It can be a challenge sometimes to get out of the present moment and take a more bird’s eye view of changes in the workplace through time. How have cultures changed over time, especially in terms of culture, biases, and inclusion? Why is this important for companies to consider, as they plan for the future?

In this big-picture episode, Dr. Michael Baran interviews internationally acclaimed strategist, author, speaker Effenus Henderson. Effenus went from working on a tobacco farm in North Carolina to Chief Diversity Officer for Weyerhaeuser Company and now President and CEO of HenderWorks, Inc. and Co-Founder of the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion.

In this episode, Effenus talks about a wide range of important issues: (a) his journey and experiences with segregation and bias, (b) the economic imperative for organizations to nurture culture, and how they can do that, (c) trust-building leadership in today’s complex world, (d) invisible barriers to success in the workplace, and so much more. He ends by talking about what the workforce may look like in 15 years, when the US becomes a majority minority country and how businesses must adapt with an inclusion lens to that diversity.

Resources mentioned:

Effenus Henderson’s book SPINE

The Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion

Effenus Henderson’s LinkedIn

HenderWorks, Inc.

When you think of being an ally, what comes to mind? Are you thinking that being an ally means being respectful to everyone? Are you thinking about a scenario where someone is being bullied or insulted and you stand up for them or stand with them? While those are both important, they are not enough, if we really want to create cultures of more inclusion and safety for everyone.

In this action-oriented episode, Michael interviews highly acclaimed workplace influencer, speaker, and four-time author, Karen Catlin. Karen went from 25 years building software products and serving as a vice president of engineering at Adobe to now being one of the most widely-known thought leaders on the topic of allyship. In this episode, Karen answers questions that so many people have about allyship. She clarifies how allyship really means taking action and how allyship is essential for building workplaces where everyone thrives. She also shares some examples of ally actions that from her newsletter that goes out to 40,000 people every week, including the example from the title which is related to the common occurrence of men leaving “office housework” to women in workplaces. Along the way, she talks more her journey and her optimism about the ripple effect that ally actions can have for our workplaces and for the world.

Resources mentioned:

• Karen’s TEDx talk on women in tech
• The Wake Up book by Michelle MiJung Kim
• Sign up for Karen’s Newsletter
• More information about Karen’s books

Would you be surprised to learn that over 300,000 Black women were recently pushed out of the US labor force in just three months? Do you know how that impacts all of us? It was Katica Roy’s research that brought this to our national attention, first from her MSNBC byline that broke the story and then from the front-page article about it in the New York Times. In this episode, host Michael Baran asks Katica more about how that is happening and what the implications are for workplaces and for the country more generally.

In addition, Katica discusses a wide range of issues, including (a) how policy is not gender neutral, (b) how we all fund the pay gap through our taxes, (c) how gender equity is not just women’s rights, (d) men, mental health, and the “man box,” (e) how AI has bias, but can also detect and eradicate bias in the workplace in just 10 years, (f) and how she sees equity as a massive economic opportunity.

Resources mentioned:

• Katica Roy’s MSNBC article breaking the new about 300,000 Black women pushed out of US labor force
• New York Times front page that mentions Katica’s research
• Katica Roy articles, from Forbes
• ABC News video with Katica Roy interview
• Katica Roy website

If you’ve been working for at least a few years, especially in the corporate world, you’ve probably done an unconscious bias training. These trainings can be frustrating and ineffective! They fail to really provide deep understanding about bias, and they do not usually provide practical solutions. In this episode, Michael Baran provides that deep understanding with some compelling research studies and with a fascinating account of how biases develop, starting in childhood. He also describes what can be done about these unconscious (or implicit) biases at work, both to reduce our own biases and to mitigate biases with policies and practices.

Have you ever done an unconscious bias training? They can be both incredibly frustrating and entirely ineffective. Why is understanding bias important, and what can we do about it?

In this episode of The Culture Advantage, host Michael Baran explains why he has found unconscious bias trainings frustrating. First, they fail to provide a deep understanding of what bias really is and why we have them. And second, they fail to give practical solutions that can be implemented at work. Michael provides that deep dive into what unconscious bias really is, why we develop biases starting in early childhood, and what we can really do about them.

Michael narrates some of the classic and striking research studies about unconscious bias, focusing first on a study about gender bias in orchestras. When the gender of the candidate was fully blocked by putting a screen on stage, more women were immediately hired, because the interviewers were just listening to the music without the bias getting in the way. In a second example, Michael describes how copies of the exact same resume were sent out to jobs, only with half of them using a stereotypically sounding white name, and half of them using a stereotypically sounding Black name. These studies highlight the striking impact that bias can have on our workplace decisions.

