307 Challenging Your Own BS to Foster Inclusion: Getting Real About Internal Bias and Promoting Authenticity in the Workplace with Risha Grant |Partnering Leadership Global Thought

[00:00:00] Mahan Tavakoli: Risha Grant, welcome to partnering leadership. I am thrilled to have you in this conversation with me. 

[00:00:06] Risha Grant: I am so glad to be here. I've been excited for this. 

[00:00:10] Mahan Tavakoli: Risha, I look forward to learning more from you. Love the title of your book, Be Better Than Your BS, How Radical Acceptance Empowers Authenticity and Creates a Workplace Culture of Inclusion, which is really important.

I think it's even more so important now, Risha. But before we get to that, we'd love to know whereabouts you grew up and how your upbringing impacted the kind of person you've become, Risha. 

[00:00:39] Risha Grant: I grew up in Oklahoma, still live in Oklahoma, born and bred, but I am from a small town of about 20,000 people. and it's called Sepulpa. It can be tough for people to pronounce.

And when I think about Sepulpa, I realized that out of those 20,000 people, I still probably grew up around not even a thousand people because I grew up on what was called the black side of town. It was a very close knit community of family, friends and people that I will know for my entire life. Grew up with my grandparents and my mom had eight siblings.

So all of my cousins and extended family were a huge part of my life. So it's something that when you're a kid and you're getting your teenage years. You're not that proud of being from this small town. And you look around, I want to move to New York and LA and all these places. But as you get older, you realize that, man this area puts so much into me, these people are cheering for me.

I always have a home to go back to people that care about me. And when I would do stupid stuff in my early twenties and teens, I would think about those people who were going to be embarrassed, so really close knit, but very religious. That part was a little difficult, my grandfather was a minister and I'm telling you every time the church doors opened, I was expected to be there all day on Sunday. There was Wednesday night prayer, there's Thursday night something, young people's night, Sunday night. Growing up in a very religious family, it presents A lot of difficulties for a lot of people at the time.

A lot of good, a lot of bad, but I love it all. 

[00:02:24] Mahan Tavakoli:  You had both the support and love but also the limitations that some of their perspectives had placed on you.

You also mentioned in the book the term bias fear that had an impact on you. So how were you able to break out of some of the thinking and some of the biases that had been placed on you? 

[00:02:49] Risha Grant: My parents and I guess it's important to say my mom was 16 when she had me.

My dad was 20. So they were very young. And if there was a party happening in town, it was probably happening at my house. So my grandparents had us a lot and what happened is because they were so religious, we were in church all the time, but then my mom and dad being as young as they were, they weren't just, you have to wear a dress, you cannot wear earrings, you cannot wear makeup.

These are things that my grandparents are saying, but my parents didn't enforce that. 

And you mentioned the biosphere. I coined that term because these are the circles of influence that we are steeped in since birth, starting with our family and our friends. I like to look at it like we're born into this world with a clean slate. But as we encounter different people they download onto that slate so that's what happens with our families they teach us. They teach us who we want to be around, who we don't want to be around, who we can love, who we can't love what religion we need to practice. They teach us all of these things and because we love them so much and because they meet our needs and take care of us, we don't question it for a very long time.

And then we go to school and school teaches us about how we should be, what kind of citizens we should be, what the government allows, what the government doesn't allow. And it tells you the same thing, who's not normal in society. And then there's religion and there's media and all these things that keep downloading onto your screen.

And before you know it, we've become people that aren't thinking for ourselves, but we're taking what these institutions and what these people that we love, we're taking all that information and making it our own. And so we have to back up and make sure that what we're saying, what we're doing, how we're acting are things that we actually believe.

And things that we actually care about. I was able to break out of it because my mom was always that person saying, you want to do that? Go do it. No, you don't have to dress like that. No, you don't have to do this. My mom, her faith is unwavering. Basketball is a big part of my life. I don't know how I left that out. I played division one basketball. It's what I thought I would do with the whole rest of my life. And what I was working toward. And I remember getting hurt. I had so many injuries and my mom would just say, if you want to play, go play.

And that's how she was about life. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I didn't know an entrepreneur. And she said, what do we need to do? I need this and this. And my mom would figure out she cosigned on a loan. She do all these things. Even if I didn't have an example.

She was that person saying, you can do it if that's what you want to do, go do it. And so that's how I was able to break out of all that.

[00:05:32] Mahan Tavakoli: It's wonderful that you had her support. Now, one of the things that in order to break out of some of the biases that we grew up. around is that it takes a certain level of understanding and reflection.

That is really hard. I think about the analogy that is often used about fish in water, not noticing that they are in water. So when we grow up in an environment, while the environment that I grew up in might seem odd to you, the practices or the way I see the world, but it is The way I see it. So how can we challenge our own thinking and this biosphere that you mentioned that has influenced us over the years in order to be able to see things differently?

