Episode 63: A Failed It! Review: Fails in Racial Injustice, Empathy, Authenticity and Creating Safe Spaces
Failed it! Fam, you’re in for a special treat. In today’s episode, we’re sharing some of the highlights of our greatest moments we’ve had on the show thus far. Tune in and listen as we celebrate the fails past and those to come with Erin!
Links from show discussions:
About the Host: Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the failed it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
Episode 63 Transcription
Erin (00:00):
Hey friend, are you a leader who is career-focused, goal-driven and possess a life long learner mentality? Do you dream about achieving your goals and spend hours Googling how tos and gurus cause a side effect of your awesome, might I add, personality include perfectionism, the dreaded imposter syndrome and the ever-present fear of failure? Well, you've landed in the right place. We just became virtual BFFs. I'm Erin Diehl, the founder of the improv training company improve it! And a recovering perfectionist turned failfluencer. Inspired by the improv rule, there are no mistakes, only gifts, this podcast is the creative outlet you need to not only motivate you, but the people that you lead. Through interviews with corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, and even comedians, you'll walk away becoming a more empathetic boss by realizing that failure is a part of the journey and you must fail in order to improve in the scene of life. We all have our own unique guests that we bring to the world, and it is our mistakes that helped you unwrap them. Welcome to failed it!
Erin (01:20):
Hey, failed it! Fam. So today's episode is going to be quite a bit different than your typical episode. I'm going to let you know it's been over one year, 14 months to be exact since we hit play on this bang. So I want to start by saying this. We have had some amazing guests on this show. I'm not sure why I felt the need to say amazing like that, but I did, from leaders in corporate America to comedians, to entrepreneurs who have changed the world one failure at a time. So I wanted to use this episode, episode 63 to highlight some of the greatest moments on this show. To highlight the low lights, if you will, as we celebrate the fails past and the fails to come. So one year ago, I got this idea. I'll never forget it. I was flying back from one of our events with one of our lead facilitators, Sam Martin, and this idea of the podcast failed it! Just came to me on the airplane. I pulled out the note section on my phone. I wrote the show intro. I showed it to Sam really quickly. And he said, yes, yes, that's it. Because the whole way to our event, I had told him, I really want to start a podcast. I don't know what to call it. So this idea of failed it! Came to me on an airplane and the goal was this. We wanted failed it! To take the rule of improv comedy, no mistakes, only gifts, and really normalize this word failure in our day-to-day lives, but especially in the workplace. So to say that we accomplish this goal is in understatement. Okay? So we've talked about failures in entrepreneurship, in allyship and racial injustice in corporate America. We talked about the failures and entertainment and sales and social media in sports, in technology, in healthcare.
Erin (03:43):
And the LGBTQ communities in corporate America and fertility and parenting and traveling and more. We've interviewed people who have climbed Mount Everest, developed severe diseases that have now made them physically disabled or blind, people who have overcome hardships like homelessness and dealing with new disabilities, as well as people who have overcome invisible disabilities, like social anxiety. So we've also heard from people who have spent time in prison and who have used that time to fuel their passion and really lean into their lives work. We have heard from so many amazing guests. So today I wanted to give you a quick highlight reel of a few of these conversations that just flipped the script, flipped the fails if you will, for me on their heads. I'm doing a lot of reflection over here, as well as the team behind the scenes on all of our fails past and present.
Erin (04:54):
So I want to start off today's show with episode 11 of the failed it! Podcast with my dear friend, J'ai Brown. So J'ai is the HR director at hub international and her and I met together working on Chicago's SHRM education committee. And I asked Jay to come on this show right after the tragic murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the height of the social pandemic. So J'ai and I know each other really well. And I said to her right before hitting record, I'm holding your hand, let's talk through this. This is the most important message. And we have a platform to discuss what needs to be discussed in corporate America. So my failed it! Family, I want you to listen in on a snippet of this show on J and I's conversation regarding racial injustice in corporate America. And the fails that we as a nation have had to unlearn when it comes to racial and social justice.
