EPISODE #3.2:

Change! Make Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Matter in Your Organization with Priya

Or listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts.

Priya says she was born to be a rebel. And she is full of passion and genuine curiosity. She describes herself as “a rebel who found her cause.” She pursues her purpose through her change management consulting business, Consultant on the Go. 

Growing up as a young girl in India she did not understand why she had to stay in her lane. She has questioned why there are different rules for different people her entire life. 

Now she advises organizations how to make the changes that will erase the “different rules.”  She assists with turning diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) commitments into actions that have a genuine impact. 

In this episode Priya shares insights concerning why people within organizations might resist the DEI efforts and how to prevent it. She talks about what each of us can do to challenge our own assumptions about others. 

Here is some advice from Priya: 

• Take some time to reflect and understand why the change is needed from the perspective of the “other” (Do your own research and understand the history).
• Challenge your assumptions (Why do you believe what you do about the other?).
• Ask questions and try to understand (Put yourself in the other person’s shoes; practice empathy).
• Take ownership of your actions and its impact on others (even if you believe your intentions were/are positive).
• Acknowledge your privilege (You did not ask for it; in most cases, it was given to you at birth).
• Use your privilege to influence system change and create equity for those being marginalized because of their diversity.

And she offers additional tips in the podcast:

• The importance of acknowledging the need for change 
• How to employ the principles of Change Management & Cultural Competence to influence and impact REAL Systemic Change!
• Why each of us must take a stand and give up the assumption that we can merely stand by
• How to reflect on our limitations so we can over come them.  

Here are some links that may interest you: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/priyadhingraklocek/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-cannot-change-what-acknowledge-priya-dhingra-klocek-/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-am-ceo-women-mom-among-few-other-things-priya-dhingra-klocek-/

More about Priya

Priya is a business consultant, coach, mentor, and facilitator.  She is the President & CEO of Consultant On The Go LLC, a consulting firm dedicated to empowering individuals within organizations to promote and achieve excellence by focusing on the areas of leadership development, change management, and global diversity (consulting, facilitation, keynotes, curriculum development, and coaching).

This is how she describes herself: 

My purpose and passion drive the work I do. I have the good fortune of working with individuals and organizations to empower them to be their best selves by defining their “why, what & how” through consulting, coaching, and training. I believe that relationships are built on similarities, but meaningful relationships are built on similarities and differences. There is always more than one way to get there!

I was born to be a rebel, full of passion and genuine curiosity. Growing up as a young girl in India I did not understand why I had to stay in my lane. Often getting into passionate debates about why I can’t do this, why can he do it, why are there different rules for different people, why was it so important for others to watch me conform; my poor parents.

I have lived my entire life looking for and fulfilling my purpose, as most would say dancing to the beat of my own drums. My journey of self-discovery and seeking for my purpose took a turn when I moved to the US in 1993 at the ripe old age of 20! I have spent the last 25 years seeking to understand myself while doing my best to understand others. Can’t say it has been an easy journey, nor that my journey is complete. I am still as much a work in progress today as I was 25 years ago. What I do know is that I have grown, learnt and continue on that path every day.

I have spent the last 10 years turning this journey into a consulting practice where I am able to serve others through their journey. Through my work I can inspire others to embrace their strengths and weakness and show-up authentically in everything they do. In this fast-paced competitive world, organizations need every employee to show-up and contribute at their best, which can lead to innovation, new product development, higher employee engagement and so much more.

To quote Joseph Campbell “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are” and I am privileged to be who I am! 

EPISODE #3.2 TRANSCRIPT

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Welcome to the Conscious Culture Café, the podcast that explores how you can lean into your purpose, live your values, and enhance your social impact through your work. I’m your host, Kathy Miller Perkins.

Where do I begin in my introduction of our guest today? Priya and I met several years ago in a forum for women-owned businesses. I’ll never forget. When she introduced herself as Priya, the organizers asked for her last name. She said she wants to be known as Priya only, no last name. And she explained, if Oprah could do it, so could she.

