Chasing Belonging with Amena Chaudhry

Business as UNusual Ep 1 - Season 3 Transcript

s3e1 Amena Full Edited

[00:00:00] Aicila: Hi. Welcome to Business is Unusual. This is Aicila and I'm here today with Amena.

[00:00:04] Aicila: Chaudhry. Nice to see you today.

[00:00:07] Amena: Nice to see you as well.

[00:00:08] Amena: Thank you for having me.

[00:00:10] Aicila: Oh, I'm so excited to be doing this with you. I've been engaging with Amena off and on for several months and been really looking forward to have her kickoff season three. So I appreciate you being the first person for season three to set the tone.

[00:00:24] Amena: . Thank you for having me.

[00:00:26] Aicila: And before we hop in to the nitty gritty of the amazing work that you're doing, what's the last artist that you got lost in?

[00:00:37] Amena: I have been looking at a lot of political, cartoonists and satire satirists, I think is what you call them. I'm not gonna pronounce that name right now. That word right at the moment. poLitical cartoonists and the one that I have been looking at a lot and kind of been lost in his work and I wish his work was all in one place [00:01:00] somewhere, but I haven't found a place. His name is Ali Ferzat He's Syrian and he has A lot of like really poignant imagery of, what it's like, what imagery of oppression, governmental, systemic oppression. There was one that really caught my eye the other day, and it's a picture of a gun, so it's a drawing of a gun and you see just like a hand That has pulled the trigger, but the gun, the trigger is a blade. And so pulling the trigger, the finger has cut off front and separated from the hand. And I just found that to be quite, I don't know, provocative is the right word, but you know how they say a picture is a thousand words and when you have these political cartoonists drawing, and trying to depict reality. And that is like the best vision of [00:02:00] visual of, how you can't hurt or hurt others without hurting yourself. iT reminded me of a quote by an indigenous chief, and I think it's something to the effect of. wHat is it? What is it saying? It's we don't create. Our web of life, we are just a thread like, man does not weave the web of life.

[00:02:28] Amena: We're just a thread or a strand of it. And anything that we do to the web, we do to ourselves. And so this idea of like interconnectedness, so I just found that one image of his kind of it hit me. It took me a while. I just looked at it for a while. I was like, I don't understand it. I don't get it.

[00:02:44] Amena: And it took me a while to see

[00:02:45] Amena: that the finger was sever that there was a blade in the trigger. So I just thought that was interesting. our relationship to violence and safety and how we think that violence is going to bring safety

[00:02:58] Aicila: Yeah, it's a very lizard brain [00:03:00] response. And I work with an indigenous woman who the sort of adage that she functions in is whatever I do for another, I do for myself, whatever I do to another, I do to myself.

[00:03:14] Amena: Yes.

[00:03:14] Aicila: It's a pretty powerful way to, to walk through life and to feel like you said, that sense of interconnectedness, that sense of community, that reality, that the idea that we're separate is in itself a bit of a deception it leads to some harmful, super harmful things.

[00:03:36] Aicila: Which is part of why you have the business you have. You such a great segue. So what is your business a little bit about, like the name, what your type of work is.

[00:03:47] Amena: Yeah, I'm a DEI. Yeah. Thank you. I'm a DEI, strategist, consultant, and coach and I work with leaders who are Hungry for systemic change and who [00:04:00] are aware and attuned to the gap that exists between their intentions, their good intentions, and their actual impact. And are looking to figure out how to fix and figure out how to bridge that knowing, doing gap. And I also work, so I work with leaders one-on-one coaching. I tell I tell people coaching is transformative. Consulting is transformative, low, slow paced, eventually depending on how you do it. But coaching is cons is transformative. And frankly speaking, our leadership in the US in whatever sector you look at. cOmes from a lived experience that is incredibly insulated from racial stress. And because the bulk of c-suite executive leadership is cis head, white male, and there is a very significant lived experience gap for that [00:05:00] demographic. And I think that as we saw with, there's also, there's lived experience gap for that identity in leadership.

[00:05:06] Amena: But there's also a gap for anyone who makes it to a position of power. And that gap tends to be you make it to these leadership roles by, not by changing systems, but by proving that you know how to keep systems in place you. hOw the importance of that, that you have the skill to do that, that you know how to be savvy and what's the word? Implicit and not a word about it. I Think about Joe Biden as a really good example. if You look back 20, 30 years and you listen to him on the floor of the Senate and you listen to him talk today, or as the VP for Obama, you can see that he went through the learning curve of realizing how he needs to be nuanced about upholding systems and not [00:06:00] overt for him to make it to positions of power. And he is a more exaggerated example of how leadership trajectory is, just that system is just set up in the US and businesses are just a microcosm of the us right? And I work with leaders. Who understand and have an idea that there's this gap that they experience and one-on-one coaching is a phenomenal way for them to really accelerate their ability to build muscles that they currently did not, were not encouraged to build so that they can influence their spaces. And figure out how to systemically produce systems in their spheres of influence where belonging can become the norm. Because right now, belonging is not the norm. Exclusion is,

[00:06:52] Aicila: What does success look like to you?

