Embracing Change and Cultivating Inclusive Leadership  – ep.159

In Episode 159 of The Jali Podcast, host Melyssa Barrett engages with the dynamic Kelli Lester, an acclaimed change management consultant and founder of Onyx Rising. This insightful conversation dives deep into Kelli’s transformative approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion, which she integrates with her extensive background in communications and HR. Listen as Kelli shares her personal journey of embracing constant change, from her childhood moves to her impactful career shifts that led her to advocate for financial wellness and inclusive leadership. The episode unveils Kelli’s strategies for fostering environments where innovative thinking and diverse leadership thrive. Join us to explore how inclusive practices can propel organizational and personal growth, setting a foundation for a future where everyone rises together

Kelli Lester is Co-founder and Partner of Onyx Rising, a change management consulting firm specializing in individual, team, and organizational behavior transformation. Her “occupassion” lies in fostering environments where inclusive leadership thrives, leveraging over two decades of experience to drive meaningful progress. Kelli’s expertise includes leadership development and coaching, strategic consulting, organizational culture enhancement, change management, problem-solving, and employee engagement. She is adept at helping leaders cultivate cultures and environments that value alternative perspectives, foster equity in opportunities, and promote employee well-being. With over 20 years of experience in driving leadership-focused initiatives within consumer goods and multi-media industries, Kelli is a dynamic leader and market analysis expert who supports organizations in vision creation, strategy development, and execution. Throughout her career, she has worn many hats: Consultant, Entrepreneur, Coach, Leader, Facilitator, Change Agent, and Community Advocate, and Ambassador to various local and national groups. Kelli was named one of EBONY’s “30 Young Leaders of the Future” and has a proven record of implementing change that leads to long-term, sustainable impact. She continues to empower individuals and organizations to unlock their potential and create environments where everyone can excel.

Melyssa Barrett:  Welcome to the Jali Podcast. I’m your host, Melyssa Barrett. This podcast is for those who are interested in the conversation around equity, diversity, and inclusion. Each week I’ll be interviewing a guest who has something special to share or is actively part of building solutions in the space. Let’s get started. Hey everyone again, I am pleased and privileged to expand my circle. Sometimes it gets hard when you’re older in life to get out and meet new people, and I have just been blessed and am so grateful for all of the people that I have had an opportunity to chat with. Whether it be on this podcast or otherwise. I just want to tell you about this one in particular. So I have the pleasure of introducing Kelli Lester. She is the co-founder and partner of Onyx Rising, a change management consulting firm that specializes in individual team and organizational behavior transformation.

She talks about her occupation and it really lies in fostering environments where inclusive leadership thrives and she has more than two decades of experience that continue to drive meaningful progress. You all will enjoy this podcast. I’m sure I’m actually rotating her in a little more quickly just because I feel like I need to take a moment now to just help people navigate through all of the change that is going on. Kelli’s expertise includes leadership development and coaching, strategic consulting, organizational culture enhancement, change management, problem solving, and employee engagement. She is adept at helping leaders cultivate cultures and environments that value alternative perspectives, foster equity and opportunities, and promote employee wellbeing. And I will tell you, when you meet somebody and you just really meet somebody like we see each other, I feel like that is kind of what happens with people sometimes. And I definitely have connected with her.

I feel like I have a connection. And so anyway, she has over 20 years of experience in driving leadership focused initiatives within consumer goods and multimedia industries. She is a dynamic leader, market analysis expert, and she supports organizations envision creation, strategy, development and execution. She has worn many hats, consultant, entrepreneur, coach, leader, facilitator, change agent, community advocate, and ambassador to various local and national groups. And she definitely speaks both to the for-profit and nonprofit environments. She was also named one of Ebony’s 30 Young Leaders of the Future and has a proven record of implementing change that leads to long-term sustainable impact. She’s definitely speaking my language, y’all. She continues to empower individuals and organizations to unlock their potential and create environments where everyone can excel. And let me tell you, I just really enjoyed this podcast, so I’m going to stop talking now and let you hear from her.

I am excited again this week. I continue to be amazed at the absolutely phenomenal people that I have the opportunity to connect with. This week is no different, so I am excited to be joined by Kelly Lester, and as soon as I looked at her information, I was like, oh my gosh, a change management consultant. That’s what I need in my life because I will tell you, with all the things going on in the world, change is a constant and it just seems like it gets more disruptive and more disruptive throughout. I mean, whatever side of the aisle you’re on, you are going to experience change. So it is such a pleasure to meet you, and I have been looking forward to our conversation.

