Hi. This is Mark Raven.
Welcome to episode 308 of lean blog audio.
This is a post that was published on August 7th 2020.
And it's titled why I'm handing over my blog for the week to
hashtag root-cause racism. You might have heard of what's
called a social media takeover, where a brand with a large
following gives control of their social media feed to somebody
who's promoting a cause or a social message.
So, as many Americans are doing, I've been thinking about and
reflecting. And I'm trying to learn about
racism and the effects on people of color for what it's worth.
I've read the book, White fragility, and I've participated
in discussions about it with colleagues at both Valley,
capture and Connexus. As we figure out how to improve
our organizations, my wife and I have watched and talked about
films including 13th, and let it fall about that last film being
about some of the history and Los Angeles.
They're both available on Netflix and the film 13th.
Is available for free viewing on YouTube.
You can find a link to that. And everything I mentioned here
at lean blog dot org, slash audio 308.
So on the subject of history and my own curiosity about, how did
things get to be this way? I've been reading the book.
Stamped from the beginning, the definitive history of racist
ideas in America. That's the book that Ibrahim X
Kennedy. Wrote before the wildly popular
book, how to be an anti-racist, which I started reading, but I
put on hold to read stamped from the beginning first.
You know, in recent months. I saw a video that was published
by General, Charles Q brown jr. He's now the chief of staff of
the United States, Air Force, and that video is particularly
powerful when I watched it back in June and the video is
embedded in the blog post. So, you know, watching that
video, you know, I think about how unlike General Brown Nobody
looks at me and asks, does he belong?
Do I belong because of the color of my skin, it saddens me that
somebody like, General Brown has faced such discrimination.
So I've shared some of my other Reflections in a blog post.
And I've hosted a conversation on the subject of lean and
diversity, equity and inclusion in Mylene blog interviews,
podcast series. It's episode 378 if you want to
go listen to that. Now, look, I'm not an expert on
any of this, so, I'm just as flawed as anybody else, but I'm
trying to learn and grow. The one person I followed on.
LinkedIn is G Andhra Wardell. She is a lean practitioner like
me. She's a black woman.
Unlike me Diandra was brave, enough to post some thoughts and
personal Reflections on her feelings and experiences.
In the aftermath of the killings of the murders of George.
Floyd Brianna Taylor, and a Aubrey among others.
I was disappointed in embarrassed really by some of
the utterly dismissive comments that were made by white men in
reply. They're on LinkedIn.
I mean, that didn't seem right. It's, it's one thing to have a
different point of view. It's another, it's bad to try to
invalidate the experiences and feelings of others.
I think, as lean practitioners, we should humbly aim to respect
all people. This means listening and
understanding their perspectives and realities.
The idea of go and see doesn't mean going and imposing our
views. That means going and listening
is Toyota's Fuji Ocho and probably others.
Their say go and see ask why? And show respect When people are
hurting, I think we should go see, ask why, and show respect,
I don't know what the answers are and that's okay for now, I'm
trying to understand the problem, the current state and
causes, if not root causes and, you know, I made an edit to the
blog post, not taking anything out but, you know, I added this
thought that I've been reflecting on saying that's
okay. For now that I don't know what
the answers are and that's okay for now, well, maybe the lack of
Answers is okay for me as a white person.
But I can understand the sense of urgency that people of color,
would have to find Solutions yesterday.
So if an employee says something that something is unsafe and
workplace and an executive shouldn't reply by saying, well
no it isn't. When somebody says they're being
treated differently or being discriminated against, we
shouldn't say no, you aren't So thinking back to the idea of a
quote-unquote, social media take over, I was inspired by DeAndre
so I asked her to accept a Blog hand over as I'm calling it.
She's not taking anything. I'm offering it.
My initial thought was to give a platform for her to write and
talk about anything she wanted. That's what happens in the
Takeover / hand over. I want to give more exposure to
her voice. So we had some email exchanges
and wonderful Zoom conversation to get.
And to brainstorm and DeAndre really ran with this idea.
She recruited a number of black women and white.
Women to write blog posts on themes of lean, diversity,
equity, and inclusion, she's calling.
It hashtag root cause racism and some of the blog posts don't
come from a lien or continuous Improvement perspective and I
think that's fine. I think that's refreshing.
But if you go to the blog post lean blog dot org, slash audio
308. You'll see the participants in
the plan for the series that's going to run through Friday.
August 14th. Will sometimes have two or three
posts a day. So I invite you to go to the
blog actually. Well now here on Saturday the
eighth, when Diandra wrote a post that gives her introduction
to the series from her perspective and laying out the
plan in the vision for the week and And Beyond.
So we're going to have blog post coming from people, from
professional perspectives, and thinking about Community,
involvement business and corporate responsibility,
education Healthcare government, and the Arts.
And so on that, on that last day, Friday the 14th.
I'm going to be moderating a panel discussion with Diandra
and eight other. Women kind Nexus has been kind
enough to allow us to use their Zoom webinar account for this So
there's a registration Link in the blog post or you can go to
Connexus.com slash webinars. We're calling this webinar
sharing our visions and voices to hashtag root cause racism and
again that's being held August 14th, 1:00 Eastern.
So again I'm going to be staying doing my best to stay out of the
way on the blog this week. This is really about letting
other voices have their say and let them shine.
I am going to be publishing one podcast on the lean blog
interviews series during the week.
I'm going to publish this on Tuesday that touches on these
themes with two very special guests.
I'm going to be joined by dr. Randall.
Pinkett, among other things, he was the first and only black
winner of The Apprentice and dr. Jeffrey Robinson.
A professor at Rutgers business school, will be talking about
the book they Co authored called Black Faces and white places and
their upcoming book, Black Faces in high places among Hmong,
we're going to talk about what's going on in society and some
things that organizations can do.
So, I hope you'll accept the invitation to read and listen to
these perspectives over the coming week, you can find all of
these blog posts again through August 14th, at lean blog, dot
org, or you can go specifically to lean blog dot org slash root
cause racism. Or if you want to type less, you
can go to lean blog dot org slash RCR.
And again I invite you to go to lean blog dot org.
Slash audio 3084 links and more. Thank you.