She describes herself as an immigrant and a brown girl. Priya is the president and CEO of her company, consultant on the Go. She says she’s driven by her purpose and passion for harmony and equity, and she is a self-proclaimed rebel who found her cause. Through her work, she inspires others to embrace their strengths and weaknesses and show up authentically in everything they do. Welcome, Priya. You and I have been colleagues for a long time, and I’ve always admired your work and the way you think about your work. Can you start out by telling us a little bit about what you do?

Priya:

That’s a big question. What do I do?

Kathy Miller Perkins:

I know.

Priya:

Well, I am the president and CEO of my company called Consultant on the Go, and my work primarily focuses in the areas of change management, leadership development, and equity. I do this work really through the lenses of that intersectionality of human behavior, and this whole notion of how do we look at differences as it pertains to being humans. I think, as you know, Kathy, in doing change management work, humans love comfort.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah, really, and stability.

Priya:

Yes, and it’s all about how do we find that perfect intersectionality where as a leader, I’m open to diversity, open to looking at my own behavior and implementing behavioral change while being equitable for that process.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

That’s great work, and especially right now, while our country is in such turmoil. I’m sure that your work has always been important, but it’s even more important now, given what’s going on in our country. So, you wrote an article that I really enjoyed reading, and the title of the article was, I believe, “You Cannot Change What You Cannot Acknowledge.” Correct?

Priya:

Absolutely.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Well, I’ve got a number of questions. As I read it, it just stimulated my thinking, and I’m so glad to be able to have this discussion with you about it. You talk about how you can’t change if you don’t know that you need to change, and you said that people on the inside of organizations, even though their leaders are demanding that they make these changes to embrace diversity, they don’t really understand why. You talk about racial issues, pay inequities, all these different things that companies are asking their employees to address, but their employees are dismissing them, or some employees are dismissing these issues. How can leaders better prepare their employees for understanding the importance of, for example, the race issues, which is the big one right now?

Priya:

Absolutely. For me, I look at this work… I’ve been doing work around equity for about 20 years, but lately, I’ve been really looking at it through the lenses of change management. I think when we look at some of the progress we’ve made, and maybe areas that we’ve not made as much progress in is because we really haven’t taken the time to explicitly call out the “What’s in it for me?” for individuals.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Oh, yeah, right.

Priya:

Right? I mean, as we talk about change management, fundamentally, paraphrasing Darwin, we’re all selfish.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah.

Priya:

Right? When something happens or you ask me to do something differently, you could tell me it’s for a greater good, but my inner, inner core is going to say, “Kathy, what’s in it for me? Why would I want to do that for you?”

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah. Right.

Priya:

And I think sometimes as… sometimes organizations, and I think maybe even as a community, we’ve just assumed that people know the why. Why would anybody be against equity? Why would anybody be against pay equity? Like, women and men should be paid equally, or every human should be treated with dignity. We don’t really stop and think about the history, or we don’t stop and really think about that collective programming that some of us might have in ourselves that contradicts what I consider my reality.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah, right. So, if leaders want to help with that, how would they go about it? Let me quote a couple things, or at least refer to a couple things you said in your article. You talked about a lack of empathy, and I agree with you that there’s a lack of empathy, and that has a lot to do with why people don’t change. They can’t put themselves in the other person’s shoes. How do leaders help people develop empathy? Or do people have to do that on their own? Talk about that a little bit.

Priya:

Empathy and emotional intelligence go hand in hand.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Ah, yeah.

Priya:

So, just like with emotional intelligence, you know, some of us just are naturally wired to be emotionally intelligent, pick up on those verbal and nonverbal cues and be there for each other, but it’s a skill that can be learned, so others need a little bit of more help and nudging. So, empathy is similar in that form because, at least the way I look at this topic, you know, there is no way I could ever experience everything that someone has experienced in their lifetime.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Right.

Priya:

You and I know each other, I know a little about you, you know a little about me. The rest is just stories that I have made up in my head based on what I know about you.

Right? So again, we as human beings are storytellers, in essence. So, that piece of empathy is first recognizing that I, as an individual, am a storyteller. So I know Kathy, but I only know 5% of who Kathy really might be. The rest is my narrative.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Right.

Priya:

And so, if I want to be empathetic, then I have to pause, I have to listen, I have to try to understand what Kathy’s life really was like, versus what my assumptions tell me her life was like.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah, exactly.

