Join Sarah Noll Wilson and guest Dr. Tina Opie as they discuss the intersection of feminism and racial equity, through the lens of the acclaimed 2022 book Dr. Opie co-authored, Shared Sisterhood: How to Take Collective Action for Racial and Gender Equity at Work.
About Our Guest
Dr. Tina Opie is an Associate Professor of Management, and an award-winning teacher and researcher, consultant and speaker. She is the founder of Opie Consulting Group LLC, where she advises large firms in the financial services, entertainment, media, beauty, educational, and healthcare industries. Her research has appeared in such outlets as O Magazine, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and Harvard Business Review and she has been published in multiple academic journals. She is also a regular commentator on Harvard Business Review’s Women at Work podcast and Greater Boston’s NPR affiliate television station WGBH.
Website | LinkedIn | Twitter & IG: @DrTinaOpie
resources mentioned
- connect@drtinaopie.com
- Book mentioned by Dr. Opie – Our Separate Ways: https://a.co/d/6HvD20r
- Book mentioned by Dr. Opie – The Sum of Us: https://a.co/d/h9pVj1T
Transcript
Sarah Noll Wilson
Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of Conversations on Conversations, where each week we explore a topic to help us have more powerful conversations with ourselves and others. I am your host, Sarah Noll Wilson, and I am stupid excited to introduce (laughter) we’ve been just in a fit of giggles leading up to this. I’m so, I’m so excited to introduce you to our guest today, Dr. Tina Opie, who has been on my moonshot list for a long time to get her on the show. And I’m so excited to be in conversation where we will be exploring the book that she co-wrote called Shared Sisterhood, which explores how the relationship between black women and white women really is going to be one of the keys for us to move equity forward. And also she’s one of my favorite people. I know Twitter is dead. (laughter) But if it wasn’t for for Twitter, I wouldn’t have met this incredible, incredible human. So let me tell you just a little bit about her. So Dr. Tina Opie is the founder of OCG. She brings more than 20 years experience in strategic management and organizational behavior. She is an award winning researcher, consultant, Associate Professor of Management at Babson College. Dr. Opie advises small and large firms and individuals in the financial services, entertainment, media, beauty, educational, healthcare industry, among others. Her work has appeared in such outlets as O magazine, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Harvard Business Review, she is also a regular commentator on the Harvard Business Review Women’s Network podcast and greater Boston’s NPR affiliate television station WGBH. As a thought leader, who combines practice and theory, her work has proven to generate high impact solutions that unleash the power of authenticity in organizations. Welcome to the show, Dr. Tina Opie.
Dr. Tina Opie
Sarah, thank you so much. This, that was such a great introduction. I really, I’m so excited, thank goodness that we met on Twitter. I mean, even though we can have a whole conversation about that. They need some shared sisterhood, because I don’t know what he’s doing.
Sarah Noll Wilson
No.
Dr. Tina Opie
That, that made me nervous, I turned on my phone one day, and I saw this, –
Sarah Noll Wilson
The X.
Dr. Tina Opie
- And I was like, does that mean the app didn’t load? I mean, what exactly. What is happening? Wow, there’s a lot going on.
Sarah Noll Wilson
It is, it is a case study and an absolute shit show. (laughter) Like –
Dr. Tina Opie
Yeah, it’s, we will probably be discussing that when I am teaching in the spring, I will make sure to figure out – ask the students what they think.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, that’ll be interesting. I mean, there’s a part of me that’s like, I don’t know, maybe if women were running the show, maybe that wouldn’t have happened. But –
Dr. Tina Opie
Yeah, I think you’re right.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Conversation for another day. Okay.
Dr. Tina Opie
Yes.
Sarah Noll Wilson
What else do you want us to know about you?
Dr. Tina Opie
I’m about to be an empty nester.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Oh!
Dr. Tina Opie
Yes.
Sarah Noll Wilson
How’s that feeling?
Dr. Tina Opie
I’m not ready.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Okay.
When you, someone, Beth said this, my co-author said this, that the days were long, but the years were short. And so while while we were in it, my husband, Fred, his name was Frederick Douglass Opie, Dr. Frederick Douglass Opie. And he’s a historian. When we were in it, it was tough. I mean, there were times because I was a doctoral student. And we had our second child right before my second year, this funny story where I didn’t ask permission. I just showed up a school with a baby. Because I was afraid that if I asked to bring the baby, they might say no. And I wasn’t prepared to hear no. So I took matters into my own –
(laughs) I love you.
