Jennie Brooks, host of the Unstoppable Together podcast chats with Executive Vice President Aimee George Leary, Booz Allen's global talent strategy leader. Tune in as they discuss the importance of using inclusive language in the workplace. They share how the words we use can have a big impact on the relationships we have with our colleagues and provide some specific business jargon to be mindful of.
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 your host, Jennie Brooks, and today I'm excited to be joined by Aimee George Leary. Aimee's an executive vice president in our people services organization, leading our global talent management strategy and corporate communications. Aimee, welcome to the podcast.
Aimee George Leary:
Thank you, I'm excited to be here.
Jennie Brooks:
Aimee, can you first start off by explaining a little bit about your role as the global talent lead and specifically the work you do in developing Booz Allen's people programs?
Aimee George Leary:
Yes, absolutely. So, we're responsible for really looking at the life cycle of employment for everyone at Booz Allen and the programs needed to help people throughout their career journey here at the firm. And we really do focus on making sure we have a breadth of programs to help people with different backgrounds, different needs in different stages in their career. And that's one of the things that I'm most proud of at Booz Allen, we really do look at the landscape of what we need to do for the many, many diverse audiences that we have.
Jennie Brooks:
And it strikes me that in the middle of a pandemic and a racial and social justice reckoning across our country, this work is particularly important to really creating an inclusive environment in a firm. Let's boil it down to some of the very simple components around building an inclusive environment by just simply our words and actions, and you're responsible for building these programs that impact people. How have you seen in your experience simple words or language playing a role in creating a more inclusive environment?
Aimee George Leary:
Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, the importance of words could be seen as trivial, right? But words really do matter, words hold power. For any project we tackle, we really need to examine which communities we want to help, that's consulting 101. You have to know your audience and what you're solving for first, and you're not solving for all audiences at the same time. So, for example, we had people using many different terms. We transitioned from African American, for example, to Black American because not all Black Americans know what their lineage is. And then we moved from people of color to Black, Indigenous and people of color to call out the similar but different inequities those two specific communities face. And we see this all the time in many of the programs that we establish.
Jennie Brooks:
We're really wanting to boil down to some of the fundamentals in these podcast discussions so that those listening can walk away with increased understanding and awareness and just some things to consider as they move forward. So for those of us in our day-to-day work as consultants, is there language that you think we should be aware of that can unintentionally make people feel unwelcome, or isolated, or excluded?
Aimee George Leary:
Yeah, for sure there is. There's business jargon that has racist underpinnings or that could just be taken as offensive. So for example, a lot of times you'll hear the phrase open the kimono. So it's really used to say in essence that we're going to show you the inner workings of something or be an open book. But it's definitely ethnically charged. I mean, even if we can't be sure if it was used increasingly in the '80s as a reaction to sort of the Japanese economic dominance, we can still avoid it. There are plenty of other ways to say this. There are also phrases like no can do or long time no see, which could be seen as making fun of non-native English speakers. Words like black sheep, blackballed, blacklisted, could turn the word black into something negative. There are phrases that we use all the time like rule of thumb for example, and that's said to originate from the violent treatment of women for example.
So you'll notice that I keep saying the word could. This is not to say that these phrases are always innately offensive. It's more about having a conversation with people to understand what they find offensive and then just to really avoid using that in the future. So it's really about the dialogue.
Jennie Brooks:
That completely aligns with some of the other conversations we've had on the podcast around building trust and listening and just asking simple questions of one another. Can you tell me a little bit more about yourself, or did I say something that may have offended you? And just sort of building that bridge where you learn more about one another and you increase your awareness. Some folks listening to this might say, well, I don't know, some of these things are just a bridge too far. It's a little bit too much. Why should I care about these simple phrases? What would you say to that?
Aimee George Leary:
I've had that reaction myself to certain things. The Women's Resource Group we did a tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and what I didn't realize is that we needed to be sensitive that not everything that she did was for all women. And so just by making some slight adjustments, we were able to recognize her contributions to women, but also be sensitive that it wasn't for all women all the time. So a few of the phrases that we use and some of the language that we use are not innately offensive, as I mentioned, but of course some are. It's about that conversation and having that conversation with your colleagues, I found that offensive, could we find a new way to say that or to ask outright, does this word or phrase make you feel excluded? Is there any other way you'd prefer I say that?
