Kent Svenson:
Welcome to the trusted leader show. I’m Kent Svenson producer of the trusted leader show. And for this week’s episode, we feature an exclusive clip from the 2022 trusted leader summit, where Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV, founder and board member of impactLives, Inc and founder of Third Sphere LLC, took to the stage to discuss his model for transformational leadership and diversity equity, inclusion, and belonging. So sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
I always like to teach, and I always like to begin with quotes. These two particular quotes are very close to my heart. The first one is the Alchemist, which is the sculpture right at MIT. And it really let no one enter who cannot see that the issues outside that are mirror of the issues inside. So when we talk about diversity, equity and inclusion, we talk about systemic issue. And what I try to remind people that our collective thinkings habits of mind, beliefs and values are colliding and is part of the system that we are creating. The second quote is a quote for our time. And I think, you know, David pretty, you know, pretty much capture, you know, today, the polarization that we’re seeing in our culture, one of the great challenge in this world is knowing enough to think you’re right, but not knowing enough to know when you’re run. Think about that. Right. So right now, one of the biggest problem that I see as I work with different organizations is that people seem no longer interested in truth. They’re more interested in finding people that think like them act like them behave like them. How do you build trust in a society and a culture that is not interested in truth? Pretty tough, right? So how do we build trust in a society that is not, doesn’t seem to be interested in truth, but more into, you know, being validated in what they already believe.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
When I talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, for me, the conversation begins right here. So a lot of company come to me, Hey, can you gimme your program? Bad news? There’s no such a thing as a program, right? And when we talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, there’s no finish line. This is a live long journey. Why there’s no finish line because culture is dynamic. It’s no linear. It’s always evolving. It’s always changing. Two years ago, we were doing something very different. Then, you know, we got hit with pandemic. We have to pivot. Then, you know, civil, Andre, we have to pivot. Now we got a war going on in Eastern Europe. Now we have to pivot.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
Culture is always moving. It’s always expanding. And we as human being, we always adapting. We are projecting all our, you know, worldviews and values and beliefs into the culture. And we are shaping the culture, but the culture is also shaping us. It’s constant movement. So when people ask me, do you have a program? I say, no, you wouldn’t ask a doctor for a prescription without an evaluation, right? So we need to understand your organizational culture. We need to evaluate your people. We need to evaluate your programming. We need to evaluate your mission, your vision. We need to understand your organization before you can engage in this conversation. So as such, we do not see things as they are. We see them as we are. The reality that you are experiencing in this moment is based in the past. If based on past experience, the brain is not wired to perceive what it doesn’t know.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
So it’s using previous information to help you understand what I’m saying to help you deal with this information that I’m sharing with you. So we do not these things as they are. We see them as we are. And as we see them as we are, we’re using one perspective for that reason, being able to take multiple perspective into account is part of this journey. When, you know, when it comes to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and the second statement there, we create what we expect. We see what we expect to see. We can condition our brain to do that. About five years ago, my son began driving. And of course that is everybody. Every parent’s nightmare at one point or another, right, grandma and grandpa gave them gave him this huge gray van, full size van, that it was perfect for him. Not for me, but for him was perfect, was a great, you know, van.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
And that, you know, the kid is excited. You know, we give him all the rule. You only, you are the only driver and the only passenger in that, in that van and that we want you home at this time. So he goes to, you know, school, he’s been doing tracks. And one day we get a call. I’m gonna be there on time. Dad, I’m gonna be there on time. I just picking up, you know, some, a few things. And I told my wife, he’s not gonna make it on time. My wife agreed with me. We went on a walk and for the entire walk, I was just really excited because I wanted to show him my muscle. I was going to ground him. I was going to explain to him why he need to adhere to the rules. So when we walked through the driveway, we just got, you know, super, you know, charged up.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
I get home, I open the door, I turned the phone. Where are you? And he said, dad, I’m here, here. Where upstairs in my room, what happened to the van? Dad is in the driveway. So we both, my wife and I went down to the driveway and below and behold, there was the van. Why didn’t we see the van we created what we expect to see, right? So we know that we have a particular activating system, which is a membrane that connect your brain to the spine. And that regulates what you see and what you don’t see, where you have the focus of attention. That’s what you will see now, what happened when it becomes to people with human differences, with diversity of all kinds, right? There are some things that we don’t see and there’s some things that we actually see. We have to be careful again, what is it that we carry in our mind?