Priya:

And then try to figure out, what was it like growing up if I was in her shoes?

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). So, how do you get people to do that? When I was reading your article, one of the things I was thinking about is how much of it is a lack of empathy, that is, a lack of or an inability to put oneself in the other person’s shoes, and how much of it is just plain old self-protection? “I like the power I have. Why would I want to give that up?” How do you deal with that? How do you help people deal with that?

Priya:

Yeah, that’s so true. The honest answer would be, I’m an optimist at heart, and so I try-

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yes, you are, I know that about you, and I love that about you.

Priya:

Thank you, thank you. So I really try to believe that the majority part of the world, or the majority of individuals we’re trying to influence, are not sitting there knowing they have the power and fighting to hold on to it. I believe that most of us have a good heart, we want to do better, we want to influence change. What we may not know is the how we can influence change.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Right.

Priya:

Right?

Kathy Miller Perkins:

That does make sense.

Priya:

And so, for me, that’s the way I like to tie it, to answer your question of “What can we do?” You know, not to oversimplify it, but again, the fact that we as human beings are constantly seeking our comfort zone. You have to know how to do it, so no matter how much we love our comfort zone, partly the reason we love it is because we can operate from a place of unconscious competence. To me, unconscious competence is when I act without effort, right? So think about when you get up in the morning. You go through your routine without stopping and thinking about it.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Right.

Priya:

Because you’ve done it so many times.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yes.

Priya:

You know how to get out of bed, You know where your alarm clock is, you know where the bathroom is. You just are on autopilot. When we get into conversations of race or equity, or topics that I might not be familiar with, I as an individual or even a professional or a leader start to consciously feel incompetent.

So suddenly now, maybe you have brought something to my attention about a topic. I am suddenly internally having the narrative of, “Oh, I’m not the expert anymore. Kathy’s going to realize that I am consciously incompetent, and I’m really not as accomplished as she might’ve thought I was.” So, what do I do? I either resist the change, I act like the change is not necessary, or I minimize it and move on.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Do you know, is that a conscious process, or is it just a plain emotional defensive reaction?

Priya:

Again, I love that question. I think it would probably depend on the individual, because for some, it might be conscious that I feel like I’m losing my power, to your point earlier.

For some, it just might be, “Getting out of this comfort zone is making me feel uncomfortable. I’m going to hop right back into my comfort zone.” So they may not even recognize it, and at least in my experience, most individuals, again, just from the workshops I’ve done, from the clients I’ve engaged with, people don’t recognize they’re doing it because it is at a such a subconscious level.

And it takes courage for me to acknowledge and say to the other person, “You know, what you just shared with me, I’m really not as familiar with it, so tell me more about it, let me learn, let me understand,” while still maintaining my credibility with you.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Good point. That’s a balancing act, isn’t it? It seems to me it’s all about trust. The way you describe it, it’s all about trust. I can live in that uncomfortable space with you because I trust that you’re not going to turn on me or make me feel foolish or… Would that be part of it?

Priya:

I think absolutely, I think that’s part of it. The other part of it is also that piece around vulnerability. You know, if I am the expert sitting across from you and I suddenly say, “Well, Kathy, I don’t know about that. Tell me more,” how does that impact my credibility with you?

Right? If you have labeled me as an expert, and now suddenly I’m saying to you, “I don’t know.” This is part of why, when we think about even innovation in organizations and creative thinking, on why individuals don’t often take risk, because risk requires you to go into that space where you may not be the expert and know everything.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah, exactly. Okay, so the vulnerability issue, I agree completely that it requires a vulnerability that many of us are not comfortable with, and I would maintain that most leaders have been taught, or believe, at least, that they should not be vulnerable, that they are in their position of leadership in order to, in their words, show strength, and that any kind of vulnerability gives others the perception that they’re not strong. How do we deal with that?

Priya:

You know, to me, this is where we as human beings are so fascinating and so complex, because at that point, what… At least the way I connect that, it’s about the leader’s culture and how they were taught a leader needs to behave. You know, some leaders truly are taught to be individualistic. They are the expert; the buck stops here. As long as they’re meeting their goals and reaching their key performance numbers, they’re good. Organizations don’t care about the bodies they’ve left behind.

