 My name is Anne Troca and I'm the Community Engagement Manager at Sargento Foods. We are honored and grateful to be one of your sponsors as well this morning at the Workforce Development Symposium and thank you to the Sheboygan County Chamber for hosting this event annually. I have the pleasure to introduce our next keynote speaker today is an award-winning transformational facilitator and business owner. She empowers people to move their dreams to reality through one-to-one meetings, focus groups, and training sessions. She describes herself as being a troubleshooter, a project completer, and a people developer. For over 28 years she's worked with professional educators at all levels and specializes in developing multi-tiered activities related to equity and belonging. What is equity and why is a sense of a belonging important? I'm pleased to introduce from 4 a.m. consulting in Milwaukee Dr. Alicia Moutry. Well good morning everyone. Good morning. Good morning. Scott I'm going to try my best to stay right here because you know being an educator is very hard to stay right here in the spot. You know that right? I'm going to try my best Scott I promise. Well good morning and the first task before I get into the presentation is to get you guys going. This is a pretty quiet group right now and it's my job to get you going and kind of get you activated. We're going to make a connection to the sense of belonging to this equity component to them saying what's what's your call of action? Like why are you here today and what will you leave here today ready to do? So it's not just going to be like a sit and get but literally you're going to have the charge to say when we leave here there's some things that I actually can do immediately when I leave here. So let's get you going with just an activity just to kind of get you going at any given. Oh it's about to move already. Oh this is going to be tough. I know right? At any given time in your life you will have an identity that you relate to the most. So what we're going to do this morning just to kind of get you engaged and going. I want you to think about identity and equity. That's what we're going to be focusing in on around. This is called the identity will. So around the will and you will have that the copy of the will in your program booklet. I want you to look at the items that are around the will. These are different identities okay? So you've got race, you've got age, you've got gender and I don't want to put a definition on any of them but I want you to look at each of them and I want you to think about like what does that mean for you and I want you at the table to do two things. One I want you to choose two identities that you most connect with. You're going to have a dialogue at the table about that and why? Like why did you choose those two that you most connect with and that doesn't mean that you don't connect with the others but which two do you connect with the most? And then I want you to pick the next two and I want you to say these are the two identities that I collect that I connect with the least. Meaning I don't typically connect with it that much but that's sort of my two least. And then I want you to share at your table why you have your two choices okay? So you're going to pick the two that you most identify with and why, the two that you least identify with and why. So here's the other norm we're going to do for today. So you're going to be in talking and you're going to be I'm getting in you engaged right? So I don't want to have to like scream to kind of get you back. So this is how it's going to work. You guys are going to be talking you're going to be like having some good talk you're going to be saying so many intelligent things but then you're going to hear me say workforce and when you hear me say workforce I want you to wherever you are stop your sentence and say development okay? So I'm going to say workforce you're going to say development that's going to kind of bring you back okay? So right now what I just want to I just want to practice this okay? So at the table right now just kind of tell each other your names that real quick just introduce and we're going to try this out. Just talk real quick just try it out try it out try it out workforce oh look how that works see? I knew this was the A crowd okay? So what I want you to do now seriously I want you to talk about the two that you most identify with the two that you least identify with and then why have that dialogue at the table make sure everybody's voice is at the table so don't monopolize the time let everybody talk okay? I'm going to give you about 10 minutes to do that so go for it now please workforce yeah that was okay yeah you guys did okay I'm listening to the dialogue and you're going exactly where I was hoping to go everybody had different definitions of what some of these identities meant which ones we connect to you also thought about some of you thought about you were able to explain why you know somebody talked a little bit about being adopted and not even knowing what their ethnicity is about so that's not important to me or somebody says some of the identities when I walk in the room everybody knows that I'm a female or when I walk in the room everybody knows that I'm African American so there's some identities that we relate to that I don't even have to talk about or we don't have to talk about people can see it but what happens when that identity that's most important to you is neglected or folks don't give value to it or what happens if the the identity that I identify with the most is not one that the people that I'm leading identify with the most so we are together today I wanted to do this activity and I must do a little commercial break here to say because I am a teacher I always present things that you can go back and do right so I want you to consider some of the things that I do today it's not