Kelli Lester:  It’s a pleasure to meet you too, and I’m so happy to be here and part of the conversation.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yes, I always kick off just because you, as a change management consultant, I imagine you have experienced a lot of change, and I don’t even know how you even got to the point where you call yourself a change management consultant, but I’m wondering if you can kind of give us a little bit of your journey. How’d you even create the opportunity for Onyx Rising? What does that look like for you? And were you just in a constant state of change or how did that come about?

Kelli Lester:  Yeah, absolutely. So interestingly enough, very similar I think to your story. I moved around a lot as a kid, not from state to state, but from apartment complex to apartment complex. I grew up, my mom was a single mom, I’m a only child, and I was the kid that looked at moving as, oh, great, I get to start a whole new life. And so I didn’t understand my relationship would change, obviously at six and seven years old. But this went on and I was always embracing what’s different. I was also the kid that everyone in my neighborhood would want to stay right there, and I wanted to explore other neighborhoods. So I would get involved in different things, whether it’s choir or this, and that would send me in different households with my new friends or girl scouts. And so this was something I’ve always embraced, but as I really became an adult, I thought I wanted to be Oprah Winfrey. So doing something like you interviewing folks. And I went to a telecommunication school in the Midwest called Ball State University at the time, David Letterman had just launched the Tcomm department and the school. And one of the magnificent things I think about the journey in school is that I was even doing the work of diversity, equity and inclusion, then unknowingly

President of Black Student News and all of those things. But as I matriculated at Ball State and landed and graduated, speech communication and telecommunications really was my foundation. And I ended up working in minority media. The irony about that is that while preparing for a TV show that I would get community leaders on, I was interviewing the deputy mayor of neighborhoods and she was the brand new African-American woman also now my business partner ironically. So that particular time she said, we don’t know how to really communicate with the minority media and we really need your help. And so they ended up hiring me there. And I, long story short, ended up doing work with the census, trying to count hard to count neighborhoods and then ending up in community affairs. So I literally spent about a decade in my chosen career of communications in various different capacities.

At that communications company, though they needed someone to recruit people into media, particularly minorities, and also answer to the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission. And so ultimately they needed, I started out really in hr, putting my foot there, having a radio show on the side, and I fell in love. I realized, one, it’s lovely to talk about a career that I’m already in, so it’s easy to convince others. But as I started recruiting people of color into the roles, what I noticed is a revolving door. And I realized there was something much bigger than just the recruitment side of diverse talent. And that really is what led me into diversity, equity, and inclusion. And I had great mentors along the way. Of course, we didn’t always call it diversity, equity, and inclusion, and we probably won’t call it DE in the future, but nevertheless, work is the same.

And that is how do we include all and make sure everyone is having a similar experience? And that’s when I really discovered the world of DEI. So having that change management foundation, both as a child and then in communications, it really then positioned me to understand how do we create an inclusive workforce and a culture where innovation can come to life? So after falling in love, I said, this is all I want to do. And I went to Sarah Lee Corporation, led North America in the space of DE. I really didn’t even get a chance to do the job for a whole year, just helping them put fundamentals in place as they were moving to Ally from a separate allied model to a integrated operating model, bringing all of their intel to the headquarters. So I got worked around a lot of smart people. It was an amazing experience.

I think the difference in my shift in my journey was that I started in this work saying, I want it to be a voice for the voiceless. I want it to be there and support and advocate what I would call underrepresented youth. They’re the underdog, if you will. But later on I realized that if I don’t start speaking and get away from the choir, if you will, and start speaking to leadership, and in that case the majority were white males, then I really won’t create change. It’ll take me forever to change the world. And so that kind of brings me to Onyx Rising and the change in general. But I really wanted to, now my mantra is how do I teach change leaders how to lead change? And so Onyx Rising first came about, so we have two areas of our business. One is financial wellness, and the name of the company is No Secret.

It is Onyx Rising. And the intent is how do we help black and brown people rise from their current circumstances? And so our financial wellness side of the business really helps people to teach them budgeting, basic financial wellness, and then also eventually to begin to build a legacy. And that’s focused in on the individual change. And then for the organizational change, we look at DEI, and we’re now calling it Inclusive Leadership and Innovation, really equipping those change leaders, starting with executives, hr, and then of course the practitioners who lead that change from the diversity, equity and inclusion space. Wow, that was a

Melyssa Barrett:  Lot. But that’s awesome. And I love the fact that, and we’ll have to talk more in detail later, but I love the fact that you’re building financial wellness in there for sure. And I think when you called it inclusive leadership innovation, inclusive

Kelli Lester:  Leadership Innovation, yes.

Melyssa Barrett:  I love this term. So tell me what does that mean? Maybe let’s start there.