J'ai (06:01):
I think this is key too. We have to recognize that you are learning from ours and our ancestors lived experiences. And so while we're constantly trying to survive them or reflect on ancestors that may not have survived or loved ones that didn't survive in current times, or that have had these different experiences, you're literally learning as we're living those. And I think that that is like, as I, as I've had these different conversations with folks like that is powerful, like I'm literally telling my story or an experience that a family member has had, or a close friend has had, or, you know, what, pick something, right. And these are realities. And so I think, again, it starts with, you know, just reflection seeking to understand the listening and then engaging in conversations, understanding that you may not have the perfect words. And that's not an expectation from, from me and, and many that I know that you have the perfect response, you know, but it's also thinking about as a nation, let's think about the weight of all of this before you ask, what can I do, right?
J'ai (07:43):
Like do your own research, you know, going back to the reflection, take that time to reflect, do some problem solving on your own first, then feel free to come in and check with those of us that, you know, you have that relationship with the, like the same energy that we bring to researching or learning about anything else that we care about. Let's bring that same energy to this. And the last thing I'll say is like above all else, as we're learning, be genuine or do not do it at all, like literally don't do it at all. If you can not be genuine, like as much as silence is a position, I'd rather somebody be silent than being disingenuous. When they come to me to check in on me and they do it the one time and then that's it. Or, you know, we come out of this situation that we're in with the pandemic and we're back in and offices are back, you know, in spaces. And it's no longer a factor for you. It's a factor for me every day. You know, I can't change the scan. I can't change the hair. I have my history living it every single day. I don't have the luxury of coming inside and out of it. And when I know that people are genuine, a supporter and allies, you mentioned earlier that goals as a nation, we really need to consider as we are learning and growing together.
Erin (09:44):
Wow. Super powerful, amazing conversation. And if you didn't listen to J'ai's full episode, episode 11, we're going to link to it in the show notes here. Now I have a, another amazing conversation I want to highlight with my friend Rich Robles, who is the senior director of diversity and inclusion at Novant health, which is a huge health care provider in the Southeast. This episode rocked me to my core, this show was all about exercising, empathy, and truly embracing who you are as a leader, parents and human being, but it's especially valuable and how we show up in the workplace. So here is an excerpt from episode 42 with my friend Rich Robles. If you could tell your daughters any piece of advice that you learned through some of your biggest fails, if you could speak directly to them, what would you say? Oh, hi, I love this question because I am, this is one thing I'm very pressing to learn and embrace who you are and be that I'll explain what I mean by that, because it sounds very cliche.
Rich (11:06):
It's beyond that. So when I left bank of America, I went to work for the center for intentional leadership, as you mentioned, and on my first day, my new boss at the time who became my boss, my executive coach, he introduced me to some people that first day. And he said, by the way, this is rich, please say, hello. He just joined us today. He's from Guatemala. That's all he said. And these were prospective clients. And he didn't say, Hey, by the way, he has a background in restructuring and leadership development, nothing on Wednesday of that same week, I was in the back of the room, taking notes in a large team setting. And he paused and said, by the way, I want to introduce you to rich. He just joined our firm week. Please say hello to rich. He's from Guatemala. I'm like, boy, that's really weird.
Rich (11:59):
He didn't say anything else. He just said that he said it on Friday again. And at that time, I'm like, wait a minute. Why is he saying that? And so I went up to him and I said, Mike, why are you telling people I am from Guatemala? And he just looked me in the eyes and said, because you don't and you need to find out why. And I said, no, I do. I tell him, wait, oh, I guess I don't. Why is that? And so I remember it. Then I had to go back into the times when I got to the United States, I said, teenager watching, you know, being in Guatemala, watching American movies, all I wanted to be was an American teenager and B B all that. And I think I began to turn off some things about me. There are about being from Guatemala to the point that I turned.
Rich (12:55):
I tried to turn everything off without knowing it. And so I tell that story to my daughters because it was not until now later in life. I'm, you know, I talk about it very freely and now I know what it means. I embracing that value, who I am. And I wish I would've done that sooner when I was in my twenties, you know early twenties when I was in college, even you all the way back. So I tell my daughters, you know, know who you are, embrace who you are and just be that because that's what the world really needs. People who can be themselves. And, you know, we, we throw this bus we're around like be vulnerable, be vulnerable means, learn to talk about you, the good and the bad. So this is what I'm exercising today, you know, and talking about failures.
