SUMMARY KEYWORDS

hr, people, employee, equitable, talk, conversation, organization, work, terminated, feel, privilege, job, process, company, recommendations, office, advertising, places, person, equity

SPEAKERS

Alba, Amber Cabral

 

Amber Cabral  00:05

Amber privilege is all around you. It’s useless until you recognize it. So it’s time to stop feeling guilty and figure out how to use your privilege to make an impact. I’m Amber Cabral, and this is guilty privilege. Welcome back to today’s episode of guilty privilege. My name is Amber Cabral, and I’m here with my friend Alba Anthony. She is the head of people at gray group. She also has over 20 years of HR experience. And we usually talk privately about these cringey HR things, but we’re going to talk about some of them live today. We also are going to talk about what is important about HR and how they contribute to us all experiencing equity. So welcome to the show. ALPA.

 

Alba  00:45

Hi.

 

Amber Cabral  00:46

I’m so happy to have you here. I’m

 

Alba  00:47

glad to be here. We’re

 

Amber Cabral  00:48

going to talk about something I think people really struggle to talk about because your job makes people nervous. Yes, so you’ve been doing HR for over 20 years. Yes, you’ve done it at lots of different companies. You’ve done it in lots of different industries. I have to ask you, in your opinion, what does HR really do? Like, what is the actual point of HR?

 

Alba  01:15

I can tell you what people think. HR, does people think that we’re the police? Yes, we’re the police of the company. Yes, we are not the police of the company. Actually, what we do is we minimize risk, obviously, for the company, but also for employees. Yeah, we also are responsible for all the compliance, all of the things the law. There are laws we are responsible for making sure they’re enforced, but we’re also responsible for making sure that people feel like they belong, people are engaged, making sure that we are inclusive, making sure that we think about equity and things that we do, and making sure that the employee experience as a whole is a positive one. So it’s a big job, but people only think about the pieces that they see, which is the police,

 

Amber Cabral  01:59

right? So the police, meaning, like the hiring, the firing, the compliance thing, the Oh, you did this thing. Let’s have a conversation. Yes, absolutely. Okay, so you mentioned a word that I think is really important to HR that sometimes we we don’t connect to, and that’s equity. How do you think HR is connected to equity?

 

Alba  02:18

Well, equity is in everything that we do, yeah. So when you think about the rules, for example, well, the DOL, the Department of Labor, generally sets the rules for us, but how we enforce those rules needs to be equitable, right? So we can’t be like, Oh, well, we only pay these people this, and we pay these people that. How do we do that? How do we create our policies? How do we ensure that regardless of who you are, what level of company you are, what tenure you have, you are still treated the same throughout your experience should not change from a people perspective, based on who you are, the people pieces like as we think about the pieces people know about recruiting. If we have an equitable recruitment process, right, we are ensuring that multiple people, multiple types of people, are in the process, multiple types of experiences are in the process, multiple backgrounds on the process. I always tell people like, I’m a black woman that went to a HBCU. If you bring in a bunch of black women and went to my HBCU, that’s not equitable, right? You just got a whole bunch of me, which is great if you’re me, right, but what you don’t have is what we call diversity, right? Right? When people think of diversity, they think, Oh, we just got to bring in all of these different kinds of people, but it’s really diversity of where you came from, right, how you were raised, what your experiences are, how you interact with the world, all of those things make us better as organizations, because we have all of those different perspectives. And often that’s where HR can be very helpful. And a lot of times people will say, Oh, well, you know, if the outcome is a white man, you failed. That doesn’t mean that. What it means is we made sure that our process was fair and equitable throughout if that white man is the person that’s hired that was the best person for the role, but we can feel confident that when we put that in place, we looked across the spectrum. We didn’t just go to that school and pick those people. We went to different places. We looked at alternative skill sets, like, I’ll be the first person to tell you I have a biology degree, right? That’s not typically,

 

Amber Cabral  04:20

not an HR thing at all. But the reality

 

Alba  04:22

is, my biology degree gives me a different perspective and allows me to come to the table in a different way. Even when I sit with our leadership team, it’s always funny, like they always like, Oh, here’s the genius, right, right? Well, yes, but it comes from a place of I know how to, you know, bring those skills that I learned with a background in science to what I do, and so we need to be thinking about that all the way throughout all our processes. So

 

Amber Cabral  04:47

that makes me ask a question, because you talked, you talked about hiring. And I think, of course, people know HR, does the hiring? Of course people get really antsy about the hiring of HR, and the bigger the job, the more visible the hire is. You. And to your point, when it ends up being a white man, people are like, okay, HR is being picky. And you know what I mean, like, not being equitable. To your point, can you talk a little bit about, maybe both sides, both what HR teams could do to help their employees better understand how they made the decision to put folks in role. And then what you know, I think that employees probably need to either watch for or be aware of so that they can have confidence that that’s the case.

