#31 - From Equality to Equity: Taking Action Against Systemic Discrimination - Dr. Frank Douglas

00:00:00Welcome to the Purple Political Breakdown. I don't necessarily believe that, you know, diversity of ethnicity is always a good indicator of diversity of thought. There's people around me who could be all sorts of different ethnicities, but we can think the exact same. And so you ask yourself the question, why is it that some people see things that others do not see? And often it has to do with experiences they've had, their culture, et cetera, that enables them to make some connections that the other person was not able to make realistically.00:00:42And I feel like people should know this because at the end of the day, we can't deny that racism was definitely embedded in a lot of these systems in the past. We can't deny slavery happen. We can't deny all these things happen. And to say that they're 100% completely gone in every aspect and every layer of every system just wouldn't be true. Are you enjoying today's podcast episode?00:01:05I really hope you do, and I really hope you enjoy the fact that I have an amazing guest talking with me and having this great discussion. If you as an individual personally have your own podcast and maybe you want to have great guests on your podcast as well. Well, I got a deal for you. In my description, there is a link to something called Pod Match. Make sure to join that link through my affiliate link so you can sign up to get matched up with other podcast hosts and podcast guests.00:01:37So you make sure you are never missing an episode without a productive guest to have an amazing conversation with. Pod Match is similar to any other kind of matching site for the most part, and it's super easy. You just $6 a month. You can have a guest for each and every podcast episode that is tailored to your specific topic. So again, join the link in my description and join Pod Match.00:02:05Now. Do you want a great website like this? This is my podcast website where I direct the audience to come to watch the content, listen to the content, read the blogs, and much, much more. If you want to have your own customizable podcast website, then join my affiliate link in my description to sign up for something called Pod Page and they can help you customize an easy podcast website for your personal podcast. Sign up to get a discount.00:02:39Now again, use the link in my description to join Pod Page now. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. This is episode number 31 of The Purple Political Breakdown, a podcast where a lot of amazing conversations are held and potential solutions are made. Of course, we're going to have a great discussion today as we're going to be talking about racism. Does it exist in the warplace?00:03:03Maybe touch upon systematic racism a little bit? I know very fun conversational topics, of course. And in order to do that, I have a guest with us here today, in addition to myself and my two co hosts, Paul and Jonathan, per usual. And that guest is Dr. Frank Douglas.00:03:20So, Doctor, go ahead, introduce yourself. Tell them what you're about. Tell them what you're into, all that good stuff. Well, thank you for inviting me to your podcast. I'm looking forward to it.00:03:34Should be very interesting discussion. I'm Dr. Dr. Frank Douglas. I spent many of my productive years I still think I have productive years, but I spent most of my time in the pharmaceutical industry.00:03:52I was the global head of research and development for what is then Aventis is now Sanofi. And I was actually the first black to be on the board of management of a top five global pharmaceutical company. I also am an academician, been at MIT as well as at the University of Akron. I tell people I'm in my third retirement, and my mission now is really focused on systemic discrimination. When I was writing my memoirs about four or five years ago, it occurred to me that I was using a particular approach to deal with issues of discrimination, both in academia as well as in industry, which I call reframing.00:04:54And hopefully we'll have some time to talk about that. I recently published a book I'm an author recently published a book which is entitled addressing Systemic Discrimination by Reframing the Problem. So that's, in a nutshell, who I am. And where can they find this book. That you're referring to on Amazon?00:05:18Barnes and Noble. Two places where you can find all right, excellent. One thing I want to start asking people when they come on the show, obviously, is there's a very particular kind of agenda that I want to continuously push. And the focus behind the podcast, as the people know that's listening, is that I care more so about solutions to issues, more so than political biases, political toxicity, the kind of filler stuff that's getting in the way of all these conversations in the first place, where people are toxifying any and all sides that's not their own. Right.00:05:56So let me ask you, what do you think about this kind of landscape of this kind of toxic nature when it comes to discussing politics? And do you think it's a problem, and do you think there's a way for us to fix it as a country? Well, it is a difficult problem. It is a problem. To give you a little perspective, I actually originally am from Guyana, which was British Guyana.00:06:27Came to America in 1963, actually eight days before Dr. Martin Luther King's march in Washington, and was really quite surprised at the existence of racism, having immediately been subjected to it and immediately learned what Martin Luther King meant when he said he would like his children to be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. So this was my introduction to America. I've had wonderful years in America have watched tremendous progress. But it's just strange to me that things seem to have regressed significantly and the environment has become so toxic and unfriendly and adversarial because even in the could have a discussion now, one is afraid to have a discussion.00:07:44One actually in some cases one must fear for one's life if one were to say very candidly what one thinks. So I do not Frankly understand why we are where we are. What I do know, and I absolutely agree with you, that what we need are solutions. Hey, I very much agree and I cosign to a lot of things you're saying. Obviously, I can't cosign as to being near the Martin Luther King era.00:08:17I'm a pretty young guy over here, but I definitely cosign a lot in terms of the current landscape of society, the conversations have definitely regressed, especially, even compared to, let's say 1020 years ago, right? So it's not really productive as of right now. So with that said, let's dive into what is going on, what you need to know. Obviously you guys can lay out your opinions. Anybody here on the show.00:08:46Of course, let me know what you think. But here's some things that I saw that's going on currently in society. Allegedly. Allegedly. So I don't know if this is confirmed or not.00:08:57Apparently. Allegedly. President Xi, the President of China, warned Putin against the use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict. Other things that's happened in regards to Ukraine is that apparently Biden has sent cluster munitions to Ukraine, which is very unpopular to human rights activists and apparently is banned in a couple of countries as well. Another couple of things that you guys maybe want to know is that the US has destroyed its last stockpile of chemical weapons, record heat in terms of the weather, global warming, is it happening, yes or no?00:09:34And the most popular nominees as of right now on both sides, democrats and Republicans, seem to be Biden, RFK, Trump, and DeSantis. So is that a good thing, bad thing? I'm not really sure. So what do you all think about the current events? Do you have any thoughts about them?00:09:57One thing that I think is interesting when it comes to the sending of cluster bombs to Ukraine, I was watching some commentary and I happened to see about a year ago when Jens Hockey was still press secretary, she had indicated that Russia was considering using these same kind of bombs. And they said that that would be a war crime to use those kind of bombs if Russia were to do it. Because obviously one of the big problems is a vast majority of the essentially fragmented bombs that come out of this bomb, they never go off because they're just mass produced, they're very