Rich (13:41):
But that I would say that's the biggest lesson that I have learned later in life that I wish I had learned before that I talked to my daughters about very often especially our, our daughters who are 16 and 14, you know, learning about who are they? How did they fit in the social circles that they are in? And who are they? Who do they represent? And they asked me questions about Dan. I, we let Dina girls, or we, you know, my wife is from Michigan, Western side of Michigan. It's a Dutch communities, so to speak and everyone in her family, they're tall and blonde and blue eyes. So are not as don't look anything like me or like her. So they're asking themselves questions about who they are and what did they say? What box did they check when they have to check who they are? And so I talk about them this quite often.
Erin (14:27):
So good, right? That entire episode gave me chills. And I wanted to take this conversation about authenticity, a step further. So I went to one of the greats immediately following Rich's episode, we had the amazing and comparable Ravyn Miller on the show. Now Ravyn is a beloved marketing director at Medtronic, and she has a very strong presence and voice on LinkedIn. I will never forget what she said about embracing failure and how authenticity can lead to success. Listen in, I want to ask you this. Why do you think it's so important? Especially people in leadership roles like yourself to talk about failure with their teams to talk about it, not only with their teams, but with their organizations and people they mentee or mentor, I should say. Why do you think that's so important?
Ravyn (15:25):
Yeah. So that's a good question. Maybe a couple of things I would, I would say to answer it. The first thing is I do think failure is good. I think we have inadvertently made failure like this vial character. And it's actually not because I would say anything that is disruptive in our markets. If we're going to do anything that is new and cutting edge, just by nature of it being new and different means, we don't know what's going to happen. So there's inherent risk that comes with that. Oftentimes there is failure when you make some of those first moves, but you are still falling forward and getting in a place that might be more positive than you were beforehand. And then it allows us to make sure that we aren't going along just with group think or doing things that we always know are going to be this predictable outcome, but it allows us to be more innovative in our thinking and innovative in our action.
Ravyn (16:29):
So in some ways I think we've got to use failure as something that is good. I think the second thing, especially for someone who is a people manager or mentoring people, is we need to tell the real story. We need to tell people the real story about what they are encountering, what they could encounter based on the encounters that we've had, because what it does is one, it makes us human. And it gives people hope that they're not the only one that has gone through things like this. In some ways, I think it makes us more authentic because it also allows us through these failures to give people real examples on how we've been able to bounce back, because oftentimes our mentees are coming to you or teammates are coming to you. They're coming to you because they've been crushed because they've had an experience that they don't think that they can overcome.
Ravyn (17:27):
And we can share our real testimony, not the theoretical, just fail fast. What they trying to hear that we want to hear the truth about what you mean when you say fail fast, what situation were you in, where you could've made a better decision? What situation were you in, where you did not evaluate all of the data? What situation were you in where, you know, you did not show up your best, but you were able to still recover from that, because that is the truth that is going to set people free by doing that. Not only are we setting people up for better success, we also remain humble as leaders and not drinking our own Kool-Aid because what we also don't want to do is have so air here, right? And this leader that has his accomplishments that nobody else can achieve, because that also is not true. Right. If I lose my job today, somebody will replace me tomorrow. I'm very clear about that. So the humility that comes with also admitting your failures, I think keeps our egos in check.
Erin (18:32):
Ravyn is just fantastic. So good. Right? So that was episode 43 of the failed it podcast. And again, we're going to link to all of these in the show notes. So check that full episode out. If you haven't finally friends, I wanted to highlight a recent conversation that I had with my dear friend, Betsy McCann, who is the VP of people operations at, in broker. Now Betsy's Disney metaphor about creating a safe space at work for the LGBTQ community. Well, below your mind, listen in to a piece from our conversation, or right now we're airing this show in June. Okay. Which is pride month. And I know a lot of companies celebrate the LGBTQ community year round, but not all do. So I want to ask this question. Why is it important to create these safe spaces to celebrate the LGBTQ employees that they have all the time? Not just in June?