 

Alba  05:29

I think that the key in a lot of HR where we miss is transparency. Yeah, people don’t understand, like, how we made a decision or why we made a decision, and that’s a leadership thing as a whole. But from an HR perspective, it is, if you understand the process, if I explain to you, this is how we’ve done this, then it’s like an aha moment almost. It’s like people are like, Oh, I didn’t realize you did that. Because the biggest thing is we are we’re dancing against a couple of factors. There’s speed of hire, because everybody wants that role field yesterday. But if you’re being intentional about how you hire, if you’re really trying to, like, spread around your positions, and you’re really trying to be thoughtful about who you’re in bringing into the organization, that takes time, so speed is almost at odds with doing it well, right? And so I mean, and that’s probably the case in most places, right? If you do it fast, you’re probably not doing it well, and so we have to make sure that people kind of understand what that means. In places where I’ve been, we’ve gotten employees involved in the process. So you think about employee referrals, that’s one way, right? But why don’t we tap into that network that you have? So if you went to a school that’s not a common one that we went to, or that all of the people in whatever industry you’re in went to, you think about, like tech everybody had to go to an IV. Yes. That actually works against you, because you’ve all learned how to think exactly the same. Yes. So maybe we don’t want to always go to Harvard or Yale or Penn. Maybe what we need to do is focus on, hey, North Carolina, A and T has an awesome engineering engineering program. Maybe we should make some relationships there. Yeah, hey, who do we know? Who has that? Yeah, a lot of people work in groups outside of work. Yep. Like, who do you have that has a job board that would benefit us? And

 

Amber Cabral  07:14

it gets the employee involved. I guess it’s less of like HR is over there doing their HR thing. You know, it gets the employee involved enough to say I had kind of a little bit of a say, a stake in the evolution of what the talent, you know, processes look like in this company,

 

Alba  07:29

and helping us to make that net even wider every time. And so now we are going to different places, different job boards, different so what in places I’ve worked, we’ve created almost like a job dictionary. So it’s like, okay, for accounting, these are the places in, you know, engineering, these are the places. And it’s not the same job where it’s not always LinkedIn, it’s not all it’s let’s deep. Dig deeper. When you dig deeper, you found different talent, and different talent is going to always, not only make your organization better, but whatever you produce is going to be better, yeah, because you have people who think differently and bring those aspects of themselves right to the

 

Amber Cabral  08:04

work right? It makes me think about when I’m talking to clients, one of the things I often end up saying to them is that the strength of your talent pipeline is indicative of your relationship with your current staff. Because I am more inclined to refer somewhere that I like working that like I feel a connection, I have a sense of psychological safety. I you know, I feel like I have a great boss, I feel like I have development opportunities, all of those things we look for in the workplace. And so I think it’s one of the things I appreciate that’s happening in this conversation right now, is just people getting the fullness of like, oh, HR is kind of the vehicle when it’s done well that I build the relationship that I have with my organization, and I am also a part of that process. And if I’m opting in, that lets the company know, okay, things might be going okay here, but if I’m opting out, that’s cause for concern. So in addition to whatever engagement surveys you’re doing, oh gosh, yes, are you also getting referrals that are like meaningful and valuable and encouraging, like, the connectivity that you’re talking about, absolutely.

