Many of us strongly identify as supporters of equality, diversity and inclusion. Yet Dolly Chugh’s research suggests that by holding on to this identity too tightly, we may not live up to our own expectations.
Dolly is the author of the book, The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias, suggests An award-winning Professor of Social Psychology at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Dolly encourages us to aim for “good-ish” over good, that is, to view ourselves as works-in-progress, so that we can stay open to making mistakes and learning from them.
Through stories of ordinary people doing just that, Dolly gives us the mindset, the language, and the actions we can take to become the people we want to be.
In this interview we talk about:
- Why wanting to be seen as good people makes it harder for us to become better people
- The connection between seeing ourselves as “good-ish” and holding a growth mindset
- How learning from our mistakes involves listening more deeply and asking more questions
- What our social media contacts can reveal about how diverse and inclusive our networks actually are
- How our biases limit what we notice and what we process
- How the concept of headwinds and tailwinds can help us understand systemic bias
- Uncoupling diversity from inclusion
- How diversity focuses on numbers while inclusion asks whether those numbers count
- How small, inclusive acts add up
- How opportunities initiated by people in power can transform headwinds into tailwinds
- The 20/60/20 rule for deciding when and how to engage as an ally
- Why an audience of undecided listeners may be the reason to engage with people resistant to issues of diversity and inclusion
- How personal, humanizing stories of diversity and inclusion often change minds more effectively than cold, hard facts
Links to Episode Topics
Carol Dweck and fixed vs growth mindset
Perrin Chiles and Adaptive Studios
Story of revival of Project Greenlight in 2014
Blindspot by Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald
Debby Irving and headwinds and tailwinds
African Americans and the G.I. Bill
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