S1 E11 DEI
Episode Audio
Larry Delgado shares what he’s been learning about DEI in the Learning and Development space.
Connect with Larry on LinkedIn.
Transcript:
The following transcript was auto-generated and may contain typos or spelling errors.
Amy Petricek
Welcome to the share what you learned podcast. I'm Amy Petricek, a learning enthusiast and the host of the show, to share what you learned podcast is designed for learning professionals to share something they're learning in the field of instructional design. Today I'm talking to Larry Delgado, about what he's been learning about diversity, equity and inclusion in learning experiences. Welcome to the show, Larry. Thank you so much, Amy, for having me. It is a pleasure to be here. Yeah, it's such a such a treat to have you. I know you a little bit but I would love if you could introduce yourself to my listeners.
Larry Delgado
Yes. As you stated, my name is Larry Delgado. My pronouns are he him his. I identify as a cisgender Latino male. I was born and raised in South Florida as a first generation American born of Nicaraguan parents. I joined the army right out of high school in 1993. I was a Personnel Administration specialist, and retired in December of 2017. I started off as a Personnel Administration specialist and I ended up my career as a Chief Warrant Officer. While I served my time in the army, I deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, plus various training exercises around the globe. After I transitioned from the army, I worked as a learning and development administrator for Pierce transit. And my current role is a diversity Equity and Inclusion Development Manager for Washington State's department of Enterprise Services, where I lead a team of four dei design and delivery professionals tasked with delivering dei training to all of Washington State employees.
Amy Petricek
So when this episode airs, another episode will have already aired by someone named Joe Waddington. Are you familiar with Joe Waddington?
Larry Delgado
Joe is a superhero in the E learning world. And he is actually working on some of my products. And I'm just dumbfounded by the just the grace that he works in the E learning industry and space, and how he took something I created and made it so much better. So yes, Joe is a superstar. I'm a big fan as well.
Amy Petricek
And hopefully the rest of the world is as well as they've at the time this airs like his will have aired as well. So they will hear His goodness, he's quite a treat. So yes, him, Larry and Joe, currently work for Washington enterprise services. So that's the connection there. Well, Larry, what an extensive background you have, I'm just kind of blown away with all that you've done and all of the experiences that you've had. And I love the progression from learning and development into diversity, equity and inclusion. And I think there's a lot of intertwine overlap that happens there. But before we really dive into all of that, can we take a step back, and you could maybe define diversity, equity and inclusion for us.
Larry Delgado
So I love this analogy that I've heard, I can't remember from who the speaker was. But it's if if you're aware is the party or the dance analogy, as it relates to diversity, equity inclusion, you can look at dei work as being asked to the dance right? In that diversity is asking everyone to the dance, all races, gender identities, orientation, age, their neurodiversity, marital status, veteran status, disability, or ability status, and or their socio economic background or education level, right. So that that diversity is is opening the invitation to all parties involved of all demographics. One could look at inclusion as asking all of those demographics that I mentioned previously, to sit down at the table and provide feedback and input to the party. Right? So if you include all these individuals, gaining the input from their various group identities, and providing them a safe space to provide input as far as like, so what's the theme going to be like in this particular party? What type of decorations are we going to have? What type of music are we going to play? What type of beverages are we going to serve? What's the theme of this party and order to get their feedback and feel that they are they have a voice in this, you know, world, I see equity as ensuring that everyone has what they specifically need to get to that dance and or party. Right. So are there any costs associated with going to the party or going to the dance that may adversely impact someone's ability to attend the dance? Does the venue have accommodations for persons with disability? How do we get these participants to this particular dance, right if they're in rural local areas that don't have public transportation, right, these things that we have to take into account, making sure that it's equitable for everyone. To show up to the dance and or the party, once each of these previous buckets have been addressed, that diversity where we ask everyone to the dance clusion, where we ask for their feedback and their input as far as preparation for the dance, and that equity to make sure that everyone is allowed to get there on once these have all been addressed, then you have that sense of belonging where my voice was heard, valued, and my input was put into place. And now I have a feeling of belonging because I've, I've had some skin in the game, and I can enjoy that party and show up with my authentic self, right? Because I was able to put my slice of the pie into the banquet, if you will.
