Brain Aware Podcast

The Will to Change: Lessons from the Frontlines of Inclusion

• Brain Aware Training • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Jennifer Brown's powerful journey from operatic singer to DEI trailblazer reveals the transformative potential of finding purpose after unexpected loss. After losing her singing voice, Jennifer discovered organizational development and diversity work, launching a 25-year career that would position her as one of the most influential voices in inclusive leadership.

In this reflective conversation, Jennifer unpacks the complex dynamics following 2020's racial reckoning—a moment that brought unprecedented attention to DEI work while simultaneously sowing seeds for today's backlash. She offers nuanced insights into navigating this pendulum swing, suggesting that perhaps the intensity of that awakening created challenges for sustainable learning and growth.

Jennifer shares wisdom on facilitating change when emotions run high, explaining why focusing on behaviors rather than beliefs creates more lasting transformation. "When you give people simple, actionable behaviors to practice, the beliefs eventually follow," she notes, echoing neuroscience findings on habit formation. This practical approach provides leaders with tangible steps toward inclusive leadership even when the broader landscape feels threatening.

The discussion explores how younger generations are reshaping workplace expectations around belonging and authenticity. Jennifer explains that while current political winds may be silencing some DEI conversations, the demographic shifts in our workforce and consumer base ensure these issues won't disappear. Companies that fail to create inclusive cultures risk losing both talent and customers who increasingly vote with their feet and dollars.

Despite acknowledging the current "trough" in DEI work, Jennifer remains fundamentally hopeful. "There are more people than ever trying to bend that arc of the moral universe," she reflects. Her forward-looking perspective includes new writing projects and her commitment to elevating diverse thought leaders who will shape tomorrow's conversation about belonging.

Ready to navigate today's complex DEI landscape with compassion and strategic insight? Listen now and discover practical approaches for fostering inclusion in challenging times.

Speaker 1:

You're listening to the Brain Aware podcast, where we explore the brain science of success and discuss evidence-based approaches to tackle workplace challenges. And now your hosts, and Dr. Britt Andreatta and Justin Reinert. Welcome to the podcast. Jennifer Brown, speaker, coach, facilitator and author of several books focused on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Britt Andreatta:

Jen, A so excited to have you join us today, and i think our followers and listeners are going to be so excited to learn more about you. As you know, I'm a huge fan, but I would love to have you tell us a bit about yourself and your career journey.

Jennifer Brown:

. Feeling is so mutual. Britt, I'm such a fan as well. Yes, my journey is. I've actually I'm an old timer in the work I do which used to be, years and years ago, the D of DEI, and over the years we added, luckily to the acronym and built it out to more accurately reflect all the aspects of the work, which was really important. But in the old days I, previous to that, I had been a performer, and a performer who lost my operatic singing voice. So I had to reinvent and I found this whole universe of organizational development. It found me because I had been on the stage and somebody said maybe you should facilitate. Have you ever thought about it? And lo and behold, I felt I found my people, my place, a new role, a new thing to be fascinated by, which is how do people change in organizations? What is leadership in that context? What are systems? You know, how does it all work and how can I be a change agent within that? How can I spark change? And it just has led to this whole kind of you know.

Jennifer Brown:

Now, 25 years of being, I would say, I have my OD hat on, I have my personal hat on of being female, cisgender, I'm LGBTQ plus and I have become a DEI practitioner over the last 20 years or so and I ran a company in the space.

Jennifer Brown:

I've been self-employed for 20 years. We've worked with some of the biggest companies in the world and I still speak on a lot of stages about inclusive leadership and why it's so important, especially now, and I have four books on inclusive leadership as well. So I've really found a wonderful home in this work and a beautiful community, and I have tried to influence employers and workplaces to be better, to do better, to create more belonging and to understand that it is imperative for business. It's not just good for business, it's imperative, not just the moral case, which we hope, we would hope is enough, but the sort of looking to the future that every enterprise should be doing to say are we attracting and retaining the best people? That look like our world? And our world is changing and it's a beautiful opportunity. But those that miss it, I think, will miss the next, the next wave.