Understanding the impact of bias, what can we do about it? The suggestions that we just try to “make our unconscious biases more conscious” don’t feel helpful because (1) we don’t know what they are, and (2) they are deep seated. Instead, Michael provides some practical tools for how we can reduce our own biases in the long term while also thinking about ways to block the impacts of bias immediately at work. Suggestions include (1) using the Implicit Association Test as a learning tool, (2) diversifying our perspectives and getting to know more about others, (3) introspecting when we commit subtle acts of exclusion, (4) keeping a bias journal, (5) diversifying panels and committees and considering other perspectives when making decisions, (6) baking the bias mitigation into policy and practice, and (7) slowing down the big decisions.

This episode will intrigue everyone and will deepen your understanding of not only bias but also brain development. And then, it will provide practical ways to begin a process of bias reduction, in our own heads, and in our workplaces.

When people are silent about the subtle exclusions that happen in a workplace, the culture suffers. When people speak up but the feedback is ignored or met with defensiveness, the culture also suffers. In this episode, Michael Baran outlines some of the best practice guidelines for having productive conversations about these insidious interactions. He describes how to “call in” rather than “call out” someone when they inadvertently cause exclusion, a skill especially essential for potential allies who can speak up without the same risk as those directly affected. He provides several real-life examples of times that speaking up like this went poorly and times it went well, explaining that there is no simple one-size-fits-all way to do it but that we can all build these important skills.

When someone says something that makes you feel bad, how do you speak up? When you see something that might make someone else feel bad, how do you say something as a potential ally? When you get feedback about how you made someone feel bad, how can you respond in a productive way?
In this episode of The Culture Advantage, host Michael Baran provides some best practice guidelines that organizations can use to create a speak up culture, where we can have challenging conversations that are productive, where resentments don’t build up, and where trust is built.

Michael begins with a real example that happened to him, when a CEO committed a subtle act of exclusion in front of 70 global leaders. Michael was on stage at the time, speaking to the group at their annual retreat. What should he say in this situation? How should he say something in a “calling-in” way rather than a “calling-out” way?

There is no one-size-fits-all way to do it. Nonetheless, Michael provides best-practice guidelines for speaking up in a productive way, either as the person experiencing the subtle act of exclusion or the person witnessing it and speaking up as a potential ally. He describes (1) pausing the action, even when we don’t know what to say, (2) assuming good intent, if the intent was actually good, (3) exploring the situation together rather than creating an adversarial interaction, and (4) explaining the impact, or the feelings involved.

Does this always go well? No, it doesn’t, and Michael describes a time when we followed all these guidelines and it did not go well. Where these interactions usually fall apart is in the way that the person getting the feedback responds.
Because of that, Michael gives critical best practice guidelines for responding to feedback like this: (1) getting in the mindset of gratitude, (2) understanding the impact rather than defending intentions, (3) using the opportunity to learn and grow, and (4) following up with the person. Michael revisits the opening story, describing how that CEO responded well to Michael’s feedback. As the 70 leaders saw how he responded, they learned a powerful lesson about culture at this organization, and they learned how they could respond to feedback like this as well.

This episode provides practical conversation skills that can be useful in situations like this or in any challenging conversation. It will be useful for people at all levels in an organization, and can also be used outside of the workplace to build trust and deepen connection with anyone.

The people bringing down the culture of your organization are not necessarily the ones you think they are. In this episode, Michael Baran describes the insidious way that all of us, even with the best intentions, can cause our co-workers to feel exclusion in our attempts to bond, to help, to be funny, or even to give a compliment. Michael and his book’s co-author name this concept “subtle acts of exclusion,” and in this episode he describes why they coined this term to reframe “microaggressions.” He build a deep understanding of what these interactions are, why they are such a problem, how they impact people, and what kind of culture would support addressing them directly.

Sometimes the most damage to an organization’s culture can come not from those explicitly trying to cause harm, but from those who are trying to be the nicest. How is that possible? What harm does that cause? And what can an organization do about it?

In this episode of The Culture Advantage, host Michael Baran provides some deep understanding about something that happens quite frequently in our places of work. People may be trying to connect, to bond, to ask a question, to be funny, or even to compliment someone else. And yet that effort may land with the opposite effect; it may cause hurt, pain, exclusion or stress. Often this happens across lines of difference, whether that’s race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, religion, age, or anything else.

For 50 years, people have sometimes called interactions “microaggressions.” Michael explains just how often these are happening to some people in our workplaces and what the impact of them might be, on people and on organizations.

