Building Meaningful DEI Connections

Hello Cadre community doctor E. Here. Hope you are doing well. I am the resident Dei diversity, equity and inclusion specialist and conversationist, so I hope you are enjoying or coming off a wonderful week. Hope you have a wonderful weekend planned. And I wanted to put a bow on this topic that I've been talking about for the last three weeks. Building meaningful dei connections. If you remember going back to the first iteration or the first installment, I talked about an outward facing perspective which really revolved around three things or three kind of pillars.

Trust, transparency and time. Building trust and knowing that trust is the foundation for any type of connection whatsoever. Recognizing that transparency leads to and contribute significantly to trust and then also encouraging you to recognize that all of these things happen over a period of time. Not lightning in the bottle. It's not going to be instantaneous, not going to happen right away, but allowing yourself the time to build and to take care of and to do all of those things in a really foundational, constructive kind of way.

And then the second iteration was the inward facing kind of perspective. And that was more of a, you know, how do, how do you make sure you're tackling all of those internal dynamics and realities that lead to and allow us to build meaningful connections? And so all of, you know, those three started with, you know, asking yourself the tough questions, you know, why am I a little bit avoidant of building relationships? Why do I have a lot of anxiety around connecting with folks that might be different than me or experiences that might be a little different from mine?

And then acknowledging those realities and those vulnerabilities and being okay in the space of wrestling with that acknowledgement of those realities and those dynamics, and then finally aligning yourself with what you've identified through asking, and then what you've acknowledged in terms of some of those responses and realities and then aligning your behaviors to kind of work and address, you know, all of those opportunities and challenges that exist. So those were the first two outer and inward facing.

And now I want to talk about what should be at the core in terms of, you know, the pulse that promotes what you practice and how you, you know, really get yourself in that, in that space of embedding that emphasis and that focus. And I want you to really think about what is your motivation behind these connections and pursuing these connections. No motivation comes without risk, obviously, but also, you know, no motivation comes without reward. And so how are you really looking at the why behind what you're doing?

Is it, is it, bottom line, motivated? Right? You know, you want to increase your profits from you know, for your business, your organization, is it needs based, motivated. You know, you're reacting to something that happened and it isn't the type of organization or is it the type of team culture that you want to promote. And so you're reacting to something, you know, is it, is it leadership based, you know, where, you know, you're trying to establish a certain precedent or a mindset or a belief in terms of how you want your organization and your teams to function.

And so whatever that motivation is, constantly remind yourself of that and take yourself back to that, you know, motivating, start that motivating factor. And that doesn't mean that motivations can shift or change, because they very well can and they very well could and should depending on what happens or what surfaces. But really having a pulse on what that motivating factor is is so instrumental. Secondly, I want you to think about recognition, right? How do you talk about, how do you get to a point where you're identifying, you know, what those challenges and opportunities are, what those motivations might be, right?

But then also, what are the realities that you are going to have to address and face in order to accomplish whatever it is you're looking to do in terms of connecting with folks, in terms of bridging past differences, in terms of building all of these synergies that bring your folks together, bring your teams together, bring your staffs together, bring your organization together on one accord, and then finally, how are you cultivating all of those kinds of nurturing aspects and realities that nothing grows without being nurtured?

And so, you know, that cultivation piece is so huge, you know, how are you building up people? How are you building towards meaningful connections? How are you setting the stage for what that can look like? And how are you cultivating processes and opportunities that lead to all of those kinds of things that really help folks want to follow you, that really allow folks to want to be a part of your organization and your teams, but more importantly, really model what it is you're about as an individual, as a leader, and as an organization.

So that's the three core principles that I think are huge. Please feel free to practice them, utilize them, access them, touch on them, talk about them, and I will see you again next week.