Is Systemic Change Possible? with Adrian Pei

Episode Summary: In Episode 3, Bethaney has a conversation with author and organizational development consultant Adrian Pei. 

The big topics covered in this conversation include (1) navigating self-doubt as a minority leader (2) engaging the pain, power and past of this work and  (3) confronting the challenges large organizations face when they seek to change. Enjoy!

Episode Notes: Adrian Pei works full-time in organizational development and is passionate about diversity training, leadership consulting and coaching. He's the author of The Minority Experience: Navigating Emotional and Organizational Realities. He graduated with degrees from Stanford University and Fuller Seminary. He lives in southern California with his family! You can learn more about Adrian here. You can check out his book, The Minority Experience, here.

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, organization, minority, diversity, gap, challenges, leaders, pain, power, book, talk, experience, communities, story, feel, work, race, conversation, leadership, world

SPEAKERS

Bethaney Wilkinson, Adrian Pei

Bethaney Wilkinson  00:00

I think one of the challenges I run into as I try to do this Racial Equity Diversity work is that in some settings, people are ready to go all in like they're ready to deal with the pain of it, they're ready to deal with the past of it, like, we're ready, we're able to dive in and get to the the weighty, like heavy lifting hard work of what it takes to really grapple with, like our history around race and ethnicity, especially in the United States. So that's one camp. But then on the other side, there's like, it's not necessarily a resistance, but it's this desire to like, pull us into the future like, well, what's the strategy? What's the change? What's the hopeful message? What are we going to do differently now in light of what we've learned? And I find that it's totally attention, like between really needing to grapple with the pain of the past, but also really wanting to proactively create different cultures for the future? I think there's Yeah, it's a tension for sure. And the The truth is that our solution is probably somewhere in the middle or, or it's something like an ongoing dance between between the two. 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 Bethany Wilkinson, and I am your host. Welcome to The Diversity Gap podcast today, I'm so looking forward to sharing this conversation with you. As you may know, my goal with this entire podcast and project is to explore this gap between what we intend when we say We value diversity, and what actually happens in real life and real relationships and real workplaces. Often what we intend and what we do are not aligned. And there are both personal aspects to that. And then there are these larger organizational aspects to that. And so today, I get to share with you a conversation I had with Adrian pay. He is the author of the minority experience navigating emotional and organizational realities. Adrian works full time and organizational development. He is passionate about diversity training. And he's a leadership coach and consultant. He graduated with degrees from Stanford University and Fuller Seminary. And he lives in Southern California with his family. I pursued Adrienne for this podcast, because I read the first chapter of his book. And I found it so illuminating, and so helpful, that I actually had to sit the book down for a couple of weeks to just process what I learned, he opens the book telling all of these stories about just the pervasive self doubt minority leaders face and majority culture organizations. But then he also ends up telling all of these stories about ways that organizations and institutions can grapple more effectively with their desire to change. And so it's a really, really great book. What I love about this conversation with Adrian is that we're able to talk about both the personal realities of this work, and the big picture organizational realities of this work. It's a rich conversation. Enjoy. Oh, welcome to the diversity gap podcast. How are you?

Adrian Pei  03:31

I'm doing great. And thanks for having me. And it's great to see you in person too. Yeah. Should I call earlier?

Bethaney Wilkinson  03:38

Oh, of course. Yeah, me too. I'm, I'm really excited to dive into more of your story more of your work. But before we get there, can you tell me and our listeners a little bit about who you are, where you live, and what you do for fun?

Adrian Pei  03:52

Sure. So who I am, I'm a second generation, Chinese American, Christian. And so for me, I was born in the United States, actually born in New York, and upstate New York and then moved around the world a lot. When I was younger, eventually, so settled in Southern California, which is where I am now. I've pretty diverse background, my parents are Chinese, but my dad grew up in Japan. And my mother grew up in Vietnam. And so I have a lot of different kind of cultural experience and background. I reserve my work, I work in the field of organization development as a consultant and helping companies become healthier and more effective. As far as fun I do a lot of things for fun. I really enjoy music, like listening to music, playing music, cooking, sports and games and those kinds of things. So I love various things.