Kelli Lester:  So as we look at the current climate, I’ll just skip right there. We are looking at organizations that still want to be committed to this topic, but they don’t know how to frame it. They don’t know where to put their investment. And essentially if you were bearing down your entire budget, you’ll still invest in your leaders. Leaders have the greatest opportunity to create inclusive cultures. They make the most decisions. So when it comes to decision making, they can create a collaborative environment around that. We also are oftentimes, especially for for-profit organizations, we’re looking to either create that new thing, that new product or go into new markets, and that requires an innovative mind. But most people don’t know how to create an environment for innovation. If you grew up career-wise in the eighties, command and control was the style of leadership that was favored. You were expected as leaders to know the answers.

You were promoted because you were a great technician. But today’s leaders need to empower others. They don’t need to have all the ideas, but they do need to know how to tap into those ideas of their team. So inclusive leadership really is the enabler to create increased profit, mission-driven organizations to meet the goal, to get into those markets, to have the new idea, the products and solutions, but also we have to equip the people interacting. So that means even your sales staff, so how you sell, so for example, I have a insurance client, I have many insurance clients actually, but one insurance client in particular was thrust into change based upon covid. So how they interacted and sold their products and solutions completely changed, but they weren’t really ready for it. And so tapping into their younger sales team and staff was critical because there was more comfort interacting with sales via Zoom. So now it seems weird because we all do it, but many of us were thrust into that, but now they’re grappling with how do we really reach Gen Z? Which by the way, gen Z is saving more than other generations. And if you don’t have the knowledge to do that, that’s really what inclusive leadership is. So it’s understanding your teams, understanding the dynamics, understanding you don’t need to have all the answers, but how do we really unlock that potential?

Melyssa Barrett:  I love that because literally my question was do you, especially when it comes to generat, I mean we have a lot of generational synergies going on, but the agility to work with the strengths, a multi-generational team can be really challenging because everybody’s kind of potentially at a different place.

Kelli Lester:  Yes. They all have different expectations, right? Yes. I mean, me and you probably have one expectation given we may share the same generation, but my son has a very different viewpoint of his expectations of his supervisor, how often he wants feedback, what he expects his organization to support, and that will determine if he stays. And unlike earlier generations, like baby boomers for example, we would just stay in that environment, but our younger generations are not taking it. They are not. And they’re changing the course of how we lead, how we recruit, how we motivate talent, where we work, the way we work, and those things are shifting. And then you have some Gen Zs that are supervisors of those that are Gen X, and that creates a whole new dynamic. So it’s a very interesting conversation, one of which we knew was coming, but we’re here. And many in many organizations are having a lot of challenges grappling in dealing with that.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah, I mean, it feels like you almost just have to be really flexible and be willing to learn, because I think that’s kind of the part where is it Gen X is like, let me tell you how to do it kind of thing. But we actually, and I’m a Gen Xer, so we actually have to learn how to listen. And really a lot of the conversations that I have with young people are like, it’s like you guys want to plan an event for us, but it’s for us, so why aren’t you letting us plan the event? And you kind of sit back sometimes and go, well, duh. But I think we’re just in that mode where we’re constantly trying to run on that hamster wheel and we forget to just stop and listen. It’s kind of interesting. Now, tell me, as we talk about inclusive leadership innovation, and I don’t know if you want to get into maybe some of the traits of what that looks like. I think I want to say you coined, did you coin the term occupation? I can’t take credit of it,

Kelli Lester:  But I was like,

Melyssa Barrett:  Oh, that’s

Kelli Lester:  Different. Yeah, my mentor said that once. And I’m like, I love it. That’s it. It’s my occupation. I mean, not all of us get to do a career or job that we absolutely love, but don’t tell anyone I would do this for free. I love this work. I really, really do. We won’t tell anyone. It’s an interesting approach in consulting because most consultants want you to depend on them forever. And my approach is I can work behind the scenes right alongside you are upfront, right? It’s wherever you are in the change. But my goal is really to teach you to fish. Absolutely. Well, so you asked the question, what are some of those traits? And so we do really coin and teach inclusive leadership traits. I wanted to share a couple of them because there’s many things we can discuss. One of the first behaviors in this work is self-awareness.