Jennifer Brown:

Absolutely agreed. And for those of you who have not yet picked up Jennifer's books, run, don't walk, to get them. They are my favorite books on the topic.

Jennifer Brown:

Thank you.

Justin Reinert:

Yeah, and Jennifer, I'm also a big fan of your work and as you think about you know, think back on your career. I'm sure you've gone through a lot of changes in the evolution of that space. I'm curious if you wouldn't mind sharing one change in particular that was memorable, either one that went smoothly or maybe one that was challenging.

Jennifer Brown:

Or maybe one that was challenging. Well, I think we'd all probably point to 2020, in the summer of that year. That was, gosh, something we'd been waiting for, even though it was a heartbreaking reason the surge of interest and passion and commitment and resources and everything that came flooding towards our field. Some of us were new to the field and it was the feast of the feast and a beautiful opportunity to just get our voices heard. But a lot of us had been waiting for that for a very long time, thought we would be always waiting, honestly. So it was a very unusual moment. Looking back, it was an unsustainable moment, but it moved. It just changed the bar and the threshold, I think, for the work, for the conversation. It awakened millions of people and so, while I like to say this is a trough that we're in at the moment, which is kind of the, for every action there's a reaction. We're in the reaction and that could have been expected I think not a lot of us expected it, honestly.

Jennifer Brown:

So there's been a lot of collateral damage to the field and there continues to be as a result of, sadly, I think, what went so well in those few years, which was a huge awakening globally. So we're in the pushback but, as I try to kind of keep this long-term view, there is a pendulum that's swinging and we witnessed it swing and we are feeling the backswing but the idea is we'll never die and you actually can't kill them. It's sort of that beautiful, beautiful saying of they tried to bury us but they didn't know that we were seeds. We are the seeds and we're the seeds of change and we're the seeds of the future reality of our populations and humans, and humans desire to belong and and our relationship to work and purpose and all of that still really matters.

Jennifer Brown:

But we're in a we're in a tough spot at the moment and it's just. You just have to kind of look, step away from it and say the work has always been difficult. I started the work before anybody even knew what it was and I got a different kind of pushback all those years ago. I was just trying to be out as an LGBTQ person and be an advocate for employers to do better by us and those were hard conversations the very early days of trans awareness, for example, and why that was important for companies to understand and do right by their transitioning employees. So I've seen a lot of it, and I have an appreciation for the arc of the moral universe. But boy, it has become tough to bend recently, and I think we do have to take the long view just to get through each day at the moment.

Justin Reinert:

I'm curious, as you look back to that moment five years ago, kind of starting right now, expanding through 2020, what was the biggest lesson you took away from that?

Jennifer Brown:

I think there's a lot to be learned from that moment and how we navigated it and what I wish easily in hindsight, we can see these things. I don't think that the folks who were awakening did not yet have the resilience, I think, to take in and to truly hear a lot of the truths that were being expressed, and yet the truths needed to come out. It was just an eruption, yet the truths needed to come out. It was just an eruption, so I'm not criticizing that at all. That's needed, necessary, truthful, honest. I mean. It was so much beautiful courage in those months and in the sort of 2020, 2021 era, and we tried to rise to meet all of that right and support that because there was just so much work to be done and so much openness to it. That because there's just so much work to be done and so much openness to it. But I do think, from a sort of ideas perspective, the reckoning with your own history, your culture's role in that history, maybe not your direct role, although we unwittingly participate in these systems, still every one of us I think it was a difficult meal to digest, and so it makes me get back to my roots and change. How do people change? Why do they change their opinions? What do they need to be shown to change? What is the process of beginning to look critically at everything you've ever known and ever believed in so that you can change your stance in the world? What does it mean to challenge the groups you've belonged in and step outside of those groups and be critical of that, even if that is your family, your culture, your, you know, your lifestyle, your who you hang out with, who you live near, which schools you send your kids to? I mean, there were so, so many things to learn and I think it was difficult for a lot of people to digest it. I'm not saying that that has led to the backlash, but it did at the time and I think still, lead to many, many people feeling confused and a bit afraid to engage with a lot of the truths that we unearthed and shared broadly in those years. And sadly, I think, more than the backlash, it's really just the overwhelm and kind of the avoidance of the difficult topics, the difficult conversations.

