Empowering Differences with Ashley T. Brundage

Kim Clark: 00:00:00

Hey, welcome back. Thank you, everybody for being here. I can't wait to introduce you to Ashley T Brundage. Now Ashley and I were actually on a panel in early 2023. And that's actually how we met. We hadn't met before, we're just kind of put on this panel together. And, you know, talking about culture and differences and empowerment and employee empowerment. And I'm coming from the communication side. And she's coming from well, let me let her just kind of introduce herself. And then you'll, you'll see, Ashley, let people know who you are.

Ashley T. Brundage: 00:00:41

Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. I am Ashley T. Brundage, as you said, I'm the president, CEO of empowering differences, which is a leadership training, salting company, I did about eight years of research on empowerment. And then when I found during my research was that empowerment was largely impacted by the differences that we had as humans, some people have access to more empowerment than others naturally. So I said, Oh, well, why don't I create a whole program called empowering differences, and allow people to grow as humans awesome, through these differences that they have, and they can become better leaders. But also really, anyone can empower differences, whether even if you are already extremely empowered, you might be in a position to drive and power it for other people. And I wanted to create a program that encompass that, but also build the connection for others to grow and learn and grow. And I actually litmus tested this research, and for empowerment steps that come with it, when I overcame harassment, discrimination and homelessness as a proud out woman of transgender experience living in Florida. And I got a job as a part time bank teller, and then I became the National Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion after only four years. And that was largely tied to the fact that I was extremely empowering all 10 of my differences. And I'm excited to chat more with you.

Kim Clark: 00:02:21

Oh, my gosh, you just, there's so much right there that I just want to go down all the lanes. So like, kind of what AGE RAGE were you? Where were you at when you're kind of discovering who you were, and not discovering but stepping into?

Ashley T. Brundage: 00:02:39

Yeah, well, that in 1997, I was 17. And I had a start stop on my gender transition. Because I realized that the world was not yet ready for someone like me, my brother actually kind of said, Hey, what's so important? Why do you want to, you know, live your life this way? I mean, I'm gonna love you regardless. But I just want to know, and I said, Well, I really have all these maternal instincts I want to be off, and I like I literally, I want to be alone, he said, well, then you should just have kids. And then you can mom, the hell out of them, as whoever you are. And so I had kids, and that was able to hide me in the closet for the next 11 years. But then I blew everything up in 2008. Because I lost my job, because I was living a double life, and it was disproportionately affecting me. And then that's what kind of started me on this quest of trying to figure out how to garner more empowerment. And I did that research did as your advocacy work. And then I did that through forming this focus groups and creating an entire leadership program to help people.

Kim Clark: 00:03:46

So you started to bring that work, and kind of kind of connect your personal experience what you're seeing in the workplace, and, and actually stepping into a VP of diversity, equity and inclusion at a major institution, a regulated industry. So what So talk about that experience, and then I would love to hear more about the kind of conversations that you had in order to get where you wanted the PROG program to go and some of the obstacles that you ran into?

Ashley T. Brundage: 00:04:23

Yeah, I mean, the financial services industry. I don't know that they were ready for someone like me. I mean, I definitely made them feel uncomfortable at times, but I think it was the right amount of mix of uncomfortableness you have to make sometimes people feel uncomfortable to be able to because that's where the best learning comes into play. That's where you check you know, you're challenging people to think more broadly or move inclusion programming differently. Yeah, it was it was interesting. I definitely led the league and people tried to call Oh, ethics on me because they just didn't like me. And I know I made people feel uncomfortable at times. I mean, at one point, the bank I worked for was the Quaker bank like, so I mean, in their history, I mean, yeah, that's 165 year old financial services organization, what do you expect, right? Like it's and, and also, the other thing is, is that I was literally trying to build a brand on empowerment. And let's not kid ourselves, the financial industry is very financial services industry, deeply rooted in a past that's very disempowering for people. And it's even to this day, there are lots of things that happen in the financial industry, that can be construed as disempowerment, right? Like they're holding on to your money, they're making money off your money, you move your money, they charge you, you spend your money, they charge you, the merchant charges, you 3% higher to cover up the cost of what they're paying the financial organization, all of those things can be seen as disempowering for people. So it's very difficult. And I definitely scratched the surface, just scratching the surface of trying to make people understand to think a little bit differently.

