“You can't go any deeper with your clients than you can go within yourself. And if you can't go that deep, you're going to stay in one space.” - Amri B. Johnson
Amri B. Johnson is a seasoned DEI practitioner and organizational culture advocate, CEO and Founder of Inclusion Wins. He is a husband, a father, a stepfather, a son, an uncle. He is immensely well-read and connected with the historical and conceptual roots of DEI work. He’s an American living in Basel, Switzerland, still trying to figure out if he’s an expat or an immigrant.
You can read about this conversation below, but if you can, have a listen to the podcast audio (with the player above or in your podcast app) to hear the laughs, really get Amri’s vibe, and more. It’s hard to make that come across in the text.
We write this article to make the podcast accessible for people who don’t process information through audio - as a way to be inclusive - but if you can, listening gives you the richest and most complete experience.
In a career spanning from working as a manager in the health sector to becoming an entrepreneur, Amri has become exceptionally great at working with organizations to engage with tension and complexity in their everyday work, growing people’s capacity to work with complexity, making diversity normative, and creating the conditions for everybody in the organization to thrive.
Spirituality has always been important to him. He feels that it has served him in being grounded in something that wasn't about anything other than something greater than himself, and he strongly thinks that's allowed him to see differently when he needs to. It makes him more able to adapt, which is always his anchor.
“I really believe that we can create cultures that thrive because we create the conditions for care, for interdependence, and that we cultivate openness with each other, so that people are willing to be influenced by each other. That's one of the ways I define inclusion: a willingness to be influenced by the so-called other.” - Amri B. Johnson
Talking about the course of his career across leadership and DEI, Amri notes how he got into contact with pioneers in DEI in the US. He’s seen the field pivot toward various ‘flavors’ in response to events like the murder of George Floyd, but to Amri, the principle of DEI work remains that it is an essential part of how business gets done, rather than what you do in reaction to an event or a situation.
“That's one of the ways I define inclusion: a willingness to be influenced by the so-called other. Creating a sense of safety, and obviously I say psychological safety. But also a level of honesty, safety for dissent, safety for heterodoxy. I create safety for breaking stuff and not breaking it so it's just completely annihilated, but breaking it so that we can actually get stronger as a result of something that's broken. We create the conditions together for trust.” - Amri B. Johnson
Creating the conditions for care, openness, safety and trust is at the heart of how Amri sees the work. What is essential is trusting that you are listening and taking my interests into consideration. Trusting that you will be committed to helping me fulfill those interests. And trusting that other people will represent me when you're not in the room.
That means DEI is for everybody, and it's accessible to everyone, rather than reduced to a particular aspect of our visible identities. If you're advocating for a particular group of identity, or groups of identities, it matters that you indicate that being of that group doesn't mean that that's the only thing you're for, and that you signal that very clearly. Amri believes that this is what the current pushback on DEI is ideologically related to.
Amri anchors on culture, ‘because it's never going away’. It's always evolving. It's the space that we swim in.
“Sometimes we're aware of the space [we swim in]. Most of the time we're not. But we do know what it feels like when it's not working for us, when we're not allowed to breathe.” - Amri B. Johnson
Improving organizational culture involves dealing with complexity and the need to be able to adapt and bounce back when difficult things happen, as well as the need to create strong, resilient relationships. Amri discusses the significance of social capital and building diverse networks.
“It's the need to create relationships that have varying degrees of tension, complexity, weight of affinity, levels of connectivity and relationship, levels of networks, and by their nature, interdependence.” - Amri B. Johnson
This is about creating the right conditions, doing that consistently, and creating relationships that enable opportunities upstream: earlier in the process of talents being developed and noticed long before they’re hired and offered a space to belong in an organization.
“For me, creating cultures from the hearts of the people is what DEI means.” - Amri B. Johnson
Amri highlights the need for continuously building skills and capacity, including the skills of listening, inquiry, and cultural intelligence. Listening, he explains, is a magical skill that a lot of people don't have. They think that they're listening, but they're usually just waiting for the moment when they can say what they want to say.
As DEI professionals, an important skill to build is connected to doing your own inner work. In this way you grow your capability to be centered and grounded when things come at you that would put you in a place of uncertainty; so that you can be ok with that. You can then be there for other people to go deeper on this.
“DEI is really about building skills consistently. Because too often DEI practitioners are being hired for just that one night stand training.” - Vivian Acquah
Additionally, there are always new skills and tools to add to your toolbox, expanding your capacity.
“Checking in with yourself and trying, hey, is this working? Is this growing my capacity and serving my health?” - Marjolijn Vlug
Amri’s approach to DEI is grounded in principles of trust, honesty, and the ability to influence and be influenced by others. As a practitioner, you're really just facilitating learning and doing that dance with people.