faulty, but they have potential to go off years later. So this was considered a war. America was ready to consider that a war crime, except for when America is doing it, which just seems interesting to me and a little bit hypocritical on us.00:10:57I believe it to be somewhat part and parcel of American policy abroad. On the cluster munitions thing. The United States has continually aided many of its allies or states it has interest in with those type of armaments and the like. Granted, will it help probably the Ukrainians in their fight against the Russians? Maybe.00:11:19But the reality is that these cluster munitions have a big problem with becoming unexploded ordinance and existing in a lot of these areas after the war, ruining the lives of children and anybody that just happens to be in the area at the time. So it's a very disappointing thing to happen. Yeah. And if anybody doesn't know what cluster munitions are, kind of like Jonathan said, they're a method of dispersing a large number of unguided tiny bombs over a wide area. So you can see how this can be potentially dangerous, especially considering, like the description says, it's unguided and the potential of civilian harm, civilian death is not something that anybody wants to see in this situation.00:12:11So if Russia starts using them and Ukraine and Russia is trying to kind of hint at maybe I might want to use nuclear weapons, this conflict will not go well moving forward if things keep on escalating from here. So hopefully the situation can get figured out. Frank, do you have any thoughts about the conflict regarding Ukraine and Russia? Well, with respect to the cluster bombs, what I find somewhat disturbing is that the rationale that was given is that Ukraine is running out of ammunition and therefore this was needed. In my view, if you know what the problem is, then you solve the problem, you talk about solutions.00:13:06So if Ukraine is running out of ammunition, if that is the problem, then why aren't we, America, the Europeans, et cetera, why aren't we supplying them with sufficient weaponry so that they can conduct this war? Why do we wait for them to run out of ammunition? So I find it very troubling, and this is not the first time that we have reacted somewhat late to requests from the Ukraines for help. I sometimes find it sort of cynical as to though what is going on here is we would like to see the Ukraine up against the wall and then we help them. And so the whole thing is very cynical for me.00:14:07Fair enough, fair enough. Yeah, we're definitely going to keep on having our eyes on what is going on. Maybe in the future we'll have a more full scaled episode in regards to the entire conflict and kind of give a full rundown of kind of how things came to how they are now. But we'll see in due time. There's so many things we're going to talk about on this show, of course, so a lot of discussions.00:14:35So with that said, I'm not going to do the subtopic this time, but moving forward we may start doing subtopics but we're going to kind of dive right into the main topic at hand in regards to more specifically racism in the workplace because I know that you mentioned that this is something that you wanted to discuss. So my first question to kind of get the ball rolling is why do you believe there's systematic racism in the workplace?00:15:05And that's a question for you, Frank. Oh, it's for me.00:15:11The workplace is representative of the society. Those of us in the workplace are part of society. So what is present in the society happens in the in the workplace. You know, we don't become different people when we leave home, get into our cars or get onto the train or bus to go to work and then we enter the building. We don't become different people.00:15:44So it is expected that there would be. I like to talk about systemic discrimination as opposed to systemic racism because the problem we face, racism is just one aspect of it, but whether it is race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, et cetera, we have become a country where we discriminate and it has become systemic because it has become part of the society. It's become part of the way we view things. It's become both conscious and unconscious in the biases that we hold. And so it has become systemic and has to be addressed very forcefully.00:16:39So I'm going to get some clarification, kind of get a gauge of your thoughts regarding that because I think this is very important to see where people at. And then obviously, Jonathan Paul, you can engage whenever you feel like. So when it comes down to the system and your thoughts in regards to the systematic racism that's either in the workplace and we're probably just focused more so on the workplace itself in this conversation, do you believe that the systems are actively discriminating towards people, whether that's preventing them from getting jobs or preventing them from getting opportunities? Or do you believe that the people that are in the systems can be unfair and racist towards people individually? What do you think is more of an issue or more prevalent currently in American workplaces?00:17:34Well, I think, at least for me, the reason why I am concerned about the systemic is that it has become part of the system and when it becomes part of the system, you can't really in a sense differentiate between that which is purposefully being done and that which is unconsciously being done, that which is being led by the leaders who are setting up a particular approach and that which is happening at the workplace. I like to talk about, when I look at organizations that they're basically two things and they are equity and inclusion and equity. For me, those are the system or some set of rules and guidelines that the leaders articulate and put in place so that we all know how to play fair in the sandbox. And then there is inclusion. And that is what happens at the work unit where behaviors take place which either include or exclude individuals.00:19:01And so both of those things happen in the workplace. There are some places where you do not have equitable policies and processes and there are some places where as a matter of fact, you may have equitable processes and policies, but you have individuals at the supervisor management level running the work groups who are not encouraging behaviors where people and their opinions are valued. Or certain sets of people and their opinions are valued. And so there isn't inclusion. And I actually use that to describe types of cultures in organizations.00:19:50For example, if I have an organization where both equity and inclusion are low, that's a toxic culture. And in fact, it's a culture in which you will find retention is low. People are trying to leave that organization when they can. If you have an organization, however, where both equity and inclusion are high, the individuals in that culture tend to be very engaged, very motivated, and that is a very safe, very safe culture. So I think they're both that are happening in the workplace.00:20:36Fair enough. Jonathan Paul, you have anything to add? I would like to ask a couple of clarifying questions, one of which is when you say equity, what do you particularly mean by equity? That's a very good question. And if you permit me, let me give an example.00:20:59Generally for me, equity is giving everyone what they need to complete the task. And here's the example I would like to give. There are two workers and they have to move a 50 pound sack of potatoes ten yards, move from one place to another ten yards. One of these workers is 6ft, two inches, 210 pounds, very muscular. The other is a small guy, 5455, weighing about 140 pounds.00:21:43Now, if we give both of these workers a wheelbarrow, the 210 pounder may decide not to use the wheelbarrow because he can easily throw it over his shoulder and walk to ten yards and deposit it.00:22:05The small guy, nonathletic guy, small and non athletic guy puts the 50 pounds in the wheelbarrow and gets it to the endpoint. That to me is an example of equity. They both have what they needed to get the job done.00:22:29Okay, so one of the things when I hear the word equity and I'm in schooling right now and we deal and I'm in a sociological esque degree and so we talk about the concept of equity a lot. And I find a lot of people desire an equality of outcome, which is similar to what you said, but you framed a little bit differently. The example that is often used