In this month's episode, co-chair for the B Local Québec chapter Julie Savaria shares her journey on helping organizations develop more equitable and inclusive practices.
How can you prepare your workplace to welcome people from different walks of life?
"The inclusion factor is a behaviour. It is the way that you make people feel when they get within the workplace."
In this month's episode, co-chair for the B Local Québec chapter Julie Savaria shares her journey on helping organizations develop more equitable and more inclusive practices. We also talk about her mission to help the next generation be mindful and and inclusive.
Co-chair for the B Local Québec chapter and Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion designer Julie Savaria can show you the way.
Discover Bindia Savaria Consulting and JEDI Kids
To contact Peter on LinkedIn from KarmaDharma Creative Marketing Agency
To contact Jeremy on LinkedIn from DeepNet IT Consulting
If you want to be featured on the show, or you know someone who should, feel free to contact us podcast@karmadharma.ca
Intro: Welcome to The Awakened Organization. [Music playing]
Jeremy Stayton: Welcome to The Awakened Organization. I am Jeremy.
Peter Georgariou: And I’m not Jeremy I’m Peter.
Jeremy Stayton: And that’s Peter. Today we have the honour to meet with another genuinely awesome business owner Julie Savaria who is a JEDI designer. And she does really interesting work with other organizations in helping to create more inclusive and equitable and just organization.
Peter Georgariou: Yeah and what I really loved about this interview is how she meets people where they’re at on their equity and diversity journey which is not always the case. So it’s nice to see someone willing to help people at every stage of their journey to make better businesses, make a better impact with the businesses that they’re running; so definitely tune in. She is a bundle of energy and an infectious giggle.
Swish sound
Peter Georgariou : Former Montréaler as well now in Ottawa but 20 years of my life in Montréal.
Julie Savaria: So you just basically became less cool [laughs].
Peter Georgariou: Way less cool. Like moving – it’s funny you say that, moving to Ottawa – my wife’s from Montréal and we got transferred here and first of all it took her five years to not tell me every weekend that she wanted to go back to Montréal. And then secondly I kept telling her, I was like “There’s something wrong, I was way funnier in Montréal because I would go see clients here and I’d be doing my presentations and you get to Ottawa “OK they’re not laughing there’s something very strange.”” I’d be dropping my joke – I’d a have a presentation, I would say OK yeah I’ll get right back to that presentation now because either, you know – I need to adapt my sense of humour. So yes my coolness factor is dropping like a rock. If you ask my 15 and 12 year it has never existed but yes it is definitely sinking. Ottawa is not helping.
Julie Savaria: It’s all good. I mean I grew up in Ottawa. I came here for work in, my god when, jeeze it’s been a long time, like 2008. But born and raised in Ottawa, well in [unintelligible 00:02:26], I’m going to be precise.
Peter Georgariou: Yes.
Julie Savaria: But my dad’s family is from Montréal so Montréal is like home too, but it’s OK I understand. I go back to Ottawa from time to time so it’s all good.
Peter Georgariou: It’s funny living on the border of – I feel this is my whole life and we will get onto you in a two seconds but –
Julie Savaria: No problem.
Peter Georgariou: – I’m born in the U.S. and I moved to Canada to Montréal when I was nine and half and how coming here to Ottawa and Gatineau you’re on this border of – literally across the river. So I live on the Québec side, a 10 minute drive. And you have this fully francophone culture and this fully Anglophone culture that meet at this body of water and intermix somewhat cohesively, somewhat not, and have just – it’s… c’est deux mondes, it’s two different worlds, right, and it’s just fascinating to watch how many people in Ontario had never crossed the bridge because it’s like – the dark continent of Canada. Ooh I’m not going into the French part. It’s just fascinating. Sorry a little digression on Canada here Jeremy.
Jeremy Stayton: I’m in British Columbia. I mean I am in Canada although it’s –
Peter Georgariou: Yes.
Jeremy Stayton: – the Canadian field –
Peter Georgariou: He’s a convert. You’re a convert now that you’re north of the border.
Jeremy Stayton: – in Victoria. Yeah. Now I look across the water at Washington and we don’t go there.
Peter Georgariou: [Laughs]
Julie Savaria: No we don’t go there [laughs].
Jeremy Stayton: No. Anyway we’d love to start with just a check-in, just a high and a low from your week like what’s up in your life, where are you at, where are you arriving today, and we [kind of 00:04:01] do that and just maybe get a little more present with what’s bringing us – you know what’s behind us in this conversation and what we’re arriving with, so yeah so anybody can start of I’m happy to lead.
Julie Savaria: Please go ahead.
Peter Georgariou: Go for it dude.
Jeremy Stayton: Alright, alright. So am I mentioned before Jeremy and for me a high and a low from this week, so a low – I was sick yesterday out of nowhere. I have two small children and so weird foreign illnesses is my two year old, two and a half year old just kind of like picks her butt and smells it all the time and is just a dirty little human and hilarious. And I always worry, I’m like, “You’re going to hand, foot and mouth, stop doing that!” and so I have some mystery illness but I recovered fairly quick. And then the high for me is that my grandparents are visiting with my parents and so we’ve got four generations in the house, and they’re staying with us and it’s just great. My grandparents are tripping out on seeing my parents be grandparents [laughs] and seeing their grandkid, me, parent.
Peter Georgariou: That’s awesome dude.
Jeremy Stayton: It’s just a special thing and it’s probably their list visit here. They live – or they’re moving into a retirement home in the east coasts of the U.S. so it would be a pretty far trek for them after this; so cherishing the moments this week.
Peter Georgariou: Awesome Julie you’re up.
Julie Savaria: Well first I was very excited, I love podcasts. I can consume podcast audiobooks at a very tarrying rate [laughs] so I’m excited for that. I think it’s just the overall energy. Last week I felt like everybody just had low energy, like everybody. And I feel like I carried that with me so I didn’t start with the week full of energy, and in my line of work it’s important to have good energy so I made sure to clear up some of my schedule later in the week. I’m about to do that. I’m an entrepreneur so I’m my own boss so I said, you know what, this meeting is going to be bounced in three weeks [laughs]. No just kidding.
