What If Connection Is The Real Strategy?

We talk with DEI strategist and leadership coach Israel Greene about why most DEI efforts don’t stick and what it takes to build cultures of real connection. We explore how listening, emotional intelligence, and business-aligned leadership practices turn inclusion into something durable instead of divisive. 
• Israel’s path from tech to founding Mosaic Works 
• Why DEI fails when it is not tied to business imperatives 
• How to engage quiet sabotage with curiosity 
• The 101% principle and finding common ground 
• A focus group example where skeptics become implementers 
• How language choices can trigger DEI backlash 
• Why people feel less connected after COVID and remote work shifts 
• Emotional intelligence as a core leadership skill 
• Psychological safety and trust as drivers of performance 
• Practical steps to connect with coworkers and difficult people 
• The leadership question that matters most: how people feel after you leave 

Learn more, get more information and connnect with Israel Greene via his website: https://www.israelgreene.com/ or at his company website mosaicworks.com.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:26

I would like to welcome Jay Israel Green to the Pivotal People podcast. I got a pitch from his publicist recently. And I was so intrigued by his topic that I asked if he would come on. And I'm thankful he agreed to come on. He is an expert in the area of DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. And he's a sought-after speaker. He's a leadership coach. He's officially a DEI strategist who helps organizations build cultures of connection, resilience, and belonging that withstand change and challenge. Now, I actually don't work in the corporate world and I haven't for a long time. So I'm not familiar with formal DEI programs. However, here's what grabbed me. His tagline on his website is igniting connection in a disconnected world. And I thought, okay, that's pretty timely. So anyway, we get to have him for about half an hour. Welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. I'm excited to be part of the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Well, we talked a little bit before we started. We talked about the challenges that people are facing with relationships and connection now. So uh before we get started, and he said I could call him Is, could you tell me a little bit about yourself and kind of your background and what you're doing now?

Why DEI Efforts Fail To Stick

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Absolutely. So my name is Israel Green. Um, you like I said, you can call me is. My background really started in in tech originally and in telecom. And as I was going through my career, I noticed that there were times and situations where I wasn't being invited to the table. And if I was invited, you know, to the table, basically it was because someone else was going to benefit from it. It wasn't really, you know, how can I grow? What opportunities can we present here? And I also noticed that the opportunities that I was being presented were there was a disparity in wage in terms of how much money I was making versus my counterparts, who sometimes looked different than me. And I saw a lot of leadership. And I thought, you know what? If I could change one thing, it would be how I show up as a leader. And I I would see, I would have this level of frustration coming into work. And I would wake up on a Sunday or go to bed on a Sunday, dreading waking up on Monday and having to go in and spend, you know, 40, 50 hours a week at a job that I didn't like, um, at a leader that I didn't care for and that honestly probably didn't care for me. And I had this philosophy that no individual should have to go spend this time, whether it be 40, 50, 60 hours a week, at a job that they hate. And also no leader should feel like their impact doesn't matter. And as a result of that, I thought, how can I correct this? So I started, you know, kind of fine-tuning my leadership skills and honing in things, getting certified in different areas and just really kind of diving in. And that's what brought me to where I am today and the company that I founded called Mosaic Works. And we are a leadership development organization and a diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy. And we help organizations build what we describe as backlash-resistant DEI strategies and leaders that can withstand the test of time. And that's the part that I love is coming into organizations and helping them, you know, and having people understand that DEI is about more than just hire more women and hire more black people is typically what it defaults to. And it's so much more than that. It's just about being a good human when it's done and done right. And the impact that it can have on your business is huge. And that's really what prompted me to start Mosaic Works. And the name came from all these different beautiful pieces and being able to bring these pieces together to create something beautiful. And that's how the name came about and the work that we do.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Well, I read an article on your website, and the title was DEI Without Division: Building Culture That Connects. And I could relate to this. I actually was in the corporate world in the 80s and we had something similar. And we have all, if you've ever worked in an organization, we can all relate to the idea of whatever the new program was. And you say in the article, most companies invest heavily in DEI programs, yet little actually changes. They do workshops, they have consultants, they have new initiatives. And this again is true for all kinds of corporate programs, the new customer service program. So your question is why don't the results stick? And you had you talk about quiet sabotage, starting with curiosity. So walk us through that because rather than being cynical about the program, you're saying that's really not the issue. What are the underlying issues?

