Hi there. This is Cindy Lu with CHRO partners and I'm joined today with Ronnie Dickerson Stewart, Publicis Groupe's Chief Diversity Officer, and today Ronnie's gonna share with us three practical things you can do to give your diversity inclusion program a lift. So Ronnie, before we get started,

tell us a little bit about your journey in D & I or DEIBs or DIJ, all the words that we beautifully call it to articulate the nuances of the work that we do. So, I've been the Chief Diversity Officer of Publicis Groupe since this February. However I came into this role after leading diversity equity and inclusion for a brand within our organization for many years.

And before that, I actually worked in our ad industry and our ecosystem on the business side of our work. So working for clients, you know and love, and most specifically focusing on the media buying strategy planning and digital marketing aspect of our business. For me getting into diversity equity and inclusion was,

you know, as a lot of people do it because it's this hard work and then you're doing it. And then you evolve that work into being something very specific and full time. That was my path, but it came out of working with talent throughout our organization and then being really intense on them, rising through the organization, having careers that were

notable and advancing in the ways that make sense for them and that express their superpowers and doing that thoughtfully, mission-driven, and servant leaders are the folks that I work most closely with. So, but with D and I, as an articulation of that skill set, regardless of identity for those leaders to have.

and so that brought me into this work. So chief diversity officer, but with an executive coaching and career management and leadership development background as well in terms of how I'm formally trained and certified, so I'm bringing that into the seat. I love how that's all together. For a lot of our members in our community, they're all struggling with what to do with diversity inclusion,

from what to call it to dealing with reactive CEOs, trying to create holidays without really thinking through the whole big picture, give us sort of the high-level roadmap you might recommend. Well, I think the roadmap is, I'll qualify this caveat so we are a formed community. So, those of you who are listening to this, who, I don't know, Hey, I'm in your community too and we're all walking a similar journey, even though what the shoes we wear might look different, but ultimately I know that we're all on a path of creating workplaces that are more equitable,

more just, are diverse and inclusive. I think to define the moment is to call it what it is, which is an inflection point. We're at a point where the strategic picture for what work was or what we thought it was, has dissolved and it's at a point where we get to and even if it feels little painful in the process,

we have an opportunity to co-create with our peers and colleagues and our ecosystem around us So I think before we get into articulating kind of the challenges it's important to very specifically give language to the moment that we're in.

We're at a cultural inflection point and that cultural inflection point obviously feeds into the work that each of us does every single day. And so we're all walking on similar journeys, but in different shoes and at different points in that journey, but ultimately culturally, we're all facing some very similar pressures and challenges. I think from a diversity equity inclusion and talent standpoint,

the opportunity in this moment is to co-create what happens next. And so when you think about the global pandemic that we're all doing our best level best to manage both as professionals and as humans being, and then as well as the significant cultural crises that's happened centered on social justice or lack thereof, that's been there all along,

but then has been more pervasive in the last few weeks to months, this opportunity to say there needs to be some type of re-articulation of how we do this or amplification of things that we've already been doing that just need to be pushed out further. I think that's the moment we're in. The opportunity is the bring the other people around us along.

And that right there is the challenge is to define what happens next, to define what that looks like for our organization, and to bring individuals along in the process so that what we're co-creating delivers against the impact that we want to see, which is a more diverse, equitable and just workplace. So you mentioned before when we were talking also just making sure you understand where you are today.

Yes, yes. Yes. That's so important. So there are many maturity models that may say, Hey, from a diversity and inclusion standpoint, here's where you could be, could sit from an organization standpoint. And it talks a little bit about where the responsibilities for this work sit or where the systems of power and engagement sit,

and then understanding how that starts to expand as your, I guess acumen or your expertise or your ability for impact, et cetera, grows to. That's important to know, to know yourself and your organization in that construct so that when you're set off to say, okay, we're at an inflection point and we have to take action.

You're recognizing the starting point. You're recognizing what tools you have in your toolkit. You're recognizing what your opportunities are. It's almost like make the SWOT, take the SWOT analysis, challenge, situations, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and then identify what you need to be doing to fill those gaps, to get to those next steps. That can't be done without having critical conversations with your teams,

not just about what's happening now, but really about the organization that you want to be, or how you want to serve and support your community, your constituents, or your consumers, which is really what a lot of us are sorting right now, as businesses is how do we support ultimately, the individuals who we work beside every day, as well as the individuals that we serve.

And that can't happen until you get that articulation of where you are now, and then what your gaps are kind of solid in down pat. What if you don't know exactly what the gaps are, because you don't know enough, you don't know what you don't know. Right. Which is where a lot of people feel right now.

