Unstoppable Together host, Jennie Brooks sits down with CJ Bey, a leader of Booz Allen’s Navy Marine Corps account to talk all things inclusion. CJ shares why the conversation around diversity has to involve inclusion, explains the benefit of positively reframing conflict as the gift of consensus building, and how leaning into discomfort can pay off. Tune in to learn more about the difference between calling people out and calling people in, how to fruitfully engage in conflict, and books CJ recommends!
Jennie Brooks:
Welcome to Booz Allen Hamilton's Unstoppable Together Podcast, a series of stories that unite us and empower each of us to change the world. I'm Jennie Brooks with Booz Allen Hamilton, and I'm passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Please join me in conversation with the diverse group of thought leaders to explore what makes them and all of us unstoppable.
Hello everyone and welcome to the Unstoppable Together Podcast. I'm Jennie Brooks and I'm so excited to be joined today by partner, CJ Bey, as part of the Navy Marine Corps account. CJ, welcome to the podcast.
CJ Bey:
Thanks, Jennie. It's my pleasure to be here. I'm looking forward to our talk today.
Jennie Brooks:
Likewise. Let's dive right into it. CJ, you recently participated in a Q&A session with the multicultural BRG, and you were asked what the business case is for diversity and inclusion. Your answer struck me as being so poignant around what it means to be seen, particularly as we embrace this new virtual workplace that we're operating in. Can you share with our listeners?
CJ Bey:
Absolutely. I always start with inclusion because I really do think that that's very personal. When you think about that, we all know a time when we did not feel included. We may have been left out unintentionally or intentionally, but either way, we all had that feeling when we didn't belong. Then when we consider this scenario in the workplace, those feelings, right, whether they're resentment or sadness or whatever it is, means that someone doesn't feel safe. They don't feel like their thoughts have value. When you think about that every service or solution that we sell, that the firm sells, starts with an idea, and if we're not creating the kinds of environments where everyone feels as though they can freely and safely share their ideas, then we lose out. We lose out every time.
What we want to do is we want to be able to make sure that we create that environment where people feel included and that's why I like starting with inclusion. We all have a basis for dealing with that, but then also when we look at how the world becomes more and more interconnected and the problems that we solve for our clients take on a bigger, global lens, our clients really expect us to manage and be aware of cultural diversity—it's no escaping that—and they really do require a culturally diverse multifaceted teams to come up with those solutions. No one ever said that diversity inclusion was easy, but it's definitely worth it, particularly today. We really need that diversity and that inclusion to help solve these problems.
Jennie Brooks:
Talk with us a little bit about that more the idea that diversity inclusion is not always the easy thing to do.
CJ Bey:
We all have groups that we naturally gravitate toward. We've got those sorts of traits where it's like age, race, gender, or it could be where did you go to school or what kind of things that we'd like to do, some functional expertise. So, it's really easy to sort of go to those groups. We have to actively challenge ourselves to get into groups that maybe we wouldn't consider going or maybe we're not as comfortable with ourselves. I think that's important. When you think about it, ideally you have this diverse group of people and we've got a whole bunch of different ideas and backgrounds and experiences, and then what we're trying to do as leaders, is we're trying to bring them all together and make them feel a part of building one solution that the group helped create. But what happens in that though, sounds a lot like conflict and people really don't like conflict, but conflict right?
I will say I don't like conflict. I want to stay away. But conflict really isn't necessarily a bad thing. It gets bad if you don't manage it properly, but conflict is an innate way in which we get to the richest best solutions. If everyone in a group goes along with one idea and no one challenges it and says, "Well, what about this? Or have you thought about that?" Then no one is really questioning that logic and we're all just going along and we're not really mitigating certain risks that could come about. And so, this is a sort of scenario where we reference “diversity of thought”. But I often hear that phrase used, and I find myself wanting to emphasize that some of the most meaningful types of diversities are in our inherent diversity traits, those that we're born with. Let's just make sure that we go beyond just what we see.