Dr. Tina Opie
I was like, I’m gonna go right through. I’m not prepared to hear no. So here I am. And they were fabulous. One of my professors, Dr. Francis Milligan, during a cognition class held my daughter, because it was my day to lead the discussion and Chase would not go to sleep. Though she’d just been fed and burped and diaper changed. She was like, I’m here. So Dr. Milligan held her. Yeah. I mean, there’s all kinds of things. I love documentaries. I like to sing. I’ve been on DeBarge kick. If people know that group, it’s a family. Oh my gosh! Do you remember the song, Feel the beat of the rhythem of the night?
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Dr. Tina Opie
That’s DeBarge. So I had been – he, El DeBarge did a Tiny Desk Concert for NPR. Let me tell you something. Awesome. I used to want to be a singer. So anyway, I love music, all different genres. I love fashion. I mean what else do you want to know Sarah? We can talk all day.
Sarah Noll Wilson
I love, I love all of this. I mean we, we, you know we bond over busy brains our ADHD brains and you know –
Dr. Tina Opie
Yes!
Sarah Noll Wilson
Being later diagnosed and navigating that fun world. I, yeah, someday I want to do a panel of just all of the incredible women in my life who we’ve all been diagnosed later, but then I’m like it would be eight hours long because we would just go off on so many tangents. (laughs)
Dr. Tina Opie
Exactly! And then what would happen is people who don’t have ADHD would not be able to follow the thread. They wouldn’t understand, you know, why in the world did she talk about shish kebab? And now she’s talking about Mormons? Like, –
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Dr. Tina Opie
You know, or talking about the sky, and now she’s talking about beetles. Like how do all these things – but we – I love talking to people with ADHD, it’s a superpower, I really do mean that. Now, –
Sarah Noll Wilson
It can be frustrating.
Dr. Tina Opie
Yeah, the flip side of a superpower can be like a kryptonite, but when you learn how to manage it and get the tools in place. I think I’ve been able to accomplish many of the things that I have, because I have ADHD. And I think differently than, than a lot of people do.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, it’s, I mean that like, I always think of it as constellation thinking, being able to make patterns or –
Dr. Tina Opie
Yes.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Or look at just looking at a situation differently. And I think that that – I mean, that, that lends itself and speaks to the, you know, your seminal work with the Shared Sisterhood is how do we look at equity in a new lens? And how do we look at it through just that idea of authentic connections? So start us off on that journey. Because, you know, before we hopped on, and I don’t think that I realized that, that this has been part of your work. You’ve been thinking about it, researching it, doing work in this area for over 15 years. That that that initial idea of shared sisterhood got planted 15 years ago, or so. I mean, probably it was planted long before that. But –
Dr. Tina Opie
Yeah. Well, so I heard someone, so we were talking about sisterhood, it was at a professional development workshop at the Academy of Management. And in this conversation, we were trying to pull practitioners and academics together to think about how we could change the world. And we were talking about sisterhood. Someone said, shared shared sisterhood, it was my responsibility to develop the idea. I ended up doing that initially with a couple other people. But then interest waned. I was the last person standing. I wrote a white paper on shared sisterhood. And this would have been after 2010 because it was when I was at Babson, but it was a very, it was a very new idea. And the basic premise was that whenever I looked around, I never understood why if feminism is real, women weren’t helping each other in the workplace, especially black women and white women. And listen, the concept of shared sisterhood applies to many contexts. But the origin story of it was, Look, why aren’t black and white women helping each other? Specifically, why aren’t white women who have typically have more positions of power, helping other women who have less power?
