MaryAnne Howland, storyteller, entrepreneur and social change agent, talks about the game-changing work that she is doing for justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. MaryAnne and Marc talk about the power of belonging and mindful listening and about the importance of dreaming.

 

 

ABOUT MARC’S GUEST

MaryAnne Howland is the founder and CEO of Ibis Communications, a branding marketing solutions firm in Nashville, Tennessee. The success of her business has been recognized by the Clinton administration and she has attended several summits at the White House. In 2012, she launched the Global Diversity Leadership Exchange, a forum to facilitate dialogue on diversity, sustainability, and inclusion, which has held annual summits at the New York Stock Exchange and the United Nations.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Marc Lesser: Welcome to Zen Bones: Ancient Wisdom For Modern Times. This is Marc Lesser. Why Zen Bones. Our world is in crisis and ever-shifting, and now more than ever, more wisdom, clarity, and courage our essential, especially in the world of work, business, and leadership. In my conversation with MaryAnne Howland storyteller and social change agent, we talk about the work that she’s doing, that she uses the acronym, JEDI Justice, Equity, Dignity, and Inclusion. We talk about belonging, we talk about listening, and we talk about the power of dreaming.

I hope you’ll enjoy the episode and conversation as much as I did.

[music]

I’m really happy today to be here with MaryAnne Howland, who describes herself as a storyteller for social change, a facilitator for open dialogue as a way of elevating human value. I love also that she does culturally-inclusive communication that helps to build bridges, spark relationships, encourage collaboration, and inspires transformative change that will improve lives and well-being for all of us. She says, my mission is to be that change, and most of all, I want to welcome MaryAnne as my friend, my buddy.

We’ve done some really fun things in the past together, including, facilitating some social venture network sessions and some diversity sessions. MaryAnne has brought me in to do some work in Tennessee with some wonderful groups, culturally diverse groups of business people. Welcome, MaryAnne. It’s lovely to see you.

[00:01:55] MaryAnne Howland: Thank you, Marc. It’s lovely to see you too. Yes, I cherish the memories of us working together at Social Venture Network and then so much respect for the work that you do on a day-to-day basis. I know that so many people need to have this moment in their lives to just breathe and think and replenish. I’m looking forward to this conversation, and I really thank you for reaching out to invite me to be part of your journey here.

[00:02:23] Marc: Yes. This Zen Bones: Ancient Wisdom For Modern Times. To me, Zen is a placeholder for what it means to be human. People use the word Zen as chill or cool, but I’m afraid often as a protection for not feeling the pains and challenges and difficulties of the world. To me, Zen is anything but that. In fact, it’s how to find joy and effectiveness in the middle of this world. I love the work that you do. You were just telling me about your JEDI work, the Justice, Equity, Dignity, and Inclusion.

You were talking a little bit about using the D is often translated or used as diversity, but you use it as dignity. I feel like, in the work that I’ve seen you do, you bring such grace and dignity into everything that you do, that you really do embody. I love your aspiration to embody this work. How’s it going? What’s happening? I know you, in addition to your public relations company, you also launched a company making products. How’s that all going?

[00:03:36] MaryAnne: Okay, let’s see. One question at a time. Let me first talk a little bit about JEDI and the work that I’ve been doing. I’ve been at this now for more than a couple of decades. I’ve watched this work evolve when we first began working with Ibis Communications, which is a branding and marketing solutions firm. By the way, we’re not really PR. PR is a discipline that fits under the umbrella, but our focus is really around branding. What that means is really connecting to your target audiences, whoever they may be.

The work began, it was first just called Diversity, and then it was Diversity and Inclusion, and then it was Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Throughout the years, a couple of things were happening, one is I wasn’t satisfied with the progress we were making. As I said, I’ve been doing it for more than two decades. I know lots of people have been doing it for longer and yet, look where we are. What was missing is the component, the centers around policy.

Policy is what leads to development of justice or implementing justice inside, whether it’s a company or an organization where you’re really carefully examining what are the systemic issues within your organization that need to be addressed. I call it a corporate colonic, where take a look at everything, every layer of your business, every silo of your business, through the lens of what is it equitable? Is it just? That has led to this work that I now call JEDI. I replace the word diversity with dignity because being a language expert, as I’ve mentioned before, use improperly.