Jennie Brooks:
Yes! CJ, you're echoing a lot of the perspectives that we've heard throughout the podcast. Yes, it's easy to gravitate towards the natural similarities between us, but what are speakers offering our audiences? Are you mentoring someone who's fundamentally different than you? When you're interviewing candidates for positions, are you ensuring a diverse slate of candidates to consider? And are you bringing a diverse panel to interview those candidates? Are you building diverse teams?
CJ Bey:
I would say even in addition to that, are we mentoring and advocating in various different groups? And where are we going for our ideas? Do we always go to the same place, or do we take our ideas to some of the BRGs and say, "Hey, what ideas do you guys have?"
Jennie Brooks:
Absolutely. I love what you said about conflict gets a bad rap. How can we reframe conflict or work through it in an effort to bring the best ideas to the solution?
CJ Bey:
I want to speak to your first point about reframing conflict, and I think we have to see it less as a conflict and more as a practice of consensus building. I say “practice” because it's something that you have to keep trying before you're really good at it. Consensus building—don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean that everyone agrees. There is this wonderful TED Talk on the Gift of Conflict by Amy Gallo, and I really would suggest everybody look at that. One of the things that she says, because a lot of times when people get nervous about conflict, people are internalizing it saying, "Oh, people won't like me," or "I might come off looking a certain kind of way if I bring up a differing opinion."
She has a mantra in there that says, "Sometimes people are going to be mad at me and it's okay." And she talks about sometimes if you don't share your idea, a lot of times you carry around that guilt feeling like, "Oh man, I really wish I had shared this." That may have a longer-term effect than just sharing it in the first place, even if people get mad at you. Those are some really good poignant things that I took from it. As far as navigating this to practice and how to do it, I think if someone's offering a different viewpoint, can we stop and consider what may be motivating them? What's motivating them to give this point?
And again, not that you have to agree with them, but can you understand where they're coming from, and can we get to empathy? I think can we empathize with where they are and what they're looking to do and understand what works for them? Then I think the second big point that I want to talk about is I'd like for people to consider a “call-in” culture instead of a “call-out” culture. I'm going to talk about call-out culture first 'cause I think everybody understands that—be like, "Look, so-and-so said this to me, and I called them out on it. They're not just going to say this to someone, I'm going to call them out." Don't get me wrong, some people need to get called out when they [inaudible].
I'm not saying that. One thing you know about me is look, let's be real about this thing. But just getting to that point of empathy is this call-in culture, which I think could be more productive. In my experience, what we want to do is talk to them one-on-one, "Tell me a little bit more about why you think that way or why did you say this or that?" I think when we do that, that allows us to have a deeper conversation, have a deeper reflection, and help someone potentially understand how what they said could be perceived or come off by others because the person may not know. Instead of necessarily just calling them out because it's the thing to do, how about we call them in a little bit, empathize with them a little bit, and then help them learn and then grow and share a little bit amongst each other?
Jennie Brooks:
I love that it's a complete reframing, and it's another, I think, tangible idea for us to grasp when we talk about building empathy and enabling empathy with one another. How do we continue to strengthen a call-in culture when we're working remotely and we're connecting virtually these days?
CJ Bey:
In my opinion, I think it may be a little bit easier doing it working remotely. I think one of the things that I've experienced in all of our WebEx meetings where people are saying, "I'm putting faces with names." The fact that we are seeing ourselves in our natural habitat, I think it's easier for a person to say, "Hey, can we talk for a few minutes and let's sit there and really have a deeper conversation and learn more about each other." I think that it's easier today, to have that empathy and to empathize with one another, 'cause we're not in the building. We're not in the office, we're in our homes and we see our pets, we see pictures of our kids, all of that. You see more of the person inherently, I think, in this virtual environment than what we would normally do.
Jennie Brooks:
Yeah. I cannot agree more. Let me go back to the beginning of our conversation when you talked about being safe. Do you have a memory of when you experienced not feeling safe in your career that you'd be willing to share with those listening? And how did you work through that?
