This is The Opt-In, and I’m Aurora Archer. In this season of the podcast we’re taking a deep dive, and looking at a multi-year DE&I partnership between The Opt-In and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia also known as CHOP. We’re taking you along the ride of our victories … and what we have learned along the way.
This season makes a lot more sense in sequential order, so if you’re starting here, I encourage you to go back to our feed and start from the beginning. In the last episode, we shared with you our Theory of Change, and why it’s so important that we center DE&I strategies around race and cultural competency. Today, we will be showing you how to actually make this happen. You’ll meet some of the key people who help run a project of this caliber successfully. We’ll also tell you about our methods to help companies achieve multicultural, collaborative, connected, and innovative work environments.
I wanted to start this episode with our mindful minute because it represents an important tenet here for all of us at The Opt-In. Mindfulness is far more than a tool, it’s a framework for how to show up better.
Samantha Martinez: We talk a lot about self-care and how self-care can become burdensome and ineffective when it is obligatory and put upon and kind of pushed upon you, foisted upon you. And the mindful minute is an example of you being able to take a minute anywhere in the middle of a meeting, in the middle of a difficult workday, when you’re home by yourself and feeling low.
But we’re clear that mindfulness doesn’t need to look a certain way. We encourage people to make it their own.
Samantha Martinez: As a little bit of personal disclosure, I am a neurodivergent human and de facto a neurodivergent learner. And so I noticed that I was sensitive to things that other people were not. So for some folks, the sounds of like water and birds and that sort of thing. The waterfall made me need to go to the bathroom. That was not helpful for being in a mindful state. The birds, I was focused on what kind of bird it was. And so there were just certain things that did not work for me. But when I discovered the sound of waves as opposed to waterfalls and the idea of being at an ocean. That was super helpful when I found out that I didn’t need to always listen to the same person for the same meditation and that I could focus on making my tea and just on making my tea. When I was allowed to consider hyper fixation as a way of meditative state those realizations were really what helped me realize, oh no, this is what I’m doing just in my own way.
It’s indicative of what we do. We meet people where they are, while helping them move forward. Samantha embodies so much of what we do as an organization. She is so authentically herself, which is hard to do in a society when we’re often told to stay in line, to go with the flow. I want to tell you about the methods and tactics that we use at The Opt-In to deploy our theory of change and help organizations move towards a more inclusive environment.
But before I do that, I want you to get to know us. Because knowing who we are, authentically, is a huge part of this work. If you know who we are, and what we’re about, and what we stand for, you’re already starting the journey. You met our Theory of Change lead and facilitator Colleen Philbin in our last episode. But today we wanted you to get to know some of the other members of our team, including Samantha.
Aurora Archer: I would love for you to tell us a little bit about who you are, Samantha.
Samantha Martinez: I am a first generation student in many ways, college student, first generation child of immigrants and all of these wonderful things. My mother is from Guadalajara, Jalisco, and my father is from Torreón, Coahuila, both immigrated before they turned 15.
And for Samatha, family is a big part of why she does this change making work.
Samantha Martinez: So whenever I hear the why, it’s for the point of connection, it’s for the point of community. Every time I spend time with my family and family adjacent, we have tias and tios that are not blood related, but they are kin and we spend so much time with them. And I am reminded that we are lifted up by our community and we are benefited by our community and that working in silos and working alone and the focus on hyper-independence is one of the things that is painfully, painfully isolating us from one another.
Samantha sees the potential for collectivity, and collaboration through DE&I work. She also sees the opportunity for individual growth. Some people come into DE&I and cultural competency learning with their own motivation. Sometimes that motivation is work related – to achieve a better bottom line. Sometimes it’s to be a better ally.
Samantha Martinez: And sometimes it starts with a desire to tell your own story. And I feel like that is something so central to the way that we work with folks, to the way that we engage with folks, is encouraging storytelling and then allowing those things to be the connections that form. I know one of the pieces that we talk about a lot, especially in our intro section, is this idea of windows and mirrors. And that has never escaped me as a powerful way to engage. There will be times where you look in the window and you will say, oh, that’s new. That’s different. I haven’t seen that before. And it allows you a curiosity to ask and engage, but to ask in a way that’s for curiosity and not collection, right? To give us an opportunity to have those questions and to build the connection out of those questions, not to collect information that we then utilize in a not so healthy way later. But then to allow our stories to develop and to metamorphosize into something much more beautiful than we were before. And I love the idea of taking these bits and pieces that you learn through connection with others to build a better version of yourself. And I’d like to believe that that’s what we’re creating. We’re creating an opportunity for connection to happen and we’re allowing the opportunity for folks to build better versions of themselves by proxy of the storytelling they share with others.
Then we have Kevin Eppler, who is one of our content design partners as well as a facilitator at The Opt-In.
Kevin Eppler: My name is Kevin Uppler. My pronouns are he and him. I’m a white dude. My background is in education, where I spent 20 years in traditional classrooms, both in secondary and college level settings.