I just said OK here’s my calendar link rebook it to your own convenience. So that was just a bit of that so I was like OK I really want some space. A high for me was to bring my kids hiking yesterday with a group from Montréal that’s called Hike MTL and they were founded by a black woman, Montréaler, who created the space for people of colour to experience the outdoors.
Peter Georgariou: Nice.
Julie Savaria: So we did – in the past we did cross-country skiing, ice climbing which was amazing, and yesterday we did an introduction to hiking for young kids. So my kids are four and two and a half, so Jeremy I feel you [laughs]. And it was really interesting to see my little city kids, really they’re city kids, into the wild in the forest and really enjoying it. And I love nature so I that’s going to be something that we will keep doing. Yeah that a high.
Peter Georgariou: I just finished a book last week called Losing Eden and it was all about –
Julie Savaria: I saw it, yes OK.
Peter Georgariou: Did you see?
Julie Savaria: I did not read it but I saw it at my favourite bookstore [laughs].
Peter Georgariou: OK so I listened to it on audible. I thought it was fantastic. A little is like – you know if I summarised the book and save you some time, if you go outdoors it’s good for your health; that’s the entire book. But just the impact interesting enough about your group of – the impact on middle – mental health of inner city kids who have little to no access to green space, difficult to get to, and then they just had study after study after study from the forest baths in Japan to people with autism to various mental illness just getting out. Some of them it was just putting their hands in the dirt, had this ongoing positive – they didn’t even have to garden they just had to go out and put their hands in the dirt.
And she compared this stark comparison of inmates in confinement, solitary confinement with one hour a day of outside time because it’s mandate get more outdoor time than a lot of children in North America because they just don’t go outdoors and it start to blow with your mind. So I’m psyched you’re getting to the outdoors. It’s worth gold. I love being out there; it’s so good. And do listen to the book; it’s fun, great stories. Sorry a small digression. My high and low a little bit like yours Jeremy, my wife’s mom was in town. It’s a high and a low, she has Parkinson’s and onset dementia but her spirit is still there and I’m so happy my wife gets that extra time with her and gets to take care of her.
She’s cute as a button, and that the girls can still see their Nanny and hang out. It is simultaneously I guess a low because you’re watching someone that was so vibrant slowly decline but she does it with such beauty and grace that it’s a pleasure to watch. My low, it’s actually kind of a constructive low. I think over time you see your lows are learning opportunities as there’s a lot of transition here at the office from a new person arriving to someone leaving to someone taking a pause and just reshuffling the cards. All for the best for everybody but I realize the drain on the system to be holding the overall energy for everybody else. And so be cognisant of resourcing myself through that transition and not holding all that weight on my own shoulders; so a bit of a low but a constructive one.
Jeremy Stayton: Awesome.
Julie Savaria: OK can I just say something that Peter seems to be full of digressions [laughs].
Peter Georgariou: You’re not allowed to say that, we’re going to cut that. No I’m kidding, I’m kidding, we’re going to have the full version of this.
Julie Savaria: [Laughs].
Peter Georgariou: Now you get to digress away for the next hour though Julie so it’s all you.
Jeremy Stayton: [Laughs].
Peter Georgariou: I’m all over the place, I apologize. I’m chatty at the end of the day. I don’t know what’s happening; unruly energy.
Julie Savaria: It is all good. It was just a funny thing, I was like ooh let’s digress, let’s digress [laughs].
Peter Georgariou: So now we’re going to hand the mic over to you. We’ve got a bunch of questions, I don’t know how much time we’ll have to get through this and we definitely want to be respectful of your time. A lot of Jeremy and my thoughts around getting into this was just wanting to interview very selfishly amazing people doing great work, so you are on that list. I feel very privileged to be here. But there’s this combination of the work you’re doing out in the world with your personal journey there that, you know, leaders can’t be any better than their level of awareness. So maybe if we started off where there is any one moment or series of moments which led you into this work because you did do a small transition from biochemistry to equity and diversion work, so it’s like slightly different? But yeah any moment or sequence that brought you to doing the work you’re doing today?
Julie Savaria: Oh do you have 24 hours? I’m just kidding.
Jeremy Stayton: We have time, we have time.
Julie Savaria: [Laughs] So there has been a series of events that did lead to the different I guess [unintelligible 00:11:40] that I took in my life. So I’ve been always very fascinated by health, right, so from a young age I thought I was going to be a veterinarian, actually a veterinarian for horses. That was very specific because my sport is not soccer or basketball or volleyball for me it’s horseback riding. So I was you know what? I’m going to be a veterinarian for horses, that’s what I’m going to do; it was a very specific. One thing led to another and I thought you know what? Humans are kind of cool too, let me see if I cannot get into med school, and this is where I got into really the biochemistry and the Masters in molecular biology. Life happened that I did not get into med school and for the longest time I was trying to think about what I should be doing instead.
And I’ll always remember that was probably one of my first turning moments in my life is that my mom told me, you know, “Why do you want to do what you are doing?” And I was like, “well I want to be a doctor because I want to help people. I love people too but I just find like health fascinating, and I also want to have money and a good social kind of mixed status”; very honest about it. And she actually made me write it down and she asked me point blank, “Do you need to be a doctor to achieve all of these goals?” and I was like oh maybe not. So I went into clinical research at Sainte-Justine’s first and then Children’s before it was merged with the Glen here in Montréal.
And I thoroughly enjoyed my time but then after about five years I really wanted to get to the next level of the job hierarchy and after talking with a few people I had two choices, it was either to work at the same position for 10 years or to go have an MBA/PMP or to do an MHA which is a Masters in Health Administration, so it’s an MBA but with a health focus. I decided to do an MBA at McGill and this is where the second shift happened. I discovered the beautiful world of social impact. I had no idea that it was a field. Growing up I had the great privilege to travel all over the world. As my father’s a retired diplomat for the Government of Canada so we lived in different West African countries, so I lived the life of an ambassador kid which was absolutely great. I wish I could do the same for my kids.
But even that for me was just international cooperation. I had no idea that there was a field in impact, social impact. So that led me to just pursue social entrepreneurship a little bit more, to look into all of these models that do have a positive impact in the world. And I guess this is where B Corp came into my world, right; because I was like oh there is such a thing as making money and being a good person, well sign me up.
