S2E20: Working With People Not Like You with Kelly McDonald

Kelly McDonald is an acclaimed speaker who specializes in consumer trends and changing demographics. She is the president of McDonald Marketing and has authored four bestselling books on the customer experience, leadership, and marketing -- all from the standpoint of working with people "not like you".  Her book, How to Work With and Lead People Not Like You has been on two bestseller lists.  You can learn more about the book and McDonald's work by visiting www.kellycmcdonald.com.
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Diversity Fatigue

• often from a bad training experience
• media driven
• sometimes people aren’t clear on value of diversity
• afraid of the topic and don’t want to say the wrong thing
• social injustice training sometimes left people feeling overwhelmed

Fraternities/Sororities Murder Mystery

• when groups of 3 had an “outsider” added to their group they were more than twice as effective
• but their feelings about the experience were that it was more difficult with an outsider
• working with people not like you is difficult but produces better outcomes
  • if you’re “bickering,” that’s also part of the process!
• companies that tend to hire people of the same background don’t grow as much as organizations with diverse team members, especially if the company is already pretty successful

The Biggest Challenges

• it’s hard when we don’t understand someone else’s perspectives
• when we’re focused on the differences, the mountain feels too high
• there’s a lot of sameness, though, we want similar things

How do we start making progress?

• find ways to naturally interact more with those who are different from us
• usually we default to withdrawal and avoidance
• “tell me about yourself”
  • they focus on what they think is important
  • find common ground
  • seek first to understand

What do leaders do to help a welcoming and inclusive workplace?

• Be sincere about wanting to make progress
• Work to eliminate the fear around this conversation
• Get the right training to help people, such as dos/don’t

Leadership Voyage
email: StartYourVoyage@gmail.com
youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LeadershipVoyage
linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonallenwick/, https://www.linkedin.com/company/leadership-voyage-podcast/
music: by Napoleon (napbak)
https://www.fiverr.com/napbak
voice: by Ayanna Gallant
www.ayannagallantVO.com
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Transcript

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Jason Wick: Hey, everybody! Welcome back to another episode of leadership voyage. I'm very happy to be with Kelly Mcdonald today, Kelly. It's great to meet you this afternoon. You, too.

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Jason Wick: I think it's gonna be. Yeah, thanks it's and we just found out that we we live very close to each other. So that's kind of funny. Yeah, a small world. Yeah. we are here today to talk about your book, which I'm holding how to work with and lead people not like you, which I find a great title and a great topic, because all of us

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Jason Wick: work with people who are not like us. Right? yeah. And there's so much to get into in this topic. and I want to dive right in if you're okay with it, because you open up your book with a very interesting discussion

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Jason Wick: about diversity, fatigue, and I want to kick it off here. And could you maybe enlighten all of us all the listeners. What is diversity, fatigue, and why does it exist

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Kelly McDonald: mit Ctl and diversity? Fatigue is exactly what it sounds like. It's when people are actually tired of hearing about Diversity or de and I. They're over it.

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Kelly McDonald: And there, that can happen for a lot of reasons, it can happen, because perhaps the training that they received at their company was pretty old school, and kind of like shame and blame. You know the that kind of thing. We we've really moved away from that, but it depends on depends on how somebody was trained and when it can also be sort of media driven, which is, you know.

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Kelly McDonald: they they just get tired of hearing about it in the media, and they're just like

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Kelly McDonald: they. They don't understand why this is important. It just feels like this is on everybody's lips. If you work for a large corporation, it's almost certainly part of that large corporations strategic plan and values now, and they are not clear on the value of diversity. And so that's where the diversity, fatigue comes from. But I also think people just they they are a little afraid of the topic, and they don't want to

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Kelly McDonald: do or say the wrong thing. And so they just would rather just like, Can we just not, you know. That's that's the fatigue.

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Kelly McDonald: Yeah. Thanks for outlining that. Maybe a poor experience with training, as you said. the media. just kind of this inundation of of the topic or fear. Very interesting points to call out one more one, yeah, and that is again, some of the older school diversity training was really focused on racial and social injustice. And personally, I think that's very important. It's part of our history.

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Kelly McDonald: But a lot of people when they got that training were kind of sitting in these training rooms. I talked to so many. And they're sort of like, okay? So there was, and still as racial and social injustice. What does that have to do with me?

