Episode 82 | What Global Research on Empowerment Says Drives Inclusion with Ashley Brundage

Ashley Brundage  00:03

What do all these things have in common? And I realized that 85% of the answers of what is empowerment around the world, we’re all humanistic feelings that were incredibly hard to count, measure and judge and track.

Voiceover  00:03

Welcome to the “Lead at the Top of Your Game” podcast, where we equip you to more effectively lead your seat at any employer, business, or industry in which you choose to play. Each week, we help you sharpen your leadership acumen by cracking open the playbooks of dynamic leaders who are doing big things in their professional endeavors. And now, your host, leadership tactics, and organizational development expert, Karan Ferrell-Rhodes.

Karan Rhodes  00:37

Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the podcast and thanks for joining another episode designed to help you better lead at the top of your game. As you know, for season three each month we’re featuring leaders who have fascinating roles in a particular profession or industry. And today’s episode is part of our special series featuring leaders who focus on fostering inclusive workplaces. And now enjoy the show. Hello, my superstars. This is Karen and we are just absolutely thrilled and excited to have on today’s show with Ashley Brundage, founder and CEO of empowering differences, which is an organization founded on the 10 empowering actions that leverage change for the 10 empowering differences. And I know if you’re like me, I want to know what these 10 plus 10 are. So we’re so thrilled to have her but just a little bit more about her. This whole concept came about during her journey, fighting discrimination, harassment and homelessness early on in her life. And she was able not only to find employment early on after having a tough time doing so, and quickly raised rose through the ranks to become a National Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion and less than five years, which interview and no are part of the corporate world, you know, that is hard to do. So she is a force to be reckoned with. She has captured this process of her learning over these years. And she speaks about and wrote a book on it by the same title empowering differences has an online course. She has a huge global platform. And she was kind enough to spend some time with us today. So welcome to the podcast. Ashley.

Ashley Brundage  02:26

Hi, gosh, thank you so much. I’m thrilled to be here and join you.

Karan Rhodes  02:31

Oh, we’re so thrilled to have you absolutely thrilled. Well, you know, I’m dying to dive deeper in to the 10 empowering actions. And that 10 empowering differences. Because I, I looked a little bit and did some research before, but I’m excited to share it with the audience. But before we go deep on that, we’d love to learn a little bit about you personally, so forth just as much as you feel comfortable. Can you give us a sneak peek into either your personal life or hobbies?

Ashley Brundage  03:01

Yeah, oh my gosh, well, I’m a mom and I have two kids. And they are 17 and 18. And one just is enrolling in college and one has one year left and high school and I have have one employed I have one volunteering service being a mom is one of my greatest highlights that I get to do and shuttling them and, and doing things to support them. However that may seem to see fit for teenagers, which usually revolves around using my car. But yeah, I mean, I just I love my two kids. I mean, literally, they’re the whole reason I’m here in this moment. And I have so much respect for them.

Karan Rhodes  03:44

Oh my gosh, I’m sure keeping up with them as a full time job within itself. Right?

Ashley Brundage  03:49

Yeah, there’s a big work schedule and all the different things that my oldest has. It’s quite a lot.

Karan Rhodes  03:57

Oh, well, congratulations on having two fantastic young adults in the mix and I’m sure you’re a fantastic mom, to them as well. So thank you so much for sharing. Well, let’s go ahead and delve into your platform a bit. But first, I’d love to hear about your personal journey and story.