[00:06:56] Amena: I would say success looks like, and this is [00:07:00] I suppose both an answer for me and a, what successful partnerships look like for me when I'm working with clients, whether it's an organization or just a sole leader. People with more humility if we are able to actualize and operationalize more humility. We're always, we're all always learning. I know the rhetoric in leadership tends to be continuous learning, growth mindset. But leaders often don't actually demonstrate. Active learning. It tends to be, learning tends to be a professed value. And to me, learning is the act of changing, right? The willingness to come to spaces to change. And so I think success for me looks like when people grasp that in a very real way. Right when they can practice [00:08:00] change, when they can practice humility. And and often that looks like moving from a place of having the answers to asking unusual questions. Not the usual vision as usual questions that everybody gets praised for, but like asking the questions that often people are thinking of. No one's, everyone's afraid of saying them out loud and asking

[00:08:23] Aicila: Or they think it's unchangeable. I feel like that's the other thing is that people are, they think it's like the weather. It just is happening that it's somehow mystically occurring instead of questioning, why is this like this?

[00:08:36] Amena: YEah. Yeah. It tends to be like the higher up in an organization you are, the more you view that, things like that. Like culturally as weather unchangeable. But I think yeah. At, but I think that like when you look at people in labor. I feel like that sec, that group, that little demogra, that demographic of employees experiences it differently.

[00:08:58] Amena: They do see it as changeable. [00:09:00] They, because they experience the consequences of it, they know that things can be done differently so that their life, they can have more access to ease and joy. So maybe that's what success. Okay. So here's how I'll answer your question really succinctly. Success to me looks like a world where access to joy, And ease is more equitable for the marginalized for Bipoc. So if I look at the US system if I was able to coach and consult with every single sector and every single business, and if you thought about like widespread change that would look like black and brown, black and indigenous people being able to access, ease and joy. As equally as a white person, a middle class white person, let's say. And I know I'm generalizing, but like that, that, that is that is the accurate factual generalization. I spoke at a conference last week and one of the things that someone [00:10:00] brought up in a question and answer section was the fact that their volunteer organization has a feed that volunteers pay to be able to volunteer. And how it's inequitable and they've tried to work on getting rid of the fee, but there's resistance to getting rid of it because that fee is like, has performed certain functions and, I had asked the person like, what is inequitable about having a fee? And she's it's like white women who have disposable income and also time that they can lend are the ones who keep showing up for volunteering and we don't get, we want a more diverse pool of volunteers. And so that just shows the inequity right there. That's it. That's where like when you put a price on volunteerism, Generally speaking, they're not able to recruit people from marginalized socio socioeconomic demographics. And so success [00:11:00] looks to me where there's equity between the ability of black and brown people to access ease and joy.

[00:11:08] Aicila: I had the privilege of attending your workshop, the Art of Interrupting Racism, and you talk about this concept of operationalizing belonging. And yeah, we have an epidemic of suicide in our country, but children are one of the highest demographics for increasing in su suicide. Isolation is considered to be a contributing factor to the mass shootings that we're dealing with.

[00:11:30] Aicila: And maybe ease of access to guns is part of it, but we'll go with isolation too And one of the things that I see as being really different if, there is more of this understanding of how to interrupt this isolation and how to increase belonging and, to really create opportunities for people to have that as part of an expectation that there are so many things that would change.

[00:11:56] Aicila: And if people, if leaders and people in privileged positions [00:12:00] and white people all understand the ways that they can bridge that gap between intention and action and really understand the, ways in which they can do this, we can do this in a more. Consistent way. What would the world be like if, everyone felt that sense of belonging, how would it feel to go to the store and not be stressed out about the, ways in which people can lose their, you so easily because they're so under siege.

[00:12:28] Aicila: And how would it be to be in a job where you didn't feel constantly aware of the ways in which you were in minority and instead could just focus on the work you're doing. Even if you don't love what you're doing, there's some satisfaction in doing a job well, and to be able to fully get yourself into that space and be there and do that would the world be like if that was how we all lived?

[00:12:52] Aicila: I think it'd be pretty great.