Most people come to the work of inclusive innovation, inclusive leadership, and innovation from the standpoint or DEI that I’m going to learn about others. And you absolutely will. And you absolutely should. And you absolutely should be exposing yourself to difference, especially if you didn’t really come up that way, so to speak. However, if you don’t understand the lens in which you see the world, it is a huge deterrent from you being the best inclusive leader you can be. So this time of year being the holiday, we’ve all heard probably the story about the Turkey and the pan, right? So there’s a story that a new couple is married and they set out to bake a Turkey or roast a Turkey for the holiday. And I guess the wife said, we have to cut it. And the husband is like, why? And ultimately come to find out the reason she calls her mom, and the reason they cut the Turkey is because the mother only had a pan of a certain side. And this went on

Melyssa Barrett:  For generations, though

Kelli Lester:  I know and we have no idea why. I have a personal story that’s similar, which is my mother used to put her shoes underneath the bed. My mother is one of eight, my father’s one of nine. They both came from really big families and they both only had very humble beginnings. So it was a two bedroom boys and one room girls in the other, and they were too poor to have a lot of room. And so shoes went underneath the bed because there was no room in the closet. And so I too did the same thing. And then when I got married, my husband who came from more money than I did was like, what are you doing? And my learning and really understanding how I see the world was based upon this economic deficit in my family that no longer existed two generations later, but we were still doing it.

And so sometimes we just have to understand why do we see the world the way that we do? We’re not bad people, but we have to also understand that people see it very differently than we, and they’ve lived it very differently. And so once we understand who we are, why we think the way we do, where that thought came from, why is it that me and you, Melissa are so open to change? That’s because we’ve lived it every year. So that’s the first step. The other inclusive leadership trait that I’ve really pound on is amplifying others and particularly amplifying diverse voices. So most leaders know that there comes a point where you shouldn’t say, but we did this, right? But what they don’t often do is not just give credit, but if there is an opportunity to amplify someone that is considered diverse talent, it’s not just race and gender.

It could be the introvert, it could be the person at a lower level. So diversity in my mind is really what you don’t have, and that’s what I encourage a lot of my clients to think about. And then when you say amplify diverse voices or amplify others, that’s an opportunity to help uplift and be an ally or be an advocate. And my favorite story about that is also personal was at Sarah Lee. And during this particular corporate environment, there was what I call the unspoken rules people. Absolutely people think, but never say. And one of the unspoken rules is that you had to do a field position to get promoted in the headquarters. So you could not only be in headquarters and go up to the VP level. And so unbeknownst to me, I was a high potential, and there was a conversation about an opportunity to put an HR leader in a field position temporarily while they found someone to replace this HR leader that spoke multiple languages. I only spoke English at the time, and it was a great opportunity from a diversity perspective. It had seven languages. So someone said, well, what about Kelly? And of course, another person said, well, she’s a single mom, she can’t do that.

And someone spoke up on my behalf and said, well, let’s ask her. We don’t know what she’s capable of doing or how she can arrange it. And as a result, I was able to take the opportunity and I was able to get promoted later down the road had someone not spoke up and advocated for me, I’m not sure I would even be here today. Opportunities would not have been afforded to me. Amplifying others and advocating for diverse voices is critical as an inclusive leader. And then the third one I’d like to highlight is emotional and cultural intelligence. So right now everyone talks about emotional intelligence and the ability to be empathetic, to be able to manage and understand your own emotions and manage the room at the same time. But I do believe at a leadership level, it’s not enough to just say, I recognize the Latino or the Latinx community, but you should also understand that there’s multiple countries that might present that particular community.

Same with the Asian or Indian, if you will, cultures. I remember launching a resource group and I spoke to someone from this particular community and I said, oh, so you probably know this guy very well. And that was even a bad assumption on my part. He said, actually, the only thing that unites us is a language of English. He said, it’s not the same food, it’s not the same dress, it’s not the same language. And I was almost shocked. So once you become a leader at a certain level, we need to understand that the diversity within the diversity, so not just painting a peanut butter spread of everyone the same. And at the end of the day, that’s really what this work is about, that everyone is not the same. And so how do you create environment where everyone can actually thrive?

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah, I love that. I literally am like, oh my gosh, you are speaking my language. And it’s so interesting for me because I am this 56-year-old woman, and I’ve always identified as African-American. My dad was a very strong African-American guy. My mother is an immigrant from Panama, and I continue to learn so much about my mother, even at this age that I have never known, and I haven’t even been back there, but I’m really, really want to go while she’s 84. So I’m like, we got to go and maybe just be there for some period of time just to immerse myself in the culture. But I’m one of those people that when I was growing up living in our household, she was like, you don’t speak Spanish, you speak English. And so there’s a loss of culture. I mean, I learned in high school and all of that, but it’s different when you have a different experience. And I know there’s lots of folks out there, so I can appreciate your thought on making sure that people know it’s like intersectionality is real. You know what I mean?

Kelli Lester:  Oh yeah. And then I think when we talk about leaders tapping into that first, do you even know your staff similarly with your customers? Do you really know your customers and clients?

