In this episode of On the Brink with Andi Simon, we had the pleasure of sitting down with TaRita Johnson, Senior Vice President of Talent and Diversity at The Right Place, a Michigan-based economic development organization. Throughout her career, TaRita has championed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and has helped organizations grow by embracing a more diverse workforce. She shared her insightful journey, revealing diversity’s critical role in creating thriving, successful workplaces, and she introduced us to her powerful leadership model: VOICE.
TaRita’s Journey: A Commitment to Building Inclusive Communities
From the beginning, TaRita’s path has been shaped by her passion for promoting equity and opportunity. She shared with us how her early career experiences, paired with her background in education, shaped her belief that talent comes from all walks of life and that it’s the role of leaders to create environments where all individuals feel valued and heard.
Having spent years working in roles that intersect leadership, human resources, and diversity efforts, TaRita emphasized how essential it is to build intentional communities within organizations. She explained that DEI is not just a strategy but a core component of business success, enabling organizations to unlock new perspectives, ideas, and approaches. This philosophy has driven her work at The Right Place, where she is tasked with developing programs that help businesses attract, retain, and elevate diverse talent pools.
In her role, TaRita tackles not only the recruitment aspect of diversity but also the equally important work of fostering belonging within an organization. She stressed that companies must focus on hiring individuals from diverse backgrounds and creating inclusive environments where employees feel empowered to contribute their full selves.
You can watch our podcast video here:
VOICE: Vision, Open to New Ideas, Intentional Community, Compassion, Emotional Intelligence
One of the most intriguing aspects of our conversation was TaRita’s introduction to her leadership philosophy, which she sums up with the acronym VOICE. She explained that This framework serves as a guide for how leaders can foster diversity and inclusion in the workplace while empowering their teams to thrive. Let’s break down what VOICE stands for and how it applies to leadership today:
- Vision: As leaders, we must be future-focused and set a clear direction for our organizations’ goals. However, vision also means being open to what is unseen or overlooked, including recognizing the talents of individuals who may not fit traditional molds.
- Open to New Ideas: Diversity in thought and perspective is a significant driver of innovation. TaRita explained how crucial it is for leaders to remain open to new ideas, especially those that challenge the status quo. For her, openness is a sign of strength, not weakness. It’s about acknowledging that we don’t have all the answers and that collective intelligence can lead to breakthrough solutions.
- Intentional Community: Building community within an organization does not happen passively. It requires intention and commitment. TaRita stressed that creating a sense of belonging is essential for employee retention and success. By fostering an intentional community, leaders help individuals feel part of something bigger than themselves.
- Compassion: At the heart of inclusion is compassion. This means leading with empathy, understanding the challenges that others may face, and taking action to create equitable opportunities for all. For TaRita, compassion is a daily practice—whether checking in with colleagues or advocating for initiatives that benefit underrepresented groups.
- Emotional Intelligence (EQ): Lastly, TaRita underscored the importance of emotional intelligence in leadership. EQ involves being self-aware, managing one’s emotions, and showing sensitivity to the emotions of others. In the context of diversity and inclusion, high EQ is vital because it enables leaders to navigate difficult conversations, offer support, and make informed decisions that consider the well-being of their teams.
Final Thoughts: Amplifying Your VOICE
As we wrapped up our discussion, TaRita left us with a powerful reminder: leadership is about amplifying the voices of others, not just your own. By leading with vision, compassion, and emotional intelligence, we can create workplaces that are not only more inclusive but also more innovative, productive, and successful.
Learn more about TaRita Johnson and her work to build DEI communities
More on culture change from Simon Associates:
Listen to the podcasts from:
393: Sandra Quince—You Must Build More Inclusive Cultures If You Want Your Business To Thrive
387: Melissa Andrieux—From Litigator To DEI&B Champion: Melissa Andrieux’s Extraordinary Journey
And read our blog:
What Can Women Do To Challenge Gender Stereotypes In The C-Suite?
Reach out and contact us if you need work on improving your Culture. Let’s Talk!
