CultureRoad Podcast Episode 12: A personal journey through EDI

0:03

Hello. Welcome to the Culture Road podcast. So excited that you joined us today. Thank you for being here, as always. I am DeEtta Jones. I'm your host. And today we are really excited to be joined by a colleague and friend, dr. Maggie Cousin, who also is the vice president for client engagement at Dietta, Jones and Associates. She's been with my team and really an amazing, integral part of our leadership for multiple years now. And 1s I think, Maggie, you have your finger in every client engagement in some way, shape or form. All of our clients experience you. You have a positive impact on the lives and experiences of the people we work with in many ways. So really excited that you were able to carve out some time to be with us here today. Thank you.

U2

1:02

Absolutely. Thank you for having

U1

1:04

me so excited. So, Maggie, before we dive on into all of your kind of ideas and all of your thoughts and experiences, what I'd love to know is a little bit more about you. The Culture Road podcast exists because, as you know, I really believe that all of us are on a cultural journey and that culture is something that is a long road. It's something that 1s evolves over time and that there are major milestones and experiences that contribute to each of us as we continue on our path. It makes it so that each of us has our own special journey, that each of us is always kind of wrestling with, coming to terms with, and trying to step into the reality of who we are and make sure that who we are and how we're showing up is aligned with our values over time. And so for me, being able to have a reflective space to be able to tell the story of who you are and how you came to be who you are is a huge opportunity, hopefully for you, but definitely for our listeners. So, with that said, would love to invite you to tell us a little bit more about Dr. Maggie Cousin. Who are you and how did you get to be who you are today?

U2

2:29

Well, thank you for the question. Dietta I'm excited to think about this and to talk about my journey along the way, because as we talk about all the time with our clients, we're sort of a sum of all of the events of our lives and the way that we think and the lenses that we use come directly from all of those experiences. So I'll start without a mom. I'm a super proud mom, working mom. 1s I have a 17 year old and a nine year old, and I love being a mom and spending time with my children and seeing the life through their lenses and their views. I am a gardener, so I'm in upstate New York, and I'm super excited that it's spring and I can finally get outside and get my hands in the dirt and grow things. It makes me super happy to be outside in nature and watch things grow and help things grow. I'm an academic, so I have a doctorate from the University of Rochester in higher education. I spent a lot of time studying. I have a couple of different degrees. I have a master's in international development as well. So along my journey, my ideas about what I wanted to do and study evolved over time. But they've always been about culture and different identities, right? So the International Development degree first was about learning about international cultures and how the world works in other places, and then coming back into higher education, thinking about all the different people and all the different identities in higher education and studying how that plays out. 1s I'm a return Peace Corps volunteer, which is actually a super huge part of my identity. I spent two and a half years volunteering in Southwest China, and so at one point, I was fluent in Chinese. I don't claim to be fluent anymore, but I had that great joy of living in another culture and experiencing lots of different things over there and learning much more than I taught because I was an English teacher there. Um, what else? 3s I love my role in client engagement and working with all of our different clients and trying to help people figure out how to do dei work better and consistently and systematically. Love it.

U1

4:47

I know the mom part. It's funny. We work together, but I feel like the mom part of you is just as present in our day to day interactions 2s as the work and client engagement piece, which I actually say with a lot of pride. It says a lot about, I think, our organizational culture, that people share stories about their families, about what's happening with them personally, that there's a lot of care that exists between the colleagues. I also know that you have a sick one at home today, a little one who's sick at home today. So, again, thank you for being here. I know it's hard to be focused and also balancing, and that's definitely something that I think a lot of our listeners will empathize with, especially in the world that we live in today, where 1s I think we've done this. For a long time, but it's more and more acknowledged. And we've definitely been thrown into a different experience, particularly with hybrid work where a lot of people on a day to day basis are now living with the reality. That they have multiple demands, all of them incredibly important, and also need to figure out how to show up and be productive and be focused. But of course, we are caregivers and we have other responsibilities.

U2

6:05

That hybrid world of work is a challenge, for sure.

