Joe Gerstandt

For the past 15 years, Joe Gerstandt has been helping organizations of all shapes and sizes to find new clarity relative to diversity and inclusion and to put new practices in place. But he did not take a very direct route into this work, in fact, there was a time in his life when he likely would have rolled his eyes at what he now does for a living. The often-discomforting experience of becoming aware of and addressing his privilege, denial, bias, and bigotry still informs his work today. This is a story of how one person’s heart, mind, and behavior changed and what we might learn from it. From his own story of growing up on a family farm in rural Iowa, serving in the United States Marine Corps, personal and professional successes and setbacks, and just being in the world with other human beings, Joe distills insights applicable to leadership, behavior change, culture change, and enlisting more allies in this work.

What specifically do you mean when you use the word “inclusion?” It has become one of the most popular words relative to the modern workplace, yet in most organizations it remains a vague, ambiguous idea; and vague, ambiguous targets are incredibly hard to hit. If inclusion is the product you are trying to deliver, then you should be able to speak to its characteristics. This message brings a powerful new clarity to the concept of inclusion, what it is, why it matters, and how it happens. The audience will leave this message with a strong foundation upon which to build impactful and sustainable diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Inclusive leadership requires more than a statement of commitment, it is an active practice. This session introduces you to that practice. Anchored in a practical model of what inclusion is, joe will introduce you to a set of competencies and commitments to ensure that your leadership is, in fact, inclusive. You will leave this session with work to do and tools to use, things that you can act on immediately.

Level up! This is an intense and highly interactive deep dive into inclusive leadership, that includes pre- and post-work. Joe Gerstandt will guide participants through an exploration of inclusive leadership competencies and commitments in four distinct areas; Awareness & Authenticity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Leadership; each with their own exercises, questions for personal reflection, and opportunities for practical application. 

An internal hackathon is a high-energy, interactive way to model inclusion, invite greater diversity of thought and perspective into your inclusion efforts, generate creative new solutions, and build new relationships. Once participants are grounded in a common framework of inclusion, a basic process for “hacking,” a target, and deliverables, they set to work competing against other teams with very real time constraints to solve an inclusion challenge within your organization.

Most leaders and organizations already care greatly about talent, but are we having the right conversation about talent? More and more of our work is today being done at the group or team level, yet our talent efforts remain laser-focused on the individual level. We seem to be operating on the belief that if we group talented individuals together, we will naturally end up with talented groups. But it does not work that way, at the group level, there are a bunch of other variables involved. This message provides research-driven insights into what makes a talented team (cognitive diversity & psychological safety), as well as practices and behaviors for getting there.

 While the word “authenticity,” gets casually thrown around as if it is a simple, safe, and common thing, the truth is a bit more complicated. Authenticity, properly understood, is hard fought and often involves a fair amount of real and/or perceived risk. As a result, authenticity is often lacking in our places of work, and in our personal and professional lives. Which is unfortunate, because authenticity is a pretty righteous thing. This session explores authenticity, what matters on the individual and organizational level, and how to put authenticity to work for you.

On a fundamental level, inclusion is about creating spaces and places where people who are naturally different from each other can tell the truth to each other. Truth-telling also has consequences for safety, learning, ethics, and our ability to solve problems. While we may want to tell the truth to each other at work, there are often risks (real and perceived) involved. One study suggests that as many as 75% of executive in Europe and North America have at least one business-related issue they are not comfortable bringing up with their peers. And that is executives! Psychological safety makes it safer to tell the truth to your peers, and in this message, Joe prepares you to take psychological safety back to your team. The audience will be grounded in the research behind psychological safety, what it is, and how it is established. Participants will also receive a slide deck to help them introduce the concept to their team, assess psychological safety, and develop an action plan.