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
What is it where we’re putting our focus of attention, because we can live some people out. So when we talk about you know, our, our mental models and worldview and frame of reference, we all have a frame of reference. As what David shared about me at the beginning is just a little bit of what make me who I am. That is the programming of my mind being in the us Navy, working for different pharmaceutical, medical devices, company being an athlete being in different parts of the world, doing my research, all of that create my frame of references. But all of you have a frame of reference. And none of us, none of us in this room right now is understanding and processing this information the same way your brain print is as unique as your fingerprint, 7.9 billion people in the world, 7.9 billion way of seeing what we’re seeing here.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
How do we account for so much differences, right? Free, challenging. So all your experiences, whether accurate or inaccurate will impact what you value, what you believe, your attitude and that become what your well view the lenses through which you interpret, what is in front of you. And that’s how you make decisions. And the product that you will produce is based on those experiences and those well viewed mental models and processes that you have built. So if your mental models and your experiences are not accurate, what’s going to happen. You are going to produce, you know, behaviors and products that are not congruent with the person that you want to be. So we need to understand this really well. We have social media and use media, which is very highly influential in the work that we do. And, you know, on a daily basis, where are we consuming information and how that information is impacting, how we think and how we make decision, we need to be clear. We need to be aware of our own biases and the assumptions that we make and take responsibility for that.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
So the question for all of you, all of us here today is do you wanna make decisions without knowing how those decisions are informing your informing them and what impact it might be having in the people that you’re trying to lead and on yourselves? So I tell people it’s not, what is in your wallet, it’s, what’s in your brain, what’s in your brain. We need to understand what is in here and how that is impacting, how we make decisions. So, first things that we need to do to understand is that our mindsets, our mental models, our frame of references not only the limit, but also shape how we understand each other, right? So our frame of references, you know, create the structure of assumptions that we make when we connect with each other. And it’s also our mental models, you know help understand our employees.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
You know, especially when we are recruiting, hiring, retaining we need to, you know, which, which what they believe about achieving, about being connected about feeling like they are part of the organization, but they also help us also understand and impact how we perceive, how we see people and how we perceive reality, our attitude to our certain people, our behaviors, you know, how receptive or friendly we are to our certain people, our attention, which part of a person do we pay much more attention to our listening skill. Do we listen actively to certain people, but other people we don’t. And we know, and we know that male voices seems to capture more attention than women, you know, voices, how do we close that gap and micro reformation, who do we comfort, or, you know, more than others, especially right now in a moment where we are experiencing so much, you know, crisis mental health issue, burnouts.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
So when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion, your best weapon is a process of attention and intentional. Self-Awareness the more aware you become of yourself, the better you are going to be at doing this work. And we also need to ask ourselves, what traps are we you know, what, what might we possibly fall into when we are doing this work? So we need to understand a lot of what happening in our context, when it comes to the United States, we have about 58 million Hispanic, Latino, according to Nielsen, we got about 44 million African-American 16 million Asian Americans. And we have about the LGBTQ plus communities between 10 to 12, you know, million people within each and every one of those groups, there is a vast range of of, of diversity. There are diversity, not only of thoughts of opinion, but also there is diversity that is not even, you know accounted for because we cannot see it.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
But then there are also generational, you know, diversity, and then let’s not forget you know, generations like millennials, you know, they expect the organization that they work with to be an organization that is focused on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. So here’s a model that came as a result of my work in the middle east, in India, Southeast Asia and Latin America. We call ’em the four I model for transformational leadership in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. It should be in your handout. The first I is for is for identity and identity is not just understanding who you are. It’s really understanding who you are at the deepest level. Do you know how to identify your emotions? Do you know how you wire, how you think, how you process information? You know, I’m a maximizer. I know that in the StrengthFinder I’m, I am an T J in the Meyers Bri.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
I am an integration when it comes to the intercultural, developmental inventory, all of these things, all of these, you know, psychometrics assessment, inventory date, help you understand yourself a little bit better. And by understanding myself better, I’m also able to understand the others around me. The second one is integration and integration is now that I understand myself, do I understand other people for those of you who have done emotional intelligence, not as how close this model follow the emotional intelligence model, right? Self-Awareness right. Self-Management social awareness, relationship management. It is the same. So emotional intelligence and, and system thinking cannot be divorced from cultural competency. And this model, because it’s followed the same pattern. When I talk about integration, we need to understand that context really matter. In some context, I am part of the dominant culture. In some context, I am not.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
And being part of the dominant culture, brings some power differentials. It is important to understand that as well, right? So context really matter, in which context are you relating to people in which context you are interacting, communicating, or designing for your organization context really matter. So integration is about understanding the other and the proximity to which you engage other people, intrinsic motivation. And now we go notice that the first one identity go from ego to the, you know, from the internal integration, you step outside to the ego. Now, intrinsic motivation. You come back to the ego. Why do I do the things that I do? Am I interrogating my thoughts, questioning my thoughts, my motivation for, you know, for doing what I’m doing. So constant process of critical reflection, and the last one is influence and influence is now that you can, that you understand yourself better.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
