Increasing the Volume of Your Action with Kay Fabella

Episode Summary: In this conversation, Bethaney sits down with Kay Fabella, also known as The Story Finder. Kay is not only a diversity consultant, but she specializes in helping underrepresented minorities leverage their unique stories for social impact and cultural change. In this conversation, we discuss the complexities of story-telling in the workplace, as well as practices managers and leaders can implement to create more space for tough conversations about race, identity, and culture. 

Kay Fabella launched her business as the Story Finder in 2014, and created a bilingual English/Spanish brand that quickly reached an audience in 27 countries. She was featured in Fast Company, Thrive Global, The Huffington Post and in El País, and she leveraged her experience as a Filipina-American in Spain to help startups and Fortune 500 companies spread their message, multiply their audiences, and affect change in their industries. In 2019, Kay self-published her memoir titled: Rewrite your story.  

She now works with underrepresented leaders who want to learn to grow their audiences with integrity, communicate with impact, and step up to change the face of leadership.

www.kayfabella.com

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

conversations, people, diversity, minorities, organizations, story, identity, question, dni, listening, podcast, underrepresented minorities, erg, create, culture, thinking, space, empower, share, managers

SPEAKERS

Bethaney Wilkinson, Kay Fabella

Bethaney Wilkinson  00:00

Hey there, Diversity Gap podcast listeners, I hope you and your loved ones are doing well and staying healthy and safe. Also, kudos to you for finding the time in this strange season to stay engaged with diversity work. If you've been following this pandemic on social media, I'm sure you've heard by now about how COVID-19 has disproportionately and negatively impacted black and brown and low income communities in our country. And I'm sure you've seen some highlights about how this pandemic has increased in a phobia and anti Asian racism. I highlight these two factors to illustrate that our work for racial justice and diversity is just as important today as ever, learning from new stories and new perspectives, increasing our ability to create cultures of diversity and equity. This work is so important even now. So thanks for tuning in. Thanks for staying engaged. Yeah, it's just really important. So I'm glad you're here. And thinking about education, there are two other ways to engage with the diversity gap projects that I want to alert you to number one, as many of you know, in March of this year, which feels like it was forever ago. But on March 6, we hosted The Diversity Gap: A New Kind of Leader event. This was an all day gathering, featuring speakers from a variety of industries, who are all pursuing diversity and equity, and justice and unique ways. If you missed the event, for any reason, you can now access all of the content on YouTube for free. This is so exciting, you'll you can visit Youtube, type in The Diversity Gap. And you will find a playlist of all the talks in the panel from the events. So check that out. Stay engaged, keep learning, I'm really happy to be able to share that content with you. The second learning opportunity is that in a few weeks, The Diversity Gap project is launching an email newsletter called The Diversity Digest. This email will drop every five weeks, and will feature five short and sweet bites of diversity related content to help you on your learning journey. Here's the thing. I am reading articles and books and listening to podcasts about diversity, inclusion leadership all the time. And so I wanted to make sure that I could find an easy way to make what I'm learning available to you. And so every five weeks you will get one leadership insight, one justice tip, one tool for your organization, one educational resource, and one story of hope. And so I'm going to be doing all the reading I will create really short and sweet summaries for you. This newsletter, The Diversity Digest is the culture content we all need. So head on over to www.thediversitygap.com to sign up. Welcome to The Diversity Gap podcast where we are exploring the gap between good intentions and good impact as it relates to diversity, equity and inclusion. My name is Bethaney Wilkinson and I am your host Hey everyone, I'm so glad you're here. It is May and we are in the middle of Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month. And as part of this Month celebration of Asian and Pacific American culture. I wanted to focus on learning from thought leaders, creatives and diversity specialists from Asian backgrounds who are contributing to organizations and to the world in big ways. So today's conversation is no different as we get to learn from Kay Fabella. Kay Fabella launched your business as the story finder in 2014 and created a bilingual English Spanish brand that quickly reached an audience in 27 countries. She was featured in Fast Company, thrive global, The Huffington Post and an El Pais and she's leveraged her experience as a Filipino American in Spain. To help startups and fortune 500 companies spread their message multiply their audience and affect change in their industries. In 2019, Kay self published her memoir titled rewrite your story. She now works with underrepresented leaders who want to grow their audiences with integrity, communicate with impact and step up to change the face of leadership. I really enjoyed this conversation with Kay I found we found each other through The Diversity Gap website and I really loved how her work was focused or is focused on amplifying the leadership and experiences of underrepresented minorities, while also challenging organizations and companies to be more inclusive. And so in this conversation, we talk about what it looks like to leverage your story Ready for cultural change, as well as the importance of mental health and diversity work. And some of the things that leaders and managers can do to create an environment for people to share their stories, honestly. And so it's a really great conversation, check it out. When did you first become aware of your race or ethnic identity?