Listening To Quiet Saboteurs

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Yeah, you're hitting hitting home. And I'm sitting here smiling because I I love, I love to talk about this and for people to be curious and ask the questions. One of the big things that the reason these programs fail is that operationally, the leadership doesn't understand how to tie it back to the business imperatives. So unfortunately, it's created as a nice to have. And anytime you've got something that's nice to have, it is the first thing to get cut, you know, whether it's the pizza parties or whether it's something that's a little bit, you know, deeper, like DEI, and thinking about, okay, well, what are the business imperatives? And if you're a chief, you know, financial officer, if you are CEO or COO, you really want to know three things. One is how does it make us money? How does it save us money? And how does it increase operational efficiency? And if you're able to tie the strategy back to those key areas and say, you know, how this is best for business, at that point, people are able to understand it in a way that they haven't before. So that's one piece. The other piece is to make sure that you lean into those quiet, quiet sabotagers, so to speak, the ones that don't really believe in the work and you engage them because their voice is equally as important as the ones that are, you know, singing from the choir about why this is so great. And in order to better understand where they are and to invite them in versus just calling them out, it's important to be able to have that conversation with people. And leadership is not typically not equipped to have those uncomfortable conversations. And we have to learn to be able to sit in that discomfort and be able to have the courageous conversations where we say, Hey, you know what? Can you help me better understand why you think like this? You know, what prompted this? Tell me more about your background. And then and listen, and listened longer than you than you think you should, not to respond, but listen to really understand where they're coming from. And then on the flip side of that coin, you say, Hey, you know, would you mind if I share a little bit about my my background? And at that point, odds are you're going to find some common ground and you're going to find that your worlds are not that far apart. And I call it the 101% principle. Find that one thing that you have in common, that one piece of common ground, and invest 100% of your energy and effort into it. And at that point, the rest is going to blossom. And I think if we're able to do that, I firmly believe if we're able to do that, and then couple that with the business strategy of tying it to the what's good for the business, and stop treating this thing as it is a one-off scenario or a check the box, or only in that reactive state is if something goes awry and then you want to respond to it. This has to be embedded in the leadership culture and the leadership competencies because at the bottom of all of this, it is a leadership competency that can help grow the business and help develop your individuals that are working for your organization. And then they start telling that story about how great Mosaic Works is. And, you know, you should go work over here. That's really where you want to be as an organization.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Do you have examples of seeing that happen?

SPEAKER_00 8:40

I do. Absolutely. Um there's one organization. Yeah. There's an organization. We always start, we don't assume that we know what the problem is within the organization. A lot of times we, when we do the diagnostic piece of things and we have a five-step process that we go through with every single company that we work with. We try not to deviate from it. And it doesn't always guarantee the success, but it does increase the likelihood of us being successful in those environments. And part of that is this diagnostics of like, okay, hey, let's truly understand what's going on here. You know, through, you know, CEO, we believe you, we hear you. However, if you really want to know how a company is doing, ask the people that are doing the work. So we dig in, we ask for assets, we do the reviews, and we do a lot of focus groups and insight interviews. And there's one organization, I won't name them, but we did focus groups. And for one particular focus group, no one responded. And the group was actually um cis white men, and they didn't show up. So I contacted my point of contact. And like I said, hey, you know, Joe, this is alarming because this tells me a couple of different things. And I don't want to start prescribing just yet. I said, however, I would love to open up this session again. I want to invite a larger portion of the company, same demographic, and I want to encourage them. And my first thought was to try to get someone different that looks different than me to facilitate the focus group. And it was such a close time that I wasn't able to. So we opened it up. And one of the things that we do probably better than most companies is we create a space that allows people to feel comfortable to say, you know what? I trust this guy, I trust Mosaic Works. I'm fine with sharing with him because I truly think that his intent is genuine. And we ended up getting 10 people on this focus group. We wanted eight. We ended up getting 10. And the way that they opened up was so beautiful and totally opposite of what I believe, but they were able to open up and share with me. And by the end of this call, I felt like we gained ground just even on this focus insight interview. And in that situation, you know, later on, the people that were against the program, they then were implementing the program on the backside. That's the type of transition and transformation that we're able to do. And that was simply because we invited those individuals in, we heard their voice, and we brought them along with us. And everyone is on different journeys in this or different places on their journey. And we have to understand that we can't ridicule people because of that, nor can I force my beliefs and opinions on you. My whole goal is not to convince you to think like, walk like, talk like me. It's simply just to ask how might your experience as a white woman be different than mine as a black man? And let's talk about those experiences. And if you say there's no difference, you know, I'm going to ask a very specific question. It's like, you know, when you saw the Kux Klan, you know, at one of your high school basketball games, and you're coming out and you're being rushed on the bus to get out of there, how did you feel in that moment? And most people are like, wait, what are you talking about? And I'm like, well, you said there's no difference between the two of us. So that means our experiences are exactly the same. So how did that feel when you went through that? And all of a sudden you kind of see the light bulb go off. And then they start sharing different experiences. And that's what we encourage. Whenever we're able to do that and we take the time to slow down, which very few leaders are doing these days, people are moving at neck break speed. And as a result of that, it's just, you know, re people reward the, what is it, the the tyranny of the urgent, I think is what it's called. People reward, you know, the mass-produced things, the urgency of things. But if we slow down and we just take the time to connect, we could just, we could change the world one person at a time. I truly believe that.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