Jennifer Brown:

You know I call my podcast the Will to Change, like, where does the will come from to change? And you have to have courage, you have to have resilience, you have to look things in the face. You have to be honest, you have to be really humble, really humble, and leaders and organizations have to be that as well. They're on their own personal learning journey and then they're leading an organization through a learning process and an unlearning process and that is intimidating as well. Now it's more than ever, because the political winds are silencing all of that. But it was and is bubbling. It's always there. It's just maybe gone underground right now, but this is not going away.

Jennifer Brown:

So I can promise anyone that show me a company that says they're not doing anything, and I will disagree. I know it's happening because you wouldn't be a good business leader if you weren't taking a hard look at your workforce demographics and how those need to change. But yeah, I wish we had, in hindsight, had the wherewithal and perhaps been more strategic about bringing people along and making sure that we didn't squander an iota of that moment, like in terms of gaining adoption and buy-in amongst people that had never even reckoned with this before. But that is such. That is so not realistic. That kind of hindsight and we got some people. We did, we absolutely did.

Jennifer Brown:

So it's one step forward, two steps back. That's how change happens, it's messy, it's unpredictable, it's impossible to plan for sometimes. But I do think I want us to tackle things in a different way. That could be probably the most concise way I could answer it. I'd love to take our learnings and really evolve our approach, because we will have another chance. But the world will have shifted so much in the intervening times that I don't know what we're exactly preparing ourselves for. But what I don't want to do is go back to an old script. I think we're going to have to really reckon with a very, very shifted world the next time it swings back.

Britt Andreatta:

I couldn't agree more. And I was just thinking about. y own journey to awakening happened in my 20s and I remember how painful it was to be confronted by my privilege and to realize how much I had blinders on for other people's experience and I was not confronted with nearly anything as brutal as George Floyd's murder. But I remember just all the cognitive dissonance, the personal pain, the guilt, the confusion of realizing that I'd been lied to by so many systems in my world and felt like I was intentionally kept uninformed. It was a lot to process and I was in a very supportive community. And when I think about all that unfolding in the middle of the pandemic, on one hand I think it gave people the time to lean in and learn from yourself and so many of the other leaders who stepped up to educate the world in that moment. And I know that people cannot unlearn, that they might shut down the discomfort and say I'm going to ignore it and I'm not going to process my discomfort. But it's kind of like Neo in the Matrix when he took the red pill you can't unsee it after you've been exposed to it. But I think that probably a lot of that moment everyone was also processing all the trauma from the pandemic too, right, and if they didn't have good self-regulation skills or self a good supportive community, they wouldn't have had the ability to process all of that as effectively as we would have wanted them to. And it wasn't all of your responsibility to do that for the world either. Everyone needed to take responsibility.

Britt Andreatta:

So I absolutely hear what you're saying. All that good work is still there and it's still percolating for people and we just have to ride out the pushback, which I think is just people saying that's too uncomfortable and I can't face all that means about our world, so I'm just going to make it go away. But of course it doesn't really go away, right, and we're seeing that play out in the headlines right now and it will continue to, because it's important that we we really strive for a fair and just and equal world for everyone. Thank you for what you do, I can imagine just how exhausting that whole time was.