Ashley Brundage  04:20

Yeah, so yeah, as you said, I overcame harassment discrimination and actually it was the year and a half of homelessness. And that led me to getting a job as a part time bank teller. And, and being a part time bank teller, if anyone’s ever done this job before I actually loved that job, because I got to sit there and count the money all day long and help people put money in their account right take money out. It’s like either one. It’s a it’s a good it’s a good moment because you’re coming there because you either have the money or you have the money. So that was always fun and getting to know people and know why they’re why they’re at the bank and built relationships with them. And I realized that relationship building was a big part of working in the banking industry, I had worked a prior career as an HR point person for a staff of 50 people in a restaurant. And so being a part of that, and then having a stint as an entrepreneur and being in those environments, I realized that empowerment is so important to people, and how we build relationships with people, but also how people leverage resources for not only themselves, but hopefully for other people. And that’s really was the catalyst for me and, and going and doing a global research study about empowerment, and building a whole program surrounding that, which I know we’ll get to in just a second. But working in the banking industry, and really then connecting to my community and volunteering in my community, I ran an economic empowerment program for for diverse suppliers, people who own businesses that could get their business certified as a minority entrepreneur, or disability entrepreneur or an LGBTQ entrepreneur, women entrepreneurs, and they can get their business certified. And I built a program that’s in that vein that connected to city resources for procurement opportunities for people who have who have a company. And so kind of being that Community Catalyst for volunteerism, in connecting community resources, was kind of like my big aha moment and realizing that I can you leverage my past experiences in a way that can actually help people. And then I can advocate for them to create opportunities for them as well, with organizations and corporations, this is really kind of the thing that said, Oh, wow, maybe I’m like, everything that I’m doing is about empowerment people, maybe I should like, take that a step further. And really be active in that and maybe build a leadership development program that lacks the resources. And so that’s kind of what brought me down that pathway, obviously, going from being a part time bank teller, to being the National Vice President of Dei, for a four Oh, 60,000 employees company, in the banking industry, you know that that was a pretty big lift. But it was really, to the community activism, and all of the resources. And the research that I was working on behind the scenes for my own intellectual research, not research that I had to, you know, share with, with a corporation.

Karan Rhodes  07:50

You know, and I really feel what you were searching for at the time, because so many I come across so many individuals that are trying to understand how they can better make an impact, you know, in their communities in their environments. Did you get exposed to that while working at the bank with its volunteer efforts? Or would Did you have some activities outside of the bank that kind of opened your eyes?

Ashley Brundage  08:19

Oh, all the above? Yeah. Because a lot of about, you know, people who come into banks, usually, it’s to open an account, or to start a business, you know, you have to actually show up still, to open a business account, right, in order to, you know, to build relationships that way. So that was one way. And then I ran a chamber of commerce, actually, for five years. And that was really cool, because it gave me the opportunity to really see what everyday business owners are looking for. And, and obviously, empowerment is deeply rooted in that thread of entrepreneurship. So it was, you know, it’s one of those things that connects all of the differences that we have.

Karan Rhodes  09:03

Fascinating, absolutely fascinating. Well, let’s take a pivot. And let’s learn more about your the research that you did and what came out of that. Because these are some fantastic lessons that, you know, our listeners want to know, because everyone who listens to this podcast wants to become an even stronger leader, and they’re looking for insights on how to do so. And let’s feature some of the research. So can you tell us more about that?