They're just, it's almost like this analysis paralysis for some, some are reacting too fast. Others are just like, I don't even know what to say. I don't know. I don't even know what to do on social media or what to say to our employees. Yes. Well, there's two parts to that. I think the first part of that is really capturing the reality of

the emotional contagion in this moment, like as talent leaders or diversity practitioners or folks that thread those two lines or other lines, when you're in this kind of moment, people are looking at you to say, okay, what happens next? And then they're also looking at themselves. So I just say, what do we do next? So,

and then the mounting pressures externally they keep compounding. So I get it. I think it's recognizing that first and understanding that it's difficult to make those strategic decisions. If you were in that fight, flight fear, freeze, you know, all the Fs,

because you really want to get to the clear place of saying, recognize what's going on out here. I know intentionally we have to do something. So how do we understand how to do that deliberately? Right. And so I think that's the first step, but if you don't know what to do, if you look around and say, we don't know what to do.

One thing that I do appreciate is this ecosystem that has if co-conspiring to create these more, just equitable and inclusive workplaces through consultants, through external partners, through this community here where we can have an exchange and just talk about what's working or what's not working. I think now more than ever recognizing that rising tide lifts all ships around culture or,

for our peers, even our competitors, I think is so important to have these top to tops, to where you can have that ID exchange that will spark an idea, spark something, or you're saying, okay, here's a person that you could lean on, even if it's for temporary use to come in and say, okay,

look at your stuff and consult with you, whatever it is and do and do that. And sometimes you have to tap somebody else in, but that's okay and recognize that's okay. Don't feel like you have to carry the weight exclusively. It's interesting that you bring up culture because I think so much of it is companies needing sort of a culture revamped to begin with.

Right. And I think I've mentioned before when we were speaking how I used to be an executive search and I had clients who say, Hey, we want diversity slates. And I'm like, well, until you're willing to go out there and proactively pull people in, your existing recruiting system's broken,

don't think that you're going to be able to do that next level if you can't even get your existing process put in place. So I bet in your role, you see a lot of weaknesses in different functional areas in HR. So another example is data. Like if you want to figure out where you're at today, first of all, you have to be able to pull clean data.

And I know that's challenging for 99% of the HR leaders out there. Yes. I mean, I know generally speaking, we have to give credit to the systems and things that we already have in place that we could improve or mine, or look at that could inspire the innovation, the change or whatever it is that we seek in our organizations.

Once we know where we are and we want to go, then you look at what do I have, right. And so I know there might be the quick ambition is like, let's create something new and then go do X, Y, and Z. But that kind of falls down if your internal processes or your internal opportunities, either haven't been fully utilized or haven't been designed in a way that supports that

next to new thing that you want to do, particularly on the topic of diversity, equity, and inclusion. So we're all practitioners who have that ability to dig into our systems or to work with our colleagues and start to really articulate those things that are within our wheelhouse to effect. Then from that you get that foundation together and then you start to say,

okay, here's what I noticed in that. Here's what I'm changing, but here's, what's next to new that then I incubate into that process or into that platform or what I create even in a more strong way on top of that. So that you don't kind of disrupt what you're ultimately trying to do in the process of just going out and reacting.

And so I think there's an opportunity area for everyone. I even take that on myself. I was like, okay, what are we doing right now that can be revamped or enhanced or executed more frequently to support the objectives that we have for a more diverse as well, inclusive culture. And then what do I need to know,

fill in to meet the needs of our talent in our organization, in the process of getting to that ultimate goal. And I think that's very important. Yeah. So, okay. To kind of take the baby steps, right. Don't try to boil the ocean. Yeah. It's very difficult to boil an ocean, but take steps.

There are things it's very easy to get paralyzed in this moment because it feels like there's so much that could be done. Right. But when we all co-conspired towards change and get on that same page and say, as an organization, here's what we want to do. You'd be surprised at the individuals who pop up the different skillsets,

who pop up, who co-conspire in a more granular sense to get to that goal. Always on my mind right now, especially with challenged practitioners or diversity practitioners who need extra hands and how it's like, okay, look for the helpers they're there. When you think about the cultural climate that we're in from a US perspective, the cultural climate that we're in, there's so many people individually who are saying, I want to help make impact in this moment. Many of those individuals work in your workspace and they're ripe and ready to help. Even if it's with a micro project to advance something you have,

or to put a different level of strategic thinking on top of that, using their expertise, they could be from a functional area that looks nothing like what you do day to day, but they could have a solution that impacts your pipeline development process or your talent acquisition process or your learning management system, or any of those things where they could have a connection that makes a lot of sense.

Or I could have created something outside of the workplace. That could be something that they be willing to let you license and put inside that helps solve the problem you have. And so it's like looking for the helpers and expanding that ecosystem and not saying you can boil the ocean again, very difficult, and that's something we want to do love the ocean at its proper temperature,

but to tackle the big challenges and to do that in a deliberate way and understanding it is a marathon and absolutely not a sprint. Sometimes when we react speed introduces bias, speed introduces the bias of not elevating. The best ideas are not getting the right people in the room. I'm not saying be slow as a snail, but I'm also saying that

doing things deliberately with intention and through an inclusive lens often helps you create the innovative ideas and processes or platforms that you hope to create an origin deliver against your ultimate goals. And ultimately, I mean, other than that, it's the right thing to do. Innovation is kind of why we do this, right. Absolutely. To grow the businesses and provide more opportunities for everyone so that you can include without exclude,

right. And be able to really grow. I think the companies of the future, if their leadership is not thinking about this just like technology has turned some businesses into dinosaurs, there's going to be businesses if their culture doesn't make that move, They're going to be dinosaurs. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think there are so,

many of us have worked in a space where you make the business case for diversity and, and all of this, and it's there, the business case is there. But when you talk about the sustainability of companies and cultures, and even being able to have a competitive advantage, you start talking about the risk,

right. Business cases, one is one specific thing, but then very, very much so talking about it in the nature of risk and longterm sustainability from an organizational standpoint, I think when we start to get into that language and that's across industries, right. There's risk in not having innovation, right.