just I want you to do it today you kind of start at the conversation but I'd love for you to take this back you could do this with your staff you can do this with your your employers whomever but it's really important to understand how people identify and then what our areas of people don't identify with because as a leader I may be digging into family and some folks are saying you know what I don't even deal I don't even like my family right I'm I'm being I'm being real right so we really got to be able to understand or somebody talked a little bit about that relationship status she said I'm a mom I've got kids and I'm looking for other folks that I can go out to eat with and dinner that have kids and then I told her I'm the opposite I'm a new empty nester so I'm looking for people that can roll right now right so you know it's really important but as right but so as as a leader we're all leaders we're all educators I want you to begin to think about what happens when I'm operating with an identity that folks can't relate to right and I'm trying to lead them and what and when I want to make sure that everybody has a sense of belonging but I'm not even touching what's important to them right so that's this is just an activity to kind of get you going I want to tell you a little bit about me but that introduction was totally enough I'm just kind of have you can't really see a lot of these but these are just some logos of businesses that I've worked with I've been from the east coast to the west coast I spend a lot of time in my gorgeous midwest area here K-12 education university level statewide level and I do a lot of work with small business as a medium-sized businesses and it's all about transformational learning right so a lot of times people say I've been an educator for 30 years which is kind of amazing how I got to stop telling people I'm 35 though right this doesn't that math doesn't add up I know so what I want you to know though so I want you to know that I'm going to be talking to our educators but I think that we're all educators right we're all here to learn about ourselves and to grow right we're all here that because we're we're leading right and we're and we're and give providing knowledge to folks so I kind of consider us all educators I'm going to be giving some examples of a case study that I've done with an actual school district but I also invite you to say guess what this is also applicable to the business world as well so as I go through these examples and what we want to do together I want you to just continue to consider how does this match with me and where I am right so when we finish this today I'm giving you some information but it's going to be totally up to you to figure out what's useful what what what did I hear and how can I make myself an even better leader so here's where we're going to be going today I'm going to be talking about that sense of belonging I'm going to be doing an overview of the equity leadership dispositions I'm going to give you a small definition of equity in my mind so that we are on the same playing field and have the same knowledge of where I'm going with that and then we're going to do and engage in some self-reflection and some strategy development so my goal is that we're going to be working on something and we're going to have a product when we're done and it'll be generated by us all so how awesome is that so let's just dig into the sense of belonging I don't know if you know this guy Abraham Maslow we talk about Maslow needs I wanted to tie in we keep talking about this sense of belonging Maslow hierarchy of needs he kind of created this hierarchy to say hey this is what motivates people right and so there's three sections on the side again me trying to stay here because if I was in my classroom you'd be boom boom boom right so we got that the basic needs you get your psychological needs and then you got yourself fulfillment needs so at the top is that self-fulfillment needs meaning here's why I am when I'm at my peak when I'm at my best where I am at my most creative but what's tricky about this the foundational components have to be in place before I could even get to that top part right so if you notice our first two the basic needs I always give educators credit because we can't teach children when they come in and they don't have their basic needs met so people wonder we're providing the food we're providing the daycare we're providing and not just education but in our boys and girls club right we can't get them to be at their best if they're missing some of these things so some of the basic needs safety right but then look in the middle this is why we're here today right that belonging if people don't feel like they belong they can't be at their highest and operate in their highest capacity we will not pull out their most creative juices okay if the basics aren't being met so when we begin to think about sense of belonging in your booklet you'll see some slides about how it is connected when folks have feel like they belong it's amazing what they'll do and produce for you they're happier they they're happier and they're more stable mentally physically all of that right so and sense of belonging is really important I want to just kind of use that to set the stage um I also work with I mentioned I work at higher ed so I work for the University of Kansas they kind of created this um graphic and I felt like man this graphic in my mind really helps you to really understand and explain equity in a way that's I think very easily understood right so what's the difference so the first one is inequality right so take a peek at it you see somebody they've got resources to get to what they need but then you have somebody here what they can't reach it they can't get it right that's inequality some people have it some people don't then you've got excuse me equality where we have both are getting