<p>Don’t miss this engaging conversation with human dynamics expert, Cherrie Davis, in part two of the Global and Cultural Effectiveness mini-series. Host Gloria Sinclair Miller leads an openly honest and forthcoming conversation, and you’ll learn about the blurred lines between diversity and inclusion and the notion of race as an economic value. Also, Cherrie's book on inclusion, ShiftForward Now!, <a href="https://cherriedavis.com/book/">is available now</a>. <br />---<br />EARN SHRM RECERTIFICATION PDCs FOR LISTENING<br /><br />Honest HR podcast episodes will help you build your competencies while earning professional development credits (PDCs) toward your SHRM-CP/SHRM-SCP recertification! All you have to do is listen to a full mini-series to earn PDCs! All relevant details, including the Activity IDs, are provided during the podcast recording itself.</p>
Don’t miss this engaging conversation with human dynamics expert, Cherrie Davis, in part two of the Global and Cultural Effectiveness mini-series. Host Gloria Sinclair Miller leads an openly honest and forthcoming conversation, and you’ll learn about the blurred lines between diversity and inclusion and the notion of race as an economic value. Also, Cherrie's book on inclusion, ShiftForward Now!, is available now.
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EARN SHRM RECERTIFICATION PDCs FOR LISTENING
Honest HR podcast episodes will help you build your competencies while earning professional development credits (PDCs) toward your SHRM-CP/SHRM-SCP recertification! All you have to do is listen to a full mini-series to earn PDCs! All relevant details, including the Activity IDs, are provided during the podcast recording itself.
Speaker 4:
Welcome to the Honest HR podcast, the show that explores the uncomfortable, complicated, and sometimes wonderful truths of the workplace. We're here to have honest conversations, giving you the good, the bad and the ugly side of HR. Nothing is off the table. This is a SHRM podcast approved to provide SHRM CP and SHRM SCP re-certification PDCs. Details will be provided inside each qualifying episode. I'm Wendy Fong.
Speaker 3:
I'm [inaudible 00:00:28] Clayton.
Gloria Miller:
And I'm Gloria Sinclair Miller.
Speaker 4:
And we are your three hosts.
Gloria Miller:
Hello everyone. And welcome back. I'm your host, Gloria Sinclair Miller, SHRM field services director. Today, we are concluding our mini series on global and cultural effectiveness. This podcast is approved to provide re-certification PDCs, but only if you listen to the full mini series.
In the first part of this mini series, we talked about inclusion and race relations globally, and how to work with your teams and leaders. Today, we'll continue that conversation about inclusion and how we continue to move forward with my guest, Cherrie Davis.
Cherrie is a human dynamics expert and visionary leader with nearly three decades of experience in people and processes. She is a recognized speaker, coach facilitator and change management leader. Cherrie is genuinely curious about people and what it takes to elevate them to action. She is committed to growth for the professional you and the personal you. Cherrie just finished her first book, Shift Forward Now, a strategy that makes inclusion second to nature. The release date will be October 2020.
Cherrie, welcome to Honest HR.
Cherrie Davis:
Oh, well thank you Gloria. I appreciate it. I'm glad to be here.
Gloria Miller:
Well, I am super excited to have you here. Why don't we start off with you telling our listeners a little bit more about your background?
Cherrie Davis:
Sure. I tell people it is probably the background of Skittles. So there's a whole bunch of everything in the bowl with me. I grew up in New York in a multiethnic and a multiracial home. My godmother was Irish. My godfather was a true Italian and my mom was a Southern Baptist woman. So needless to say, it was pretty loud in our house, but pretty cool at the same time.
Gloria Miller:
But a whole bunch of Skittles.
Cherrie Davis:
But a whole bunch of Skittles, there we go. And growing up in New York, you're surrounded by a whole bunch of different people and things, and it really gives you a good rich feeling of what the world should sort of look like. So that was kind of nice.
Then in my adult years, I joined the service at the age of 18, spent 28 years in it. Started out as a combat medic, got sick all the time around kids, so I switched over to HR and it was probably the best thing I could have done because I found my passion in HR, because it's about the people and really about how people interact. Retired after 28 years, as a Lieutenant Colonel. Had the opportunity to work in profit and non-profit organizations and anything from quality, all the way through to the strategic operations of HR.
And five years ago, I started my own company called Shift Forward Consulting and it was, again, about taking care of people. And we landed on four elements, inclusion, communication, culture, and leadership. That's what brought me to your doorstep today.
