Ep. 178 - Jennifer Brown, Author of How to be an Inclusive Leader

In this episode, Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, talks with Jennifer Brown, Author of How to be an Inclusive Leader: Your Role in Creating Cultures of Belonging Where Everyone Can Thrive and host of the podcast The Will to Change. They discuss talent recruitment and retention, approachable diversity and inclusion, leadership practice, well-intended obstacles, case studies, and recognizing biases for AI.

Interview Transcript  (to read the transcript go to insideoutside.io)

Brian Ardinger: Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast that brings you the best and the brightest in the world of startups and innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, founder of Inside Outside.IO, a provider of research, events, and consulting services that help innovators and entrepreneurs build better products, launch new ideas, and compete in a world of change and disruption. Each week we'll give you a front row seat to the latest thinking tools, tactics, and trends, in collaborative innovation. Let's get started. Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have another amazing guest. With me today is Jennifer Brown. Jennifer is a leading diversity and inclusion expert. She's host of her own podcast called The Will to Change, and I wanted to have her on because she's an author of a new book called How to be an Inclusive Leader. Welcome to the show, Jennifer. 

Jennifer Brown: Thanks so much, Brian, I'm happy to be here. 

Brian Ardinger: The topic of talent and diverse talent, especially when you're talking about innovation that comes up over and over again with our audience.  Let's first talk about your background. Then we can talk about the book.  Talent recruitment and Retention Jennifer Brown: My background is eclectic. A lot of people that do this work had winding roads. We like to laugh about the fact that there's not a lot of professional degrees to study diversity, equity, and inclusion. I was an opera singer and I ended up having to leave the field because my voice kept getting injured and I found my way to the world of leadership development because as a performer it was clear I wanted to be on the stage and needed to be on the stage, and so I found my way to become a corporate trainer. I eventually got a second master's in HR, change management, organizational development. I was an HR professional internally for awhile. And then I really got the itch too, worked for myself, and also be able to have the freedom and the agency to tell the truth as a sort of third party. And that was all 13 years ago. So since then, I've had my own company. I've built my team. We have about 20 to 25 folks. Today we consult mainly large organizations. Big household name kind of companies on their diversity and inclusion strategies. And within that, there's training services that we provide. We work on affinity groups and we do consult on talent, both the recruitment of that talent and also importantly, the retention of that talent, which honestly is in many ways where the rubber hits the road. It's sort of, if you can get them in the door, can you keep them question, but I'm also a member of the LGBTQ community, so I have my own powerful diversity stories as a woman in business. 

Brian Ardinger: I wanted to have you on the show to talk about the book, because unlike a lot of diversity books out there, it felt very approachable. It set the stage that, Hey, you're probably gonna mess up with this stuff as you're trying to learn it, and that's okay. The topic of diversity and inclusion is sensitive for whatever reason, and you laid it out there like, Hey. That's okay to feel awkward or not okay with all of this at the very beginning, as you grow your skillset and grow throughout that. Why did you try to write a book and how did you come about bringing this topic together?

Find the transcript of this episode of Inside Outside at insideoutside.io