And then do you understand them? Because that puts us all in a position to capture them. And this is if you’re for-profit or nonprofit, do you know your donors? Are you limiting your thinking on those donors? I worked with Planned Parenthood and I love working with clients that are just unapologetic about this work and understand very clearly who they serve. And one of the things that I found most interesting is that they were really dealing with board base many times in the different affiliates that are not connected to who they serve, who they serve, the type of solutions you talk about, a change management consulting firm like ours is really creating a plan to help them ride. And that plan might be unique. So in some instances with nonprofit boards, what I’ll do is say, let’s think about how we can connect your board to who you actually serve.

So have them actually sit with your partners, do an assignment where you actually are in a completely different environment. So when you talked about being in Panama and immersing yourself, sometimes we have to immerse ourselves into those spaces that we’ve never been in to better truly understand because only so much I can get from a conversation, right? Absolutely. If I’m really that kind of leader, I’m checking in. I’m trying to understand where you are. I’m trying to understand the needs. I may not be able to solve all of them or any of them for that matter, but the fact that I even care, that goes a long way. And then you have a different level of loyalty from your team or with your organization when you really see people.

Melyssa Barrett:  So I’m going to ask you this question because it’s on my mind and I struggle with it probably every day because I mean, we are in a very highly polarized political environment, and I know you’ve had some experience in politics as well. I think you referenced it as your hair on fire. So I mean, a lot of questions that I get relate to, should we even allow people to talk politics at the office? Sometimes you learn more about people than even you want to know based on what their beliefs are. How do you tell people to kind of navigate, especially as they’re in a leadership position to really manage through that kind of change?

Kelli Lester:  Yeah, great question. I think the answer will be different based on where you’re located and the mission and or objectives of your organization. So there’s always going to be law and policy, and we’re going to see that change likely in 2025 in a lot of different ways. What’s being said now and what’s being written is really how do we learn from other countries that may have dealt with something similar, and how do we learn from the past? So my answer to that is based upon experience and based upon what’s going on right now, and that is you focus in on what’s core to you as an organization. So for example, I’ll start with two examples. Number one, my son went to all Catholic, all male military, Catholic, all male school, and I cannot expect that school not to do math. That’s part of who they are.

However, what I can expect is that they’re just as inclusive as they engage with parents, parents that aren’t capital, but that’s an expectation. So when you start to bring this now into the workplace, you have to ask yourself, if we don’t want to talk politics, don’t talk politics, but what should you be talking about relative to creating inclusion? And so I always say, anchor that based upon your business model or your objective. And simply put, one of the leaders I used to work for said, oh, Kelly, I finally get it. Not considering diversity, equity, and inclusion would be doing a marketing strategy for the United States and not thinking about Texas or California. Absolutely. So we’re only talking about this topic relative to how it helps us achieve our mission or goals and objectives. Another example, if you are trying to reach new markets globally, then you might want to have representation or languages that speak directly and intimately to those markets that understand those markets.

So do you need diverse talent? Yes, you do. The level of diversity would depend upon what markets you’re trying to reach. So when it comes to politics, I say, yes, let’s leave it out if that is the nature and what’s best in your organization. But what we do have to talk about is how do we recruit talent, develop that talent, move that talent up, and what type of skills we expect that talent to have in order for us to reach our goals and objectives. Now we can say diversity might be important to us from these dimensions. So generational diversity is another example. One client literally has almost all of their top talent retiring in the next five years, and now they’re scrambling. So generational diversity is what they need to be talking about. So as you deal with the political climate externally, that’s external, but internally, they should be talking about creating that environment.

And so the models that are being adopted from the learnings recently, I think the model is called an embassy model, right? There’s an embassy model, an advocacy model, and I can’t remember the third one, but the embassy model means that you’re only going to connect with what makes sense for you locally and stay out of the mess externally. An advocacy model means that you are going to try to create change externally. And so this really emerged with a lot of the laws that were being created outside of the US for plus LGBTQ plus communities. And so they were trying to navigate, well, if it’s against the law, how do I do this job? And a lot of DEI professionals will be faced with that and organizations as well. So again, the answer is stick to what’s core and only talk about what matters relative to mission achievement or goal achievement.

Melyssa Barrett:  Wow, these are some treasures and gems you’re talking about right here. I think there’s so much going on that I think a lot of times there’s so much noise you just want to simplify so that you understand how to get where you’re going without driving through the terrain, right?

Kelli Lester:  Absolutely.

