Difficult conversations and building more inclusive and diverse organizations – Interview with Jenn Graham of Civic Dinners

August 14, 2020

Today’s interview is with Jenn Graham, Founder and CEO of Civic Dinners, who design and facilitate conversations on key topics that can help organizations build a more inclusive culture with employees, stakeholders, customers and the greater community. Jenn joins me today to talk about Civic Dinners, difficult conversations, what stops organizations having them, what are the benefits when they do tackle difficult subjects like discrimination and inequality, what they are doing to help and what we can learn from them.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – Lessons learned from the move to remote working – Interview with Dean Robison of ServiceNow – and is number 354 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

NOTE: A big thank you goes out to the folks at Amplexor for sponsoring my podcast for the coming month.

Amplexor is preparing to launch a really exciting virtual series called: Ignite Revenue Through Content which will feature leading speakers and thinkers in short, punchy and thought-provoking bi-monthly episodes exploring and highlighting insights and best practices of how to leverage Content as a strategic differentiator.

It’ll run from August through mid-December and kicking it off on August 20th will be yours truly talking about “Unleash(ing) your Inner Punk: a Rebellious Take on Customer Engagement”. I think the session that we have organised will be awesome, it’s a real honour and I’m really looking forward to it.

So, go to Amplexor.com to find out more and register.

Here’s the highlights of my chat with Jenn:

Jenn realised that big conferences weren’t the best way to precipitate change or start conversations. The auditorium space isn’t where change happens.
It’s better to bring people together in more intimate formats that allow them to actually share their perspectives and dive deeper into topics.
It’s more important than ever to talk with and to try and understand different people’s experiences.
Donella Meadows:

“The scarcest resource is not oil, metals, clean air, capital, labour, or technology. It is our willingness to listen to each other and learn from each other and to seek the truth rather than seek to be right.”

Civic Dinners uses technology that allows people to sign up for any civic dinner on any topic that they see available within their regions. They have region specific topics…..everything from climate change to mental health to racial equity. And, people can decide if they want to host their own or if they want to just find one to attend.
A Civic Dinner is a structured conversation and every civic dinner operates the same way where we have three big questions that really walk people through awareness and reflection around a topic. The first question is normally about how you personally connect to this issue, the second is about the societal challenges or barriers to progress that are impeding this issue and the third question is all about empowerment and actions that individuals can take to address this issue.
Every dinner is hosted, there are 4-8 diverse guests, everyone is given equal time to share and only one voice is allowed to speak at any one time.
The thing that Covid-19 has highlighted is the important part that food, camaraderie and the ritual of sharing a meal together plays.
Everybody speaks the language of good food.
During the pandemic they have had to adjust and use platforms like Zoom or Google Hangouts or their own to help to continue to facilitate those conversations between groups of 6-10 people.
Many people find conversations about race and discrimination and injustice difficult.
They have seen a huge uptick in demand for their services recently around a range of topics.
75% of CEOs say diversity is a major priority.
The very definition of having difficult conversations is that stuff will come up and it will be hard to hear. And, you might not like what you hear and you might not necessarily know what to do about it. And, that’s OK. That’s part of the process.
Worked with Coca Cola on an initiative called Labeled last year. It was all about the imposed labels that people are wearing. They wanted to understand which labels hold us down and which give us wings.
This is a missing part of the employee experience.
The number one reason why people leave a company is not because of compensation. That’s actually the fifth or sixth reason. The main reason they leave is because they didn’t feel like their voice matters or they couldn’t bring their whole self to work. Check out the dedicated site at www.dietcoke.com/unlabeled, where you can download the host guide and host your own conversation with others.
Emotional leadership is a key part of becoming a more inclusive organisation.
Empathy is a habit, a behavior and a capability that we have to build in ourselves. But, also we have to build it at an organizational level….an empathetic musculature.
Emotional leadership is needed now more than ever, especially as the world becomes more fragile and less predictable.
Having difficult conversations is at the heart of becoming more empathetic.
Seek to understand first before seeing to be understood.
Sign up for dinner on a topic that interests you: www.civicdinners.com Go ahead….challenge yourself.
Jenn’s Punk CX word: authentic.
Jenn’s Punk CX brand: Brené Brown.

About Jenn

Jenn Graham is the Founder and CEO of Civic Dinners. She is on a mission to design a more inclusive world. Recently named a “2020 World-Changing Woman in Conscious Business” by Conscious Company Media, Jenn Graham is the Founder and CEO of Civic Dinners, bringing diverse voices together over food for conversations that matter. Since starting Civic Dinners as a social experiment in Atlanta, Jenn has built a global team and a digital platform that has enabled over 1,500 dinners around the world, with a goal of inviting a million people to the table by 2021. Jenn was recently named Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “2019 Small Business Person of the Year – Rising Star” and is a Civic Innovation Fellow and Startup Runway Winner. Jenn has a 15-year track record in combining her business and design-thinking background with her personal passion for community engagement to help communities build empathy, raise awareness, understanding, and collective action around critical issues.