Jennifer Brown:

It really was, yeah, and even as a person of many privileges, it was exhausting. So, like you said, I can't even imagine my beautiful colleagues and co-teachers and everyone the trauma of being not only in the experience as a person but leading the work and so, like you've got double or many aspects of trauma happening at once because you're trying to hold space for others to learn and you're using yourself and your experience as a vehicle for that. So you're literally putting yourself and your heart and your lived experience in the service of others, learning and you're leading institutions which we all know are so complex and change only very slowly and very unwillingly, and the complexity of that. So I've always thought it's kind of this beautiful and impossible role. It's just impossible and that might be why I love it. It just is one of the most challenging things you can ever take on and yet the moments when you get through are so sacred and so beautiful and so sustaining and so nourishing that I think we want to feel that again. We want to feel that connectedness and being seen. So it's a bit of a blessing and a curse, the work, because it just it chooses you and once you talk about having your eyes open and never being able to go back.

Jennifer Brown:

I think a lot of people then woke up to, oh my goodness, I need to do this work as a leader. Um, in those years too, and that's been a heartbreak of where we are now. But for those of us who've been in very long time, you know it may be easier or harder, I'm not sure to kind of step apart from it and just say just wait. You know, I don't know how long you have to wait, but you know it awakened a lot of teachers to to this, and that's a beautiful thing as well, because we are all ports in the storm. We're lighthouses for people. You know where. We wrote a ton of books in that time. We shared so many experiences.

Jennifer Brown:

Even I am still so, learning every day about identities. It's just incredible. It's an incredible. I cannot imagine not wanting to know about all that. It makes my life so much richer. But you're right, Britt, the threat. You have to be so open, truly open and humble to hear your people be spoken about in the ways, in critical ways, that are accurate about our history. You know, I don't know it feels easy for me, but I think it's because I've been in this conversation so long, and so it's not about me, but I would hope, I would wish that for a lot of people to realize and be able to transcend that. Oh, this is uncomfortable. I feel threatened, I feel accused, I feel guilty, I feel ashamed. Okay, but what are you doing next? What are you doing next?

Britt Andreatta:

Yeah, and I don't think we really work well. I don't think in our society we deal with uncomfortable feelings. People don't know how to have healthy conflict. They don't really know how to recognize their own emotions, let alone manage them. We're lacking a lot of emotional intelligence. That's needed to have these sophisticated conversations and to bring about change. But we'll get there. I mean, you know, as you know, the arc is long, but it bends in the right way. What about what's happening right now? What are some of the big changes you're currently navigating or launching soon, either personally or professionally?

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah, I am still. Like I alluded to a moment ago, the work is continuing. It may be called something else, it may be shifted over to another focus area, but the thing about our work is there was always so much work to get to that, honestly, if you are prohibited or it's illegal to do it this way, there's like all this. There's never been enough of us to do all of the work like there. I mean, organizations are complex and I focus on organizations mainly so there's always leader development to be done, there's always grappling with generational differences and the incoming workforce and all their values and their definition of belonging. There's always. There's just so much.

Jennifer Brown:

So I am still speaking and I'm still. People are reading my particularly my latest book and finding it still simple and helpful and inviting and a positive endeavor Not to say you're always going to feel positive, but a positive momentum in terms of I want to evolve, you know, and I think there are still so many of us that want that. So I'm really gratified that my work continues in that way. But absolutely, the clients we've some clients have really, really had to pare down or sort of disappear for a little while.

Jennifer Brown:

And then others just won't, aren't doing anything at all, although, like I said, I think I think the headlines are one thing, but the reality, I think we don't really know accurately, and it's probably a lot better than it looks to believe the media about what's happening right now. So I think that, overall, the progressive organizations that don't feel at risk, for whatever reason they don't feel at risk, are continuing to push, and every day I think it changes. You know, I think this is a very chaotic time and they're trying to figure out, like what does it even mean, and which work is illegal and which isn't, and what can we keep doing? I think you know what I've always thought everything we touch is good work. Like it's, it all is in service of moving things along and moving change along and accelerating it and creating better cultures. So, whether or not you know you're, you shift your professional development programs or your recruiting strategies and you do them a different way.

