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Listen to "The White Guy in DEI, Paolo Gaudiano, Author, Speaker, Chief Scientist, New York" on Spreaker.Automatically Transcribed With Podsqueeze
Tom Reaoch 00:00:05 I'm Tom Reaoch, promoting successful business experts, connecting people throughout the world from my podcast studio in Brazil. Joining us today from New York, Paolo Gaudiano, the White Guy in DEA. Author, Speaker and Chief Scientist at Aleria showing how to leverage DEI for success. Paolo, why are white leaders resisting DEI?
Paolo Gaudiano 00:00:33 Tom, first of all, thank you for having me on here. And I would say that question has really two different answers. One of them is that a lot of the initiatives that have been promoted in the DEI context, especially in the last few years since the murder of George Floyd, have been somewhat misguided in that they've really focused a lot on guilt, on giving people a sense of what are some of the inequities that are happening. And it creates a sense of otherness and diversity of, well, diversity, but in a negative way. It makes people feel different from each other. And unfortunately, that's also created somewhat of a burden for a lot of leaders and their resistance to that when they fail to see tangible results and they feel that that's actually upsetting some of their employees.
Paolo Gaudiano 00:01:14 You know, a lot of white male employees that creates problems and it creates backlash. But I think that there's a second answer, which is that there is a I think there is an over estimation of how many white leaders actually resist DEI. I think that a lot of white leaders, and in fact, my research has shown that in a way, inclusion is kind of invisible. So a lot of leaders just don't really understand the extent to which some of their employees are being subjected to experiences that have a negative impact on their ability to work. And so what ends up happening is that the white leaders, who are the ones that tend to be the most included, and that's the ones that are the least likely to understand exclusion, are often just not really aware of the gravity of the situation and how it impacts their organization. And I think that so much of DEI has focused on statistical data overall, but it kind of fails or neglects to show a specific leader how their company is impacted by DEI. So I would argue that yes, there are some people that are against or resisting DEI, but I would also argue that there are a lot that given the right tools, the right metrics, the right outcomes would be more than happy to do the right thing.
Paolo Gaudiano 00:02:17 They just don't know what to do and they don't have the right data.
Tom Reaoch 00:02:20 Well, to that, to the word metrics, I see you have a book which is a success and it's called "Measuring Inclusion". So you're actually coming out with numbers there, right.
Paolo Gaudiano 00:02:30 Exactly, exactly. And I think that was a big, big breakthrough that actually led me to decide to write this book, was the realization that in the world of Dei, the vast majority of data has always focused on diversity alone. So we talk about DEI, but we only really measure diversity or representation. How many of these, how many of those, etc.. What I realized through my research is that knowing that there are, let's say, 10% African Americans in a US company or, you know, 30% women in a European company is not as relevant as understanding how those people are treated within the organization and how that impacts their ability to succeed, to create revenues for the organization and their desire to stay in the organization. And I found a way of measuring inclusion by effectively measuring the specific experiences, not the feelings of inclusion, but the experiences that people have as a result of their identity.
Paolo Gaudiano 00:03:22 And in some cases, even when they don't realize because of their identity. And by quantifying that, we now have an additional set of data that gives us a lot more clarity about what exactly is happening and what can be done about it.
Tom Reaoch 00:03:35 Now that's really needed because we're speaking to, you know, the world is round and global and it's diverse and we can't get around that. And many corporations today are global and have become and then some hope to be. But but to that point Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Iowa, they're all different. And you know, we have organizations that are working around the world. So even the DEI aspect reaches employees in different parts of the same corporation in a different way. But the bottom line, it comes together as a bottom line, right?
Paolo Gaudiano 00:04:09 Yeah. And you're absolutely you're spot on. And in fact, one of the great benefits that we've seen of measuring inclusion, and we've now worked with a few multinational companies where we measured inclusion across the globe. And what you realize is that diversity is a very relative concept.