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Kelly McDonald: And what am I supposed to do about that? That's pretty Macro, you know, that's like a really big issue, and people feel a little helpless. They feel that they're being made to feel guilty, for, let's say, being white or being male or being a white male and things like that. And they they just feel like this is well, to use a current word woke.

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Jason Wick: Okay, yeah, that's fair. And I think I'm sure that as especially as you're saying, the fear of this continues to get larger and larger, I'm I'm suspecting people want to talk about it less and less, and therefore we're not able to make as much progress on it as we could. And therefore it's nice when we have a book to help talk about this a manual. Now, one thing that you said in your initial response to the diversity fatigue question was

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Jason Wick: sometimes people. They just aren't seeing the value of diversity. And there have been many studies that suggest the values, the value of diversity right and early in your book. there is a really nice anecdote which I would hope you could share with us. It is

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Jason Wick: about a a story about a fraternity and sorority members who are working on a murder mystery. Could you walk us through the example from your book?

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Kelly McDonald: It's actually It was actually social psychologist. It was a study that they did and what they wanted to find out. And it wasn't really about diversity per se, like the normal way that we think about it like race ethnicity, age, gender, sexual identification and stuff. But what they wanted to learn was what happens when you take a group of people who are alike.

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Kelly McDonald: And however you want to define that and give them a project to do. And then what happens if you add an outsider to that group of people who are like

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Kelly McDonald: Mit.

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Kelly McDonald: and what they used as a group of likeness were for fraternity brothers and sorority sisters. So you know, everybody gets the picture there. They're all young, they're all in college, and they're all in Greek life. So what they did was they gave the fraternity brothers and the sorority sisters. There were groups of 3, and they had many groups. They gave them a murder mystery to solve with clues, and they gave them 20 min to solve the murder

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of a

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Kelly McDonald: but 5 min into the exercise. Some of the groups

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Kelly McDonald: we're joined by a fourth sorority sister, or a fourth fraternity brother, but from a different house. Okay? So they're all in college. They're all in Greek Greek life, but 3 of the 4 are in this sorority or fraternity, and the other one is in a different one. So that's the outsider. So what happened is

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Kelly McDonald: as these things, and you know, your listeners probably can predict this. The ones that had the outsider solve the murder mystery better, faster, more accurately than the others, and it was statistically phenomenal. It more than doubled their chances of getting the right answer. That was the only variable you more than doubled like I. I'm not a statistician, but a statistician would say that that is statistically phenomenal. It went from 29 to 60%.

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Kelly McDonald: So that's great. But that's not where it gets interesting to me.

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Kelly McDonald: Then they interviewed all the groups, and what they found was even the most productive groups.

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Kelly McDonald: the ones who won, as it were, right. So if I'm high 5 in you, and I'm like Jason. Oh, my, gosh! You know you guys won. Did that feel amazing? Holy smokes? You smoked it, you know, that must have felt so good. What the participants who won, replied was, Oh, my gosh! I could not believe we went. We won.

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Kelly McDonald: I have never felt so stressed in my life. All we did was bicker.

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Kelly McDonald: It didn't seem like we were winning at all. I couldn't believe we were even making progress, and in fact, it was very stressful, right? Because they were bickering. They didn't see eye to eye, etc. So the bottom line is working with people who are not like you or not like me or not like us. Let's just say all of your listeners

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Kelly McDonald: working with people not like you is difficult. but it produces a better outcome, and that has been shown time and time again. And where I think this is really important for

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Kelly McDonald: your audience to here is

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Kelly McDonald: what that means is when you're working with someone who's different than you, even if they just have a different perspective. And or they come from a different background, or whatever. If you're working with someone like that, someone different. And it feels hard.

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Kelly McDonald: You're not doing it wrong. And you're not misreading that situation. It is hard. That's why people don't like to do it, because it's hard, and we would rather take the easy way.

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Kelly McDonald: But if you can stick with it, it will get to a better outcome. And that's been proven over and over and over again. So I think it's important that people know that like, okay, the next time I'm in a meeting the next time I'm with you know others, or whatever. And I just I I just don't feel like anybody's on the same plane that I'm on, you know the same page, or ever understand that that discomfort that you feel is normal. You're not doing it wrong. It's part of the process. Actually, just don't bail on that process.

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Kelly McDonald: If you stick with it, you will get to the other side, and it's a better outcome.

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Jason Wick: Thanks for detailing all of that, and that's a really great.