Jennifer Brown:

I have a lot of belief in creativity and in the creativity of these teams that are thinking about we still have this business problem to solve and here are the way, here are the constraints now, but constraints actually create creativity, they create better thinking and I actually think that struggling through this is going to show us a lot about what needs to change, about the work, perhaps how we're walking the talk when it comes to inclusion. You know, I don't know. I don't think our strategies of old were perfect, because there is no such thing, so I like to kind of think we're. I hope we're focusing on what are we going to discover through this process. Constraints are helpful for innovation.

Britt Andreatta:

Absolutely.

Justin Reinert:

Jennifer, given your focus kind of in over your career, I want to tie a few things to some of Britt's research in thinking about the role of some of the brain structures and resistance, so we think about the amygdala driving fear, and the other one that actually is coming up for me today is then failure. So the amygdala's role in preventing us from doing things where we might fail. So if we think about fear and failure related to resistance and change, I can't help but think about who are the people who are resisting the most. I'll raise my hand. White men, I'll raise my hand. White men, you know, sometimes are the ones that we have to win over to help move along the continuum, because you know marginalization doesn't affect them as much. So how in your work have you worked with people of color? You know the most privilege in organizations and I'll just say privilege not to label anyone, but where you have an abundance of privilege. How do you deal with that fear and failure to get them over the hump and moving along on the change journey?

Jennifer Brown:

Fear of failure you know, if you're not uncomfortable, you're not leading in general is what I always come back to and say to leaders. You know this is, this is what you signed up for. Leadership is hard. It is hard and and that's why it's it's high stakes and maybe high reward, you know, in many cases, but you know you have this additional responsibility and really opportunity to feel the fear and do it anyway, because you have to grow. The problem is you're growing in public. The problem is there's many eyes on you as you grow and that's unfortunate because I, when I think about learners, all of us we deserve the opportunity to stumble and to fall off and get back on or to have you know, have to apologize for an unintended consequence or impact that we didn't intend. And it's a conundrum about leadership because they don't have a lot of time to learn and they don't have space to learn and they don't have grace to learn. So I, Justin, like I sometimes feel like I'm asking people to do the impossible because their hands are tied in so many ways and I don't know how brave would I be in their shoes, would I open myself up to learning in public and all that goes along with that. So this is not as you kind of allude to, this is not the majority of people that are wired and ready for this. The question might be how can we invite a toe in, how can we begin the spark and the beginning of the engine kind of warming up right? What are some shorter term things, easier, relatively easier things, ways to begin to use new language, ways to evaluate your network and notice just notice who's not in my life, who am I not making time for, whose identity do I have I never been exposed to and what don't I know about, say, the microaggressions that each community faces. I try to give people simple things that they can go memorize so that they can be more vigilant and at the very least begin to observe, observe their space in a system and what is easier for them, or where they are welcomed more automatically or given trust or credibility, and where others may be treated very differently in that same system. Huh, you know what does it mean? Just to spark the curiosity about that. And then from the curiosity comes the sort of pennies dropping and maybe the intellectual understanding of data, statistics, lived experiences, stories. You know somebody confides in you, you notice things, and then I think the empathy I hope develops. But that's a tricky one because sometimes you can show people all the data.

Jennifer Brown:

It's like the business case. We all thought the business case for DEI would take us through, it would really protect us and it really honestly hasn't. I've been extremely disappointed, isn't the word. I think we put a lot into that because we were told that metrics matter. We were told this is the language of business, so if we only argue it in the language of business, it's going to stick and it hasn't. We can see what a weak foundation that really was and it was sold to us by a lot of big management consultancies anyway, and I think there were ulterior motives at play with all of that. So so we're back to the humans and the messy humans that we're trying to influence and I, I think, these theories of change.