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The full transcript follows below:
Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink with Andi Simon. Thank you for joining us today. I’m Andi Simon, I’m your host and your guide. My job is to get you off the brink and to begin to help you to listen to people who want to let you see, feel and think in new ways. These are very fast changing times, and my podcasts are here for us to share ideas so that you can grow as we’re growing. Because I must say, this is over our 400th podcast, and as I go back and listen to older ones, I realize that even the podcast, as evolved as the interviewees and me have changed. And so this is a wonderful opportunity I have with us today to TaRita Johnson, who is from Western Michigan, favorite place of mine. And I’m going to talk a little bit about her before I let her tell you her story and the work that she’s done. But she was here back in 2018 when I first met her, and we talked a lot then about the work she was doing in career development and really interesting her own general and evolution as a person. But let me give you where she is now. She’ll tell you a little bit about her own Awards and recognition to TaRita Johnson is a senior vice president of talent and diversity at the Right Place. She’s going to tell you what the Right Place is, but it’s recently been recognized as one of the top 20 economic development organizations in the country. Interesting. She’s responsible for assisting various companies with strategy around talent and diversity throughout Western Michigan. Before that, TaRita served as a director of the Career Center at Calvin University, Talent Acquisition Manager for corporate recruiting at Meijer, a great chain of stores and vice president of college and university relations at KeyBank. She’s done many things, and it’s very interesting to see how they’ve all come together in this woman who’s pursuing wonderful career opportunities to help people see, feel and think in new ways. She’s now taking her PhD in higher education. She’s certified in cultural intelligence, which we’re going to talk about unconscious bias, targeted selection and the Korn Ferry leadership architect. She has lots of board participation and a Stem Greenhouse west of Michigan works Truth’s Table Foundation. She also has a wonderful life. She’s a proud mom of two girls, Jayla and Victory. And I love it when we talk a little bit about our own private life. Sometimes I forgot I was a mom. Not just a professional, not just an anthropologist, not just a founder, but I was a mom, and I love that part of us. I said blended or is it just who we are? So to TaRita, thank you for joining me. It’s a pleasure to have you here.
TaRita Johnson: Thank you so much. It’s an honor to be here.
Andi Simon: Tell the listener or the viewer who’s TaRita Johnson? Because you and I have watched this thing is sort of interesting. 2018 wasn’t yesterday, but you have moved and grown and how have you, I don’t know, developed your own story.
TaRita Johnson: I have, you know, I feel that I used to think because I’ve had many different opportunities and I’ve transferred from different industries, from higher education to corporate and nonprofits, and even did a little bit of therapy in between there and also taught, therapy and social work. I used to think that was a disadvantage. So I moved around the country, a lot for opportunities or, what was going on in my family at the time. And what I have found is all of those opportunities across industry have helped prepare me for the position that I’m sitting in today. And it’s almost like I can just transition at the right place. We see over 600 companies a year, and so I could be at a manufacturing plant one day or all in the same day, a tech company. And then I’m at a community-based organization. And instantly these experiences shift. So I’ve also learned a lot about myself, you know, as a professional, but also as a woman, as a black woman and as a mother. And what it means to authentically be yourself in every space that you reside. What does that look like? And so I’ve taken a lot of time to think about my own journey and the journey and the legacy that I want to leave for my girls, but also the legacy that I want to lead for other people similar to me.
Andi Simon: Well, I don’t want you to stop talking about your own journey, because these words are really powerful to be authentically ourselves. You didn’t have a destination. It wasn’t a straight line, was it? But you take opportunities and in the opportunities that you learned, and you grew and then you move to a new one and it adds more dimension to yourself. Talk a little bit more about that journey because it has brought you here to the right place at the right time to do the right work. Isn’t that wonderful?
TaRita Johnson: You know, I have a yes or not yet mentality. I would say this is both a strength and an area of growth. So I have every leader that I’ve ever worked for that has kind of said, we need to pull you down, slow down or have said things like, you have very high capacity. I have an intellectual curiosity that is sometimes difficult for me to calm down. A lot of curiosity. every person, meeting people to me is like candy. It’s like water to a candy store. Some of my favorite things to do are things like this and go into these companies, talk to leaders, see what makes them tick, find out where they need assistance and how I can be of value. I look at networking like how can I serve? How can I give? Not necessarily what I can get from someone else. And so if they ask somebody to sit on a committee, task force or whatever it is, usually it’s me saying yes. And in that process where I’ve had to grow and where I’m learning to grow, right today is learning how to balance that and to say, sometimes I’ve got to say no and prioritize or not yet for the sake of my girls and for myself. And so I am learning how to manage this insatiable hunger where I want to say yes, but I can’t. And so for me, figuring out what I am called to do, what is my purpose? And I believe our purpose changes in different seasons of our lives. So I do vision boards. I do a lot of things with my girls and a lot of creative things. I’m a big beach person, so thankful to live in West Michigan. I like to sit in front of the water. I like to self-reflect and take that time to meditate and figure out what it is that I am called to do and making sure that I align what I say yes to now with what my call is for that season.