U1

6:08

It is. It's an adventure. We've been in the hybrid world of work before it was even a thing. I mean, often associates, we've been hybrid, right? So it's interesting that we were kind of ahead of the curve, but it still has its ups and downs. Like, some days I wish that we had not some days. Most days I wish that we had a physical office and really believe that it would be so much easier for us to 1s do all of the things that we need and want to do. We do a great job. We're incredibly productive, and we're incredibly cohesive. But. But being together, I feel like, would be just such a beautiful experience. I wish we could have more of that

U2

6:50

same. Yeah.

U1

6:51

Ditto. So you and I met speaking of higher education, you and I met I don't even remember how many years ago. It was at this .6 or so. And I was doing with another colleague. I was doing an engagement at the university where you had a leadership role in equity, diversity, and inclusion at the campus level. And you and I met there. And higher education, how is it that you got into higher education? What was it about that field that attracted you? And how did you have an impact on equity, diversity, and inclusion related to higher education?

U2

7:31

Yeah, good question. It was kind of serendipitous, honestly. So I had been doing international work for a long time. I had lived in China almost five years in total. I had gone and gotten a master's degree in international development. I thought I wanted to be in the Foreign service. I was back in China, and my dad got sick. And my dad was here in upstate New York, and I realized how hard it is when you have people you love on the other side of the world and you are physically unable to get back to them. And I started thinking about my career goals in terms of foreign service and my personal goals in terms of being near my family and my friends when they have kids and when people are getting married and being able to go to all of those things. And I made a shift. So I came home to Rochester, New York, and I had this sort of odd international degree. And Rochester, New York is not the most international of places, and 1s I was just sort of trying to figure things out. So I took a temporary job answering the phone at the university while I sorted things out. And lucky for me, it was the same time that a new president was starting at that institution and lots of leadership were moving around as things happen in higher education. I didn't know it at the time, 1s and it was also at a time when the university needed a strong focus on diversity, equity, inclusion. The board had demanded it. So the president was charged with creating sort of the first central office. And somebody that I had become close to while I was in that role got volunteered. A white woman got volunteered that she was going to lead up the diversity office and she needed some help. And I had data skills and I had writing skills and I had an interest in international cultures and all of these things. And so we started that office together, and then 1s I spent about 15 years there building that office and growing what it meant to do that work across that institution and trying to build connections and lean into the work that had already been done before me and pull it forward so that people got recognition for what they had been doing for years. 1s And so that was really the start of how I got into this

U1

9:54

work. Amazing. That's it's so interesting you know this too, but I do so much coaching. Earlier in my career, I coached people who were earlier in their careers. Now, a lot of the people I coach are in executive leadership roles. But often I have said to people, especially early in their career, like, show up. Show up. Just because this job doesn't have all of the prestige that you expect to have at some point in your life, or just because you don't have the title or you don't have the kind of authority that you want to have right now doesn't mean that people aren't watching. Doesn't mean that you don't have an opportunity to be influential. And you never know what the next door is that might either become available or open because you showed up. And the way you just described, like, just showing up, kind of being at a crossroads, allowing the experience that you had to date coupled with your own values, which it sounded like you kind of reconfigured, like, okay, I have these values, but I have to realign them with some of the things that I understand to be part of my current reality at those moments in time. Those are really important developmental choices and also really important, I think, experiences along all of our journeys, because so many people have told me that those particular junctures of our lives were the turning points, that those set them on the path that have led them to the success that they have now. So I love the way you told that story and also that you brought your values into it and you just kind of dug in. But the other thing, I think that's the most impressive part of that story is how you talk about kind of making sure that you're giving credit to people who have also been doing important work either before you or side by side along with you, because so much of that is often absent. And if you have the position of authority to be able to create that space and to create that recognition, it's very honorable for you to actually do that.