Jennifer Brown:

One of my, one of my contacts he said that follow behaviors and not the other way around. So it made me think about what behaviors can we give people to begin to do that will eventually lead to a belief, change, belief is the lagging indicator. Is there a way we can make this very simple, very like a daily hygiene of leading, and make it feel less scary, less high risk. We start with the low stakes activities and we build to the more difficult, more risky, more public things, but we need to walk people through this and we need to be by their side as they are pivoting through this. This is not about throwing somebody in the deep end and then criticizing them for not getting it right the first time, just because of you know who they are and what they should know, and that energy that I just described, I think, is the thing I regret about 2020 and 2021, honestly, is this why don't you know? You should know I'm not going to do your work for you. You need to go.

Jennifer Brown:

It was just this very harsh, unforgiving landscape for learning, and that is not how we learn. We need to learn in community. We need to learn in relationship. We need to learn in trusted spaces. It needs to be able to be imperfect and failure.

Jennifer Brown:

When you say failure, I immediately go to perfectionism. I immediately go to that horrible habit that a lot of us have, and organizations, though, need to reward behaving before believing, too. They need to reward the space that somebody needs to learn, but I don't see them necessarily protecting that space. I'm not saying protecting a leader who continues to commit microaggressions. I'm not at all saying that that's what we need to do, but I don't think organizations, sadly, are learning. We know that organizations are not learning cultures, we know this. They're unforgiving landscapes, they're harsh in and of themselves, they measure people unrelentingly and they do not do well in measuring, I think, and investing in the skill to be measured of these kind of emerging competencies that I'm talking about, you know agility, resilience, empathy, curiosity, courage. It's not what we've been measured on.

Jennifer Brown:

So we're, I think, at the beginning of, in a weird way, even though we've been at this for a long time like we still really haven't scaffolded inclusive behaviors and really nailed them down, really defined them, given people, the behaviors I mean. There's some kind of gap in all of the work we've created and how it's landing for leaders, and there's some kind of resistance in the middle to say it's still too scary what you're asking me to do and it's too amorphous and I don't understand why I would do this and why would I put myself in harm's way. We have to reshape that narrative somehow and I wish I could give you a clearer answer. But that's, it's just the messy place that we're at and. But that is the work how we proceed. It's going to take time. I think this is a rewiring, this is a rewiring of the human, I mean. I think that's the phase we're going through right now.

Britt Andreatta:

Britt you would know. Well, I absolutely agree, and what we're really coming down to is habits. I mean, habits are a behavior that once you do it enough, you don't have to think about it. So think about when you drove a car for the first time. It was a lot to think about the mirror and the brake and the wheels and, for some of us, a clutch and all of that. And yet now it's second nature clutch and all of that, and yet now it's second nature. And all of these behaviors are awkward and uncomfortable at first because we haven't done them. And yet our brain has this beautiful mechanism called the basal ganglia, which its job is. If we do something enough it's about repetitions it will turn that into an automatic behavior you don't have to think about. So the goal is how do we get people to 40 to 50 repetitions? And I love that you're focusing on behaviors rather than beliefs, because if you can, if you can focus on three behavior shifts you want to make and you just pay attention and you reward yourself until you get to that 40 or 50, and then your body does it and now you can focus on the next behavior change. That can be really helpful.

Britt Andreatta:

I was also really struck by the fact that all the thought leaders that I think are doing really amazing work in bringing out the best in workplaces. So yourself, Amy Edmondson's research on psychological safety, Brené Brown's research on vulnerability and courage, my own research on the brain science behind things. We're all women and I think that the workplace of the future is really going to rely on the thought leadership of women and people of color, because that is where all the metrics, all the behaviors, all of the focus really brings to life the best in workplaces. And so what I think we're seeing is a real grinding of wheels, like the old male-dominated hierarchical leadership and metrics of measurement and competition.

Britt Andreatta:

And yet what really brings out the health in a workplace and a community come from two different philosophies. They can play nicely together, but if we don't have an intentional articulation of how to mesh those gears, they're going to grind for a while and make that awful sound. But I really know that we already have all the tools to make our workplaces what we want them to be. It's just now about the journey of committing to the change and using people to help you get those behavior shifts moved over. So I was having some aha moments while you were sharing that, it seems complex, and it's also simple what we promote and what we spend time rewarding we get more of, and so focusing on those behaviors, small as they may seem, are what really brings about the real changes.

