For the past 20+ years, I have immersed myself in the work of helping people build their influence skills so that their ideas could be heard. I believe ideas can change the world for the better, and I have felt grateful to play a small role in supporting people in doing this.

Believing we are “right” and the other person is “wrong” or that there is a right or wrong way to approach a situation is the poison of influence. When I was hired to start up a training and development group in a large corporation, I remember getting into an end of day “debate” with my manager about the training approach we should take.

“I don’t need an Ally, I need an Accomplice!” As I listened to Dr. Yaba Blay being interviewed on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast I thought yes, if we want to influence creating equity for all women in the workplace, the approach of engaging and confronting bias needs to be part of our communication toolkit and we need to be prepared to use it.

Approximately $8 billion per year is invested into DE&I (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) training, yet studies show that the needle of behavior change is not moving in a positive direction.