it but we get the same thing so maybe both of these folks have the resources you see this person has a ladder that has easy steps this person did you notice that ladder there maybe a little bit more difficult there's some people that may get it but they have a little tougher time receiving what they need but we're all getting the same thing but what happens if I don't even need that book right um that's all I have is an option that's equality but then we've got equity equity is a little bit different I don't need a ladder to get to what I'm looking for I get what I need you get what you need that's equity but then we have justice right so notice we've got a lot of variety things we've got even more people we've got more resources to help folks to get what they need so equity sets the stage for justice and then justice um justice makes equity sustainable so this is just kind of gives you a picture and again so that we kind of get the understanding of where we are with the definition so again giving people what they need when they need it and then here justice is we get them what they need when they need it but we're willing to throw in whatever resources are available to ensure that they get what they need so that's just the the definition I wanted to have that common understanding as we move forward when you think about leading for equity so now you're all here we want to ensure that folks feel like they belong when we begin to think about leading for equity it's going to be really important for us to look in the mirror and then it's also going to be important to look out of the window right so my question is which one and on the count that they want you to point to the one that's the easiest that we probably do the most looking in the mirror or looking out the window on three one two three point it's much more easier to look out the window look at what everybody else is doing but to be an equity leader is going to be really important to do this first you've got to look in the mirror and try to understand how are you leading and is your leading providing you the best to help sure that to make sure that everybody has this sense of belonging right so this is a graphic that I love to use as well looking insight into myself and then an insight into those that I work with or an insight to our customers so you've got customers and then our educators our customers are our students and their families right so I just do this graphic and when you look at self it says how I'm how I understand myself and who I relate to and then how I see inequities in the world that inform who I am right that's one thing but then you got to also do it with your organization so I'm looking at it for myself I'm looking in the mirror to see where I am I'm looking out of the window to figure out who I'm trying to help and what I'm trying to do it's important for the organizations to do the same thing when you look at your organization are there in equities in our own in our own organization the culture the structures the internal practices I heard Miss Carter talk about that day sometimes our practices our policies are actual barriers to what we're trying to do and then as the organization is important to look out of the window inequities for those that we serve so again just kind of giving you a visual of what it is that we need to do and if we choose to do it there are some equity leadership disposition so you should see that in your book I would love for you to write in your book because I don't think I had it on the slide before I sent it this is adapted from the New York Leadership Academy and we use it with this project that I'm doing in Wisconsin where we're working with the five largest urban school districts the Wisconsin Urban Leadership Institute we're talking about the five equity leadership dispositions I adapted it just a bit for today's workshop though so we're going to be going through five equity leadership dispositions and as we go through the five equity leadership disposition I'm going to give you five I want you to personally identify and say hey this is an area of strength for me when I hear this disposition I look at it I go you know I'm actually pretty good at doing this and then I want you to hear them and kind of go man I really need to like lean in on this one because that's not something that I'm doing and I want you to do the same thing for your organization what are we good at what's probably something within these dispositions that I need to figure out how we can do better so I'm going to go through the five leadership dispositions and I'm going to talk about a case study there's some work that I did with Menominee Falls High School and I want to talk and it's actually the school district but I'm going to talk about that as I explain these dispositions okay so the first one and I write it down because I want you to remember like which one are you going to be doing some work with this too right so I want you to think about the first one if I am a leadership if and I'm like leading with equity the first disposition is personally being able to reflect there's so often that we have conversations we do things and then afterwards when we think back that's reflecting that's where the learning happens right so when you think about reflecting you got to reflect on your assumptions your beliefs your behaviors I always mention here when I reflect I want to not just reflect on what I think but I also want to pull in information from other folks I want to pull in data from other because that's what I want to reflect on if in fact I've heard on several occasions that I that I'm bossy at home I'm bossy at work I'm bossy bossy bossy I need to take a step back to kind of go like is that true probably not but no no but I got to go and I got to really think about that because I may believe it or if I'm hearing it in multiple settings then I really need to think about if