 

Alba  09:02

And see, that’s the thing about engagement, that people miss. Engagement isn’t just like, I like being here, it’s fun. Yes, engagement is how do I feel connected to the people I work with and the work I’m doing? Yeah, it doesn’t matter how much I like it, how great the snacks are. Y’all have pizza parties on Fridays, you know, we give gold, you know, all of those fun things that we do, right? But what I tell people about engagement and that I think, is like, very simple my job, no matter what it is, if my job is to come into this room and turn the lights on 20 times an hour, I understand how that action impacts the overall organization, no matter how big or how small my role is. I know why I do it, and I know how it benefits us. And when you can make those kinds of connections, for people, they feel more deeply connected because they’re like, oh, what I do is important and valuable, and so what. And I know how and what we miss a lot is like. You dismiss all of the hardworking people, right? Because you only see like six of them at the exact in any given time exactly. But if I am one of those people who, like I said, my job is just to turn the lights on 20 times hour. I’m making sure y’all are y’all are illuminated, right? It’s important, right? My job is to make sure everybody else can see what they are doing, yes, and I and it’s important and it’s valuable, and once you make that person feel valued, that is engagement. That is what drives it. It doesn’t matter how many snacks you bring me, right? If I’m sitting here and I’m like, I don’t even know why they just got me doing busy work, they just, you know, thanks for the goldfish. You have to make people understand, yeah, what their purpose is beyond the paycheck. Yes, because that’s really like at the bottom line, we try to make it sound all good. Makes out all these high value things about the job. People are there for their paycheck

 

Amber Cabral  10:47

exactly, absolutely. I hope you’re enjoying today’s episode, and if you happen to also be looking for tools to help you navigate tough conversations, to be able to show up as a more impactful ally, or just to have resources about how to navigate equity in your world. I’ve written two books. My first book is called allies and advocates, and this book is really focused on helping you show up as a more impactful ally. It has actual tactics and tips and things that you can practice to help you get there, both for yourself and for others. My second book is called say more about that now. Say more about that is more about helping you to speak up, to push back, to challenge, to be able to have those conversations that sometimes get a little bit difficult. And in fact, I’ve given you actual scripts to help you to be able to do that. So if you’re interested in just having a few extra resources in your pocket to be able to help you to navigate any of those things, you can go pick up those books anywhere where you buy books, or you can pop down into the show notes and click the links and buy them there. Back to the episode. Okay, so let’s talk about some common misconceptions about HR, you and I have had a conversation about this before, and I also want to touch on something that’s, well, it’s in the news at the time. We’re having this conversation that I think is very prevalent, but we have an actual example about it. So let’s start with the misconceptions. It’s going to lead us, I am sure, to the article that I’m referencing. Yeah. What are some common misconceptions? The

 

Alba  12:06

biggest misconception about HR is we make recommendations. Leadership makes decisions. Yes, so I can tell you until I’m blue in the face, I think you should. It does not matter. I cannot force you as a leader to make that decision. I can give you, here’s what will happen, here’s what I understand will happen. Here’s what I’ve seen happen in the past. But you leader, make that decision. So

 

Amber Cabral  12:34

that’s, that’s, you know, Team structuring, that’s hiring and firing, that’s development, that’s coaching. What’s really happening is HR is saying, here is what I recommend you do not you need to go ahead and get that person off the team and put blah blah blah in that role. And yeah. And

 

Alba  12:52

the reality of it is, if you have a good leadership team and you have that seat at the table, they’ll listen to you. Yeah, I will not even entertain a role where my job does not report to the head of the organization. Yes, because that is indicative of how you value human resources. And your human resources are the most expensive thing in your organization, and our department is the one department that touches literally every employee in this organization. So if you don’t value what I do enough for me to have the ear and a seat at that table, then I can’t work in your organization, because I can tell you right now, when I make those recommendations, you’re not going to be listening to them. Yes, and that’s important, because when we go back to the very beginning about rules and compliance, that’s my job, and so I’m often protecting you. I’m saving you from risk. I’m saving you from liability. And I’m also thinking about that employee, because, see, the biggest thing is people like, oh, HR, is not your friend. First of all, I don’t come to work to make friends, so you’re right, right? But second of all, I can’t tell you how many people I have stopped the company from terminating, yes, like, it’s far more than I terminated, right? Because my job is to say to you, hold on, right? Did you treat this people? Did you you have two people, two people did the same thing. You want to fire this person, but you are going to just give this person a start talking to right? You know, that’s my job, right, to say, hey, you weren’t fair here, right when we had this happen in the past. This is how we managed it when we did this before. This is what we’ve done. But more importantly, it is saving the company from that liability and protecting that employee, because you’ve done something that is probably going to lend us in some very hot,