[00:12:54] Amena: Yeah. One of the ways I work with clients is I have a coaching [00:13:00] package or a program that I have designed for bipoc queer and trans identities, and it's specifically designed to help people. Who share my identities and lived experiences to survive systemic oppression in the workplace. And I use the word survive instead of thrive very specifically because I don't think you can thrive until the system, the environment changes, but there are ways to survive it that are low cost versus high cost, right? So there are low cost ways of surviving systems and we get thrown into from high school to university life or college life to into workplaces. And along that way, I think there's an understanding that students need to need access to particular kind of professional development opportunities and mentoring and coaching opportunity to be able to like. [00:14:00] Build their leadership skills and succeed and develop their careers in the workplace. But the gap for me that I see is that if you hold a particular identity, you are navigating systems that were not built with your success in mind. And they're not just not built with your success in mind. They actually have legit obstacles. To you succeeding. And so there's a particular kind of professional development you need when you are a mar, when you belong to a marginalized socioeconomic demographic to be able to survive educational spaces, but also like the workplace, right? And when I am working with those clients, and when I'm talking to people in general, when I'm networking, that's common. Most people don't feel they can bring their full selves to work. So one of the, one of the things I help our clients realize [00:15:00] is that you can't take the, I don't know, professional development advice that your Brene Browns dish out. To the general public. You can't take that advice at face value and literally follow it. You, it has to be translated for your particular identity because a telling a black person or a Muslim, brown, Muslim person to show up as your full, authentic self like. Is going to get you fired. It's going to ostracize you.

[00:15:29] Amena: You are going to be seen as a, you're as somebody who doesn't fit in. And so there are fitting ins that you have to do and that are not, are harmful, right? There are harmful ways of acclimating to the business and the workplace, but but there are ways to figure out how to fit in. In ways that you're actually holding the system also accountable.

[00:15:55] Amena: So I teach black and brown employees how to leverage language and [00:16:00] norms that are valued in the workplace to actually support your ability to bring as much as yourself as you possibly can to the workplace. So that is common. I agree with you that's a common complaint, that people don't feel that they can bring their full selves to work.

[00:16:15] Amena: And what I'll say is one of those reasons actually is. Is the economy of the us, which the workplace is a massive part of, right? Whether you are in the government sector or the higher education, or the corporate sector or the nonprofit sector, you're part of the economy. The roots of the economy. In the US the taproot is genocide and slavery. It's land theft and labor theft, and so there are legacies of slavery built into How we do business and how workplaces are set up. And so just at that level, pretty much everyone you'll see white women complaining about how they can bring their full selves to work.

[00:16:56] Amena: And and I think like what I would [00:17:00] say is what? What I tell leaders is that even leadership in workplaces understands this because there is so much emphasis and focus that they try to put on pretending to be family or in the higher education realm, they tend to want to be, or in the nonprofit as well, they wanna be community because they know that the actual experience is the opposite. So they understand that they need to do something. And unfortunately, the sad thing is what they do is very superficial fixes and it doesn't actually fix the culture and the experience. But there is, I think, an agreed upon understanding of the workplace is not a place that where belonging is the norm.

[00:17:45] Aicila: Yeah. , and it's not the norm in the society in general. your point, you've talked a little bit about it. Can you give a, summary maybe of what you consider to be unusual about what you do?

[00:17:56] Amena: Oh, summary of business as unusual. Yes. [00:18:00] DEI has had a DEI. Landscape has been a changing landscape since the fifties. DEI started in the US as racial sensitivity trainings that the military had started. aNd through several iterations of backlash from predominantly white people that work went from the racial sensitivity training to what it looks like right now is really honestly compliance oriented work. It went through some more changes. It's compliance related work. It's work that employers do so they don't get in trouble so that they can reduce lawsuits so that they can, cover their ass. , there's a checklist of things they wanna do to make sure that they are remaining EEOC compliant.

[00:18:41] Amena: And that work has never been effective, I'll say,

[00:18:46] Aicila: Mm-Hmm.

[00:18:48] Amena: Recently in the aftermath of George Floyd's, I would say in the aftermath of actually Ferguson and George Floyd, it's become even more apparent that it is failing. I read somewhere [00:19:00] the other day, I think Global Consulting Group posted an article where $8 billion is what got spent on implicit bias trainings. billion. And I'm just like. That's a lot of money for no change, for zero, zero impact on the black and brown employee experience.

[00:19:22] Amena: yoU look at that input and then you look at reports like the Hue report.

[00:19:28] Amena: HUE in 2023. And you look at all the disrep disparities and the inequities and what black and brown people actually say about their experience in the workplace. tHe bulk of black employees don't wanna return to the workplace after having worked remotely because

[00:19:44] Amena: they just. Are not willing to put themselves back into white spaces where they're having to deal with aggression and discrimination on a daily basis. I won't say microaggression because there's nothing micro about the experience and I think [00:20:00] DEI, as usual has never worked and it is particularly now glaringly failing and employers feel that. So like in the aftermath of George Floyd, there was this uptick of hiring DEI directors and hiring chief diversity officers and this energy of we have to be part of the movement of not creating environments where this is.