Jeremy Stayton: Crazy.
Julie Savaria: Right, crazy concept [laughs]. So this is how I started to slowly dive, right, to more inclusion, diversity and then into the – I’m fully immersed now into my JEDI concept. So JEDI concept, so JEDI is for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion; and when I introduce myself I say that I am a JEDI designer. It makes people smile, laugh, they’re intrigued, but then I say “Hey I can be that little, you know, Jedi fighting, fighting injustices and inequities in the world with my light sabre. Boom, that’s it, sold [laughs]. In all seriousness this is really how I started to shift a little bit more. And if I had to take a third I guess turning point is when my mom passed away about 10 years ago because she – before she passed away she – like she passed away from cancer so she did have some time to talk, like to talk to us or to give us life lessons a little bit more.
And one of the things that she always talked about was how to, to try to go more with your gut and not with what society wants you to be and wants you to do. A little backstory here is that my mom came from a matriarchal society in a little village in Senegal so everything was passed down from mothers to daughters, right, so very different from here. And that’s stayed with me so that’s why I decided, you know what? I love the world of social impact but I like the JEDI world even better; so this is when I completely dove in. It doesn’t mean I won’t get back into health because there are a lot of inequities in health [laughs], a lot, a lot, a lot of it. They need me or people like me. But I still really still science and health so who knows; maybe soon enough I’ll bridge those two together again.
Jeremy Stayton: That was great, a great origin story. I’m curious about – so a number of twists and turns, and it sounds like some, you know, maybe faded and, you know, some necessary lessons to help get you on that path that you’re on. Out of curiosity did you find the embracing of what was essentially, you know, a lesser known field to be something that was – that you were scared of at all or nervous about in terms of being able to make money in it and being able to, you know, achieve status where, you know, this is like very kind of popular and trendy now but not maybe a few years ago and still, you know, very on the edge, the cutting edge. But can you tell a little bit about kind of that, stepping into the unknown?
Julie Savaria: Oh my god, yes. I think that was my father’s biggest fear, you know, him being a retired diplomat, having worked at, well CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency which now merged with Foreign Affairs which is now Global Affairs. It was probably his biggest fear, right, like this unknown. And if you would have asked me five years ago if I would have had like been an entrepreneur I would have said, “Are you out of your mind? Absolutely not, I’m an excellent employee, that’s what I am.”
Jeremy Stayton: A lot more risk.
Julie Savaria: [Laughs] Right. And I think becoming a mom really opened up my eyes a little bit more as to what I was able to do.
Peter Georgariou: That’s funny, you might think the opposite would happen Julie, you’d want to take on less risk when you become a mom, look at you go.
Julie Savaria: Right [laughs], I’m like see look at me. No I’m kidding. But what happened was that I was actually working out of B Corp then, and this is where I had started to really see what diversity and inclusion meant because I was really looking at local engagement of volunteers and foreign programs coming in and just the condescended and the white saviorism that was happening there, and the blatant racism sometimes from some people that you would think should not be racist if they’re going to a country in Africa, right. Life happens. And from there I just started to realize, I’m like you know what? I want to have the flexibility of the work that I’m doing now at this B Corp but with my own conviction and being aligned. For me being aligned was even more important than anything.
And I had my daughter first and my son second and I just took the opportunity to just say you know what? Let me tend to my own backyard, my Canadian backyard, because I was often in South Africa, and I love South Africa but we also have a lot of problems in Canada. So I was like OK you know what? Let us focus, let me focus in Canada. And this happened actually in 2019, so I gave birth to my son in October and I was like you know what? I’m going to have a little maternity leave and then I had something lined up with a friend. I had a boutique consulting firm that was doing a lot of change management. And then what happened in 2020? COVID happened. So my son is a COVID baby-ish.
But it also threw a wrench into what I was supposed to do because then my friend could not hire me anymore, the world was upside down. But what did not die though was racism because in the previous year the murder of George Floyd. And even before that we had Armand Avery, we had Breonna Taylor, and it was just a lot of accumulation for me that I wanted to take a stronger stance. And especially when we are in Canada where people say, you know, “Oh Canadians they’re so nice, you know, look at them so adorable” and I’m like have you looked at the cultural genocide of indigenous people?
Jeremy Stayton: Yeah Google residential schools.
Julie Savaria: Right. So I was like wink-wink not exactly. And I think when you take all of this combined and it just – I just made a decision; I was like you know what? I see a need, let me try it. And it just happened that the universe loved me very, very much in 2020 and I had a first client. I didn’t even have an organization, I didn’t have a company email, I didn’t have anything; so I just scrambled to start my organization and it’s literally my mother’s maiden name Bindia and my last name Savaria Consulting. It was the easiest thing for me to find. I went right in and started just going like this and like just discovering that people really wanted to do something but just did not know how to do it.
So I was able to dive right in and everything went extremely well; so this is how I know that I’m in the right direction. If I’m aligned things happened. So this is also a good gauge for me to know if I am being true to myself or if I am answering due to a scarcity mindset or due to the pressure of someone else or of the world in general.
Jeremy Stayton: The flow state when things just start lining up, I love it.
Peter Georgariou: Yeah the universe is conspiring for your success there Julie.
Julie Savaria: You just need to be clear –
Peter Georgariou: Sorry to disappoint you.
Julie Savaria: You just need to be clear about what you want.
Peter Georgariou: A hundred percent.
Julie Savaria: That’s it [laughs].
Peter Georgariou: Maybe can you tell us a little bit about it, tell the audience a bit about what Bindia Savaria does as well as JEDI Kids, because you’ve got both going on, for us adults in the room or mostly adults or pretending to be adults and the kids.
Julie Savaria: [Laughs] Pretending to be adults, I love that. Aren’t we all kids at heart, we all have an inner child –
Peter Georgariou: We are, we are.
Julie Savaria: There you go.
Peter Georgariou: Having kids brings that out for me big time.
Jeremy Stayton: A hundred percent.
Julie Savaria: Kids are our best teachers because they can be a mirror to ourselves. We can be extremely frustrating especially when they’re young and they don’t know what they want and the emotions take over. But I still love being a mom [laughs].