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Jason Wick: a really great example with this for for fraternity, and

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Jason Wick: what I love here is, we've heard time and time again, that finding great solutions, or in the words you said, finding better outcomes is a messy process.

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Jason Wick: The participants don't necessarily feel great about it, or it's very hard.

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Jason Wick: and I think it's really important to hear that that things that are worth going through things that are worth doing are, of course, not easy, right? And that you're improving your yeah, they're frustrating. And you're improving the outcomes and the results by introducing different perspectives. People who aren't like yourself. If you have a rubber stamp meeting? Should we go so far to say the opposite? If you're having rubber stamp meetings.

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Jason Wick: are they not that effective?

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Kelly McDonald: Oh, That's also been proven is the companies where they tend to hire the same kind of person. maybe from the same background, the same school. you know wherever it is they tend to actually not necessarily fail.

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Kelly McDonald: But they don't. They don't grow as much as organizations that have diverse team members. Actually, that's been proven again and again is. And the and the culprit is especially if they're already successful, right? Because it's really easy in a successful company with successful sales and products and customer satisfaction to kind of go. Why would we change anything? It's working right? And so

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Kelly McDonald: that is a trap that a lot of organizations fall into one more thing I want to just go back to on the fraternity sorority thing, too, and you were just saying that it's frustrating, etc., but also 250.

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Kelly McDonald: If it feels like when you're working with people who are not like you, like. Some of it is

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Kelly McDonald: from a manor standpoint or

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Kelly McDonald: conversation standpoint uncomfortable because you are bickering, you know. Let's say, or you know, somebody's got a really strong opinion, and they're really voicing that strongly, and it seems like it's, you know, agitated and stuff. That's also part of the process. I mean, I'm not saying that all conversations have to be like that. But if you're in those meetings where somebody's going, look.

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Kelly McDonald: you know. Look, Jason, I don't know how to get it through to you. Blah blah blah blah right? And they're getting a little like that. Understand that? That's part of the process. And that's why those people who won in that study didn't feel like they were making progress because they associate

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Kelly McDonald: bickering or dissent, or contrarian opinions with

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Kelly McDonald: not being successful, you know, like it being a bad thing, and I'm not fostering, you know. Descent and table flipping at your, you know. But I'm just saying that, like the discomfort that people feel in those situations is completely understandable. You know, it's Those diverse opinions can be hard to get through or perspectives, and we just have to treat them as

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Kelly McDonald: tell me. Why you think that? Tell me more about that

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Jason Wick: great yeah, thanks for adding on to that, Kelly. So we've kind of established.

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Jason Wick: Why, some people are having feeling diversity, fatigue, we've outlined that, you know, having groups of people where you're not all the same. Isn't it indeed going to lead to better results, and it is more, it's less comfortable to on that journey.

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Jason Wick: What are the biggest challenges that people face when they are working with people who are different from them.

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Kelly McDonald: The biggest challenge is they don't understand the other person's perspective, because our perspectives are shaped on our experiences. And so, if you come from a very different experience than I do. I might not have any clue as to how you're operating right. It just might be like, I don't understand how this guy gets his information. I don't understand how this person.

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Kelly McDonald: you know, wants to approach this project with me. You know, some people are really like conceptual. And it's up here, and other people are like, just tell me what to do and I'll do it. Those are ways we can be different. So

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Kelly McDonald: you know, that's the biggest. That's the biggest part is.

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Kelly McDonald: I see, is when people see the differences and not the sameness. Okay? So when we're focusing on the differences. Oh, my gosh! This person is so different from me in this way, this way, this way, this way, this way, then it feels like a mountain too high to climb.

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Kelly McDonald: And the reality is while we have those different perspectives. There's a lot of sameness, too.

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Kelly McDonald: that might not be visible on the surface, or you that you think that is going to be there. But people are people. people are people, Jason, and you know everybody wants

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Kelly McDonald: the same things in their life, and in a really macro sense, everybody wants to live in a nice neighborhood. Everybody wants their kids to go to good schools. Everybody wants to have economic opportunity and a good job. I mean, these things are, you know, universal. And so we can't let the surface just dictate

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Kelly McDonald: our personhood.

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Jason Wick: So you say we struggle when we're focused on the differences. Right? So how like, what do we do to move forward? Let's just say we we, you know, somebody's listening to this conversation. They go to work, and they they recognize. Okay, I'm struggling. This person I've historically but heads with. And I am focused on how different they are, their perspective, whatever it is.