Amy Petricek
That was wonderful. I've heard bits of that analogy before, but I just my brain kept thinking the whole time, you're saying that, golly, he's like in learning and development, like he understands how to take an idea, and break it down and make it accessible to everyone. So I really appreciate that analogy, and I think dei are words that are thrown around a lot. And I think differentiating what that means and and thus then thinking about how we're using them is really important as learning professionals. So I really appreciate you breaking that down. No problem. So you do have a background in learning and development. recently, in the last year or so made the switchover to diversity, equity and inclusion, can you tell us a little bit about that transition and maybe help bridge that gap? For others who are trying to understand that overlap? I see a lot of it, but you're the pro here. So I want to hear it directly from your mouth.
Larry Delgado
Yeah, definitely. So I really love learning and development and continue to have a passion for learning and development. As you can imagine. I spent countless hours training my soldiers when I was in the service to be the most effective and efficient, well rounded HR professionals and workers they could be right. So that was one of the things that really drove my career in the military is making sure that those soldiers got what they needed. As far as professional development, the military education in the education, they needed to move up the ranks and the army. That passion followed me to my first post service role as the learning and development administrator with Pierce transit, where I worked with employees to establish specific career paths facilitated various professional development courses, as well as serving as the chair for their dei program. In that role as dei Program Manager, I realized I realized early that we couldn't let we couldn't wait to let learners come to us, right, as a learning and development administrator, we had to meet the organizational learners needs where they were needed, right. As an example, we had individuals that work 24 seven and swift twinship. So as a learning and development administrator, we understand that professional development is not a nine to five, Monday through Friday. So being able to look at it through a lack an equity lens that says how can we ensure not just those staff employees are being professionally developed, but also those that own swing shifts that are on 24, sevens that work weekends? And I went to my manager and I asked, hey, may I may I switch or shift my work hours, so I can come in later in the day stay later at night. So we can provide this facilitation to these individuals in these work groups that don't work the typical nine to five similarly, I realized that we needed to establish organizational learning, culture of growth and development. How can we get an individual in Pierce Transit's case, from being a bus operator with an eye on let's say, human resources? financing, marketing it? How can we get them out of the seat of a bus and into those roles that they want to aspire to? And what obstacles can remove as the chair of the Ei program, I realized that there were specific gaps in between the employees that we were having? So taking a holistic look at? How can we mitigate these gaps? Not everyone is as technologically savvy as my 21 year old daughter who has been programming and doing websites since he was in junior high school. So how do we take those employees in and provide them with the skill set that they need to grow not only within the organization, but also reach out to the communities that we serve. We formed partnerships with coma, Urban League foreign partnerships with a goodwill we formed partnerships on Joint Base Lewis McChord to help transitioning servicemembers as they're leaving the service and possibly looking for employment, not just in Pierce transit, but in other places as well. And also looking at the Microsoft's military spouse technology Academy. We had no women or those that identify that's women in our IT department. So as the Learning and Development Ministry for and the chair for the dei program, I was like, Well, what can we do to reach out to more women in the communities to get them brought into Pierce transit, show them what we're all about and help them move up those ladders. So that learning and development role and having the opportunity to serve as the chair of the DDI program. helped me blend those two areas. And I really got a liking towards it seeing that there was so much need to make things equitable and professional development, recruiting and hiring of the communities that we serve. Hence, when the position was available at Washington State Department of Enterprise Services, Joanne Lee brought it to my attention I applied. And now it's allow me the ability to focus on the diversity, the equity, the inclusion of Washington State and the communities that we serve.
Amy Petricek
I think what I heard just on repeat, woven throughout all of that was mindfulness and attentiveness to the learner. And it's not just I'm going to build this learning experience or this training, because it's, well, actually, these learners are up. They work 24 seven, they work later, like we need to be thinking about this and all of these different components you brought in and I think that the more you're talking like, yep, but then the natural progression is right into dei. So thank you for sharing your experience and kind of that progression intertwining from you because you have such a plethora of awareness on both the l&d space and dei. I'm curious what kind of changes you would like to see in the l&d space in regards to dei.