Kay Fabella  05:23

So that's such a fantastic question. When I was listening to episodes of this podcast, I was like, Wow, what a great starting point. Um, everything comes back to identity, right? I think for me, my first sort of awareness of it came when I was around seven or eight. And I realized that a question that I was getting asked very often on the playground was the second question of the first being, where are you from? And the second being, where are you really from. And so that was kind of my first sort of initial awareness that I was other or different. And I remember having a clear sort of Crossroads moment in front of me at that time, which was, I could either clench my fists, and, you know, get defensive, and not really use that as an opportunity to connect with the person in front of me, because while I'm really from California, even though, that's what I really wanted to say, or I had the second option of opening my hand and sharing my story, and I think that sort of initial lesson of, you will always have a crossroads moment to either use your identity, to educate others, or use it as a way to shut down and I'm very lucky that I use the ladder. And that's something that I now use in not just my life, but also in my business today with clients.

Bethaney Wilkinson  06:42

Gosh, yeah, that's so that's so good. And I mean, it's something I've really appreciated, as I've gotten more familiar with you and your work and how, and the word that's been coming to mind has been generous, like the choice to share your story and, and leverage that as a resource for other people. And so we're going to talk about that more here in a second. But something that really drew me to you and your work is your focus on helping underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities increase their visibility. And I love this tagline on your website where it says, um, you can only make an impact if they know you exist. I thought that was so good. And so I'd love to hear why did you choose to focus your work, especially within the DNI space? Why did you choose to focus it on this visibility piece for underrepresented minorities?

Kay Fabella  07:36

Yeah, thank you that that took me a while to land on that tagline. And any copywriter who's listening to this is just like, Oh, yes. When you know, it's, you know, so thank you for reflecting that back. Yeah, I think for me, it was the individual journey of realizing that not just as someone who identifies as a woman of color now, as an immigrant, in a country where I'm not speaking my first language, most days, I realized how many barriers that I was facing in terms of, you know, putting myself out there professionally, first working for companies and then working for myself. And I was just naturally drawn to the people who stories I wanted to share whose stories, even for me growing up in a place as diverse as Los Angeles, wish that I'd seen growing up on, you know, book covers, or in media or movies. So, I naturally gravitated towards working with those people. And over time, as as we all know, the the more barriers that you face systemically the different identities that you that you have to navigate. You know, being out in the world as a racial minorities and ethnic minority, as a social minority. There's just more barriers to you putting your story out there and putting you're putting yourself out there and advocating for yourself. And, and so that's what I naturally was drawn to those were there were more barriers that you had to work through, but that I could identify with as somebody who had to go through a lot of that inner work myself. And I think that the reason why I continue to focus on that is because stories, I think, have such a power. When we see somebody who looks like us, or who loves like us, or who lives like us reflected back to us. It expands our possibility of what's what we can do, what we're able to achieve and what we're able to aspire to. So if we see more stories out there of people who have traditionally been underrepresented or marginalized, it just has such an amazing ripple effect that we're not even able to fathom or comprehend. So that's one of the reasons I'm so passionate about amplifying those voices in a in a thoughtful and, and mindful way.

Bethaney Wilkinson  09:52

And this is the tension I navigate in my work and the content I'm trying to create. It's this tension between both wanting to really amplify the stories and support people who've been traditionally underrepresented, and wanting to help the institutions, they are a part of change. And so I feel like those tend to be two very different audiences that have two very different needs. And so I'm wondering how you process that, how you think about that, in the work that you're doing?