All of the practitioners strap up. This is not for the faint at heart. This work is not for the faint at heart. And I think there was a period where we skated along, but now we’re really in a place where it’s reminiscent of probably the civil rights era, the kind of change leaders that are needed for this next stage. You really have to be buttoned up. You have to know the business if you’re in for-profit, and it’s also about who you need to be, not just what you need to do, but some people jumped on the bandwagon with this DEI work, and maybe they tried to run for office. Maybe they were trying to get a lot of publicity, but really, if you’re not in it for the true achievements and outcomes, then yeah, it’ll show at this

Melyssa Barrett:  Stage. Yeah, yeah, you are so right. It is not for the faint of heart.

So let’s talk a little bit about kind of intention. I think you talk a lot about intentional inclusion, and I would love for you to maybe touch on employee wellbeing and engagement as a part of that because I think as leaders we’re constantly, we want to check in with our teams and make sure we understand what’s going on, but there is a drive to really focus on mental wellness anyway, I’ll speak for myself. I’m always trying to create the boundaries that I need to maintain my own mental wellness, which can include getting the phone away from me for some period of time, eliminating interruption, kind of all of those things. And so in a work environment, it seems like the intentional inclusion is great, but how do you balance between the wellness of the team and making sure that they’re getting what they need? Because these days it’s like you never can turn off. Just keeps going.

Kelli Lester:  So I’m going to answer that both individually and then as a leader, because I think so many of us are struggling with that. I think a girlfriend of mine said, I’ve got PTSD relative to the news and the election. So there’s a lot going on for a lot of us. And now we’re in a space where people are a lot more comfortable, or at least they have permission to even just state that they’re not doing well. Something that I’m not even sure one people were talking about and two leaders were not faced with that even as an issue or question because people weren’t comfortable bringing it up. So for the individual, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I am toying with the name, but I’m calling it the practitioner’s protection of peace. And I’m saying change practitioners or whatever, HR practitioners. But if you’re in this kind of work, you almost receive the pain of others, if that makes sense.

People are bringing you their stuff and dumping it, and you’re expected to deal with it, and you may have dealt with it well in the past, but given everything that’s going on, you may not be in that position. So whether you are a change leader or not, I first start with this concept of what I call affirmation. And I won’t get too deep here, but I’ll just say identify those things that are relative to you that are true about you or that you want to manifest even in your own self. And then create an affirmation around that. So affirmations that something to do to prepare for the day. The second I talk about, and I’m not a therapist, but I think you have to be in a place where you know how to compartmentalize. I believe compartmentalization probably isn’t that good long term, so you do have to revisit what you put on the shelf, but if you could for the moment just compartmentalize.

And then thirdly, I think we have to de-stress or unload and then be okay with our day and then rest. So again, this is a work in progress because I’m actually creating it for the first of the year, but I really am feeling the pain, the trauma, the disappointment, the lack of hope, even right as you are trying to lead the organization. So if we’re not preparing ourselves individually for our day, we may not survive the day. It could be just the final thing that tips us over. So whatever that preparation looks like for us, you as an individual, I just encourage people to prepare before the noise starts. Now, I’m a person of faith, so prayer is a big part of mine, but again, whatever that works for exercise, whatever that works for someone else. And then after the dumping, you’ve got to unload it somewhere as well.

So that would be my advice as an individual, as a leader, navigating this, get people encouraged enough to come up with their own answers for the solution. So it can be just as difficult as a leader if you got 15 people in 15 different places. And the more people you lead, the more difficult this becomes. So we’ve got to get out of the mindset of having the answer, but yet asking the right questions to our individual team members around where the answer might lie and exercise a level of patience around it. So as simple as this sounds, we have to actually love ourselves by putting our own mask on first and then actually love others. So where people don’t often describe or use the word love in the workplace, to me, DEI, inclusive, innovation, inclusive leadership, and innovation is love in the workplace. And that is the ability for me to see uniquely for who you are and demonstrate that in the way that I communicate with you, empathize with you, give you the unique thing you need.

If you’ve got more than one child, you know how this works. You do not motivate them the same way I have a girl and a boy, my son, he’s me, he’s talkative, my daughter, she’s the introvert and what they needed to actually be motivated to graduate from high school and then college, it’s very different. And so I cannot treat them the same. And so as a leader, we want to see people individually or who they are coach and develop them in a way that meets their need, just like you would a different child in your family, if you will. And then actually empower them to drive the solution, not you.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah, that’s amazing. I think because it’s so interesting when we think about just being able to maintain or build morale and trust and being able to kind of listen, you’re talking a lot about, it’s like you can feel the empathy. And it used to be, and I remember this when my dad used to tell me, it’s like, you don’t cry, you don’t do this, you don’t do that. That’s not allowed. And now we’re talking about love in the workplace,

Kelli Lester:  And most people aren’t uncomfortable with it, right?