Kim Clark: 00:06:09

So let's talk about the book, the research what you found, and how you put it into play with your clients. When I hear the term empowerment, I really focus on the power part of empowerment. Like that is what pops out for me is power. So power dynamics. Now we know language leads to behavior. language can be weaponized. And what we're talking about here is, you know, communicating like we give a damn. So language is very powerful. And that

Ashley T. Brundage: 00:06:40

sounds like a really good book title.

Kim Clark: 00:06:44

You're not the first to tell me that. It's very interesting. I'm listening, you know, at least I got the podcast title this, communicate like You Give A Damn, man talk about this. And, you know, the power of empowerment? And yeah, yeah, you know, what did you find in the research? And how do you put it into play for clients?

Ashley T. Brundage: 00:07:04

I will, I think that you start with a definition of empowerment, which is authority and power connected to people. So when I started doing this research on empowerment first, before I was doing the focus groups on the differences, I was asking people, what they felt about empowerment and what it meant to them. And basically, I knew that they were the people. So that was the easy part of those three pieces. There were a billion V people on the planet, you know, that can't really be argued. That's a statistical fact. But the authority and power were very much like society driven constructs, right? And he even said it when you were talking about the power dynamics, a dynamic, right, you said that. And so the response that I got from people around what empowerment meant to them, I basically all of their answers, I grouped them into two different categories. The answers either had something measurable, that was easy, tangible to know exactly. That's how much it is, like their paycheck, the type, your annual salary, how much time you have in a day, how much power is on the room is measured by kilowatts, like literally everything that happens in our planet, is in one of these two categories. So easy, measurable category that has some sort of impact towards people on the planet, power, and then authority was all everything else, which was the emotional side, the human side, the decision making side, the confident side, the health side, the framing side, the breathing side, like Zeeland Yang side, like literally everything else that happens in this planet, went across the authority side, Ron, how we built our own confidence to be our own boss. And it's like a mentality that people move with. And by separating empowerment in these three categories, we have a better ability to track the results of our empowerment work. And that's what I wanted to build my program around was that ability to help people better understanding empowerment, to speak to what is empowering, versus just being branded as Oh, this is empowering people.

Kim Clark: 00:09:21

Because the term can be kind of cliche, you know, just like it's like kind of lost some of its power, if you will. So how do we like Empower empowerment? And we leverage our differences to empower our workplace culture.

Ashley T. Brundage: 00:09:37

Yeah, so my whole program is about leveraging differences to impact change. The unpacking of the change is a number one, that better understanding of empowerment is being number two, the measurement of whatever it is that you're doing to drive empowerment for people so you can measure the power items very easily, because the power items are going to be in that space of Oh, Hey, this is exactly what that is, okay, we paid we we promoted X amount more people. So we know that that amount is the power. And then the authority side is usually we ask people, Hey, how did I do today? Or how did you feel about me is that as your supervisor today or for any of those kinds of you get out of the Uber car, right? And they're like, please rate me five stars. And they're asking you that specifically, because that ties to their authority around how you felt about the ride. But then a on the back end connects to the power because you know, they can get a bonus on how you rated them, right. So it's like, these two things are very intertwined, and how they connect to empowerment, but really foundationally understanding empowerment and better is the first step in this process. And that comes from kind of getting to know yourself and what you feel about power. So actually, I published a 21 question empowerment self assessment that connects to step one, knowing yourself. And that assessment is available right on empowering differences.com People can click the Assessment tab and download it for free. Because I don't want there to be any barrier for anyone to gather resources for step one, and their empowerment journey.

Kim Clark: 00:11:15

What are the other steps? What's a little bit more about ourselves?