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Dr. Tina Opie
If feminism is real, and my husband is a historian, and we have tons of books all over the house, and, you know, I go to the library, also reading on the history of the workforce, history of the labor force, and just seeing that there had been, while women of different racio-ethnicities were in the workplace, there did not seem to be a lot of collaboration, a lot of coalition building? And of course, yes, I acknowledged that there were exceptions to that. I mean, I think about how Ms. Magazine was founded, etc. But you know, that’s in the 70s. So it frustrated me and I have always been a person, when I see the thing, or the things that are affecting most of us, but none of us have the courage to talk about, that’s where I want to be. And so I wrote this white paper on why I thought that might be, that black and white women weren’t helping each other. I put some history in there. Some, you know, I’m an organizational behaviorist, so I had some some ideas about what might be happening in the workplace. But it wasn’t fully fleshed out. And so I shelved that paper. And then fast forward a couple of years, I was working on a research project with some Babson colleagues, and we needed another person to join the team. And I had met Beth and we can get into how we met if you want now or later, but Dr. Beth Livingston who I co-authored Shared Sisterhood with, we have worked on a couple of projects, and it was so much fun. You know, sometimes it’s like pulling teeth working with someone, other times it’s like, you could spend the whole time – it’s supposed to be your work hour, but you’re catching up because we just liked each other. So that’s how it’s been with Beth. Always been with Beth. And I asked her I said, Look, we’ve had success on these other projects. I have this white paper. It’s called Shared Sisterhood. And it’s really about if feminism is real, why haven’t black and women helped each other and coming up with solutions on how to promote gender and racial equity. Would you be interested? And she said, yes, right away. I sent her the white paper. I had done I think a podcast with Harvard Business Reviews Women at Work podcast. I think it was with Amy Bernstein and Sarah Green Carmichael, or maybe even Nicole Torres or I can’t remember. But we had talked about sisterhood as power, sisterhood as authenticity, etc, etc. I send the white paper to Beth, she shares some of her ideas. And it quickly dawned on me that the reason why Shared Sisterhood never gained traction, in my mind, was if I was going to write about sisterhood, I needed a sisterhood to create it. So you know it, I needed the perspective of someone who was different than me. And that is a case study, I think, for many of the issues. We were joking about X or Twitter, I do believe that if Mr. Musk had people around him who were different, who he would listen to, he would be able to resolve some of the business challenges that he’s confronting. And the bottom, there’s so much research, which shows that diversity, having people from different backgrounds, if you know how to properly manage it, –
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Dr. Tina Opie
Will lead to better outcomes. But it is a misnomer to think that diversity always works
Sarah Noll Wilson
Right.
Dr. Tina Opie
Because there’s so many people who think, we’re just gonna throw a bunch of different people into a room and by osmosis or photosynthesis or something,
Sarah Noll Wilson
(laughs)
Dr. Tina Opie
They’re gonna pick up the benefits of people being different. That’s a lie.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Dr. Tina Opie
That you can actually end up shooting yourself in the foot. Because when people are different, you know, there’s two different types of conflict, at least. There’s relational conflict, and there’s task conflict. If you put a bunch of people together who are different, and they may have different values, different backgrounds, different interpretations, they may have a lot of relational conflict. That is not what we’re trying to go for. We’re going for task conflict, which is where we have different ideas on how to get the job done. But we’ve created a culture of respect so that we listen to each other. We don’t have relational conflict, we have task conflict. That is when you can harness the benefit of diversity and have better outcomes. But you must have skill and it is not, I think, because all of us are humans, we’re like, well, I’m diverse in some way. Well, diversity, first of all, is a group level construct. You wouldn’t say I’m diverse, and you’re not diverse, Sarah. But people say that all the time. They’re like, well, we want to hire a diverse candidate. Child, you need to read the literature on diversity. Diversity is a group level construct. So you would say that group is diverse.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Dr. Tina Opie
Because think about it. If I’m at, if I’m at a group with black women, and you join, well, you’ve diversified the group, Sarah.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Right, right.
Dr. Tina Opie
So the group is more diverse as a result of you coming. But we wouldn’t say that you’re a diverse person. When you think about it that way, it’s crazy.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Well, I want to go back to that point that you made about if I’m going to be writing a book on shared sisterhood, it has to be you know, sort of born out of sisterhood. And that’s one of the things that I found really compelling about your book with Beth is, Dr. Livingstone, is that it danced between hearing your perspective on certain situations, her perspective on situations. It honestly, you both had moments of vulnerability of saying, yeah, I was a little, like, cautious at first when you know, she first reached out. And so what I what I appreciated so much as a reader is not only understanding the concepts, but also seeing how it played out. Not only in scenarios you shared of, here’s an example of where somebody has done this well, or here’s an example, you know, I’m thinking of like the Glenn and Doyle story that you share. But also this is what it looks like in our relationship, our practice, that just anchored some of the ideas so strongly, because (exhales) I can’t wait to get into all of this.
Dr. Tina Opie
Well, thank you because Beth and I spent a lot of time thinking through how to weave the story together. And look, it works for some people and it doesn’t. I love, you know, when, who is who has people read the mean tweets about them? Is it Jimmy Fallon?
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, yeah, yes, it is.
Dr. Tina Opie
There are some. I mean, we the book has been very well reviewed and regarded but there, every night, there are some reviews that cracked me up. So I’m like, they’re, like, can’t understand this writing. (laughter) And I just have to laugh. And you know, I get it. Sometimes books work for some people, sometimes they don’t for others. And it might be because I have ADHD that they were like, Girl, what are you saying?
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, which might be why I was like, I was following all of – when I was going back here. I was like, Oh, I was highlighting a lot.