that's what I want to come you know that's what I want to be labeled as then I can kind of keep going with that but if that's not something that I want to be connected to me I get an opportunity to think about like oh yeah you know what that may be true let me show you what the Menominee Falls did they had a survey and they do this climate survey with their schools and this and one of their pillars is about the sense of belonging so they did a whole survey with their students and they got a low rating with their students about feeling like a sense of belonging so what they decided to do is they decided to bring me in as a consultant we generated together five questions that we asked this group of students we just started asking what are the most positive things what are the most negative things about attending your school do you feel like you belong we got a rating from this group of students a diverse group of students we said and it wasn't all ones but we had five questions but then we said describe an obstacle that you face that maybe some of your other classmates don't experience what could your school do to support you better they wanted to reflect on all the questions and they didn't just listen and think what they thought but they got feedback from the other students so these are questions that they did from the questions that and I like facilitated this whole thing I got their answers back and we did the fishbone activity if you've never done that where you say hey this is a sense of belonging right we're trying to increase that what would help is I have the students to generate what would help with this sense of belonging they came up with a lot of different things they they wanted to protocol around standards for addressing racial undertones they this this these are students from ninth grade to twelfth grade it's amazing what we've been talking a lot about youth we underutilize the youth voice I promise we do but they came up with these things and so once they generated this was all anonymous they talked about the first staff so I highlighted some of the things that they were talking about and then I got a chance to work with this group and I'll tell you what we did with some of this information but they collected data they reflected and this is some of the things that kind of came out of that the second disposition you got to model the beliefs right we can't talk about it and then not do it that's like me saying to my son I'm drinking and I'm driving and I'm doing it and they see me but I said but don't you do that it's not as it's not as impactful if I'm doing what I don't want them to do right I need I need to talk about it but I also need to model it so personal beliefs your systems and is grounded in equity and inclusion so you can't say that DEI is important to me and then you're not living it you got to model it right so let me show you what monomony falls decide to do so this is number two the first one was this is where you would answer the first one was personal reflection the second one is modeling beliefs so let me show you what monomony falls did they said hey this is really important they put together a student group that I got the opportunity to work with on a regular basis they named themselves and they call themselves the voice not like the show which I love this show was on last night but they call themselves the voice voices of individuals changing education is that amazing isn't that name just amazing so this is the group that I got the pleasure and I've done it for three years in a row and this is the group this is this last year's group here that I was working with so the they you talk about modeling the principle said this is really important so we want to model that this is important they had me to come in quarterly during the school day so it wasn't something they had to come in after school to do because it was important they made it embedded a part of their day they provided lunch for the students they were so excited because it wasn't a school lunch we had a diverse group of students so it could have been easy to just get you know maybe all african-american students all students are brown black and brown students because those are typically are some of the ones that are feeling like they don't belong but guess what we had a diverse and then we found out there wasn't just those students that felt like they didn't belong there were others so we had a diverse group of students and then the students and consultant only and what did that mean that meant no adults from the building were there it was just myself and the students and you I'm sure you know why we do that they were telling me more than I wanted to know sometimes right so that we had an opportunity we set the stage for them to be open and honest to tell us exactly what they were feeling because what was nice is that this school district found it important to say this is important and we're going to allow you to help come up with the solutions isn't that something right so that's how monomony falls decided to model it here's the third personally act again act with cultural competence responsiveness and you've got to act in your interactions your decisions and then your practices you've got to personally act so let me show you so that's the third one personally act right you got you're writing them down I want you to begin to think about which one's going to be important for you which ones do you have strengths in which ones and you're saying yeah I probably need to like work on that myself personally right so I just want to check time okay so personally let me show you what monomony falls did so I told you about this voice group well the superintendent at that time was Mr. Cory Gala he actually is still the superintendent at monomony falls he said you know what you're at the high school you're doing this work but I want to personally come and take time out of my