S1E3: Al Dea | Pay it forward
[Justin]
Welcome to the Creating Belonging podcast. Today, my guest is Al Dea. He is the CEO and founder of BetterWorks Labs.
And I'll actually just let Al introduce himself.
[Al Dea]
Well, great. Well, Justin, thank you so much for having me here. As you said, my name is Al Dea. I'm the founder of BetterWorks Labs. I'm a leadership development consultant and I work with companies. And my job is to help smart people become people smart and really equipping their managers and leaders with the human skills they need to create great companies that allow their people to thrive.
[Justin]
Awesome. Well, I'm glad to have you on the podcast, Al. And let's go ahead and dive right in.
You know, we talked about, you know, the focus of this podcast really around the Creating Belonging model. We've kind of talked about that. You've explored it a bit.
And I understand that you've done a bit of research on self-awareness and kind of teeing that up in that. In the book, we talk about belonging being at the intersection of authenticity and acceptance. And self-awareness is a really big part of authenticity.
So I'm curious. I'd love to hear from you just your perspective on self-awareness related to authenticity in the bigger picture of creating belonging.
[Al Dea]
Yeah. So some of the research I've done draws from some of the work from Dr. Tasha Urick, who has written a book about self-awareness and done a ton of research on this topic of self-awareness. And some of her research has proven from some of the studies she's done that, ironically enough, while about 95% of us like to think that we're self-aware, only about 15% of us are actually self-aware.
And it kind of like is that how 80% of people think they're above average drivers, right? That kind of idea. We all want to think that we're self-aware, that we know ourselves, and that we're very attuned with ourselves.
But in reality, less of us actually are. And I think what that ultimately comes down to is that, as you alluded to, some of the research shows that there's essentially two types of self-awareness. The first is this kind of internal self-awareness.
And I think this really hones in on some of the work that you talk about at that intersection of authenticity and belonging in the sense of knowing yourself, knowing who you are, your strengths, your aspirations, what you feel you need, anything like that. And that is one part of it. The other component of self-awareness is this idea of external self-awareness in terms of all of those things, but with how the external world sees us, right?
And the idea here is that none of us live in a vacuum. We all exist in a larger, broader system around us. And I think where this kind of comes back and I think ultimately I think about within the context really of belonging is this idea that who you are and your own internal self-awareness is really important to be able to do a lot of things that you said in terms of being able to know who your true self is, being able to understand what it means to show up as authentic in your own skin, in your own feelings, being true to who you are.
And in addition to that, all of us also exist in a world that is much bigger than just ourself. And so being able to understand how others might see that and perceive that can also be incredibly helpful, I think, for two reasons. One, because it helps you understand how you might be showing up and making sure that you're showing up in the right way.
But what I also think and why it matters, particularly with, you know, I do a lot of work with leaders who sometimes will say, well, what does it mean for me to really create a sense of belonging or to create a culture where people feel like they belong? It is important if that is the case where I think it's really on leaders to better understand how what actions they might take or how might they show up might impact the way that they are able to or not able to create that sense of belonging for their direct reports or for the larger organization or the broader culture around them. And so that to me is where I see the importance of self-awareness really coming into play for all people, but in particularly for leaders who really do have that responsibility of hopefully creating that sense of belonging for others.
[Justin]
You know, it's interesting. So the two parts of self-awareness being kind of your internal self-awareness and the external self-awareness. I'm curious if you had any thoughts on kind of how that relates to in the creating belonging model of the concept of acceptance.
So you start with authenticity, then we move into acceptance of others because it sounds like there could be some kind of overlap there potentially in that kind of external self-awareness and acceptance. I'm curious if you have any thoughts on that.
[Al Dea]
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things I think about is that I think that it is easier for people to show up externally when they're able to do the work internally on themselves first, right? I mean, you can, you know, always put on a facade or you can pretend to be perhaps someone that you're not. Maybe sometimes you do have to, you feel like you do have to do that or maybe you do have to do that because of the realities of your workplace or just not being in a great culture or feeling othered or any type of thing.
But I do think that when you can come to a greater kind of self-awareness and perhaps even acceptance of yourself and who you are, all the things about you that make you who you are for better or for worse, I do think it does help you understand how you can then show up externally and how others may perceive you. And I think on the other side of that, sometimes a lot of the work I do around self-awareness a lot of times really is around leaders and helping them make sure that they're aware of their biases or things that they may not be able to see as clearly because they are not paying attention to it or sometimes we just can't see just the way that others perceive us because that's just the lack of our perspective.