Ashley T. Brundage: 00:11:19

Yeah. So once you find out about yourself and what that and what empowerment means to you, and you memorialize it, and date it, date it to the data, you wrote what empowerment meant to you, because your answer will change over time as your differences change. And so that's why it's so important to learn about other people and all these differences. Because as a human, you you own on to this moment of where you fit in the world. And, and awareness is huge. So knowing others is step two, that's where we learn about the differences. That's why we partner with experts in the DEI, space and other communities. Because we want to feature and hear from people across those differences. Step three is to develop your strategy. You cannot drive empowerment successfully for all 10 of your differences. And unless you have a strategy to do so. And you're purposeful in that nature. So for step three, the resource that I created is the empowerment self assessment, digital platform where you rate your differences. Are you empowered, or are you disempowered? So if anybody wants to do that, they can always contact me. And we'll provide you with that assessment platform. It's part of the leadership course that I created, that connects to step four, the empowering actions. And these are the leadership actions that you get as recommendations for your strategy based on your differences and how empowered or disempowered you are. That's where the recommendation comes into play. So that way, you can be truly empowering all 10 of your differences, just like I did.

Kim Clark: 00:13:01

Do you have any examples from working with clients or individuals where you can kind of suss out by the person's language? Where they were at? Or do you have any examples of empowering or disempowering language that you've heard?

Ashley T. Brundage: 00:13:16

Yeah, well, language is one of the top 10 differences that I studied. And it's one of those things that is, so there are so five of the top 10 differences can change. And every single second, many people don't think about all of our differences, and half of the time are interchangeable in any moment, right. So you have your age, your physical abilities and attributes. You have your socio economic class, your education, and then your language. And you can learn one new word per day if you want to, right like some people like feel threatened about the AI but ultimately, like, knowing that these five things can change every day about you is like mind blowing, hopefully, for you because you now have the ability to change your your differences.

Kim Clark: 00:14:11

It's an empowering feeling,

Ashley T. Brundage: 00:14:13

hopefully, right? I mean, I was in nine countries last year and across nine countries, I noticed that if I just at least spoke one to two words in a different language, I can immediately cultivate empowerment for the other person on the other side of the of the conversation. Even just me attempting to pronounce a word that I know exist, is empowerment potentially. I think it's really important like this is why I can speak at least four words in 19 languages specifically, because hello, goodbye please thank you can go a really long way in how you cultivate a relationship with people through your communication in the language where choices you make.

Kim Clark: 00:14:59

That makes So much sense. What are some examples of how we disempower ourselves with the language that we use?

Ashley T. Brundage: 00:15:11

Yeah, this is this is so common, I see this a lot. One of my big call outs for people is, is our word choices, right? The communication word choices matter. Do you use empowering communication? Or do you just communicate? Some examples? Right? Yeah. So some examples of this is like, oftentimes, when you have, you know, 10 meetings in one day back to back, and you're like thinking about, you're like, Oh, my God, I feel like I'm really busy. I'm not getting any work done right, or whatever. But you know, that's a negative, that has sometimes a negative feeling or a negative connotation. I always frame my day as being productive. And I'm, I'm always thinking positively in the way that I'm communicating the word choices matter. You can, you know, use a lot of different word choices, right? There's, you know, a lot of people use adjectives sometimes to describe how they're feeling, but then not realize that that adjective could potentially be hurting somebody, you know, the word crazy is thrown around a lot in this space. And I always try to try to say not to use that word. And say that say what it is that you're gay is why you feel like that is the word you're trying to use. Is it because you have had a lot of meetings today? Or that it's been intense? Or what's going on, like, say, the actual meaning not describing a word that's used to hurt other people? 10 times. And this goes all back to inclusive communication, which is obviously a big intersection between you and me, what we what our work does?

Kim Clark: 00:16:52

Absolutely. That was a great example. Now, I'd love to hear this is like, the big. The final question that I would love to hear from you is, when you were running di, you know, in a full time capacity, you're a VP of DNI, and you would have had communication partners within the organization. Oh, yeah. What, what worked? What didn't work? What did you need as the VP of D and I have a very large institution, a very influential institution. And that would have made greater impact on the progress and the work that you were trying to accomplish?