Kay Fabella  10:26

That's such a great question. And yeah, it's it's the ongoing, ongoing thing, right? How do you authentically amplify the stories while at the same time, really help the organizations and the systems and institutions that are that are still, you know, still have work to do to make those stories, you know, make the people who have to share those stories, those individuals feel safe and heard. And you're right, there are two different they are two slightly different tacks. But I what I will say is, what I've been surprised by on my own podcast on inclusion in progress is I initially started and I say this very clearly in the description. This is for minority leaders, and for the companies that are, you know, there to who are looking to create workplace cultures where diverse talent can thrive. But what I found has been really interesting is that alongside the different, you know, in insights that they've learned from the podcast, or whatever, I've also had many conversations in my inbox as well with allies, or would be allies who are non minorities, who are people who identify as white or cisgender, or who are managers who are really trying to do better. And they say, to me, this episode particularly helped me with starting this conversation, because I had the vocabulary, because I had the knowledge because I had the, you know, at least a starting point, that made me feel more empowered to go in and have the conversation and listen more intently and know what to look for. And so I think that the conversations aren't as far apart as we think. But it is very important to understand that we have to meet either organizations or allies, or would be advocates or accomplices for minority talent, where they are. And and that's the balance that I'm learning to strike. So it's how do you amplify those stories? How do you create relationships, or at least empower the people who could make the most impact on those stories, or the people with those stories, the ability to facilitate those conversations in the best way possible, to then empower the organizations to create the spaces where all of this can happen safely?

Bethaney Wilkinson  12:32

Yeah, thanks for explaining that. And I, I mean, really encouraged by that. I've had friends tell me that even for my friends who are allies, or would be allies or accomplices, however, they're kind of characterized. There. Normally, I'm thinking mostly white people, cisgendered people, how they, what they appreciate about a conversation that does center minorities is that it, it relieves that it takes that burden off of the racial or underrepresented minorities in their community, because then they're able to go consume this content on a podcast was like, Oh, well, I don't need to ask my black friend for all of her painful stories, because I can actually hear them on this podcast. And Exactly, yeah. And so that's something that I find to be helpful. Yeah, for those of us who do feel like we're at a place where we can share our stories in ways that are that contribute to the healing of the whole. And so this kind of brings me to my next question, I recently listened to one of your podcast episodes, called why inclusion starts with your story. I love that title so much. And I love this episode, I'll be sure to link to it in this podcast, show notes. I love that you not only share more of your story, but you will walk through six steps that underrepresented minorities can take to confront discrimination head on in the workplace and in their personal relationships. And so I want to really quickly just for listeners, run through the six steps that you shared, and then I want to ask you more questions about it. So the first thing you number one is to clearly state the issue. Number two is to be specific. Number three is to describe your emotions. Number four is to clarify what's at stake. Number five is to offer a solution. And then number six is to share your desire for resolution. And so I just I thought those are super helpful steps people can walk through and what I love about it, like I mentioned earlier, is that this framework really assumes a level of generosity. And so my question for you is, how do you get to or remain in a posture of being able to speak up and be generous with your story, especially when there's been harm caused in the past?

Kay Fabella  14:55

Such a great question. Yeah, I think it's It's such an interesting one, right? I think for me, I know that a lot of a lot of what's empowered me to continue to be generous in my story. And to remain very much an optimist in this work, which is hard to be some days, is the fact that I've done a lot of self work on my own identity and self acceptance around my own identity. And I think that whether you're a DNI practitioner, or would be an ally, or somebody who's looking to contribute to this conversation, for equality, in a meaningful way, I think it's really important to do the self work first. And I think that's the invisible stage of the journey that all of us have to go through whether we are minorities, ourselves, or non minorities looking to help others. And I think that identity can be such an interesting tool for growth if we're given our giving ourselves time to introspect and accept. And I think there's coming back to what you said earlier, your point about, you know, that we feel like the burden is often unfairly placed on minorities in organizations to step up and call out bias or discrimination when it happens. I think that you get to decide, you don't have to be a DNI, expert, you don't have to be a practitioner, you don't have to be an erg leader, you don't have to be a social justice warrior. For me, it's not so much about the the volume of voice, but in the volume of action. And so if you need time to process an action, or a word that was said to you, that you know, in your heart was a microaggression, or something even worse, you don't need to react in that moment, you don't have to draw from that feeling or emotion and contextualize it immediately. And then, you know, have to decide on the action in that moment, I think you can, you are allowed space as an individual, to declutter yourself emotionally, to let yourself feel all those stages, and then get to a place where you can then decide how do I want to lead moving forward? How do I want to educate others moving forward? What part of my story am I comfortable sharing? And who can I now that I've done this self work of understanding? What is my what is my, you know, what is my take on this? And how do I, what do I want to do with it, then it's finding people that you feel safe enough with to actually move the narrative forward on your terms. And so I think it comes down to, you know, understanding your identity, understanding how, you know, you decide that you get to react or feel or not feel or do something on your own terms completely. And I think a lot of almost self regulation, that then can, can, that can help empower you to share whatever it is that you're willing to share from a place of strength rather than a place of weakness.