is ensuring that everybody ends the same way. Are you concerned with everybody ending up in the same situation instead of giving everybody the same start? Time, making sure that everybody has the same end time in a race per se.00:23:12I'm concerned about the outcome, and the fact of the matter is that any outcome can be measured and you can exceed the outcome, you can meet the outcome, you can be less than the outcome. So we identify what is a good outcome and individuals, provided they have a number of capabilities that are relevant to the task, if there's something that is missing that if it were given to them, they could get to the desired average outcome, then that's what you do. I do not think that we should set up things because if you do that, a couple of things would happen. Sorry, I don't know why I've lost light.00:24:18I guess my bulb is gone. Can you see me? Yeah, you're fine. Okay, let's try something else here.00:24:31Yes, I think if we do that, then what we're basically saying is we want mediocrity and as a matter of fact, what we do want is to identify here's an outcome which is important and will get things done, get things moving. But indeed, if we can exceed that outcome, that is indeed desirable.00:25:07I don't necessarily think in the analogy that was given that it's saying equality of outcome from my interpretation of what was said, is that the opportunity to succeed is obviously in hand for the six two guy, but the opportunity to exceed for the non athlete doesn't exist. So the wheelbarrow automatically will give them both the opportunity to succeed. The six two guy may not needy, but he has the option to use it equally as the other guy. I think it will become much more problematic if he indicated that they both were just given the pounds of rice and they were just both given it to them regardless of who they are, and they didn't have to work for it. That was my interpretation, Jonathan, so let me know if you interpreted it differently.00:26:02No, that is kind of how I interpreted it, but it's a little bit different of a terminology of equity than I have heard before, which is why I wanted to get his perspective on making sure. So the way that a lot of times equity is explained is, like I said, you have all of these very top tier athletes, but some of them are actually less so you have this spectrum of racers and instead of staggering it so if you have a track, you stagger the start so everybody runs the same distance. But the way that equity is often explained and interpreted by many people is you stagger it so that not everybody runs the same distance, but that everybody will end up finishing at the exact same time, which I see it as not a virtue. Well, I agree with you. I actually do not agree with that.00:26:52That's all I was clarifying to get your perspective, because that's a version of equity that I have not heard before that I kind of appreciate.00:27:02The comment you made I think is an important one. And that is given abilities that everyone is given an opportunity to complete the task. It may very well be, for example, maybe a silly example. I'll give the example if the nona athletic small guy had no legs and hands, giving him a wheelbarrow wouldn't help. So at some level there has to be a certain basis amount of capability which says that were that person given something which enhanced their opportunity to get the task done, they could get the task done.00:27:50And so this attitude of opportunity is important. There's the other aspect to it, which is one that when I was in the C suite, I often would challenge my colleagues because the following would happen if we were you know, we did succession planning and the like. And if we were looking at a white male for a position, we would have the discussion, what are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? Identify the weaknesses and then we would find solutions.00:28:26We would say, okay, I think if we were to get him a personal coach or if we were to get him perhaps someone who is strong in that area to work beside him, we do that. When we were discussing a woman or having helped it a very few times, unfortunately, if it were a minority, we would focus on the fact that they had weaknesses and we would not talk about how we would bridge those weaknesses. We would just simply say, well, they are weak. And I would challenge them. And I would say to them that we are prepared to give the white colleague, white male colleague the opportunity to fail.00:29:20But we are not prepared to give the female or minority the same opportunity to fail. And so for me, part of equity is also giving everyone the opportunity to fail.00:29:41All right, paul, you want to add something? I just had a question for the doctor. What industries see the largest amount of workplace discrimination? And is there an industry that sees it more than others in this country? I don't know.00:29:54I'm just taken by I was in the pharmaceutical industry and there were very few minorities in the pharmaceutical industry. However, I will tell you a lot of the discrimination was gender discrimination. There were very few. In fact, I will tell you that it was only when I became executive vice president that we had the first female senior vice president for whom I fought. And she was seen as actually the best in her field in the pharmaceutical business by the competitors also, some of whom often were trying to recruit her.00:30:31And so I had that to go and she was the first senior vice president. So the gender discrimination was very strong in the pharmaceutical industries, much less so in the last 15 years or so. I am taken, however, in the it industry. When I see things such as Google having I think they lost their class action suit, and I don't remember whether it was 10,000 women who complained that they were paid less, they weren't getting promotions, et cetera. Google lost that case, and that was a year or two ago.00:31:16And I have a sense that perhaps that's the it one of the places where we should look. Thank you. Other place, incidentally, although that has changed. That has changed tremendously. Another place was in the healthcare industry.00:31:34And what is fascinating about the healthcare industry is that when I went to medical school, there were not that many women medical students. Now more than 50% of entering medical students are women, and they're often at the top of the class. So it has changed significantly in the medical field. There are still, however, areas within the medical field for which there are very, very few women. So I think that's very interesting and very appropriate to bring up.00:32:20And I definitely respect the honesty in regards to you not trying to kind of make up a statistic on X, Y and Z. You kind of plainly said you don't know. But from my experience, I've seen X, Y and Z. And that's how you're coming from it. That's the approach you're giving to kind of address the issue at hand.00:32:39And sometimes I do think people kind of have this kind of wide encompassing problem that they don't even have any inherent connection or really don't even know the issue at hand individually, that they can't even speak on what really is going on, but they believe it's an issue. And sometimes that doesn't really help you in terms of the perspective on how you should solve said problem in the first place without having the experience or perspective on knowing what's going on. So the fact that you're coming at it this way is very interesting. My question for you is that, like you said, we've come a long way in the last two years in regarding the discrimination issue, and we're still continuously growing in regards to the issue nowadays. Matter of fact, we're talking about it with equity inclusion.00:33:37The third prong of that is diversity. The dei situation, which is part of ESG, which is kind of forefronted from some of the most powerful people in all of the world, kind of forcing diversity to these corporations and trying to make these places a better place. So when you see these big corporations putting these in place, dei, making sure that they're all kind of meeting certain diversity thresholds throughout the entire country from every business that they're invested in, when you see the big wigs doing this, do you think that they're doing enough? Or do you believe that there are areas they're just missing that you think you can provide light in?00:34:37It's a difficult question, so let me go at