Andi Simon: I love it as you’re thinking about this, I bet this is more than just about you, though. I know it is partly what you’re doing for others in the work that you’re doing. And I’m making a leap there because when you talk about a calling, you don’t have a job. You have a belief that you have a purpose, and there’s meaning to the work you’re doing. And as you’re growing, you’re hoping to help others.
TaRita Johnson: 100%.
Andi Simon: How does that work?
TaRita Johnson: Well, years ago when I was in my master’s program in social work, I went back and read my essay to be admitted, and I talked about using my voice to alleviate change and help people that couldn’t speak for themselves and helping the underrepresented and marginalized and just helping people to reach their potential, whatever that is. So if you’re working in a company and you want to help other people reach that potential, I am a firm believer that we are blessed and gifted in a way, and those gifts and the talents that we have, they are not for us. I tell my daughters this all the time. They’re actually meant for you to help other people, and you’ve got to figure out how you do that. So this has kind of been with me my entire life, even growing up in elementary school, middle and high school. I just had this passion for seeing people that other people don’t typically see. I would see it and be affected. I feel deeply so if somebody is in pain, I feel that and I want to help it, you know? So, I live my life in a way where when people are in my presence, I want them to feel love. Now, this doesn’t mean that I’m perfect. It doesn’t mean that I can’t go from 0 to 100 because I can. I am direct, but at the same time, I also can realize when I’m wrong and I’m constantly self-reflecting that I want people to be in my presence and feel love. Maya Angelou said that people do not remember what you say, but they will remember how you make them feel. And that hits deep for me.
Andi Simon: You know, TaRita, the wisdom you’re sharing reminds me of the 102 women in our newest book, Women Mean Business. But what was important was exactly that Maya Angelou quote, because the 102 women didn’t want you to hear about tactical, practical things. They wanted you to feel their lives and their careers with wisdom and wisdom similar to what you’re sharing is that I didn’t have a clear career path, and my network became my net worth. But my people who, one of the themes was believe in yourself, know thyself and believe in yourself. You know, as I rise, I lift others are some of the wisdoms that are memorable because as I read them, these women stuck with me to try and lift me up. So what is the right place? Tell us a little bit about this organization and then what you’re doing on their behalf.
TaRita Johnson: So The Right Place is an economic development nonprofit. We are funded by investors. So we have over 200 investors that represent all of these companies. Right. And then even government entities, it’s just a whole host of colleges and universities, community colleges. We have 40 board members so lots of the leaders in the organization and we help. We have three pillars: people, place, and prosperity. I lead the people from a B-to-B perspective. So I like to think of the talent team as a liaison. We are bridge builders, so talent. We help companies in any of those areas. You know, like I said, I do a lot of talent visits. I asked a lot of questions. I’ll take a tour. I posted on my LinkedIn because I just think that I was never a cheerleader in school, but I’m a human cheerleader. Well, if I feel like I have a responsibility to show what’s great about this region, but also help companies develop best practices as well as share what they have, we also have an attraction arm to the talent organization. It’s called Hello West Michigan. So their job is to help attract people to the West Michigan area. And that all falls under this talent. I also have diversity where I’m helping companies. What does it mean to help people belong, to be inclusive? How do we attract, source and retain talent? By developing cultures that are inclusive for everyone. So we do that. We see about 600 companies a year and the place is community development, so anything that makes a person want to stay. So I talked about the water. So we’re going to have an amphitheater here. So we have a man that leads our place team named Tim Morales. And he works with all of the municipalities, our state leaders, our local leaders. What anything to make people want to come, anything in that place and prosperity is your traditional economic development. 90% of what they do is to help existing companies to expand. 10% is what you hear about all the time. This is where they scour the world, and they go overseas, and they bring companies here. So many of the companies we have, brought here and helped them to stay here and to expand.
