind like, do you guys want me to be disagreeable too? I don't. I don't want to come off as a disagreeable black guy that you work with. Agreeable works for me. Can you just let me let it work?

So there are parts of it that are grounded in my overprotection of myself, and parts of it are grounded in a lot of evidence that I've had throughout my life where people look at my skin color and treat me differently and make assumptions about me based upon that. It's that twofold nuance there and it's universal. You've had the experience that, I've had to experience that, and many people experience that in a lot of different spaces.

Katty: How do we ensure that in the workspace, in the hiring space, and in the recruiting space we can create this? We can close this proximity by using words where we can create a sense of belonging sooner than later. I think we recognize we need to do that but sometimes, it's too late and a candidate feels like they don't fit in. I'm leaving.

Desmond: That's a great question. Organizations need a common language. They need a common way to communicate. At Arbinger Institute, we try to provide people with that common language, but in like a worst-case scenario, you need everyone in the organization to understand this is our organization's definition of inclusion, belonging, diversity, and of equity. We need a common language so that we can take care of the people that we're bringing in.

The other part is we need to figure out where are our weak spots. Because most organizations are struggling internally with how they're treating each other. How can I expect the new people to come in and have a different experience? We need to work on the language. Focus on what's going on internally in our organization, and how we're currently treating each other, and then create a plan which humanizes the process across the board.

I know so many organizations, that want to create all these new processes for all the incoming people and the staff that are there, are like what? Do they get a $1000 bonus for getting hired? I understand the need to get people in the door, but I'm telling you, like, you need to humanize. The process get the common language is to figure out how to take care of people internally, then create a plan that involves the incoming people as well as the internal people in this process of belonging.

Katty: Because otherwise, you'll be creating separation.

Desmond: That's one of the common issues we have when organizations are trying to implement DEI work, it's not inclusive. They're trying to diversify but it's not inclusive and it's not creating levels of belonging that they would like. A lot of organizations like “What we do now?” Get a common language, take care of your people internally, make sure they're supported, and whatever you do over the next few years to create a strong inclusion and belonging system, do it across the board. I tell people, everything that they do should be able to be implemented across the board. If you can't do it across the board, you need to reflect upon it and see what your purpose is.

For example, there are a lot of groups and organizations like LGBTQ+, and Indigenous American groups. We have a lot of different groups and they're great if they're inclusive. If there is just a group for just people to talk amongst themselves about what's working and not working, then all it creates are silos. it's not inclusive. All the groups should be welcoming. All the groups should be sponsored in a way that they're providing education and support to everyone in the organization. I think from the recruitment and the new hires, doing things in a way where people are humanized across the board in the organization will get you a lot further than just focusing on the new hires who then come in, because then there are people who haven't gotten what they've gotten that are now having to train them. It's a lot of meaningful conflict.

One thing is to the middle managers and most organizations, I say that the C-Suite tries to define the culture. The middle managers and first-line supervisors are running with it. What I've learned is that we're neglecting first-line supervisors and middle-level managers. We're neglecting them and putting them in a situation where they get negative both ways. They're getting negative from all the problems they've got to deal with, with their staff, they're dealing with all the problems they have to deal with from the administrators about them, and they're just caught in the middle making two or three dollars more an hour than their staff, thinking what the hell is this, right?

What I've learned is that focusing on the trainers of these new hires, the first-line supervisors of these new hires, making sure they're cared for, they're trained in a way where they can be supportive, is everything. One of the most common things I see is “Hey Desmond, this is great training, but my first-line supervisor is still treating me like crap.” If we're not empowering our first-line supervisors, and caring for our first-line supervisors, then we're going to see ongoing issues with incoming staff.

Katty: What I'm hearing, Desmond is once we create that plan, it needs to be operationalized across everything. It can't be my twist on how we're going to be doing it. This is how we're doing it across the board at all levels. We all have to step into it. We all have to believe it. We all have to accept it otherwise, probably from a core value standpoint, it’s a mismatch anyway, right? It's probably not the right job for me. Someone who's not willing to embrace it.

Katty: You know, Katty, you're on point. I'd add one more word, modeling. You have to model. The strongest implementation of work is modeling. I tell people all the time and they think I'm weird, but it's just truthful. I say ever since I went to preschool, my parents have taught me. how to be safe as a black male in America. Be careful how you behave. Be careful how people respond to you. If you feel you're in danger, walk away. If there's an issue, do this. If someone comes to you in the middle of the night, call us. In my day, it was a pay phone. Get to a pay phone and call us. My whole life since I was in preschool, I've been trained to behave or act in certain ways to make sure my environment is safe; safe as I can control. I received my Ph.D. starting at the age of 4, 1/2 to now, of understanding people. Understanding the energy they bring, understanding the safety they bring or lack thereof. Understanding their frustrations and anger. I am just focused on the nuances of the people I work with, for good or bad. So when you come to me with this great, do I project right or this great initiative that we're going to do? And I'm using my skills. I'm 49 now. I'm using my 45 years' worth of skill to evaluate you as a person. I'm going to have a pretty clear, clean sense of whether you're genuine or not about the work you're going to do. Or whether this is just one more thing that you've been obligated to do as my supervisor

Katty: Checkbox, right?

Desmond: Yeah. I'm not alone in this. I'm not the only one in society that has been trained for safety to pick up on the nuances of others. I know women who will tell me at least you can walk around at night. It’s like I've talked to women who said, Oh my goodness, like that has been my experience, Ever since I've grown up, I've been very sensitive for my safety. So people know when people are thinking, they know when things matter to them. A lot of times we have these leaders that are going through the motions of the work. People know. Just before they even open their mouths, whether it's something authentic, or whether it's something you're just going to do the motions on. That's one of the reasons the DEI processes often fail.