it the following way, because I have perhaps a slightly different view about dei. My view is, first of all, diversity was extremely important for two reasons. One, there is no question, no one will argue that diversity of opinion, diversity of views, be it scientific views, be it in the way you are looking at decisions made on clothes, is that diversity of views foster innovation. In fact, you go to any engineering school, they will do work in teams, project teams. And if you ask them why work in teams, why is teamwork so important in the industry?00:35:33And one of the things it will say is diversity of opinion. So that's one thing that no one today, there are very few people who would argue that that is not true. The second thing about diversity, it's easy to count. It's easy to say, I have someone who is colored, I have someone who's an Indian ancestry, I have a female. Diversity, when you're looking at those demographic characteristics, is very easy to count.00:36:10So for me, it was natural to start with diversity. Diversity, equity, inclusion. It was natural. Why is the whole problem important?00:36:24And I imagine you probably will get to this question, but I will tell you how I come at all of this. The way I come at all of this is the following. I told you I came to America in 1963, eight days before the march in Washington. When I left my country, I was an evangelical Christian.00:36:55And one of the things that I incorrectly but I thought was the case is that in America, all Christians believed in the following.00:37:17One of the disciples asked Christ, what is the greatest commandment? And Christ responded, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. And then he added without provocation, he added, and the second is like onto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. So for me, I just cannot understand what is happening. So that's one aspect of it.00:37:53The second aspect of it is the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self evident. All men are created equal, diversity, equality, and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights. Among them, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, inclusion. So in those two, fundamentally, and I'll say Christian because this is funded as a Christian country, concepts they drive the laws, the policies, et cetera.00:38:36So if we are in a situation where groups of people be their female, be their black, et cetera, we're deprived of their unable rights, their ability to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, then we have no choice, if indeed we're Christian, but to do those things that would help to change that for them. So that's why my focus, I will now tell you, tends to be less on diversity. Great place to start, important place to start. But because it becomes very easy a metric to calculate when the reality is every one of us carries within us the diversity, be it our ethnicity. Be it our gender, be it our religion, be it where we were trained, which school we went to.00:39:41There are certain views we tend to hold that govern how we see problems, how we attack problems. So diversity is a very large thing for me, and so I focus on the two things, equity and inclusion. So it's a long way to answer your question about what I think about diversity, what I think about diversity. We all agree that it is important innovation, productivity, et cetera. No question there.00:40:17We all use it. That's a very interesting way to approach diversity. There's a lot of things that I feel like we can all gain from that kind of perspective, especially considering you put the caveat in there, that nowadays they can kind of measure a, you're hitting this threshold of diversity. Okay, is that really going anywhere? Is that really solving any potential issues?00:40:43So I moved the question to you, Jonathan. Paul, do you believe diversity is an issue currently in the workplace? If so, why? If not, do you agree with Frank or do you want to add something to that? Paul, go ahead.00:41:00Yeah, absolutely. I still believe that to this day. It's an issue within the workplace in this country. I've witnessed it firsthand. I myself was probably given a bonus compared to a colleague who had worked significantly harder than me in some areas.00:41:14So, yeah, I think that this is something that this country absolutely needs to tackle 100%.00:41:21Would that be diversity or equity? Well, I would say it's equity on that angle, yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. Jonathan, what are you about to say?00:41:31I think diversity is kind of an issue, but similar to how Dr. Frank mentioned it is diversity insofar as diversity of thought and opinion, I think that is an issue. I think we have a lot of companies, a lot of workplaces that are very ideologically captured by one side or the other. I don't necessarily believe that diversity of ethnicity is always a good indicator of diversity of thought. There's people around me who could be all sorts of different ethnicities, but we can think the exact same.00:42:05And so if my goal as a company is to innovate, then I do want to ensure that I have diversity of opinion. I feel personally as if specifically hiring somebody because of an ethnicity is kind of an easy way to get those ESG points, as you mentioned. Ridell they look for one of those qualifications for a good ESG score is diversity, but they don't look at it as diversity of opinion. They look at it only as diversity of ethnicity, which, yeah, I don't think that is the demarcation for innovation because everybody can be different skin colors but think the exact same way. Frank, what do you think about that in terms of because I think we all, for the most part, it sounds like we all agree that in terms of the diversity of meeting a threshold that can be easily kind of done, so to speak, to hire an X-Y-Z number of people so you meet that threshold.00:43:08But are we actually growing in terms of diversity of opinion, diversity of thought, especially considering because I believe you agreed with me that society as a whole is becoming much more toxic in terms of their discourse and this is mostly because of how, like Jonathan said, they're so ideologically captured in a certain way of thinking. Do you think that is an issue in terms of diversity? What is the issue? Do you think we are lacking in terms of the diversity of thought in America, in terms of the workplace?00:43:56Yes, I think of course it varies from situation to situation. But I think overall we are lacking, and let me say the following it is true that if we all, if a group of individuals have been trained in the same institutions, they are likely to approach problem solving the same way they're likely to do that. When, however, you come to creativity and innovation, you tend to pull on other aspects. And so you ask yourself the question why is it that some people see things that others do not see? And often it has to do with experiences they've had, their culture, et cetera, that enables them to make some connections that the other person was not able to make.00:45:11And so this is why I feel it is very important, the ethnicity is important. Women think differently. We know that the guy who wrote Women are from Venus and Men are from Mars, as simple as it sounds, actually got it right. Women do think differently and as a result because of their gender. And many women tend to think alike.00:45:38I say ten, because there are also tremendous differences among women but differently from men in a number of situations. And it has everything to do with their gender. Even though they went to the same classes and did the same training as men. So that is why I think the diversity of opinion is important. It's not only the training and opinion is a very complex thing.00:46:10There are lots of things that enter into your opinion, a lot of which have to do with those other social aspects and behavioral, et cetera, that often color the opinion. The other aspect to your question is yes. I think unfortunately we have become an opinionated society, if I may say that, in that we have lost the ability to listen to other opinions and to value other opinions. We want to basically congregate with those who are of like opinions, particularly on the political realm as ourselves. And that is very sad.00:46:58But I think in the realm of creativity there is where diversity and diverse way of looking at problems and approaching solutions