day and I want to hear what they're saying so we're going to have a brown bag lunch so you can see the picture right here um that's him sitting there he decided to come and he said hey I want to hear tell me if you were in the literally this was the question if you weren't superintendent for today what would be your next move what's important what would you want to do he took the time and we were there almost two hours the kids got engaged in this they really took this job serious right so they had a dialogue with him um they had questions for him they were actually not only because what I when I went and I facilitated this I'm like we're not just going to talk about the problems but I want you to talk about the solutions as well because we can complain all day but I want you to come to the table with some solutions as well so the students did just that so they came to the table and they had three requests they said we want to have a better communication with power school power school is where they all get communication when the school district wants to know or like communicate something one of their complaints was we get home and our parents know about incidents that have happened during the day and we don't even know about it so the superintendent said guess what I got it every when we have incidents before you get home we're going to send you back to your homo and we're going to also give you a communication in power school so you don't have to find out about an incident that's happening in your building because you belong here you're part of this you should know before your parents know because you're here every day they put that into play then other thing they said hey we want neutral gender bathrooms so we talk about brown and black students but also there were some students that say hey I'm having some gender identity what can you do for us he put that into play right away and then the the other one seems kind of you know minute but this is what the kids talked about they said hey sometimes we want to sit in front of the building oh we don't want to just go home right away some of them are driving some of them want they don't get a chance to talk during the day they're listening to their teachers all day all day they want to talk they said what about putting some benches right in the front of the school just so we can have a time to socialize in the talk minor but the superintendent not only heard it but he came and he personally act and put all those things into play he did some other stuff but these are three that just stand out of my mind and they he executed right away so the kids were able to see like I was a part of the the solution and then I saw my superintendent take my information and put something into play immediately right that's what he did now here's the next one conscious inclusion so here we're talking about intentional intentional actions and decisions that solely focus on a sense of belonging for all stakeholders represented so we go back to that will that we talked about today right so if in fact that I want to be conscious about including everybody I got to be intentional about some things one thing that I'm going to say right here I want you to think about your decision-making team right now but I want you to visualize your leadership team everybody got that vision of who that is do they all look like you are they all are they all different are they representing that wheel are they representing the will and ways so you have different voices at the table when you're making some decisions I want you to think about that it's really important because if in fact we really want to include everybody want everyone to have this sense of belonging we have to ensure that we're really conscious about including and making sure that everybody's at the table and everybody's represented and you know I don't want to hear sometimes people say oh well we have and I hear this a lot with education we're we have a shortage of um african-american or teachers of color okay so guess what what else are you doing then are you getting the voice of some of the parents are you getting the voice of some of the community members that's no excuse you have to figure out how do I get different voices and different faces at the table I can give one quick story I sat on a board at a school a private school I won't say which one but they were having this new teacher this new student orientation and they were having go figure a pool party at a country club and they were wondering why didn't the african-american students come so when I got to the table I'm like oh yeah we're not swimming like that just it's just facts but they didn't have somebody at the table to give them just that bit of information so if the goal was to get people to come and you want to really get the students to be included then we gotta figure out maybe a different activity matter of fact have you asked the students themselves what would make them want to come your current students so there's a way and things that you can do if you really want to include someone there's a way to undo it so with monomony falls they put voice into action I was able to facilitate and work with our students they held listening sessions with our board with the excuse me not our board the monomony falls see you you get a job and you like really own the work that you're doing they had an opportunity to talk to their board they had um they they use these students to talk to the new teachers when they came in they use the students to talk to the parent group it's like what are you doing and how are you including the voices that are not being heard this is just a few examples of what they did I'll also talk about this a little bit later the other thing they did they started using that voice group to do something with the middle school but I'll tell you about that in just a second fifth disposition improve systems so