We Want to See Progress! How did they get their diversity initiatives started?

Show Notes

And we’re back! We’ve been behind the scenes producing more exciting interviews to share with you to dive into conversations about neurodiversities, learnings and best practices from folks who are making big changes with organizations to be more inclusive sexual harassment, and so.much.more! Each of the upcoming releases we are sharing new and different styles of recording from live recordings to video podcasts. We cannot wait to share all of these with you!

In this episode, we recorded a live panel discussion at Mile High Agile in Denver, Colorado on May 29th with panelists Mo Abdullah — CEO and Founder of Culture Energized, Natalie Bonifede — Global Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Pivotal Software, and Lauren Burgess — CEO and Founder of Garden, Inc and Dirt Coffee. 

We kick off the discussion with an Energizer led by Mo. You won’t hear that in this recording, but to give you some insight into how we all jumped into the discussion, Mo had everyone stand up and enter the space in the center of the room. She led us through a few exercises to get our blood pumping where we walked around the room doing a little movement that she called the “peanut butter jelly” until she called out to “find a partner.” With our partners we high five’d and booty-bumped before kicking off mini discussions based on prompts she gave us about our awareness level and understandings of diversity and inclusion. Check out more from Culture Energized on how to partner with them to plan your next team retreat!

In this live recording of the panel, we dive into a few key topics to help our audience think through actionable steps they can apply within their teams.

Jump ahead if you’re looking for a specific part of the conversation:

9:00 - Introductions of panelists

20:05 - Culture fit vs. Culture Add

23:53 - Unconscious vs. Implicit Bias

27:37 - Changing the hiring process

31:27 - The different dimensions of diversity and team norms

33:10 - Team conflict with diversity

41:18 - Recommended resources

Additional resources:

• Project Aristotle - https://rework.withgoogle.com/print/guides/5721312655835136/
• Deloitte 6 traits of inclusive leadership - https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/topics/talent/six-signature-traits-of-inclusive-leadership.html
• Personal User Manual Exercise - https://www.atlassian.com/team-playbook/plays/my-user-manual
• Applied Behavior Analysis - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/applied-behavior-analysis
• Personality Tests - Myers Briggs (https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/home.htm?bhcp=1) , DISC (https://www.discprofile.com/what-is-disc/overview/)
• Project Include - https://projectinclude.org/
• Inclusion Nudges Guidebook - http://inclusion-nudges.org/

More about our panelists:
Natalie Bonifede - Natalie is a Diversity & Inclusion leader with extensive experience working at the intersection of technology and social impact. Equal parts strategist, executor, and consultant, Natalie has consistently partnered with companies to drive meaningful and material change in early-stage startups, complex corporate environments, and pre/post IPO companies.

Mo Abdullah - Mariam (Mo) Abdullah is the Founder of Culture Energized and an experienced certified trainer and entrepreneur. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Mo has worked with over 60 schools and organizations across the U.S in improving positive culture through professional development trainings. With her electrifying facilitation style, she has been able to impact diverse groups of people while shining light on the issues that matter!

Lauren Burgess - Lauren Burgess is the founder and CEO of Garden, Inc., Dirt, and Neighbors, social enterprises working to redefine what it means to live and work with a disability in a neurodiverse world. She is a Colorado native, has her masters in Educational Psychology from the University of Colorado, and is trained in Applied Behavior Analysis. She spends her days working with individuals with neurodiversities, like autism, and the companies who employ them.

Special thanks to:

• Dante32 for hosting our podcast episodes
• Justin Ramos for music creation and production
• Mile High Agile - is a conference to elevate the state of agile practices, educating a wide audience from novices to gurus, technical professionals to business executives. Mile High Agile is the premier regional gathering of Agile and Lean practitioners and a unique opportunity for companies to network with an expected audience of 1000 attendees, partners, and talented professionals in IT, software, management, and beyond.
• Podcast Production by Christopher Guest and Lia James
• Podcast Editing by Christopher Guest

What is Human Inclusive?

The human inclusive podcast curates stories of diverse populations while amplifying voices of marginalized communities.

We also take a peek into the lives of our allies as they share their experiences in an effort to help communities build empathy and compassion for coexistence. Hear about the stigmas and the challenges that need to be addressed.

We evaluate systemic issues in the workplace that affect disadvantaged or underserved communities and extract learnings that can be used to better include communities outside of your own.

Join us as we learn how each of us can be a part of the change we want to see. We are human inclusive.