welcome to new beginnings with karen dell and i am so pleased to have joining me today audrey levy she is a author of flex and the new playbook for managing across differences she is an executive coach and a global leadership and diversity strategist and we're going to have a great time welcome thank you so much for having me karen it's great to be here for this conversation yes definitely and  you and i met over a year ago and maybe maybe two years ago i actually i think a year ago at a conference yeah yeah and as soon as we met we chatted you had indicated he would just finished a book and i said you got to come to my show and we didn't get that done and then we were in philadelphia and ran into each other yes and i said my kind of years pas we've gotten together yes yes so i am so pleased to have you here you know you have a great sense of humor i know there's going to be a lot of laughter and a lot of learning a lot of learning yes yeah you know what the topic of  diversity and leadership development there's always learning even just having a great discussion and conversation you pick up new ideas and new perspectives right right so i could be great yeah here so tell me a little bit about you know who you coach because i'm a fellow coach who you coach some of the things that come up in your coaching engagements and then we'll talk about your book sure i work quite a bit with companies within companies to put together training programs for developing leaders i also coach one on one professionals who are stepping into roles of leadership that's everything from an individual contributor who's going to be a leader managing a team for the first i'm or more per level senior management leaders that are facing challenges in the job so i coach quite a quite a number of those in all industries different sizes of organizations fortune five hundred stone to small medium businesses and put together programs and work with them in leadership development and i also do work in how culture and how differences are backgrounds impact  our development as leaders and how we behave and communicate how that translates into our interactions in the workplace and that's really what you're just talking about in terms of our interactions and our backgrounds and how that impacts our leadership is really what interests me in that i mean what have you found because there are books about this yes and i'm just curious what you found in your travels i found that the conversation of diversity right gets put in a silo you know it has its own department it's its own topic and those of us in the room talking about diversity and inclusion are very passionate about it there are a lot of great reasons for businesses to care but sometimes that conversation is just in that room and it really needs to get on the desk of upper management all the way from the top all the way down right so throughout the organization all business leaders and organizational leaders need to understand what they're dealing with in today's marketplace right in today's workforce so what are the factors that are at play with who's sitting inside the office and who the customer is and they have to know how to deal with that so when we talk about when we think about you know the books that have been written diversity there's a lot of great research and there's great thought in and tips to how to put that together but we have to the argument for the business leader for the business case of why this is a reality that people have to face and some of the some of the dangers and some of the pain points that diversity brings in order to get to the place of inclusion because i think we all sometimes assume we put the argument out that diversity is just great thing it's factored innovation in and you know having all this diverse thought and background coming into the company but how do we manage that the pain points that occur so that's what i really wanted to address with this book my co author and i wanted to hit those stories we wanted to define what makes a leader package all of that so first of all what are some of the pain points you know in communication i think that there are a lot of misunderstandings and i think there's a the idea that diversity is great and that there are you know it's great as soon as you put a team of diverse people in a room that they're automatically going to start getting away and understanding they're going to come up with all these great ideas in this brainstorming session and you know they're going to go out to the marketplace and they're going to reach all these new markets and actually a lot of research has shown that when you actually put a team of diverse people together it actually is initially initially unproductive with a lot of tension potential conflicts you know so we're dealing with that and it only becomes constructive and productive and of ative when there isn't and vironment that accepts those differences and there's a leader who knows how to integrate those differences so that's very important right the environment and the culture of the team and the organization and then if the individuals in the team understand how to resolve those those conflicts and those your i value your opinion but not not only do i appreciate it i think that's really useful for what we're doing here in order to meet our objectives so i think that those these pain points of not seeing that and saying well it's just going to happen piece is just going to happen right and we don't have to work at it is is a concern is a pain point and they see it managers will see it up and down it will show up in things like the per a career progression perhaps of a of a high potential into individual you know that individual might be frustrated because they're not connecting with an environment company culture that's very different from their own values or their own behavior they're not getting rewarded right for their behavior but why you know how do we figure that out and it shows up in you know all sorts of ceilings that pop up you know in equities in the biases that pop up of how do we hire our talent how do we how do we even define leadership how do we identify what a high potential leader is so that we can train them you know build the pipeline and really get the leaders that are going to lead the company with the organization into the future so i think these are pain points that pop up there and they're really important address yeah absolutely you know and i know you've heard this before when you put a team together whether it's diverse or not there's the stage from you know storming norming for so regardless of diversity just putting people together there's a progression of you know how do we know how do we mesh we have diverse ideas and then on top of that what i hear you saying there is this layer of you know our individual differences in our background and maybe the culture of the company and how does that fit with who i am and what i want to contribute and then how do i get my voice at the table exactly right diversity they like to say is who who is at the table right in my work isn't so much in bringing people into the company so much as it is inclusion where the question becomes the question becomes what ways are heard and where who has the power and the in right lines and that's really critical right because you