Whereas other leaders are more collective. They want to build consensus. They want to include all voices, and they want to collectively get things accomplished. And they’ll still exceed their goals, but how they get there is different, and that’s where that element of diversity comes in, whether it’s my innate personality, whether it’s how I was taught to behave as a leader. And then what have I picked up along the way? Even from my education, because there’s a programming that happens even with my education.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Absolutely, absolutely. As I look at what’s going on around us now, we have had so many crises hit all at once that I really believe we are in a transformational time. And what I believe is that leaders really do have to give up that feeling that they need to be in control, because nobody has the answers right now. Nobody has all the answers.

Priya:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s part of why, when we talk… To your point earlier about when we talk about racism, when we talk about pay equity, the #MeToo movement, is that, you know, I often question, do we get that silence because the individuals that are being called out or being asked to be allies are consciously feeling incompetent?

Kathy Miller Perkins:

I think you’re onto something there, I do.

Priya:

Right? And don’t know what to say or what to do, so they sit in silence. They may say they’re allies, but they don’t have the skills and the competencies, or the confidence or the courage to say something to support what they believe.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

I like your reference to courage, because I think dealing with the racial issues that we have right now requires a lot of courage from everybody, because everybody feels vulnerable, I think, on every side of the issue. Everyone feels vulnerable and incompetent, at least up to a certain point. So, in order to make progress now, and I don’t think there’s any going back, I just can’t, I can’t see the country going back at this point. In order to make progress, we all have to learn to be vulnerable, and to feel our own incompetence and accept that in each other and in ourselves. And that’s hard.

Priya:

It is hard. And Kathy, you know, to your point, as you talk about the country, I think it’s even harder because if you look at the history of our country, and even the leadership values that we have stood on over the hundreds of years, it’s tied to the lone ranger. It’s tied to the individualistic leader that leads us and fights the battles for us and takes care of us. So now we are saying we need to switch the narrative, which, yes, I believe we do. However, I realize that may rub against the values, the beliefs, and the behaviors that are baked into who we might be as individuals.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah, that’s true. It is, it’s a real conflict, and I think… You talked in your article about assumptions and questioning our assumptions, and I think what you were just saying gets at that issue of, what are the assumptions that we don’t even know we have about our country, about ourselves? Because assumptions are taken for granted, so often they’re buried. And yet you mentioned in the article that one of the ways to make change is to examine our assumptions. How do we do that? How do we bring those assumptions to the surface?

Priya:

Whew, it’s a lot of deep soul-searching, often.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah.

Priya:

What I often say is, if you’re getting feedback, so especially as organizations are thinking about “What do we do with this?” look at the makeup of your organization, just first demographically, and just get a glimpse of, you know, what are you dealing with? What are the policies and procedures? Who is in my high-potential pipeline? Is it people that look the same, have gone to the same school? Could there be some unconscious biases at play? So, you can look at data first. I want to go to statistics, right, because we all have access to that.

And then I think what’s critical for organizations and leaders to consider is really looking at their own leadership style and checking in with themselves as they look at maybe their immediate core team that they manage. You know, how do they make hiring decisions? Who do they decide is assigned that high-potential project? And where are these decisions coming from? What values are driving those decisions?

You know, Kathy, as I say this, my intent is not that they go back, and judge how were raised.

That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is, we are as human beings on autopilot 90% of the time. Research shows us that we are making decisions from our subconscious mind, which is a collective of all the data we have accumulated over the lifetime of being on Planet Earth. So, where do you get your assumptions from? I’ll give you a simple example. Several, several years ago when I was still in the corporate world, I had a leader, a C-suite leader say to me, “I have this assignment, and I need to send someone to China for a startup, and I have two individuals that are on my high-potential list. One happens to be a woman and one happens to be a man.” And I said, “Okay, tell me more.” And he said, “Well, the woman just got engaged, so I just think we need to just ask this male to go to China for us, because I would not want my daughter, if she had just gotten engaged, to be away from her fiancé planning her wedding for three months.”