we know that sometimes our systems our policies our procedures are the actual barriers themselves what are you doing to improve the system so you need to create structures and systems that promote equity and inclusion you've got to improve the system sometimes that's the tough work isn't it as you notice it goes internal you do that internal reflection that's for you that's something that you have control over sometimes we get to this one we kind of go like I have no control over that but the question is who does and how do you get to hear and how do you collect data to ensure that the person that can make the decision can make the decision based upon data like if something's not working what are we going to do about it do we just keep going with the system and say oh well that's just the way it's been running that sounds kind of like ludicrous that we would do that but we do it all the time we know it's not working but we continue to let the system play out the way it has played out let me tell you what Menominee Falls did Menominee Falls one of the systems that they created which is kind of cool voice I told you that I just did I did four years with them to this year is my first year that I'm not going back because you know what we did we changed the system why should they have outside consulting coming in getting the information from their students right so this is one of those situations I kind of go yeah I work myself out of a job and I'm proud of it right so the question was what they did is they decided to bring the student group to Menominee Falls they opened it up for all the students so my voice group is like the leadership group they have a group for all of the students and then this picture that you see I did the same thing in Greendale so what I did you talk about systems changing you talk about hearing information I brought two groups together I brought my student voice they were set at Greendale student equity team and I brought the voice together and we had a dialogue and we did a lot of dialogue and discussion and we not only changed the system but we put some things in place so this was two groups that I brought to collaborate another and so this is kind of just a picture so when we get together it's not just to sit and get the same way I'm going to get you guys going in just a minute we really start digging in and trying to talk about what can we do differently so again if you bring the folks together that look different than the main then you have to figure out a way to put things into action so we got to go and we saw us working here but then here's another thing that we did we create a voice junior that just happened last year no two years ago actually voice junior so the voice was at the high school we did voice junior so they said middle school is not too young to begin to understand what they're thinking and we brought them together but let me tell you what's kind of awesome you see this young lady right here kneeling underneath and this person right here talking that's one of my high school students that's the voice but she came and helped facilitate the voice junior so what does that do is a couple different things right one it creates that interest in education so we know that there's a shortage right so guess what I'm working with them I'm giving them lesson plans and I'm saying you got to do this and this is how you deliver and I want you to give eye contact so we're developing interest in education just by changing the way it was working before we're trying to change the system we also said hey now if we're doing this we get a connection with our middle schoolers and our high schoolers there may some middle schoolers may have high school brothers and sisters at home but some may not but then when they get ready to go to the high school then guess what they're prepared to engage in activities like this and so this wasn't me just talking I'm doing activities to get them ready for college work I'm having them to present but we didn't just keep things the way the system was we change the system that's what we did in monomony falls there are five leadership equity dispositions I want you to personally begin to think now as you hear the five you personally reflect you model you personally act conscious inclusion how do I intentionally include everybody especially thinking about that will how do I get everybody involved and then how do I go about improving the system I don't want to keep it the same right how do I go about doing that so here's what's going to happen now as a group we are going to generate because sometimes people will say oh I'm really good at that one that's my area string I'm I reflect all the time then they may say I reflect but then I don't act though right that could happen right so what we're going to do is we're going together to generate this we are going to be breaking out in a group you're going to be working on one leadership disposition and again you're going to be able to get all of the information that we generate as a group but you're going to as so there's I think there's 11 tables each of you will be assigned one of the equity leadership dispositions you're going to have a recorder that's the person is going to write on this piece of paper you'll notice you see paper all along the wall so this is where I want to get you up you know that's the teacher of me you've been sitting long enough so you're going to have a recorder you're going to have a reporter not everybody will report out but I just want to be able to report out one thing that you kind of generated as a group you're going to have a timekeeper that's the person to say hey we've been sticking on this one piece for too long we got to move on and then a facilitator what does my facilitator do at the table or at your your groups there's always somebody that dominates the group this just happens I mean it's okay but what I want the facilitator