Andi Simon: You know, before the pandemic, I used to speak at the Michigan College Alliance at Mackinac Island. And the biggest problem that employers had was that people would graduate and leave the state. And I don’t care whether they were truck companies, or they were tech companies or even Ford. The big question: How do we keep our young people here? The ones who came back, I often met in the airport, and they were the elders who were coming back, and there were towns in Michigan that had the oldest number of per capita per, you know, over 65. And I went, wow, what an interesting area. But I have a hunch the work you’re doing in people placement and prosperity is reversing but seeing it in a different light. It’s not a single company or a particular government agency. It’s a much bigger and broader collaboration. It’s a little bit like the universities and what they were trying to do, but I don’t think they were as effective. Well, I don’t know if they were as effective, but I think you’re doing something very dramatic and very impactful. Are you seeing it work?
TaRita Johnson: Yes. First and foremost, I am a trustee for Michigan College Alliance and have also brought them to the table. And so we work together a lot. I’ve been a big advocate for that organization for many years. So I agree, we bring everybody together. So an example of that is we have a ten-year tech strategy, and we have a goal of having 20,000 jobs in the next ten years. When we put this strategy together, we contacted all of the companies, the colleges, the community colleges, the community-based organizations. We brought them over to the table like 300 different people through a series of focus groups. We did the same thing when we developed our 3-to-5-year right place strategy as well. So it’s really, like I said, this bridge builder that can connect all of these different entities to, I believe together we win and we’re stronger and better together.
Andi Simon: Yes. And as you’re thinking out loud with me, I mean, my mind goes in two directions. I’ll come back to the belonging question. But when you’re recruiting companies to come, the attraction is other than Michigan is a beautiful place to be. Are there particular things that are very attractive to outsiders or to insiders to grow? What do you see as the catalysts?
TaRita Johnson: I think there is a combination of things. So we work right with our state leaders, to ensure a lot of the finances, the taxes, the breaks to bring them here. That’s a big deal. We are like that liaison. So we’re brokering deals. We’re kind of like, the person in the middle, the company in the middle to make sure that we’re working with our developers, our state leaders. So we make it easy because it’s almost like, call the right place where that one stop shop. In addition to that, it’s also the talent in my world, the talent piece and bringing different entities to the table like West Michigan Works, which is our organization that also works with many different organizations here and strengthens not just the employer, but from a candidate base. We bring in the colleges and universities or even help them around strategy. How are they going to get this talent? So we are connected and so plugged in across industries, across sectors. We can tell you this is why it’s attractive where you want to be. We can even bring them together. We have something called the Leadership Circle. So as we are trying to attract other businesses here, we have folks from other companies, other CEOs, other leaders that will actually volunteer their time and bring them into the community so that it is an entire ecosystem. We also have industry councils. So we have a manufacturing council, a supply chain council, a tech council. So they have an opportunity to see and deal with people just like them that are doing the same things that they’re doing. So it’s this whole ecosystem that works together. One thing that I can say about West Michigan is very collaborative.
Andi Simon: It’s very important to me and that leads me to this question of belonging, because it sounds like, you know, I’m an anthropologist, and humans like herd animals. They want to belong on many levels, whether it’s western Michigan and its collaboration turning into a belonging, bringing people in and having them in meetings and councils with others like them, you really understand the nuances that it isn’t tactical and practical, it’s emotional and it’s wonderful. Give me your perspective. Both for the community and as you’re building it and what they’re doing inside. So diverse, inclusive processes bring people into an organization and stay because they feel they belong. What happens?