do help. Fair enough, fair enough. So let's go into the two other prongs in terms of equity in terms of inclusion, because as you said, Frank, that these are two things that you want to focus on more. So and Paul even brought up an example of personally in regards to a situation where the equity circumstance was unfair to someone else. So it's obviously, from Paul's perspective, from what it seems like, that this is still an issue regarding equity.00:47:48I guess. My question to you, Frank, in regards to equity inclusion, how do you believe and this probably has something to do with your EI situation or solution how do you believe we can kind of fix this issue going on? With America especially, and this is the big kind of caveat for this. If we believe that they can meet certain thresholds for diversity, hiring certain people, that's easy to do to meet these thresholds. Of course.00:48:21But when it comes to equity inclusion, it seems like it's much more deliberate, it's much more focused, and it takes a lot more effort. So with that said, you can't just hire a bunch of people and it'll be okay. So, yeah, let me hear your thoughts about it, Frank, and then we can go into it a little bit more in depth. Yeah, no, you're absolutely correct. And it's one of the reasons why I focus on EIIE, that is equity inclusion and individual engagement.00:48:52Gallup, over 30 plus years, did a number of surveys over 30 plus years, looked at many, many companies think 100 plus 100,000 plus companies, six to something, no, 96 countries in many different areas. And he found the following, that those companies that were in the top quartile with respect to employee engagement had 24% greater productivity and profitability than those who were in the bottom quartile and had 60% less accidents, et cetera. Can you define because I think definitions are very important here, so people are listening. Can you define what you mean by employee engagement? Yeah, actually Gallup has and I wish I could remember the parts, they actually have a twelve point scale.00:49:58But basically, engagement is motivation, employee motivation, motivation to work. And there are simple questions like and in fact, in the di world, in the diversity equity, inclusion world, there are some who talk about deib belonging. So individuals who feel like they're being included, they feel they belong to the work unit. They feel they're being valued. In fact, they are being recognized for the work that they're done.00:50:27They get the atta boys, et cetera, from the manager. Those individuals tend to be more motivated. They go the extra mile, and that actually shows up in the productivity of the company. So Gallup has done tremendous work, and I think that is really accepted. There are companies like Nationwide that actually run their company based on this concept of really looking at equity inclusion and employee engagement and motivation.00:51:13All right, so when it comes to equity and inclusion and the framework that you mentioned, what does this framework specifically do to fix the equity inclusion aspect of bringing about better, like you said, equity bringing back better opportunity for the individuals that we're talking about that are being discriminated to get discriminated against. So how does this framework work? Yeah, as you said, this is really very difficult. One of the things that actually struck me, it was about five years ago, I was writing my memoirs, and something struck me, and that was that the way I actually dealt with problems, particularly problems of discrimination in academia and industry. I actually reframed the problem.00:52:09And let me share with you where this started, and I wish at the time that I knew how to reframe or even understood the concept. When I completed my PhD incidentally, I have both a PhD and MD. I have a PhD in physical chemistry. And when I completed my PhD, I was hired by Xerox. And for three months, I couldn't get a meaningful project, and I would discuss with my manager.00:52:39And then one day, a white young man joined the group. He had not completed his PhD, still writing his PhD thesis, and within one week, he was assigned a tool. What was the top project we had in research and development at Xerox at a time? I went to see my manager to have the usual discussions, getting the usual answers, and then suddenly I said to him, steve, don't think about me as though I'm Frank. Think about me as though I'm bob.00:53:11And I was stunned. I was literally stunned to see the recognition come on his face as he said to me in a very thoughtful tone, he said, you know, you're right. Bob has only been here a week. And I've put him on the artery project. I was absolutely furious.00:53:30I ran out of his office done to the office of the senior vice president to give him yet another example of my being discriminated against. Now, about two years later, I thought about that incident and recognized that I had made two mistakes. The first one was Dr. Travis. The senior vice president had hired three young black PhDs that summer to join the one black PhD that Xerox had at the time.00:54:01He had made it his mission to bring in young black PhDs. So it probably was more important to him that Frank Douglas did well than it was to Frank Douglas. So I totally missed that. The second thing that I missed was what was my desired outcome. I did not want the senior vice president to go and have tough words with my manager, with my boss.00:54:29I wanted a good project. And had I reframed the whole problem, and had I gone to Dr. Tribus and simply said, dr. Travis, could you help my manager to find me a good project, I might have retired at Xerox, because that was within his sphere of influence. He was two, three levels above my boss.00:54:51If you walked into my boss's office and said, look, find the man a good project, it probably would have been done yesterday.00:54:58That's where I learned about reframing. But I didn't recognize that two years later. And as I was writing my memoirs, it suddenly struck me that, as a matter of fact, that is how I had been managing things. So, to your question, one of the things that became clear to me as I looked at my own personal episodes dealing with discrimination and others whom I helped counsel in my various positions, is that often companies, institutions would have programs to improve awareness, awareness of microaggressions, et cetera, what things to say, what things not to say. But at the end of the day, there is an individual who is aggrieved, and we do very little for that individual.00:55:54And so I formed the group. And actually this came to a head as I sat watching the George Floyd thing in 2020, murder of George Floyd, and watching the onlookers on the side doing their darndest to try to get Kelvin to take his knee off George Floyd's neck. As empathetic as they were, there was nothing they could do. But there was the one individual who was dying. And the thought occurred to me, had he been taught how to reframe, how to handle difficult situations with the cops, would he have been able to avoid what became this fatal outcome?00:56:38And so I put a group together to do a couple of things. One, to make sure that individuals are heard, because you'll hear that often people who have been discriminated against, they may complain to HR, may even discuss with their manager, but they don't feel anybody is hearing them. So to make sure that they are heard, the second thing is to empower them so that they can have the type of dialogue with their managers that would lead to a productive solution. And the way to do that is to use the reframing process or methodology, which I then developed formally. And the whole core of the reframing process is one, to get that individual to be clear about what is the desired outcome they would like.00:57:33One of the lessons I learned from my Xerox experience to be clear about your desired outcome. And the second thing is to find a better problem to solve. And what's a better problem to solve? It would be a problem which would not only address the problem of the Aggrieved in a productive manner, but would also increase the productivity of other members of the work unit. So you take it out from the personal Aggrievement and ask the larger question if my situation were addressed in the following manner, it would not only improve my motivation, my engagement, but it would also improve that of the unit.00:58:25And so that's the reframing