U2

: 11:56

Well, so you and I have talked about what it's a little bit about what it's like to be a white woman in this space. But when I was reflecting on this this weekend, I'm so lucky with the mentors that I had early on in those days when I went from sort of being someone answering the phone to somebody second in command in this very small diversity office. Back before there were Chief Diversity Officers or any of those titles. I had some amazing mentors and these elders that really took me under their wing and said, wait, 1s hold on. Before you do anything, research the history. We've been working on this for a long time at this institution, and I had you know, Paul Brigitte is one of them. He is sort of well, renowned in Rochester. He has since passed, but we have an intercultural center named after him here. And he took me in his office and told me stories 2s over and over again. I was blessed to hear all of his stories about the work that he's been doing and his long tenure at the university. And then Dr. Frederick Jefferson, also one of my longtime mentors, he gave me an assignment, my first sort of official assignment from Dr. Jefferson, and he said, we need to record the history of diversity at the university, and so I want you to be the one to find all of that data. And so I spent several months at the beginning of that job doing that research, creating this whole website about the history of diversity. But the things that I learned through that project were more about being humble, right? If I'm going to host an event, it's not the inaugural event, right? This has been going on for a long time. So what can I pull forward from those events or if I'm going to make recommendations? I saw that in 73, they were making the same recommendations. This black student union back then was calling to diversify the faculty. And yet here I am saying we have to diversify the faculty, right? Or here I am listening to the current students who are asking for the same things. So then, not only was I humbled to be nothing I do is the inaugural, but also. 1s How can I take the work that they did and pull it forward and think about what was blocking it? Why hasn't anything changed? What were the systems and the structures? Right? And so as a young person, to understand that a lot of this is structural and that there were reasons that it didn't work before, and then to start to shift your mind, to think about how can you adjust the structures? What can I do differently? I can't just ask for the same thing and expect fact a different response if the structures are still the same. It was a huge learning experience for me, so I'm so thankful. I think about both of those men all the time, their words of wisdom and their trust in me to do that research and go back and look at all the old student newspapers and find 1s all the same recommendations over and over again. And then the fact that they leaned into me and thought, well, she's in this position. We're going to teach her that this has been going on for a long time and hopefully work together to make

U1

: 15:03

change love it. Great examples. Great examples. It's a perfect example of what it means to be an ally. Right. We're in a place where you have privilege on multiple fronts, where absolutely you have a position that has some recognition at that moment in time of being important and had some some university sanctioned support around it. Right. It actually had paid at least one position. It sounds like there were multiple positions. And so you had that level of privilege. But also, racially speaking, in both of the examples of the men who were the mentors you described were both black. The example of the recommendations that came were from the Black Student Union. And so when you were thinking back, there were absolutely structures in place, but a lot of those may be related to racism right. And other sorts of systemic, structural sorts of things that also exist, but oftentimes kind of interwoven with the reality of racism. So for you to be able to say, here's an opportunity for me to exercise my privilege and really be an ally, and for both of those people who are your mentors to trust you in that role and to position you to really be an ally, that's a pretty powerful story. That's also a great story for those of us and those of our clients. For example, we talk to people all the time who are like. What can I do? We talk to people all the time, you know this who have positions of authority wherever it is in the organization. You don't have to be at a senior most leadership role anywhere in the organization where you have the ability, structurally speaking and the authority structurally speaking to actually have an impact to say what privilege do I have? And a lot of times we have people come to us and say well, I'm not the right person to do that because I'm white. That's often the quote, right? I'm not saying that. That's me saying this. This is what our clients often say to us. And so in those spaces to be able to have examples of what does it look like to be an ally. And it doesn't mean that you're overthrowing an entire system, but it does mean that you are intentionally kind of walking into a space. And also that humility that you described saying you know what, I am going to acknowledge with humility and generosity all of the work that has gotten us to this point and also take serious the role that I have absolutely amazing story and I hope our listeners really take it as an example of what they could potentially do.

U2

: 17:33

I'm very aware of my whiteness in this work. 1s I think that sometimes clients will call it out and other times I just try to be aware of it and I think that I have learned I didn't know this when I was 25 in that first role but I've learned along the way that the partners that I choose are. 2s So important in doing this work and thinking through what will resonate better, who can hear things better from my identity and who might hear things better from that identity, and being really open and talking with my partners about how are we going to make sure that the message, because the message is the most important thing, right? It's how do you do this work? It's how do we make real change? And then how do we deliver that message is just as important, right? Who does it and how do they say it? So I do spend a lot of time sort of being strategic and aware of identities in that way,