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Kelly McDonald: Sometimes that perspective feels wrong because you don't share it.

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Jason Wick: It just feels wrong. Yeah, it feels wrong.

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Jason Wick: So where? Where does somebody start? How do they? What do they do to start making progress?

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Kelly McDonald: What they, what they do is they actually sit down with the people that are probably the most different from them, or find ways to interact with them more, not less. So. One thing that happens when we are uncomfortable around someone who makes us uncomfortable is we tend to withdraw right? We tend to just like.

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Kelly McDonald: And it's not even conscious. Jason. I mean, we're just sort of like putting ourselves in their path less and less. We're certainly not going to speak to them about the discomfort we're we're going to avoid them, you know. And so I think it's about the opposite. It's about actually trying to make time

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Kelly McDonald: as it occurs. Naturally, I mean, you're not gonna like walk into a person's office, let's say, who's 30 years older than you are and go. So you're a lot older than I am, and I just want to know about your perspective. You know. You can't call it out like that. But what you can do is find those opportunities to talk with someone and learn about them. And one of my favorite phrases is, Tell me about yourself.

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Kelly McDonald: because what I find is when you say, Tell me about yourself. People will tell you what they think is important.

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Kelly McDonald: and you never know where that's going to lead. And so it's about just fostering the conversations that are not hard to have right finding that common ground, you know. You walk into the break room and somebody is microwaving their lunch.

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Kelly McDonald: and you like say something like, Wow! That smells really good, do you cook? And then they say, Yeah, what do you like to cook? What's your specialty, you know? And all of a sudden you're off on again. Common ground. You're on something that you can both talk about. That is not different from a person's standpoint. Or if somebody actually shares something that's different, you know, like I was. there's a

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Kelly McDonald: there's an electrical distributor company in Cincinnati, and one of the one of the people there at the company and executive told me that there's a a high school

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Kelly McDonald: in that area that's exceptional, just exceptional. And every single time they see a resume with someone who went to that high school. They're like, this is the guy. This is the person. This is the woman, you know. Whatever. Let's get them all because of one thing on their resume. Okay, the high school

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Kelly McDonald: and they tend to dismiss other high schools. So what they're missing in that case is, they're missing the person who might have exceptional skills and qualifications, but just didn't go to the right high school, and the person who did go to the right high school might actually be a terrible fit. They might be a terrible worker, you never know. So when we're finding ourselves kind of like defaulting into these same patterns and stuff. I think it's important to ask people tell me about yourself.

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Kelly McDonald: And that person might say, you know what I'm the first person in my in my family to go to college and It's really been a game changer for me. I've it's really open minded. Oh, really tell me more about that. When you just keep asking, tell me more about that. Tell me more about them.

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Kelly McDonald: It leads to good conversation when there is descent.

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Kelly McDonald: That's another great tactic, too, is that if you share a thought or perspective with me that I either don't agree with don't understand, rather than saying, well, that's not how I see it, Jason. Okay, which gets conf confrontational.

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Kelly McDonald: you know. lean into it and say, tell me more about that. Tell me how you see it, because sometimes what someone says is not reflective of the thinking behind it, thinking behind it can be gold, even though it's manifesting itself externally in a flip, comment or an approach that they like to take. And maybe they've been doing it always that way, so they don't even think to change it. But I find that if you just keep digging.

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Kelly McDonald: then you get to the good stuff. And that's where people that you learn that people are people, and we really can work together. And it's beneficial. I also think I mean, I was just on a panel last week, and it was a Dei panel, and there was a black woman, a gay man.

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Kelly McDonald: me and an attorney. Okay? So it was a really interesting panel, because none of the rest of us were attorneys, and so the woman who is a black woman

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Kelly McDonald: we got, you know, a starter question, or whatever, and somebody took the thing, and then she chimed in, and she said, Well, as a black woman, here's how I see that. And it was so eye-opening because I didn't see it that way. But when she said it I was like, Oh, wow! Yeah, I can see how that would land for you, you know. And then the gay man said, as a person in the Lgbtq community, you know, it still feels like,

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Kelly McDonald: that this is a an okay discrimination kind of thing. And you know, people can rebuff me just based on what they think they know about me. And I I thought it was really interesting perspectives. And those are perspectives that I have. I'm not gay, and I'm not black, so I'm very interested in hearing what life is like and the the things that shape us from other people.