I've watched some of your speeches. And one of the things you talked about in the beginning of a speech was the, you know, tangible statistics demonstrating increased business results as a result of a good DEI program. And while that only makes sense. Share with us some of those statistics you referenced about business productivity improving when you have a positive, diverse environment.

A Focus Group That Changed Minds

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yeah. Um, before I get to that, there's something that you said that I wanted to jump back to. One is you said they call it um diversity training now, or they did. And back then it was called affirmative action training. That is another big mistake, I think, that has been made is that unfortunately, and this is why there's so much push against DEI as it's and I I did a, I don't know if you saw this video, I did a recording about a year and a half ago. And I said, DEI as we know it today is going to go away. It has a shelf life of about a year, maybe a year and a half. No, I said six months to a year at that time. And not the need for it, but as it's defined and as it shows up. And unfortunately, what's happened is over time, the more aggressive the acts have, or the more egregious the acts have become in society, the more aggressive the language has become. And what that's done is it's turned people off. So all of a sudden it may have shifted from affirmative action. And now when you're seeing someone being killed in the streets or being murdered, what you are now getting is how to be anti-racist. And immediately that puts someone in the defensive and says, Well, you know what? Nope, I'm I'm not racist, so I don't need this. And it's interesting to think about how the language has to shift. And if we don't respond to that as practitioners, and some practitioners are so dug in, they're like, I'm not going to call this anything but DEI, but diversity, but equity, inclusion, and anything other than that, I'm not doing it. And as a result of that, they get a greater pushback. So I'm glad you mentioned the language. And I don't know if that resonates with you or not.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Yeah. And actually, when I think back, I said affirmative action, we actually called it diversity training, but it still wasn't. We talked about programs that fail because there's some underlying thing. What had not been addressed was relationship. I want to share this experience because it was so positive in my life. I was 23. I went to a very homogeneous high school, a very homogeneous college. We did not have a diverse student body, although I think it's interesting. Our our I went to a high school with 800 students in our graduating class, almost all white, except our class president was black. I always loved that. He was charismatic. What happened was I wasn't went back to this situation where I was the manager and we had these people in our group. What you would do every day as a manager is spend a day making sales calls with one salesperson at a time. So you were in the car for six, seven hours with a salesperson. So I got to know all of these people so well. And that's why, you know, all these years later, we reconnected on Facebook and had a great conversation. But that man who I told you, he educated me. I didn't have, I grew up in a homogeneous environment. I didn't have these stereotypes, I didn't have this perception. And he educated me on what he faced really difficult stuff. I mean, he was a graduate from an Ivy League college and he's facing really difficult stuff. And that impacted me so much at the age of 23 and 24 that connection and relationship has always overridden, overridden any stereotypes. Our pastor actually says our pastor is a pastor of many, many campuses and some in a very big city. So one campus might be mostly black and one campus might be mostly white. He gave a sermon during that 2020 time and he said everybody needs to become friends with a person with a different color skin than you. How can we expect programs, programs to work if we haven't established relationships first? And so that's why I jumped on your connection. I told him before we started that I wasn't going to talk, but that's not going to happen. I can tell right now. Igniting connection in a disconnected world. So let's go back to what we talked about in the beginning. You talked about what are some of the reasons that you see, especially today, that people are less connected than they used to be, especially in the business setting.