[00:06:28] Risha Grant: I always ask myself, could my thinking be wrong? And the answer to that question is always, yes, it could be wrong. And if I am open enough to say, okay, if I could be wrong, Then let me go and figure out why I can be wrong 

[00:06:46] Mahan Tavakoli: And that requires intellectual humility, Risha, which is very hard for us to maintain, especially as we gain more experience in the world.

And as we achieve more in our professional lives it's hard to have that intellectual humility. Now you also mentioned the BS in the title of your book. So what is this BS that we need to be better than? 

[00:07:13] Risha Grant: So it's the bias fear. It's our belief systems. It's another term in my first book that I coined called bias synapse, which is our brain's role in unconscious bias.

And then it's the bullshit. And to me, the bullshit part of it is you saying, no, there's no way I can be wrong. There's no other view that I need to take into consideration here. Everything that I think about this is correct. That's the bullshit part of it because we can all be wrong. We can all learn from each other.

[00:07:39] Mahan Tavakoli: And you also mentioned we first need to examine our own roots. We need to then reach self acceptance before We can start accepting others. How can we go through that process? Because your focus is let's first work on ourselves before we start working on our teams or other individuals.

[00:08:05] Risha Grant: I think that if you will just begin to really look deeply and become self aware of who you are, like for me, with the whole thing of being in a relationship with a woman, being from a religious family, I thought for sure I'm going to hell. And when I realized all those years of lying to other people is really, they didn't matter.

I was lying to myself. And when you lie to yourself, you can't feel good about anything that's going on. It eats you up inside. So that was the first thing for me in dealing with my own bias is I had these biases against white people. And when you grow up everybody around you is black and you go to black church and and all this stuff, yes, I did interact with white people at school and in town, but I was taught.

As a way to protect me that I had to be careful because white people didn't like me, I couldn't play outside as much in the summers because they might not teach me the way they teach the other kids. They're going to think I stole my candy. If I don't get a stack in a receipt, grandma couldn't be a nurse.

So she had to be a maid. For a white family the way I talk, the way I dress, all of these things are going to make these people not like me you get ahead of the game and say guess what? I'm not going to like them either. I'm going to like them first. And what I realized is that when I finally found out that I was being protected from white people, I thought, wow, I've never had a negative interaction with a white person in my life, I thought they were pretty cool people.

But grandma, who I love more than anybody. Said that they may hurt me. So these are things that follow you. Cause this happens as a really little kid. These things are going to follow me throughout my life. And when I get in the work world and I am meeting with people and trying to sell them on a business that they seemingly don't care about, I'm thinking it's because I'm black now, maybe it is.

But I don't know that for sure. And when you walk into every meeting with these thoughts about people, your preconceived notions, because you have no way of knowing if these things are true. You walk in the meeting and there's a different tone to it

and so when I started to think about how I thought about white people and I thought they're thinking about me like this and I'm thinking about them like that. And so I started to ask myself questions. Why do you feel like that? What has happened in your life to make you feel like that?

And that's when I got down to the nitty gritty of my grandmother who would say things. And this woman grew up in 1921, Oklahoma. So those things were true for her, and she was trying to teach me how to navigate in a world that wasn't built for me, but those things lodged deeply within you, and you have to start pulling it out, pull it out.

Once you can accept yourself, then you can extend that acceptance and that love toward other people., it's self acceptance, it's acceptance of others, and then it's acceptance of the world.

[00:11:15] Mahan Tavakoli: I love the perspective, Risha. There is so much in what you said. One element of it is the fact that oftentimes we rely on outdated maps and mental models of the world, whether it's grandparents or parents or other people's mental models.

We navigate the world around us based on the mental models that have been passed. On to us, not necessarily reflective of the way the world actually works. However, what you're saying is we need to challenge ourselves. We need to challenge our own thinking. It is not an excuse that this map has been passed down by whoever we all first and foremost.

need to challenge ourselves. And I love that in what you're mentioning and the examples you mentioned of yourself, because also for leaders, if you are willing to challenge your own thinking this way, then other people will be more willing to challenge their own thinking. So part of what I love about your approach, Risha, is that it's not a pointing the finger.

That you need to, it's I need to, and that I need to brings other people along as well. Now you also have a beautiful, unique definition of radical acceptance. What is radical acceptance? 

[00:12:48] Risha Grant: Radical acceptance is the practice of welcoming and embracing everyone's humanity, including your own, with no BS.

It's pretty simple a lot of people are familiar with radical acceptance from the wellness world. In the wellness world, it teaches you how to avoid pain or how to tolerate pain. But the radical acceptance that I teach teaches people how to prevent it. So that's the thing we're causing each other pain.