Gloria Miller:
That's great. And first of all, thank you for your service, as the daughter of a army officer, a female veteran as well, I thank you because I know what a commitment that is for you. But also, we share this passion for people and diversity and especially the inclusion part because you and I, as black women, as leaders in our organization, the conversations that we're having today, not only in the U.S., but quite frankly, globally, are not new conversations. I often say the only thing new about the conversation today is social media.
Cherrie Davis:
That's true. That's probably right on.
Gloria Miller:
The fact that everything is on broadcast the minute something happens. So on that note about inclusion and communication, I really want to dive in and get your perspective. So how do you see the difference between diversity and inclusion?
Cherrie Davis:
I think diversity and inclusion are two very separate things. I believe probably... If you kind of remember bringing up social media... About two years ago, you would see these ads that showed people with disabilities or people who had challenges as being inclusion. That to me is not inclusion. That's an extension of diversity. We are continuing to welcome in people who do not look like you, who do not function like you do. And again, that's diversity. So inclusion to me is action. It's taking all those diverse people, their thoughts and their talent, and you are putting them in motion so that you can get a great solution at the end.
Gloria Miller:
No, that's great. And you are bring up a great point because having worked in the diversity and inclusion space, you have this piece of, hey, great, we hired X, Y, Z. We're diverse. It's done.
Cherrie Davis:
That takes me to another level. I'm sorry. In the book that I wrote, I take people through this scenario of, I have one white person, I have one Asian person, I have a female veteran, I have somebody who has a disability. Did we get the PTS guy? Okay, picture's good, I'm really winning in this whole inclusion game.
And you're not. What you are winning in is creating a variety of opportunities for people to leverage their talents and skills, so you can see things from a different angle. That's what you do when you put all the different people together. Sorry. Didn't mean to do that. It just drives me crazy.
Gloria Miller:
No, I think it drives us both crazy because it's this checking the box mentality that we've got everybody, let's move forward. So how do you think... Given all the events that have happened over the past six months and the conversations that are happening on a national and global scale at this point, what's different today? What do you see?
Cherrie Davis:
I think today... First, to drive home the point, these conversations are not new and I don't think the revelations are new. My perspective about DNI and race with events today are... The social events are now forcing our hand for everybody to get below the surface of diversity, equity and race and inclusion. And it's forcing people, and I've always said this, to reset themselves because you have to first really have a good understanding of race to be able to really provide a true diverse equity and inclusive environment and know what that means to everyone.
Gloria Miller:
Absolutely.
Cherrie Davis:
Yeah. There's something I want to share with you before we go too far down, because I really want the listeners to understand how I'm looking at race. I found a quote by David R., and his name I think is Rodeger. It struck me to the core. It says, "The world got along without race for the overwhelming majority of its history. The U.S. has never been without it."
Gloria Miller:
That is so on point and true.
Cherrie Davis:
Yeah, it is. And so that made me really wonder why he said that and going back to the events that we're facing today, I think America doesn't really understand how race came to be and how we've utilized it as an economic value. I went to the Smithsonian out in Washington D.C., the African American museum. And for those who haven't been... Have you been?
Gloria Miller:
It's a fantastic experience. Absolutely.
Cherrie Davis:
It is. And it's amazing to watch how people slow down in time. And as they go up through the museum, you can see each step being made in a great progress, but there's always two steps forward, one step back.
Gloria Miller:
Correct.
Cherrie Davis:
So there was something that they had in there that I think really echoes to what we're talking about today. And it told us it taught me how race came to be. May I share it?
Gloria Miller:
Sure, absolutely.
Cherrie Davis:
Great. Race is a human invented shorthand term used to describe and categorize people into various social groups based on characteristics like skin color, physical features and genetic heredity. Race and is not a valid biological concept. It's a real social construction that gives or denies benefits and privileges American society developed, keyword developed, the notion of race early in its transformation to justify its new economic system of capitalism, which depended on the institution of forced labor, especially the enslavement of African peoples and those after who are not considered white.
So back to what are we doing with that today? I think our climate is almost reliving outwardly that word race and how people see it, and see people who are not white. And that's a challenge.
Gloria Miller:
It is a challenge. And thank you for sharing that. And I wholeheartedly believe we're seeing that play out over and over again, even as it relates to what we're going through with the global pandemic and the economics around unemployment and the healthcare disparities that exist on getting testing or not getting testing, depending upon what community you're in. It's all playing out all over again.
Cherrie Davis:
It is. And what's interesting is when I think about how I continue to gravitate more and more towards this whole inclusion thing, because for me, inclusion goes all the way back to people, right? If we all want to be a part of something and we do, I think generally people want to be a part of something and they want to be valued and they want to be thought of as an intricate part of a team, even those who are introverted. It's just human nature.