Ashley Brundage  09:34

Yeah. So the biggest thing for me and realizing the need to learn more about empowerment was I kept hearing this word being leveraged to talking about entrepreneurship and talking about career development, and everything in between. And I said, Wow, I really wonder what people think empowerment means to them and because what I wanted to know is what did that what is your what do people actually feel empowerment is to them. So if you’re listening right now, take a moment and maybe like, write down or wait till you stop driving, but write down what empowerment means to you. Because I asked 1000 people around the world what empowerment means to them. And I got, of course, 1000 different answers. I got results from 28 different countries and in 70 different languages. And what I found from the results was that I was trying to categorize these results. And as you can imagine, the results of what is empowerment short form answer so that way, there wasn’t a scenario where someone was giving me a run on paragraph because I would never have been able to process all of that information. But this this short, firm answer that I got, that was the most common were things that were relating to humanistic feelings, people would say empowerment was things like confidence and decision making and being the boss. And they would say it was empathy, communication, trust, validation, understanding. I even got some fun answers, like empowerment is a free mom hug. Empowerment is telling someone you love them and saying, Please, and thank you to people. And I said, Wow, okay, wow, this is really interesting. What do all these things have in common? And I realized that 85% of the answers of what is empowerment around the world, we’re all humanistic feelings that were incredibly hard to count, measure and judge and track. And as a society that wonders about how we can drive empowerment for people. I’m sitting here thinking, wow, this is why empowerment is so difficult, because it’s so emotionally driving for people, how do we ever track it? And then I look to the remaining answers, which 50% of the answers were everything about empowerment being something that was measurable and trackable? Those people who respond to the survey, were really emotionally enthralled with the tracking mechanism. And now is the thing that had control over them. So they said in the response that, well, what is empowerment? Oh, well, it’s a billion dollars in my bank account, or a million dollars or $100 million, or whatever it is, people said Money was a common answer. But the most common answer that we found from trackable items were all time related things, more time with my family, double the amount of vacation days is empowerment, to me, being able to not have five days a week, or whatever it was, we heard all different types of examples said about what is empowerment. And this is kind of what started the toe into this research and asking these questions from why empowerment but also why it’s important. And And so that led them down to the path of me asking other questions like, what about you limits your empowerment. And that’s how we landed on what what we’ll talk about in a moment, right as the 10 empowering differences, because people talked a lot about the things that make them different being an issue, but mostly in the sense of, actually 63% of the respondents told it, it was told us it was something I related in response to what is limiting their empowerment. And then 37% of the people told us it was something that was society driven, that might be limiting their ability to be empowered. And then the last question that we asked around our research was stemming around what do you actually do to drive empowerment for people getting at solutions? Because obviously, we could talk about all of the barriers to access that exists, especially for historically marginalized identity groups. But why not talk about the the action driven things that people could do or did to drive empowerment for people, and obviously, themself being included in that word people is important, because if people are disempowered, then they obviously need to be working on self empowerment first, before we ever think about driving empowerment for people. And so those answers then became all of the 10 empowering actions. But we got way more than 10 answers, but we just put all of the learning content from what everyone was talking about was important into each of the categories of the 10 actions. So you have one of these actions we’ll talk about in just a moment. Know that it’s not just doing it as an action. It’s doing it combined with empowerment, that’s why they’re called empowering actions.

Karan Rhodes  14:57

And can you talk today was your research across the US across the globe, what was the makeup of your respondents?

Ashley Brundage  15:05

Yeah, so it was a global research study, we actually had people from 28 countries and actually 17 different languages responding to the 1000 results.

Karan Rhodes  15:14

Oh, That’s right. Okay. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. So tell us about them, the show is yours.

