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Empathy and Allyship

Change Catalyst Founder & CEO Melinda Briana Epler leads a weekly webinar about leading with empathy and being an ally both in and out of the workplace. Epler also has a TED Talk on this subject, which is embedded below.

TED Talk

Here are some takeaways from the TED Talk.

  • Small behaviors like not paying attention or interrupting someone wear you down when repeated.

  • Toxic workplace culture and microaggressions go hand in hand.

  • Underrepresented people in the workplace need diversity and inclusion changes.

  • Diversity and inclusion is not a side project.

  • Unlearn what you think you know about opportunity. Some people are inherently at a disadvantage.

  • Allyship is about understanding the imbalance in opportunity and working to change it.

  • Develop more inclusive teams and become more profitable, productive, successful.

  • Work every day to be an ally for those with less privilege than yourself. There is always someone with less privilege than you.

  • Do this work for someone; for business, social justice, or for the future generations.

  • Start by doing no harm (listen and learn, don’t interrupt, normalize calling yourself out), then advocate for underrepresented people in small ways. Finally, work towards changing someone’s life significantly (volunteer, mentor, transform your team/company, make real commitments to making change).

Webinar: Creating structural change in the workplace

Epler's July 21st Zoom webinar was about creating structural change in the workplace and featured special guest Rachel Williams, Head of Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at X. Williams is a Black woman and shared her unique perspective on allyship in the workplace. Here are some takeaways from this hour-long webinar.

Rachel Williams' story:

  • As a child, she was bussed from one part of her Silicon Valley to another so she could go to a better school and she was one of the only black girls.

  • Microaggressions and unconscious bias were not talked about in her job at Yelp, so she left. She left millions of dollars behind, but later gave Yelp feedback, which was received and used effectively, and she was eagerly re-hired.

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Takeaways:

  • To actually change someone’s behavior, there has to be daily, micro-learnings, not just a training session (One way to start is by completing the UNL Bystander Intervention Training linked at the bottom of this page).

  • Unconscious bias will always be there, what we should be doing is changing behavior and implementing structural changes. This will change the actual environment.

  • Empathy/emotional intelligence is very important (Daniel Goleman is an expert on this). There are three types of empathy: Emotional empathy, cognitive empathy, and concerned empathy that promotes action. The third one should be used here.

  • To promote structural change in the workplace: Understand that there are systems of power and then figure out where you are in that power structure. The top needs to take action using concerned empathy and allyship and make changes for those lower than them. Account for those lower than you.

  • Education is great but it doesn’t actually make the structural changes.

  • CEOs need to understand how to be inclusive leaders and how outside events are impacting your team. Account for what’s going on and making your team less productive.

  • Compassion leads to action.

  • Empathetic design (designing for the few/the edge cases) will make it be designed for all.

    • The edge cases are folks that are disabled, POC, LBGTQ, or any other minority.

  • If you can redesign everything for a pandemic, surely you can redesign for the edge cases.

  • To build empathy in the systems, use an empathetic view when hiring, feedback, and onboarding.

  • Allyship: Think about what you’re leaving behind (your legacy) in terms of changes for other people.

  • As a leader, you have to be focused on abundance, not scarcity

  • Intersectionality: Rachel leads with her blackness before identifying as a woman, while Melinda leads as being a woman. The way people claim their identity is different.

  • There is very little cost to being an ally, lead by example and speak up on others’ behalf.

  • Get leadership to spend time on learning about minority groups

  • If you are not at the top of the power systems, you are taking a huge risk by pushing for change. Work at a company where your voice will be heard.

  • Understand the history/context and how we got here as a country.

  • Understand the other side and educate yourself.

  • Deploy your advocacy in the most informed and effective way. Be aware of what the other side is saying no matter how painful it might be to hear it.

 

 

Questions:

  • You’re already designing your marketing strategy based on biases. How about changing those biases?

  • HR should be building their outreach strategy based on the edge cases. How else can we evaluate technical and soft skills?

  • Keep up with intersectionality on your applications. In checkmark boxes about race, can you only pick one?

  • Our social media/news algorithms are feeding us the information we are already looking for. What don’t you know? What info are you not seeking out?

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