Bethaney Wilkinson  04:51

Oh, very cool. I didn't know that about your parents and all or maybe you mentioned it in your book. I can't remember now maybe I didn't know some of that. Um, about your parents growing up in Japan and Taiwan, Japan and Vietnam, he said,

Adrian Pei  05:04

Yeah. And so it's kind of interesting because I'm, you know, I'm Chinese by heritage, but I've actually never been to China, believe it or not. And I was born in the United States. And but then I have the background from Japan and Vietnam as well. So there's a lot of different influences. Yeah. And I lived in England for a year as well. And so a lot of when I was before was five actually live in three continents. And so I think it made a difference, even though I can't like remember it or articulated exactly, you know, as, as a kid, right. But it really formed to me still, you know, it helped show me that the world was different. There are different kinds of people different ways of doing things. And that probably made a big difference on me.

Bethaney Wilkinson  05:41

Yeah, for sure. And that kind of leads well into my first question, I asked us to everyone that I talked to you because I'm really interested in racial and ethnic identity formation. And so I'm curious to know, when did you first know that you have a race or ethnicity, like when did that become a salient part of your self awareness?

Adrian Pei  06:01

So I think that I kind of have, I would probably say, a little different for race and ethnicity. So for ethnicity, I think I knew I had that from a fairly young age and a sense of, you know, kind of, even when I just shared its, you know, living on three different continents and traveling the world, we always had fairly diverse neighbors and friends, my mother actually spoke at length, speaks eight languages, wow, knows quite a bit. She was on my school's like multicultural advisory board, I eventually became like a leader in my High School's multicultural club. So like, I always feel like I was very kind of culturally, I don't know, just had some nuance to my cultural background. But as far as race, I think that it's a little different, where I felt that I was different. I kind of I don't know, whether I could explain or not as a kid, I knew I was different in a way, and it wasn't necessarily good all the time. So I think about like, you know, various, like, emotional events that happened in my childhood, like, I remember being stared at, you know, at a restaurant of all white people, you know, and wondering why staring at me, hesitating, whereas, like, I was on a baseball team when I was young, and I was the only minority. And I remember, like, they're going out to eat after the game. And I was just like, I was hesitating. I was like, Do I really belong here? So it looked like everybody. Of course, there were some racial slurs and names that I was called. And that gave me the sense that, okay, because you're different, because you're Asian, you're not welcome. You don't belong. And so those are like, the emotional events that made me even though I was culturally, you know, aware or whatever. In some ways, with with, with race, I felt like there was something different about me, it wasn't really good. So I think that those were the moments that I remember from my childhood.

Bethaney Wilkinson  07:44

Yeah. And it's, it's interesting, because it sounds like, from your ethnicity, and from your, like, your ethnic background, there was like an era of positivity and importance and like significance, but when you think about race, it seems to have been tinged with negativity. Um, does that sound resonant with what you're expressing?

Adrian Pei  08:06

Yes, definitely. I mean, I think that's, and, you know, I did, you know, describe that in the book of kind of, like, you know, where race is that? You know, it's that power, you know, aspect of things. You know, in the book, my book talks about pain and power. And I think that's what I can I experienced as a kid, I think that's what's so interesting is that, like, you know, children, you know, are not going to be able to articulate what culture is and give a definition of those kinds of things, right. But as a child, I experienced something like about an experience, emotional experience, minority experience, that was very real. And I couldn't put words to it. But it was something I was experiencing that felt so real to me, but I couldn't explain it in terms of like these words, but there was something going on, that made me feel different and not necessarily as good as the majority.

Bethaney Wilkinson  08:50

Absolutely, that resonates a lot with my, my story. And my experience, too, especially just being in like elementary school. And it's like, I feel like something's wrong here. But I know that I didn't do something wrong, I don't understand what's happening. It's really disordered. And it starts when we're so young. So you've mentioned a couple of times you the minority experience in the book that you wrote, and the book was one of my entry points to knowing you and knowing some of your story. And so can you tell me more about your book, the minority experience, and that's the title for my listeners, it's called the minority experience. What inspired you to write it?