[00:20:19] Amena: Okay.

[00:20:20] Aicila: It was a little bit like fomo. It was like their fear of being left

[00:20:23] Aicila: out

[00:20:23] Amena: it.

[00:20:24] Aicila: to. wanna address this real issue, the ways that it impacts. And there, there wasn't a business case. And that's the thing that, like I just looking at how business works in our country, I a lot of places, but if, businesses don't have a business case, if they don't have a clear investment and an understanding as to why they're doing this and how it legitimately will help them do their business better, it's generally more of a cosmetic or compliance oriented like you noted.

[00:20:48] Aicila: As opposed to being a, real investment in how they're gonna do business and the way that it's gonna create uh, result that they're looking for. So they're not invest, they don't know what the result is. They don't know how it applies to what they're trying to [00:21:00] accomplish.

[00:21:02] Amena: So there's two things that you're saying that I hear you saying. I the first thing that I hear you saying is that they didn't know why they were doing what they were doing. There wasn't intentional effort put into figuring out the why and when you don't put intentional effort in deciding why you're doing particular kind of work, you'll end up doing it. You'll end up doing it for the reason that everybody else is doing it, and which was optics.

[00:21:27] Amena: I. It was looking good. It was for optics. It was still superficial work. And the second thing I hear you saying is that it's not done in a way where organizations measure. They don't forget measuring outcomes or met, having metrics for it. They don't even identify the outcome that they wanna achieve. Very vaguely. The outcome gets identified as increasing diversity. VEry vaguely. And so what's unusual about the way I do DEI, I think this is rare among DEI professionals. I help employers collect [00:22:00] or review the data that they have currently. Then data is only as good as the person who looks at it, right? yoU can, if you think of data as Lego blocks, let's say, and you have a massive pile of data in all different colors if you have, if your lived experiences. Is creating colorblindness. You are not gonna see the colors and specs in that pile of data that other people are gonna see. And when you go to organize that data, you're going to put blues and reds together. And I don't know if that's true, if that's how colorblindness work, but you're gonna clump colors together that look just the same to you, right? You're not going to know how to deaggregate the data in a way that Someone like I would be able to help you with. And and then if you go one step forward, those blocks can be put together to form a house. They can be put together to form a boat. They can be put together to form, I don't know, a city. And so [00:23:00] data is only as good as the person who lens who is looking at it.

[00:23:06] Amena: And so I, helping organizations start with working with some sort of data. Some sort of assessment. So sometimes that looks like collecting data. Sometimes that looks like doing an assessment and collecting data in the assessment process. I help 'em collect data, help them make sense. And form some sort of a rough strategy of how they want to accomplish different outcomes. Get them to articulate outcomes that they want to achieve, and then reverse engineer tactics that they can experiment with to try to achieve those outcomes and be very clear on what metrics they're going to use in for measuring their success. So one of the things, one of the fails, In the past three years has been because you, because employers and businesses will not do this work in a very [00:24:00] intentional, operational way, and they are just going along with the trend. I wanna say is most businesses didn't actually articulate. How they would measure success. They just put a lot of money into hiring these roles that now they're eliminating and getting rid of, and budgets that they are now eliminating and getting rid of. anD so when you don't intentionally name the metric you're going to use to determine whether you're succeeding with your initiatives you're gonna default. To the one that feels right to you and what metric ends up being used? Absence of conflict. And so the, when they see that actually conflict arises when you try to start doing psychological safety trainings, right? Or there was no change in their employee engagement surveys. Pre and post a CDO for example. yOu just end up defaulting [00:25:00] to those things being your metrics and those are not good metrics. ThEy're not good KPIs for any initiative, let alone DEI. And I think what I help employers do and what I help employer organizations and leaders do is very intentionally figure out. What is their purpose, their anchor for this work? What data are you going to use to guide your strategy so that the outcomes that you're achieving are actually meeting the needs of the employees that you're wanting to retain? That they're aligned with employee needs, they're aligned with the needs, the kind of culture that your employees actually want, and I need to thrive in the kind of culture you need to create so that the diversity that you wanna recruit is going to actually thrive in your culture versus struggle in your culture. And I don't deliver one-off trainings and workshops. After we build a strategy we collect data and we build a strategy. That part of strategy and tactics, trainings become part of [00:26:00] that. And when we do trainings, I always have a blended approach to learning. And so there is traditional training mixed with action learning activities. So ways that managers and supervisors and leadership can actually. Put into action what they're learning versus just keep increasing. 'cause the current trainings, all it does is it just keeps increasing what you know, the word you use when you talk about it and your information. And I, what I tell people, what I tell people is like, what that does to you is it just makes you carry a sack on your back and you're just stuffing cotton into it more and more cotton. And cotton is pretty light so you can stuff a lot. In a sack on your back and walk just fine. But when you got across a river and that dips in water it gets really heavy and you can't move. And so I am a believer that [00:27:00] the more you know is not better.