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Jason Wick: And it's a thank you so much, Kelly, for for outlining all of that. And what's really beautiful in a way, when I think about what you're describing is we have all of the very I should say, probably obvious

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Jason Wick: differences between us, the ones we can see with our eyes right away right. But there are so many different intersections that are are different between us that could be the root of what we don't understand about each other in any given context. Right? The the saying or the phrase seek first to understand

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Jason Wick: is what's coming to mind for me as you're talking.

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Kelly McDonald: I think about something as simple as someone who lives in New York City and aloft is going to be

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Kelly McDonald: so different than someone who lives in a small town in West Texas. Okay? And the way that they see the world, the way that they interact with the world right in New York City that person might be like.

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Kelly McDonald: let's go. I'm busy. And because everything takes more time, and and because life is on a faster role, you know, in a in a large city like that. And because it's crowded, and because you just gotta get your stuff done. And you gotta kind of make your way through a city of 8 million people in Manhattan, etc., whereas a person in a small town might be like, Hold up! Why are you rushing this? This is a nice Guy, we need to get to know each other. Hi, Joe, I'm Kelly, you know.

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Kelly McDonald: and form those relationships that are so important in small communities. So that's a totally different approach, and totally different backgrounds and totally different perspectives. The New Yorker might be thinking, Are you kidding? I got to become friends with this Guy 250.

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No, I don't have time for that by, you know, and they're not being rude. They're living their life the way they live their life in a rapidly, a rapid pace. City.

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Jason Wick: So none of these are right or wrong, they're just different, different, great examples, Kelly. Thank you. And and we've talked about a whole bunch so far, which I love that honestly as I think it through. If I'm at work, I can. I can think through the lens that we're talking right now that we're outlining right now. if I like. I was one of the coaches in my base. But my son's baseball team. Right? You have different coaches from different backgrounds. You might that that's not work work. But you know, that might apply here.

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meeting in laws. Right? What that perspective in less, all these different scenarios. It's not just about in the workplace. And I love that.

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Jason Wick: Let's shift to kind of a more specific role. Let's think about maybe leaders for managers, or whoever somebody wants to think about that.

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Jason Wick: what are some of the important things that

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Jason Wick: we can do as leaders or managers to create that, to help create that welcoming and inclusive workplace that we're all looking for to get better results.

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Kelly McDonald: Number one. Be sincere

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Kelly McDonald: about wanting to make inroads in this area. I mean.

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Kelly McDonald: there is nothing worse for

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Kelly McDonald: true diversity and acceptance and embracement, embracing of our differences that can enrich us. There's nothing worse than you know being performative. And I know that works being, you know, thrown around a lot of these days. But let me tell you an experience that I had real life. I was working with a very, very, very large insurance company. Everybody knows this company, and the client who is my client. Interface is a good guy. I want to start with that. He's a good guy

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Kelly McDonald: 58 years old. Been with the company 25 years middle aged white man. Okay. So we're having a conversation. I'm at his offices. And I have to act this out because this is literally what he did, he said, yeah. So here at the Xyz company, we're all about diversity now. Okay, so literally, the hand just.

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Kelly McDonald: I've got to get my team on board, and he's literally doing this. I gotta get my team on board, because my bonus depends on it, because, you know, that's the way it goes.

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Kelly McDonald: And it. It struck me as

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Kelly McDonald: he is a good guy.

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Kelly McDonald: He struck me as somebody who was just marching along right and like not necessarily believing in this or why it's important. And I want to make it clear to your listeners that I don't think there's anything wrong with bonuses. Bonuses serve a purpose when when companies use bonuses to focus people on it. Okay, this is important. Therefore, if you

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Kelly McDonald: make inroads on hiring more diverse people, you know, whatever it might be. Then you're gonna get a bonus because that

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Kelly McDonald: puts a laser focus on what the goal is. So it's not that part. It was the whole like this, and the whole. I guess we're doing diversity. And I actually had a little chat with him, and I was like.

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Kelly McDonald: I I I think you can lose the hand just, and he took it really well. But I was like, you know, it doesn't sound like you're really on board with this. It sounds like you're being. You're doing this because your job depends on it. And you really don't give a flip about it. And you know, therefore, so it was not a sincere like.