The term, microaggressions, however, can get in the way of us truly making progress around bringing people together to build more understanding and trust. People react defensively when they hear the “aggression” part of it, as if their intention was to be aggressive, which it usually was not. Others react to the “micro” part of the word, feeling slighted or uninterested because they understand micro to mean small or unimportant. Because of that, Michael, along with his co-author, Dr. Tiffany Jana, coined a new way to talk about these interactions. They call them Subtle Acts of Exclusion, in their work and in their book by the same name.

Using this more straightforward term, they bring people together to be able to have productive discussions when someone makes another feel excluded. People are able to speak up without encountering the same defensiveness. Colleagues can learn about one another and act in more inclusive ways.
This reframing of the concept is only part of the story. Organizations need to develop a speak up culture, where we understand we’re going to make mistakes, but we can build more trust together when we are able to speak up and to be heard. No matter where you sit in an organization, this episode will help you think about inclusive action and the culture that is needed to support all people. Michael provides some practical strategies and promises to provide lots more in an episode coming soon.

It’s been over a week since Charlie Kirk was killed, and it’s still weighing on people, though in very different ways. In this episode, Michael Baran explains how organizations can’t ignore important events like this. He gives practical strategies for leaders, for managers, and for everyone to acknowledge realities, align on values, and connect human to human.

The killing of Charlie Kirk is weighing heavily on many people. Is that something that can be discussed at work? How should leaders handle events like this in their organizations?

While many people are feeling deep emotions about the killing, it is happening in very different ways. Some are grieving because he was an inspiration to them and a voice for many of their beliefs. Others are devastated that people are unconditionally celebrating a man who they saw as espousing beliefs and actions that were directly aimed to dehumanize them or people like them.

In this episode of The Culture Advantage, host Michael Baran dives into the challenges of this current moment, for people and for organizations. The strong emotions don’t disappear when we go to work. They carry over, affecting our engagement, our creativity, our mental health, and our collaborations with others. Leaders wonder, “should I do anything about this? And if so, what?”

Michael draws from both his social science background and his practical experience working with organizations to give some basic, foundational guidelines for navigating these challenges. He first explains that silence from leaders might have worked in the past, but these days authentic and humble communication is essential.

Michael also explains how helpful it can be for organizations to embark on a journey of reconceptualizing and recommitting to the organization’s values. These values can provide a framework and a guide for handling novel situations if they are thoroughly communicated to everyone.

A key strategy for ensuring that tensions and conflicts are addressed is to make sure that managers are thoroughly trained to be inclusive leaders, to be able to handle challenging situations in the moment with authenticity and vulnerability. He also highlights research on false polarization and deep canvassing, showing that we are not as divided as we think and that we can learn and grow and connect more than we realize.

The conversation is both professional and deeply human, offering guidance for any workplace striving to build a culture of connection, resilience, and inclusion in turbulent times. Whether you’re a CEO, manager, or employee, this episode will help you think about how to foster trust, lower stress, and strengthen community even when the world outside feels divided and scary.

DEI isn’t magic, it’s real work. And it’s worth it. In this episode, Michael Baran unpacks what DEI work actually does and how it can make a difference. Along the way, he provides some actionable tips leaders can use right away to create more trust and inclusion.

DEI work is mistakenly thought to be only about quotas or the most extreme examples of “wokeness.” What is the work really? And how can it help organizations?

In this episode of The Culture Advantage, Michael Baran elaborates on different kinds of work that organizations do that falls under the umbrella of DEI. He breaks down some of the most common categories of that work and provides concrete examples for each.

Michael unpacks the work that it takes to assess where an organization might need to improve and where they are already doing well. He explains how surveys, focus groups, and interviews can help answer common leader questions and often provide surprising answers. He gives concrete examples of biases and habits that can get in the way of hiring practices, for example, and some common pitfalls to watch out for.

He'll also explain how DEI work has designed products and services to accommodate for disabilities, but in the process make work and life better for everyone. He also talks about how intentional DEI thought could have avoided some well-known PR disasters, such as the Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial. DEI work could have saved a lot of time and money by ensuring a more diverse team in all stages of planning for that ad.

Finally, Michael shares about some of the work that DEI trainings can do. They may help leaders who don’t know how to lead a diverse team; they may help leaders who act more like bosses than leaders, delegating and thinking they have all the answers; they may help all employees build trust, have hard conversations, and work better together; and they might help individuals get the devoted attention they need to grow through coaching.

If you’ve been wondering what the day to day work of DEI really is, beyond the stereotypes, this episode will lay it all out, and it will help you see how this work is essential for thriving organizations, no matter what you call it.