Larry Delgado
One of the things I didn't realize going into my current role was just the deliberate nature as learning and development facilitators and trainers to address the accessibility issue. Within learning and development and training and development. I have a newfound respect for the amount of intentionality and specificity that facilitators and trainers need in order to make their products as accessible to those with impairments, whether there are visual or auditory learners and make sure that we make our products as accessible as possible to make sure that those individuals aren't, are excluded in the professional development and learning aspects of our organizations.
Amy Petricek
I think there's a reason that accessibility is such a buzzword in our industry is because so many companies businesses are struggling with how do we continue to make our trainings our courses more accessible to a diversity of learners, instead of just we put subtitles on the video, we're good?
Larry Delgado
That's exactly right. And it's it, as you stated, is not just as much as like subtitles, but also, you know, how do we welcome in these participants with some of these disabilities and make them not feel others in the classroom not feel like we're catering specifically to them and making them feel like they have a spotlight on them, but just making them as inclusive as part of the classes Anyone else?
Amy Petricek
I think when we feel like we belong, we're more apt to engage in the learning process and also interact with the material as well and not just be someone sitting back. But if you're able to access the content, then you're likely going to be interacting with it as well. Great. Call out what are some tangible steps that we as l&d professionals can do in our learning experiences to bring in more dei? I mean, I know we subtitles I feel like is the go to but what are some other things we can be doing or thinking about?
Larry Delgado
I think one thing that is l&d professionals to increase that learning experience is being cognizant of the audience's that we're facilitating, right? Being able to take a landscape view of what's occurring in our classes. Right? Who's speaking? Who isn't speaking? who's in the room? Who isn't in the room? You know, are there any power dynamics within the rooms, you know, is one of our learners sucking up all the oxygen and not allowing others to contribute to the conversation and being able to identify what those nuances are, you know, again, I'm a big word. That's, that's really popular nowadays, these microaggressions, right, that occur in the classroom and being able to says, Hey, I don't think Amy was finished with her thought. And could you finish your thought, and then we'll come back to Larry, in order for him to get his insight. But having that where with all as we're facilitating one of the things that we do at department Enterprise Services, we open up facilitation with our pronouns, right. So my name is Larry Delgado, my pronouns are he him his in solidarity with the LGBTQ plus community, to make that the norm, right, that homage to the LGBTQ community to say, Hey, we're here and we're supporting you. And it drives that conversation. I had somebody reached out to me one of my old army buddies on LinkedIn. He says, Hey, I noticed that you have on your name, he him What's that about? So I had to use that as an opportunity to say as well, you know, the pronouns are being used now as a way to then solidarity with the LGBTQ plus community, as well as supporting them and saying, hey, and driving that conversation. So just those parentheses in my LinkedIn and as you're opening up and facilitation is saying That my pronouns are he, him, she, her, they them in order to make it a more inclusive facilitation or training
Amy Petricek
my brain is going to is just the reminder that we as learning and development professionals cannot do our jobs passively that it has to be a really intentional and mindful in whatever role you are, if you're a facilitator, if you're building the courses behind the scenes as an instructional designer, if you're the program manager, whatever your role is, is that that intentionality and mindfulness of the learners of the content, all of those things, and the people in our world, the variety of people in our world, this is so important.
Larry Delgado
And one more thing is like, also as we're developing these courses is, what are the graphics that we're utilizing? Right in our in our presentations, right? Are they representative of the audience's that we're teaching of the communities that we're serving? I couldn't tell you how difficult it is nowadays, even developing the curriculum with Washington State is just how hard it was to locate graphics of individuals with apparent disabilities. I mean, we had to scrolls through through pictures and pictures, just to get you know, these photographs, but is that mindfulness of having that representation on the slides or in the Participant Guide? That's going to have our learners feel more included in the training?