[00:27:02] Aicila: Yeah, it's like a recipe, right? Like a recipe is not the food. So like I give you a recipe, you'd be like, oh, cool, I look this, but you're not gonna eat it . It's it. Then I think that's what I think of a lot of knowledge is it's it, not that it can't get you somewhere, but there's a, the space we have to act.

[00:27:18] Aicila: And then when you're acting, you learn, oh, I have or don't have certain ingredients and I don't have, they substitute and all those pieces.

[00:27:26] Amena: It's like when I first got into knitting, I was obsessed with yarn and the kinds of yarn and how it felt. And I hoarded a ton of yarn in the beginning when I started, when I had started like learning to knit and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna knit all this shit. It looks pretty on the wall in then in arranging the bookshelves.

[00:27:42] Amena: But if you don't, if you actually don't learn to knit, if you don't actually buy needing needles or, and good ones, right? And you don't learn new techniques for how to knit socks. In a circular method versus

[00:27:55] Amena: on the straight needles. If you don't, if you don't learn different ways to make that yarn [00:28:00] into actually usable items, it sits there looking pretty and it actually becomes very hard to, it just becomes something that collects dust.

[00:28:09] Aicila: it's a burden.

[00:28:10] Amena: And your money, your, yeah. Big burden. It's money that is invested in something that is just sitting there stagnant. That's exact same thing. I feel like how Bus di as usual is actually functioning at the moment is that it increases leadership and employees language base. They just talk more proficiently.

[00:28:28] Amena: Talk to any bipoc and they'll tell you how annoying and frustrating it is to have that white ally who says everything right, but does everything wrong, is never there to support you when you need the support. But ha will say everything perfectly, write the perfect emails.

[00:28:43] Aicila: bet they have great posts,

[00:28:44] Aicila: you

[00:28:44] Amena: And isn't that the trend that employers will like, was will issue businesses will issue like the perfect statements in the aftermath of a incident, but 10 out of 10 times employees are always dissatisfied with that statement. And I've had clients [00:29:00] ask me like they wanted us to say something and we said something and they got upset. I'm like because the thing that you said, they wanted you to do it first.

[00:29:09] Aicila: Exactly. They wanna see action and words, not action or words.

[00:29:12] Amena: And this blows their minds. They're like why didn't they say it? And it blows my mind. Like, why do you, why is that not obvious? But so this is the, so one of the other ways that I do business as usual is I will not do all staff trainings. I won't start by doing all staff trainings with your organization. I will work with only senior leadership first. Because it's the people who are driving the ship, the people who are the decision makers, and the ones who have the control over deciding how money moves, right? What the budget, what budget lines look like. Those are the people who control an organization's health and direction, and they're the ones who actually need to increase their capacity for being inclusive before you start doing things with [00:30:00] the rest of your organization. And so What is DEI For me? DEI is culture change work

[00:30:07] Amena: and culture change happens. Top down. Culture change never happens. Bottom up.

[00:30:10] Aicila: Yeah. So I know that you have, uh. experiences in all of these different identities you've experienced the exclusion and there are a lot of people that have, right? They're definitely not the only one. And yet for some reason, that inspired you specifically. To educate yourself in some very deep ways and then go out and do a, to a certain extent, thankless task of helping people to understand how to operationalize this.

[00:30:37] Aicila: So what created that inspiration for you? How did it go from, I experienced this to, I'm taking this action, I'm learning these things. What, is there a specific story or moment where you realized that you had something to offer that would be. Useful in this? Or was it, does it more arise that you were doing the work and suddenly you realize [00:31:00] like, I have, I've been doing this now.

[00:31:02] Aicila: Maybe I should do it intentionally. Like how, did.

[00:31:07] Amena: It's such an interesting question and it's very sweet of you to say that this is a unique experience to mine. It's not unique to me. I feel like there's a lot of folks out there with marginalized identities who understand the importance of. Systems change, right?

[00:31:22] Aicila: we assume every single person who has these identities, which I would, has these experiences that the percentage of people that take action. Or understand how to, right. I'm not saying that they're not interested. Like you, you have come up with a very unique and effective solution that, that I've seen in action in the ways that it touches and changes people.

[00:31:44] Aicila: And so how did that happen as opposed to the, you feeling like you didn't have a choice or, because, I are all understandable reactions. Let me be clear. I'm not saying anything

[00:31:55] Aicila: that is, you get that it's more. Curious about what, what [00:32:00] fostered that for you specifically?