can get people at the table but if you're not hearing them if you're not hearing their stories if you're not using them why are they there so that's a that's a big that's a big issue and i think in really having the two come together right now you also talked about helping people share their stories and that is particularly important you know i want to talk about your book but i can ignore kind of what's going on in the world and how instead of celebrating differences there seems to be foot to you know sameness earlies that's what it feels like and  people are sensing that if i'm an immigrant or if i have something that makes me different i'm not in a safe environment to share that to you know to have others understand my story and so i just wonder you know your thoughts on that and then also how do you encourage people particularly in an environment that we're in now to speak up and share their stories i don't think that's universally true but you know with all that's going on in the world right now certainly there's a push it feels like a push to have people assimilate in not be different yes you know it's so relevant actually to this book but when i was thinking about i thought maybe people don't want a diverse environment or maybe they don't want to be in a global market and worse we're seeing that we have to are starting to have to fight against what we thought to be an you know we don't want to deal with ridiculous rhetoric where we're thinking well you know we're just going to go back to the way we were but i think now we're fighting for really the benefits and the what what we've come to know is you know this global world and global citizenship so we're thinking about that it's really important to keep telling our stories actually individually and as a company or organizations need to tell their stories and get it out there i think for  individuals the problem with stereotypes right is you only have one or two common stories that represent your group right right that's out there everyone makes assumptions because that's the lazy and easy way to sling about people absolutes so the more stories we get out there from everybody all types of backgrounds the more we start hearing the nuances the experiences so that's really important right because there's a danger in just hearing that stereotype and the second thing is it really builds that commonality and humanizes everyone it's very natural for us and i are wired this way to move toward sameness and we have to look at that phenomena and even what's going on now and say well i'm going to have a little bit of empathy for that sympathy at least and say we're wired to gravitate toward someone like us because it's comfortable and we know what's going on but if we see someone is different than us you might you know you might say well are they friend or foe are they is do i have to defend myself i don't know yet and if i don't know i'm going to put a put up a wall right i'm going to put my defenses and say i'm going to have to check you out i'm going to let you suspiciously so we actually have to be taught to to to lower our guard and to start trusting each other and i think telling our story helps that so we need more stories and i think for companies you know it's interesting you mentioned the stories because i think companies now are finding that their stories are even more powerful and by stories you know this is linked to their brand to their mission statement to their values and you know it's not it's not just about putting out your product or service a brand can stand for values and it doesn't even have to be like well  we're doing that because we have to follow the law and if the laws are established i guess we're trapped by that they're like no you know i'm just a couple weeks ago last week international women's day when state street global advisors  put up that statue sponsored that statue her little girl on wall street in front of the bowl right with the attitude right and with the confidence to make a statement about women in the workplace and and their gesture of sending out their letter to to really insisting create guidelines and in milestones for i think it's sort of five hundred thirty five hundred companies to really engage in this conversation that you need to put women on your board right and that statement was a store a part of their story saying this is who we are and as a company we there's no law that you have to have women on your board right but they're saying no we've we've read the research yes and we've seen on the ground what diverse companies look like and the benefit both to the company as well as the marketplace so we're going to stand behind that and our story is about diversity yeah right  and so that becomes a story that they're telling and given who they are and many other companies besides it raised me right there out there talking about the journey with with dealing with this global and diverse marketplace and they're putting their stories out there and other companies are saying that's the best practice is right there is an example there is a role model i can follow and i just wanted to you know bring this up because childs is a he's a diversity mazing right now pioneer in diversity and really set up the best practices starting at i b m and everyone looks to him and he he likes to point to the fact that by twenty forty we will no longer be a nation just the majority will be a minority majority mission right so when he looks at that he also points to the statistic that twenty five percent of that population will be white caucasian males right and so he says to c e o s and heads of companies and leaders do you want to draw your future leadership from that twenty five percent exclusively like is that all you're going to draw from you're just going to percent really you know are you going to only look at that that twenty five percent of the population to be your customers and your talent to be leading or come to your company in all of these new markets and that really hits home to me because that's where it becomes a business imperative well if we can't talk to each other even if we're constantly misunderstanding the foundations of relationship building how are we going to solve these pain points that come that just pop up right and it does it may not look like a quote unquote diversity problem but it's something that has to be addressed and seen with a different lens so that you can identify it solve it and just as a simple example  respect i think respect and trust are foundational for any relation there whether it's implicit or you spend a lot of time building it and even something simple like in some countries and in many countries in asia for example i contact you know i contact is about connection yes right and that connection is thought of as disrespectful when it's not appropriate and you don't have that don't assume you have that connection with me because you're not at my level but i think so there's a little bit of that piece of it and there's no judgment on it that that's how they really respect yeah right that's how they they have the same value of respect but they express it differently really look away but what happens to someone from that culture who's been brought up with that particular ward system comes into it environment where respect is about you know