Jennifer Brown:

That's right. Generationally too, I think we just all of our work. We may look back and say all we needed was a generational shift, like, really, I mean it just may happen, right, Because you've got younger humans who are so much more aware of their world, so much more aware of inclusion, have experienced and are more open about their experiences of exclusion, including people that you would think have all the privileges. So I'm hoping also that sensitivity to that as the next generations ascend to leadership. It's just not going to be tolerable this kind of stuff. They're going to bring this new way of thinking and viewing belonging. And then we know young people, of course. I mean that's going to be a sort of tsunami of change in workplaces if they stay.

Britt Andreatta:

If those jobs are still there. Yeah, yeah, I mean, we're seeing it already and I would say that the pushback that the consumer right now is doing around Target and boycotting Target and boycotting some of these companies and going all in on Costco is a direct reflection of the work that was done in the summer of 2020. You know, and also this, these younger generations of both workers and consumers saying it matters, saying it matters. I want to only contribute to companies that really care about people, the planet, and they vote with their feet and they vote with their dollar.

Jennifer Brown:

That's right. I'm heartened to see that and a bit sad that it took the mobilization of sort of economically bringing some of these companies down in order to be heard. I mean, really, these companies aren't bad in and of themselves. They made some bad choices and they may pay the ultimate price and it's going to be really interesting to you know, to see us flex our muscles right in that way and see what the result is and what the takeaway is. It may be, we don't care, we're going to withstand it, you know, because we're going to do what we want to do, but that, of course, would not be wise. It's going to withstand it, you know, because we're going to do what we want to do, but that, of course, would not be wise. It's going to be a huge power struggle. That's what's going on and it's fascinating to watch, and we also have to change our techniques to be heard, and that's that's. It is having effects and I think there's something there that we can really flex and it's not going to be the moral case, obviously, sadly, at this time, and it may, you know it never. It may never be, but I'm really I want more communities to mobilize, to find their voice, to articulate what's important to them. I think it's happening in different ways. There's a lot of innovation around protest and activism right now happening in different communities, and I think this target example is one of an emerging school of thought about how to, how to show our might and force change. I'm here for that, even though these are some of the clients that I've actually worked with for years and years. I mean and this is the one we're talking about was one of the very, very early role model companies for everyone in the queer community. You know Target was a beacon, an absolute leader for years and years and years.

Jennifer Brown:

So it's hard to know what to do with that. It feels like a betrayal. It's really dispiriting. It kind of can destroy all of our goodwill that I think a lot of us gave to our employers because we believed that they believed in us, and a lot of that has been destroyed.

Jennifer Brown:

Even in companies that are in the middle right now, kind of equivocating. I think there's trust being broken every second of every day and I don't know what companies think is gonna happen, whether they're going to need this workforce, maybe the trust doesn't matter. I mean, I hate to get dystopic about it, but there's lots of changes, with AI coming too and all rolled together, you kind of look at it and say where does the human fit in this equation and how important is it that the human feels trusted and psychological safety and supported and able to bring their full selves to work? I still think that we own innovation and creativity. I mean we absolutely do. However, we're assisted by all the machines and everything. We have something extremely unique in the equation, so I think it's a little ridiculous and illogical what's happening and it's absolutely a short-term game, but the long-term pain is going to be intense, I think, for companies that aren't maintaining their relationships.

Justin Reinert:

Agreed. So, Jennifer, looking forward, what's something that you're excited about in the coming months, either personal or professional?

Jennifer Brown:

I have a lot to be excited about, actually. So my fourth book is how to be an inclusive leader, which is the second edition. So I am going to soon be working on the third edition of that. And it's funny the cadence the first one was out in 2019. The second came out in 2022, I believe, and the next one then is going to be 2026.