Dr. Tina Opie
And, uh, you know, I say hats off to you because every book, I guess it’s not for every person. But we spent a lot of time crafting a narrative, telling stories. So that, and trying to break the concepts, constructs and concepts down so that they weren’t these pie in the sky academic terms. I mean, obviously there’s a lot of academic research in the book. But we all, we wanted to tell a story, we wanted the book to be practical so that every reader left with a strategic toolkit on how to develop those interpersonal relationships in pursuit of collective action and equity.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Well, and the other, the other part that was, one of many parts that was so powerful, was even in the exploration of the idea of sisterhood, the idea of, of bridging, the idea of building these relationships, and being able to speak to, you know, how it might look different if you are somebody who’s from, has an identity of historically marginalized, right, like perspective, versus somebody who’s been a part of the dominant power culture, and like, and that and that was really, that was really interesting. I’m not gonna lie, I was reading this and, and, and it’s something that I’ve, I’ve been wrestling with a lot more recently, like, in the last, I would say, you know, five years or so. But, but having been raised in such a, like, individualistic, right? That I’m like, I don’t know that, I know what like, really good sisterhood looks like.
Dr. Tina Opie
Uff, yeah.
Sarah Noll Wilson
And, and, you know, and I’ve been fortunate, though, I will say this, that I’ve been so fortunate, you know, over the last, I mean, truly, seven years or so, five, seven years, where I’ve been fortunate to forge those relationships, in part because they’re bringing, you know, my, my, my friends or colleagues are bringing these different perspectives. But I think as, I’m just speaking as my experience as a white woman, this sort of like collective community, collective action, that wasn’t always part of my DNA, if you will.
Dr. Tina Opie
Yeah, well, it’s so interesting, because that is something that we talk about, and that I’ve experienced. And, you know, when Beth and I share our stories sort of about our backgrounds, I talk about how my parents raised me to believe that I was excellent, that black people were excellent, that I was gonna have to work hard. Also, that we had to look out for each other. So it’s always interesting, you know, Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions where they talk about individualism and collectivism. And they always say, well, Western societies are more individualistic. But you always have to have a caveat, it depends upon the subculture, because most people I know who are African American, who are, you know, from Nigeria, or the Caribbean, I go to a very international church. Collectivism is is how we have operated, and so you know, thing’s like don’t bring shame on the family name.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Sure.
Dr. Tina Opie
You need to look out for each other in the workplace, because it may be a hostile environment. The only way that we’re going to get ahead is if all of us progress because all of us are confronting, or or we are confronting the system, honestly, that’s often anti-black.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Sure.
Dr. Tina Opie
Versus white women, and some of this, we talked about this in the book, I want to give, pay homage to Doctors, Ella Bell, and Stella Nkomo. And they wrote a book called Our Separate Ways. And almost every time I talk about this, I mentioned them, because I stand on their shoulders, they have really made a path. I mean, there are other people as well. But this particular book Our Separate Ways describes how, what I just said about black woman, that sort of a community of resistance. We knew that we were going to be received resistance when we went into the workplace. And so we had to prepare for that. And in contrast, white women are often raised in a very individualistic way. Where, according to the book, and according to other research, where it’s really emphasized, especially for women, you need to work hard, put your head down, you’ll get ahead. Issues of sexism are often not mentioned. So then you get into the workplace. And it’s, you’re out for yourself, you’re not really looking at other women.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Right.
Dr. Tina Opie
You’re thinking about your individual path. And so then we have this clash of differences when a white woman meets a black woman and a black woman has collectivism. And obviously, these are stereotypes. There are some black – I mean, these are generalizations. There are some black women who are not at all collectivistic. And there are some white women who are not at all individualistic, but from their interviews, from research that has been done, these generalizations hold true in some some situations. And so you have this clash, this culture clash. And it can be challenging to traverse that, to bridge and to connect. And the beauty of the relationship that Beth and I had is that, I mean we have disagreements, we still have disagreements. We do not think the same way, we have different backgrounds. But because we – I mean center, equity, because we trust each other, because we respect each other, we can have difficult conversations and still come out fine.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Dr. Tina Opie
And that is such a benefit. It’s such a benefit to be able to do that. And, you know, we do distinguish between the fact that Beth and I are sisters, we’re also friends. But you don’t have to be friends at work.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah. That was, god. Okay. I’m gonna organize my thoughts. One of the things that I really loved was how you broke down what a high quality connection looks like. And that, that that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a friendship, but, right, because you, you can have the professional and you talk about that emotional carrying capacity that we can share our real and true emotions. I want to make sure I pronounced it right. Because this is the first time I had seen this word. Tensility.