And so a lot of times I think that external self-awareness can be helpful to us internally to help us see things that we may not be able to see ourselves or to see things within us that others may see very clearly that may be hard for us to be able to see on our own. And so I think that's how I see it kind of coming in, but I'd be curious to know what you think or what got you curious about it or where you might see some of the intersection points for that matter.
[Justin]
Yeah. What really resonated with me in what you said there was as a part of the work that you do with leaders in their self-awareness is working on understanding their own biases and kind of how they're seeing others. And I think that's a big part of it because when I talk about authenticity, it's not just I'm me, deal with it, get on.
It is understanding myself and the way that I view the world and that there's other ways of viewing the world, but understanding kind of how my perception of the world contrasts with others. And I think that then allows us to move into the radical acceptance of others that I talk about, understanding that there are more identities, more values, more perspectives in the world than my own. And I think we have to start with self-awareness to be able to do that.
And I think that's sometimes where a lot of work that happens with diversity training, with bias training, whatever that is, is that it's missing that self-awareness piece, doing the digging for yourself and really understanding not just my own identities and I am who I am, take it or leave it, but really understanding more about how my values contrast with those around me.
[Al Dea]
Yeah, absolutely. So let me dig in a little bit further there. I had a scenario where we were working with a leader recently and they had just for the first time gone through just a pretty standard 360 degree assessment where they got a ton of qualitative feedback for the first time from various different stakeholders within their organization.
And some of it was stuff that they knew and were not surprised by, and a whole slew of it was stuff that really caught them off guard. And when we were debriefing and reflecting on it, one of the things that they said to me was, as they really internalized some of the feedback, they could trace some of those elements back just to how they were raised as a child, which is not uncommon if you do this work, right? Your environment often shapes who you are.
But the thing that they said to me that I thought was so important and so critical was their reflection upon that experience was that the way that I see the world, the way that I lead is very much shaped by a set of experiences that happened so long ago. And it wasn't until seeing the impact of what those experiences were through this feedback because of other people who had been on the receiving end of the way they communicated, of the way they engaged, where they realized, wow, there are things in my life that have impacted me in such a way, and they are directly related to how I lead. And if I'm not careful and if I'm not understanding of that, I'm not going to be able to be the leader that I want to be.
And so going back to what you said, one of the things I remember out of the conversation thinking to myself was just this general idea of, if we're a leader, if we're stepping into a leadership role, is something that we just need to do is just to better understand that, really to get attuned with some of those drivers of how we see the world, how we interact, how we engage, how we think we foster a sense of belonging. Because if we don't understand the drivers behind what's fueling that, we may not understand the implications of how we're showing up, particularly if it's being negatively perceived by others.
[Justin]
Yeah, I love that. I love those 360 experiences. As a tangent, I recall several years ago, a 360 experience where a leader had such a negative reaction to his feedback that he actually thought he knew who was giving some of the negative feedback, and he went into the hallway and called them and tried to fire them on the spot.
That was pretty wild. That is wild. Yeah, that is very, very wild.
If you're going through a 360, don't assume who's giving you the feedback and don't try to fire someone from it. Right. I'd love to hear, moving into your experiences in relation to the various parts of the creating belonging model, either being in recluse, overbearing, minimizing, or when you've been in that sweet spot of feeling belonging.
I'm curious if you can think back to your professional experiences and any that pop out or resonate for you.
[Al Dea]
Yeah. For those who don't know me, I am Asian American. I grew up in the United States.
My mom grew up in Hong Kong, and my father grew up in the United States. Growing up, at least, I had always been in pretty diverse environments, or what I thought to be as diverse environments. Also, by my opinion, just looking back, pretty accepting environments.
I never really felt that I looked or was different than other people, even though I did look different than a lot of other people, particularly just in the environments that I was in. I remember getting into the workforce in the first couple of years and being in the workforce and working in the world of management consulting and oftentimes looking up to the ranks of the leaders and looking at people in those positions and realizing that there were not a lot of people that looked like me. There were not a lot of people who were Asian or Asian American.
Even in the cases where there were Asian leaders, they definitely were not vocal. I think there's a lot of research and studies that have been done just about Asian culture and what that is. It was really hard for me because at that point in time, I definitely had aspirations of wanting to really rise up to the organization.
I've always just been someone who's been incredibly vocal. It did make me wonder, as I'm sure it might make other people wonder, who do feel like they might be in a minority group within an organization, of do I have a place here or do I have a voice here? Am I going to be someone that is going to be accepted?
Am I going to be someone who, because the saying goes, if you can't be what you can't see, sometimes it can feel pretty like an uphill battle to really feel like you belong and that you can be successful. I think, honestly, what it made me do at that point, I would say is, I was probably in the minimizing camp, if you will, either trying to downplay certain aspects of myself so that I didn't stand out like a sore thumb or trying to maybe hold back in certain ways because I wasn't sure if that was going to be accepted or if that was going to enable me to be successful. The easiest thing to do was to just minimize it.