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Kelly McDonald: Wow, we're really focused on diversity. And in my team, here's what we're going to do to make that better. So number one be sincere, I mean, don't don't even try to, you know, embrace different perspectives and new people, and you know different ways of seeing things. If if you, if you really don't care, you know the the goal of the innovation comes from someone saying, What if what if comes from somebody actually having a different perspective and going well, maybe

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Kelly McDonald: you know. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing, I think it's really important for leaders to do is work to eliminate the fear around this conversation. Everybody knows. Everybody knows that

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Kelly McDonald: if they say the wrong thing at work, or someone takes what they say. The wrong way the consequences are can can be enormous. They could lose their job. They could get branded as somebody who's racist sex is, they get homophobic Islamophobia. You name it. So what happens is when people are afraid of saying the wrong thing.

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Jason Wick: They choose to say nothing.

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Kelly McDonald: and they also even avoid the people that make the most uncomfortable. They choose to say nothing, and I don't think that's good for business. So I think what managers and leaders can do is

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Kelly McDonald: get the right kind of training that that will actually help people. So, for example, Do's and don'ts are incredibly effective.

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Kelly McDonald: People want to say the right thing in the right way. They just don't know what that is. So, for example, I'll just throw this one out. I can't remember if it's a

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Kelly McDonald: don't ask somebody. How did you get your job?

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Kelly McDonald: Because how did you get your job? Sort of implies that there was something else at work here right like, maybe you knew somebody, or you can check the right box because you're a woman or you're Asian, etc.

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Kelly McDonald: It's really an insulting way to approach that conversation. I think when people ask that conversation.

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Kelly McDonald: I think when people ask that question, they're not trying to be insulting, they really want to know. How did you get this job? So that's the don't. The the do would be instead, say something like Jason. What were you doing prior to this role.

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Kelly McDonald: Yeah, because most of us have the jobs we have now based on the experience we had before. So it's a legitimate question, right? We evolve into the roles that we have, we become qualified for those roles. So tell me about your background. What were you doing prior to this role? And that's the kind of stuff that I think people are hungry for is the the the don't and the dues. Here's another one.

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Kelly McDonald: Eradicate these 2 words from your vocabulary right now, forever. Teach your kids the same. You can't say these any words anymore.

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Kelly McDonald: you people or those people, because that creates an otherness right. What you're implying is you people are not like the rest of us, right? And yet people are curious, especially when they're working with people who are different. So the example that I use in many of my presentations is, don't say.

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Kelly McDonald: what do you people eat for, Hanukkah.

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Kelly McDonald: I don't say that if you're curious about that. Say instead, what are the traditional foods served at Hanukkah? And how does your family like to celebrate the holiday? So there's a way to say anything that we want to say, but we want to avoid the 150,

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Kelly McDonald: the the space, the space between us and another person becoming broader than it has to be, and wider than it has to be. It's not about otherness, it's about we.

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Kelly McDonald: And again, we actually have more income. And then we then we don't. then we don't. So I think it's about removing the fear and being sincere. First, I mean, there's a whole list, but that's not part. If I was a leader is, I would get the training. That is the stuff that is not about social and justice and racial and justice. I feel like a lot of people have gotten the why of diversity, and they understand why this is important. They're struggling with the how.

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Kelly McDonald: And that's where we need to focus on helping people have conversations that they don't know how to have. I'll share one more thing.

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Kelly McDonald: I was socialized to never talk about race. I grew up in the Midwest, and there were 5 topics that my parents were drilled into. You know us as kids

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Kelly McDonald: to never talk about, because it simply wasn't done. Money.

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Kelly McDonald: politics, religion, sex, and race. I mean, this was a don't. So you can imagine I end up going to college. I'm living in the dorms. It was like the United Nations. People were from everywhere, and I had no skills in talking to people who are different. So

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Kelly McDonald: I didn't know how to do it. I just dived in. And I that's when I learned that, like people are people, you know. we care about the same things generally, we might have different perspective.

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Kelly McDonald: but we care about the same things. We want the same things for ourselves, and

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Kelly McDonald: the the the differences between us are fascinating, and they make us better.

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Jason Wick: What a great response, Kelly. A whole lot you covered in all of that! I think I think one thing that I'm remembering from from the book is you have. There's a section in there where there are tables where you you do say, don't say this. Do say this, as it is some of the examples you gave, and then you explain why, which is wonderful. And I I think it's really important for everybody to kind of pause for a second, because I do think you are right. A lot of us

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Jason Wick: are afraid of this topic, yet what we just said is, if we are going to get good results.