U1

: 18:32

too. Yeah, I love it. And I think that comes across that authenticity is so important and that we're always trying to figure it out, right? We're always trying to figure out what's going to work. And I've spoken about this, you and I have spoken about it. We speak about it in our team meetings all the time. All of a sudden, we have after 2020 and the murder of George Floyd and the racial equity movement really underway, we have all of these new chief diversity officers that just came out of nowhere. And then all of a sudden, right, we're at the end of 2023 now, and people are either getting laid off or the positions are being removed, or people are expressing burnout and leaving. And now we not only have fewer people in some of those leadership roles, but the demographics show that 86% of the people who are in those roles are white women. And 2s it's tricky, it's tricky for me and us to even figure out how do we feel about that, right? How do we feel about that? But it doesn't mean that we aren't doing important work, and it doesn't mean that white people and a lot of other identities aren't and can't doing important work. And still we have to find ways to collaborate and truly 1s see each other as partners, as the word you described in figuring out how is it that we articulate and then move towards our stated goals? Love

U2

: 19:58

it. Yeah. I just presented at the National Diversity Officers and Higher Education Conference, which was such a joy back then in 2006 or whatever. I had been to this conference right when I started. I think I went to the second annual conference, and there were only about, I don't know, 40 or 50 or 60 of us then. And I told you this when I got back, when I went in 2006, it was at least half white women and the rest were women of color, very few men, 1s and definitely at least half white. And then I had gone like twelve years in a row, and I always as a participant, listening and learning from my colleagues across the field. And then this time I went back as a presenter. 1s With a partner from Dja and 1s first of all, as you mentioned that the field has exploded. It's 1100 people now and as I looked around the room, it was so different from those first few conferences generationally it was different. There were lots of younger people in the room, there were lots more men in the room, there were are many more people of color in the room, right? So I was definitely the minority this year. The number of white people when I looked around the room was not half for sure and so the field has changed significantly and it's just so 3s first of all, I was inspired, right? I've always thought that there are more people doing this work. I think that it is everybody's work. I think that especially higher education institutions need to invest in this. They are just built in these structures that were built on white supremacy and there's just so much work to be done and so many walls to be torn down that we need more hands doing that great work and so I'm excited that there's so many people in the room. We talked about the tone and the vibe at the conference a little bit and it's a hard time right now. It's not the first time it's been a hard time. I was there in 2015 when Ferguson and Black Lives Matter was emerging and I was there later. These things are cyclical and diversity. And so there's always a new challenge for diversity officers, a new challenge for society, a new challenge for higher education. But but now in particular, the politics and the politic politicization of the word 1s dei is really strong right now. And so there was a lot going on at that conference this year. There's 1100 people talking about how do we keep doing this work when we don't even know what words we're allowed to say in our institution in whatever state. 2s It was great to be in communion with all those folks, to keep thinking of ways to support this work and to really sort of lean in with that group of people that are really trying hard to make the country a better place and to make sure that our future leaders that are going to higher education have all the opportunities to learn in culturally sensitive ways. Yeah, it's, it's.

U1

: 23:13

It's amazing to me how complex this has gotten. You know, I live in Florida, you live in upstate New York, and we have team members everywhere, including other parts of the world outside of the United States. But when I travel, I have sometimes with our clients who are in K twelve primary or higher education institutions will say to me, yeah, we're coming to Florida to recruit. Because right now teachers are leaving there, and educators are leaving there in droves because politically 1s the challenges are making it so that either their jobs are being cut or they're not being allowed to do what they believe to be their jobs. And so they're leaving or there's just constant unrest happening from community members or from families. And it's really wild that we have officially gotten to a place where every single thing is so hyper political. I've told you about this. And even at Equity and Dja, we oftentimes say we're not a political organization. We do equity, Diversity and inclusion because. 1s People need to know how to work well in organizations. And we live in a world that is diverse. It continues to get more and more diverse. We live in and navigate organizational cultures. Most of our clients are coming to us from an organizational context, and what they're trying to do is figure out for my company, for my higher education institution, for my school district, for my not for profit. How is it that we can become the best versions of ourselves and continue to allow that to evolve as the society around us and as the societies that we interact with continue to evolve? And that's what we see as our work. How is it that we help you identify what your values are and espouse those in ways that are inclusive and really represent the kind of space that you want to recruit people to and that people want to stay and thrive in? How is it that you make sure that your policies and practices are aligned with those values? What kind of strategy do you put in place so that your employees and your clients and your community understands what your vision and values are so that they can have something to keep them motivated over time? Those, to me, are not political things. However, every single time we tell people or go into a space that is involving equity, diversity, and inclusion anymore, it's hyper political. And I think the space that you were in in the Nadihi conference absolutely underscores the fact that as much as we can say, oh, we're not doing political work. This is actually an incredibly political time, and it's impossible. To not get into some political territory with this work that we've really tried to do very thoughtfully and in ways that include as many voices and perspectives as possible.