Adrian Pei  09:29

So, you know, there are enough stories about what it's like to be a minority in organizations, especially predominantly white organizations. I think there are a lot of great books out there. But I kind of wanted to share my story, what it's like to be in a white organization, somebody who faced a lot of challenges there and, and struggled through just the dynamics of the workplace. Because I think that I you know, it's interesting, I talked to a lot of leaders who are very They are even their own organization. In terms of society, they talk about Race and Justice a lot. But when they look at their own organization, they struggle with some of the same issues. And and they've had conversations with me about that. And, and why is that? So that really fascinated me and I kind of, I experienced that myself in my own organization. And so I wanted to share my own experiences and, and even like how I was, have been trying to work that out, you know, even in the process of it. So, like in the book, I include some conversations with leaders with whom I had conflict intention and how we tried to work through it. And you know, how we're still trying to work through it. So I wanted to just share the My honest story and see if that would resonate with other people and help to help them to process it as well, because it helping me to process it. And then the other component of organizationally, I wanted to address like systemic issues. And that's one thing that I really appreciate about your project you're working on, in terms of like, you know, we I think we, we do know that, you know, over discrimination, racism is not right. But you know, beyond that, you know, very often some of the things that are also not helpful are when there's these subtle, or just more invisible, I would say, forces that really marginalize people, and make them feel like, you know, I'm ever going to have a place here. And it, they feel like they can't stay in organization.

Bethaney Wilkinson  11:27

Hey, so I wanted to jump in really quickly to draw attention to something super interesting that Adrian said, as he explains why he wrote his book, he talks about this gap between what people often communicate about Race and Justice, and maybe even about inclusion and diversity, what, what organizations communicate to the public. And then what actually happens for underrepresented minorities in those organizations. And on those teams. This is a gap that I've experienced, and one that I see all the time where the messaging says one thing, but the reality of people who are on those teams is a very, very different thing. And so as you're listening, and as you're thinking about your own organization, or about the communities that you're a part of, be mindful of this, is there something that's being communicated to the masses to the public, that is not actually being reflected in the life of your organization? If so, that's a diversity gap you might want to pay attention to. Okay, back to the conversation. So when I read your book, the first honestly, so I read the first section or chapter, the part where you talk about, I don't have it in front of me. So I don't remember how much time space it took up. But you talked about minority leaders dealing with like a crippling self doubt and weariness. And I at the time, when I read your book, this was a few months ago. Now, I did not have language to identify my experience until I read the language you gave to it. So it was incredibly helpful. I'm like, Oh, this is why I'm so self doubting. It's because I've been in these environments that unintentionally have taught me to question my way of being and moving in the world. Like, I can't trust my instincts. And then as I wake up to this tension, it makes me tired, because I'm like, oh, man, all the work involved, to not only be like, incredibly self aware, but then to also present this information in a way that my team and my leaders can respond to. It's just a lot of work. And then there are again, I'm in a situation now where I feel like my leadership of my organization where we have traction and understanding, because he does a lot of his own work. But I've had experiences in the past as a minority leader, where the leaders were not as intentional and so it was just exhausting. And that's a part of why I'm no longer working with those organizations. So my question to you is, Part Part A is how did you get out of your own cycles of self doubt? And do those still show up for you? And then secondly, and I can circle back around this, but like, secondly, what advice do you have for how other minority leaders can kind of wake up to this reality and maybe move out of that cycle?