Ashley T. Brundage: 00:17:38

Well, yeah, I mean, we we had a communications person on our team was really cool. We had our own comms person. And but then we had a weekly meeting with corporate communications, because literally every day we were trying to put something on the internet for DNI and we wanted it to be and then we had community statements. I mean, I was there during the murder of George Floyd, and I was there during the shift to remote work. And all of those changes were greatly impacted how people access the DDI programming, right? Because before it was, either, you know, you met your employee resource group chapter in the city where you sat and, and you didn't really do much stuff online. And then of course, we pivoted everything to be online. So how we communicated that structured, it was really important, but I think my biggest call out in this space was how we drafted communication flyers surrounding the events. I mean, we could potentially strip away the identifying information for men and reach a broader audience. bringing in somebody for a history or cultural celebration event is usually an opportunity to bring in some of the people who wouldn't necessarily click a button to attend an employee resource group event or the DEI event. I often tell dei leaders that they should market their events in multiple ways. Coke does not sell Coca Cola one way the same way the entire country. They don't sell the same way around the world either. They sell it very differently. They even have it tastes differently depending upon where you are in the world. Why is it that we get into this next the thing that we can create one flyer and we can sell di to people and have them come? We have to sell vi sometimes there are people that are not wanting to be a part of it, they feel threatened. And how are anybody going to ever actually we're not we're going to reach those people. We want to reach everybody, right? Inclusion is about all diversity is actually about all it's the presence of differences that make us all up. So these concepts are all baked out. So if we don't do this from a communication standpoint, To communicate our message that's going to reach all the target audiences, then we really should be thinking about that. And that's one of the biggest things that I tried to work off there.

Kim Clark: 00:20:13

I can see in the future having you back, Ashley, because everything you just said, right, there is a whole podcast episode unto itself. So I hope you'd be willing to come back and continue this conversation, because I think you just opened up some things that I think a lot of our audience will benefit from your expertise. Anytime, thank you, I appreciate that very much. So how can people stay in touch with you? And can you repeat how people can take the assessment again?

Ashley T. Brundage: 00:20:46

Yes, so empowering. differences.com is your one stop shop for all your empowerment resources. So on the website, there's the self assessments tab, you can click the button and download the assessments. And then if you want, there's a Order button, or copies of my book or the workbook, you can also enroll in the online leadership development course, which is the tenant powering actions. And that's where we go really deep in that and it's a cool inclusive learning platform that you have access to plus and includes all of the content that I create, including weekly content related to empowerment in our groups that we have. And then also I have a conference coming up. So if anybody's thinking about that they want to fit engage in this week long setting, you can come and join me on the voyage of empowerment, which is my annual convention that happens yes, on a cruise ship. It's, it's a, you sometimes have to remove yourself from your day to day Leadership Conference to get in the all star that you need in this world. It's really interesting. Also, the connection we have through vibrations and and vibrations bring us together in a lot of ways. You know, it's the vocal cord bouncing off from the computer screen or your or your phone right now listening and your infrastructure operating back to you. You're feeling my voice a little bit into reverberation that comes off. And so of course to do an empowerment conference that is constantly vibrating. One of the reasons why we haven't on a cruise ship because the engine is shaping the ship a little bit at every moment.

Kim Clark: 00:22:30

Oh, I love it. Oh, I love it. I love it. I love it. I love that you do this. And you get people out of their space and into a new space. So they're already uncomfortable. They're already trying to figure out where they are and stuff. And that just kind of leaves a lot open. So it's really

Ashley T. Brundage: 00:22:47

to fall forward. on a cruise ship, you may have never been in a convention that aren't a cruise ship. But I take people the Commission's that are on a cruise ship. And then we also give back to the community. So we're doing a huge volunteerism event in Bermuda this year, which I'm really excited about.

Kim Clark: 00:23:06

We'll put that in the show notes so people can learn more about, you know, supporting you in that work.

Ashley T. Brundage: 00:23:13

And so you can also follow me at Ashley T Brundage, A S H L E Y T B R U N D A G E.

Kim Clark: 00:23:22

And you're on all the channels, I assume? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Ashley, thank you for your generosity and sharing. Thank you for all the work the blood, sweat and tears you put into that research. It's not for the light of heart, putting it into a book and into a tool so people can access and benefit from it. grow their careers, grow their cultures, it's just in their leadership capabilities so desperately needed right now, as we know, and we'll have you back we're gonna continue this conversation. Thank you for your time.