Like Samantha, Kevin is authentic and deeply committed. But as a white facilitator, Kevin has a different set of observations … especially when it comes to what motivates white people in advancing their cultural competency learning.
Kevin Eppler: I used to have this question. When I would hear it, actually I used to detest this question, which is, what’s in it for me? Because that was often what I was confronted with. Not directly, folks wouldn’t rudely say, well, as white folk particularly, well, what’s in this work for me? But it was in the room. And I used to detest it. I used to think, oh, how selfish. And then I started to realize how important of a question that was. And particularly for those of us who are white, I think it’s really important that we can answer that for other white folk. Racism is hurting us all. It persists across all systems, whether it’s housing, whether it’s education, whether it’s health care. It is persistent through all systems. And there is this yearning, this longing for connection and community. And that’s what’s in it, is connection, is community, is a sense of our shared humanity, it’s dignity, it’s worth. But it’s, and what I think I’ve become clearer on is a more equitable and just society serves all people, all people. including lower working poor white folk.
It’s a similar yearning that Kevin himself has experienced as a white cis man in the United States.
Kevin Eppler: I was always drawn to social justice movements. There was something inspiring about the works of Cesar Chavez and Oscar Romero and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and Fannie Lou Hamer and so many others. And I couldn’t put my finger on it. But perhaps it is this yearning to be in community, this yearning for connection. Like I saw in that strength, I saw hope, I saw courage. And those things to me were admirable. And this is a long-winded way of saying my why is because I yearned for that connection. I yearn for justice. I yearn for a world that works for all of us. And I want to be a part of creating that change too, … And I think I have my highest and best purpose is to be leaning into these conversations, particularly with white folks, who I can share my own lived experience and find many ways to connect and to hopefully share my own testimony about. What I’ve come to understand differently now through the lens of this work.
By now, you should understand that DE&I initiatives need commitment. They need company motivation, as well as personal motivations from each of the participants. And it’s at this point in the podcast that I want to tell you about HOW the sausage is made. … How we actually pull off cultural competency learning that works. At The Opt-In, we’ve identified four Domains of Learning to help companies create highly engaged, confident communicators who embrace complexity, welcome conflict, and inspire new ideas.
Our Four Domains of Learning are: Self Awareness, Racial Literacy, Connection, and Stamina. Maybe some of these terms seem familiar in your own company’s DE&I initiatives, but I can guarantee you, the way we do things at The Opt-In is different. We believe that people develop cultural competence by deepening their self awareness, expanding their capacity for cross-racial connection, and building stamina for ongoing learning. Our learning focuses on these four domains of learning as interconnected ideas, behaviors and skills. But in a lot of other DE&I spaces, these domains are disaggregated and addressed with a very siloed approach.
Colleen Philibin, our Theory of Change lead and facilitator, explains how these four domains for learning usually play out in other DE&I initiatives.
Colleen Philbin: So what I see happening is maybe in a company they focus on self-awareness through implicit bias. We’re going to do some implicit bias training. Okay. That now we’re done. Corporations are primarily white people and implicit bias just leaves us with, wow, you have a lot of internalized superiority and you have a lot, like take a look, you get in there, it is not pretty what you find. Like it’s just not, right? Some companies do self-awareness. Other companies do connections. Let’s talk about microaggressions, right? And every bit of white people are left with like, oh my God, I am like horrible in relationships, right? It’s really like, what is a microaggression? Not like, ooh, how to be in connection and not create harm. So there’s not a lot on racial literacy, but we white people are off trying to do that on our own, reading books and being in book clubs, right? Not trying to connect like, wow, our history is so problematic, not being able to then connect that to present day. And then like the stamina, just in general, my experience is there’s no working on that, because everybody wants to do this in three hours.
These disaggregated, disconnected, short term models don’t work. And how do we know that? Because we feel it. We see it in the limited progress made in corporate America. We see it everyday in the office, in pay disparity, in microaggressions, in the lack of communication, and the limited of representation across all but the lowest ranks. The needle has barely moved.
Colleen Philbin: If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’ve got, right? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and thinking somehow it’s going to be different. I don’t believe the opt-in has a better one-time workshop. I think the opt-in has a theory of change. … So I say, yeah, meeting people where they’re at and having a real clear path to change, yeah, that sounds highly differentiated and highly effective.
Exactly! So many executives need to hear this. So I am going to say it again for the people in the back: If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’ve got. And as leaders in your field you KNOW this on a business level. Innovation means progress. Innovation means change. Why wouldn’t that be the same for DE&I work?
This is why the CHOP Foundation decided to partner with The Opt-In. They weren’t just trying to check a box. They were focused on change. And actually doing the work doesn’t look like a one time workshop, or a book to take home to read. It doesn’t look like a 30 minute compliance online survey. Actually doing the work looks something like this ….