Businesses thrive from innovation and the growth is driven from that and being able to create spaces that inspire that as well as have individuals that reflect the diversity that can drive that is incredibly important. And so our processes even getting there are foundational to getting to that angle specifically, mitigating risks, inspiring innovation

an environment for longterm sustainability of companies. I think it's incredibly important, Quick tactical thing, you mentioned something called Brave Space. And I thought that was really interesting, and is it a space for your employees to be able to come and just share their feelings? Yes. Well, we were chatting. And so I shared with you that we,

just the idea of at minimum, the idea was like minimally create an environment where Italian your talent or your colleagues can have an exchange in conversation and minimally build credibility there, because in moments like this, being able to have platforms for transparency or a feedback loop are incredibly important for, to build trust,

to create an environment for psychological safety so that the innovation can exist in all of this. We created within Publicis Groupe and within one of our brands, Digitize, a platform called Brave Space. It was launched five years ago. From a context standpoint, if any of you all are in social media and get those time memory lapse five years ago,

a lot was happening with regards to social justice and injustice, and there was also a tipping point moment that occurred during the summer five years ago. So I won't go deeply into that because I want to give honor to all the names and individuals and lives that we lost. And I don't want to miss one, but if you scroll back in your memory to five years ago,

you'll see the articulation within culture that kind of started to prove them, but Brave Space formed around that time period. And it was in response to cultural crises, but it was formed to give people an outlet just to connect, to talk about what was necessarily not just their feelings, but what they're processing in an effort to get to build community,

but to help capture the emotional contagion so people knew that we could connect in that way in the workplace and to help empower them to go back into their respective roles and know that they were supported. It's not just reactive, it's not that a tragedy happened. And then we do this thing. Actually our Brave Space platform was also proactive. So we would have,

We've had conversations around real life. I'm a veteran. And then going into the reality of veterans in the workplace, or five things that you need to know about your trans colleague. And so getting into the realities and the realities of your colleagues and kind of just understanding what they go through. So empathy building and understanding: conversations around cultural appropriation in all types of areas of conversations that are there are nuance, but then create a space for us to have an increased amount of both empathy, understanding connection. And so when inflection points like the moment we're in happened,

you've already built up the credibility and trust where people can come together. And so in may of this year, after the tragic murder of George Floyd in about a day, we pulled together, a brave space and it was one of the first ones we'd done virtually in the way that we had done it. And with the onset of COVID where over 2100 people joined that brave space virtually.

And we were just sorting and having conversations, sharing resources, sharing the realities of experiences of our black talent from black talent. And then just having that community. And you went into a weekend, I would say, what the heart's a little bit more bandaged and still sorting all of that. But we said, we have to come together and that's what we did.

And so that's a part of our culture and there've been dozens of those conversations, even in the last six weeks that have happened virtually with smaller communities within our organization, but they've been necessary for us to connect and keep connected in this time period. That's wonderful. I love how you put that.

Like you've got credits in the bank, right? So it's not like a onetime type reaction. Right. And it builds your muscle too. Like it's scary to get into these conversations, even as people who even as a coach who facilitates difficult conversations or mediates them, it's scary because people are carrying their identity, and they're carrying something they went through and you've got to hold that with a degree of professionalism, care, and concern in a way that helps them walk away,

hopefully neutral or better than when they came in. And so I appreciate the folks in our organization has picked up that banner. We formally trained people to be Brave Space facilitators, both in person and virtually. So it's not just myself or the D&I team who does that. We actually have a formalized training that we rolled out across organization so that people can be trained to hold space and have those conversations,

both reactive and in a topical way. And it's such an important part of our culture. Oh, you should not have brought that up. You're going to get a thousand connections on people who want to get trained in that. Like you said, you're here to be a conductor, right? Rising tide lifts all ships, right? That's right. Well,

Ronnie, Thank you so much for sharing your insights and knowledge and experience. We look forward to seeing you at the big HR event on September 11th as you'll be there as a mentor and supporting us. So once again, thank you so much for your generosity and servant leadership. Yes. And thank you to Cindy for leading and connecting.

As in this moment, I know that community is so important right now, and I know that we're all doing our jobs intentionally, even if inperfectly, sometimes because we're humans all navigating a similar crisis. So I'm really appreciative of the platform and the community, but I get to be a part of also on September 11th. So see you all there.