Peter Georgariou: And that never happens to adults, don’t worry, we always are in control of our emotions, it’s good.
Julie Savaria: Oh of course, of course. But we can talk about this because this is an actual workshop that I do [laughs], how do deal with your emotions. I do it in collaboration with someone. So yes but
Peter Georgariou: Can I send my two and a half year old [laughs]?
Julie Savaria: [Laughs] Right, like my two and a half would actually benefit greatly from this too. So Bindia Savaria Consulting is a boutique consulting firm, even though I don’t like to say consulting firm to be honest, I love to say design. That’s why I intentionally say that I’m a JEDI designer because I find that consulting is so restrictive because that’s what consultants do, they come in they see –
Peter Georgariou: How so?
Julie Savaria: The come in they see a challenge and they apply frameworks, right, frameworks that have been proven to work. And then they will give you recommendations that not all clients will implement but hey you know what they come in to fix a problem. I know I seem to be giving a bad rep to consultants. That’s not it at all. It’s just that for the field that I’m in frameworks don’t work, it just does not work. You have to have a sort of fluidity that I find that design, specifically design thinking which is a way of solving problems that put the problem in the middle of it. And for me designed thinking should be taught at every school because it really teaches you to look at things for what they are instead of thinking that you know the answer and to solve it for what you think they should be solved for. So it’s just a shift of perspective that is crucial in my opinion.
So Bindia Savaria Consulting is a design, a boutique design firm I should say that helps organizations and individuals to develop more equitable and more inclusive practices. And we do so through training programs, through consulting/strategic design/strategic planning but always within the realm of the JEDI concepts. And I also do coaching. I’m an integral development certified coach so I mix that methodology with the JEDI concepts and that allows me to just help people to really embody the change that they want to see and that they want to be. So this is really my, I guess my corporate more business even though I do have B Corps and Foundation and non-profit as clients but my baby, my passion project is JEDI Kids.
JEDI Kids is a platform where I share a lot of resources for anybody who wants to raise the next generation of JEDI kids; and I define JEDI kids and being children who are inclusive and just consciously aware of differences, consciously aware of each other, consciously aware of our planet as well. And it started off when George Floyd was murdered, all of my white mom friends came to me saying, “Oh what I can read to diversify my bookshelf, what can my kids watch?” for example. And I just started compiling this list and I had it in my notes and I just kept copy and pasting it to all the messages. So at some point I was like you know what? I’m just going to create an Instagram account and I’m just going to share because it’s fun and why not. And then I created the website and then on the website I have the resource page.
And I divide it also by age groups because there is a book for everything for kids, like you think they are not but there is a book for everything, pronouns, gender identity, sexual orientation, racism, discrimination, body image, even consent. There was a beautiful one that I bought lately on religion, right, how to talk about interfaith, interfaith topics I guess with your children. And it is a real passion of mine. It drives my husband crazy because I have so many children’s books lying around because I audit them, I research them. I like to have books; it’s just a little guilty pleasure of mine. I don’t buy books or bags, I love athleisure for that. Me I buy books. Don’t let me go into a Chapters or a small bookstore by myself I will spend hundreds, guaranteed.
But it’s also – my kids are good test subjects so I see with them if they like the books. So that’s JEDI Kids really; and we, well I say we but I am really working on developing it a little bit so offering workshops for parents as to what you can do to be a JEDI parent. What you can do for your children to have a good solid foundation as well not matter their ethnocultural background. So there’s quite a bit in the works for JEDI Kids as well.
Peter Georgariou: As two resident middle-aged white guys as allies in training trying to get this right, I say that with a big grin, because this is not an easy subject matter, there is a lot of unpack, there’s a lot of conditioning to undo, a lot of things to be learned and to see a new – what would you say is the biggest difference between your JEDI work with adults versus with kids?
Julie Savaria: Adults have a lot of unlearn, to relearn. Kids are like blank slates somehow
Peter Georgariou: Yeah that’s cool.
Julie Savaria: Some sort, right. And because kids are not born inherently discriminatory they just imitate what’s around them. They are the best spies in the world; they observe everything that we do, all the time, right. And it can be a really, really tiny little thing that you would not think about but it could be like, you know, you flinching a little bit seeing a man with a turban coming into the place where you are, like restaurant. Or you just saying a comment about, you know, like about they should be grateful or don’t stare or little – it can be like – that was pretty obvious but it can be very subtle, you know, a mom locking the doors, a white mom locking the doors when she sees a black man crossing the street, right. So there’s all of those little things that children will observe and just internalize.
They will say OK locking the doors, see black man, black man means bad, danger, mommy’s scared then I’m scared, right. So there’s a whole slew of reaction that comes just through these little observations that we as parents and adults we don’t realize. We don’t realize the power that we have on the next generation. So that’s why one of the biggest advice that I give to parents specifically is to learn how to be a JEDI model first; like you have to unpack you first then after you can try to see how you can teach your kid because kids are so malleable in that sense, like they will – if you tell them enough or if you show them the way. You are their trusted guardian, their trusted parent so they will believe you. So this is, I think this is the biggest difference, yeah.
Peter Georgariou: I feel you just described my childhood and now thinking back on even some of my own conditioning it’s like a very sad and humbling thing all at the same time. I’m glad we’re here to do the work today but it’s still sickening a little bit.
Jeremy Stayton: I have a question kind of from a practical business standpoint of hiring. So I run a company that’s in like the tech, IT space. And IT is dominated shockingly by white men so is it fair for us to hire as many people of colour and women so that there’s less for our competitors to have and they get less exposure and opportunity to learn from diverse and inclusive workforce? So is it fair for me to hoard [laughs] or for any company to hoard more than is maybe representative in the industry at large? I’m just curious your thought around that.
Julie Savaria: I think that’s the first time that someone ever asked me that question [laughs]. Well my first answer is that you would not be able to hoard all the resources because there are quite a lot of people out there. What is important is more – you know it’s easy to recruit. It’s easy, it’s not that hard, right, like – well even though right now with the great resignation people are like, “Oh I doubt – I would actually challenge you on that Julie.” But at the heart of it hiring is not hard, it’s keeping the people. The retention, that’s what’s hard. And this is where you touch on the inclusion piece, the equity piece, because these – the inclusion factor is, it is a behaviour. It is the way that you make people feel when they get within like the workplace. It’s how you make them feel when they are in close proximity with you. This is the inclusion factor.