[00:32:02] Amena: If I had to point to my lived experience and try to extract, I. something. Here are two things I would say, but before I say, before I name those, I'd also say it's I think my entire life has led me up to this, like I have been chasing belonging all my life and failed in so many environments for a really la large, for the bulk of my life, right? Partially because the bulk of my life, I've been a marginalized person without And not being in a position of power, for example, a student, right? You're not, when you're going through your K through 12 education or even university life, you're not somebody who has a ton of power, positional power. And so when you experience over and over again when you experience putting in all you possibly can. [00:33:00] Still experiencing marginalization and oppression again and again. I think one thing that surfaces for you is what? The thing that I think you, that's a very experiential way of learning that you're not the only ingredient. That you, your, you and your bootstraps are not the only ingredient. right? tHat the environment makes a big difference. That people holding positional power are a large, there, there are a key ingredient and they need to change for there to be change overall. One place I learned this, I would think, I remember I was in fourth grade or fifth grade, we were assigned to read to kill a Mocking bird. And I grew up in Canada, by the way.

[00:33:51] Amena: So this is Canadian education system. To Kill a Mockingbird was the book that was assigned. My teacher was a white female. And we were asked to do book [00:34:00] reports. So the classroom actually wasn't all assigned to Kill a Mockingbird. There were different books and we were divvied up into groups and Me and two other black students, the only other people of color. So the three of us were the only POCs in the room. In the class. Everybody else was white. We were the only ones assigned to kill a Mockingbird I remember, I'm not gonna remember the name titles of the other books, but I do remember like thinking, why did we get this book? 'cause it's the one book that white people like to think that it is about race. And I remember that I ended up writing the book report, so we didn't do, it wasn't a group project. I remember writing, it was just that the three of us were assigned this one book. And so the idea was that like different people are gonna write different book reports and you're gonna get to see different perspectives. If I try to remember accurately, I think that was the objective and. Five minutes into presenting my [00:35:00] book report, she shut me down. She stopped me. She told me that this was, that I didn't do the project right, that I failed the opportunity, and that she was disappointed. I. I'm trying to remember. I remember I getting an f and that she told me, I need you to redo it.

[00:35:19] Amena: I remember not doing it. I remember thinking to myself, I'm not redoing this project Even in fourth and fifth grade I remember saying, I'm gonna keep the F I don't care. 'cause there was nothing wrong that I did. I remember she stopped me and in front of the whole class, I remember she said that I got the book wrong.

[00:35:33] Amena: That the report was, I was confusing them. Everybody and that I would need to redo it and to, and repre represent it. And what made my, and I don't remember this is fourth or fifth grade, right? And so I don't remember how long I presented before she interjected. My memory of it is it was immediate, but I remember it was enough where I had pointed out, that pointed out the racism in the book. I had said that like the book was about a white [00:36:00] person was written by a white woman. About a white person and a white girl and a her white father who had these white savior complexes. I don't think I wa I was familiar with that terminology. I must have used some other words. whEre their job and focus was to save one black man. And how the book never talks about the Finch family's complicity in the racism system. I remember in my book report talking about that. I remember like KKK was referred to as a political organization and not a hate group. And when he, when Atticus is accused of being a radical, he compares himself to this political figure.

[00:36:42] Amena: I'm not gonna remember his name at the moment, but I remember I had researched and found out that he was a white supremacist. So like Finch had compared himself, Atticus had compared himself to a white supremacist to prove he wasn't a radical. and I remember talking about how the book is published [00:37:00] in the sixties and it doesn't mention any of the civil unrest that is taking place in the country at that time.

[00:37:04] Amena: It doesn't talk about how, what the problem is with a black person being accused of rape and the significance of that, and the word lynch is never used.

[00:37:14] Aicila: Hmm.

[00:37:14] Amena: And the weight of that accusation. And I just, I remember writing a book report ended with saying this is more, this is not a book about racism. This is a book about white people and their ability to be kind and be moral beings and not about white people having created the whole system

[00:37:29] Aicila: Right.

[00:37:29] Amena: begin with. And I didn't know this at that time, but I remember when she shut that down conversation and said I had to redo it and gave me an f, I realized like I had no recourse. As a fourth grader I could not go to my immigrant parents and ask them to come and advocate for me. They didn't have the skills, they didn't have the language.

[00:37:50] Aicila: right.

[00:37:51] Amena: There were no adults in the system that were, would have been able to help me. And I realized, I think at that moment of [00:38:00] was like, there's only so much that I can do. There is work they need to do, like this teacher needs. To develop herself, to know how to support a person like me. So that's it's like those kind of experiences happening over and over again where you realize that you, there are no adults competent to care for you or to understand you or your experience.