Ashley Brundage  15:22

So basically, obviously, 10 differences in 10 axes is 20 different things. And that’s way too much for anyone ever remember, obviously, I know them. Because I do it every day, and I run the companies. But really, what we try to do is try to make things a little bit simple for people. Because as you all know, listening, you know, there’s a lot going on every day, right, you have deadlines, you have responsibilities, if you’re like me, you have kids, or you have, you know, maybe relationally. Literally, were being pulled in 15 million different directions. So what we did was we took our research, and we actually built it as a four step process, the four steps is the way to guide yourself through how your differences are to be empowering differences, because it could be you, it could be others, right? It has to be a mix. If you only empower yourself, then eventually you’re going to be in a situation where you’re disempowering other people around you, and you have to be very grounded. So that’s why Step one is to know yourself. And so in knowing yourself having been the DI person at a big bank for 60,000 employees, I can tell you, you cannot have di you cannot have leadership development, you cannot have career development or economic empowerment without emotional intelligence. And intelligence is always going to be the step one in every hopefully in every leadership model. But if it’s not, then that’s where we have an issue, right? And we built a 21 question emotional intelligence questionnaire, you heard three of them that was our through a global study that we did. And then there’s obviously 18 Other questions that go with that. If you want to connect with that, you can go right to empowering differences.com. And you can click the Self Assessment tab, and you can download the 21 question assessment for free. And that’s our gift for listening and do that takeaway, because spend the time getting to know yourself? And ask yourself these questions about your empowerment, empowerment of others, how your lived experiences, impact your differences, and how that might be perceived by other people in the world. And obviously, the other people in the world that is step two, so know yourself, no others is step two. And this is of course, where you learn about the differences that we have. And obviously, the 10 differences is the things that we stand our research surrounding. And of course, there are way more than 10 differences that we have as humans, but we were trying to put them all into just 10 categories. And so we chose these 10, specifically from our research based on what was the most common response from that second question. So here they are, without further ado, right. It’s we abilities and attributes together because some people said there was an issue or their hair color or that they might have gray hairs. And then that’s an issue because then they get stereotyped that they’re too old or, or that they look too dumb. Right. So now we’re going to talk about age is the second one, right? All right, and then social economic class was another common answer around disempowerment from society because of things like systemic racism being real, and an acquired wealth being a real issue that some people have to navigate. And general awareness of these concepts really do not go across all of the differences. And so this is why this is so important. And then we have education, we have ethnicity, we have gender, we have language as a top difference. Because we found from our research, if you didn’t speak the language that others people spoke, or it was not your first language was a common answer that you might have been affected. It’d be disempowered by your circumstances, or other people potentially or for yourself for confidence driven. Sometimes people who don’t speak that language, I do business in nine different countries. So oftentimes, I’m learning new words to try to make an attempt. So I respect their culture, which is all about getting to know other people who do that, too. Yeah, yeah. And then the last couple of the differences, of course, is the nitty gritty race of religion and sexuality. And I’ve just given them an alphabetical order so that that way, there’s no preference into any of the 10 different pieces. They’re all equally important and for every person that’s out there. You either have disempowerment, or you have empowerment for all of these 10 differences at each time. And that can change all the time depending on where you are, and what you have access to in the world. So really, all of this stuff matters. And it’s hard, it’s really freaking hard to do that. And to measure this, and to coach across it, but also to try to grow your career or to grow your business. And so this is why step three, is develop your strategy. And obviously, this is where our brands really intersect, obviously, right? Because you have to figure out whether you’re disempowered or empowered for all of your 10 differences, before you can ever really figure out the best way, or the best path forward for you to drive empowerment faster. Um, so we actually our company, we built a proprietary technology that measures how empowered people are live in 90 seconds. Oh, thank you. Yeah, and so the 92nd empowerment measurement platform is kind of like if you’ve ever if you’ve ever done disc, or Strength Finders, I used to teach both of those. When I worked in the banking industry, and I was a you know, as a partner, or proctor for some of the coursework that we would do, and you take a half hour long assessment, you know, probably sometime, so are somewhat right. And you’re like, so frustrated about clicking the radio button, at the end of the day that you’re like, Oh, my God, this was emotionally taxing. Our survey platform actually just has you align a numeric value for your 10 empowering differences that you have as a human. And then that numeric value interacts with our empowerment algorithm, and it produces a result for you. The result then is your empowering differences that you should be focusing on for self empowerment, and your empowering differences that you should be focusing on for empowerment of other people, based on how you answer the survey. And then the last step, the empowering actions, it shows you the 10 that write your top, we didn’t boil it a little bit smaller, your top three actions for self empowerment, and then your top three actions for empowerment of other through of others through those differences. So a real world example of this is me personally.

Karan Rhodes  22:42

Oh, well, your own case study are you?

Ashley Brundage  22:47

I’m a proud out woman of transgender experience, and wow, I interact with people. A lot of times somebody may be thinking, if we’re talking about empowerment or disempowerment, someone may automatically assume that maybe I might be disempowered, especially because I live in Florida, of all places, right?

Karan Rhodes  23:09

There’s some tough rules down there.

Ashley Brundage  23:12

I mean, I happen to have won an award from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. So there is that.

Karan Rhodes  23:20

Oh, that is hilarious,

Ashley Brundage  23:22

But being dissed, but I’m actually not disempowered for my gender difference. As, as a proud woman of transgender experience, I’m actually very empowered for my gender, because I live my life. And I’ve made the decision to continue living my life. And I don’t say that lightly. Because there were other options. And what I decided to do was think, Okay, well, I’ve made enough decisions to to be in this moment to continue living because it’s that serious, that now I’m already I’m extremely empowered for my gender. Now, I know that for my gender, my thought around gender is that who else is a gender minority? And who else can I be driving empowerment through gender, because it’s not about any more about empowering my own gender, I’m empowered in that space. Now, I might be statistically disempowered for things other things, like I have three hidden disabilities, and I’ve had to position my religion three times. So those are ones that I have to work more on myself for. But when it comes to gender, and then it also comes to racial empowerment, I’m in the Empower category, so I need to be empowering others.

Karan Rhodes  24:39

That’s right. That’s right.