Betsy (19:40):
Well, Erin, I dunno. I am an about homosexual. I do know, I do know this it's so important to create. I think workplaces are one of those for hundreds of years, our jobs or occupations are like a cultural stronghold, right? It's a, it's a, it's a location of our identity. I think as we've seen in the past, even like 70 years, right? Even if we just go back to the time of the TV show, mad men we see a different type of evolution in the workplace of there is this structure in place that we will not in any way, shape or form deviate from. And we will make this. So everyone has to come here and fit into these existing boxes that have been predetermined historically by, you know, cisgender heterosexual, white males, you know, and like nothing against them.
Betsy (20:40):
They did what they knew how to do. However, as more than just that takes place in the work in the workplace, like you come to the office and maybe you don't fit into that box, right. Maybe you don't fit into that ideal workspace, you know, and I think we've seen this with literally name, any group in the workplace, right? The, the, the struggle of working parents, the struggle of those over 40 veterans, the LGBTQ community, the black community, the Latin X community, the Asian and Pacific Islander community. Do you know? I mean, there, there's been this whole shifting evolution, like intersectionally of, of what it is to bring ourselves to work. And it is a tremendous lift when, you know, if you think about it this way of like, imagine you're one of those characters that work at Disney world. So every day you are Aaron deal and you get up and you do your dance and you put on your face and you do your, put your hair in your spreadsheet and you get your cute shoes on. And then you roll to the happiest place on earth as Disneyworld, and you feel so good about yourself. And then when you get there, you have to put on this weird costume that has overalls on it and a dog head. And then you have to present to everyone that you work with is that you're goofy.
Betsy (21:57):
So it's this act of when you go to work, you have to be someone that you're not. And you know, that is by and large, like a huge part of the experience of being an LGBTQ community as a professional. You know, I think every professional gauges at some point, like when, when do I say, this is me? When do I, you know, what, what happens? Right? Because I think there are even workplace protections, right? Like gay people can still lose their houses. You know, like there are all these things that, that are risky as soon as you say, this is who I am. And so it's a big decision to be able to do that as a person, right. And the psychological safety, especially as a people operations leader that I want to imbue into my company, into the company, my friends, into the spaces where I am present is that there is acceptance for people who may find acceptance in other areas of the world or in other places, you know, that's where workplace is, plays such a role.
Betsy (23:04):
Because I also think, you know, in the nineties we had like the, the very safe, the very sanitized coming out of like Ellen we had will and grace where it was like, oh, you can be a good person, but you have to be a gay person that acts a certain way and fits in a certain mold and doesn't do anything threatening. Whereas like the history of the LGBTQ community, when you think about Stonewall, I mean, it was like drag Queens, throwing bricks at cops, you know, it was like it was trans individuals throwing bricks at cops. It was the trans individuals that were the catalyst for so much of the movement, right. That it able the conversations to start taking place at a much bigger level. Right. And there's no, there's no global history that exists without trans people, without women, without men, that history doesn't exist.
Betsy (24:05):
It's just where, where are the obvious touch points that these people made an impact or were present. Right. And, and we can have this in our workplaces too, in a way that makes our businesses stronger, makes us more open to profit, makes us better community partners. You know, that really just is a win-win for everyone. So I think that's, that's, that's why we need to do it as as an industry, as an industry, as workers, right. As companies creating that matters. Yes, it does. And would that Disney world reference blew my mind because you've got this crunchy on and I into goofy. Okay. Did you feel good? And then you get to the place where you can't feel good because you can't be here. And that's hard.
Erin (24:56):
Woo failed it! Family! So many amazing topics from social injustice to authenticity and creating safe spaces all through the lens of failures failed at fam. It has been an honor to serve you and to host this show with you every week, I want you to stay tuned next week for a very special update and announcement on next week show, we have got something amazing coming your way until next time. My failed it! Fam fail. Yeah. Fail. Yeah.
Erin (25:41):
Friends. Thanks for tuning into failed it. I am so happy. You were along for the ride. If you enjoyed this show, please head on over to iTunes, leave us a five star review and subscribe to the show. So you never miss an episode. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Now, if you're really feeling today's show, please take a screenshot and tag me on Instagram @keepingitrealdiehl and share it to your stories. So we can bring more people to the failed it! Family. I'll see you next week, but I want to leave you with this thought, what will you fail at today and how will that help your future successful self? Think about it. I'm so proud of you and you are totally failing it. See you next