You understand the context and the people around you. Do you understand your motivation and your inspiration for doing what you do? How do you create the conditions where those around you can become the best version of themselves that is influence in case you wondering about the two picture? It’s just two images that I used to talk about. What transformational leadership and transactional leadership I heard in India, the phrase nothing grow on their Banian tree. And when you look at a Banian tree, this roof system can take, you know, a whole, you know, you know, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 acres. I mean, it can take, you know, quite a bit out of a land. And once that tree die, nothing grows on their Aban tree. On the other hand, I grew up with a banana tree. When you plant a banana tree at six months, you get another banana tree from the same root.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
At 12 months, you get another banana tree from the same root. At 18 months, you get another one, the 18 months produces the fruit and die, but you have four generations coming. So for transformational leadership, my thing is, can you create the stage or share the stage with those that need to be developing to becoming future leaders? Are you okay doing that? Are you producing life in yourself and yourself? And in other people, that’s what transformational leadership is about. And then how do we understand, how do we use this information to understand how to address problem when it comes to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Let me say this on a daily basis in corporations, in our society, we talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging almost all day long. It is one of the most talk about topics. Unfortunately, it is one of the least understood. We assume for the most part that we understand, you know, when you know the, in, in the same manner, what we’re talking about, what we don’t to assume that we understand what these things mean in the same way that I do can create misunderstanding in communication.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
We have a common language when it comes to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, but we do not have shared meaning. It means something different to a lot of people. And to assume that we have shared meaning can get you in a lot of trouble. So we need to understand what the things are. So the first things is, as we are dealing with structural barriers with system, you know, systemic issues, we need to understand the asset culture. We are what we call reactive culture. We are reacting to the things that are at the surface, the things that are visible, and therefore we treat symptoms for the most, for the most, you know, for the most part, we are not treating the issues at the source. When we look below the iceberg, we can see the tango web of issues that are creating what you’re seeing at the surface.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
This is true for organizations, and this is true for individuals. So when we start looking down, we can see the structural barrier, the system limitations, personal disconnect, and at the bottom, the source of which, which creates some of the problem that we’re seeing is what is us. And David just pointed out a moment ago because we don’t trust, we don’t trust. And that creates all these issues that you see here. So how do you address? So when organization come to me and ask me about doing D I B work, this is where I start, and this is the model by Robert Livingstone. How do we use the, you know, the press model to make decision? The first question is about condition and condition is about this. Do you understand the problem that you’re trying to solve? And do you understand the root cause of that problem?

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
Do you understand the problem that you’re trying to solve and the root cause of that problem? Not every organization is the same for that reason. There’s no such a thing as a magic bullet or a program. Do you understand the problem and that you understand the root cause of that problem? That will be the PR. And when it comes to concern, is do you care enough about the problem and the people that is harming? Do you care enough about the problem and the people that is harming and that’s empathy, but I will be Frank with you. I prefer compassion. And right now as we can see what’s happening in the world, we need more compassion. I think it’s one of the eight pillars that David brought up compassion will get you closer, you know, to the person, compassion in the Latin, mean to suffer with the other, to enter into the suffering of the other people.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
And I know that is countercultural. You know, people don’t like suffering, but it will help us develop more connection with other people. And when it comes to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, it’s understanding the lived experience of other people. When we said I am colorblind, I don’t see color. We all human. What you’re doing is you’re minimizing those differences that really matter to people. And by minimizing those differences, you are also denying the lived experience of the individual. So the next question is about correction and correction is, do I have a strategy to address the, you know, the problem, right? And when I talk about a strategy, I tell leaders don’t think about on a strategic plan, think about on a strategic process. When it comes to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, it’s about selling the ship, because guess what, you’re gonna get these storms coming back and forth, and it’s gonna be very difficult.

Dr. Ramon A. Pastrano IV:
You need to learn how to pivot. So to lack yourself into a, plan’s not gonna help you. So having an strategic process, a D E I B roadmap is the best, you know answer to that particular problem. And the last question is the most important is are you willing to do whatever it takes to do this work right? And that mean stand with courage in the gap right now that we are facing that we are, you know, experiencing not to go with the narratives or the rhetoric that we’re hearing in social media, news media, but understand that this is good for the organization. And for individuals. In fact, you will see pretty soon here, how diverse team in organizations that have diverse team are always going to outperform homogeneous teams, diverse team that are culturally competent, will outperform homogeneous teams in every single study. And they will increase more collaboration, more innovation, more sustainability, more profitability. So correction is, are you willing to do whatever it takes to do this work, right?

Kent Svenson:
That’s it for this week’s episode, be sure to check out trustedleadershow.com for all the show notes and links and information from anything mentioned in today’s episode. And we are so excited to announce that the trusted leader summit is coming back next year, November 7-9, 2023 at the JW Marriot mall of America here in Minnesota, to find out more information and to register, visit trustedleadersummit.com. And if you haven’t already, we would greatly appreciate a review on apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast, as this is a great way to help support the show and help others to discover it. But in the meantime, that’s it for this week’s episode. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time stay trusted.