- 60 minutes of individual pre-learning – to prep your learning
- 120 minute learning sessions- to build knowledge and practice skills
- Learning facilitated by two cross-racial facilitators – to model cross-cultural connection
- Post-learning resources – to foster the habit of continuous learning
AND … Supplemental experiences that include:
- one-on-one coaching – to unpack real world scenarios that inevitably come up
- mindfulness practice – to cultivate self awareness
- Identity based small group coaching (for BIPOC and for White groups) – to foster deeper processing, healing, and learning, in community brave spaces
All of this, each month, for 6 months
Phew! That’s a lot I know. But it takes a lot to pull this off the RIGHT way. But don’t take my word for it. Take Jeremy Wang’s.
Aurora Archer: Jeremy, can you share with our audience what was it like participating in the learning program?
Jeremy Wang: Yeah. I think, Aurora, where you’re so right, like the education, the programming, the things, they meet each of us as individuals in very different spots, depending on where we are, whether we are steeped in this and have been doing the work in our communities, whether we think it’s baloney and we don’t understand why we have to do this at work, and all points in between.
Jeremy Wang: You know, I think there were a couple things, Aurora. I mean, the sort of programmatic modules were I think really good in how there was like the mix and the balance of thinkers and minds and people that are doing this work with, as you and I have talked about, being at an academic medical center, there’s a lot of folks that are like, well, what does the research say? And what does the data say? And all of these things.There was a real, I thought, mix of the science meeting with the heart that I feel like touches lots of different people with where they’re at. And hopefully people you know, took out what they needed to out of some of those things.
Jeremy was a participant in The Opt-In’s learning program. He’s also biracial, mixed, Chinese and white.
Aurora Archer: We start to unpack race. We start to unpack racial identity. We each have one. Our work is grounded in the fact that there’s an incredible opportunity for each of us to understand our racial identity, even in the construct of being mixed individuals, and how that allows us to have a greater self-awareness of ourselves, that then creates the opportunity of having an awareness, an empathy, and a curiosity of those around us who may or may not share our same identity, who may or may not share our same experiences and culture. So as you think about the learning program, what were some of the things that stand out most for you in that learning experience?
Jeremy Wang: I think one of the things that I really valued in this engagement were those spaces where cohorts of folks could come together. And for me, like processing going into that, there was the, you know, white identifying, there was the BIPOC identifying, and I was like, can I go to both? Do I go to one or the other? Like, and then also being a leader and, you know, knowing how you show up in those spaces with your title and how maybe you present or people perceive you like you don’t wanna have a chilling effect or you don’t want people to think like, what’s he doing here? Is this displaced or otherwise? But what I found in those sessions is that it gave a voice to different people and different perspectives. And so you just got to learn from other people. You got to hear people speak about their experience. You got to hear people speak about their thoughts, their feelings, how they’re processing, you know, the moments in our culture, but then also being black in America, being Latina in America, being Chinese, being mixed, being, you know, all the things. And people just got a chance to share and you got a chance to learn from people. And what I think was great that came out of that was, you can go to your assigned sessions, you can check the box, you can get the certificate and say, hey, I did the thing that helped to precipitate was the organic conversations afterwards in which, you know, people would reach out completely independent of the program and say, I want to learn more about you. I want to hear more about your story.
THIS. This right HERE. DE&I doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it doesn’t belong to one person, or to one program. It takes all of US. The Opt-In learning doesn’t end after the last learning program session. This learning is an INVITATION for continuous growth. … which is exactly what Jeremy’s been doing.
Jeremy Wang: You know, I think that the programming was great. And then those times to just hear from each other as human beings and say, I’m going to receive someone’s experience and just listen and learn and educate myself was so rich and good in and of itself. But then it precipitated all of these like side conversations or coffees or lunches or things where you got to learn more and hear more and get to know your colleagues as your colleagues, but also just as human beings and people as well. And so I thought that the downstream of all of that ended up working really well.
Okay, we covered a LOT of information. We met some of the people who make this whole enterprise run. We also got into the nitty gritty of what it looks like to lead a DE&I program that is built to evolve and sustain leaders. Maybe at this stage you have a lot to reflect on about race, connection and cultural competency more broadly. So true to The Opt-In form, we want to leave you with a mindful minute. Mindfulness is just as important at the end of a session as at the start.
As our phenomenal colleague Samantha Martinez says, mindful minutes are an opportunity to reflect.
Samantha Martinez: Sometimes our sessions can be heavy, they can be difficult, they can be challenging, and they can be all of those things and still be beneficial. And so we offer the moment of transition so that way they are not carrying the weight of what we are learning together into their next stage, whether it’s going home or going back to their working life or maybe going to their families. The point of it is that we have an opportunity to connect.
So take a deep breath.
Drink your favorite cup of tea.
Take the dog for a walk.
Do whatever works for YOU to reflect, and connect.
You’ve been listening to The Opt-In. I’m Aurora Archer.
Subscribe to us wherever you listen to your podcasts, and please share with your friends, colleagues, and yes your bosses. We talk about some of the big challenges of this work next week, and you don’t want to miss it.
Music from this episode is by Jordan McCree. The Opt-In is produced by Rachel Ishikawa [ee-she-kah-wah] and Colin Lacey. Our Theory of Change is co-created by Colleen Philbin. Thanks so very much for listening.