Dr. Tina Opie
Tensility. Yes.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, yeah, that that ability to be able to hold strain or tension. And then the connectivity, right, how do we open ourselves to new – and we know that white dominant culture, white supremacist culture, you know, leave the emotions at the door. Very either/or thinking, right? Like, it’s hard for us to sit in the mess and in the disagreements and you know, and when I look at this through the lens of being a Midwest white woman, I lovingly say, you know, they talked about Midwest nice. So I was like, no, we’re violently polite, we are very violently polite. And, and that’s a muscle that I’ve had to build, particularly that sitting, you know, the the, like, you speak about this in the book about balancing that, like, strong desire to be liked, a strong desire to be aligned with your perspective of your moral view of yourself.
Dr. Tina Opie
Yes.
Sarah Noll Wilson
And, and, and the reality is, is that, and again, this is something that I’m so grateful for, that as my world has evolved, and as my life has evolved, I have more people who have role modeled, and shown me, this is what it looks like to disagree and be uncomfortable. This is what it looks like to to fight with that. How, like, when you think about the work that you’ve been doing over the years, the work that has come from the book, the conversations you’re having, what has that, you know, what, what have you observed in groups? And what have you found to help people develop those skills, to be able to hold the space for the real emotions, to be able to navigate the strain? And that discomfort? Because now that, now that I’ve experienced that, I don’t ever want relationships where we’re just surface level again.
Dr. Tina Opie
Yeah, that’s a great question, Sarah. And so some of the work that I do, let’s say, the consulting work, where I may be asking if I can be a fly on the wall, as I observe a conversation, there are some things that I observed. So typically, people in the group defer to the person with the highest status. And that’s often, in many of the organizations where I am, that’s often white men. And so what I’ve learned how to – so so people defer to the white man, so if the white man, or if the leader of the organization or the group and that conversation is willing to engage in the conversation, then that may happen. But oftentimes, what happens is people don’t know where that leader stands. And so they skirt around it, they tiptoe around it, they may private chat me, an issue or concern, but they’re afraid to put it in the in the group chat, because they don’t want everybody to know. So what that says is that there’s some risk in that culture of expressing what you actually are thinking or feeling or what you might want to do. (pauses) One of the things that I have done is I jokingly say the meeting is not the meeting, the meeting before the meeting is the meeting. So because I know, that’s just a normal thing for people to form status hierarchies pretty quickly, we’re sizing each other up. We’re saying who is the most powerful? Who are you going to sit to at, next to at the table, you don’t want to sit next to the person who only needs stuff from you, you want to sit next to the person who can give you something at the networking lunch, okay? If you can identify people who are in formal positions of power, but also informal, and I really want to – I hope we spend some time talking about that. Informal influencers. I like to identify those people in the way you can identify those people when you’re entering into a new environment is asking people, Well, who do you go to for guidance? Who’s the person who really knows a lot about ABC? Who’s the person on the team, that if they left, the whole team would say, oh my gosh, how are we gonna get this done? And that might not be the person who’s formally in charge.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Right. Right.
Dr. Tina Opie
So then having conversations with that person, almost making sure that they are, you listen to their voice, you hear their voice, you run your ideas by them beforehand. And then you get those individuals to role model the very behavior that you’re trying to introduce to the group. So if it’s taking a risk, what would it look like? If okay, they’ve deferred to you, Sarah, or to Nick. Right? We know that because of the way the group functions, they’re gonna defer to you. I will work with you before the meeting, to practice on how you can role model vulnerability, to practice how you can role model risk taking. And we’ll, we’ll come up with case studies, because I don’t want you just throwing yourself under the bus. (laughter) People are like, well, how vulnerable should you be? I’m like, don’t please don’t go up in the in the meeting, talking about something that completely erases the credibility that you’ve established. That’s not what we’re saying. I’m not saying this, this is not a therapy session.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Dr. Tina Opie
And again, these are not necessarily your friends. But what you’re trying to do is role model situations where you’ve been vulnerable, empathetic, where you’ve had trust with somebody or you’ve taken risks, that can then start sort of a halo, a situation, rather than a spiraling downward, it spirals up in a positive way, where other people are more comfortable doing that. And that’s the goal, so that you can begin to chip away at these schisms that exist between people. So that’s how I would, that’s what I’ve observed. And that’s the solution to overcoming that
Sarah Noll Wilson
I love. I love that so much. And I love that that focus too on, you know, not just the formal authority, but who has the informal power and knowing that people will respond and listen to them. Because I feel like, you know, one of the things that that I’ve observed, that I’ve also experienced, right, on on my journey in relationships, on my journey, is sometimes you just have never experienced it, or you’ve gotten so like used to tolerating or you’ve developed, you know, and especially, and you talk about this in your book, right? When, if you are a member of the dominant power group, right, like you just do have blind spots. And –
Dr. Tina Opie
And actually, so, some people from, I know, this is gonna sound crazy. You have areas that you’re not aware of –
Sarah Noll Wilson
Right. Yes.