Bethaney Wilkinson  18:06

Wow, it's not I love, gosh, I keep saying I love that, because I really do love so many of the ways that you find these super accessible and very, very helpful. And even that line, it's not about the volume of voice, it's about the volume of action, I think that is incredibly affirming. Because I think about my own journey. And it's and, and not just for myself, but as I'm trying to support other people in my community. In some moments, it's like, okay, if the right thing to do is to draft an email, the right the or the right thing to do is to call my therapist, or maybe the right thing to do is to really just sit on this for six months to a year and then choose to do something. And so I just, I find that to be just a deeply affirming response. And it really is guided by our own identity, our own sense of being our own story. Another question I have for you around that is I know that for some cultures, the idea of direct confrontation can be pretty discouraged. And so I was wondering if you had any thoughts around? What people from backgrounds where I mean, not, I'm thinking Asian, Asian American backgrounds, I'm thinking African and African immigrant communities where it's not encouraged to speak up in the face of authority. What encouragement would you have for them, as it relates to sharing their own story and addressing discrimination when it happens?

Kay Fabella  19:34

I love that question. And I think it really comes down to I mean, I'm a perfect example. I'm Asian American, and as a Filipino, I think I'm the perfect intersection of authority following as an Asian and a Catholic. So that was my upbringing. So you can imagine a lot of the self work that I had to go through to get to a place where I can now facilitate these very often difficult conversations. But that said, it's not impossible. Clearly, you're here, I'm here, we're doing this work or showing up every day we out here. And I think really what it comes down to is coming back to, again, identity, I think what we don't realize as minorities is that we are not only unfairly put into boxes for the non minority perception of us, but also for our perceptions of ourselves. And so when you do this self work, you realize, and I think, especially for me coming from, you know, as a child of immigrants, there's this whole narrative of, you know, we've sacrificed all this stuff for you like to be here, obviously, like my parents came from the Philippines, so they dreamt of the better life for us. And you know, that sacrifice is never in question. But sometimes that narrative can unfairly be used to, you know, exercise control. And so, and I know that's across the board where you're Filipino or Nigerian, or I've, a lot of first gen xers who are listening to this are definitely going to hear and be like, Yep, I know. But I think with that said, you get to then decide, again, coming back to identity and your self work, you don't have to force yourself into an identity box based off of what you were born into. And I think that's the beauty of it, you get to challenge which parts of your culture or identity that could potentially hold you back from showing up as your full self, which is really what DNI is, the goal is that every person shows up to the organization or to the institution, or the place where they're contributing their ideas and, and their knowledge, as their full selves, valued as their full selves and not, you know, discriminated against, even by in this case, if you're coming from a culture that doesn't empower that your own culture, right. So you got to think thoughtfully on how do you challenge that? How do you have thoughtful conversations around this part of where I come from is something I will honor, but this part of, you know, my voice needs to fall in line that is expected of me is not just doing me a disservice, it's doing my entire community a disservice. So I'm allowed to speak up, I am allowed to show up in a more full and expressive way that will be uncomfortable, that will not necessarily, you know, meet the criteria of what my culture or my background, or whatever community identify with, tells me that I should be. But the whole point of me showing up as an individual means I don't just get to liberate myself. But I get to liberate all of us in this process of evolution, which is really what culture is, its evolving. Coming back to what I said earlier, you get to decide how you want to show up. But you also get to decide which parts of your culture you can lovingly rebel against. From a place of the intention here is to do better for all of us. And aren't we our ancestors? Wildest Dreams anyway? This is for them.

Bethaney Wilkinson  23:01

I am curious to hear what role do trust and respect play in holding uncomfortable conversations? I'm, and I'm thinking about it in two ways. One, I think there's the conversations we have in our personal relationships. And then I'm thinking about our work place ones. And maybe your response will be the same either way. But yeah, what role do trust and respect play in these in these conversations?