connecting and eye contact and that actually means confidence and that you respect me because you're looking at me and if you don't look at me maybe you're lying maybe a little shifty and i can't trust you so instead of building more trust and more respect all the sudden someone say i don't know if i can trust her right not looking at me i should why i don't know and so that you can it's easy to see oh yeah some we're not we're not talking to each other right and but who changes and that's the concept of flex is do we do we wait for someone else to come to us and i think that's been the default mode right in the if you're in the dominant majority culture the default is kind of you know this is this is the way we do things here so everyone else has to be in compliance to our style right how we see leaders and they walked across the room to to me and flex say no we really have to walk toward each other right right and and what are the what are the implications of all of that i love the you know description because it it conjure images in my head of people walking towards each other literally in your really it's a mutual as opposed to hierarchical desk and the other thing i like about what you're saying is there's a responsibility on both ends so people who come to this country where english may not be their first language their cottage industr to you know have x a reduction yes there are cottage industries that teach how to present yourself in a more confident way right but to your point we are in a global society chances of going all the way back are probably not going to happen you can put up tariffs and trade agreements and that kind of thing but the ship has sailed and  're more connected by devices in a nanosecond you know across the globe then we've ever been and i don't think any business person wants to trade that they want to go beyond their borders to do business and they want to get the best talent and i think you know and i get i'm listening to you and i'm also thinking about society in terms of where we are now and i think some of corporations are not going to go back they are pushing forward to your point and use the you know that corporate example the other example i thought of in during the are they they see it as a intrinsic value probably one they didn't think that they needed to tout but in love in light of you know what's surfacing they thought no we need to we need to assure people who we are what we stand for and our global employee base needs to know you know that we're with them and they're with us yes so i hear what you're saying and i think that it is very powerful and still necessary i don't necessary to talk about the a and maybe even more so right we've got we were tracking along in this evolution of the growing toward understanding and you know reconciliation here i brought a sense of right and really this maybe is an opportunity to say wait a minute maybe we're not as far along as we thought let's not let's just go back to where we actually are right and this is this is a mindset absolute of you know the two coming together and the responsibility being taken by both sides and it's the behavior and it's really measuring the impact because otherwise you know what's go happen with this what's going to happen with the your company's goals and objectives in the marketplace it's simply just can't we if we can't communicate right away so i think it's it's it's very relevant to right now to have those tools and to to say you know i also in these conversations a lot of people they they get the picture of two two entities walking together toward each other but they're like no we have to meet exactly halfway like that's that's the essence of of leadership at its broadest definition is you you have to rise above that and take that responsibility even if it's more than fifty percent you know if you're the leader in the situation you know either enroll in title or just you know who you are and what you bring forward into the into the workplace you you take that responsibility for yourself right and you help them to bring them to an understanding so i think for people in minority populations we have an opportunity let's not even say you know what we have to do this but it's an opportunity to tell our story again maybe again and again in school tiring sometimes but the opportunity to really define who we are as individuals who we are with our cultural backgrounds or specific backgrounds that makes this quote unquote different to the majority to bring that forward and say you know i want to i want to show you why you know you may not know because you're not used to seeing someone like me in th role but this is this is why who i am right this is what makes me me and this is the value that i bring it to bring to you to this team into the organization it's really interesting a number of years ago i and started playing down there with his violin case out ready to lead up to you know complex change loose change and he played you know for a number of hours down there and nobody stopped it's very interesting you know i'm probably maybe enjoying it passing by but nobody stopped to listen and this is a musician who is paid hundreds of dollars to see a carnegie hall or an recital hall and i think that a lot of times of people don't have that frame around the picture they're not exactly sure what they're looking at right and so rather than saying these people don't appreciate art you know what's helped them you know let's tell them this is a picasso you know what i what you see here is an old bastard and this is how to identify and this is what's special about it so i think that there's that opportunity when we start winking and thinking about how we can flex and really start with that mindset of openness and best intention to think the best about someone rather than assume that everyone is against you which is heart yes you know but that it requires that kind of mindset and then moving forward into elation shipbuilding yeah and one thing that i because we only have a few minutes i am thinking of is the whole discussion around diversity also gives that twenty five percent of white males an opportunity to show their diversity as well and you know oftentimes when these discussions happen there's a sense of well what happens to me but all whites didn't grow up to sa just like all asians blacks hispanics africans you know you name it we all have different stories and you know there's diversity within that community but sometimes because they have  assumed advantage yes they don't share it but there is diversity there yes and so before we go i just need to ask you so what is going to be your new beginning for twenty seventeen it's to really actually have this conversation with more companies more individuals and leaders in light of what's going on right that what the stakes are right now i think are higher right to get that story out there so that's a continuation but i feel like it's new based on absolute what's happening now so i and every day is new and in looking at that i have my own practice so you're always looking at starting again with a conversation with different  companies and individuals you know very well andre thank you so much for joining us and explaining your book in your approach to this work of coaching and leadership development and thank you for t