The next bit of this course, which is probably, the hardest bit for many people is acknowledging the bias that each of us brains into our daily life. No matter where you are in your journey, we live as society that has smog, that has certain stereotypes and categories that are around us every day and trickle into our brain, and we behave generally unintentionally, but in ways that do show bias and create structural inequalities. Coming to terms with that, I often equate to the grief process of our first reaction is denial, of no., I'm a good person. I don't have bias. Then there's a bit of anger, whether it's at the person bringing the message or the world or at yourself. Eventually, you work through the emotions, and hopefully, within this course, we can get all of us to a place of acceptance, like yes, bias exists. We show bias. I show bias. Next step, I'm going to have the courage to be better and do better. I'm going to actively try in my daily life to find ways to be anti-bias, to be intentional about the decisions I'm making, to solicit feedback on the language I'm using every day, and each day to have the courage to hear the hard things, hear the mistakes I'm making, and try each day to get a little bit better at creating an inclusive environment around me. As I go on this journey, as I get this feedback, as I open myself up to the possibility that I also I'm engaging in ways that are biased. It helps develop my own awareness over how I can be more intentional and careful on the way that I'm interacting with others and viewing the world of myself. This allows me then to get on a journey where I am continuously improving myself. At least for me on my own journey on this, I noticed the more I open myself up for feedback, the more I hear about all the mistakes I'm making, and at times it feels like I'm making even more mistakes the further I go. But that's awesome because that means I'm learning, and I'm getting the feedback needed to get better and better about trying to find ways to eradicate bias as much as I can from my daily life. The final step in this journey and this journey never ends, is become an ally for members of marginalized groups. All of us have a different set of identities. What is the marginalized group that you can help? How can you be an active supporter? How can you provide resources? How can you listen? As you go through this course, reflect on where you are, reflect on each of these steps. Think about where you most need to work and to grow. Journey for an organization would be first, designing organizational processes to ensure equity. Would often start by first a data analysis of which processes are most susceptible to bias and where your numbers are showing perhaps gaps in terms of number of applicants to people hired in terms of certain groups. Organizational growth and DEI also includes improving inclusion by training people on the behaviors needed to support inclusive cultures and developing organizational values, norms, and culture that support those behaviors towards inclusion. It also includes launching DEI across the whole organization and vetting and training coaching tools, performance feedback reviews, bonuses, etc. That means, for example, having scorecards and inclusion, having promotions where they actually take into account the inclusion of employees. Organizational growth and DEI, just like your own personal journey, is a journey. It encompasses every facet of an organization, just as in a corporates, every facet of your own individual life. Actually, to go through this course is really important to latch on this idea of a journey mindset. There has been a lot of research and psychology among other places showing the value, which is viewing life as a journey more generally, that increases our resilience, persistence, and performance. This is really important, especially for something like diversity, equity, and inclusion, where the work is always going to be there, and it's never going to be done. The more we can lean into the idea that diversity, equity, and inclusion work is a journey, the more that we ourselves we'll be able to get up each day and how the resiliency to do the hard work on this and to persist. It'll also help us eventually to perform better ourselves as being anti-bias and help our organizations to be more inclusive, equitable, and reap the performance rewards that come with that. How can you take charge of your journey as you go through this course and work to be better at DEI life? Well, first, think about what brought you to this course. Start with a solid awareness of that and where you want to go. Where do you want to be in two years if you think about your DEI journey? Who do you want to be? How do you want the world to look? After that, find goals what you need to reach your dream destination. Maybe one of those goals wasn't working on your inclusive behaviors as part of this course. Then within this course, each week we're going to challenge you to say, because you're in this course, we're presuming that you want to work at your ability to be anti-bias and to create equitable and inclusive organizations. Each week we're going to challenge you in your action plans to have a hypothesis of the behavior that came out of this course, such as, to be more inclusive, I should ask more questions and give statements in meetings. Try it out in a meeting. It could be a family dinner, could be a meeting at work. See what happens if you vet for those around you about how you came across. Look at how effective the discussion was. The next day try it again, revise it a little bit. Living in this world of experimentation of setting hypotheses about your own behavior or that of your organization is the best way to accelerate your journey around something like diversity, equity, and inclusion or even leadership development more generally. Is the [inaudible] you actually go to reflect over how are these new behaviors working? What's sticking? What isn't? What are your roadblocks? How is your two-year vision being updated because of this journey that you're on? Eventually, the best way to get good at anything is to help guide others. As you go through this course, how can you also gently help others in their DEI journeys and help them accelerate their progress as well? Again, each week, we're going to be going through this five-step process and focusing specifically with you each week on step 3. Doing these leadership behavior experiments over no matter your role in the organization, how can you lead on DEI whether you just joined the organization or you're the CEO? How can you have an hypothesis each week for behavior you want to try to improve DEI in your organization and also for yourself? How you test it and how you get feedback. The end of this week, we're going to challenge you. I don't want you to start thinking about it now, to design your first behavioral experiment, exactly what we've been talking about. A good experiment is specific, it's realistic, and it's actionable. Say that you just want to be a better leader and improve your team's diversity very broad. Getting more specific over, I want to learn the skills needed to lead an inclusive team is a great one. Use your goal to create focus. Then have a hypothesis about you want to try. For example, if I model vulnerability within my team, that team looks to experience higher levels of safety and openness. You have something to do, show vulnerability the next time you're in a team meeting. Do you want more information about this type of journey and how to teach yourself leadership tools for diversity, equity, and inclusion analytic behaviors more broadly? Feel free to check out the website of the center, leadership center that I run, sanger.umich.edu. It has a lot of downloadable worksheets, the different tools including the world's first Encyclopedia of leader behavior as backed by science that you could be choosing to work on, to support your leadership development, including being able to lead effectively in diverse settings and create inclusive and equitable environments. Again, just a summary of where we are of how do you launch around DEI journey? How do you coach yourself both throughout this course as well as afterwards? Make sure you know what your longer-term goal is. For example, here, why you're taking this course, and what do you want to achieve out of it? Where do you want to be in two years? Where do you want your organization to be? Then two, to understand the knowledge, tools, and behaviors you need to reach that longer-term goal. Then to take those behaviors that you're trying to study and put them into practice with daily experiments. Make sure that you periodically reflecting on your progress and then start helping others in their DEI journey too. Again, is the fastest way to accelerate your own growth. All the best on your next steps on your own DEI journey and all the best with this course.