And people are dealing with enough things in their lives and they don't need. Some outside person, a co worker, someone piling more on top of it. I think we need to show more kindness. I think we need to show more compassion. And I just think it makes sense to figure it out for yourself and then see how you can extend it towards someone else. 

 I want to start reflecting more on what this means for leaders of teams and organizations.

[00:13:44] Mahan Tavakoli: You also mentioned and talk about inclusion in the team and organization. And what I wonder is how do you balance inclusion with constructive debate? Sometimes people avoid constructive debate with the excuse of inclusion. So how can that be balanced? We share a new view. 

[00:14:05] Risha Grant: That's a great question.

I think that it is balanced by the fact that if you're having the conversation, then maybe it really needs to be had, so one of the things that I am dealing with in my industry is DEI fatigue. We're tired of hearing about it. We're tired of having to deal with this. What do you think about the people who are living it?

For their entire lives, you don't think they're tired of talking about it. You don't know DEI fatigue until you grow up a person of color or LGBT or someone that's other, they are tired on the level that you probably will not understand. And so the balance to me is we don't have to talk about these things if we actually take care of them, and we make sure that we have created a culture where people can thrive, not survive, but actually thrive in this culture.

If you hired me to be a salesperson or you hired me as a creative or whatever it is, if I can show up and focus fully on that job every day, you're going to get the best of me. But what happens is we have cultures. Where there's completely disconnected, they're toxic people are coming to work in a full suit of armor, trying to deflect the BS that's coming at them all day, they're trying to make sure that they speak correctly they're making sure that their pronouns are in check, all of these things.

By the time you get to actually focus on work, you probably put in about two hours of , very siloed work here and there. We don't want to work with each other and get together as a team because I don't like this person and I can't stand that person and This person makes me feel horrible.

One of the things that I remember being the most surprised by when I really got into my work and started speaking all over the world was how many adults tell me my manager does not smile, they do not speak. And I thought, wow, these are people 30 to 50 plus that are saying nobody is kind to me.

And when you are a manager and you walk in the office and you don't smile at your co-workers or at your employees or at your team, you don't say good morning. You don't ask how people are doing. They think they've done something wrong. So now they're walking on eggshells and they have no idea why.

Now, as a manager, you could be dealing with a plethora of things that have nothing to do with that, but you're a manager. There is more expected of you. one person I remember talking to, she used to work for Oprah Winfrey, she said the culture was amazing, Oprah would walk in and just say hi to everybody and ask them about themselves and all that stuff and then she moves to the banking industry and she said nobody speaks and I'm thinking if Oprah Winfrey can walk in here and say hello, surely, my manager can do that.

[00:16:59] Mahan Tavakoli: That genuine humanity that you talk about, Risha, that it takes for each and every single one of us in our interactions with others, regardless of their labels, their titles, their outside shell, that really. is the authenticity that can create the kind of workplace culture where people feel that sense of belonging. If you do this with everyone, then that creates the kind of environment that we want in our society and communities, but also in our organizations as well.

[00:17:36] Risha Grant: If we take away all the labels and just be people, just be people. I think that we get so caught up in the labels that we forget that we're dealing with another human being. And if you can not see how you may be showing up to others, like you're losing a little bit of your own humanity.

Every time you can't take the time to show kindness or show concern or compassion for somebody you've probably worked with for the past 10 years. And it's evident. I talk to people all the time that have worked together for 20 years. They have kids the same age and they don't know anything about each other and they've sat next to each other.

 One thing that I've heard for the past few years is we're going to tackle these tough conversations at work.

[00:18:20] Risha Grant: They're not that tough. If you can establish trust and you can establish a culture where people can talk to each other, where people can talk about how things are affecting them. If you will listen to a coworker come in and maybe be able to talk about some of the things that are affecting them outside of work, you have more compassion for what's going on.

I think that there are always things that we can find about each other to have compassion for, or understanding about, it will allow ourselves to open up to that.

[00:18:50] Mahan Tavakoli: Taking the time to show genuine interest curiosity finding other people's stories. And as you mentioned, Risha connecting with their humanity.

Is what matters most to every single one of us. Now, what do those of us who have the right intentions need to consider doing differently?

What are some things you've seen folks with good intentions not get right? 

[00:19:19] Risha Grant: The main thing is they don't listen. They just don't listen. It is always a situation where they feel like they already know it. One thing that has been consistent throughout my entire career is that there's a difference in the way the leadership sees the company and the way the employees see the company.

Totally different. It's like , somebody's wearing blinders, I used to hear was that the road to hell is paved with good intention, right? And there's a whole thing around intent versus impact.

Your intent to say something or to do something can be great, but if the impact falls short. Your intent doesn't matter. So it's really important that you are creating an impact. So always tell leadership. Listen, validate and act. None of this means that you agree with it. But you have to listen, validate, and act. 