U2

: 26:14

Yeah, absolutely. So hearing some of the stories, some of the different diversity officers had already been demoted, lost their titles, lost their jobs, or had moved institutions because of the restraints that they were being held by in certain states. 1s But the other thing about it is that. 1s What was beautiful at that conference was the level of support, right? So not only were we supporting those people as individuals, but it was leaders from different institutions, different identities, different backgrounds, all talking about, all right, so we can't just abandon states that won't let us use the words dei or diversity, equity, inclusion. How can we still do this work there? How can we still support those institutions? How can we still support those students and those faculty in those places, even when 1s we're not allowed to say the words diversity, equity, and inclusion, right? So we were supporting the individuals that we're trying to lead in those institutions, but also still just thinking about the institutions that are educating our young people and the fact that even if we're not allowed to say those words, we still have to build equitable systems there. We still have to keep trying to make those cultures inclusive and keep trying to create access for people who traditionally haven't had access. And so how can we support in that way, even if we're not in that state? How can we do it through advocacy? How can we do it through 1s politics? It how can we do it? There's so many different ways to support and to keep. Pushing even when the systems are trying to shut it down?

U1

: 28:00

Yeah, absolutely. And that's how culture works, right? Better or worse, that's how culture works. Culture works. So culture I oftentimes talk about the iceberg analogy of culture. It's this huge bohemis of a thing that doesn't change much and it definitely doesn't change easily. But then the parts of the culture that have access to the elements, the sunshine, for example, start to melt and defrost and there's things that thaw and the shape starts changing some and we start to morph into the next version of ourselves. But it's slow and it's kind of tumultuous. And the stuff that's happening underneath of the waterline is where we kind of bump into each other, right? The stuff that happened underneath of the waterline is what, as another colleague of mine always says, sinks ships and sinks relationships. It's the stuff that we don't necessarily always understand or surface that is the hardest for us to wrestle with. And that's where we are in the United States. That's where we are related to the topic of equity, diversity, inclusion. We're still trying to figure out what it means. We're still trying to figure out how to define and have common shared definitions around equity, diversity, inclusion, accessibility, belonging, all of these incredibly important words. And we haven't even come to agreement about how we define them, let alone how we measure them. And importantly, we have new generations of people all the time who are being brought up in altogether different realities with very different understandings about the nature of this iceberg that so many people have been trying to either hold together or dismantle for so long. There's a whole nother generation or multiple generations that are having a very different relationship with it. So us trying to hold something together or trying to dismantle something is almost kind of neither here nor there because I think we have a whole generation of people who are coming at this so incredibly different. But I do love that there's so much support in the equity, diversity and inclusion world and across that community. These are people who choose a hard road. And that's what I was going to ask you about equity, diversity and inclusion. I've been doing this for over 30 years. It's like exhausting. I can't imagine what else I would have done with my life if I wasn't doing this. But it's exhausting. It's ridiculously hard work. It's like it's sisophian, right? It's like pushing a rock uphill with your nose and then the rock falls back down. It's like the cyclical thing that you mentioned. 1s How do you find the energy? How do you find the stamina to stick with it in a field? That is complicated?

U2

: 30:41

Yeah, it is complicated. When I think about the fact that I've been doing this for 17 years, it seems amazing to me. I think there's a couple of different things. I also don't know what else I am passionate enough to do every day and get excited to. I wake up every day and I'm like, oh, I get to work on this new strategy for this client today. I'm so excited. Or, I get to work with these amazing consultants. So I don't know exactly what else I would do, but I think more importantly, it's the momness that I was talking about before. So our children inspire as we talk about this. You have a son as well. And I want the situation, the structures, the things that my daughter grows up into and my son grows up into to be more equitable. So I learn from them all the time. My daughter has a new best friend who happens to be gay. And so she comes home the other day and she was like, mom, do you know what pan is? She's nine. She's asking me about pansexual, right? And I get really excited about that. I'm like, oh, yes, I do. Let's talk about that. 2s Right. Or she comes home and she tells me this group of kids was talking on the playground or during recess, and they were excluding someone. She doesn't use that word, but she goes, mom, they were being really inconclusive. And I was like, what is she trying to say? Oh, uninclusive. Got it. Yes. And I just love that she's thinking in those ways and that she's thinking about out just on the schoolyard, somebody being left out. She knows the word excluded or uninclusive, and she's thinking about all these different identities. We live in a neighborhood that's thankfully pretty diverse. We have LGBT couples here. And the fact that she's grown up and that's just normal to her. Those are the exciting things to me that make it like, oh, okay, things are changing. It's slow. That iceberg is real slow. 2s But I think that's it I don't know how people don't do this work every day.