 

Amber Cabral  14:40

right, right, right. Okay, so that leads me down. You prompted me in two ways now, so let’s, let’s, we gonna go down both paths. The first one is, I do think that the liability piece is probably what people think of with HR, which gets them a little nervous, because it’s legal language, and we get a little bit hesitant. There is. Advocacy part of HR that I think you’re talking about, which you know, one of the things I like to remind people is that your HR partner is usually involved in every level change and your entry and exit of the organization. So whether you those are on good terms or bad terms, or whatever the process may be made, maybe it’s even just organizational restructure, your HR partner is involved. And so we tend to, however, associate HR with all the paths, yes, all right, so you did the firing. You were the reason for the layoffs. You are the purpose, you know, for the things that are coming undone for me. All right, like, that’s, that’s, that’s how we look at HR. And I think another thing that kind of reinforces that association with the negative is, you know, kind of leaning into the news story that we saw. There are times when HR doesn’t appear to do what it’s supposed to, or it’s not being done well. And maybe we sense something isn’t quite right, but we don’t know how to say it, or we don’t necessarily even know what it is right. And so we recently saw a young lady on Tiktok who was, I’m being impacted, right? She her company was letting her go, and it was she recorded it, she popped up a phone, she recorded it, and you got to see this pretty horrifying conversation happen. Yes, the CEO of the organization comes out and says, that is not the way that’s supposed to go. And we still did release this person for good reason, but this was not the right way. I know you and I had some juicy conversation about this. I would love to hear your perspective, because I think a lot of people feel like that’s what happens to them when they engage with HR. That really icky. What like? Why is this? What you know, what I mean, like, that feeling, and folks don’t know what they should a expect, what to do. They think it’s wrong. We don’t know. HR, so we don’t know how what was wrong with that. Like everything, okay, so let’s talk it out. Like, give me an ideal, you know, someone’s being let go from the company, whether that’s, you know, being terminated, whether that’s reorg, which it sounded like in this situation, it was a little bit of a mix of maybe reorg, and so you’re being laid off and you could be being terminated. It wasn’t really clear, but like, what should people expect? So

 

Alba  17:10

the first thing that is most important when we terminate an employee, the number one thing I tell my teams, and I’ve always told my teams, the primary thing that we need to focus on is treating that exited employee with dignity and respect. Absolutely, that is it. Because the reality is, we’re getting ready to change their life. Yes, we don’t need to make it harder for them, yes, and we shouldn’t be making it harder for them. And so the that means we need to be prepared, right? We need to know what we are saying, right? We need to know why we’re doing it, and if it’s a case of a performance situation, we need to make sure that we have dotted our eyes and crossed our T’s, that the employee is not surprised by this, right? Because in that particular circumstance, here’s the top two things that went wrong. One, they were talking to her about her performance, but she had different expectations about that performance exactly, or different understanding about her program. Exactly, the problem was she could not talk to the person who she’s been talking to your manager, unless there’s an extenuating circumstance. Should be the person communicating, because your manager is the person who you’ve been communicating with all this time, right?

 

Amber Cabral  18:16

And then that video was not very people she did not

 

Alba  18:19

her manager and people who didn’t know her, which meant that that conversation goes back and forth and it shouldn’t. Secondly, that HR person is really only there to help that process. My what I tell my people is when you feel it going off the rails, that’s when you jump in. You say, I understand this is difficult for you. This decision has been made, and it is final. Let’s get to whatever the next steps are that we have missed, right? Because there’s no value in that back and forth, right? All that has done now the employee is angry, right? You know, angrier, right? The person on the phone is flustered, right? They don’t know what to say because they weren’t prepared, yes, and so right, then and there. That’s when that HR person can come in and say, I understand. Give it a little empathy, because you do understand, right? They’re upset. You have changed their life, right? You don’t know what they had going on. Exactly. They got plans. They, you know, they now their whole world is all these children you just, you know, disruptive, yeah? And so the thing I tell people is, those conversations should be short, absolutely. A termination conversation be two to three sentences, right? I’m Do you have time to talk? Here’s what we’re doing, here’s when it’s effective, here’s HR to walk you through. And the reason for that isn’t because we want to be rude or whatever, right? It’s because the moment you’ve caught on that their job is gone, you have stopped paying attention. You start thinking about everything you talked about, my kids, my my car. Oh, gosh, I’m helping mama. We got this trip planned, you know, like, whatever. Yeah, you aren’t paying attention to whatever it is I’m saying. So the details don’t matter. The I’m sorry. I tell people, please don’t say, oh my god, do not apologize. You can be empathetic without apology, because if you say, I’m so sorry, well, why’d you do with it? Exactly?