Now, what I want to just highlight there, Kathy, is, you know, we can say his intent was positive. He was looking at this employee of his as his own daughter. However, the impact of his decision on her career could have been huge, and not to mention, he took away her choice of saying yes or no.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah, that’s what I was thinking when you were talking, right.

Priya:

You know, that’s just such a simple example, but then when we bring this to the conversation or to the forefront of race, how are we having this conversation of race? Are we justifying things through our own lenses on what could have George Floyd done differently before the interaction happened with the police officer? Are we trying to justify in our own mind based on our own values and principles on the decisions that were made after the police showed up and his arrest came? And that’s what fascinates me about human behavior, because this is where human behavior comes in and how we start to justify our own beliefs.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yes, indeed. And we all have that tendency. I believe it takes conscious, intentional effort not to justify our own beliefs and not to just notice what confirms what we already believe. A lot of work.

Priya:

Confirmation bias, yes. We are constantly fighting biology.

And I think that’s part of… For me, the big piece is, as you refer back to the article, is if we don’t first acknowledge even at that very basic level that our biology is at play, and that even though I am adamant in what I believe, I know what I believe, I’m sure about it, that there could be a small percentage that I might be missing something or not have all the information. And until I’m able to do that, that’s, for me, the big piece about checking my assumptions, is if I’m not able to just be open to that, then how can I continue to grow? How can I continue to lead as a leader with whatever the business demands of me?

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah. And, you know, it seems to me, and this is something I’d like for you to give me your opinion about, it seems like people all of a sudden… I’m sure it doesn’t feel like all of a sudden to many, but all of a sudden, people are more open to questioning their assumptions and having these difficult conversations. Why is that? What makes this time so different? It’s not like this stuff hasn’t gone on for a very long time. What’s making this so different now, do you think?

Priya:

Ooh, that’s a big question. Where do we go with that?

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Oh, come on, you can do it. You can do it, I feel certain.

Priya:

Oh, well, you know, the honest answer would be I think it’s a combination of things. I think it’s a combination of where we are as a country, as a nation, in this time in history. Whether we look at politics, whether we look at what and how we are defining leadership when it comes through that political lens, what is acceptable behavior? What is not acceptable behavior? I think there’s just so much that’s gone on in the last, say, four to five years nationally, but also globally, that I think individuals that might’ve been on the sideline, taking it in silently and trying to be silent allies, are now recognizing that they’ve had enough and they need to step up and let their voices be heard, even though they might be feeling consciously incompetent in that moment.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Uh-huh (affirmative), and so they’re more willing to do that.

Priya:

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that’s part of it, you know, when they have so much change all at once, the change triggers individuals differently. You know, if COVID-19 didn’t have you triggered, then did George Floyd’s murder have you triggered? If that didn’t have you triggered, was there something else that happened in our country or in your community that has you triggered, that you’re asking for change, because you’re realizing that, “Maybe there is some truth to what I’m hearing”? And that’s the piece around acknowledgement, because if I don’t even acknowledge that there is something wrong, then I don’t feel the need to get up and do anything about it, because my world’s perfect then.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Right. We were all stuck in our homes when the Floyd murder took place. It’s not like we had other things to distract us, really. We’re all at a standstill. So, it does seem that that could’ve played into our ability… Well, not to mention the fact that it was so vivid on video. It’s hard to deny something you see that’s that vivid. It’s one thing to read about it in the paper; it’s another thing to see it on video.

Priya:

Yes. And to your point, I think it’ll be fascinating when the case actually goes to trial on the interpretations that’ll come out of even the same video that millions of us have seen, and yet there will be million interpretations.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Absolutely, absolutely.

Priya:

And that takes me right back to our biology and how we may be seeing the same thing, hearing the same thing, but our interpretations are different.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah. And that brings me to another point that you made in your article. You talked about systemic change, and I guess my question when I read that… First of all, I think that’s absolutely what we need. Absolutely. I agree with you on that. I wonder if… Can we have systemic change without personal change, or do we have to have personal change in order to be able to make systemic change?