Paolo Gaudiano 00:04:23 If you are black in America, that's in North America, that's very different than being black in Brazil or being black in Africa. And when you talk about inclusion, and the way that we measure it again is by asking for experiences. And then we have these categories like is it about work life balance? Is it about compensation and benefits. And those concepts are universal. So even though we see very different data, let's say in Asia-Pacific, than we do in Europe or North America or Africa, relatively speaking, we can get very, very consistent results by asking people about inclusion, because those are universal concepts. You know, being able to balance your personal life with your work life or being able to get compensated for the work that you do, are universal concepts that do not depend on the particular identity and your social cultural context.
Tom Reaoch 00:05:11 And again, for our listeners, and we're talking about global concepts. And back to your book, The Metric Inclusion the world works and the world finds it?
Paolo Gaudiano 00:05:20 The book is actually available on Amazon, and pretty much any online retailer will actually sell the book.
Paolo Gaudiano 00:05:26 Measuring inclusion I believe it's the only one by that title. The subtitle is Higher Profits and Happier People with no guesswork or Backlash. And it kind of tells you all about the content of the book.
Tom Reaoch 00:05:38 Repeat that please.
Paolo Gaudiano 00:05:40 So it's higher profits and happier people without guesswork or backlash.
Tom Reaoch 00:05:47 And everybody's just looking at the backlash recently. Right.
Paolo Gaudiano 00:05:50 Absolutely. And I felt very strongly when we were designing the subtitle with my publisher. We felt very strongly that we wanted to talk about profits first, because ultimately we're trying to convince business leaders, right?
Tom Reaoch 00:06:00 If you don't if you don't talk about profits nobody reads the book. So.
Paolo Gaudiano 00:06:03 Exactly, exactly.
Tom Reaoch 00:06:05 So but anyway.
Paolo Gaudiano 00:06:07 Amazon or any other online bookseller will you'll find that book.
Tom Reaoch 00:06:11 Very good. Well, also I say you're a speaker so you don't only have the book. You're out talking about it.
Paolo Gaudiano 00:06:16 That's correct. And I've been fortunate that I've given two TED talks, and one of them was actually selected by the TED Organization to be featured as a main TED talk.
Paolo Gaudiano 00:06:24 So if you go to TED.com and you look up my last name Gaudiano, G a u d i a n o, you will find a TED talk that I gave about a year ago on this very topic.
Tom Reaoch 00:06:36 Well very good. Well, keep talking, keep writing, keep podcasting and listening. So where can our listeners find you?
Paolo Gaudiano 00:06:43 Probably the best place is my website, Aeria.tech. And that's called aleria.tech h or on LinkedIn if you go to LinkedIn, my profile name is P Gaudiano and I'm the only Paolo Galliano as far as I know on LinkedIn, so it should be pretty easy to find.
Tom Reaoch 00:07:08 Well, and also, I can see you're only the white guy in DEA, so you're the guy.
Paolo Gaudiano 00:07:14 Well, I appreciate that there are other white men that are working in DEI. I think my work is unique, probably a little bit less for that, and more because of the quantitative angle and the way that we measure inclusion. But I do take a lot of pride in being a white person and realizing that I need to learn how to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
Paolo Gaudiano 00:07:33 And I like to think that my work is really significant, having a significant impact, and I hope that it will continue to do so in spite of the current political climate.
Tom Reaoch 00:07:42 Wow. Well, again, congratulations for what you're doing and keep doing it okay.
Paolo Gaudiano 00:07:47 Thank you Tom. Really appreciate it.
Tom Reaoch 00:07:48 Okay. Again, for our listeners, it is Paolo Gaudiano. Paolo. The last name g a u d i a n o. You'll find him on LinkedIn and his site, which is Aeria, Aleria, Aleria dot tech. Cafe & Networking is brought to us by FocusMI.com Market Intelligence, an agricultural market research specialist in Brazil. More information at focusmi.com. Talk to Tom. Talk to the World. Thanks for listening. And till the next time here at Cafe and Networking Podcast.