to do is to ensure that you hear everyone's voice to ensure that we're following through with the tasks that I'm going to give you right so here's the task I don't know why it keeps doing this one one one but anyway don't don't judge me on that so um what you're going to do at your table once I assign you your disposition you're going to describe the disposition in your own word so I say personal reflect there may be some other words that you want to claim it because I want you to learn this so when we leave it you kind of have it in your head so you're going to give it your own that you're going to give it a name in your own words or if you don't want to do that you can just kind of create a symbol that it represents that disposition so that's the first task on this chart paper on the second thing on the chart paper you're going to say what would you see and or hear if this disposition is actively demonstrated what would you see or hear if I'm personally reflecting what would I see what would I hear you're just going to generate that that be the second assignment on this chart paper the third thing that you're going to generate is a list of strategies of best practices uh to strengthen this disposition so this is where it comes in to say like if we're going to do this work and then we get a chance to share it out later maybe this is an area that I'm struggling with as maybe the system that's always a tough one right but the folks that are going to be generating you're going to be generating a list of strategies and a list of practices that you would maybe use or consider if you're trying to strengthen the disposition because it may be one that you're saying yeah I want to read what people are saying because that's one that I personally really need to work on right and then finally be prepared to share a highlight but then the most important you see what's bolded under here I want you to personally begin to think about which of these do you want to be able to say when I leave here today I want to make sure this is something that I focus on it's important that I focus on this disposition for myself personally does that make sense any questions so let's try to get work for us about it great so if you would take your paper off of the wall and have a seat at your table and I want all my ones my one reporters to come up with their piece of paper all of the reporters and if you were assigned number one personally reflect I know that we're gonna come up here why why or you can do it at your table whatever I'm not gonna be too much of a now come up to the front all your good work come on encourage them to come up to the front give your colleagues some encouragement okay so here here we go okay when you're ready we'll be ready so here's how we're gonna present out our information we have and I want to make sure I do time I told and I would be really good with time so we're not gonna like dig into all of it but what I want our reporters to do is right now we have all of the personal reflects up here I want you to just give me one component off of your chart that you'd like to share that somebody else did not share as a part of their their chart does that make sense but know that you will get a copy of all this all this stuff is going to be typed up you're going to get it all and remember I want you to listen if this is an area of strength for you or one that you want to work on this this you want to listen to it okay so group one we're going to start on this and just give one something and then go down to all four okay go for it and you have to step here I think we're all the ones all right no that's okay that's all right so we want all the ones here and then what we're going to do you're going to come right here you're going to talk you're going to say it so the Scott can hear you and then you're going to have a seat and then you're going to come and say and then you're going to come so that's where we're going to work it everybody got it just any part you're going to talk so they are talking about personally reflecting and they can answer any one of the the ones and somebody I'm not even going to say the joke I'll tell about it later go ahead okay can you hear me okay good I've been told I have a very quiet voice um are we we talked about yes number one personally reflect and what we brought to this was as a definition was to really dig deep be honest with yourself be vulnerable and really think about what even if you're afraid to admit it what you really what are your assumptions about other people and stereotypes so the two symbols that the two symbols that we had chosen were the clock and then also the eye the eye is meant to represent well the clock is meant to represent allowing time for yourself both in your personal life and at work allowing that time to reflect and also view other you know different perspective perspectives and be open and aware of yourself and other things that are coming up and then the eye is also just to take a look at not just what you're reflecting on but also other things that you may be hearing from people from in your group or in your personal life your family your friends anybody in the workforce just their suggestions and taking their criticisms as well and kind of taking any solutions from them as well too so just being open to other others and other ideas I guess in the world of education I'll give you what every student says they took all mine so one of the best strategies we thought of is just doing some journaling you know writing down your thoughts taking time for yourself and they hit on a little bit but accepting that feedback as well so we have just a highlight okay for number two it's really just walk in the walk you're you're doing it you're modeling it you are being being that person that people can see in your actions and your voice we similar walk in the walk but we also talked about meeting people where they