I knew who I was, but it was hard for me to want to fully lead into that. That was definitely a place where I maybe didn't necessarily feel that stronger sense of belonging. What I would say is that, on the flip side of that, I remember working on a project.
I started working with a team in particular. I remember working on a project and getting a performance review after the project where my manager at the time went through the performance review afterwards with me and everything was going well. One of the things she said to me in an offhanded way was just, like she said to me, I can't describe it, but whatever you're doing, just keep being you.
Just keep being you. What you bring to this team, we need more of that, so just keep doing it. It was one of those moments where I honestly felt seen in all of the right ways where I felt like who I was, my ethos, the way that I engaged, the way that I worked, the way that I saw the world was accepted.
I really started to really feel like, A, that sense of acceptance, but B, that it was really who I was. By her just saying this simple phrase of just keep being you, it almost was this unconscious trigger of, okay, you're safe here. You can fully be who you are.
Those are just two stories that come to mind in terms of, particularly in my earlier days in my career, of just working through the journey of belonging, I guess I would maybe call it.
[Justin]
I love that you had this manager who said just keep being you. I want to loop back around and I want to go back to that external self-awareness. I'm just putting you on the spot here.
How did that validation, that validation of keep being you, how did that reinforce or influence your external self-awareness?
[Al Dea]
What it did was that it made me realize that the way in which I was working on the team, the way in which I was engaging, the work I was doing, was making an impact and that other people appreciated it. I think that looking back and knowing what I know now of this particular leader, because we've gotten to be fairly close, what she really appreciated about what I brought to the team was that I was someone who was inviting, who was welcoming. I was someone who was constantly engaging others, asking for their ideas and for their feedback.
I was someone who was making time to get to know people, to build a sense of trust with others, both on the team as well with the client. I did those things because that's who I was. That's how I thought those are things that are inherent to me.
Going back to the external self-awareness thing, what it made me realize in that moment with that piece of feedback was that she was telling me that keep doing that, keep leaning into that. That stuff matters. In the world of professional services, a lot of the things that I just mentioned, professional services is a human-to-human business.
If you can do some of those things that I mentioned, you can have a pretty good career in that field. I definitely probably had some of my own limiting beliefs in play initially of are these things the things that are going to be accepted? With her giving me that encouragement, it was almost like a tripwire for me in a positive way of this is someone telling you that the things that you think about yourself which you are manifesting in the behaviors are actually a good thing.
This is something where you can safely lean into it because someone has created that space and given you that encouragement to keep doing it. It certainly helped that if it was another teammate at my level, that certainly would have been nice and helpful and probably would have helped my external self-awareness. My teammates think I'm great, but it was an added bonus that this was a leader in this case who had some level of resource, of privilege, of whatnot.
It definitely became a pretty powerful evidence piece, particularly on the external self-awareness side of things.
[Justin]
Yeah, absolutely. I think when you've got that, someone that has in that position of power validating and saying, please bring more of what you're bringing, I think that's great. Back to, I wanted to talk about, you had mentioned earlier when you were in a place of, it felt like you were probably in a place of minimizing and you were in an organization where there wasn't a lot of representation.
I feel like I recall you telling me a story once about an interaction that you had with a leader relative to representation. Would you mind sharing that?
[Al Dea]
Yeah. As I mentioned, I quickly learned and quickly saw that there were not a lot of people that looked like me. One of my self-reflections from that experience was I felt like I needed to do a little bit of work in terms of figuring out if I did want to stay here or stay at the company, what that journey would look like and what I could do to be successful.
One of the things that I did was that there was an opportunity to attend the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Summit internally. You had to apply to it. I applied to it and I said, you know what?
I'm going to go. This could be a good chance to meet other people, hopefully meet some other, either some other allies or some people who look like me who are in positions of power, etc. I went and I remember going to the event and they really did pull out all the stops.
They had a lot of senior leaders at the firm, both folks who were allies to DEI as well as individuals who did come from groups that were traditionally underrepresented. I remember, I mean, that time was maybe 24, 25, so I was still pretty young and junior. While normally I'm pretty good in social settings, it definitely was a little bit overwhelming.
I remember at one point an older gentleman came up to me. He introduced himself. He was external of the company, but he was an invited guest.
We just started talking. He also was Asian-American. He had been a longtime executive and now he worked with a number of different diversity nonprofits as more of an advisor.
We started talking and every now and then someone would come by and he would say, oh, do you know him or do you know her or do you know them? All these people were literally all the people who were the ones who were like signing. Someone literally was, I think, the name of the guy who signed on my paycheck or the one that I got like every two weeks.