Kay Fabella  23:34

I think they're fundamental. I, I think one of the reasons why I call it a DNI journey. And it goes just as much for minorities as non minorities who want to further our cause. It's, it's because each of us has our own path to walk just because you have lived experience doesn't mean that you're automatically equipped with the self regulation tools, the self care tools, the knowledge, the vocabulary, that you need to move forward. So even for me, one of the things that I thought was really interesting as I was finding my voice on diversity and inclusion was that I had initially a lot of conversations to in finding my voice with non minorities and not other minorities. Because for some reason, I don't know, I felt like, oh, other people have deeper lived experiences than me, and I'm going to come in and not know what to say and potentially offend someone and have my own biases and have my own privileges. And I'm going to come trouncing in on their discussion, and I'm just going to be, you know, knocked out before I before I'm even allowed to be there. And so, for me, that trust of having conversations with people that I already knew and who I already had access to, was critical for me to understand what I wanted to say around it and how I wanted to contribute. Because then I felt more equipped to show up in spaces with others say, for example, women of color, or other underrepresented groups and do better by my clients. Because I had the trust and respect from people that were willing to hold space for me. So when it comes to organizations, I think that's critical for whether you're a manager or a team member, who sees that somebody is, you know, not having an equitable or equal experience to, you know, you don't necessarily have to kind of go the bat for them. But you could approach them in a way that, you know, is on their own terms afterwards and say, Hey, I saw that this happened, how are you doing, and create that trust with them. Or if you're a person who has experienced something, and you're going through your, like, 50 layer cake of emotions, and you don't know how to process it, once you have, or once you get to a place where you're willing to share that story of what happened to you find a person that you trust that you can lean on. So I think trust and respect for me are fundamental in creating spaces to be vulnerable. And whatever we can do as individuals to cultivate that, I think is fundamental to this work.

Bethaney Wilkinson  26:14

Yeah. What I appreciate about what you're sharing here, too, is that even that last point you made about how a manager or a leader can go out of their way to initiate conversations around things that are happening either in the workplace or in the world, I think, I think what's so good about that is that you can begin laying a foundation of trust, without it having to necessarily be about diversity and identity. At the beginning. It can just take intentional conversations and questions and and it can you can begin building that foundation, no matter where you're at as an organization, would you agree or what do you think about that?

Kay Fabella  26:51

I absolutely agree. I think we can all do. But we obviously know what we're doing isn't working. I mean, this is pre COVID. We knew it wasn't working, we knew we were overdue for a change. And even just from seeing the people in my inbox who've come in as a result of the conversations I'm having on my own podcast, I know that there's, there's an intention and a desire to want to do better. So we might as well write, we might as well create those spaces. And like you said, it doesn't necessarily have to have the DNI lens, or the vocabulary, it's just the intention of, I want to make an impact in a positive way, not just on my organization, but also the individual on my team who I actually care about.

Bethaney Wilkinson  27:30

I'm curious for you. And so as we've kind of talked about for the, the minority or person of color, or black person, indigenous person who wants to bring their story to, to light, it can be a lot of work, like there's the identity work, there's the reflection work, there's the emotional processing, and then there's taking on the responsibility of kind of leading that conversation maybe with someone who has more power or authority than you do within your organization. I'm wondering if you know of any systems or processes or policies that organizational leaders can put into place to kind of take that burden off of the the minorities or the marginalized identity person, anything that they can do proactively to kind of make it easier for not just the minorities having an experience, but everyone? Um, do you know of any tips or insights around that?