 

Amber Cabral  19:58

Why did you know we saw. That too. There was just this, really, oh, like, almost too much. So I do think there are certain points when someone’s getting terminated and they want to ask questions. She was eager to ask questions. What should have been the response there? I’m clear the response was wrong, yes, but what should have been the well,

 

Alba  20:19

it shouldn’t have been a point where she could have asked questions. That’s where they were wrong. Because what it started out like, you said, I couldn’t tell, is this a performance thing or is this an organization thing? Those two things need to be separate. Because, again, if it’s performance, then we’ve got that documentation. You’re not surprised if it’s performance, but it sounded like she was like, No, my manager has told me this, this and this, I’m doing great, so explain it, and you asking to people who can explain it, because these two people were not a part of that, and that’s where you fail. Because that manager, if it is performance, that manager, should be there so she could say, hey, but you told me I was doing very well, but it never gets there if you’ve got a good HR team, because the good HR team has asked to see what you’ve told that person, let me see your documentation. What have you shared with them? Because then we can be certain that the employee has the same understanding that we do. Yeah, and that is the important part. Managers hate being the bad guy, right? But, you know, in reality, none of us likes being exactly and so they they kind of don’t want to do it, and what they don’t realize is you’re doing that employer disservice by not telling them absolutely because one, there’s no chance to improve. Yes, but two, then they’re blindsided, and they’re like, You never told me I wasn’t doing a good job. Yes,

 

Amber Cabral  21:31

I’m literally having this experience now, like in my own organization, where someone whose job it was to give some pointed feedback did not necessarily do that. Did not also update me that there potentially needed to be some feedback. So now I’m in a position of like, oh, I need to do some coaching here, and I had no idea because you were unwilling. So to that end, you know, I think that speaking up is an equity matter. I think that we have to find our voice and we have to be willing to say the hard things. What are some recommendations you have for HR leaders that struggle with that, because I, I have written a book about it, by the way, okay, but just from your mouth to folks ears, as an HR person who knows that sometimes that job comes with saying hard things and also coaching others to say hard things. What do you recommend? Hey, there. I hope you’re enjoying the episode, and in fact, if you are you can bring me to your organization or event to help you bring conversations like this to life in your workspaces. This is something I do for a living. I do coaching, I do training, I do executive consulting, whatever it is that you might need as it relates to trying to figure out how to activate allyship or equity in your space, it’s probably something I can support. So if you’re interested in how we can work together, you can reach out to me@cabraco.com or pop down into the show notes and click the link book a discovery call, and we will chat with you soon back to the show.

 

Alba  22:54

So I think the thing is, if you want to be an HR leader, you can’t go into it. Wanting to be everybody’s friend, yes, you can’t go into it. Wanting to be well liked. It doesn’t mean that people don’t have to respect you, but it means that you have to say the hard thing. You have to be the person in the room who says, Hey everyone, let’s take a step back, right? Like, I’ve actually did this just over the weekend. Like they want to put in a policy that everybody’s just over the moon over right? And everybody’s like, yes, we should do it. It’ll be great. And I’m like, Okay, here’s what I think my recommendation, and I actually started with, I understand. I am just here to make recommendations. However, my recommendations, we hold off on this until we have a better set of reasons, a rationale, and we can explain it clearly, because if we drop a process on people and it doesn’t make sense, or they have a lot of questions that we don’t have the answers to, it’s going to fail. It’s going to fail spectacularly. You think about all the return to Office conversations we’ve had over the last few years, right? And you and I’ve read a stat that like 75% of leaders wish they had done it differently, because that mandate, right of everybody come back in, right? Right? It, you think about it, what people forget is, when we went home in 2020 we disrupted everybody’s life. Absolutely

 

Amber Cabral  24:10

did, and we figured out how to do our jobs in a different way.