Language Backlash And DEI Pushback

Why Connection Is Breaking Down

SPEAKER_00 17:28

The big one is we are living in a microwave mentality type world where we want everything to happen and happen immediately and press the button and poof, you got this, your role is done for you, you got the promotion. And people don't take the time. So one is time, but that's a huge one. One that really does irk me quite a bit, and I we do a lot quite a bit of work around it whenever we're doing like the leadership development is emotional intelligence. I think what has happened with COVID is we had this time period where we are sitting at home and it's us, you know, we've got our puppy or our cat, and you know, we're in our pajamas and we've got Zoom on. Sometimes we're on camera, sometimes we're not. And as a result, what ends up happening is we've got all this time to be with just us and show up in our true authentic self. And what then all of a sudden you're like, wait, you mean to tell me I have to go back to the office right now? I got to deal with people? Well, no, DEI says I should be able to show up as my authentic self. And I don't think people understand what that truly means. You know, sure, show up as your authentic self with a level of emotional intelligence, a high level of emotional intelligence, which means that you got to have a level of social awareness. And based off of that, there is some level of responsibility that you own to say, okay, wait, my authentic self may be infringing on someone else. So there's consequences to this thing. And I think that that's showing up quite a bit. And people are you we see it in the language, we see it in social media, and it's just me, me, me mentality. And rarely are people thinking about the individual that is is next to them. You know, whether it's, you know, wearing a mask, wearing a mask, it didn't hurt me. You know, if I thought that it it helped someone that was older and someone's life may be extended as a as part of me, you know, lowering that risk for them absolutely all day, every day. And I just it it really does, I think we have to to better understand that, you know, and on the flip side, I think COVID really did surface how much we also do need connection. Um, but it also exposed, you know, how underdeveloped many of our emotional skills are. And that's what we need to start improving on. You know, they call them the soft skills, and these are the most critical skills. They're not so there's nothing soft about this. These are the critical skills that we need to show up. And when emotional intelligence is low, misunderstandings grow, the trust erodes, psychological safety is out the window. And when it's strong, people do feel safer, they feel more respected. They're going to show up in a way that they haven't been able to show up before with a higher level of trust. They're going to be able to innovate. You mentioned the question about some of the stats. You know, companies that are diverse, they are 1.7 times more innovative than teams that are just homogenous in one way or the other. They're more creative. They have higher revenue shares, organizations that are, I think, about 19% are higher in innovation and innovation revenue based off of having diverse groups, either at the higher levels, meaning more diversity in thought, more diversity in ethnicity, in race and gender. All this shows up. But I just wish that we would take the opportunity to slow down and connect with people in a way that is not about, well, I want to be my authentic self first, and then I may worry about you or be concerned about you, but it's about me.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Wow. Okay. So someone who's listening to this says, All right, what would you recommend people do? What are some like very specific steps people could take to connect with others, especially if they're people we think we don't want to connect with? And I'm not talking about based on skin color, I'm talking about that neighbor that irritates you, whatever it is. How do you train people in the workplace to overcome that? And what are some specific things you teach them to do?

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Yeah, I think one, not I think I need to stop saying that. I I firmly believe that one of the biggest pieces that we can do is very basic. It's nothing that's profound, it but it's listening. Listening 5% or five seconds longer than you think you should be. That's extremely important to do because what you're gonna all of a sudden, and oh, and the caveat to this is listening not to respond, but listening to really just understand. That's number one. And if we're able to do that, that's going to be extremely important because we're gonna be able to come at things from a different perspective in that situation. The other piece is take the time to actually walk the floor. If you are in the office, say hey to some people, someone that you haven't spoken to before. Ask them, you know, if you notice something that you like on their desk, spark the conversation. That is so easy to do. It doesn't cost you anything. You know, it's and that's how the cultures are built. It's built in those small moments. If you are a leader, a big thing that you can do is say, hey, you know what? I haven't heard your voice in this meeting. Would love to hear your feedback. Identifying people whose voices are typically quiet and giving them the opportunity to speak up. I firmly believe that if we're in a position of power in any capacity, we have a social responsibility to show up for others in a way that maybe people didn't show up for us. And that's to be the voice for others, um, where they may not, those voices that are quiet and that can't be heard, I think is extremely important. So those are a few of the different ways that I would I would recommend that is easy, it doesn't cost a lot of time andor energy, and it's so simple.

Emotional Intelligence And Psychological Safety

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Listening, listening longer than you naturally would listen, and listening to just listen, not thinking about what your response is going to be, and then noticing the people who might be standing back or might be quiet and drawing people out. The expression, the expression you hear all the time now is, you know, people just want to be seen and heard, you know. And so even if we disagree on a point, I I heard a speaker recently who was very high emotional intelligence, and she was talking about listening. She was she was on a panel with someone who had a complete opposite political opinion than she did, and it was on the news, and so they were going back and forth, but she did exactly what you're describing. She listened, she wasn't waiting for a response, she vehemently disagreed with the other panelist on his position. But when they left, and you know, the camera's off, he said, I can't believe how many things we agreed on. He felt heard, okay. And now she learned something. She he didn't sway her opinion, but you know, do we always have to fight the fight? I always say, is it more important to be right or to be nice?

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Yes. That's one of the questions I always ask. Um, whenever we do a lot of coaching, and typically people are bringing situations to us, and it's like, all right, would you rather be right or would you rather be in relation?