live and then one of the big things I think we took away was being able to experience discomfort so if you're going to model the beliefs you have to be able to push it in other steps they are uncomfortable what we came away with was that at the end of the day the breaking down silos was important because if you want to allow other people in you got to make room for them to get in and it doesn't only matter in this area there's so many areas where we all work and live in certain silos and it's very hard to interact or open up until you get rid of those all right so part of number three what we had kind of discussed is making sure that not only are you including key people that can make decisions and affect what is done and make those changes but also make sure that you're rotating including everyone to get all those different perspectives make sure that everyone's voice is being heard and then overall out of that example of the superintendent sitting down eating the same brown bag lunch as everyone else meeting them at the same level making sure that you're coming to that conversation as an equal to make sure that the discussion is flowing there's no intimidation and everyone's kind of free to speak their mind and make sure that those changes can be made so his lesson is don't walk away from your group because they'll nominate you usually i'm not told i speak quietly so okay all right so we looked at the fact of acting we had that green light it means go make sure that um you're doing something with the feedback that you're getting um and you're going to be able to see some of the actual change and doing that whether it's positive or negative hopefully it's going to be that your team members are definitely excited about what's going on um and you'll be able to see it by potentially increased productivity um less absenteeism and then uh just continuing to collaborate and what our group also talked about a challenge they had in their workforce around COVID where they put in um a new ice machine and a team member came and thanked them for doing that but it didn't work and nobody knew the ice machine didn't work so making sure you keep those communications open continue collaborating to be able to make sure you're getting what you thought thank you um so uh we believe that when there is equal ownership around the table great ideas occur and you will hear a symphony and see a garden grow kristin kristin that was deep i don't know how i'm going to follow it yes okay all right so of course we had conscious inclusion as well and we talked about making sure that people feel like they can share their ideas and can contribute their ideas appropriately they have a safe space to do so and recognizing when people do bring problems or challenges um that's going on within the organization um and to incentivize people to bring forward ideas in whatever way possible i feel intimidated standing up here with you guys you guys probably had all the answers on it okay um so our we actually described our improvement systems as an ongoing circle actually eventually expanding and um growing um showing that we're constantly improving adjusting and reconnecting um we wanted to empower our team uh experience growth change um we need to foster inclusion and um identification of defined constraints to to make the improvements and then actually the the groundwork happens with the engagement um and communication starting from basically the bottom up needing to create safe zones for people to be willing to communicate and um be free of um any type of negativity associated with that we would want active participation and we are actually looking to promote a cultural change okay and our symbol was very similar um but we looked at it as from improving systems we have there in our organizations or schools or um any stakeholder environment we have multiple systems multiple structures so we thought it was important that they're integrated so we can look at all systems more holistically which is what that symbol represents um in terms of how we will was it model it uh we will i we will see it we will hear it the hand means we are engaging and everyone understands it now when it comes to best practices we talked about creating opportunities for conversation and connecting and when you're creating opportunities to connect people you're right you want to raise the awareness of your individual needs and once we raise those the awareness of those needs then you have to change and when you change um then the organization business or school needs to make sure that that's um transparent sustainable measured and then there's a big feedback loop that goes back up to again listening to that voice an opportunity for conversation and connection and you get an opportunity to be a part of what we develop together so how awesome is that right so this is what you were able to do i want to end with diversity is having a seat at the table inclusion is having a voice and belonging is having that voice to be heard okay i thank you so much for listening to me today and being a part of this but i need you to know that daring leaders work to make sure people can be themselves and feel a sense of belonging are you a daring leader you need to ensure that everybody feels like they have this sense of belonging finally if you enjoyed yourself here's my contact information my name is alicia mutry and i am a part of four a.m consulting i'm the president ceo of that people think four a.m is about time well since i'm getting older i am working waking up a lot about four a.m but it really is just something that i've decided to do for myself for alicia mutry a business that i love that i enjoy doing about trying to take you from where you are to the next level being that outside eye to help you to get where you're trying to go if you didn't like what you heard my name is alicia keys all right all right workforce thank you all