Now if an individual, let’s say a black person, a black man let’s say, looks at your company and sees no people of colour whatsoever maybe he will prefer to go to the competitor because then he feels like maybe I have a chance there versus this place where I might be microaggressed every day. It’s not really a numbers game but it’s more of a behaviour game. It’s more of being able to recognize when we need to change the way that we behave with each other and how that translates into our organizational structure. Like when we think about diversity and inclusion people always say, “Oh diversity and inclusion” but I always try to say, “Actually when you think about the order it should be inclusion first then diversity then equity then justice;” but I mean it’s not a cool acronym so IDEJ so I just flipped it around, JEDI [laughs], it’s better. It’s better for me.
But in all honesty people should focus less on diversity and on diversifying their workforce but more on making sure and putting a mirror in front of themselves and see am I actually an inclusive workplace for everyone. And when I say everyone it’s not just people of colour, right, it’s people with disability, people with age, you know, different age disparities, different religion, different socioeconomical mobility or status, right. There are so many different facets of diversity that we don’t think. So how can you prepare your workplace to be able to welcome people from, all of these people from different walks of life knowing that there will be intersectionality between those different dimensions as well so how are you preparing yourself for that as well, right. So there’s a whole lot of things to learn to unlearn and to relearn again; but yeah so it’s an easy task but people just focus on the easiest thing but that is also the wrong thing to focus on first.
Jeremy Stayton: I appreciate you covering the wide range of diversity. I feel like ageism slips under the radar quite often and many other things. A lot of people just focus on, you know, ethnic background and that is one of the many dimensions of diversity and even like diversity of thought like for, you know a tech or an IT company, you know some conservative thinkers. It would be valuable to get some diversity of thought; so interesting. Yeah thanks for sharing that.
Julie Savaria: My pleasure.
Peter Georgariou: On your home page Julie in these big, big bold letters it talks about a human conversation and I have two questions on that. One is probably easier than the other but so first of all what does that mean for you? And then secondly maybe the more complex one and we do have a little bit of time but why does dialogue seem so difficult to have today? Because it’s killing me to – I think we’ve lost our humanity and be able to differ and learn from each other. Certainly don’t turn on the news, that’s for sure. But – so what do you mean by a human conversation and maybe how do we get back to dialogue that’s constructive and empathetic and compassionate?
Julie Savaria: Oh I’m like OK cracking my knuckles to have this conversation.
Jeremy Stayton: Getting ready for this one you’re like –
Julie Savaria: Getting ready. I think one of the main things that I try to tell people when we talk about diversity, equity and inclusion, justice, JEDI concept, however you want to put it is that we forget the importance of words, right. We just throw them around to put sentences together to communicate with each other. But often time we forget about the emotional meaning behind some words, the weight that it can carry as well especially from some groups versus the others. So this is why I like to remind people – you know a simple exercise would be to think about a time when you felt excluded. All right, you have that, now imagine that like, I don’t know, let’s say it’s going to be like 40% of your workforce feels this way because of what you just experienced is the opposite of inclusion. So now you’re tying an emotion to the word so that the person really remembers what it actually means. And emotions are really strong carriers.
Jeremy Stayton: Anchors.
Julie Savaria: Like they’re engines for change really, right. When you think about emotions, emotions are being, almost being seeing as being something bad, right. When you think about our workplace it’s always like, “Oh don’t be so emotional about it” right. Often times –
Jeremy Stayton: Yeah seen as weakness.
Julie Savaria: Yeah seen as weak. Let’s be rational to have this conversation; and like I beg to differ. I really beg to differ because if you are in this status quo situation all the time then you are just erasing just a whole slew of emotional range and understanding but also the ability to be able to connect with others because when you don’t and when you supress and identify for you then you won’t be able to recognize it in other people. It’s as simple as that. Because how can you recognize the emotion in someone else if you don’t recognize it for yourself first? You don’t know something that you don’t know. You may know it in theory but how can you know the signs? How do you know how to respond to it as well?
So there’s a whole universe that emotions could be, like that we could learn from it; and this is where the dialogue and the conversation comes into play as well. I like to focus a lot on emotions because when you think about it if you want to have a hard conversation you need to be able to deal with your emotions. Like a hard conversation at first is a conversation that is triggering, that is bringing up a reaction from you that is mostly going to be emotional. Like this is just – I’m simplifying it, right, but like when you look at the anatomy of a hard conversation it really is three conversations. So first you have the “what happened conversation” so OK like what is happening, why are we fighting?
Then you have the feelings conversation about how I’m feeling, how do I feel like this person is feeling, how am I making them feel, how are they making me feel. And then what’s next. And then if you go through each stage successfully then you can transform any hard conversation or difficult perceived conversation into a learning conversation. And this is where people get stuck, they get stuck into one these three conversations. And they cannot move towards a conversation where there is more compassion, there is more understanding, there is more empathy, there is more active listening as well. And when you look at justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion I really feel like we are, we’re like – you know if you look at society as a pendulum, right, so before we were here where we, you know, we were not really aware of anything, there was no camera.
We heard some things but that was just like he said/she said. And then we had all of these murders happening videotaped, we had all of these accounts. Now everybody understood a little bit more that the word is not so rosy, right, even in our own backyard. Then boom we went to the hypersensitive, hyperemotional state of our society where we are feeling everything. And you mix the pandemic in this then you have a recipe for everybody feeling – really being in their fields. But since we haven’t been taught how to deal with our emotions it also brings a lot of the stress and a lot of trying to discharge that emotional toll, that emotional burden onto something else or someone else instead of facing it.
So since we are in this hyperemotional state it’s really hard to have conversations because everything is met with either, “You don’t know what you’re talking about” or “You are triggering me, I’m going to cancel you” or just plain just disregard saying, “My way is the way and I’m not going to accept what you say.” To be able to have those conversations between every group that we have in our society so every human, yes. We have to find things in common but we also have to acknowledge and see the differences that we each have with each other to be able to bring that pendulum down just a little bit more just so that we – just so that our emotional response is less triggered.