Dr. Tina Opie
As opposed to blindspots.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, just areas you’re not aware of, because it wasn’t your lived experience, or whatever the case is. And so it’s, you don’t even know, what does it look like?
Dr. Tina Opie
I really want to emphasize that all of us have areas that we are not aware of, as human beings we have, it’s like on a car. I mean, this is literally a blind spot, the mirror, you know, where there’s that when I was teaching, or when we were teaching our children how to drive. And thank God also sending them to driving school because I don’t have the nerves for that. I was like, Slow down! Slow down.
Sarah Noll Wilson
(laughs) They’re like, Mom, I’m going 15 miles. It feels too fast to me.
Dr. Tina Opie
Exactly. It’s too fast for me dude. Don’t let the water come out of this cup. But anyway, (laughs) when you’re braking. So you, there’s that, this is an actual blind spot where you, when you’re driving, and there’s a car and they come up close enough where you can’t see them in the sideview mirror. So just like that happens in driving, it can happen with us in real life. And I think it’s important, because in these conversations, I’ve said to Beth, when can white women really speak up? When do they feel comfortable? Because, so the issue is, you know, when Beth and I are having a conversation as a black and white woman, if we’re talking about race, she will usually defer to me.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Sure, sure. Yeah.
Dr. Tina Opie
But if we’re talking about religion, because I’m a Christian, and she’s an atheist, I defer to her. And so it’s really important to map out your identities and to be thinking about and why do we do that? Identities are imbued with power. Like certain identities, and whenever I ask this question, people push back. And you can see this in political discourse now, people do not want to think that this is a real issue. But historically, there have been some groups that have had more access to and control over resources. And that’s how we define power. And historically, there have been some groups that have had less access to and control over resources. When you are in a power, power dominant culture or power dominant identity, the way that you see the world is often normative. It’s just how it is. And as a result, you’re not as sensitive to challenges to alternative perspectives. And one of the best examples of this is, I’ll use Christianity because I’m a Christian. I never used to think about the fact that we would have exams, never on Christmas, but we would have it on all these other days. All these other religious holidays that were very important to people of different faiths. The way that we talk about shared sisterhood is as I have developed relationship with people, relationships with people who are atheist, agnostic, Muslim, Jewish, you know, Hindu, Buddhist, as a result, when we’re having these conversations, they can say, Tina, I had to miss XYZ to do. It is then incumbent upon me as a person from the power dominant group to go to the system and say, I think we need to re-examine this exam schedule. Have you ever noticed that we never have exams on Christmas Day, but we have them on these holidays? How can we create a flexible system for students to take the exams for, for faculty to practice the exams in a way that is respectful of their faith? Notice, I did not say it’s up to the person from a historically marginalized to go to the system.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, right.
Dr. Tina Opie
If you have power use it. And it’s my hope is that you don’t just use power to benefit you. And that is where collectivism comes in. That is anathema to much of what we talk about in this individualistic capitalistic society. And listen, I’m a capitalist, some people might say, I’m not, but I run a company.
Yeah.
I have, I’ve had employees, I have contractors, I have vendors. And my goal is to make a profit. But the idea is not just to make a profit for me. I want to, I want to, and I’m not trying to make ridiculous levels of profit, either. Because I want the people who I touch, to be able to take what they’ve learned, build their own platforms, because I’m trying to change the world. And I think, so that it’s more inclusive and more equitable. Greed is a heck of a drug though. And I think when I start having these conversations, that’s when people are going to say she sounds Marxist or socialist, and I’m like, I’m a cap, I’m saying I’m a capitalist. But I also am a Christian person and a human being who cares for other people. And there are certain things that I think should just be guaranteed, like health care, like housing, you know. Like being treated with respect –
Sarah Noll Wilson
Education.
Dr. Tina Opie
Education, exactly. Food. You know, I think that we, anyway, don’t get me started preaching on that.
I mean, you’re preaching to the choir on that one.
Exactly, exactly.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, it’s like, yeah, and how do we do it in a way that doesn’t harm people so much?
Exactly!
And how or like at all right, like, how do we do it in a way that works better for human sustainability? Instead of just the few at the top, or whatever the case might be? I think that’s, you know, that was something early on in the book you spoke to, of just that recognition of needing to push against the system a bit, you know, needing to create a framework. And you know, and I wrote this, and I started down that rejected the white supremacist professionalism that prioritize the transactional nature of business over authentic connection and liberation. And, and that was, really, yeah, that was just such a really powerful of, I mean, like, we can’t change the world with the same tools that got us in these, you know, like, a little into these places. And, and I, you know, that point you made earlier, I do want to go back to I, thanks for let, I know, I can let my brain jump with you. I know you’re like yeah, I’m tracking you, Sarah.