TaRita Johnson: There are a lot of things that I think folks should understand. If I was to give a quick list, I think number one has to understand that they must be intentional about evolution, because what can happen is you can swim in the same ocean and not recognize seaweed and different fish and whales and all of these things. So I tell people that the majority typically wins. I was just explaining this to my daughter. If there was a town and it was all men and only two women, what would that town cater to? A lot of companies today now have nursing rooms because they had women that actually needed to nurse, but that wasn’t the case. There’s countless women that will tell you they had to go to their car or risk going into a conference room with an unlocked door, all types of things. Intentionality Matters because human nature is when we’re used to what we’re comfortable with. And when in our unconscious thinking it is that thinking that when we’re tired, when we’re stressed, when we have a lot to do, we’re going to do what we always know how to do. And that’s usually not always considering everybody else. But that rational thinking, and this is right from the Cultural Intelligence Center, is when I have an intentionality, and I know that there’s others different from me. If we pay attention to anybody that is on the margins, anybody that is unrepresented, what we do for them actually, and do it for everybody else represents the whole we’ve got to get rid of, the difference between, equal and equitable. Equal means that even if you are in a wheelchair, I give everybody a bike and there’s a nice slice of this and you get a bike, but you in the wheelchair equitable is I give something that you can also that accommodates you. So it’s not about being equal. It’s about being equitable because not everybody starts the race the same and people are at different stages. So we have to understand that if I’m doing professional development, I do it for everybody. But what each person needs may look different, but everybody gets it. So it’s this intentionality about what are my biases. What don’t I see? Who don’t I see who’s not in my friend pool? Because often we do what we know. So for example, we take recruiting. And if a company is looking for somebody, what they may do because it’s as easy as picking up the phone and saying, hey, Jerry, who do you know? And Jerry’s network looks all the same, is all the same. Went to school the same. And we don’t allow other people in because these network networks are lost. Not because we’re bad people, but because that’s just human nature. So it’s the intentionality. That’s a big thing for me.
Andi Simon: Do people open up that conversation because it was a wonderful conversation from my perspective. And I think for our audiences, do people understand intentionality? I have a colleague I know, and he is in the staffing industry, and he says I’ll send a diverse pool of people to a company, and they end up choosing the person who is most like them. And he said, and if they choose somebody who isn’t like them, they don’t quite know how to include them.
Andi Simon: Are you okay? Shall I pause? Welcome back. We had a pause for a moment to read. The internet connection wasn’t happy. And you know, when the internet connection isn’t happy, it’s difficult to do a podcast. But we’re back. And we were deep in a conversation about intentional inclusion that you can’t simply be casual and let your unbiased, unconscious biases come to the forefront. If you’re going to make a difference, you’re going to have to think about it intentionally and make an effort to actually do things differently than you used to in the past. So I’m going to let TaRita continue talking about how she’s working through the right place in these companies to help them understand. You can’t just ask your favorite friend for a referral for a job. If you’re going to go out and build a diverse workforce, you’ve got to go out and build a diverse workforce.
TaRita Johnson: Think it is both a head and heart issue, right? We know that it’s the right thing to do. We know that it also helps us to develop and grow. But I also think to help people really drive this point home, they have to understand the demographics, the demographics of our country. We understand that we’re going to have declining birth rates. They’re declining. Our people aren’t having kids as much. But there’s two areas in this country where the population will grow, both racial and ethnic. Domestic and international diversity. This is all backed by the US census. So if we know that we’ve got to figure out ways that we’re intentional in how we attract, how we source this talent, but also how do we include them? If I attract the source and bring them in, because that’s a feat. And in helping companies understand how do I do that? Some of the ways we do that, we diversify our teams. We make sure that we’re going to places where we can find this talent and source this talent where there actually are. You know, some basic things. We make sure that our interview team is diverse and that everybody has a lens for this and an appetite for it. So and not the scarcity mindset. Oftentimes when I’m doing workshops, I say, I know we live in cancel culture, but when it comes to talent, we need everybody. So we’ve got to really be honest with ourselves because every single person has bias, right? We have to be honest with those biases and we also have to understand why this benefits the whole. I always say that we are only as strong as our weakest link. That’s a popular saying. This is the truth when it comes to inclusion. If I create a world, there’s many books on this. And let’s say if I was to use animals, and I created a world only for dogs and cats, then I have no rooms for zebras and giraffes and all of these other things. So I have to build it with people in mind. We were looking at buildings a couple of weeks ago, and one of the buildings downtown, it’s an older building, it’s beautiful. There is one woman’s bathroom on each floor. You can imagine. This back in the day, because they think that one bathroom was probably for the one administrative assistant or something. So, you have to design your policies, your procedures, what you do. Another example I had was one team, I’ve had many teams over the years, where I had all five generations in the workplace. I had everybody from 18 all the way to 70. Now, the team before that, I had many millennials and a couple Xers, and this is the truth. I had lunch consistently with that other team we dressed up for Halloween. We did a lot of fun things together. We went bowling and that really produced great work.. Some of them called me and said, we’re not having fun anymore. It’s boring. So when I went into the next team, I started off thinking like, oh, you all want to go to lunch together? Those people looked at me like I’m crazy. I walk on my lunch, I shop, I want to read a book because I had multiple generations in that team. I had people that had medical things like. So they couldn’t do the treetops or do all these crazy obstacle courses. So I had to create an environment where we hear everybody and we do things that everybody could enjoy, and we don’t exclude.