[00:38:23] Amena: To feel wrong again. And then again. I think the other experience I would just point to in my life was my parents moved back and forth between Pakistan and Canada, so I never got in my up to my twenties. I never got to live in one culture long enough where I could be like even have the semblance of fitting in. And so I think when you repeatedly. Don't belong. Don't. Although fitting in is not the same as the thing as belonging, but like I'm, and I'm using them synonymously at the moment, but when you repeatedly don't belong, [00:39:00] and also when you change cultural contexts significantly, right? So in second grade, I went from using paper and fountain pens and like ballpoint ink pens in In Toronto, Canada to moving to Pakistan where we used a wood tablet with reed pens where we had to mix our ink the day of. So like technology experiences that were like vastly different and house schooling was done. So I think like my experiences of experiencing systems that felt like they were from drastically different worlds and times. Has given me, I think, the context and the ingredients to realize that we have to think outside the box. We have to radically imagine different ways of being to create new systems and to create different systems.

[00:39:58] Aicila: [00:40:00] Yeah.

[00:40:00] Amena: I feel like that's what I can point to that is maybe a little bit more unique about my experience. And then I will just say is like from the beginning I've been very introverted. I'm very thought and thinking oriented, and I would say my religious upbringing has taught me to ask why a lot. The question why do we do this? Why do we do this? Why do we do this? Along with that experience in different culture speaking, d different religious experiences, different linguistic experiences. So I speak about five. I can speak with various competencies, five languages. I think that helps you see, be more flexible in how you can see things can be done. So I do see that I have a, an ability to imagine doing things differently than a lot of people. And in my experience working with managers and supervisors, that's an incredibly frustrating thing for them to have to manage [00:41:00] where someone below them who is brown, Muslim. For the most bulk of my life, I was also visibly Muslim who already looks like an other. Challenges, like they, they see that as challenging versus innovative. It's hard for them to put the word innovative on the feedback that I would bring to the than to say that you're actually challenging.

[00:41:23] Aicila: You tell me about advice you've received that's influenced the way you approach your work?

[00:41:32] Amena: Look, when I think on the spot like this, all the advice I can think of. Advice that was given to me that I could see did not fit me was maybe some of the most powerful advices I got in my life where I got this advice from people that I respected and I looked up to and then and thought, okay, they are saying this.

[00:41:57] Amena: This must be true. I just need to try [00:42:00] it differently. And so me trying out and trying on advice and realizing, Nope.

[00:42:06] Aicila: Yeah.

[00:42:06] Amena: advice is not specific to me. This can't work. This is coming from their lived experience. So for example the advice of be yourself, I think is the most harmful advice we give to Bipo. And because when we take that advice seriously, it backfires. I think the most useful advice that I ever got was from a, not a mentor, but a leader who had been my coachee for a while and I was experiencing some hardship in a workplace environment, and she had said, but is that your responsibility, Amina? And I remember being worked at that. Statement first. And I had asked her, what do you mean by that? So [00:43:00] I've learned to ask when I'm irked that something in me is triggered and I need to work harder to be open-minded and be stay curious. I've learned to ask, tell the person to expand. 'cause that usually helps me know more about what they're saying and add less of my ness to their statement. She went into some details and I remember it stayed with me for weeks and it bugged me for weeks, and it bugged me when something bugs me that long. It's because there is a strand of truth in there mixed in with all the things that have traditionally experientially that I know have not worked and do not work. aNd I can't figure out what that is, but I remember like on a walk one day realizing, oh my gosh, I know what, why it's bugging me. And I realized it's true. When we wanna do work that is systemic change work. And when we can see when we're visionaries and we can see exactly what needs to change the system, it is really frustrating to see everybody [00:44:00] move at snail pace. It's really frustrating to see people not just see that idea and be like, oh my gosh, that's the solution, let's implement it, or let's give it a try.

[00:44:08] Amena: Let's try it out and see if it actually works. And I realized. What she was saying to me was that like what surfaced for me was like, there are things that are mine to do and then there are things that are not mine to do, and if something is not mine to do, how much of my effort should actually go into that?

[00:44:28] Amena: Is that smart expenditure of my energy? Because I am one person and I feel like in my career, that was like one of the. Biggest breakthroughs for me was my ability to detach from what was not my individual responsibility and to not push forward that work unless everybody else is on board and putting and pulling their weight.

[00:44:53] Aicila: Yeah.

[00:44:55] Amena: Because I think Bipoc make that mistake is like we take on healing our [00:45:00] businesses our organizations. And that's where it's the responsibility of leadership. And we often put more in and get burnt out than leadership will put in or our colleagues will put in.