process that I teach. And that is based as a matter of fact, this issue of being heard is analyzing the equity and inclusion in the culture that that individual is in, because it's strange. The Google example, you go to the website and they talk about all the wonderful things you're doing, and nonetheless, we have this class action suit. Why is that? And it's clear that those individuals were experiencing a different culture from that which the leaders of Google would like to have and probably were trying to build.00:59:11Stop right there. Yes, this is a little mini ad. Don't skip, don't skip. All I want to tell you right. Now is that at the end of.00:59:19The day, when it comes down to. All the discussions I want to have. I want to be able to communicate with you, the audience. I want to be able to relay a message and receive a message from everyone and try to come up with these great solutions that I keep on talking about. So if you want to be part of the community, make sure you go to the website and sign up for not only the email list so you can get weekly emails from me for the podcast episode, informational sessions, all that great stuff.00:59:48But also sign up to go on my discord so you could be part of the discussions. Debates on my live streams. So be sure to go to the website WW dot purplepoliticalbreakdown.com, and go to the email list, sign up and go to the discord and join the server. Now back to the episode. I definitely appreciate this outlook, but Jonathan, Paul, do you guys have anything you want to add?01:00:19Nothing for me. No, I think it's an interesting approach.01:00:27I'm curious what you were saying. Doctor reminded me, especially with the gallup and the employee engagement. Have you ever read a book by Simon Sinnick called The Infinite Game? No, I haven't. So he talks a lot about that and how businesses should have an infinite game.01:00:48Mindset referencing game theory, how you have finite games such as all of our favorite sports, baseball, and as a joke, versus something like the market. The marketplace is an infinite game because the purpose of the game is perpetuate the game. And one of the best ways to do that is to ensure that your employees are engaged and to ensure that your employees feel heard and they'll be far more productive. I think you said 24% more productive as opposed to those who are not. So I can definitely appreciate that particular part of your IIE program or mindset, one might say.01:01:34Yeah, I definitely think that this framework is very powerful. And the reason why I think so is because it inherently puts a lot of responsibility, like you said, into the individual to really take responsibility for what is going on. Because at the end of the day, one thing that we do need to recognize is that we can put as many policies as we want. We can have the big wigs, be super pro, antidiscrimination super pro, LGBTQ, all that stuff, right? But in terms of changing a mindset, in terms of changing the implicit biases that will exist inherently, you're not going to do that with some abstract policy put over their head.01:02:21The only way you're really going to do that is when you have an individual challenging them respectfully, because if you do, it talks negatively. It's going to backfire or make things worse inherently, but in a productive manner with the proper dialogue and really start challenging them in a way where at that opportune moment they can start changing the way they think, they can start changing their perspective. And something we preach constantly on this podcast is the importance of conversation, the importance of perspective and experience. And this is just one of these examples, the way you framed it, Frank, in terms of how you kind of input that in the workplace and it may be unfair. And I've heard so many people say, why do I have to do X, Y and Z?01:03:13I'm an American just like them. Obviously I'm black over here. So people like me, I've heard that we're going to go like, I shouldn't have to do this compared to this person. But at the end of the day, people need to recognize in order for change to happen, everyone has to be a participant. You can't just expect to yell and scream and hopefully someone else makes the change and hopefully someone else fixes the situation.01:03:44And we even go beyond that because we kind of talk about political advocacy and how people should get more involved into politics to kind of frame what they want to get pushed. Now, even if you agree or disagree with racism existing, I guess even if you don't agree with that, even this framework as an individual level for any individual will be helpful because we all know that we all want to stick it to the corporations. We all want to kind of make our voice heard. And the only way you can really do that is if you know how to talk to them in the first place. So I think this is a very powerful message incorporate into people.01:04:33But I guess the devil's advocate not the devil's advocate, but the challenging question for you, Frank, is if people come up to you and say, this doesn't work, this is not going to work, they are all racist. They're not going to listen to me, the super negative Nancy's that exists, and we know they exist, if they come to you and really kind of dismiss the whole idea and try to take the responsibility away from them and just keep on blaming the system, how do you approach these people? How do you kind of explain to them that in order for this to work, you have to be part of the solution?01:05:16The reason I was smiling, actually, it reminded me, was about three years ago, I was on a panel and man in the audience asked me a question. He directed me during the question. He and I have become fast friends. And his question was, can you explain to me why is it we always have to carry the burden? Why is it?01:05:51And I said, you know, you aren't going to like my answer, but here it is. One, the burden is on our back, not on the other guy's back. He doesn't feel the burden, he doesn't understand the burden. So we have a choice. We can keep the burden on our back and have non productive type activities, or we can have the type of activities and dialogues that helps the other guy to help us get the burden offer back.01:06:27And so what I say to people is it's the old Einstein rule, doing the same thing the same way and expecting better results is just crazy. So if you want to continue to just blame everything on the system and not ask yourself is there something that I personally can do to help my situation? If you're not prepared to do that, then what you simply have said is that you have resigned yourself to the present condition. And if you have resigned yourself to that condition, that means you are content, then you should not complain.01:07:17Yeah, I very much agree.01:07:21So my question for Jonathan and Paul, for you guys right here is in terms of the idea of reframing the issue, in terms of the idea to kind of expand or having a way to communicate to any individual that you're kind of opposed to in that circumstance or a person of power in that circumstance. In terms of how Frank kind of described the process of EI, do you guys believe that this is a framework that can not only help in the workplace in terms of discrimination, but even in the points that we've mentioned constantly in terms of political advocacy? Do you think this can be something that anyone can really adhere to and take advantage of?01:08:16So I do in some regards. I think particularly the last part, employee engagement. And I think that is really a key part of it. I have just slight reluctances towards the concept of equity, especially the one that I outlined at the beginning of the podcast, the staggering, the race that ends at the same place. I have no problem whatsoever with obviously assisting people when they need assisted.01:08:53I think that is a virtuous thing to help, as the Bible says, the widow and the orphan because they'll always be with us. And so the other two, Radell and Paul, know that I'm a Christian and so I do believe that there is a responsibility to help people when they need help. So I am sympathetic to that. But I think especially with the concepts of Dei, that sometimes they can be a little bit misguided because of the roots of their cause. But overall, I do think that that would be something that could certainly help people, especially when it comes to these political engagements, because we talk about a lot on this