August 8, 2021

Just Tea Sundays Episode 2: 3 Steps for Creating Inclusion with your Colleagues and Friends

I was a junior associate at a Wall Street law firm when I experienced my first epiphany about how easy it is to exclude someone on the basis of their identity without even realizing it. In this case, I was part of doing the excluding!

My experience opened my eyes to how colleagues can act together to create exclusion without consciously intending to, how we can reinforce exclusion and interpersonal resistance to change once we realize what is happening, and the important role that power plays in the potential consequences of unconscious exclusion.

In today’s episode, the second in our series on unconscious resistance to change, I will demonstrate how it is that, as dedicated as you are to making DEIB real in your organization or company, you and your White colleagues can often make this one unconscious decision that results in your colleagues from underrepresented or marginalized communities being (and feeling) excluded. This kind of decision often defies the best intentions of DEIB policies because it happens in split-second, every-day, “normal” ways of being. I will also discuss how greater access to power makes this situation worse.

This second episode of Just Tea Sundays will show you how to recognize this one decision that can determine if your organization is inclusive or hostile to your colleagues from marginalized or underrepresented communities and learn three steps that you can take to ensure that you and your colleagues are not part of the problem together. We invite you to Come Abide Here. Come Hungry/Leave Transformed.