Dr. Tina Opie
Oh, yeah. No, we’re right on –
Sarah Noll Wilson
But just that idea of one of the steps we can all take is to be very aware of what power dominant groups were a part of, and and, you know, and and how do we listen to those who are not especially related to their experience? And then how do we use the privilege and power we have, right, to to help change the system? And I don’t even know where my question is, I just want to like, reiterate all of this.
Dr. Tina Opie
I think that be being introspective, remaining curious, being intellectually open, those are such critical skills, and what I see, you know, wealth concentration in the United States, I think it’s something like the bottom 50% of earners own less than 3% of the wealth in the country. And like, almost 70% of the wealth is owned by the top 10% of the earners. There are some people who look at that and just say, well, the people on the bottom need to work harder. I reject that. Some of the hardest working people I know are poor, and this may be offensive to people. But I’ve said if hard work was what it took to become wealthy, black people would own this world, we would own this country. Seriously think about, I mean when you look at the fact that the value of enslaved people exceeded the GDP, I mean, like it was ridiculous, if they actually had paid that. So hard work, meritocracy, I get it, right. That would be the goal. Wouldn’t we all love to be judged based on how well we sang, or worked or took the test, whatever, but we know that there are so many other factors. And when people deny that, I’m like, well, why are you working so hard to get your child a tutor? Why are you working so hard to get them networked in at this country club, to get them that get that caddy job, there’s, we know that who we know, matters. And who we know is often determined by the zip code in which we’re born. And that’s one of the biggest predictors of where we end up in the world, or end up in terms of our life outcomes is the zip code into which we’re born. That’s again, that elephant, so many people don’t want to talk about it, they want to act as though it’s not true. You just have to put your head down and work. And that’s just simply not true. It’s untrue.
And also, I think, like, part of that fear, too. And, and that was, that was a reckoning, I had to go through, right, like, as, as a white person, you know, I didn’t grow up with money. I grew up in lower class. So I had an identity about myself that like I had to struggle. And` recognizing that and maybe being pushed against that, like, yeah, and maybe although I struggled, the struggle was different, or perhaps not as hard, or I didn’t have as many barriers, right? Like, I think –
Or the struggle was not because you were white.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Right. Right. Right.
Dr. Tina Opie
That’s the thing.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Right. Thank you for that.
Dr. Tina Opie
And that’s what I try to tell people – you’re welcome. It is, it is so important that we respect each other’s experiences. Because when I talk to white people, that’s what I often say. I’m not negating the fact that you had a struggle. I’m just informing you that given the way that our world is built, your struggle was probably not because you were white? But there are plenty of people who literally have been excluded, have been shut out, have been prevented from ascending because of their racio-ethnicity, or their gender, or their sexual orientation, or their immigration status or something. Surely, we can see that. But we have people who will look at the same array of status, and they will make different inferences. You know, when it comes down to it, I’ve asked people, I was at a bank working for, working with a client. It was a global bank. And, you know, they have their C suite executive team, and it’s like, 50 people, I’m estimating. And what I remember was like, there was one woman, there was one man of Asian descent, and 48 white men from different countries. And I said, “Do you mean to tell me that this is a global company, and you actually think, from around the world, the best people for 96% of your positions are white men, roughly between the ages of 50 and 70.” Like they’re not even a young. I mean, I’m, I’m young, but you know what I mean, so they’re in a particular age. And so that question ruffled a lot of feathers.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Sure.
Dr. Tina Opie
But I think you have to ask yourself, because what’s the inference? Either you’re telling me that these were the most qualified, when you’re saying that these are the most qualified people, then that means that other people are not qualified? Is that really what we think? Really? I don’t think so. I think if you peel back the layers, you realize that all these people are probably networked in a particular way, they made a particular prototype, and so they’re more palatable to the organization. But that does not mean that Sarah or Tina or whoever is not just as if not more qualified to be in those positions. But that is what I think people are afraid of. When you, the step further than that is when you are in an organization and you begin to hire the people who can get the job done best, you can actually increase the pie. And so you know, I’ve had people say, well, how do you how do you deal with this? Because white men often feel like they’re being cut out, like they’re going to lose something. And I said, well, you may, and what, but think about this, you may go from 50% of the pie to 10% of the pie. But what if the pie – so 50% of 100? Exactly 50% of 100 is a lot smaller than 10% of a million. So perhaps the cure for cancer could have already happened. But we didn’t let a black woman into the medical field. Or perhaps the the way that we can address homelessness is in a homeless person’s mind. But you won’t give them the platform or the audience or their, you won’t give your ear to listen. And that would improve all of our lives. If we were to do that. So the zero sum game, Heather McGee has a fabulous book called The Sum of Us, and she she went across the country interviewing different people and talking about and really seeing up close what happens when we frame this as a zero sum game. So every game for a historically marginalized person is interpreted as a reduction for historically power dominant people and groups, I should say. And that’s a fallacy. It’s simply not true. But I think we don’t have enough people who are courageous enough to step out and examine and experiment and really have these kinds of discussions. But it comes down to fear. I think it comes down to fear.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that was coming up is a conversation I was privileged to have last year with Tara Jaye Frank on her book The Waymakers, and yeah, she’s one of my, –
Dr. Tina Opie
She’s awesome.