“DEI people, sometimes we like to be right or self righteous, but rightness has never transformed anything. And that's kind of at the heart.” - Amri B. Johnson
Although Amri loves to be right, it doesn't mean that it's always helpful. Recognizing that being right is not going to get us where we want to be… that makes a huge difference. “It's okay to not know, and so I actually remind myself and become okay with not knowing. Being okay with not knowing is pretty important for me to sustain myself.” Sometimes not knowing lets him tap into something that's not in his brain but beyond memory, beyond knowledge, and comes from intuition or a higher consciousness.
“At the heart of what I hope organizations can do better, is to build a sense of antifragility.” - Amri B. Johnson
He advocates for antifragility in organizations to build resilience and adaptability and shares an intense personal story about a family member living through and developing this in her young life. He shares how proud he is of her, and the love and care he feels for her are very much present in our online conversation.
In organizations, antifragility is related to the ability to be both resourceful and interdependent, to bounce back from even the biggest setbacks, and bounce higher.
“How do you run the marathon when success comes slowly?” - Vivian Acquah
The marathon capacity, Amri says, is to consistently build new habits so that you can be able to run it. It's not going to be easy, even when you've prepared. You know that you have the capability to do it, though, and you have the mindset to push through when you need to.
To Amri, developing new and existing habits is key to having the ability to adapt. And a surprising source of new input can come from being really open in your reading, or from engaging with people that disagree with the way you think about DEI.
“Tap into sources that you wouldn't tap into because they seem like they're contrary to you, people that you think are crazy. Do you read them? Do you listen to them? And not just so you can react to them and write a post about it, but so you can actually be willing to be influenced, to see: maybe there's something there that I didn't consider in my work that will help me be better as a human and as a practitioner.” - Amri B. Johnson
What lights Amri up? That’s the human capacity, the possibility, for all of us to get to a state of being where we don't see the other as separate from who we are.
Before he dives into the recommended reading for us (see list below), Amri shares how he came to spend most of his days in books, accompanying his mother, an educator, into the University library and the student union while she was in class. All of this reading informs his world view and also the book he himself has written: ‘Reconstructing Inclusion: Making DEI Accessible, Actionable, and Sustainable’.
Amri warmly recommends that we follow people on social media that we don’t agree with: you don't want to get caught up in an echo chamber. Follow people that you don't like, not so you can just criticize them and make them wrong, but so you can explore where they are coming from and what you can take into consideration in your work or life. Even when it's tough, even when it's not pleasant.
“Do you see your people as you do you see your people as something that goes beyond just the way you look. Do you see the humanity in each other? When I get tired, I still want to be able to see that humanity and choose it every day.” - Amri B. Johnson
When we remember that our humanity is at the center of everything, things bounce higher.
Thank you for listening and being a part of this ever-expanding awareness and knowledge. Together we pack a punch, share our fascinations (and frustrations), create impact, and hold spaces for a wide range of perspectives to be valued and included.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE WITH THE PLAYER AT TOP OF PAGE Or in your favorite podcast app
About Amri B. Johnson
For more than 20 years, Amri has been instrumental in helping organizations and their people create extraordinary business outcomes. He is a social capitalist, epidemiologist, entrepreneur, and inclusion strategist.
Connect with Amri via
Book ’Reconstructing Inclusion: Making DEI Accessible, Actionable, and Sustainable, by Amri B. Johnson’
Podcast
Resources & references from this episode:
Recommended books:Amri B. Johnson - Reconstructing Inclusion: Making DEI Accessible, Actionable, and Sustainable
Louise Diamond - Levels of Trust
Dr Roosevelt Thomas - Beyond Race and Gender
Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder
Authors: Robert Putnam, Mark Granovetter, Frantz Fanon, James Baldwin
Nora Bateson - Combining
Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man
Confucius - The Analects
The Bible and the Quran
Amplify DEI End of Year Offer
End the year on a high note by advancing your DEI goals with Amplify DEI's interactive workshops, which are suitable for every level of your team.
We're offering 20% off workshops when you book before December 20th, 2024.
We offer workshops on 10+ topics, including:
Deactivate Microaggressions @ Work
Amplifying Inclusive Self-Leadership*
Amplifying Inclusive Leaders (for leaders and managers)*
Boost Authentic Allyship*
Intersectionality @ Work*
Empowering Neuroinclusive Leadership*
Embrace Neuroinclusion @ Work*
Boosting Psychological Safety @ Work
Check Your Unconscious Bias*
Navigating Courageous Conversations with Productive Outcomes*
*The topics mentioned above can be combined with the impactful VR experience, allowing participants to experience walking in the other person's shoes. The VR experience can only be held offline.
Workshops can be held in person or virtually*. Ready to learn more?
Book a session/workshop before December 20th, 2024, to receive the discount.
Share this post