What I think is different about the conversation as well is it's being held openly between white and black people. We're not hiding behind the word ethnicity and we're not hiding behind the word culture. And with that opened conversation, there's some stumbling that goes along right with it. But the important thing I think about that is when we have these open conversations about black and white and race, we are forcing ourselves to revisit the historical perspective of racism, which goes back to your point, right?
So it helps people to understand why a group of people feel disenfranchised, because we live in a disenfranchised environment. Even those who have climbed the highest levels in corporate America, or who've amassed a certain amount of wealth, to people on the street who are not black, I'll say it, to white people, when they look at you, unless they know what your balance sheet looks like, they probably don't give you half a look. That doesn't mean all white people, so let's just be very clear about it. But it is the underlying thought in America that there is a divide between white and black and it plays out in, like you said, our healthcare, early education. It plays out in our living conditions, in access. And even now, today it plays out in our employment.
Gloria Miller:
Absolutely. And to your point, so SHRM research team released a report recently, it was part of the launch to our together forward at work platform where we surveyed and this was just our HR population. But I think you and I can agree that if we expanded it out to business leaders and healthcare workers, we'd probably see similar results. But it talked about that workplace dynamic of... It says one third of black American HR professionals don't feel respected or valued at work. And again, you could expand that out and I'm sure the number would be the same. If you said people of color or people who are not white, half were saying their workplaces don't do enough to promote race relations or have conversations. And quite frankly, to what we're talking about really promote that inclusive culture. It's 2020.
Cherrie Davis:
It is 2020.
Gloria Miller:
We got some work to do.
Cherrie Davis:
We need to keep working. Because I think we have been and that's, I think, the frustrating point, right? It's not, we have some work to do. We have been working. But now I think the work is all about driving to the core of it because you are not going to have true diversity and true equity and people are not going to truly want to participate if they are not truly feeling valued and in today's environment.
And let's just be frank about it. Honest HR, right? It's truly the political environment coupled with our social environment that has pulled that veil back to say, yes... We're probably one of the youngest countries in the world. I think we are the youngest country in the world. We're the youngest superpower in the world. And it hasn't even been 50 years that we have been on this journey of, I am just as good as you and you are just as good as I am. We're turning a battleship in a small puddle and we're getting stuck.
Gloria Miller:
Exactly, exactly. So I think our listeners can appreciate, given your passion, why you decided to write about diversity. And really what inspired you to write about diversity?
Cherrie Davis:
Well, it's actually... I touch on diversity, but I specifically am targeting inclusion.
Gloria Miller:
Yep, that's what I meant, inclusion.
Cherrie Davis:
And this is why. Because I believe there's a blurred line between diversity and inclusion and it is a line that is really hard for us to be very clear with. And part of that comes with how we as human beings show up at work. So I spent about three years thinking about this book and I was like, well maybe not. Then I thought, well, why not?
So what I think happens with people generally, and most often it's not white people, but it's every other person in the world is we are forced to assimilate and we are forced to not bring our whole selves to work. So oftentimes if you don't bring your whole self to work, it's really tough for somebody to humanize you. And in order for us to get there, I felt we probably need to figure out how to accelerate inclusion in an environment. And the best way you accelerate anything is as you change somebody's mind.
Gloria Miller:
That's true.
Cherrie Davis:
And it's not about really changing your mind, it's helping you shift your mindset from how you thought about inclusion, how you think about people, how you think about environments and then help you create habits that will then force your conversation to change. And when your conversation changes your behavior follows, that's why I decided to write it.
Gloria Miller:
No, that makes complete sense. So you coach a lot of leaders, a lot of teams on this topic. And I often hear, as I'm sure you do, is that I'm paralyzed, I don't know what to say, I'm saying the wrong thing, so I'm just not going to say it. How do you respond to that?
Cherrie Davis:
It's interesting. So I just had a fantastic opportunity to speak to about, I would say, I think it was about 75 women, who sit on boards and they were saying the very same thing. The first thing I tell people about being paralyzed, the best way to not feel helpless is to get educated.
Gloria Miller:
That's true.
Cherrie Davis:
And so before I have that conversation, I warn them... I'm a flipper, here's my definition of a flipper, right? So in today's world-
Gloria Miller:
You're not flipping houses.
Cherrie Davis:
I'm not flipping houses, although that would probably be a good idea after we come out of the Covid.
So my definition of a flipper is I am that person... Because I've always worn purple glasses. In some people's eyes as a rose colored glasses, but I've always worn purple glasses with regard to humanity. I always think the best of them, expect the best of them and believe that their intentions are the best.