Amy Petricek
So if someone is wanting to learn more about Dei, in the l&d space, where would you recommend they turn, maybe it's a thought leader to follow maybe it's books or resources, what comes to mind for you?
Larry Delgado
The great news is that there is no shortage of resources when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. I was recently showing this this one's websites called dismantling racism.org. And our leadership group was in the process of using this website as a discussion point for our weekly meetings. And each week, one of the managers is taking one piece of this dismantling racism.org website, such as assumptions such as racism, white privilege, and each of us are teaching the other managers what they learned of that specific specific website. But ATD Association for talent development is a great source as Sherm is a great source. And then obviously, all the all the alphabets right the HB RS of the world, the Forbes Magazine's gives you great statistics, or just even Google case studies, and there's government Alliance on race and equity. That's also a great resources. If you want to look into it.
Amy Petricek
I appreciate you sharing all that. I think one of the things that was really painful for me, as I was thinking about recording this episode with you was Kelly, how are we supposed to dissect diversity, equity inclusion in about 25 minutes, because it is a conversation that deserves way more time, way more thought than that. And so I've done my best in this micro learning of a podcast to dive into this with Larry here. But what I really hope for my listeners is this is not the end of their journey. And they take Larry up on some of these resources and begin to point their toes or dip their toes in additional resources and next steps and begin applying some of these things into their work experiences. I'm going to transition us now into the rapid round. These are questions I asked every one of my guests, we're excited to see where you take these questions. Okay, let's do it. Alright, the first one learning is a lifelong process. When you're mustering up the courage to learn something new, What song do you put on?
Larry Delgado
So this is going to depend if it's something that involves deep thought processes that I'm not familiar with, I usually go with more of a classical music to help me focus if it is something that comes second nature to me that I just have to get it knocked out I'm comfortable and doing these tasks. A lot of it opens up with like some old school rap, I would say LL Cool J Run DMC or when I want to merge two worlds together. One of my favorite albums of all time is Linkin Park's Collision Course. It's collaboration with with between linkin park and Basie and I absolutely love it gets me hyped every time
Amy Petricek
I secretly say one of the perks or reasons I have a standing desk is when I'm in that mode and I'm listening to that kind of music then you can do your dances and still get your work done.
Larry Delgado
There's a lot of toe tapping going on in the Delgado household nowadays.
Amy Petricek
you're asked to do a brand new task with a skill set you do not yet have where do you turn
Larry Delgado
again some of those ATD Sherm YouTube, great resource to get you started or speaking of old school is going back to that old trainers roll a deck and I'll say, hey, hey, hey, Amy. I was wondering if you could help me out with this problem. I'm trying to do X, you know, do you have a moment that I can pick your brain?
Amy Petricek
I love that you call it a Rolodex. Oh, and if you don't know what a Rolodex is, if you're of that generation, Google it, you'll figure it out. without learning life would be pretty boring. No, thank you. I'm so glad we have learned what's the best way for my listeners to be in contact with you after the show, Larry if they're interested in connecting with you And then my follow up to that would be if there's anything that you're working on right now that you'd love to give a shout out for here's the space and time to do it.
Larry Delgado
listeners can find me on LinkedIn. That's pretty much the only type of social media that I'm on as far as what we're working on right now. I want to give a shout out to Washington State, particularly government entities is new initiative, the dei initiative within Washington State Government is being implemented to provide a required dei training for more than 65,000 employees to heavy lift for the team and AI to do but this initiative focuses on an emerging level of understanding of dei behaviors, concepts and terminologies based on dei competencies and glossary related terms that was established through a very rigorous vetting process of multiple stakeholders within Washington State in order to foster a culture of diversity, equity inclusion within Washington State employees, those within the employment of Washington state as well as the cumini communities we serve. So looking forward to launching this
Amy Petricek
that sounds massive, and an amazing project to be part of so high five, and I'm so glad you gave a shout out here. Thanks so much, Larry for sharing all things diversity, equity inclusion with us today. I also want to give a shout out to you my listeners for learning with us today. Until next time, stay open, receptive and kind.