Ashley Brundage  24:39

To do that is the actions and that’s why the actions really matter. So I know that I this is a lot just thrown on you

Karan Rhodes  24:47

No. I’m tracking Yeah, I’m definitely tracking. My question is the it seems like building in psychological safety into all of these is key. And so I guess my question is, how do you infuse that when you’re dealing with organizations? Is that a foundational talk or requirement or challenge that you put to them?

Ashley Brundage  25:11

We really focus that why that’s why Step one is to know yourself. And the EQ assessment is given someone hoping that they invest that time for themselves. Now, that’s not always guaranteed, and, and I’ve had employers,

Karan Rhodes  25:27

That’s where I was gonna go with that, yeah, what if that doesn’t work? Because yeah, there’s emotional intelligence, you know, surveys and 360s, and all that out there. And then still, we still have some bad leaders that don’t provide psychological safety.

Ashley Brundage  25:40

So, uh, yeah, so then the next realm of that is learning about the differences and why they actually matter, right. So obviously, our organization also does train about the 10 differences. And when we, we do that in the framework of here, here’s that difference. And here are the top three actions for that difference. So that that way people know what they should be doing to drive empowerment for people for that difference, because I know that if I want to drive social economic class empowerment, then I need to be focusing on making investments, because investments trigger systemic wealth. So that’s going to be the top action, then access is going to be another one for social economic class empowerment. And then mentor is going to be another one of the action. So all of the 10 actions, right have top actions for top differences, depending upon which thing we’re hoping to drive safety for faster.

Karan Rhodes  26:40

Oh. It’s fabulous. Now, I want to encourage our listeners to get to Ashley’s website is I did so I even downloaded the workbook, because I wanted to learn more. And she has them outlined so nicely, they’re easy to understand. And I know this was a lot to kind of run through but it was just too what can be a good as a teaser for you to learn more about them, because how she has set it up is absolutely amazing. And it’s something fantastic that could be it should be brought to any type of organization, I think it definitely will truly make a difference. So I encourage you all at least to check it out. And hopefully reach out to her to gather more information about potentially bringing the program to your organization, she does have I think you have an online course as well for those.

Ashley Brundage  27:35

We have an online course alone, we have an online course. But we also do have an enterprise solution for the survey tool of measuring your empowering differences and getting the individual reporting, because we also do benchmarking for that in relation to dry tracking people’s empowerment score. And that way we can actually get measurement for di programming because I know a lot of people are getting involved in a DI program. And then they’re wondering, like, what is the delta? Or what is the measurement? Or what are you tracking? And we can actually track people’s empowerment for those differences and give a full scale report tool to any of the employee resource groups that you might be a part of that is absolutely fantastic. Yeah,

Karan Rhodes  28:18

Ashley, I blinked and we’re almost out in time, I could talk to you for five hours on this, this is amazing. But before we go, I want to definitely one thing we’d love to do is ask our guests, as you know, wrote a book on leadership execution of high performing leaders. And we always love to ask you like which of the seven tactics really resonated with you and all you seven are equally as important and you use them at different times when you’re leading initiatives. But you were so kind to share that leading with strategic decision making really resonated with you and for my newer listeners out there. I’m leader leading with strategic decision making, it’s just what it sounds like. It’s making great decisions yourself, or leading a great decision making process with others in hopes of achieving, you know, a common or mutual or beneficial goal. So if you don’t mind, Ashley, to share with us why strategic decision making really resonated with you?

Ashley Brundage  29:15

Yeah, I mean, obviously, it was the kind of it was the biggest connection between our brands, strategic decision making, and, and it’s the thing, honestly, this is another call out like but people were going through our learning platform, and they would read the book and take the course and all this stuff. And they spent 40 hours going through all the content that that we’ve curated for people around the empowerment. And okay, well, what’s your focus? Like, what are you focusing on first strategy wise and the people were like, I don’t know if I’m just like, Oh my god. So you’re thinking about that you’re not leading with strategy and being strategic about your decision making that

Karan Rhodes  30:00

Yeah,

Ashley Brundage  30:00

Something’s seriously flawed in this whole process, like, you’re going to miss the lowest hanging fruit or you’re also potentially going to miss the biggest opportunity is going to fly right by you.

Karan Rhodes  30:10

That’s true.