[00:45:14] Aicila: That's really wise. , Obviously this work is not always generative. There can be times when it's, you draining or discouraging. So what do you do to stay inspired to, to recharge and to keep going and stay curious in the face of the challenges and the overwhelm.

[00:45:34] Amena: Yes, the work , can be discouraging, and it's it costs a lot emotionally. There's a lot of emotional, psychological labor, I would say. buT for me it's those friction points that are the most generative places actually.

[00:45:51] Aicila: Hmm.

[00:45:51] Amena: The places where. Something is really hard to achieve or there's a lot of resistance that is actually where [00:46:00] I feel like the gold is. aNd so I am actually energized because I know that because it's really hard to crack the shell there. That is where the gold is. My energy comes from knowing that if we can get below the surface. We're gonna be opened up to like immense possibilities. And so if I, for me, it's actually incredibly encouraging and energizing when I can actually identify is a source of friction.

[00:46:36] Aicila: That's awesome.

[00:46:37] Aicila: You're good at.

[00:46:38] Amena: yeah. It's really why I'm good at this, and I know that where there is the most emotional labor being put in, I know that the return is gonna be huge. So like I from experience know that the return is gonna be immense and completely worth it. So I think maybe having that lived ex, I'm grateful for having the lived experience of seeing successes [00:47:00] that come out of Immense energy inputs. But I get to your point though, like when I look at the world right now and how much work needs to be put in, things can be discouraging. And I think I find my, I fill my cup in with connections with build building community

[00:47:17] Amena: because,

[00:47:19] Amena: It's our interconnectedness and our interdependence that is actually going to save us. And it, and our disconnection is what is destroying us at the moment. And so I, I make sure that I have community I'm connected with, and Covid has more than doubled and tripled my ability to access community because of. Zoom and virtual connections. I've made connections with people in England, in Australia that I talk to regularly, either on LinkedIn or will hop on a call, and so I think I find those very energizing to see that [00:48:00] there are so many people I. Who want to do good in the world and are dedicating their resources to that. I think that I find that incredibly encouraging and uplifting that despite our systems, our socialization isn't complete. And that's very energizing to see that people have not been completely socialized into oppression and into replicating oppression.

[00:48:25] Aicila: I think that is one of the biggest things that I see is that, that there really are a lot of folks who, truly do want things to be different. They don't always know like, your point, how to do things differently.

[00:48:35] Amena: Mm-Hmm.

[00:48:36] Aicila: And yet they are willing to, step in and try. And I think that there's not as much megaphone for that.

[00:48:43] Aicila: So I, I also find that to be one of the things that helps me to stay up and gut to be so, folks who are listening, oh, go ahead.

[00:48:53] Amena: If I may say so this is another DEI unu as business as Unusual. thIng about [00:49:00] Rafa Consulting, which is my consulting gig, is that a lot of traditional DEI is focused on changing hearts and minds. I'm actually not in through consulting. That is not one of our objectives to change heart and minds. I believe that Predominantly, the bulk of people have good intentions, and we need to create systems that make it easy for people with good intentions to have good impact.

[00:49:26] Aicila: Yeah, no. That's the changing behavior. And then the, minds can come along.

[00:49:32] Aicila: for folks that are listening and wanna know more, maybe they think you would be helpful to them. Their business, they wanna refer you to their best friend. How do they get in touch, follow you, learn what you're up to.

[00:49:47] Amena: Pretty easy to be in touch with me and to follow me. So LinkedIn is where I am most active. And so you can go to LinkedIn, ring my bell, and that way you will see my posts. My posts tend to be a [00:50:00] mix of heart-centered, DEI, insights and tips and advice, as well as opportunities to work with me. And then LinkedIn, like any other space is not always conducive to people who do DEI with integrity, I'll say. And so if I ever get kicked off LinkedIn, you wanna be on my email list. And so I just started an email list and we'll start a newsletter starting January of 20, 24, 2 emails a month. And follow my link tree to go sign up for my newsletter.

[00:50:29] Amena: And that way if I ever disappear from LinkedIn, you have access to me. seNd me a DMM on LinkedIn to say you're interested and I'll be in touch. That's the fastest way. You can also email me and I can give you my email address. But those are some of the ways that you can be in touch with me. And then Once I have my website up and running, that'll be on Link tree as well or we announced my newsletter and so you'll find out if you are already following me and on my emailing list.

[00:50:58] Aicila: That's wonderful. Thank you so [00:51:00] much for your time and I really appreciate you joining us and I hope that folks do reach out and follow you. I know I've learned a lot from. Following you and attending your work and I look forward to learning more,

[00:51:10] Amena: Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you and I hope that this met your your checklist or your needs for a kickoff for 2024.

[00:51:19] Aicila: more than exceeded it.