podcast that when people get into these very intense discussions, they typically start to other people immediately and they start to not have that more friendly discussion the more one on one discussions.01:09:45And certainly people very rarely reframe their ideas and think like, how can I think about this in a different way? They certainly don't do that. And so I think that is why that is probably the most key part of that is learning to kind of take yourself out of your own idea and look at things from a different perspective. I think that is a very key thing.01:10:10Could you go ahead and ask a question one more time, Radell, just so I get in like its full picture. So do you believe the framework that Frank kind of elicited in regards to EIIE could not only be something implemented in terms of the discrimination in the workplace, but also other areas such as political advocacy? And do you think that type of framework could kind of better kind of formulate solutions or a better kind of grow a kind of more inclusive sphere of conversation? So basically do you think it would work in other areas? Sure.01:10:51For the workforce, of course I think it would work. But for example, in political activism, I think it would actually really help itself or help political activism quite a bit. My experiences in it is usually something of there's like a prominent old guard that exists that pushes others out and kind of deliberately poisons the well for all that try to partake more and more. I think any sort of mechanism that can be implanted in a political workforce to kind of even out the ODS, to give that wheelbarrow to those that need to move those potatoes, like in the aforementioned example, is something that would be quite incredible for many people, because I've seen so many young people in my life get blatantly turned away from it, some of which were discriminated by their sexuality, the color of their skin, their religion. So yeah, I think it's something that would be very good.01:11:56All right, Jonathan, I do want you to expand on your hesitancy in terms of equity because I feel like this may be something that potentially either Frank can answer or Frank could expand upon in terms of how he would deal with the situation. And I do understand your worry. Obviously you're conservative and the roots of ESG and Dei are progressive, obviously in terms of what BlackRock and all those other kind of corporations kind of feed into, but in terms of specifically equity and how you think it would realistically work out, what is your hesitancy? And I'm sure, Frank, you can answer after it and kind of see if you can kind of solve his or kind of go answer his hesitancy. I guess that's the best way to frame it?01:12:54Respond to yeah, respond to his hesitancy. There you go. So my understanding of it, which could be off, but I also do want to preface with this is it seems, from how I understand Dr. Frank is explaining, it is a little bit different than a lot of more progressive individuals who use it regardless, the dei stuff, a lot of it comes from Marxist roots. And specifically, I believe his name is Paulo Frere kind of highlighted a lot of the concepts that are taught about these ideas anyways.01:13:38But then there's modern people who take it very far to the left, such as Robin DeAngelo and other such individuals. But my hesitancy towards equity is the following and it's highlighted beautifully in a short story written by Kurt Vonnegut in which everybody has become equal in this utopic future. But you quickly find it's not utopic because the way you practically make things equitable is you have to hinder also the people that are more intelligent. So the way they do that is, in this story, they put on headphones, and every time the person begins to think faster than anybody else, they blare loud sounds and wheels spinning or car crashes or explosions going off so that the person is prevented from considering and thinking. And in the same way, the people that are much stronger or more beautiful, they have to wear weighted vests and they have to wear masks so that nobody can be more beautiful than somebody else.01:14:35Neither can anybody be stronger than anybody else, nor can anybody be smarter than anybody else. And it's a very great concept and in theory to be able to have a perfectly equal society. But it's also not possible because we are, in fact, under God equal in value. But I am not equal to my brother, who we obviously raised up in the same house because my brother is much more handsome than I am and he's got a much better beard. I've been, unfortunately, not blessed with Bridell's beautiful beard either.01:15:07He's much stronger than I am as well. But I pull off tweed far better than my brother does. So in that area, I am also better than my brother. And trying to make me and my brother exactly the same person, I think does our individuality a disservice, which is why I appreciate so much the last part of what you said in individual cases do matter. And so that's my hesitancy to terms like equity and to the concept of equity is that the way to practically make it work in real life would do, I think, a greater disservice because I don't want everybody to be the exact same, because it is our experiences that make us who we are and sometimes our experiences.01:15:52And I don't want to demean it at all. I don't want to demean the fact that there is, in fact, racism in the world. And to say otherwise. Is foolishness and I don't want to say that racism is a good thing either. So I want to make sure that I don't say that.01:16:05But not talking in racist terms, just our individualness is important and I think equity undermines that in some regards. But I'm sorry, I'm taking a long time. But in the particular example, when I asked Dr. Frank to define it in the first place, when I asked you to define it, you mentioned particularly that there had the six foot, 2210 pound man and then the five five, which I say is tall because I'm five five. Not really, I'm short, that's fine.01:16:38But this unathletic individual was also they were both given a wheelbarrow, which I think is the important thing because equity, as I think it's often understood and often talked about is equity would also be giving the five five guy the wheelbarrow and then giving the 210 pound man awaited best so that they finish their wheelbarrow race at the same time. And that's the version of equity that I find loathsome. So I'm curious about your thoughts about that and how you would respond to that. Is that the version of equity that you want? I would use your terms that you ended with.01:17:20I would find that version of equity also.01:17:30There's another picture of equity I've seen that's not mine, but I've seen and I really liked for a particular reason. I will tell you, I'll describe it. There are three young kids. One is very tall, one is medium height and one is almost a midget. And they are on the other side of the fence of a ballpark and a game is going on.01:18:05The tallest of them could tiptoe and just barely see what's going on. The other two couldn't.01:18:15Equality is getting a box the same size and giving it to all of them. It helps the taller guy see even better, may even help the mid sized guy begin to see and still may not help the shortest of them. Now, what is the outcome one wants? And this is how, when I saw the picture, I thought about the picture. What's the outcome we want?01:18:49The outcome we want is that for all three of them to be able to see the game. So what if we remove this solid wooden fence and put a chain fence with holes that all three of them could see?01:19:13What I liked about that picture is that about equity is here you removed an obstacle that enabled all three of them to arrive at the outcome without fiddling with the boxes and trying to make them equal, et cetera. Now, someone had to make that decision and someone who had the authority, et cetera. That's why I say the leaders are responsible for equity. So there are times when replacing the wooden solid fence with a chain fence with holes solves the problem. There are times when the wheelbarrow is the one that solves the problem.01:20:09If one focuses on the outcome, I think we are in a better position. And then what you also addressed, and I was glad you addressed that in a personal situation, your brother has certain characteristics that you and probably others in your family consider better than your similar