Adrian Pei  14:09

That's a great questions. Well, as far as the first part of the question, How did I break out of it? I mean, I think the first thing I would say is that it took it took time, you know, and it's something where I definitely still still wrestle with that and struggle with it. So it's not like, you know, anybody arrives, you know, and I think we all, as you said, you know, we all wrestle with self doubt, at times, you know, even after we start to see where it comes from, and that maybe it's not because of us all the time, but it's because of negative messages. We've heard all our lives or in the media or even from people, our families before us, our communities before us and, and kind of embedded in society. And so, I think that it's not easy, and so I wouldn't want to ever minimize you know, just how hard it is. And so I don't think that it's something like I found the solution, whatever. I think the one thing thing that has helped me is that I do believe that we can't break out of cycles alone. Right. And so, and this is what I believe is just, you know, as a person of faith as well is that, you know, we need people and community and we need God. And it's like, we were built that way, like, we couldn't just operate by ourselves. And we need that injection of life from the outside. And so for me, I think what really helped me was finding a community where I could just get support from my struggles and challenges and talk about these things. So I think for me, like, you know, like having a dedicated community, so I worked, you know, for a decade in a predominantly minority leadership, you know, setting, you know, where we had the space to talk about these things, and talk about our anger and our sadness, and it wasn't like, trek, like, don't talk about that, you know, because you're gonna make people offend people, just, you can share whatever you need to share, you know, and that was so healing for me. And I think a lot of minorities, especially as they're starting to open, there are, I wish I opened our eyes to things that we never realized before, it can really surface a lot of complex emotions. And we need to have spaces where we can share that openly. And very often, it's hard for I think, communities and organizations to provide that because it's so messy. And, you know, it's, but that's the sign of success, you know, like, I think they look at and go like, Oh, my gosh, is out of control, what are we going to do? But actually, you know, when you're doing the right thing, by providing the space, it will be a little bit messy in the beginning, you know, now, there won't always stay there, you know, but I think that's where a lot of times communities struggle to give that support. So I think for me finding support was key. And I think, you know, you were mentioning earlier with your organization, you kind of you have your own your normal job, right. And then you kind of have the job of that you kind of taken off, which is kind of like helping people to see the invisible things with you with your coworker, right, the Joker and like, I think that one thing that I have noticed, from my own experience, and also talking to other minorities is that, you know, we have two jobs, at least if not three. Yeah. And I think that like, one thing that is hard is that when we kind of try to take it all on at once, like, for example, I see people who, you know, sometimes we just need to vent right, or we need to get support, whatever it is, right. But, you know, we go, let's say we do it online or something, you know, and then, you know, we have people who are just you know, how online goes, We're not going to really get the support we need. And then you might have people who are who are don't understand. And then they're kind of like, well explain that to me. And what you just said, and then now you now you're in the role of educating people. And I think that like, in sometimes I find what was helpful for me was kind of like, when I need support, or I need to just event or just talk about what's so difficult, I gotta choose my place, I do that carefully. So I want to do that in person with a community support people who get it, and just do it there. You know, and then for educating majority culture, people, I'm going to do that in a different setting a different, you know, and it's important to educate people. But I think that if we try to do all at once, when we, it spills out into the stress or this feeling of tiredness, because we feel like, oh, gosh, they're not getting it, you know, but like, in some ways, we can't expect certain people to give us the support that we need, you know, we sometimes need to find that in a place where people who get it people who are who, in person, people who are safe, you know. So it can be tiring when we have multiple jobs, because we feel like we all have to do all at the same time. It's I think, that leads to that weariness and a sense of like, Oh, my goodness. So I think that what I found that's been helpful for me is to kind of like, be very selective about the venues that I choose to get support in. And then where I try to educate people, you know, and to keep them understand what I need when and not try to jumble it all together. That makes sense?

Bethaney Wilkinson  18:50

Oh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's super practical, too. Because I, I feel like this has been a part of my story, I was looking to majority culture spaces that did not have enough who, who, for a variety of reasons, couldn't understand my experience to give me support that they couldn't. And I feel like I didn't start to experience like healing until I was more intentional about those affinity spaces and those relationships where I could just be honest, and so that definitely resonates with me, and I'm sure that it will encourage some people who are listening to this podcast. So, so good, thank you. Okay, so my next question is also about your book. So you name three things in your book that communities need to address in order to more effectively build like multiracial, multicultural community. And I want to unpack each one of these and so you talk about pain, power and the past. Can you How did you arrive at these three things? And then let's talk about pain. How can communities begin to grapple with that topic collectively?