 

Alba  24:14

Yes, but like that, that thing where I used to leave work at one o’clock because I had a doctor’s appointment at two, and I’ll see y’all tomorrow, right? Whereas now I have a doctor appointment at two, I leave my house at 130 I’m back online at three o’clock, right? Because I’m home, right? So you’ve got more time for me. But now, because my doctors used to be near the office, and now they’re closer to my house. Now I pick my children up regularly from school, or I go to I do lunch with or whatever, right? I have incorporated more of my life into my workday Absolutely. And so now you’re telling me, oh, you need to come back. Yeah, but you haven’t given me any so now you’re telling me to switch my life back again, right? And that’s why it failed and

 

Amber Cabral  24:51

to a way that didn’t work. You asked me to switch to a life that wasn’t as easy for me, yes,

 

Alba  24:56

and you. But what you’re also not recognizing is once I. Does Not Fit All, and that’s the number one lesson we should have learned from everybody kind of going home, is that people, I have a person on my team, she’s amazing. She works well, super late at night. She is so super productive, super late at night. Do I care? Right? No, right. But if I now tell her, you got to come back into the office. I’m going to lose that productivity. Is it worth it? And so we’ve got to start thinking about the people that used to sit in the office in the corner with the headphones on the dark heads down. Why? Because that’s where they work better. They needed that peace and that silence. Now we’re going to bring them back into the office after they’ve had the luxury of being home in that peace and silence, and then we’re going to send them back into the corner, right? And so when we think about being that person, being that voice, that’s my job. My job is to say, I know you all think it’s a great idea to bring everybody back into body, back into the office, but maybe we should think about it differently, yeah, maybe we should think about it in a way that is equitable, right? Because when we think about women in the workforce, they are picking up most of the child rearing duties, taking care of home duties, all of those things. So now when you force them back into the office, that childcare thing becomes harder, more expensive. A lot of them drop out because of the cost. And so we’re now losing that talent because we want to see everybody exactly. But I got to tell people, just because you see me doesn’t mean I’m working exactly, exactly me planning my next vacation. And

 

Amber Cabral  26:27

there’s data that says that people are not necessarily going to be more productive when they’re around others. There’s literal data for this. And there’s been data for this long before there was remote work at the rate that we see it. So like, Yeah, listen, we can remote work, you know, yeah, I am strongly, you know, on the process, you know, at the very least hybrid I, you know, I can’t even say I would even consider a role, should I ever decide to return to work that required me to be in anybody’s office every day, and respectfully, I would even struggle. If it was a cadence, like, you need to be here Wednesdays and Fridays. I would be like, I can come two days

 

Alba  27:03

a week. My work, my brain doesn’t work like that, and my work doesn’t work. Yes. Like, I mean, when it makes sense to do that exactly, but when I’m I’m on meetings all day, then why am I here?

 

Amber Cabral  27:13

Right? Exactly? I could be on meetings in my house, yes, as with in my sweatpants, yes, yes. So absolutely okay. So I want to talk a little bit about, you know, kind of where you work, like, because you’ve hopped in a few different industries, and currently you’re working in advertising. And I think that advertising opens up a really healthy conversation about equity, because it’s a thing that we all see, yeah, and experience, and so, you know, to the same point that, like, HR touches everything as a result, you know, you working in an ad agency. Your HR shows up in the ad agency that touches everything, you know. And so I would just love to hear like, you know, a little bit about what might be making you hopeful for the future. Do you I mean, we’ve seen a lot of ad campaigns that have been, you know, not necessarily in favor. We’ve seen some that have been really fantastic. We also know that there’s, you know, a little bit of a idea about what ad agencies are about, like their general demeanor, if you will. What are your What are you hopeful about?