Pretty big name figures. He's introducing me to all these people. He's inviting me into conversations and he's really going out of his way to lend me a little bit of social capital so that I could feel welcomed and accepted.
It was a huge help, if anything, in the moment because it was a little bit overwhelming, particularly about how much younger I was. The event was maybe two days and at the end of the event, I found him and just went up to him afterwards and just said, hey, I just want to thank you. It was great to get to meet you, but I really appreciate how you went out of your way to really make me feel included and really invite me into the conversation.
He said, happy to do that. It's why we come to these things. At the end of it, he just said to me, he said, hey, if I can ask you a favor and I said, sure.
He just said, next time you're in an event like this or any other event in any other room and you come across someone who looks like you when you first came to this event, please do what you can to make them feel like they belong with whatever you can do. It was a humbling and powerful, I think, moment for me because I think I assumed that he was just trying to help me out because I was definitely one of the youngest people there, but it very much showed me that he was aware of probably what was going on in my head even if I wasn't fully aware of it. In that moment, he did what he could to help out someone else to make sure they felt included and they felt like they belonged.
What I think it showed me though and what I would then learn from here on out is that I still haven't been someone like him where I'm not a retired C-suite executive. I don't necessarily have that kind of social capital or that kind of credibility per se, but in any given room, belonging can be relative or feeling included can be relative. There might be something I can do in those rooms.
It may not be as what he could have done, but there can be something that I could do. I have tried to be mindful of that and tried to pay more attention to that. When I am in positions where I can do something, I really try to do it no matter how small or how large it is because that experience taught me that I do have the capacity to do that and I've really tried to do that ever since.
[Justin]
Yeah, I love that. Kind of ask that he had of you to essentially pay it forward for future folks to make sure that they feel like they are included and or they belong. I know, I think I mentioned in my opening episode that there's the story that I tell about when I had my boss who was like, hey, don't be so gay.
I went in the closet for a bit and now I really work to be out. It's really in that it's not just for me. It's not just for my own authenticity.
It is for others so that they have that role model, that someone that is visible that can help them understand that they too can be out. As I continue to evolve the work of creating belonging, that's one big piece of it is leaning into that authenticity for others to be out with whatever it is with your identity, be it visible or not visible so that we can pay it forward for others. I love that.
[Al Dea]
Yeah, it's such a powerful mental model and thought process. I think I said this briefly in the beginning, but we all live and work in an organizational system that is much larger and bigger than ourselves. That doesn't mean we need to be martyrs, but what it does, I think, mean is that we do have a little bit of choice and agency for how we choose to show up in any given moment.
When I think of belonging and anything related to the DE&I movement, I often like to think about this idea of lightning bolts or drum beats. The lightning bolts are the big ahas and the big moments. Those are good and fine and important and are critical, but it's the drum beats, those many things that we choose to do each and every day, those many habits and practices that ultimately we've practiced over time can make a small dent in terms of what we as individuals can do.
I think how you choose to show up, how you choose in any given moment, if you can do one little thing like that guy did for me to help someone else belong, that's what matters. We may not all have the luxury to be able to make a lightning bolt happen, but we all have the ability to make those drum beats happen.
[Justin]
I'm going to extend out your metaphor a bit. I think sometimes what may feel like a drum beat for us, is that it's one tap of the drum for us. That could be someone else's lightning bolt.
[Al Dea]
That's such a great point.
[Justin]
It seems small to us, but for someone else, it's a really big gesture and a big deal. I love that. Thank you for that, Al.
I think that's a really great point to close out, is thinking about how we can beat the drum on a daily basis so that we're continuing to move things forward. I want to thank you so much for being a guest on my Creating Belonging podcast. As we close out, I just want to make sure that people can find you and connect with you.
What are some good ways for folks to find you?
[Al Dea]
Thank you so much, Justin. Folks can just find me on LinkedIn. My name is Al D.
Just feel free to connect with me and tell me that Justin sent you my way. You certainly can check out my website, BetterWorks Labs. If you're looking to help your people become people smart, get in contact with me by checking out my website.
Thank you, Justin. It's been great chatting with you.
[Justin]
Awesome. Just to help folks, is it BetterWorksLabs.com?
[Al Dea]
Yes, BetterWorksLabs.com.
[Justin]
Okay, awesome. You were fortunate enough to get your desired domain name with a .com.
[Al Dea]
I'm very, very fortunate. Yes, very, very fortunate. One of the few.
[Justin]
Amazing. Well, thank you so much. Thank you all for listening and stay tuned for our next episode in the next two weeks.
​