For example, the women's newsletter that I just gave you as an example. Once I heard that feedback, I took that newsletter and I tested it with a few of my colleagues and asked them for their insights. A few of my female Black colleagues, and they very explicitly gave me some feedback that we were able to make some adjustments. So I think that that's what you need to do. It reminds me of this Maya Angelou quote that goes, do the best you can until you know better then when better do better. I mean, it's really that simple. The point is to not make people feel bad about talking about things or using these words or phrases we all have at some point or another, but it's more about getting more curious about the words we use and understanding the origins and their impacts.
Jennie Brooks:
Absolutely. You mentioned impact, on the podcast we've talked about intent versus impact and how even though you may not have intended to make someone feel excluded, we should still examine what happened to cause someone to feel that way. As we look at the idea of impacts, what are some of the examples of how you've seen language specifically impact your work in people services?
Aimee George Leary:
Yeah, this for sure shows up in recruiting, both in the language that's used in our job requisitions and in the language that's used for interviews to describe or assess a candidate. I think that's a really great example of one that we see often. Using terms that are geared towards males that may put off female candidates, for example, like hacker or rockstar. Using they instead of he or she or even the candidate will. Those are things that you can do to avoid using gendered pronouns that may be off-putting to someone looking at the job. I think there's also times when you should for sure avoid using unattainable and subjective superlatives like flawless, unique, unsurpassed in [inaudible 00:08:03] in a candidate assessments. This not only helps to clarify what's truly needed for the job and broadens the candidate pool, but it avoids slipping into unconscious biases. Historically, we know that many women, for example, feel they have to match every job description exactly in order to apply. So those are some examples that come to mind for me, Jennie.
Jennie Brooks:
So as I'm listening to you, I think these are fantastic and really great things that we can all keep top of mind. It's also a lot of sort of what to avoid. So what would you recommend for those listening in terms of words they can consider to create an environment of inclusion?
Aimee George Leary:
I think if we look at the example of recruiting again, we could do something as simple as adding a line to all of our job rec about the company's commitment to diversity and inclusion that tells talent that diversity and perspectives will be valued for whatever company they're applying for. Making sure job descriptions are well written in an easy to read and easy to understand language, getting rid of the jargon, getting rid of the acronyms, be straightforward about this. And again, this is all to say that we can be experimenting and having these conversations about language together. If we write a job rec and send it to a colleague, ask them to flag anything that pops out that's maybe masculine or feminine or biased or just not simple or easy to follow and understand, and then we can work to understand the why's behind that and write are clearer and less subjective or biased based posting.
Jennie Brooks:
That's very helpful. I mean, it really also illustrates how important words are. Words matter all the way from the rec to the initial phone screen and the conversation, the interview panel. At the end of every episode we invite our guests to share some final thoughts with our audience. What would you like to share with those listening today?
Aimee George Leary:
Yeah, I think a few things. One, I would say if you are writing a job rec, if you're writing a newsletter or if you're communicating in some way and something just you're not sure about a phrase, send it out to some people, test it. Always trust your gut on that stuff and get some additional points of view and input. It certainly doesn't hurt. And it's easier to correct before you send out. That for sure, I would say is a good best practice. And I would also just say being aware of the phrases and jargon that have become a prominent part of our speech, and to the extent and the intensity in which we use them is important. I don't think we realize how much we use this jargon in certain phrases, and just even as I was preparing for this podcast I was thinking about that and it sort of surprised me at how much I rely on some of these phrases. The way you can communicate or the way you do communicate can speak volumes, we have to remember that, and this is especially true in a professional environment where everyone has the right to feel seen and be respected, and that's what I would just leave you with.
Jennie Brooks:
Thank you, Aimee.
Aimee George Leary:
Jennie, thank you very much for having me on the podcast. I really appreciate it.
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.