Sarah Noll Wilson
I just want her to run for office, and I want to giver her all of my money. Like there’s just so Tara, if you’re listening to this, please run for office.
Dr. Tina Opie
Yes, Tara.
Sarah Noll Wilson
But you know, I mean, she she talked about, I might be butchering the way that she explained it. But you know, just this idea when people are like, Yeah, but what about, like, what about my son, right? Like, as a, you, my white son or whatever? And it’s like, well, first of all, like even the asking of that implies that was his position to begin with, that was his spot to begin with.
Dr. Tina Opie
He was entitled.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Even that is, is a default thinking of, right, like, privilege, if you will. And, and the thing that’s – I mean, to your point, there’s so much research, like the research is kind of like, I don’t know if it’s fair to say this, but but that when, when you do open up, and you are, like you said earlier in the conversation, able to bring in more diverse perspectives, have different people with different lived experiences, when you’re able to harness that power, as a company, you will, you just will perform better, you will be able to do that. The other thing I’ll say is, on my journey, especially growing up in a very white dominant culture, right, like I was very, it’s very unusual for me to not be part of the dominant group, right? That I’ve had to learn to even see that because it’s been so normalized. And that took people who are willing to take risks, that took friends of mine who are willing to say, what do you notice about all the speakers? And I’m like, I don’t know. Like, they’re all from insurance? They’re like, try again, Sarah. Like, oh, shit, they’re all white. I don’t even, I don’t even take that into consideration because of, right, like my experience with that. So some of it is having folks who are willing to take the risk to say, Hey, do you see this and asking the questions like you did of this group, like really? This is our this is the best of the best. That’s, you know, strange. Tell me more, like is that isn’t that interesting to you? And my guess is a lot of people when you’re part of that dominant group, you just don’t even question it.
Our guest today has been Dr. Tina Opie, please join us next week for part two of our conversation together. You can reach out to us at podcast @ Sarah Noll Wilson.com. You can find me on social media where my DMs are always open. And we always want to hear, what came up for you, what resonated for you? What are you curious about? And if you’d like to support the show, you can do so in two ways. The first is really simple. Rate, review and subscribe to the show on your preferred podcast platform. This helps us increase visibility and exposure so we can continue to bring on excellent guests like Dr. Tina Opie. And if you’d like to financially support the team that makes this show possible, you can do so by becoming a patron, you can go to patreon.com/conversations on conversations, where your financial support will support the team and you’ll get access to ad free shows. You’ll get the shows early, and some pretty great, unique show swag.
I want to just do a big shout out to the team that makes this show possible. To our producer Nick Wilson, to our sound editor Drew Noll, our transcriptionists Becky Reinert, our marketing consultant Jessica Burdg and the rest of the SNoWCo. crew. And just a big final thank you to Dr. Tina Opie, and the incredible work that she’s doing and everything that she has brought to this world. So I was so excited to get the chance to be in conversation with her. This has been Conversations on Conversations. Thank you so much for listening, for giving us your time. And remember, when we can change the conversations we have with ourselves and others, we can change the world. So until next week, please be sure to rest, rehydrate and we’ll see you again soon.
Sarah Noll Wilson is on a mission to help leaders build and rebuild teams. She aims to empower leaders to understand and honor the beautiful complexity of the humans they serve. Through her work as an Executive Coach, an in-demand Keynote Speaker, Researcher, Contributor to Harvard Business Review, and Bestselling Author of “Don’t Feed the Elephants”, Sarah helps leaders close the gap between what they intend to do and the actual impact they make. She hosts the podcast “Conversations on Conversations”, is certified in Co-Active Coaching and Conversational Intelligence, and is a frequent guest lecturer at universities. In addition to her work with organizations, Sarah is a passionate advocate for mental health.