I’ll get clients who come to me and say, “We need diverse candidates,” but that makes no sense. There’s no such thing as a diverse person, not in the way that they’re tended. Diversity inclusion is a process. Diversity is a result. How do you achieve the result that you’re looking for? It’s through how you treat people. It’s through fairness, it’s through belonging, developing that sense of cultural belonging within your organization. How do you get there, by treating people with dignity.

Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion to me, are the four tools that are necessary for helping to achieve this goal where we are all equal. Given equal opportunity, and a chance to really begin to– rather injustices in a system that create the systemic issues and problems that we have today. That’s what JEDI work is for me today. It often comes in the form of facilitation and consulting. One of the things when you were asking me about where I’m at today in Zen, what is Zen?

When I begin a conversation, there are three terms to educate my audience about that I use common or woven through any conversation that we’re having. One is Ubuntu, and Ubuntu is Yoruba for “I am because we are”, which is about our human responsibility to one another. I believe if there’s any reason why we’re here on earth, why all these people, why it exists the way it is, because we’re supposed to be here for each other. I can think of no other reason than why we are here, but if I’m in community, I’m here for you.

Then another term is Takiwatanga, which is in the Maori language in New Zealand is the word for autism, but it actual meaning is “in my time and space”. I think that’s so beautiful because, at the end of the day, everyone is different. Everybody communicates different, and everybody needs to be allowed to be able to participate. I practice Takiwatanga, and I will claim, okay, I’m on the spectrum. I think all of us are. If at any point when you’re in conversation with someone or doing whatever you’re doing, aren’t there times when you stop listening to somebody speaking to you because you’re so busy wanting to just jump in and say what you got to say?

You’re cutting somebody off. You’re not really listening, you’re not really present. That’s on the spectrum. That’s how they define autism as a social disorder. Then the other term that I like is wabi-sabi. That’s Japanese for embrace the imperfect. Oh my gosh, so if we could just understand that no one’s perfect, especially when we think of ourselves as individuals because I think that we often time stress ourselves out because we because we’re flawed and because we’re always questioning our decisions and our choices. To understand that we’re going to make mistakes.

We are not perfect. We need to embrace the imperfect, not only in ourselves but in others. Those three things are would guide me every single day in how I approach my work. How I stay in my Zen mode if you will, is to just calm down and embrace the imperfect in my time and space. I’m just here for everybody else. We are here for each other.

[00:08:57] Marc: Before you mentioned Ubuntu and Takiwatanga and Wabi-sabi, I heard you use the word belonging. I’ve been really noticing in the work that I do, whether it’s with executives or groups, that it’s not easy people, a lot of people, whether it’s people of all shapes, colors, backgrounds, the sense of profoundly belonging is, I think so key. I sometimes think of it as a developing one’s, maybe inner security, so that even if you feel you don’t belong, you still belong. That you realize everyone to some degree struggles with this.

That you’re not alone with this wanting to belong. I like to think of these that you just named and I think you do as practices. How do we practice, how do we embody these? How do we take these ideas that we can all say yes to and incorporate them, embody them, live them. Again, I think you’re such a great embody of this work that you both aspire to, but you actually are doing it in the work that you do.

[00:10:15] MaryAnne: Belonging. I have mixed emotions about this terminology. This new, it gets in the zeitgeist and everybody’s using it and it’s on corporate spreadsheets and they’re trying to measure. How do you measure belonging? On one end, because it gets so used, what I’m fearful of is that just as in diversity, equity, inclusion, that terminology and how it’s been used really almost as a PR tool. It’s like it looks good on paper and everybody’s committed to it. Belonging it’s– how do you even measure that?

That’s a very human experience. There’s no accountability in that. When I look at it inside an organization and they start talking about belonging, I often wonder, are you using that to replace addressing real issues, centered around justice? That’s the one thing. Now, in the way that you’re speaking about it though, Marc, which is very beautiful, I think that belonging is how I practice it, if you will is by first and foremost listening. I think listening is so key I think to being human and developing empathy.

Empathy is more important to me that you are taking the time to understand or hear or learn, what someone else’s perspective might be. Or lived experience might be if we could do that instead of prejudging and coming to the table with our own personal convictions and thought, just stop. That’s the practice to Takiwatanga, in my time and space and allow the other person to take their time. Don’t cut them off, let them finish. I think if we do those things, that’s when you start to feel like you belong.