Exclusion oftentimes is unconscious. So when I first moved, I’m not from West Michigan. You know, I’ve been here for a long time now. I’ve been here for 11 years. But when I first came here, I didn’t know all of these high schools and all of these things. Now this is what I do. But I didn’t know all these places. And when they would talk, when I would be in circles, everybody had this shared, lingo and, and language about the high schools and everything. And I felt like I never fit.
Andi Simon: You didn’t. And they let you know it in subtle ways.
TaRita Johnson: Let me know in a subtle way. So when all of the conversation is about how you grew up and you all grew up the same way, I don’t see other people. And I’ve had these types of experiences throughout my career. This doesn’t mean these aren’t good people. That’s why I said it takes an intentionality because we are comfortable. I often tell people, if you want to really be conscious and intentional about belonging, start with you. Who’s your friend? What does that look like? Who do you if you have kids or who are you exposing them to? So if my friend pool is homogeneous, then I probably have a problem. And I’m also missing out because I’m not expanding my mind. Relationships change how people feel about groups of people. There’s more of an understanding. So when we know that diversity encompasses many things and the more of it, we have, businesses will be more successful. It’s like doing the right thing, but it also has a business need to do that, especially in this day and age. I could talk forever about belonging.
Andi Simon: Well, but you know, I’m doing research now on how people think that AI is going to impact their feelings of belonging and inclusion, knowing full well that belonging and inclusion haven’t arrived. You know, it isn’t as if it’s stabilized and we’ve got strong belonging values, and our cultures are intentionally including people. I Heard two guys who were CEOs of mid-market companies talking at a conference and one said to the other, it took me three months to hire a black woman, and she only stayed for three months. What was wrong with her and all I could bite my tongue about what were you thinking? And why were you doing this? And how did you help her feel? Like she mattered and belonged. Did she ever have lunch with anyone? Did you have a mentor? What did you do other than drop her in and then wonder why it was unpleasant for her? But I couldn’t say that. But that’s the kind of attitude that is not even the bias. It’s just a hard mindset to begin to shift so that you can see yourself as part of the problem or opportunity, and others as part of your future. Because to your point, this is going to be a very diverse population. It is already, and it’s time for us to begin to find ways to build comfort with it. And I interviewed someone not long ago who grew up in, I think, Minneapolis and her elementary school and middle school were full of people who were from Ethiopia and were Somalis, and where others who had left wherever they were, and she felt very comfortable, ended up working in Ethiopia as an aid worker and really said, I learned early how to get along with people who were different from me, and I enjoyed it, as opposed to feeling it was a penalty box.
There’s so much work to be done, and corporations don’t realize that their future talent is going to come looking different from their current talent. It is interesting. You know, humans create culture as a survival tool. We have a hard time surviving and always have forever and ever. That’s probably what gave us the advantage over the Neanderthals. It wasn’t a tool. It probably was our culture and the way we stayed together and belonged. Now we are looking at this and saying, how do we blend or integrate or include or diversify? We use words that make us push back instead of wanting to belong. It’s a very interesting time to be a professional like you are trying to. When you say it’s your calling, trying to help them see another way and, and it isn’t just by going out and playing volleyball together, you know, although sometimes that helps. Oh my goodness. as you’re thinking about, your own future, you’ve had a wonderful career path. You don’t have to share anything except where are the areas of growth for you? I always like to ask, you know, what’s your future look like? Anything to share?