U1

: 32:50

I actually believe that a lot of us do do this work every day, but we don't call it that. I think a lot of us don't see ourselves as doing equity, diversity, and inclusion, but we do a lot of important things. We parent children or we lead organizations. We manage people where we're looking for ways, right? Just like your daughter is looking for ways to make sure that the people she cares about, whether or not she knows them, but she knows they're part of who we are because they go to the same school or they share the same playground, period. She knows that there's an obligation to help them feel included. Those of us who are managers all have that exact same obligation, right? We may not call ourselves practitioners, but we do this work. There are so many of us who are sitting and coaching our colleagues or sitting or creating policy to try to help people who are wrestling with mental health issues, and everybody has mental health issues. We just went through COVID, right? We're all absolutely kind of holding on by the skin of our teeth, trying to figure out how we navigate all of the anxiety that we've been through for the last three years. The shootings just keep coming. There's so much violence. We're drinking in toxicity all the time. And so people who are doing work, whether it's coaching or counseling or just being a supportive friend, creating inclusive spaces, designing meetings in a hybrid work environment so that everybody's voice is included, all of us are actually doing this work. We just don't all see ourselves as doing this work. And I feel like that's the opportunity is to help people understand this isn't some niche chosen career path only. It's also kind of ingrained in how it is that we can potentially show up in the world. But I love, love the ways in which you're describing having even conversations with your daughter, because. 1s There are some people who maybe say, you know what? I don't feel comfortable having this conversation or that conversation with my child, or what with children, but I don't know, I don't feel super comfortable with children having it amongst themselves only. I can only imagine a bunch of nine year olds trying to sit around and educate themselves on sexual identities and the spectrum of different ways in which sexual expression shows itself and feeling like, oh, yeah, they got that. It's totally inappropriate for me as an adult who cares for these children and who has a little bit more perspective that comes with time and study, et cetera, et cetera, to be able to guide them through a conversation that helps them create kind of critical thinking skills that they're going to need over time. More so than just assuming that this subject is taboo. So the way that you're describing is really just it makes me remember why I do this work every day, too.

U2

: 35:40

Yeah, it's so fun to learn from them. My son is neurodiverse so ADHD, things like that. And the way that he views the world is totally different too, and the things that he finds exciting. He's really into history, and so he reminds me of that importance of history and keeps bringing those things up back. Oh, remember that happened again back then. Right. And so I think that the way that we can learn from all of the guides in our life, including our children, is what sort of keeps me going or gets me excited about doing this work. I think also the value of justice, the idea that of fairness, 1s which is problematic in and of itself, but just the idea that that should be it's one of our core values here, and that. 3s Everything that we do is to try and build more justice and 1s make the world a little bit better. Yeah,

U1

: 36:41

I agree. I have to say, I feel like such strong emotions with the word fairness. It's one of my core emotions. It's one of the things that my core values, if I were going to pick like two or three top values, fairness is definitely within those of more than anything else. And it's also the most complex because fairness is often judged through the person who experiences it, right? So what I deem fair may be totally different than what you experience as fair based on my definition, right? And what I do in order to be fair to you or to others. So it's complicated again, but I don't mind complexity. I don't mind living in a complicated reality. It just means that we have to bring our intention forward. But that's not an option now. And I don't think at any point going forward are we going to have the option of being less intentional than we are right now. So to practice and to give our children and others space to practice, it's a gift, but it's also not optional. These are the muscles that we're going to need forever and

U2

: 37:43

ever. I was going to say that word practice. I think that that is also 1s it's okay to practice and to learn and to try new things, right? And so I do that with my kids, but I think we do that with our clients all the time too, right? Try this one step first. Practice that little skill and then build on that thing. And I think that's also sort of just a way that I show up in the world is that obviously I'm a white person and I'm still learning and I'm practicing. And if I learn something, if I make a mistake today, I will try and do better tomorrow, and I will practice over and over again until I get better. And so I think just acknowledging that these are not skills that everybody's born with, just like leadership skills are not something everyone's born with, or management skills or parenting skills, right? We're all learning all these different things every day, and the best you can do is keep listening, keep learning, and keep trying.