Adrian Pei  19:52

Yeah, so first of all, you know what I would say is that, you know, I'm not claiming that I'm coming up with anything new you know, I mean, like pain power the past The things I discovered there forever, right? You know, people have written about them, I think it was just, you know, sometimes the job of writers or communicators is to kind of not necessarily introduce something new, but to kind of like categorize things in language that can kind of put words to feelings or categories to experiences that people have. And to kind of, then it's it kind of that language helps people to process it, right. And so, for me like that, getting to that point was really about focusing on the gap between majority and minority. Because what I was discovering kind of being in the diversity, equity inclusion world was that a lot of there's a lot of talk about kind of cultural competency. And I think, especially in corporate, I've noticed that people like, you know, we talk about, like, how do we become more like intelligent, you know, culturally intelligent, right, and that those are all great things. But I noticed that it often those conversations very subtly, kind of got to this place where we started to talk about how everybody has a culture and like, you know, okay, you know, white people do too. And like, we need to all just talk about these things together across the table. And I just felt like, it was really kind of starting to move where there was, it was overlooking that power gap, you know, in that pain gap, and the gap between majority minority and there's a reason why when we see things that are so events that happen in the news, and that are so you know, that racial racially charged, you know, like, controversies in the news, there's a reason why there's so much pain, and so much emotion that comes up. It's not because everybody's just on equal ground, and we just need to educate each other. There's gaps in power and justice and pain from the past. And so I really wanted to write a book that was about minority experience, not cultural intelligence, something that really highlighted that gap between majority minority, and I found that pain power and Pastor really three categories where there really was a pronounced gap between minority and majority culture where, you know, you can't just say, you know, hey, look, you know, we all have different cultures, I communicate directly, you communicate indirectly. But it's like, look, you know, if you actually look at the difference in history, there's a huge difference. And that explains, like things we see in the news, even like, you know, when people talk about, you know, certain words that are charged, you know, like, and, you know, about power privilege, you know, kind of things, and it makes a difference with the history and the pain of the power of the past. So that's kind of how I came to it.

Bethaney Wilkinson  22:29

Absolutely. So your background, you've worked for a large faith based nonprofit. And then you also do all of this work now, like with corporations and with in in the for profit sector? So how have you seen those concepts of pain power in the past translate into your work with corporations? Do you have to kind of reframe it? Are you able to talk about those same things? Or is it more of just an awareness that you're bringing to the table as you do your consulting?

Adrian Pei  22:59

Great question. I think that, you know, it definitely translates, you know, I think that, like, they're pretty, the concepts of pain power in the past are general enough to the point where people can understand them, there's simple enough that people can understand them, you know, I wouldn't say that, you know, I do have to do some translation. But I think the translation is not necessarily about like, like, if I were, when I'm in settings, where people are open to understanding power gaps, you know, like, we can talk about it pretty openly, but I think the challenge in the for profit world is that just the bottom line drive. So in terms of so I think pragmatism is a challenge, because I think a lot of people just, you know, like, will it actually improve, you know, our sales, you know, our products, whatever it is, you know, like, it's so much drives that, that I think that, you know, you have to almost create, like, a really direct line between the EI work and the success of that product or that company, if it's a company driven company. So it's, that's the challenge that I find, if I think as long as you do that, that then people kind of are more open to understanding all these other things. But I think that's one of the challenges of for profit, nonprofits a little more open to that, I think, and they're more they read articles and hear stories of minorities and in the faith based world, you know, there's different challenges, but there is that component, also where you have that foundation of like, okay, if we're all Christian, and we have a certain belief, then you can say that not just like, will it get this company more success, you know, kind of thing?

Bethaney Wilkinson  24:29

So what are some of the challenges you see, in large corporations when they desire to move in a more diverse and inclusive direction?

