Would love to hear others thoughts on this

jessysantana·Feb 27, 2023

Posted in:Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Personal Growth Society & Culture

The worst way to operationalize Belonging is to make it an every day commitment with everyone except leaders.

Those without access to power already know what it feels like to be excluded and now you want them to take on the emotional tax of education, implementation, and sustainable change too?

After having worked for years in Diversity and Inclusion, I know these 3 things:

Diversity and Inclusion cannot be in the hands of people also working on compliance.

Diversity and Inclusion needs to be in every leaders framework of change.

Business schools are not instilling the importance of Diversity and Inclusion and imbibing a Culture of Belonging as a part of leadership success.

In order to do better, we need to do better.

Sierra166·Feb 28, 2023

I have to be honest this sounds generic to me. I am not sure what the goal of the text is. It comes off as shallow. Do you want business schools to add diversity to the curriculum. Is that the goal? Then you need data.I am a latin woman who is building her own product with no experience in tech and I find this approach... wrong. It comes off as lecturing. Instead of pointing fingers in a generic manner the best approach is to make more POC get into business school and start companies. There is a VC firm called "unshackled ventures" I find that so insulting. I don't build things because I feel shackled and want to 'unshackle myself" . I build because I feel FREE. I feel powerful. God gives me insights and I want to make it happen. It's hard to be taken seriously, yes, but I am building. I am not a victim. I am an agent of change.The discourse of eternal victimhood is not inspiring. My dad is like this - always thinking of people as victims. But when you see yourself as a victim you are forever paralyzed. You need to sound inspiring if you want get people to get on your side.So you need to advocate for something specific and positive as opposed to pointing out problems and what people are doing wrong. Pointing out problems is easier than creating opportunities for POWER. Highlight POC stories and create opportunities for leadership, as opposed to lecturing to get larger crumbs. Lecturing creates resistance.

jessysantana·Apr 18, 2023

Thank you so much for your insights Sierra166, I do agree with you it was a bit generic. This was a while ago but my intent at the time was in answering a question someone asked about creating an embodied experience around Belonging from Business schools to Corporate. I absolutely agree with you that there needs to be more POC entrepreneurs building and creating opportunity but there is also structural work that needs to be done as well. You are absolutely an agent of change, as are all of us not just some of us.