4/11/22 - Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion is Everyone's Business: Kelley Johnson, Keirus by KJE

Intro: As a Christian working woman, you have many roles from your responsibility with family and friends to community and work. How do you connect all that you do with all that you are, and still have your face shine through. It's a challenge, but you are up to it. The, sheWorks4Him podcast at the gathering place to empower Christian working women, to live out their calling at work.

By connecting them to God resources and each other through powerful face stories from other working sisters in Christ. Welcome to sheWorks4Him.

Martha: You've tuned into sheWorks4Him, where we connect Christian, working women to God resources and one another and friends. I am grateful that you're here with us today and I pray that this will be a time where you can just connect to us as you would to a friend.

Whether you're talking with somebody with the earbud in your ear while you're doing the dishes or the laundry or driving, whatever it may be, that this is a time where you can connect with each of us as though we are friends and know each other. Well, because we are walking this road together as Christian working women.

And I'm just excited for today's conversation and grateful that you're joining. If you want to be able to follow our podcast on a weekly basis or connect through any of the links that we share, make sure that you're subscribing to our weekly newsletter. You can go to, sheWorks4Him.com that's she works the number 4 him.com and there you'll find all of the links that you need for each individual show, as well as subscribing and even watching the podcasts on our YouTube.

So, thanks so much for being with us today. And I want to remind all of you, this is kind of like a save the date reminder, October 21st is a data mark on your calendar for the next Boldly conference. And we Boldly had an inaugural event last October, and this is going to be October 20th. In 2022 live in Dallas and also available as a livestream.

And we'll have that link in our show notes as well, but just kind of a save the day, puts up on your calendar. Knowing that October 21st is a day that Christian working women are going to want to come together either virtually or in person for the Boldly conference.

Catherine: Thanks so much, Martha, the challenges around diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace are not new to any of us too often.

The efforts may produce results that are similar to shifting papers around to different piles on a cluttered desk. The papers may have moved, but the desk is still cluttered. Steps may have been taken, but the issues remain over the last couple of years. Those issues have been impossible to blossom. We need to understand that when we discriminate in any way against people, for whatever reason, everyone pays a costly price.

It's time for real solutions. Kelley Johnson understands the issues from both her professional and personal experiences. Kelley worked as chief diversity officer for a national retailer and has been running a DEI consulting firm for seven years. She sees how DEI efforts are often aimed at hiring, but stopped short of enabling true workplace culture transformation.

Today, Kelley is founder and CEO of Keirus by KJE, where she helps organizations understand and build the power of we creating spaces where people can add value and thrive. She's also the former host of the cubicles in Christ podcast and author of two books. Infinite, the power of love and emerge, rise up, be fearless and take possession of your purpose.

Kelley. Welcome to sheWorks4Him.

Kelley Johnson: Thanks So much Catherine and Martha. It's so great to connect with you and all.

Catherine: Kelley. I am so excited to have you on the, sheWorks4Him podcast. I've lost track of how long ago we first met, but it was several years ago at this point. And I've had the privilege of seeing the impact you're having in the marketplace.

And we're definitely going to talk about how you, how you live out your faith at work. But first, can you share with our listeners how you became a follower of Jesus?

Kelley Johnson: Yeah. So it's interesting. So I accepted Christ when I was pretty young, maybe six or seven. My mother was leading us through a family Bible study.

And so I had an early salvation experience, but I would say that I really didn't become a Christ follower until my adult life. Once I was married and a mom. And although I grew up in a Christian home, we had a lot of hardship, a lot of difficulties, which created trauma in my life. And it was sort of like as an adult, all of the past trauma started to come to a head as I was balancing the responsibilities of being a working mom, a working wife.

And I just, I was overwhelmed and. Had, you know, probably looked in a lot of different places and ways to, to gain healing. But I'm reminded of this gospel song by the Sean Mitchell. That's titled nobody greater. And he talks about the lyrics. Talk about, you know, I've searched all over and I couldn't find nobody, nobody greater than you.

And that's really where I was. I, I had looked for ways to sort of. Grow as a person and gain healing, but at the end of the day, there's no one like Jesus.