But we also have a better understanding as to how we feel and why we feel and to also acknowledge, you know, maybe the trauma that some groups may be having and why the emotional response may be differing from others, right. So there’s a whole dynamic at play that really comes down also to the system that we live in. The system is designed to function as it was made, right, to serve a certain group of people, so for example in Canada it was designed by white folks so it’s meant for white folks. And the system is not doing anything wrong per say it’s just designed to serve some people. But then as the world evolved the population started to change but the system stayed the same.
So now that we have all of these different factors and now that we know that we are in this hyperawareness a lot of knowledge coming through and coming in, now how do we make sure that we can (1) incorporate the emotional learning; (2) being able to translate them and embody them so that we can have those conversations; and (3) having enough of those conversations to be able to move a system that needs to be changed if we want humanity to survive pretty much basically. So that was my Ted Talk [laughs].
Jeremy Stayton: [Laughs]
Peter Georgariou: Boom.
Jeremy Stayton: Many threads that I want to pull on there. So you just completely delved into personal development, organizational development, you know, behaviour so personality, behaviour triggers, then the emotions associated with those which is like people can be in therapy for a decade just working on their own triggers and their emotional response to things that are maybe out of proportion to the input which is I mean unpacking, you know, a pretty big bag of worms and especially in groups. And it’s a fascinating place because it is so big, how do you contain that conversation to not just – I mean it feels like you can just go everywhere of like “It reminds me of my dad” and, you know, like all the triggers that people have are from wherever in their life. That’s such a huge topic how do you contain that one?
Julie Savaria: Well this is where the unlearning process is starting to take place and for this learning to take place there needs to be an education piece and like basic education piece I think everybody can have access to. You know therapy is more widely accepted as well so let’s take advantage of that. Inner work is also more accepted let’s take advantage of that. But more importantly people need to be courageous enough to learn how to know themselves. It’s hard, like it is, sorry for my language, frickin hard work like to really – yeah I know that was mild, you know. Like diplomats daughter I have reflections, OK, that come through sometimes.
Jeremy Stayton: Yeah, you’re doing well, you’re doing good.
Julie Savaria: Right, like mom and dad you would be proud, you taught me well.
Jeremy Stayton: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Julie Savaria: But you know like you have to really understand what are your triggers? What is your narrative, why do you respond in a certain way to some events, right? Why are you doing what you are doing? Why are you feeling the way you are feeling and why are you not feeling the way you should be feeling as well? So that inner work is – needs to be guided with someone that you trust but also with someone that has maybe the eye or the training for it. So this is why I decided to offer coaching a lot more now. So now every time I work with a client they automatically have at least five hours of coaching with me that they can give to their managers, to the execs or to anybody because let’s face it we are becoming knowledge hoarders; like we just consume, consume, consume, consume knowledge, podcasts, books, movies.
We are all reading on antiracism, antidiscrimination, and how to treat, you know, non-binary folks as well. That’s just examples. However how often do you actually embody and practice it? And for you to be able to practice it you need to be intentional about it. And being intentional about practicing it really puts you into a very uncomfortable stage. And your body does not like to feel discomfort. This is natural your body wants to protect you. And it’s also an evolutionary thing like, you know, back in the day you saw a tiger, you had a fight, flight or freeze response in your body coming from your brainstem. And nowadays if you are in a very uncomfortable positon or if you’re in a positon where you feel that a part of your identity is being threatened you feel the same way, so you have this fight, flight or freeze response.
You know it could be triggered by you need to get out of your chair or you just want to move away from the conversation. It could be maybe you have a paralysis, you don’t know what to say or you don’t know how to act, or you’re maybe very combative and you may be very resistant as well. So people really need to ask themselves the hard questions, and one of the hardest questions is who am I? Who am I really? Not like the father, the mother, the son, but who am I as a person. Then when you get that answer then you can go on and learn other things about other people and really reflect as to what is your role in this, like in your spheres of influence in society as well.
Jeremy Stayton: I love and it is refreshing that you are taking this back to self-awareness, personal growth and personal accountability for the reaction that we have to whatever it is because that’s at the root of all of those things. So it just is very refreshing and I love that that that’s approach because I am 100% onboard that that is the approach, and betting away from buzzwords and token acts of visible whatever versus taking the time to actually do the work. So I really appreciate that.
Peter Georgariou: I prefer to just flex on my booklist so I can keep telling people what I read, I’m just saying.
Jeremy Stayton: Put all the books on his bookshelf and never read them.
Peter Georgariou: Yeah.
Julie Savaria: You should see the books that I have next to my office like upstairs. It is a beautiful collection, I like to flex on that too but I recognize it [laughs].
Peter Georgariou: Yeah I had somebody, I can’t remember who it was but Jeremy you may know this conversation but this guy said I read book, singular. It’s like he reads a book and he just goes back and he goes back and he goes back to integrate it to that point, right, because the resources are infinite and you hope onto the next cool thing. And I feel myself doing that sometimes to going back and now rereading enough times where I can actually make progress and create habits and whatnot which is brilliant.
Jeremy Stayton: So I do have a question that’s up for me and feels a little more on the risky side but I think it’s a common question that people like me probably have which is, you know, white guys, which is really just around – so basically the fear of being honest and curious amidst cancel culture that largely has been guilty until proven innocent even with the best of intention. So I’m just curious on where you see that going, where it is, where you see it going and maybe ways in which we can shift that conversation to be less destructive and more constructive?
Julie Savaria: Well first thank you for having the courage to ask that question. I’m sure that, you know, in the back of your mind you’re like ah is she going to want to answer that, I don’t know.
Jeremy Stayton: [Laughs]
Julie Savaria: So thank you for that. And you’re right I would say that, and I’m not even joking, 90% of the reason why people don’t want to have conversations that talks about racism or discrimination is because they just don’t know what to say. They don’t know what to say because it could be oh I feel like I’m offending someone every time, or I’m afraid I’m going to say the wrong thing and then it’s going to be taken out of context and proportion and then they look at me as if I’m a racist or that I’m a sexist or, you know, something, transphobic and all of that around. Remember when I was talking about that pendulum earlier, this is where also it comes into play. We also have to take into account the fact that right now in our society we are hyperemotional and that’s just a fact.