If I can go sit in a room, and people are listening to what I’m sharing, and allowing it to sink in and then responding appropriately, however that might be. Whether you agree or disagree, but at least you listened. That’s where I belong.

[00:12:20] Marc: It’s interesting. As I was just listening to you, I was recalling a company retreat that I was facilitating and I was tuning into the quality of people’s listening around the room. It’s interesting. Again, the language is so imperfect, but I was recognizing that the more each person felt a sense of their own– Again, I don’t know whether you call it belonging or security or confidence or empathy. That it was just so interesting seeing how some people were really able to listen and open and other people just really struggled.

Really, they hadn’t done enough of what I think of as the inner work to really be present enough to let go of their own story, their own fear and be really present.

[00:13:17] MaryAnne: That’s the work, isn’t it? That’s the work allowing– Again, this is where Takiwatanga, in my time and space, everybody’s not at the same pace. Everybody has a different point of entry into a conversation or an experience, everybody. What I used to have anxiety around what you’re talking about because you felt like it wasn’t successful unless everybody was engaged. It wasn’t successful and if we didn’t feel like everybody had an equal contribution, all of those things.

I’ve learned that’s never going to happen. The goal in any conversation is there will be people who will walk out of their changed. I’ll never forget at the session where you came and visited us in Nashville, Tennessee at our Global Diversity Leadership Exchange for the new Nashville. Thank you so much again for doing a wonderful job there. I’ll never forget when afterward one gentleman came up to me and he said, “This changed my life.” That day that we spent together had that sort of impact. I was astounded because this was a white male, mid-’40s who had never been in a room like this before.

For me, that whole day of all the time we had spent together, all the investment, it was worth that one person, coming to me and saying this really made that kind of impact on his life.

[00:14:49] Marc: Do you have a sense of what changed for him? What was he saying underneath just that something changed? What was it?

[00:14:56] MaryAnne: I think it opened his eyes to the idea that lots of different people have a lot to contribute and that you just have to be open to listening to other people, share their different ideas and approaches. Given his experiences has just never been in an environment, where there was so much cross-cultural intercultural connectedness. I think he really just loved that. I’ve spoken to him since and he still talks about that day. We’ve not had extensive conversations to know how he’s applied that to his life and you’re reminding me of that.

I’m thinking I need to reach out to him and perhaps go– Maybe you should bring him on your show. Wouldn’t that be interesting?

[00:15:42] Marc: Yes, for sure.

[00:15:44] MaryAnne: Talk about that impact.

[00:15:46] Marc: There’s something I thought that you’re a real expertise in creating safe spaces, but part of it is how do we create a body and mind that allows us to really listen and that people can feel it. Our culture so much seems to emphasize what I think of– I think of as two core skills of communication and leadership especially is advocating and listening. We seem to be really good at advocating. Stating our point of view. Harder to let go of our point of view and listen and be willing to change our point of view is what I was maybe hearing you say from persons’ experience.

[00:16:35] MaryAnne: You’re absolutely right. Creating safe spaces, what to say about that? Oftentimes, I have been met with people seek it. The folks who call and want to bring me in usually comes from wanting to have the conversation. As I mentioned, when I come in and we begin open with– Well, one of the things I do is I open with introducing themselves, but introducing themselves in a non-traditional way. Typically, when we get started in a conversation, it’ll be, “I’m Marc Lesser and I’m president and CEO of XYZ Company.”

This is how people introduce themselves by what they do. I ask people to introduce themselves by who they are. If I’m introducing myself in the, who am I? I’m MaryAnne and I’m the fourth child of Homer and June and who are born in Cleveland, Ohio. I’ve got three brothers and a sister and so, I introduce it in a way where people understand, get some context around where I’m from, what I believe in, and forego the what I do to make money is who I am as a person.

Then I always end it with, “I’m a writer and I’m a global citizen,” so that people understand that when I’m coming to this conversation, what perspective I might be bringing? What kind of lived experience I might be bringing? When everybody goes around the room and introduces themselves that way and they get to talk a little bit about themselves, they show up different. You can be a bit more authentic. You can be more honest. It’s fascinating and I’ve gotten such a incredible response.