Kay Fabella  28:29

Absolutely. I mean, I know, er, G's kind of get bashed for, for not necessarily being able to move forward agendas. I'm very much pro ERG, I know you are as well. But I think that there's so much within those communities that are creating safe spaces within the organization that you can tap into that leadership and you can tap into the conversations that they are having. And attend those meetings. Like you don't have to wait for International Women's Day to go to the women's erg. You don't have to wait for Black History Month to go to the black erg. Yeah, show up, you know, ask it, you know, there's actually an amazing person that I know who I correspond with often and Amazon, who he has done the hard work of actually asking how can I show up for all these different DRGs and I know the optics as an older white man, who's British. But I want to ask how I can distribute, to more evenly distribute the work of the meetings that you're running, how I can participate, how I can even if participating means just I'm sitting in the back and learning. And I think of him as an example because I know that if there is someone like him out there, there are other people who don't necessarily have to go maybe we will say he's a more idealized version of what we would like. But there are people in between on the way there that can absolutely, you know, chime in join the two Be willing to be humbled, be willing to, you know, even engage listening to podcasts like this one. I mean, this is the beauty of the fact that we have so many different voices have lived experiences that are not necessarily accessible to us in our day to day life, that then empower us to then go to people on our teams with knowledge and, and stories that give us the vocabulary, we need to actually start those conversations. Right. I think that there's also an important role for managers to play in in terms of creating the space, the different, or rather the different channels for to provide space for these conversations to happen. I mean, in times of COVID Right now, you know, one of the things that I'm doing right now is, is helping helping managers transition into one the online world, which is, has been a challenge to how do you continue to keep in touch and keep supporting your direct reports in the midst of what is a really traumatic period. And, and one of the things that we've been implementing is, you know, open office hours on something like zoom or Microsoft Teams, where you just leave your room open for your direct reports, from XR to xr, you set aside that time every week, so that people can come in for a one on one meeting with you, for example, and discuss things that aren't necessarily things that they would speak, speak up on in a meeting, or you know, even email you about, but they would, they would rather say it to you face to face, even if the current circumstances mean, they can't physically do that. Right. So there are different channels like that, that don't require a lot more work. But it's just giving people the container for the conversations to happen. I think that's something that managers can proactively and easily do. 

Bethaney Wilkinson  31:49

Absolutely, giving people that container, and then showing up where people are already having these conversations within your organization and figuring out and asking how to be of support. And that's really, really helpful. So I only have a couple more questions for you. And I probably could talk to you all day. So

Kay Fabella  32:09

Likewise, I love this.

Bethaney Wilkinson  32:12

barely scratching the surface on the things we could talk about. Um, but I'm curious, when you step back and look at the DNI space broadly, what gaps do you see in kind of in our work as a collective industry? And like, what do you wish there was more of?

Kay Fabella  32:30

Oh, goodness, I think, in a strange way, COVID-19 is actually shone a light on the biggest conversations in DNI that will move it forward systemically. One of those is caregiving duties, which, yes, you're talking about gender inclusion, and putting all of the purple and pink ribbons for, you know, Women's History Month. But if you're not creating flexible working policies that allow women to, you know, work from home when they have a kid, or even just be able to take off work, and make up their make up their time later. So they can be there for their kids recital. You know, it's it's even things like that, that we're seeing now as, as parents are literally turning into physical jungle gyms. And fathers are at home for the first time and seeing, Oh, my gosh, like on top of homeschooling, and you know, cooking and making sure my kids are fed, and oh, my gosh, the snacks, so many snacks, like, how do I get work done? You know, they're seeing really the value of like, this is what women do. This is what women are still socially expected to do. Right? That's a massive thing. So definitely the caregiving conversation, and I kind of touched on it just now. But the flexible working conversation, I think that it was a policy, that I think it's just this old, outdated organizational mentality of, you know, employees aren't as productive. And if a manager isn't like physically overloading, looking at them, and if anything, I feel like people are working, I don't know about you, but I've had so many more zoom calls and teams calls and meet calls since the quarantine started than I had before, because people are not just engaging more and looking to stay connected, but are actually even more productive when you're not dealing with commutes, office politics, you know, feeling just, you know, fatigued just from being like, I know, as an introvert, like, I'm going to pass out after this episode, because I am just, you know, done for the day. Um, but you know, dealing with things like over stimulus and a very, like open offices, for example. I mean, there's so many things that flexible working provides as a benefit that wasn't in place before. So I think that's definitely a conversation moving forward. And I know from speaking to an HR director recently, he said, I'm even just thinking of Generation Z, the most diverse cohort to enter the workforce. You know, when hiring freezes and things are over. I don't want to when they ask me in interviews, say something next When they say, when they asked me, how did you take care of your people during COVID-19? Wow, how did you look after people, and I don't want to give a poor answer. And, and that's, that's where organizations are, that's what they're thinking about. They're not even just for the current situation, or they're, you know, retaining their talent. But also, this is going to be something that, you know, an entire generation of people that's looking to organization that is going to judge us based on our actions, now, we better do right by them. Right. And so diversity and inclusion has to be in the conversation. And very much linked to flexible work, especially for a generation that's playing more tech savvy than even I am. And is going to really be spearheading not just the conversations and workplace culture, but also as consumers moving forward. And I think the last piece really is, is mental health. I would really love for my key takeaway, after all, this is over, I would really love for people to actually ask one another, whether their clients or colleagues or friends, how are you doing today, really, and genuinely listen, I'm seeing that in every single conversation right now. And I think that even just that piece is, especially if you come from an underrepresented group, when you're dealing with all the different layers of code switching and of biases and whether or not to say something and, you know, paying for a therapist, that you definitely need to be able to operate in the world, you know, to be able to have more open conversations that allow us to really see one another, I think, is another big piece of DNI that has been maybe pushed to the side or not really addressed as much now, but I think it you know, it's the basis of why so many of us are burning out. It's the basis of why so many minority employees don't make it up to middle management, because they're just exhausted, and they don't feel like anything's changing in the company. So they opt to leave. You know, it's the big reason why, you know, women are still are still where we are, as much as we have advanced, we still haven't made a dent in many organizations in terms of leadership or equity or equality. And it's because mental health is not at the forefront of of diversity and inclusion conversations. And I think that it's something that definitely should be. So those would be my three things that I would definitely love to see more present in the DNI space.