Adrian Pei  24:39

Yeah, I think that you know, and this is interesting, because I these, these challenges are things that I've experienced across the board, not only corporations, but also nonprofit and Okay, so it's actually a similarity, I would say when you have a big organization, and the challenges that I see the most are actually not. They're actually fairly simple. They're, they're complex, right? The client The bigger the organization gets, the more complex it gets. And people are overwhelmed, I found. And I think that those two things really are some of the biggest barriers. And I've noticed that So okay, so what I've noticed is actually interesting. Here's an example, I guess, like I work alone, it's that, you know, when you're dealing with any kind of a change or initiative you're trying to push through in the organization, it's interesting how sometimes the conversations, the problems end up sounding the same after a while, no matter what the issue is, for example, I set the table with many different issues, and the issue becomes like, Okay, this is great. We all agree on this, but how can we get buy in and support from the senior leaders in his organization? You know, like, you know, literally, we need support from the top right. Otherwise, people are, it's not going to be as effective, right, you know, but then how can we get that buy in and support? And then especially when they're so busy? And then you know, and so? And how do we, or here's another one, how do we empower dedicated time and leadership to this work says it says do work without having a d i Team operate in a silo that's disconnected from the rest of the organization. So I often see di training done, because it's often one of the simplest solutions to execute, but then it's done as a separate program. Okay? So people appreciate that, right. But then it's easy for people to compartmentalize it and say, Okay, well, then you do the training, but then it's not really integrated into the structures in the policies of organization, right. So you can just do your training, and then you don't change anything about the way you're doing hiring or, you know, promoting or whatever it is, right. And so in some ways that can be really make you feel good, but it's actually not really addressing the systemic things we're talking about. So I think that's a, that's a danger, right? But I think that it comes again, from this whole idea of like, you know, complexity and people being overwhelmed. And so you have, you know, many different levels, people, it's interesting, because I'm sitting at tables, where people are, like, all saying the right things, and I'm sitting around going, like, that's great, that's great. But then they're not doing it, or they're doing it, and it's like, why is that happening? And I think that, you know, I can see more that people are just really stuck, you know, with, they're just so overwhelmed. And there's, there's so much complexity to deal with. And there's these organizational challenges, they have to deal with that. You know, I think they're sincere and good people who want to push things through, but they just are getting stuck. And so people have a hard time prioritizing these organizations work is duplicated unnecessarily. There's more talk about what needs to be done that actually falling through. So I see all those as really big challenges that people have.

Bethaney Wilkinson  27:33

I'm wondering, do you believe that systemic, or large systems change is possible?

Adrian Pei  27:40

So I do you believe it is possible. But I think it's extremely difficult. And, and so, you know, I think there are things that can lead to it, but then not, not every organization has those things. And so in those cases, it's not possible, right. But, um, I think what it really takes is, I mean, this is my latest thinking, at least, it's to two things that I come to mind, one of them is leaders at the top of the organization, who are really public change advocates. So like, I really believe that you do need people at the top, who kind of really are not just seeing things in a token way or trying to be you know, spokespeople, but they really are advocating in their, in their public about it, you know, and so like, the organizations where the leaders are consistently making public statements, and you know, like being transparent with their employees, and that kind of thing, and they're really driving the change. And I've seen that happen, you know, where it's like, in, in many organizations where like, they do that, and they're the people who are the most active, and because they're really often they hold a lot of power, and they hope they're the gatekeeper. And a lot of people in their jobs, they're like, a lot of companies are very hard. Alright, so they defer to leadership. And so it's, that's one of the things that is one key. And then the other key that I find is sacrifice. And this is the hard one. And I think that you just, as I said before, you know, the change, the organization has to sacrifice because it can't, if it continues the way it has been, it's just going to be the way that it got to be the way it is. So that plays out a number of ways. Okay, so like, so for the lead for leadership theorisation Are they willing, are are people willing to give up their leadership positions? Right, you know, like success succession plans, it doesn't mean right away, but is there a plan to phase out? And that sounds this sounds fairly straightforward, but tied to that is like job security, right? Prestige, right, of having that position, or even like, I see a lot organizations where people have been in a position for 2030 years, it's hard to leave that you know, where you're kind of like there's, there's the benefits that you have, there's, you know, you're well regarded the organization, everyone knows who you are. Those are things that are so human, you know, that a lot of people are not really willing to give that up. So That's one thing that I think is like it could be financial. Right? So like, in some groups, it could be losing financial support or taking economic losses temporarily. Like, I do believe that, you know, a lot of organizations are kind of like, okay, they see the future coming, they see that there's different demographics that they need to speak to and what they're doing, right. And they're kind of like, Okay, should we make that jump now, right. But it's like, almost like, if I make that jump, you know, you could lose stuff temporarily. But eventually, you're gonna make it up a lot, right? You know, but in some companies that are more daring and risky, and the leadership is willing to do that they are trying to do it, but a lot of big organizations, it's just too much risk. And they're not required to risk that much. And so, I think that sacrifice is the hardest thing. That's why, you know, a lot of organizations don't change, because, you know, some of those things are so hard.