U1

: 38:40

I love it. It's interesting because early in my career, some of my greatest mentors were people who were interculturalists and had been doing very deep into the pool education research in interculturalism for many years. They taught thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people, wrote textbook books and assessments and did all this stuff. And never once ever did any of my mentors call themselves experts. Never. 1s They were always practitioners and they were the most humble, and some still are with me today, very close in my life are still kind of very humble practitioners. And the word practice is central to their identities and 1s the word learning is central to their identities. And I think that's the tricky part, right? So many of us feel like we have to be experts, like we have to you have some kind of a credential in order to show that we have mastered something. And that's just not the world that equity, diversity and inclusion inhabits. Nor is it, I believe, the world of leadership, nor management. Management was written a long time ago as a series of ideas that was created for a specific set of problems in a specific context. It just doesn't apply anymore those same principles. Of course, there are good things that have come from some of those bodies of work, but at this point it's evolving and what it means to be an effective manager, what it means to be an effective leader, what it means to be an equity, diversity, inclusion practitioner those things are actually more similar than dissimilar. And all of them are about thoughtful, intentional practice. So the fact that we embody that and that we create space for our clients and others to be in that space with us, I think is absolutely 1s the point of this conversation around Culture Road, right? This is about us trying to create the culture that we want to live in and the fact that it's going to be like a road, a journey that we travel together over time and hopefully with some sense of direction and some safety rails along the way. 1s Okay, Maggie. Guides and some guides, right? A little bit of guides. Okay, Maggie. We've had an amazing conversation, but it's been really, like I love talking about our work. I love that we get a chance to talk together about our work. What I also want to do is ask you just a fun, light hearted question, and I have no idea. I work with you every single day, and I have no idea what I can't even guess what the answer would be. So I'm excited for you to tell me. Me. And we ask all of our guests to do something along these lines. If you could describe the soundtrack that represents your life right now, what would it be? What song is just really something you're vibing with right now? It's a funny question for me. So I'm, like, super out of touch with pop culture. My husband makes fun of me. Our colleagues make fun of me because I have no idea who BTS is or any of these things. 2s So song

U2

: 41:51

so the first song that comes to mind is 1s Stand By You, which is, I think, Rachel Platinum. I'm not sure. My daughter has my Spotify account, and she adds all these songs, and then that's what I listen to, is whatever my daughter, who's nine, adds to my thing. But the thing I like about that song and the reason I think it jumped to mind is that it's called Stand By You. It's about supporting your friends. And I feel like right now in my life, I'm really leaning in with a lot of my friendships, particularly women friends. Right. So I have friends that are starting new businesses. I have friends who are going through divorce. I have friends who are in the midst of a career change. And I've been really leaning in to spend time with those strong women and support them and learn from them and figure out ways to be in spaces with them. 1s So I think that maybe that Stand By You is the current soundtrack of

U1

: 42:49

my life. I love it. You did it. It's funny because every time we have team meetings, we always have at least one I often am a contributor, at least one person who always is throwing out song titles. Always, always. Sarah. Sarah is always, always throwing out a fun song title. Usually it's like old school, like Mahalia Jackson or Temptations or something. But we always have some fun song music reference in all of our team meetings. So for any of you who want to know what we actually do in our hybrid work environment, there's a lot of music and a lot of music references,

U2

: 43:24

and I'm the one that's like, wait, let me look up that song, because I've never heard of it.

U1

: 43:28

Exactly. You're always the one who has zero contribution in the music front. So I'm thrilled that you were able to answer the question, and I'd love the answer. I'd love the answer. Maggie, thank you so, so much for taking time today. It's been so much fun to talk with you in this way and to just get to hear your voice, your story, passion, the important work that you're doing, and also really amazing examples of how it is that each of us can kind of show up very intentionally in our relationships, whether those are at work as parents or with our friends. So. Thank you, Maggie. I appreciate you. Thank you.