Priya:

Love that question. I think it has to be a combination, because, you know, just from lenses of change and change management, when we think about the bell curve and those early innovators, and then our early adapters, right, and then you get the late majority and the laggards, I think this systemic change will be a combination of things. You have your individuals that have the heart in the right place, have a sphere of influence, and are willing to use their privilege to start to question the systems.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah, good. Good.

Priya:

And then along the way, hopefully they find the right allies to start educating the minds of those that are still sitting on the sidelines, which comes from the training and the coaching and the conversations. And then we get to a point where we build enough momentum that that change then just becomes part of our everyday.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Oh, that’s a wonderful way to put it. So it is, it’s integrated, the personal change and the systemic change go together, it sounds like, in your opinion.

Priya:

Absolutely. Because if a policy just was going to fix something, then, you know, we did pass a lot of laws in the ‘60s.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah, right, we did.

Priya:

And ironically, we’re still fighting for those same rights.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Isn’t that the truth. And I’ve been around since those days. I take a look at what’s happening and I think, “Are we really still here? Are we really, after all this time, still in this place?” And unfortunately, we are. What can you say?

Priya:

To me, it’s just a fascinating journey. As frustrating as it is, and yes, we’ve made some progress, I keep going back to this human experience and these human conversations and connections we keep trying to make while fighting our biology that tells me, “I need to stay with people that are more like me,” or “I need to stay in my comfort zone,” or “How dare I go on the other side of the railroad tracks, because you know those people. I shouldn’t be with those people.”

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Right, right.

Priya:

And yet we’ve made progress, and we haven’t.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah, and a life with no change or no discomfort seems so boring, really.

Priya:

Oh, yes, it does. Yes, it does. You know, for me, it’s that analogy… Not to oversimplify it, but it’s the analogy of a turtle. You know, when a turtle is out of its comfort zone, it just goes into its shell and hangs out.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Right. That’s a really good analogy. That’s a terrific analogy.

Priya:

Until it’s safe. And then the head bops out only when the environment feels safe. And that’s the piece I think that we need to figure out, is how do we create that safe space for those of us who might be in shock or have our head in our shells right now, going, “Okay, I want to support this, but I don’t know what to do, and I don’t know how to do it.” You know, how do we create those safe spaces for the allies, for individuals that are comfortable owning their privilege, their voice, their platform, and saying, “I want to support this”? Because there’s going to be a learning curve. Nobody does everything right.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Exactly. Exactly. Nobody’s completely competent in this space right now.

Priya:

Yes, I would completely agree with you, right? Even though I would categorize myself as a brown girl, as an immigrant to this country, I could promise you, I cannot speak for all of them. And even if I tried to articulate myself and my experience, I don’t have all the information. Because I just don’t. And so, that’s why it’s that learning journey of, how do we continue to just seek to understand?

Kathy Miller Perkins:

That’s great. This is such a wonderful conversation. I really appreciate the time that you’ve spent thinking about this and helping us understand better where you’re coming from. Before we sign off, do you have any tips or advice for the listeners about how to approach these times? Anything specific that you think people should do, whether they’re leaders, whether they’re employees? What would you leave them with?

Priya:

You know what I would say to the folks listening is, you know, when someone feels comfortable sharing with you their experience, whether they felt marginalized, whether they felt invisible or even disrespected, don’t try to make them feel better by saying, “You know, that person didn’t mean to disrespect you. That person didn’t mean to say that.” Acknowledge in the moment what that person felt. If you’re not clear on why they felt the way they did, have them help you understand why they felt the way they did, and try to be there for that individual in that moment, because they felt like they were invisible or marginalized, and they’re coming to you for support or allyship. Acknowledge them, listen to them, and then figure out how and what you need to do to be able to support them. And if you’re not sure, ask them how they want to be supported in that moment.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Oh, that’s great. That’s perfect advice, and that’s a good place to end our discussion. We could do this for hours. Thank you so much, Priya, for being on today, and I know the listeners are taking away much from this discussion. And thanks for writing the article; I found it to be fascinating.

Priya:

Absolutely. Thank you, Kathy, for allowing me to share my perspective on your platform. Thank you so much.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Thanks for listening to the Conscious Culture Café. If you liked what you heard, connect with us at millerconsultants.com. You can access the show notes and receive our free materials. See you next episode.