Everything from tears it’s imagining when people for the first time get to actually talk about who they are and their family and what their ancestry is. There’s so much dignity to begin to say, I’m from the Lakota tribe. There’s a pride in that. Then you show up authentically because you can be you. I have found that has been very powerful. I think we’re in a time, especially given the division in our country and the lack of understanding and the fear, because I think a lot of this is based on fear of a changing demographic.

Bottom line. That’s what’s happening and a lot of people are just really challenged by that. If we start to talk about who we are and where we come from, what starts to also be revealed is how much we really have in common. I think I came to who I am also because I’m a traveler. I’m an adventurer. I’ve been to maybe 50 countries and what I’ve been able to see and experience, one, I don’t care where you are in the world, people are really the same. Everybody, their first concern is their family, their community.

They just want food on their table, a roof over their head, all the same things that we all want. That’s the first thing. When you recognize that’s the humanity, then I think it allowed me to be more open and willing to explore the vitality and the vibrancy and the offerings of people who are having wildly different experiences than I have. Taking that in to enjoy the wonder of it all, to enjoy the miracle of it all. That’s my joy is I love people. I love the human experience.

I love that people are finding ways to– I’m always interested in learning. How are people dealing with their lives, and overcoming their challenges, and what are their joys? That’s food for me. It also makes me feel more confident in my own choices. It allows me more room to make mistakes. It just helps me understand vulnerabilities. All those things that are really human by– It’s the human interaction. I was listening yesterday. I think it was yesterday or maybe it was of somebody else’s Twitter feed or something, but they were blogging about– I think the topic was walkable communities.

The premise around walkable communities was creating communities where we have more human interaction because we now live in a world where we are trending towards isolationism because of technology. Where the richness of living is the human connection, and we’re losing that. How it’s really important that we begin planners who are planning cities, we need to create what he’s calling– I think he called him as third– What do you call it? Third communities? Where they are centers where people can come together.

He talked about how Starbucks has become that and I’m like, “Really? Starbucks?” We’ve gotten away from the opportunities for us to connect as humans and that’s dangerous, isn’t it? That’s where you get the loneliness and the depression because we need each other. Ubuntu, I am because we are.

[00:21:59] Marc: There is an article this week in the New York Times that I think got quite a bit of traction called, Do Not Bring Your ‘Whole Self’ to Work. I get it. It’s like one can make such an argument. Yes, don’t bring your whole se– Whatever that might mean, but there is something what you were saying earlier about how you create a space by having people show up not just as their roles, but as more their full experience. There is something about designing places where we can connect with each other, whether it’s a Starbucks or in our communities.

I was remembering. I lived for many years in a secluded Zen monastery where there was a community of 60 people in a very small narrow valley. Where you came back to your cabin and just have that regular daily interaction. Somehow there is something very special and very intimate just about seeing a person getting up, leaving, and walking to the meditation hall and on the way back. Those are still some of my closest relationships from people who I interacted with in that way. One of the things that I’m trying to design is how to have water cooler meetings on Zoom during Zoom.

How to get people to not just disappear during breaks, but to put people in a room randomly and find yourself with another person that you can just hang out with in between the agenda. That’s still missing for me and I think for a lot of people in this electronic world. There’s a need for it more in all parts of our communities. It’s so much I think such a core part of these three practices that you raise that I think are beautiful.

[00:23:55] MaryAnne: I’m with you. Zoom especially in the moment when we needed it most because we all had to go into hibernation, and it allowed us the opportunity to stay connected and have conversations like we have in the day. If not for this and us being able to connect from across the country today, I don’t know when I– I’d have to wait until the next time I saw you. There’s that value, but like everything, there needs to be a balance. I think that when we talk about folks going back to work, for example, and I’ve got a couple clients who are dealing with this, which everybody’s– The hybrid model.

A lot of people have been able to find so many advantages to, of course, working from home which are obvious, no commuting, spending time with your family. As we’re talking about, there’s that human interaction that I think is also what we need, and this is the conversations I’m having with my corporate classes, is that you can provide that. Think about that. If you have a space where you can bring people in, and maybe it’s not for eight or nine hours in a day because that was the traditional model. Even if it’s just for half a day but bring people together because we need that.

What do you do with that when people come together? How do you use that? Maybe it’s not– If people are finding ways to work effectively at home, they still– I’ve had one of my clients do a study within in 150 countries and all that were affected by the pandemic, and the productivity level went up overall throughout their company by 3%. Okay, so you don’t want to disrupt that. When you’re bringing them into the office, what are you doing? We’re talking about using that environment to create experiences or to enrich people’s lives in a different kind of way.