CJ Bey:
Actually, I'm going to tell a true story. Say my first job, I was right out of high school, and it was before I had started college real-time, and I had a job down in a part of South Baltimore by the docks. I had a locker, and it was a chemical plant, and I was pretty decent in chemistry. What we did was we analyzed fertilizer and all that kind of stuff. I was told I was the first African American person to work in that lab. I was like, "Okay, yep. Yeah, for what that's worth. Big deal." But my second day of work, there was a note in my locker that said, "The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan are watching you."
Jennie Brooks:
Oh, wow.
CJ Bey:
You talk about not feeling safe, you talk about... And at that point, I just had a car, but I was a little farther in the part of town, working in a part of town that I wasn't necessarily familiar with, and I was the only African American that was working in the place.
Jennie Brooks:
How old were you?
CJ Bey:
I was 18 years old. Yeah, so I'm going to make the long story short, what I did was, and this was just how I was raised from my family. I'm just going to do my work. Can't let fear stop you from doing what you need to do and what you have to do, and I liked working there. I liked learning about the chemistry and how things work, so I wasn't leaving. So, whoever had the problem was going to deal with it. Then come to find out the person that put it there, I was working with him every day, and he ended up taking it out.
He said, "Charles, I put this in as a joke." And this was probably after about five weeks or so, he said, "I put that in there as a joke, but then I thought about it, and I guess it wasn't that funny." So, he removed it and we just kept on going, we just kept on working. He did respect me for what I did and the things that I did there 'cause it was three of us doing some of the main processing, and I was one of the three at 18-years-old, but I had a knack for chemistry. So that's how it worked. We ended up having a good working relationship, but early on, yeah, I didn't feel safe. I just kept going.
Jennie Brooks:
Wow.
CJ Bey:
That's the truth. That's a real story.
Jennie Brooks:
Thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing this story. CJ, at the end of every podcast episode, we invite our speakers to share some last words for our audience. What would you like to share with our audience today?
CJ Bey:
I am an avid reader, so what I have today... So, I have three books and I have three books for the spectrum of the reading challenge. If you do not like reading a whole lot of stuff, but you want to get a good message, the first book I'm going to recommend, and this takes about an hour to read, but certainly a quick read, and it's called Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson. This is a good book on how to deal with change in your work and in your life. If you want to look at change and how to deal with change, this is a good book. It's about mice and cheese, and it has a great lesson and doesn't take long. So, this is a great book to read. Actually, I read this book just as I was making my decision on whether I was coming to the firm or not. This was one of the things I picked back up and I read this because it's a great story.
Jennie Brooks:
An oldie, but a goodie, right? Right off the shelf, yeah.
CJ Bey:
I loved it. The other book, and this is for the intermediate reader, so if you want to spend a day, maybe two, reading a book, this book called Wake Up Happy by Michael Strahan. So yes, the Michael Strahan, that's the football player, Super Bowl champ. It's about transforming your life. Just to give you an idea of a couple of the chapters in here, it's pretty quick. One chapter is What Did You Do to Get Better Today? Another chapter is The Power of Routines, and you know we're all in a different routine now so some may find that helpful. Then third is, Change Before You Have To, which is a very good chapter to read. So, this book, wake Up Happy by Michael Strahan is another, and I like these.
I've read both of those. This next book, How Yoga Works by Geshe Michael Roach, G-E-S-H-E Michael Roach. This book is a recommendation from my wife. Now, the thing about this book is it talks about when you want to heal your mind and body by showing compassion to others. Whether you like the person or not, it's about really showing compassion and healing yourself through that compassion. So going full circle with our diversity and inclusion, I think this is a really good book. This has a few hundred pages to it, so you got to commit a little more, but I think it's worth it and my wife, Holly, recommends it. So, this is the next book. I'm going to start reading this one today and I'll let you know. But those are the three books I think that people may like.
Jennie Brooks:
Wow. Thank you so much, CJ.
CJ Bey:
Thank you so much, Jennie. It's been my pleasure.
Jennie Brooks:
Thanks for listening. Visit careers.boozallen.com to learn how you can be unstoppable with Booz Allen. Be the future. Work with us. The world can't wait.