Bethaney Wilkinson  30:59

So my last question for you is, so my project, the diversity gap, I'm trying to figure out how to help organizations and teams close the gap between what they intend, and then the actual impacts and outcomes of those intentions. And so from your perspective, what is the biggest diversity gap that you see in this work? And then how can we close it?

Adrian Pei  31:24

I mean, I think I, what I would say, given our conversation, especially to is that this gap, the diversity gap is, is that it's kind of a it's an often invisible gap between majority minority groups. And so I would highlight the invisible things, the things that aren't so overt, like, I think that we focus a lot on, you know, like, the things that are more overt, sometimes society, it's kind of the go to, right. But like, some of the harder stuff. I'm not saying it's, it's harder, but like, it is equally hard, I'll say that is the subtle things, these forces. So it's the gap of an equal pain, power and past history, you know, that that is really an organization's. And I would say, you know, it, we I feel like people see it, and they feel it, they feel like they're longing for justice. And it's just kind of below the surface. And it's like, you know, it's, that's why there's so much restlessness, there's so much uncertainty, you know, and that tension between people, right, because people know that something isn't quite right. And so I think that's the way I would describe it. So, I mean, I think that, you know, closing it, I mean, it's not easy, but I think it's, you know, the best way to describe it is, you know, tackling these issues of pain power in the past, you know, in, in community with other people. And, ultimately, you know, with the grace of God, you know, we need, we need hope we need life from the outside, you know, I think without that, it's just cycles of hopelessness. And, you know, you look in history, you see, oh, my gosh, that happened, have been happening for years will ever get better. But I think we have to trust in the grace of God that there is something you know, better that as we do these things that will, will be there. And we need that to keep going. 

Bethaney Wilkinson  33:06

Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. And sharing your story.

Adrian Pei  33:11

No, I love I love the conversation. Thanks, I love. I love what you're doing. And I feel like there's kind of some like minded thoughts. And so I really appreciate the work you're doing and the way you're approaching and the questions you're asking and glad to be part of it.

Bethaney Wilkinson  33:27

I hope you enjoyed that conversation. If I were to share two super practical application tips for you, here's what they would be. Number one, take some time this week, or in the next couple of days to ask yourself, What pain or stories from the past am I bringing to this conversation? Oftentimes, the reason we get stuck in our efforts to build diverse communities is because we want to sweep over or move past the very real pain of this work. A question I love to ask people is, what did your parents or grandparents teach you to believe about people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds than you? These messages could be positive or negative? Either way we bring these stories and their impact to work with us every day. And it's important to grapple with those things. So yes, what would it look like for you to consider the pain and the stories from the past that are shaping your current diversity work? The second practical application tip would be to go by find and read Adrian's book, whether you have a minority experience or not, his book is helpful for all of us. He shares more of his personal story, but also gives so much great insight to leaders of institutions that want to more effectively engage pain power, and the past of diversity and inclusion work. So check it out. 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 at The Diversity Gap. This episode was produced by DJ opiggy for Soul Graffiti Productions.