Katty: Tell me about the process you guys have at Arbinger and please share a little bit about Arbinger and what it is that you do and how you go into organizations to create impact.

Desmond: We are an organizational change organization. We work on mindset change. One of our mottos is we like to humanize the workplace. We go into organizations through consulting and training, and we help create a common language. We call it the outward mindset, our ability to see people as people, or our ability to see people as objects. In the process of creating this language, we have multiple curriculums: outward performance, outward leadership, and outward inclusion, are just 3 trainings we have to help humanize the process, whether it's in performance, whether it's in leadership, or whether it's in inclusion work to humanize the process in a way in which people have a sense of our authenticity.

In a way in which people feel seen and they respond based upon it. We have multiple frameworks built around this understanding that humanizing another person, that's our quickest way to create resolution. In most of our most complicated circumstances and situation.

Katty: Amazing. I'll be providing your contact information and Arbinger if anyone wants to reach out to you and needs that support to bring that into their organization. But if they wanted to do it on their own, if they were so passionate about creating a sense of community and belonging and just being heard and being present, how did they go about it themselves? What's the first thing you talked about? A common language, but maybe that's beyond them, right? Maybe that's an organizational thing. Be just within their team, what can they do?

Desmond: There are a few basics, you can start by reading. We have a couple of best seller books. One is called “Leadership and Self-Deception.” It's on Amazon, one of the best sellers on organizational behavior work. And one book is called “Anatomy of Peace.” It's probably one of the number one or #2 conflict resolution books on Amazon. Then a third book we have is called “Outward Mindset”. So those are good foundational books that you can start to read. You can read them as a team and then start to get some of that language together. We also have public workshops. You can go to www.arbinger.com. There are public workshops you can sign up for there as well to take a deeper dive into some of the things I'm talking about. We have a bunch of different mechanisms like I said, from the options of just grabbing one of those books, to signing up for a public workshop. We have a bunch of options that we offer as an organization.

Katty: It seems that as long as someone is open to having those half-hour meetings that you were having with your team, which sounds like with existing and new people. We just really need to open up the door for bringing our full person to work, our full self to work. Just really look at people as if they are who they are, they're human beings. They're not the admin. They're not the tech guy. They're not the designer. They're human beings. A human is being there with challenges, struggles, aspirations, all of that and we need to see that.

Desmond: Yes, and I will throw one more nugget out there for your podcast to reflect upon. When I don't see the humanity of another person, then I spent a lot of time justifying why they're not human or not as human as I am. When I stay in that justification, I form bonds of anguish and frustration with those individuals.

When we're asking you to see people as people, we're not asking you to just only see the good side of people or take a Mother Teresa approach to life where you're giving everything of yourself. What we're asking for you to do by seeing another person's humanity, is breaking free of the bonds of anguish that are associated with seeing them as an object. We're asking for emotional and cognitive freedom. When you see the humanity of another person, it's a much better place to start.

When you're looking at the challenges and conflicts of your life, if you start with objectification, it's always going to be much more difficult to resolve something than when you start with an analogy, another personality. And like I said, someone may say, well, That's what somebody is saying. I can feel it. But I'm telling you, we all struggle with this, and it's just a dilemma that we got to limit and learn to face while doing our work, doing busy work, and accomplishing the tasks that we need to do at work.

Katty: That's probably it. We're so busy running around in ten different directions that it feels like if I take a pause back, and connect with you, I don't have time for that so can you do whatever you need to do?

Desmond: Right. Katty, you're on point. We don't see it as a part of a long-term solution. Taking that 15 to 20 minutes to understand a person more deeply, to help that person to solve their concerns, were more likely to get the accountability that we seek. In objectification that's associated with correction and it goes back to the whole impact piece. Then I may not realize that my intent may be just to get it done quickly, but the impact that I'm leaving with you as well, you can't do it yourself. So let me do it for you. Yeah, that's a whole conversation there too.

Desmond: Beautifully stated.

Katty: Thank you so much for taking the time and talking about what it means to be inclusive, and what it means to create a space of belonging in a in a work organization. But really we're talking about beyond that, we're talking about just in any interaction between any two people. That's talking about.

Desmond: I've learned  a quote recently that was like “when you interact with people, we want to leave them better than when the came.” The goal in life is to leave a person better off with the experience you've had with them then when they first interacted with you. I've made my mistakes and had my struggles in life for sure to accomplish that, but I think being much more aware that that's a process for me has been very helpful to recognize that each person is a person. One of my goals in life is to improve my impact on that person.

Katty: Thank you for sharing that message with everyone. If we all could do that, it would be a beautiful world. Well, thank you so much again. As we wrap up this conversation, I will share the books that you mentioned. I know you've authored some of them, “The Anatomy of Peace.” Incredibly impactful. I got a chance to get that when we were at a ATD. I want to thank you for taking the time to being here with us and talking about this really, really incredibly important conversation. Not just because we need to check a box, but because we all need to see each other as the humans that we are.

Desmond: Yes, and I will add, I didn't author the book, the Arbinger Institute as a whole did, but, thank you. You'll find the books and Amazon at the Arbinger Institute. They listed there as an institution.

Thank you, Katty. I appreciate your time. Thank you for the invitation. Thank you for being the type of human being that's willing to lean into conversations that I think create solutions where we often don't see solutions. Some people see this space as a dilemma that we have to overcome or try to figure out, but there are a lot of solutions and inclusion in this space. Thank you for inviting me to be a part of your podcast.

 Katty: It's been a pleasure talking to you, Desmond. Thank you.