[00:20:12] Mahan Tavakoli: I love the way you put it, Risha. Listen, validate and act. And that listening, validate and acting relies on what you mentioned before it, which is the humility to assume you don't know. And we don't have it right as opposed to assuming we've got it right.

It's all set. Now you've given a lot of great thoughts to leaders listening to this conversation. I'm curious. In addition to your own book, Risha, are there resources or practices you typically find yourself recommending for leaders who want to have more positive action and more positive results? 

[00:20:57] Risha Grant: One of the things I recommend is doing a BS check and that BS check says, I am going to go and talk to have coffee with always recommend something like coffee or tea, something that's about 20 minutes because, lunch could be a long time and you might find that you really don't want to be around this person or you can have coffee in the morning, 20, 30 minutes and just talk to your people,

 leadership can do the same thing. It shows that they are humble. It shows that they do have humility to say, Hey, what is going on at your level?

And I am talking entry level. Talk to the cleaning people. And find out how are they being treated? At this company, they're your biggest ambassadors. Every time they leave that building, they're going to talk about how great or how horrible this company is. So the fact that the CEO or the VPs are scheduling coffee with me, the college graduate who's, been here a year, or the person who's cleaning the bathroom speaks volumes.

So do a BS check because You don't know, and I liken it to when I played sports and when I coach, I would tell a player why can't you drive down the middle? I don't understand why you cannot do that coach. I cannot do it. There's a girl standing there.

She's, seven foot tall. I'm five foot one. And you keep trying to send that player in. And then when you have practice and you tell me what happened and they set it up for you, you're like, that's on me. My fault. I Should have listened to you. I should have come up with a different play.

That's why, to me, you got to have that captain on the floor because the captain on the floor is saying. You know what? That play is not going to work. I know coach keeps calling it, but the play doesn't work. And so we are going to have to modify that play. And that is what's happening at work.

Sometimes we have to modify the play because you're asking people to go out here and do something that they can't do. I think that's why that show Undercover Boss is so great. They learn things that they've established at this very high level that the people in the store can I do, and it's like the first thing they say, wow, this totally does not work.

And if you look back, 100 employees have said, this does not work. So sometimes the coach has to get on the floor. And that's what a BS check is, it is getting on the floor. It is understanding. Who your people are, how your products may be affecting people and the changes you need to make so that you can win.

The other thing I suggest is self educating, forget what mom said, forget what grandma said. And I'm not saying those aren't great stories and that there aren't things that you can't learn from them. But if you've learned something negative about an entire group of people, you don't have the excuse that we had back in the day, where it was hard to find, shows or books or what have you on certain things.

There is something out there. You can pretty much find anything. And there's so many resources in my book of things to watch and websites and streaming services and books and all of these things that I'm still frankly catching up on some of them, but.

The things that I have the most difficult time with I go and learn about that life or that lifestyle or whatever it is and I throw away everything that I've heard and actually go learn or go try to meet a person that represents that community. I think we could all get out of our box a little bit and go have dinner in a community different from yours or go take your kids to a playground where.

There are a lot of kids that don't look like them, when people see what it feels like to be a minority, it helps them to recognize when they're not how maybe that person is feeling. Sometimes the coach has to get on the floor and that's the biggest thing I could recommend along with.

all of the many resources of shows and streaming services and things that we can truly learn about each other if we want 

[00:24:54] Mahan Tavakoli: to. What outstanding recommendations, get on the floor and listen without the biases of already knowing the answers. One of the things that sometimes I have to work with executives on is that Our minds work very quickly.

Yes. We think a lot faster than people speak. And in most instances, we already know the answer they are going to give. Yes. . And part of what I have to tell them is even if you know exactly what they're going to say, take a deep breath, fully focused, and listen. And that's really hard to do.

Yes. In order for us to understand. But being on the floor. Watching the play, being involved, being curious helps as does learning including through reading your book, Risha, how can the audience find out more about you, your resources, and your book 

[00:25:52] Risha Grant: all on social media for the book, go to Amazon, be better than your BS.

If you want to connect with me, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, any of them LinkedIn, more than anything is where I'm focused, but I love to talk to people. I love to hear what people are dealing with. And so I'm always open like that. If you email me, you most likely get an email back.

So I'd love to hear from you. 

[00:26:17] Mahan Tavakoli: I appreciate you helping us be better than our BS, Risha. And most especially with the fact that you yourself talk about how you have worked and continue to work on this yourself. So it's not a pinnacle of a mountain. Any of us reach, we have to constantly challenge ourselves and our thinking.

And I really appreciate. The approaches and the examples you have laid out in your book. Thank you so much for joining me in this conversation. We should grant 

[00:26:48] Risha Grant: you. This was great.