Whether they’re organizations like arts organizations that were struggling because they need butts in seats to sell tickets and do show their work. Is there a way to perhaps bring them inside a company’s offices where you– In other words, you take it to them and then create that convening at your office space that’s been sitting vacant anyway. It’s an opportunity to increase morale, to address that need for staying connected, the human connection within your workforce which is necessary. I think that we’re going to have to find a way to balance.

I just think it’s really important that we have to try to maintain that. I think that what has been successful as I’ve seen is the return of some conferences, forms, and events because people are starved for getting back out and being in the same room. To be able to look somebody in their eyes, and give a hug when somebody needs it now. I think that’s just an important aspect of life now, so it’s important to keep this balance.

[00:26:46] Marc: Yes. MaryAnne, I want to thank you for your– The JEDI work that you’re doing. The justice, equity, dignity, inclusion, and the deep– this ongoing work of really listening. We use that word as a throw-away word listening, but I think it’s to really listen again and again. Part of it I think is to notice when we’re not listening, be willing to feel that, “There I am,” it’s ongoing work of belonging, not belonging, being comfortable, not being comfortable, and connecting. Lovely, just lovely special to get this opportunity to connect with you today.

[00:27:25] MaryAnne: Any time I have an opportunity to spend sometime with Marc Lesser is just an absolute gift. You mirror. Just as you’re describing what you get from me, I get from you. One of the things that I– It’s also a practice for the listening part because you’re right. It’s very hard to keep– It takes vigilance. You have to really like zone into just listening. One of the other things, in the practice of the work, after a person shares or talks, I insist that there is a 20-second pause before you respond because that way some things are happening, right?

If you know that you’re going to pause, it allows a little bit more time for what someone just shared with you to seep in and sit there. Then that way you’re not automatically just trying to react or interrupt, and because I think the interrupting part, that’s very damaging. Interruption. Oh, my gosh. That’s just a killer. If someone’s talking and you just interrupt them or switch subjects like just abrasively. That’s a killer. You’ve just slammed the door, so it’s really important to not interrupt. Let somebody finish in my time and space, my Takiwatanga. Takiwatanga.

Let somebody just finish what they got to say. Pause, breathe, and then respond.

[00:29:01] Marc: Is there anything else you would like to say? Anything else you would like to bring to this moment?

[00:29:06] MaryAnne: I think that there’s one thing that I’ve been luminating on that I’m starting to try to weave into the conversation is the idea of dreaming. Listening to the news, and all of the things that are going on. We constantly hear this propaganda around American dream. After listening to that over and over again, I said, “What if we just took the word American from it, and just said dream? I want to dream my own dream, and I want everybody to have the opportunity to just take– Stop trying to nationalize it, or live, or work towards or strive towards something that it’s already–

It’s been very defined what that’s suppose to be. Remove that. Just dream. I’d like to challenge everyone, or not even challenge. Just invite everyone to just, what is your dream? What are you doing to work towards that dream or not even work? Just live in that dream. That’s better. See, I’m creating it as we talk. How do we live in that dream?

[00:30:12] Marc: Yes. I say an old– this comes from fifth-century or sixth-century China. This zen guy named Zhuang Zhou I think he was a Daoist actually, who famously said, “Am I Zhuang Zhou dreaming I’m a butterfly? Or am I a butterfly dreaming that I’m Zhuang Zhou?”

[00:30:32] MaryAnne: Oh, I love that.

[00:30:34] Marc: There’s something about dreaming as this dreaming in a way of, that the world is not what it seems. I think is one of the ways, when am I awake or am I dreaming? Am I dreaming? Am I awake? In a grounded way and also in a like opening up to all possibilities. Thank you so much. I’m just touched and I feel like, I hope this is part one of many parts of our conversation.

[00:31:00] MaryAnne: I hope so. I love it. Thank you so much.

[00:31:05] Marc: Thank you.

[00:31:05] MaryAnne: Thank you.

[00:31:10] Marc: Listen in each week for interviews, teachings, and guided meditations. You’ll receive supportive tools for creating more meaningful work and mindfulness practices to develop yourself, to influence your organization, and to help change the world. Thank you for listening.

[00:31:35] [END OF AUDIO]