TaRita Johnson: Well, I’m working on my PhD. I’m actually writing my dissertation right now, and I’m writing about an auto ethnography. Sharing my experiences. All the transitions I made as a black woman and the things that have harmed me. And what is healing me. Of all of the different isms and experiences that I had. So when I speak of belonging, I have such a passion because there’s many times, I’ve been the only one and didn’t feel that I belonged and was thankful. Today I feel like I belong, and I’m loved and valued, and I want everybody to get there. I still have challenges, you know, I still carry, I feel like, to whom much is given, much is required. And you know what I want people to really think. So for me, leadership is an influence. It is not positional. It can get you to positionality but is his influence. And when we think of those things as far as inclusion and not thinking of them in the mindset of divisiveness. Even the political ties, but thinking about my thing, I want to help people think, what legacy do I really want to live? How do I leave? How do I want to live so that I leave this positive legacy? How do I make an impact on others’ lives from all walks of life, especially if they’re different or just like me? How do I elevate voices that are unheard and get people to listen to those voices? I think my method is to do that a lot with love. But I can tell you the truth now, I’m pretty direct, and I have a lot of my own personal experiences. And one of the things that I recognize that we really have to help people with is fear. Scarcity. So fear breeds scarcity. So a lot of times because sometimes people are close to letting people into cohorts or their groups or are averse to belonging is because they are afraid. And this mentality of it’s either you or me is a problem.
TaRita Johnson: My mindset is I win, you win, we win.
Andi Simon: But you’ve got lots of moving people with a different mindset. And it’s going to require their stories to change, which is difficult. And I think that you do have a calling, and you are showing the love and kindness that’s going to help others trust you. And in the trust will come a belief that I can change and that changes for the better. And it’s worth celebrating, at some point over the next six months or nine months or so, come back and let’s talk about success stories that you’ve had and failures which haven’t worked quite well, so that we can help our listener make this come alive in your life. Because this has been a beautiful conversation, and I’m honored that you came today because it’s really been wonderful. Thank you. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. I asked people for one or two things I’d like the listener to remember. I can almost imagine what you might like to tell them, but one or two things that they should not forget when we are done.
TaRita Johnson: I’m going to use an acronym that I made up called VOICE. All of us have a voice so that V is not just the acronym is voice, but the V is vision. Have a vision for your life. And what? look out and search yourself for what you are called to do and the purpose that you have in this season. The goal is to be open, have an open posture, open to different people, different things, different books, different. Don’t just stay in a box. I hate when people are placed in the box so that always open the eye is, have an intellectual curiosity. Because if I’m hungry, if I have this insatiable hunger, that’s going to drive me to know about things that are different from me as well as clearly know myself. The C, I would say, is to have compassion. So if I can pull back all of these things and I have some compassion for other people and other circumstances that are different from me, and even shared compassion, I think that gets you a, well, far in life.
And the last one that e is emotional intelligence. I think, to really lead, to grow, to elevate not only in your career but in your life. You have to have strong emotional intelligence. And the cool thing about EQ, I’m always working on mine. I do a lot of workshops on it so that it is not fixed. It can constantly evolve, grow and get better.
Andi Simon: I love it. Now I just want to repeat this back. The V is for a voice.
TaRita Johnson: Well, the voice, the whole acronym is voice, but the V is vision mission.
Andi Simon: Got it. That’s what I thought I missed. The O is an open to new ideas.
TaRita Johnson: That I was intellectual.
Andi Simon: I want to make sure I have this right. The C is compassion shared and otherwise an E is EQ and emotional intelligence, empathy, self-reflection, self-control being the kind of leader we need to take us to where we need to go. This has been a beautiful time.
Thank you. If they want to reach you. What’s the best place?
TaRita Johnson: Yes. Please feel free to email me at johnsont@rightplace.org .
Andi Simon: And she’s also on LinkedIn. And you would love her to see her stuff there. Thank you all for coming. Remember, our job is to help you get off the brink. And if you’re on the brink, listen carefully, because the wisdom of the women and men are here to help you see, feel, and think in new ways. As an anthropologist, you’re going to see things, and you’re going to observe them and turn them into innovations because that’s the joy of being able to step out, look at what’s happening and see how you can help. My books are all available on Amazon. You can also look at AndiSimon.Com for more information and some free chapters. I love to help people begin to see what’s happening and how they can affect change. Today’s conversation is extremely powerful because the changes that are coming in our culture and our corporations come from you. They don’t come from outside. They don’t come from mandates. They come from you. Pausing, stepping back and seeing the beauty in others. You can call it diversity. I just think that every person is diverse, and they bring to you some richness. If you can open your mind and ears to hear them. Also, remember that the words you use create the world’s we live in. Choose carefully. What you say may not be what you meant, and it certainly may be what they heard. But it’s always ready for you to have a voice and a vision of what it is you’re going to do. Thank you to TaRita. I truly appreciated today. I’m going to say goodbye to everybody. Have a great day. Bye now.