Bethaney Wilkinson  37:28

Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, I really appreciate that the mental health piece, in some ways it, it feels it's so foundational, I think that's why I'm like, it's so foundational, much like the identity work that you are referring to, if we aren't mentally healthy, emotionally healthy. And this is for everyone who's involved in the work, then how in the world are we supposed to reimagine and heal and come up with generative solutions to some of the problems are facing? Yeah, we have to be healthy and whole people. So I just, I underline that in my notes is something I want to lean into more in light of this conversation. Okay, so my, the question I try to close all my conversations with is when you look at many of the organizations that you work with, and we've talked around a lot of these things already, but when you look at the organizations that you support your clients, what are the biggest? Or what is the biggest diversity gap that you see? And how can we close it?

Kay Fabella  38:37

I would say, coming back to mental health, it's so it's so it's synchronicity that you underline that, really, if we aren't taking care of our full selves, and if we're not allowing people the space to, to have meaningful conversations around, you know, the things that we don't see, rather than the things that we see. And what we tend to judge a lot of our conversations in diversity inclusion round is based off of what we see. I think we're not going to get to places where people feel vulnerable and open enough to engage in the very same conversations that we need to advance things. So if we're not leaning into that, if we're not providing resources and space for people to feel like they have to hide parts of who they are, and in the hiding of who they are, they damage themselves in ways that we can't see on top of the internal healing that they have to do. That's probably the biggest gap that I see and one that I would love to see. I think honestly, it will move things forward in a much deeper way if we address it from a place of, of humility and a desire to look out for one another as humans above all else. 

Bethaney Wilkinson  39:47

Okay, thank you so much. Thank you for not only the wisdom and nuance that you've shared here on this in this conversation, but the work that you're doing in general, to share your story to help other people share Stories. Um, where can people keep up with you find you follow you? How can we support what you're doing?

Kay Fabella  40:06

It was such a pleasure to be here. Thank you again for having me. So if you want to connect with me, you can head over to my website, kay fabella.com. It's fab, Ella, for those of you who are listening to the podcast, and you can also listen to my insights on inclusion and progress or connect with me on LinkedIn. I always love to continue the DNI conversation there.

Bethaney Wilkinson  40:27

Awesome. Great. Well, thank you so much. I will link to all of these things in the show notes. And yeah, I look forward to continuing to get to know you as I follow your work. And if you need anything, let me know.

Kay Fabella  40:38

Likewise, thank you.

Bethaney Wilkinson  40:45

The quote from this conversation that is still resonating with me is it's not about the volume of voice, it's about the volume of action. So I'm wondering for each of you listening, where are you navigating the tension of confronting a difficult diversity related challenge in your workplace or community? I'm wondering Is now the time to speak up is now the time to act is now the time to kind of retreat and process is the time to ask for help. What will the volume of your action be in this season? So there's some food for thought for you, I will catch you next week. Thank you for listening to The Diversity Gap podcast. If you've been challenged or inspired by what you've heard, please rate and review the show. You can also subscribe to make sure you never miss an episode. If you have thoughts or questions I'd love to hear from you connect with me at thediversitygap.com or on Instagram @TheDiversityGap. The Diversity Gap podcast is recorded on Muskogee Creek land in Atlanta, Georgia. This episode was produced by Matt Olin for Soul Graffiti Productions.