One of the most important principles that my team believes in is taking our own medicine. Before we ask a client to take an assessment, we take it first. If we launch a training program, we are the first to sign up. We feel that we can’t genuinely ask someone to experience something that we’re introducing unless we’ve experienced it ourselves.

I just completed Level 1 of our DEI Executive Certificate training program, and I couldn’t be more proud. We developed the program as a hybrid online microlearning platform, plus live weekly group facilitated sessions. This enables participants to break down the complexities of DEI into consumable, engaging bites and build confidence to support each other in our learning journeys. Here are just a few nuggets that I’ve learned so far.

• Our brains receive approximately 11 million bits of information at any given moment, according to Timothy Wilson, author of Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious. But, since we can only process about 40 of those pieces of information at a time, our brains create shortcuts and use past knowledge to make quick assumptions.

• It takes our brains approximately 10 seconds to size up someone new when they first come into view. We assess one another on the basis of what we think we can perceive: race, gender, sexual-orientation, intelligence, religion, age, and even wealth.

• Research indicates that while 60% of CEOs are over 6 feet tall, only 15% of the total population is over 6 feet tall.

• When there are at least two female candidates in a final hiring pool, the odds of a woman being hired are 79 times greater than if there were only one. Similarly, for people of color, the odds increase 194 times.

This course is helping me understand how my cultural lens has shaped who I am and how I see and engage with the world. Taking the course guided by a masterful facilitator with a small group of DEI practitioners across the U.S. has enabled me to demystify the fundamentals and build confidence. In Level 2, we’ll begin to explore dimensions of diversity that might be part of our personal lenses or lived experiences. Loving this course!

Question: How has your cultural lens shaped who you are and how you engage with the world?

Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!