Jennifer Brown:

So the intervals are not an accident, but you know, anyone that's written any kind of book around this kind of six year period knows that the shelf life i t might be a great book, but there's so much change that you need to address as an author. So I'm really excited. I know Britt has, like, written a million books and understands this. Like you want to take like all the great DNA of something that people love and you need to kind of reskin it over and over again because it needs to speak to these times, and so I'll be doing that. I will be writing another book, hopefully.

Jennifer Brown:

Actually, that's a bit more about these themes that we've been talking about today, a bit like grace and resilience and curiosity and evolution and the will to change in all respects, not just in DEI, but much more broadly, and it's more of a personal book for me, derived from my gosh almost 400 episodes of my podcast and all the beautiful humans I've had a chance to talk to, including Brit, many, many people who've kind of given me their wisdom, and it's a I hope it's a wisdom book. I hope it's a book that allows people to maybe feel more comfortable, to our point earlier, less fearful about the kind of human they want to be, and kind of gives them some inspirational language and ways in to think about that. And then I'm also what else am I excited about? Just getting on stage and still being in rooms with leaders that are enthusiastic, you know, and are staying the course. I mean that just is such a shot in the arm to be with people who believe and who are just putting their shoulder to the wheel and, you know, are doing well because of it. You know, and you can see like the whole kind of thing as it should be and that's, you know.

Jennifer Brown:

That's important for all of us to find that moment when you can feel encouraged, when you can feel like everything we've always believed to be true is still true, because that is still there. But this world kind of operates in a way to pull us away from how connected we are and how that arc of the moral universe is actually bending. There's a lot in the way it's sort of obscured behind the clouds right now, but we have to know that that rainbow not to use a hackneyed image but it's still there, you know, it's still out and there's a lot of people there's more people than ever, I think actually trying to bend that arc. So that's what's keeping me going every day.

Britt Andreatta:

Me too. I mean, I know we're in a time of incredible struggle, but I'm also seeing people willing to do the fight and the work to not let that hope die right and to get us back on track. So it's difficult times, but also inspiring when you see some of the things that people are stepping up to do. I'm so excited you came and joined us today. This is, you know. It's always so wonderful to talk with you, but to have this conversation is really meaningful, especially, I think, now, in this times that we're in. If people want to find you and learn more about your work, what's the best way for them to do that?

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah, thank you. I enjoy this so much as ever. I am at JenniferBrownSpeaks. com and Jennifer Brown Speaks on Instagram, which I spend a lot of time on. You'll find me there and all the podcasts and everything. Podcast is called the Will to Change. I'm all over LinkedIn. Join me in the conversation.

Jennifer Brown:

I have calls, I have webinars lots of good stuff for you to engage with and I'm also starting to do a little coaching for future thought leaders.

Jennifer Brown:

Britt, you really nailed it when you said who are we going to learn from in the future and who is writing the books and where's the wisdom and where's the knowledge that is predicting where we're going?

Jennifer Brown:

I am now engaged in kind of pulling up those next generation voices, and it's been just so amazing to do so.

Jennifer Brown:

I'm doing some coaching, I'm doing some group stuff, I'm supporting speakers and authors to become thought leaders and get like an even bigger platform and even bigger voice, because that is where you can really, I think, begin to shift things in a more massive way, and we need to raise that group of people up as quickly as possible so that we have, for obvious reasons, so that we have for obvious reasons, so that we have an answer to who do we look to in these times? And I want to make sure we're not looking to the same folks, the same demographics, the same identities, the same names that populate every leadership bookshelf in the airport, even though they changed slightly in 2020 and 2021, they seem to have gone back a bit, so so, yeah, so that's a that's where you all can find me, but please like, join our community in our conversation. I can promise you it will leave you feeling enriched and hopeful and also connected to all the other people, probably like you, that you need to plug into and get energized by.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the Brain Aware Podcast . To learn more about Brain Aware Training and our brain based approach to change teams and all levels of employee , visit Brain aware training. com.

People on this episode

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Britt Andreatta, PhD

Co-host
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Justin Reinert

Co-host
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Jennifer Brown

Guest