So I don't come at it with, okay, white people, you need to stop doing that. Without going, okay, black people, we need to start doing something else. So the education I'm talking about is something as simple as understanding how the word race came to be in America and understanding how we leverage it in an economic value.
And then not only that, but you need to become... I think people leaders have to reacquaint themselves with the institutions. The institutional racism has catapulted wealth, but that has created deprivation.
Gloria Miller:
That's true.
Cherrie Davis:
So that's the first thing, please go get educated. And then the second thing I tell them, I ask them all, how many of you have friends of color that you haven't met at work that you are socially engaged with? And if you had, and I encourage you to do that, get to know who they are as people, because they're no different than you are. Can I share this story with you?
Gloria Miller:
Sure.
Cherrie Davis:
I went to college in South Dakota. Yes, the South Dakota. And let me tell you something, that was probably one of my best growth periods, because I learned a lot about me, but I learned a lot about America and how America thinks. Our history is parceled out based on where you live in America. I'm in the middle of America. And I was in a debate team and we were on our way to an event and a young lady was talking to me and something hit me. I said, oh no, are we going to be back in time for Martin Luther King holiday? Because I wanted to go away. No lie. She looked at me with dead pan eyes, who is Martin Luther King Jr.?
Gloria Miller:
Wow.
Cherrie Davis:
Say it again.
Gloria Miller:
Wow.
Cherrie Davis:
I said the same thing. So I said, are you kidding me? When I was younger and didn't have command of the English language. And I said, hey, listen, I don't understand why you don't know who that is. And she said, well, do you know who our Indian chief is? But essentially she introduced me to somebody who is of equity to Martin Luther King Jr. is to us in the black community. She introduced to me the name of this Indian guy, indigenous chief, who did the same thing. And in that moment in time, I realized we all don't know the same kind of stuff and we're not being taught the same kind of stuff.
Gloria Miller:
But you bring up a good point of being open to that conversation and understanding that while we may come from different backgrounds, there's similarity that can exist between us. I laughed at that, but hey, I went to a private Quaker school, which people are shocked when they see me or when I tell that story and my experience growing up in a Quaker environment and going to school and not calling your teachers, miss or mister and calling them by their first name. People are like, what?
Given the community that I was raised in West Philadelphia, I was different from everyone else. But some of the experiences that I had... There's an activity that I do when I'm training. And it's similar to what you just talked about, which is you ask everyone to list five people and then you just start randomly saying, how many of those five people are the same gender as you? How many are the same race? How many went to the same school? How many grew up in the same type of neighborhood?
And people are shocked when they do it and see that, oh wow, everyone's exactly like me. And to your point is if you didn't meet someone at work, the people that you're socializing with probably look and act and come from the same background as you do, unless you actively really try to seek out different perspectives.
Cherrie Davis:
Exactly. And I think what happens, Gloria, with people of color is because of that assimilation, we by nature have been taught to reach out past our race. And people who are not of brown color, people who are white, they most often grow up and move in a silo.
So, transparency, I live in a predominantly white neighborhood and I'm driving around the neighborhood and I'm looking at all the kids play. And I always see just one little lone person, who's either Asian, Hispanic or black. And generally, depending on the age of the kids... This is the other thing I learned in writing the book. If they're young, they're all playing together, no issue. If they are older, they're usually far off in the corner, which is incredible. Not every child, but often.
The other thing you ask is what do I do? I help them with the strategy to shift forward. And it starts with seeing who they are, opening their lens, breaking the ranks from who they are. If they see something that's not right, to say something right. And understand that speaking about race is not a taboo. If you can't have that conversation about race, then you can't do diversity.
Gloria Miller:
That's true.
Cherrie Davis:
Yeah. Make it approachable. Choose your words wisely before you talk to me, cause we get frustrated. How many times have you had somebody ask you a question as a black woman? You're like, okay, really?
Gloria Miller:
Oh yeah. Or quite frankly in the workplace. Think about it. It's happening a little bit right now, quite frankly, but oh, there's this project for working with African Americans, let's find the African American to do it.
Cherrie Davis:
Yeah. Gloria, can you take it?
Gloria Miller:
Yeah. Can you take it right now?
Cherrie Davis:
And then I think the last two things, when we talk about this strategy on how do you approach race so you can get all the D and I stuff done is I ask people to choose wisely, choose their words wisely. Wisely is not careful. Wisely is just understanding again, back to education, what is it that triggers people offensively? And then think before you speak.
And then the last thing is be courageous enough to change the trajectory. If you know it's not going in the right direction, let's change it because if you change the trajectory, you will make a difference. And in business, it only matters if you tie it to money. Am I profit? Am I brand?
Gloria Miller:
Exactly. Brand and financials.