And I really do believe that it’s a phase that we have to go through to be able to get to that next more conversational phase. That being said there is also some hard truth to know and to understand the trauma that for example black parents have around having what we call the talk with our children especially our young boys around like, you know, if you see a policeman don’t run, no matter what don’t run. Keep your hands clear at all times. Don’t make eye contact necessarily or answer questions like swiftly. Don’t reach for your phone. And you need to have those conversations earlier and earlier and earlier on, like let’s remember Tamir Rice who was just 12 years old was playing with a toy in a park and he got shot and he was a child.
Or even not too long ago, I think it was last month there was an eight year old, nine year old boy that was handcuffed by the police on the suspicion that he stole a bag of chips, right. So when you have your parents and your grandparents that grew up with that fear and that you may be a descendant, direct descendent from slaves or enslaved people I should say, enslaved people; I really do believe in intergenerational trauma that is passed down. So I’m talking about black folks here but it could also be for people that identify as being members of the LGBTQI2+ communities or even, I guess even before that indigenous peoples who have probably been one of the most oppressed populations in history when you look at it this way because not only did they experience a cultural genocide they experienced also, you know, a physical genocide.
I think it is great that everybody now is getting to know about these atrocities and that want to learn about it and want to have those conversations. Where it gets tricky is how do you meet someone who has been wounded for generations when you are just starting to have the conversations? How do you – how are you able to meet them where they are at when, you know, they just don’t want to talk about it? And you know some people are just saying, and I know some people very close to me, they’re just, “You know what? I’ve been saying this all my life and now people want to care? Well no I don’t want to talk.” And we have to respect that some people just won’t want to have those conversations. And that’s OK too because it is their space, it is their private spheres, their personal sphere.
So I think a part of the work and I’m including myself in this by the way is to recognize when we can have those conversations and with whom, and that our personal intentions we have to also keep it in check. That is on our ego talking as well, around the fact that I want to have those conversations because I learned something and I feel bad about it. But am I feeling bad about it because I feel bad about what my ancestors may have done, or am I feeling bad because I may have been an oppressor in the past, or do I genuinely want to know the other side of the story. But if I really want to know the other side of the story is it by curiosity because I want to contribute to the cause, or is it to satisfy my own curiosity and to make myself feel better as well.
These are all little questions that can maybe help sometime in just gauging when to have those conversations and why some of those conversations may not be happening because you cannot force someone to talk about something that is traumatizing them. That is just a fact. And it puts folks like you guys for example in a weird place because you are just OK I acknowledge what happened, I’m assuming, but from our conversation that’s what I’m going to do
Peter Georgariou: Yes.
Julie Savaria: [Laughs] OK good, or whatever, right, I don’t want to, once again, to assume. But you know it’s like I acknowledge what’s been happening. I want to change my ways. I want to unlearn. I want to have conversation, to be able to bridge the differences, the gaps, right. I want to move forward as a society. Sometimes folks don’t want to have that conversation and that’s A-OK. And we have to be comfortable to deal with that. It doesn’t meant that we don’t have to talk but once again it’s to know when to talk to people and who would be the best people to talk to, for example me. I love talking about this. Once again it’s my work so it’s a little different. And my upbringing is also a little different so that I have a different perspective because I lived in countries where I was part of the global majority, of the majority, right.
But I also lived in countries where I was part of the, what is considered the minority, as well. So I have that dual perspective. But there are some people that lived in countries and they have been minorities all their lives; or they were made to feel as the other even if they were born in the country where they were born. They were always made to feel as others. So now it’s like oh now you wake up, now you want to have those conversations but where were you when this happened? Where were you when this happened when I wanted to have the conversation, but now you know what? Like – not too late but right now I just need time to feel but also to be able to heal a little bit. And most of the time for people to heal they need space and they need time.
Jeremy Stayton: I hope [unintelligible 00:59:06] can move along because it seems that there’s a bit of impasse with people who, you know, come preloaded as angry and understandably angry and reject the people that maybe historically oppressed their group whatever area it’s from and, you know, they reject the people that step forward out of that group to help that don’t know how to help. And I get that the burden of help shouldn’t be on the oppressed to educate and there’s some mutual disarming and trust that needs to be extended from both sides in order to move through that. So I’m hopeful that there is that healing to where folks like me can just, you know, most of my, you know, actions has just been direct action, just get into the community and just volunteer to do things that are helpful.
Julie Savaria: Yeah and you know what you said, so I don’t know if I cut you off, sorry [laughs].
Jeremy Stayton: No, no, no I was done.
Julie Savaria: So I love what you – everything that you just said. And it is true, right, like in theory this is what should be happening but –
Jeremy Stayton: Which is why we get back to the –
Julie Savaria: – practicality –
Jeremy Stayton: – trigger and the emotion and the personal growth and self-awareness piece which is why I love that you took it there because it’s for both sides, everyone has to do that in order to have this conversation, period, in a productive fashion and not just triggering old generational trauma.
Julie Savaria: Yeah and remember that yes I said like it takes space to heal but when I talk about time – like when we think concretely people started really having those conversations in the last three/four years, max, tops; so this is really not a long time yet. So I think we just also need to be a little more patient with the expectations that we may be having because it’s very tempting when we embark on this type of journey to kind of forget that we are all at different levels and different places of this journey and that it’s not linear, right. Like the pandemic literally, literally stopped everything in their track and made people retract to protect what’s their own and to exhibit sometimes even some behaviours that would not be deemed as being very inclusive or equitable, right.
And we can take some recent events that divided like people and that just – that were infiltrated literally by hate, like we take the Freedom Convoy for example, and yes I’m going to go there, that went to Ottawa. It is impressive like how even in your own circle that within families rifts were just created based on what you understood of what the Freedom Convoy should represent, what it was in reality for some folks and how for other people they were like, “Oh well I don’t see the big deal.” Yeah but what does the confederate flag mean to you or what does a Nazi flag mean to you. It brought some people closer as well but it can be really hard for members of historically oppressed groups to want to have conversations when you see these pop-ups also continually coming through, coming through. The latest one in Québec for example is the Bill 96 that is very controversial and –
Jeremy Stayton: For non-Québecers Julie what is it, you need to explain that.