 

Alba  28:10

Well, I mean, we’ve moved away from the Mad Men agency, right? Which is good. That’s what a lot of people think of about advertising. And quite frankly, advertising is still predominantly white and it is still predominantly male, okay, it just is. I happen to work for an agency that is actually women led, and it is, I think we’re about 70 my my particular studio is about 70 ish percent female, which is, yeah, not the norm, right? But when we talk about diversity of thinking, right, think about what all of those women, yeah, and those perspectives bring to our ads, right? But we’re not nearly as diverse as we should be from a racial perspective. We’re not and that is where the policies and processes that we are bringing in, or that I’m bringing in, are helping us, right? Because we’re bringing those different voices in the door. We’re bringing those different voices to the table. So when we present ideas to clients, those clients have a different view of the world. And if you look at what you see on TV now, you are seeing more diversity in terms of who’s selling you things, right? So who’s on the camera. Now, what I’m starting to see a little bit too much of is that it’s typically white man, black woman, yep. And their little biracial child, that’s right, that’s right. Curly hair,

 

29:23

that’s it, right, that’s

 

Alba  29:24

exactly right. That is so true. And so it’s like, on one hand, yay,

 

Amber Cabral  29:29

right? On the other hand, not quite what? Yes. So it’s trying to,

 

Alba  29:33

and I know what it’s trying to do. It’s trying to appeal to everybody. We get everybody, yeah, that’s not how it worked, no. And the reality of it is, it’s trying to get people to see other races as whole, yes. And so when you think about how things are marketed to people, like, if I were to give you a movie that has a huge black cast, it is a black movie, right? If I give you a movie with a white cast, it is, it is a movie. Yeah. And I think about that. That as how we market right, how we think about things. I read, there was an author, a romance author, who got a quote back, a review back from another author who said, Oh my god, I read your book and I didn’t realize, like black people fall in love, just like we do.

 

Amber Cabral  30:14

Wow.

 

Alba  30:16

Really. What a concept. What did you think that? But it’s because, yes, when you live in a white world, yes, everything you can perceive Yes. And we’re just framed a separate from you, yes, everything you can perceive is white, yes. And so when we think about advertising and marketing and how we approach people and yes, what we approach them with, we have the ability to make them actually have that next level thought, right, right? Go to that movie because it’s funny, right? Don’t go to that movie because of its cast, right, right? You

 

Amber Cabral  30:46

know what I mean. This makes me think about with my coaching clients, one of the activities I usually here’s some gems, y’all, one of the activities I usually have my coaching clients do is deliberately ask folks who are different racially than they are, for Booker music recommendations. They get to pick if they’re a reader books, if they like music. You know, occasionally we’ll do both. And so I’ll say, you know, ask for five book recommendations from somebody racially different from you. And then also do the same with music. And if you don’t listen to hip hop, then, you know, make sure that you get a little hip hop in there, because it really does change your brain, like having the ability to integrate difference when you are making decisions, versus being in a situation where to your point, a white movie is an everyone movie, right? A black movie is a black movie, right? And we, to a degree, an advertising standpoint, do fall in line with that, right? Like we position it in the places where we know black folks are going to see it. We make sure that it is, you know, communicated online in a way that resonates with black folks. But it’s like, well, what about just making sure we resonate with folks? The other side to this? I think that has to be probably interesting in an ad agency, and that I often say to clients as well, inclusion isn’t everybody all at once at the same time? No, we can’t get everybody. So you’re still not getting everybody with your black man, white woman, mixed child. No, there’s a lot of folks missing. And so I’m wondering how you know, how that shows up, you know, in your conversations or thought process around, you know, agencies, just because the goal is, we want to sell to everybody, but we can’t necessarily display everybody in this space.

 

Alba  32:29

I think the thing is, it’s just being relatable beyond race, yes, because there are things that connect all of us that are not driven by our racial makeup, right? And so if we’re thinking about the world in that way, then we’ll always be kind of successful in hitting everyone because, like you said, if we put only the black stuff in black places, right, then other races will never interact with it. And so they stay black stuff, right? Whereas, where with, like, same thing with, with all, all the races, like the do you think about the Latino stuff? Like, if you’re in Southern California, you’re probably going to get it right, because they got to market to them. They’re there. I worked at a company once that they talked about in sales, and they talked about how the large car dealers, like the luxury car brands, would never advertise on like Spanish channels, because they could not conceive of the idea that these people had money to spend on a Mercedes or BMW or whatever of that caliber, right? Because they think of them as such a working class people, right? And so they just were like, Oh, it’s just a waste. Why would we spend our money there, not recognizing that by doing that, you are actually keeping them out their money spends too, right? And so you have to think about, if you put it out there in a way that everybody can react to it, you don’t have to worry about it being like, Oh, this is for the black people, and this is for the Latino people, and this is for the white people. It needs to be for the people we are, people at our core.