Cherrie Davis:
If you can do those things, you're doing it, and that's what I tell leaders. I coach them to understand they have to build this in to the core structure of their brand. It's not just an initiative and it's not just a program.
Gloria Miller:
That's true. So some thoughts on... Given we've got a lot of professionals who are now looking at the DNI space as a potential career and quite frankly, many like us who are either continuing in that career, et cetera, what advice do you have for professionals in the space today?
Cherrie Davis:
That's a really great question. The first thing I would probably tell you is you can't do it if you have thin skin. And I say that to say not everybody's going to be on board with D and I. I would say brush up on your coaching skills because a lot of times to be really effective in D and I, you have to be willing and able to effectively coach people around who are not necessarily there yet.
Really understand the business and who the business is supporting and who their target market is. Because I think... I had a great opportunity to have a conversation with somebody who's in the goods and services business. And she said, if I'm in a predominantly black neighborhood and you send in a white person, I don't care how many white papers they've read, I don't care how many black friends they have, they don't know my experience. Therefore, they can't sell to me.
So be willing to have conversations with the recruiters and with business leaders to help them understand how they should position people within the organization so that you can get to your target market more effectively, not just at the top, but you want to zero down in on that. And I think this is a space probably now more than ever, it takes continual learning. You have to be willing to be a life learner to do this well.
Gloria Miller:
That's good advice, and definitely advice that I continue to reiterate in conversations because I think one of the key things, it's the patience piece. And that it's not always going to happen as quickly. You know me, I'm very action oriented. I like to keep things juggling in the air.
Cherrie Davis:
Absolutely.
Gloria Miller:
And the patience piece and the fact of being able to just meet people where they are and help them to get to where they need to go, and I think that's a lot of what this conversation has been about.
Cherrie Davis:
Yeah, I agree. Can I tell you one more thing?
Gloria Miller:
Sure.
Cherrie Davis:
Two other things I probably would tell people in this space. One, you're not the sole bearer. You're not the one who carries the flag only. You are the one who influences people to carry the flag so you can get the work done.
The second piece is you really have to understand the business. You have to understand what HR is about, where their hands are tied, where they have flexibility. And so you can help create philosophies in and around the business to support what HR professionals have to do and promote. It's incumbent upon you to what I call... You have to be able to speak the line items on a book, you have to understand the finances to it, you have to understand the business of the business, so that you can get a seat at the table and talk to the CEO and talk to the leaders and the operations people. If you can't do that, you won't be successful. So it's not just about understanding D and I, you have to understand the business and what you're operating in.
Gloria Miller:
No, that's great advice. And definitely the business acumen is critical for an HR professional and often that HR business partner title, or whether it's a diversity title, that includes business, it's because we need to understand the business and that's critical.
Cherrie Davis:
Absolutely.
Gloria Miller:
Well, it has been a pleasure to talk to you today, and I know that our listeners could continue to hear and learn from you. So I want to ask if our listeners want to connect with you, how can they find you online?
Cherrie Davis:
So you can find me two ways. Three, actually. You ready? The first way is my website. It's CherrieDavis.com. Just that easy. It's C-H-E-R-R-I-E, Davis.com Or feel free to drop me an email, hello@cherriedavis.com. I'm out on social media, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
And thank you for mentioning the book. I'm excited about it. And really what we've tried to do is tee it up where we give you lived experiences, that you can maybe see yourself or see somebody else, and then give you some exercises to help you create cognitive flexibility so you can create new habits to change how you look at inclusion. And then we tell you to go, and we give you some shift points you can go back and look at and make sure you give yourself a check to see if you're doing inclusion well. So that's how you can find me.
Gloria Miller:
Well, I'm ready. I'm ready to shift and go forward at this point.
Cherrie Davis:
Let's go.
Gloria Miller:
Let's go. So thank you all for listening today. And if you haven't already, please subscribe so you never miss another episode. Be sure to rate and review the show whenever you listen to the podcast. Again, I want to thank our guest Cherrie Davis today.
And feel free to reach out to me. You can find me on Twitter at @SHRMGloria, S-H-R-M, or on LinkedIn at Gloria St. Clair Miller.
And if you'd like to learn more about the Honest HR podcast, myself or the other hosts, or get information and resources on what we discussed today, please head over to SHRM.org/HonestHR.
Today we're concluding our mini series on global cultural effectiveness. This podcast is approved to provide re-certification PDCs. After you've listened to both parts, you're eligible to enter this activity code 21-MNJCA re-certification PDCs. Again, that's 21-MNJCA in your SHRM certification portal. You can enter that to receive your credit. Until next time. Thanks again for joining us on Honest HR.