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Jason Wick: we're going to work with people different from us. And if we're going to establish rapport with people different from us. We're going to have to focus on learning and having that kind of beginner's mindset or understanding where they're coming from, which means you're going to have to take a chance by saying something. And the other thing that most of us are proud of our families. We're proud of our backgrounds.

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Kelly McDonald: We want to talk about that. This is not a taboo thing.

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Kelly McDonald: I mean, it's like, I say, you tell me about yourself. You're gonna tell me what you whatever you think is important. You just mentioned, you know, coaching, you know. Yeah. And those are the things that you brought up.

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Kelly McDonald: So if I was talking to you, and I don't know what it's like to be a parent. I don't know what it's like to be a man. I don't know what it's like to have an 8 year old, whatever it might be, I might say. Tell me more about that. What's the best thing about coaching? And you go on and on and on, and we would start to build a rapport, because I'm listening respectfully to your point of view about what it's like to be a coach or anything else we

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Kelly McDonald: people want to share themselves.

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Kelly McDonald: We know about somebody the better it makes it knowing less about somebody is actually where I think a lot of the discomfort comes in is, I don't know this person.

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Jason Wick: Yeah, no, thank you for saying that. It's it's a good stuff to keep in mind, and just so that it doesn't get lost in the shuffle. The 2 most important things that you mentioned. What can someone do as a leader?

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Jason Wick: First and foremost, be sincere around this topic, and do our best to eliminate the fear around it. People are going to have to try their how out in order to get around and actually deliver on why, they already understand it. It's tools. Give them what not to say, and why give them the tools to use and don't. Great, thank you.

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Jason Wick: Well, boy, this is a great topic. I've really enjoyed it. But we're already running out of time, Kelly, I know. I don't know how this happens. So I ask everyone the same question near the end of our discussion. What is something that you have learned recently.

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Kelly McDonald: Well, I'm learning learning. So not, you know. Again, conceptually, it's actually, I'm learning to play the cello. And I'm a beginning student. And I'm learning to play the cello.

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Jason Wick: And how's it going?

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Kelly McDonald: It's hard. I mean, it really is. And I know, okay, I know that. this is what my instructor told me. So if there's people out there that disagree, don't be a hater. This is what I was told, recognizing that any instrument is hard to learn to play. Okay, it's it's going to be difficult to learn anything. But what he told me is that the 2 easiest instruments to learn to play.

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Kelly McDonald: I'll add 3 are the ukulele, the guitar, and drums. Ukulele is by far the easiest, even little four-year-old kids can learn to play that, and the 2 most difficult are cello and piano.

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Kelly McDonald: And so I I'm finding it to be very, very true, you know. you know, Jason, that whole thing where you rub your belly. And yeah, so I can't do that. So that to me is a great metaphor for cello, because one hand is doing this with the fingering, and the other hand, is doing this, and it's a lot harder than you think.

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Jason Wick: Thanks for sharing that and a moment of vulnerability. Right? You're we. You're an expert on certain topics and an absolute beginner on others. And that's how it is in life, isn't it? It's a beautiful thing, and I have some friends who are like Oh, my gosh! I want to hear you play chill, and I'm like not yet. No, not yet. That's great thanks for sharing that. That's a wonderful learning to play cello. Keep it up. Don't quit. Keep it up. Thank you for sharing so for those who are really interested in in the book or

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Kelly McDonald: your services, your ideas. They want to learn more about you, and what's going on? Where should we direct them?

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Kelly McDonald: So Barnes and noble Amazon and all the independent booksellers out there in the world which you know we we love love love And so, you know, support your local booksellers as well. That's where you can get the book it's available on as an ebook. It's available on audible.

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Kelly McDonald: And of course, the book that you've got in your hand. in terms of getting a hold of me. Then you can go to my site, which is Macdonald marketing.com. So mc do, and ald like the Hamburgers marketing all. One word, Mark Mcdonald marketing.com. And you can email me

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Kelly McDonald: at Kelly K. Elli at Mcdonald marketing com. I love to hear from people

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Kelly McDonald: wonderful. You heard it there, folks, the book is on display at the flagship, was it Barnes and noble you? Said Barnes and Noble, or in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue. Wonderful, or you can visit Mcdonald's marketing.com to check out what Kelly is all up to Kelly Mcdonald. My pleasure. Thank you for diving into this topic with us today. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you so much, Jason. Thanks. Listeners.