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

And they they will quickly try to start, and I'm like, no, it's it's not to answer, you know, in the moment, just give that some thought. And if it's about being right, I'm trying to understand why is that so important to you. And if it's about being in relation, understanding what that means, not just for this moment, but for future moments as well. And that, you know, that I love that question is would you rather be right or would you rather be in relation?

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Mm-hmm. Because I think if we all thought about it, we'd we'd rather be in relation. But sometimes you have to get as old as I am to realize that. I wish I'd realized that in my 20s, but okay. Hopefully people in the 20s are listening to this. So you'll just speed right to emotional intelligence without the years required.

Simple Habits For Real Connection

SPEAKER_00 25:28

There is one other thing I think that that leaders can do is, you know, people want to be seen. Uh, sometimes we also want to, we all we want to know that we're showing up in a way that is like, all right, how did I do? How did I do? And we're looking for that validation. I think that leaders have to stop looking for the validation and asking the question, you know, hey, how did I show up today? You know, how did how did I do? Everything good? And we have to start asking the question of, how did people feel after I left the room? And I think that's when leadership isn't what you intend, it's what you live and what you what people carry with them. And leaders are are realizing they're shaping nervous systems. They're not, it's not just about the strategy. Everything changes if you take that time. And the truth is, years from now, no one's going to remember how fast you answered the email or you know what tie you were wearing or anything like that. They're going to, to your point, remember whether they felt seen, they felt safe to be able to bring up a topic and share something with you and not be ridiculed or anything like that and respect it in your presence. And that's the kind of leadership that I believe outlives titles and outlives these trends or these checkbox moments.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

So that's about building trust.

unknown 26:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

And trust doesn't happen overnight. Absolutely. And this applies to all of our relationships, not the workplace. How did I make that person feel? You know, what's do they feel like they can be honest with me? Do they feel like our relationship is strong enough that they could be honest with me? I'm thinking my adult kids right now. It's like, okay, all right. I was I wanted them to do XYZ. Could I have uh how did it make them feel when I told them they had to do XYZ by a certain time? Was it that important? Was it worth you just said something about leaders impacting people's nervous systems? That's huge. The whole cortisol thing and the whole stress thing and what that does to our uh not only our health, but our longevity and our happiness. So, what's the result worth? If people are calm and feel safe, they're gonna be more productive, far more productive.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

You think about COVID and what we went through at that time, you know, everyone went through a collective stress, whether or not it was a loss and uh, you know, of death in your family or being isolated, uh loss of isolation, uncertainty of not not knowing what's gonna happen, how am I gonna pay my bills, that type of thing. But we didn't relearn how to be with one another in those moments afterwards. And I think I I love the piece that you said that, you know, this isn't just a work issue. This is truly a human, a human one. And when we think about it from that perspective, you know, there's so much more that we can learn from each other, so much that we can accomplish if we just get to that point. But people are emotionally worn down, they're more reactive, so they're responding quicker and in a way that's not healthy. And it's intended to protect themselves. And that's, you know, as you look at the Maslow hierarchy of needs, you know, that that protection is extremely important. It's high up there. But we have to understand that this is about more than work, it is about being a good human and it's just the very basics of things.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

And I would imagine for leaders on the other side of that, when you are a let's just say what you said, when you're a kind human, you're happier. Yeah. Yes. Then everyone is feeling better. And that's what makes good teams, good leaders who yeah. Well, I could talk to you all day about this. This is so interesting. And but I want to make sure that people can find you. Could you share with us how people can connect with you, whether they want to have you as a speaker? You do leadership coaching with individuals as well as companies.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Absolutely, we do. We work, uh, you know, sometimes it's executive leaders that bring us in and we work with their teams. So we do individual one-on-one as well as group coaching. But you can find us for the speaking engagements and just learning more about my own personal philosophies is Israelgreen.com and that's I-s-r-a-e-l, ch R E E-N-E dot com. And then our company website is mosaicworks.com, and that's M-O-S-A-I-C and W-O-R-X. So that's works with an X. And we've got um contact us forms on there. So, and I always am quick to respond. So if you see me on LinkedIn, you know, feel free to drop me an email. Or if, you know, if anyone out there is watching this and, you know, you're listening and you're like, hey, I stumbled across this article, would love to share it, please. We always are looking to, you know, elevate our thinking and for different perspectives as well.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Oh, that's great. And we'll have all this in the show notes as well. But I just want to thank you so much, not just for taking the time to be with us today, but for the good work you're doing. It's seems very fulfilling and certainly much needed. So keep up the great work.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Thanks so much.