Julie Savaria: Oh sorry, sorry, sorry. So Bill 96 is a bill that is meant – I think the intention behind it is meant to protect the French language, right, but with Bill 96 there’s a lot of different components to it so I don’t know it by heart pert say. But what it does is that will greatly restrict the – I guess the mobility of English-speaking Québecers or Anglophones so that for example if you want your children to attend an English-speaking school they could only do so if you did, and even then there are some restrictions. Or if you are an immigrant you have six months to speak French and after that people won’t serve you in English even in a medical setting. So there are a lot of different things that just are coming up and I’m like I don’t know about that, that’s a borderline human right, access to basic care.
But once again I’m not a politician but Bill 96 has raised a lot of flags not just from Anglophones but from francophone as well. And what I mean – and just I’m taking this as an example as well because there you have a language problem where you have exclusion and inclusion based on historical facts, you know, knowing that Québecers were oppressed at some point in history because of their language. But now like it has been quite a bit of time and now the situation has changed as well as the system. The society has changed as well and evolved. But all that to say that it’s still early in the game to want or to expect from historically oppressed group to feel like, you know, now is the time we can all move forward. I think some do. Some are doing that healing work for them.
And then once they do the healing work for them then they can move forward and have those conversations, but not necessarily in a system that keeps reminding them why they are oppressed as well. So that’s also a little distinction here is that you and I can want this very, very badly but if the systems in which we operate and in why, like in where we live is inherently discriminatory by nature or even racist in some instances then it’s very hard to have those equitable conversations, right, even from a structural point of view perspective, and the power dynamics as well.
Jeremy Stayton: Yeah it makes total sense. I mean when somebody from a historically oppressed group is born with some detriment, right, some handicap to their, you know, success because of just who they were born to that can be a pretty big chip on the shoulder. And part of it too I feel like social media and they and broad groups is much harder to wield than the personal and the individual because at a persona individual level you don’t know my upbringing. Sure I’m white but my dad could have beaten me every day, I could have no parents, like you just don’t know. You don’t know who you’re talking to. And just because somebody’s skin is darker doesn’t meant that they grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, it doesn’t mean – so I think at the individual level hopefully the conversations cannot be as heated as they are at this kind of a group level. It gives me more hope.
Peter Georgariou: So a few short questions for you as we wrap up, kind of like your pendulum allyship’s a spectrum, people are arriving at, you know, different points in time with different baggage and a different level of knowledge and self-awareness – and we got on this track Jeremy and I to just talk to awesome people like yourself and talk to B Corps and help people do business differently, if you could have like one either policy that every company should have in place or a starting point for this type of dialogue in work where would you point them?
Julie Savaria: I’m look ooh so many [laughs]. I think it would probably be something like that everybody should have access or should, almost should be doing some kind of therapy work, you know, paid – just you know something around yourself. And I know that sometimes therapy can sound very loaded as a word but it’s not. It’s just really a way to have – to create that space with another person were you can really reveal what’s happening. Where you can have those conversations because as we talked about the starting point for any change it’s ourselves, and within ourselves it is about our narrative around what’s happening in the world, how I’m brought, what I want to do, but also our emotions and how I deal with my emotions.
How can I have a conversation with people difficult or not, but how can I do that if I don’t truly know myself. So I think it would be something around those likes, around making like – but having it in more corporate terms, like having everybody do therapy [laughs]; something like that, I’m just not sure [laughs].
Peter Georgariou: It can be in human terms. It could be in human terms too, I’m good with that. I think finding a creative – what I heard from you there is creating a safe space for self-discovery which then leads to more fruitful dialogue and actual listening rather than hearing.
Jeremy Stayton: Yeah and we need –
Peter Georgariou: We need that for sure.
Jeremy Stayton: We need to bring back the ability to take a risk and be wrong and apologize and learn because that’s really good [laughs] in a way I think a lot of learning is the inability or the lack of safety around taking a risk.
Julie Savaria: I would even add that I think also one of the things that people tend to forget and it’s also because of that status quo thing is that people are scared to acknowledge differences. You know we – like the first thing that we do and that’s because we’re humans, we want to be with people like us. We’re looking at others, we’re like OK what do you have in common with me? Have something in common with me, come on. [Unintelligible 01:09:45] like what do you, like let’s have something in common. But then when we do that, when we establish that rapport with someone we focus solely on that, so that this is where colour‑blindness comes into place for example because then you completely exclude the whole dimension of that person’s identity in front of you when you don’t acknowledge their differences.
And if you don’t see or acknowledge the differences how can acknowledge the person as a whole? How can you acknowledge their past experiences what they have to bring to the table and their future self as well? So I think there is also that part of that – like just seeing too much of what we have in common bring us to like minimizing differences and just blindness in general. Too much differences puts them into more divisive state than others; so there’s this balance of being able to see the common, like what we have in common with people and their differences. That and, people don’t like and, it’s or all the time. This and this can co-exist in the same space and both can be true as well depending on who you talk to, but they can still both be true within the space, right, so we have to be comfortable with that as well.
Peter Georgariou: But differences are scary why would I want to go there. No I’m kidding, I’m kidding, I’m kidding.
Julie Savaria: Well humans are scary.
Peter Georgariou: That’s true too, I know a couple of them.
Jeremy Stayton: I do want to thank you Julie for being here and having the conversation. Also just your approach is refreshing and I love that –
Julie Savaria: Thank you.
Jeremy Stayton: – how you’re looking at this kind of getting down to the systemic level of what’s underneath all of it. And you mentioned you’re not a politician but would you like to announce your candidacy here on The Awakened Organization [laughs]?
Julie Savaria: [Laughs] Oh my god, lol [laughs]. But hey I said that I was never going to be an entrepreneur so hey you never know, right.
Jeremy Stayton: That’s right.
Peter Georgariou: You never know, you never know.