 

Amber Cabral  34:00

Yes, it reminds me of this book that I had years ago that I loaned to someone who I need to now make give my book back, but, but it was a book called What the world eats. And what was so great about it was exactly what you just said, like, there are things that everyone around the world eats, like everyone eats rice, but it’s different culturally in so, I mean, hundreds of different ways to eat rice. The same thing with beans. Everybody eats beans, but depending on where you are, the beans are different. And so it’s like, it’s almost like advertising has to think about it more like that, like, what are the things that connect us? And that’s not saying you should put beans in your ass. What are the things that, like we all do as humans, as people that, you know, can create a sense of, you know, connectivity. And then also, the thing I would add to that is that we also don’t have to make sure everyone’s experienced it. And I think consumers could probably do a good job understanding that, like, you’re not gonna see yourself in everything. No, honestly, if you did, you should be concerned, you know. And so. Like you’re not you may never be able to relate to a single baby ad personally, because you have not had children, did not want children, you know, whatever, but you probably know somebody that’s had some kids. You probably can understand why this is important to the world, right? And so I think taking that perspective of like it doesn’t have to be for me to be for me, is is probably a critical perspective, awesome in advertising, yeah. Okay, so I have a question I ask everybody that comes on. You’ve given me so many things. I have so many other rabbit holes I want to go down, but I am going to bind myself to the time. But I always ask everyone that comes on this one question, which is, you know, well, let me give you a little background. Background. Imma say that again, because my mouth is dry. Okay, so let me give you a little bit of background. Typically, we have privileges that we may not always feel so great about. People think of privilege as a thing that is, you know, to be embarrassed by or ashamed of, and sometimes to hide. Those of us you know who have been watching this program, hopefully are past that, but because we know that sometimes people do feel guilty about their privilege, I named the show guilty privilege. What I really would love for you to answer for me is, what is one privilege that you have that you refuse to feel guilty about?

 

Alba  36:15

Okay, so there’s a there’s an obvious answer that I’m not gonna go with. Um, actually I am. I’m gonna say the thing, yeah, I have pretty privilege, you do. And a lot of people will say, Oh, my God, how dare you say that? But the reality is, it allows me to go into these spaces and speak louder. Yes, it allows me. I, you know, I have the esthetic qualities that don’t make people afraid of me, right, as a black woman, right? But I am a black woman, right, right, right? When I walk in there, it is very clear, Hello, I am black. I do not shy away from that in any space. And no one’s confused. No, there’s never a confusion. But it allows me to go in there and say the thing in a way that they will accept and hear it that I know they would not accept and hear from someone who did not look like me, yep, and I hate that, yeah, but I also understand that it’s mine to use. That’s right, that’s all I do. I’m sorry.

 

Amber Cabral  37:14

Use the privilege. Y’all use the privilege. I know the people got you messed up. I do. Use the privilege. I

 

Alba  37:19

1. I mean, and when I used to have, like, the long hair and all of the things, it was like,

 

Amber Cabral  37:23

hello, long hair in these eyes. But it

 

Alba  37:27

was very important for me, because I remember as a child, my mother saying to me, people will think things of you because of how you look. Yes, and it’s up to you how you want them to perceive that, right? And I was like, I don’t understand. But as I got older, I recognized, like, oh, they expect me to be more like them, but I can’t do that like I have to, first of all, have to be me no matter what room I go in. So this is what you’re gonna get. But the other thing is, I recognize this look disarms people. This looks has an expectation that goes along with it. They don’t expect me to be smart, yeah, which is weird, um, can be smart and pretty. They don’t expect me to be like I said at work. They call they joke. They call me The genius, um, but they don’t expect me to be smart, and they don’t expect me to be loud, yeah, oh yeah, and I’m going to be every time. Yeah,

 

Amber Cabral  38:20

I love that. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for having this was great. I am going to make sure that I take to some of my HR teams, some of your recommendations, because I definitely, definitely know some that keeps me and hopefully some of the people watching took some really good stuff too. I

 

38:40

hope so. All right, thank you. You.