Ashley Brundage  30:10

That’s why this was so important to me. And it’s actually why we built a technology tool to take 40 hours and turn it into 90 seconds for people. Because as humans, we want the quickest, palatable thing that literally takes us to the next thing. Tomorrow. Yesterday,

Karan Rhodes  30:29

Yesterday.

Ashley Brundage  30:31

So, yeah, that, to me is so important.

Karan Rhodes  30:35

That is fantastic. And my final question for you, Miss Ashley, is what does it take for you to lead at the top of your game?

Ashley Brundage  30:43

I think EQ, I think every mission has to start with EQ, like if you haven’t really used a diary, or you know, if you’re that leader, and you haven’t really asked yourself these questions. And And honestly, sometimes I say, I have a lot of conversation with people. And they asked me what’s important, I say, EQ, and then and then when they say, Oh, well, my IQ is delta. And I’m like, Well, okay, that explains a lot.

Karan Rhodes  31:08

That’s the problem, right there.

Ashley Brundage  31:11

There’s a big difference between EQ and IQ.

Karan Rhodes  31:13

Yes, ma’am!

Ashley Brundage  31:16

Oh, boy, wow. Oh, we’re not on the same ship. Yeah. And so yes, start with that moment, out of all the all the equipment that you could find, find a mirror in your house, okay. And if you don’t have one, pull out your nearest cell phone and press the cell to do so. Okay. Yep. And take that moment and really think about what’s important to you, and how, what is what you’re doing in this world might be affecting other people, please.

Karan Rhodes  31:45

Absolutely. That’s the first place to start. Well, Ashley, thank you so much on the bottom of our hearts for the gift of your time, and your insights, we will have your bio, all your links, everything in our show notes, any podcast choice that’s out there that our listeners are listening to. So you all please make sure to check the show notes so that you can go to the website and learn more about this fantastic research and work. But for the show, Ashley, would you we’d love for you to give voice on where do people find?

Ashley Brundage  32:18

Yeah, so you’re gonna go to empoweringdifferences.com. And that’s our website where you find out all of our information. And then if you want to follow me on social media, I’m Ashley T Brundage on all the platforms, because Ashley Brundage was taken. That’s so unfortunate.

Karan Rhodes  32:36

I know. How many Ashley Brundages are there out there?

Ashley Brundage  32:40

Well, I was actually copied on an email to another Ashley Brundage, when I used to work in the banking industry, because we partnered with the organization where that person worked at and it was really fun. But if you if you want to know more about me personally, when I’m up to obviously you can, you can follow me there. And then you can also go to Ashleybrundage.com. And learn about my latest personal adventures, which I’m sure is going to be really fun. And since it is, at some point, probably close to pride month, the just take a note, if you happen to be in the HR space, and you’re attending the Society for Human Resources Management Sherm conference. I’ll be speaking there. So maybe look me up. And I’ll be talking about global leadership development, and how and how to impact people around the world.

Karan Rhodes  33:32

All right, everyone, you got to look her up. And then there are a lot of HR leaders that are that listen to the podcast and subscribe, and we know about their profiles. So definitely make sure you look Ashley up. Well, thanks again, Ashley, for coming on the podcast. We really enjoyed our talk with you.

Ashley Brundage  33:50

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Karan Rhodes  33:52

Absolutely. And listeners. Thank you too, for joining another episode of the elite at the top of your game podcast. We know there are a ton of other podcasts out there. So we do sincerely appreciate your time, be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast and share it with just one friend because by doing so, that helps us to expand our reach to help others also lead at the top of their game. Thanks so much. And see you next week. And that’s our show for today. Thank you for listening to the lead at the top of your game podcast, where we help you lead your seat at any employer, business, or industry in which you choose to play. You can check out the show notes, additional episodes, and bonus resources, and also submit guest recommendations on our website at leadyourgamepodcast.com. You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn by searching for the name Karan Rhodes with Karan being spelled K a r a n. And if you like the show, the greatest gift you can give would be to subscribe and leave a rating on your podcast platform of choice. This podcast has been a production of Shockingly Different Leadership, a global consultancy which helps organizations execute their people, talent development, and organizational effectiveness initiatives on an on-demand, project, or contract basis. Huge thanks to our production and editing team for a job well done. Goodbye for now.