Melyssa Barrett:  No, it’s true. But it’s so needed. It’s like we need to reframe how we think about work. And I guess I’ll just say when I think the way people work now, there’s so often that instead of you mentioned we just used to do it, it’s like we did the work we needed to do. Now it’s like our work is so often tied to our purpose and being able to identify what your purpose is. So when you talk about self-awareness, there’s a lot of time that’s the deepest work because it’s like it changes over time. If I knew what I knew then what I knew the same thing, I don’t know, but I’m at a different place in life, and so my purpose has shifted and changed, and I think I lead differently because of that. Hopefully that’s a good thing.

But it’s so interesting because as we go through life, it’s not like we’re monolithic. There’s so many different things going on, and yet being able to manage all of that change all the time. And I think one of the questions I wanted to ask you was really how has this impacted when people went into Covid, everybody went remote, and now you had all these folks that, and still do in many cases, we have almost 95% of folks working from home. How do you manage what you’re talking about in terms of inclusive leadership? And everyone is everywhere on different times. I mean, it’s really a global view. People are literally moving where they live because they don’t have to be close to an office. But now you have so many other things to think about.

Kelli Lester:  Yeah, I think it’s difficult, but I will say this, during C, there was a ton of surveys and studies done based on the very point you’re bringing up. And one that resonates with me is several folks talked about the fact that it’s leveled the playing field. And I was surprised to hear that. So I’ve been continued to read and do more research and even asked my clients. So when they talked about the leveling of the playing field working remote, what they were saying is my ability, because there’s a such thing called proximity bias. So a lot of global and even US-based organizations have a world headquarters wherever they have it. And if you’re in that world headquarters, you likely have more opportunities to interact and be exposed to the leadership because usually leaders are there. And the natural approach and style to connect typically leans on extroverts, sales, kind of the traditional style.

And what we’ve seen historically is those folks elevate not because they’re smarter, just because they were in the right place at the right time and they’re more talkative. And I’m one of those people. So I have to recognize that that A is a privilege. And then two, manage that difference when I see it in my team. So I would say create fair and consistent approaches to how you connect. So for example, if I have five team members, two live in the city I’m in, and three don’t, I can’t connect more with the two that’s near me. So that’s what I mean by fairness. So I have to make sure I’m putting just as much energy. It may not look the same, but I have to put just as much energy into my checkpoints regardless. And we showed our ability to do that in Covid. I saw people having watch parties on Zoom, wine connects, coffee connects.

So things we didn’t even think was capable strategy sessions where I thought I could only do ’em in person. Now we can do them using mural and all of these things. So be creative and figure out the best way, and then let’s not force feed our style onto others. So something as simple as sending an agenda in advance of the things I want to talk about creates a relaxation for someone that’s an introvert or a more process oriented thinker. So we have to ask what works best for you? The best way and story I guess I’ll just share connected to that is mentoring. So right now I do a lot of work with clients on mentoring, helping ’em set up those types of programs, particularly mentoring across signs are different, so generationally, racially, et cetera. And one of the things that we talk a lot about in that is make sure, because I do a session for mentees and a session for mentors, for the mentors, I have to remind them that you’re not preparing this talent for today or yesterday.

So you can’t coach them on what worked for you. You can share a story that worked for you and then ask the question, how might that fit in with your style? How might we achieve the same objective? And I say, don’t coach for today because things are changing so rapidly. So let’s identify first of all your aspiration. What is it that you want or what style works best for you? Everybody you onboard, you should be asking, fill in the blanks around your best day. Talk to me about the characteristics of what that looks like, that your best win. So we have to understand where you want to be your aspiration, what’s the environment you work best in and where you want to go in that aspiration and how does that align with the organization or the industry and what’s changing about that industry? And so as you start to really pay attention to the trends of the future, now I’m mentoring, giving you the best I’ve got from my path, learning from you, and then really laying out the best plan for the future and how you need to show up in that. Now, how can I support you? Now I’m going from mentorship to even sponsorship. So that’s an example of how you can really address how we need to lead today or how we need to mentor today.

Melyssa Barrett:  I love that. That’s awesome. I could sit here and probably talk to you for at least four or five hours, just pick your brain because there’s so much in everything you’re saying. I feel like you could pull back layers and layers and layers, and I can’t even tell you how much I appreciate. I mean, literally people think that it’s like, oh, I’m a podcast host, whatever, I’m taking notes. I mean, these are get your pad and paper out because I think there are so many things that we can learn to be better at than we have been in the past. And so I love how you’re talking about we can’t really focus on the way we did it then, or even today. We need to bring in additional information, learn from others, and then really transcend into our future. And so I’m going to ask you, what do you think about 2025? I mean now we’re kind of shifting gears. We have a lot going on in terms of change, whether it be administration policy, I’m just going to leave it open. What do you think about where we’re going and how we deal with all this change?