characteristic, but you also have characteristics that are better than his. So when you look at the individual and value that individual for what that individual has and contributes, that individual feels valued and then is motivated and then engaged, and then can accept the differences amongst other people. Yeah.01:21:06A lot of good points were definitely made here. For the most part, I would say that when it comes down to a lot of the systems that take place in America, the only reason why I tend to push back that systems are inherently racist is because of the people out there that just blame the system. And I think for the most part, every time they do that, they blame the system and they think that the system will immediately and automatically put them in a position to fail. That inherently does not give you the motivation to succeed in any way. If you think you're going to fail before you even started and it's not productive, it doesn't really help anything.01:22:02But the way realistically, and I feel like people should know this because at the end of the day, we can't deny that racism was definitely embedded in a lot of these systems in the past. We can't deny slavery happen, we can't deny all these things happen. And to say that they're 100% completely gone in every aspect and every layer of every system just wouldn't be true. So the way you put it here, Frank, in the situation where, yeah, there are systems in place that's trying to fix the diversity issue by putting placement holds, by meeting thresholds, but that inherently isn't solving the issue. Going out on the streets and rioting isn't solving the issue.01:22:49Yelling to your top of your lungs that everything is racist isn't solving the issue. The way we're going to solve these circumstances, the way that we're going to make actual progress, is sure, we can come up with certain policies. Policies can only take you so far. What you're going to have to do is you as an individual are going to have to address it personally. You're going to have to go to your boss, you're going to have to go to the person in charge, address what you believe is wrong and call it out, have the conversation, have the dialogue, change their perspective, because sometimes policy isn't enough.01:23:27And I guess the last thing, that the last question that I want to bring up because it's going to be important, because people are going to ask this, is if I follow the EI framework, I get engaged. I'm in there, I know how to converse. I go to my boss, I try to change his perspective. But what if it doesn't work? What if they don't change their mind?01:23:55What if they really refuse to see what they're doing is not inclusive and it is not equal in terms of equitable opportunity for me versus maybe a white man? What if they completely deny it? What do I do from there? What would your answer to that be? Frank well, in the reframing process, what we try to do is to find a problem, the solution to which would not only benefit the aggrieved person but also benefit their workmates, benefit the unit.01:24:34So the dialogue becomes now here is something that not only prevents me from being motivated and being engaged, but if it were to be changed it would increase the engagement and motivation of others. I think it would be difficult for a manager supervisor to say I have no interest in that. And if they do, then that tells you that it's probably time for you to be looking for a different culture.01:25:19Yeah, that is very interesting. The part about showcasing that it's just not about me, but the system that you're in too can benefit as well from the conversation we are having. And if they just completely deny it, then you won't go anywhere anyway. They're just kind of stubborn at that point. Maybe you can call them out publicly if you really wanted to.01:25:49Maybe you can protest unionize. I guess that's a solution depending on how egregious is the discrimination that is taking place. One thing we do know, and you said some things earlier in reference to this, is that companies that kind of embrace this kind of diverse kind of culture in their workplace tend to do better. They tend to just do better. And obviously, a lot of these companies, at the end of the day, whether you like it or not, the people overseeing them, the ones that are implementing the dei scores, DESG scores, if they see that a culture or a company is not inclusive, they're going to start taking away their investment and that company is going to start dipping.01:26:32So we know that as well. Once. It's. Blatant at that point, after you did everything you could do, and you made it very obvious that this will not only benefit the diversity aspect, the equity aspect, inclusion aspect, me as an individual, but also the workplace, once it's that Blatant and you did everything there, that kind of just shows you where the company is at and what type of culture that they're kind of emanating. I guess, to be fair, like Frank said, that's probably just not an environment you want to be around at the end of the day.01:27:07There is actually in addition in this approach because you're looking at productivity that would also benefit your colleagues in work. They are allies. So discussing that issue with them, you now have allies. So it's not you alone who will be having that dialogue with the manager. There may be little side conversations going on as they also see the benefit of changing this situation, how they would benefit.01:27:48So you begin to recruit allies also.01:27:53All right. Yeah. So I think we kind of covered all the bases here. I think this is a very excellent solution to kind of put in place, especially since we're definitely putting the responsibility in the individual. And that's how you kind of change culture.01:28:10That's how you change culture. Perspective is if every individual takes part and makes an adamant effort to make change in society. So with that said, I'm going to start wrapping up the show, of course. Is there any final words, Frank? Any final words, Jonathan, before we wrap things up?01:28:36Go ahead. Sorry? Go ahead, Jonathan. No, I was saying you go ahead.01:28:43I would just encourage your listeners to take a look at my book addressing Systemic Discrimination by Reframing the Problem. And I'm certainly available to give webinars and workshops, et cetera. All right, definitely check out that information. Of course, this seems like something that will be very beneficial in a lot of different areas in society. Jonathan, did you want to say anything before we wrap it up?01:29:19No, I thought it was a very interesting discussion. All right, excellent, excellent. And of course you could tune in live Thursday. We're going to have another episode, of course, thursday you'll be live on YouTube. Well, I guess by the time this comes out, this will be past Thursday, so it doesn't really matter.01:29:37But Thursday we'll have some episode when this does come out and just show up when we are alive. You can show up on YouTube, check out the channel Purple Political Breakdown. You could show up on Twitch, Kick, Rumble, we're all over. We do clips here and there. They get pretty popular as well.01:29:54So make sure you tune in, show your support, have something to say, leave a review. Five stars. Forgot to shout out a review, but I'll shout out next episode. You all have a good one. Take care.01:30:05And welcome to the Purple political breakdown. I am glad you are here and I'm glad you are listening to today's podcast episode. My mission in each and every one of these episodes is to really focus on the solutions to some of the biggest questions and most controversial topics going on in our current society. I feel like most of these conversations are not truly being discussed in a more logical and respectful manner due to the political toxicity that goes on with both the left and the right, both the Democrats and the Republicans in this podcast. I don't care about any of that.01:30:48I am focused on the solutions. I'm focused on bridging gaps. If you want to join me on this journey, if you want to discuss some of the most important topics, if you are tired of the political toxicity and negativity from both sides. Please support this channel, share the podcast and go to my website, www.purplepoliticalbreakdown.com. I appreciate the support.01:31:15I'll continue to make content and hopefully we can start bridging these gaps and focusing on real issues going on in our world.