Kelli Lester:  Now, that’s a loaded question. I’ll take it this direction. I think I have been saying protect yourself that that is huge and not so much pay attention to what’s worked for others, but literally look at what worked for you. Because if you are sitting there and allow things to continue to happen, you and I both know you’re saying it’s okay. So I really want to, I guess, ask individuals to look at what your individual change management plan needs to be, right? To protect yourself and to help yourself grow. So that’s the first thing that’s on my mind because it will help create this resiliency, right? Yes. Of not just your survival, but our ability to thrive. And then how do we apply that now to organizations, so both people and organizations. And I think this is just going to be a choppy one, right? So I will say the things that I’ve been sharing lately with my clients based on their questions about 2025, is stick to the core.

The biggest question I’ve been getting is around rebranding, DEI. How do we do it? Where do we start? How do we reframe it? Who should we talk to? So the first thing I’ve been advising in this space is to talk to your constituents. So while you may have a solid diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy, vision and foundation, this is a time to just do a quick check and adjust around are we still in the right direction based on our current vision of success, given where we are now in this climate? And make sure you’re talking to your stakeholders. And so something you brought up earlier, I want to connect to my mentor taught me weighted input. Weighted input means if we’re creating a young generational mentorship program, let’s make sure those from that generation are in the room. So make sure you’re talking to the people that matter, and that’s what I mean by the stakeholders.

So ask a few folks, leadership, maybe it’s your council, maybe inclusion teams, resource groups, field employees, those on the front line. But just do a quick check around, is this still valid? Are we still in the right direction? Do we have the right case for change? Are we telling the story around the change and mapping that change out? Meaning that here’s where we are now, here’s where we want to go and here’s why this thing, this change is important. So you may be going from a broad strategy to a more specific strategy because you weren’t meant to be all things to all people. That’s your business strategy as well as your diversity and inclusion strategy, because everything we do in our firm is not just DEI or DE i’s sake. It’s what are you trying to do as an organization and how can this change be an enabler to help you achieve that.

And so again, stick to the core, talk to key stakeholders around if a change is needed, and then pressure test your case for change and map that out. Map out the change because when you can visibly see the change, where are we now? Assess where you are. We have a whole assessment model, for example, and I’m sure there’s a turnout there, but we use iso, which is the international standard of operation for diversity and inclusion to assess our clients on multiple dimensions. So HR workforce is one of them, but products and solutions are another. So when you understand where you are and what good is, then you can begin to map out where you want to be as you refresh or create your vision of success. And so while I’m mentioning inclusive innovation, inclusive leadership, or DEI, this applies to anything that you want to achieve.

So 2025 really will be about a check and adjust and really connecting to what’s core and connecting to your key stakeholders before you really go off and running. And then ongoing check-ins as things continue to change and evolve. If you already have those groups like Council or Think Tank, many of my organizations have different groups, like one company has the way We Work committee. So you may have an existing diverse by level race, gender, gender identity, countries, geography. So remember, diversity is whatever those dimensions are. But be sure you’re checking in with those key stakeholders, those that matter the most, and make sure that they’re at the table as part of that conversation before you just make changes. You may not even need to, may be okay, at least internally. I think that should be really a guide for a lot of people as we go into 2025.

Melyssa Barrett:  I love that. What a way to end, because I think, and the communication of all of that is so critical, just even to set expectations. So I love all of that. And as I mentioned, I do hope that we stay in touch. You are a rockstar. I just knew it as we started and I hope that we continue to have these conversations. So I may reach out and I just wish you all the best for your 2025 and Onyx Rising. So I think it’s a well coined name because I do hope that we see everybody thrive. But I have a friend of mine who always says, when black people rise, everybody rises. So anyway, I so appreciate you joining me for this conversation. As you see, it could go on and on and on, but I truly appreciate you and look forward to your friendship, and really just encourage people, if you have listened to this podcast, you may want to go back and listen to it again. So enjoy it. Yes, it’s truly been my pleasure, Kelly. So take care of yourself and I look forward to it.

Kelli Lester:  Thank you. You have a wonderful day, and I appreciate the work that you’re doing.

Melyssa Barrett:  Thank you. Thanks for joining me on the Jali Podcast. Please subscribe so you won’t miss an episode. See you next week.