Catherine: That is so true. And I think you bring up an important distinction too. You know, this one thing to accept Jesus, but it's another thing to follow him, right.

To really bring him into our lives in every aspect and lean on him for strength and healing. And so Kelley, how has your faith influenced your career decisions?

Kelley Johnson: I wish Catherine, I could tell you, oh, it's always influenced my career decisions. But you know, I spent about 20 years, 20 over 20 years in corporate America before I launched my firm seven years ago and I compartmentalized my faith.

It's what I did on the weekends or in the evenings. Very few people knew I was a Christian and what I realized after I left corporate settings. I really didn't know how to integrate my faith into my word. Despite going to church regularly, it just didn't seem like a subject that I had been educated on.

And it's really what sort of prompted me to start the Cubicles and Christ podcast years ago, because I felt like there was. Void in my life of understanding how do I do this? Now that I realized that that was a missing piece to my career previously I wanted to share with others what I had learned.

And I'll say that, you know, I did always give God credit for my successes, but that was the extent of really integrating my faith into my career in the past.

Martha: No, it's so amazing to hear, you know, w I love the fact that you took what you wish you had done, you know, and tried to help other people to do that better.

And we love that about you, Kelley. And so now you find yourself in this diversity and equity and inclusion space. So what are you seeing over the last year or so, what have you been seen in that space and then how are you helping. Companies deal with.

Kelley Johnson: Yeah. So, I mean, I've actually seen the evolution of diversity equity and inclusion over the last, nearly 20 years.

It's really the unfortunate circumstances of the last couple that it gained global attention. Right? So in the past, historically, you know, the. The ugly aspects of this country's history around race in particular, but also gender in inequality. You know, it really all came to a head with the social justice issues we were facing.

And you know, when it happened, a lot of organizations, a lot of really large organizations said, oh goodness, we've got to do something. We've got to say something. And individuals also said, you know what? This is not okay. We should not be facing the issues that we're continuing to face. And so I'm appreciative of that and I'm even appreciative of the global attention of seeing people who are not Americans say, you know, we care about humanity and we need to do something about it.

We need to express that we care about humanity, you know, so I see it as sort of a. Conundrum in that it was very deeply personally difficult to witness what was happening, but also to then see the attention that it was causing. And I made a decision at that point, and I think I told the Lord this.

I said, you know what? I don't like the circumstances, why there's so much attention around it, but you've presented this opportunity to impact. Individuals to impact organizations. And for as long as you have me and the team working in this space, we're going to try to make as much of a difference as we can.

Catherine: Kelley. That's awesome. And we definitely want to hear more about that. We got to take a break right now. So you're listening to, sheWorks4Him with your hosts, Martha Brangenberg and Catherine Gates. We're going to take a short break and we'll be right back to hear more from Kelley Johnson.

Break: Did you know that God has a calling on your life?

It's true. He's called you to bring Jesus to the world. For some that may look like a pulpit or a foreign mission field, but for most of us, it looks like a construction site, a cubicle, a hospital, or a classroom, wherever it is that you work with volunteering and best. Is your mission field to learn more about integrating your faith into your work and retirement, check out our books.

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Martha: Welcome back to, sheWorks4Him with your co-host Catherine Gates and Martha Brangenberg. We're here today with Kelley Johnson and, you know, Kelley, one of the things that I really want to talk about and kind of land on just for a couple of minutes.

You know, I said at the beginning of the show, we really like to treat this podcast, like friends, just sitting around the table, having a conversation. And sometimes we need to lean in a little bit harder and say, explain something to me that I don't understand. And I feel like that's probably the same around this conversation around diversity, equity and inclusion, especially in light of.

The, the stress and the, and the, you know, the pressure around that conversation in the last couple of years from the media. So how can you friend, a friend kind of unpack that a little bit and what it really means when you're talking about DEI diversity, equity and inclusion. Not only to the companies you're working with, but to individuals, to us that are having the conversation.

Kelley Johnson: Yeah. I love that question. So thank you for asking and we get it a lot within our client organization. So even not within a faith setting, but friend to friend, if we were having a coffee somewhere, I would say because it's a longer conversation, so we'd need more than one cup, but friend-to-friend diversity is a noun.

Inclusion is a verb. It's an action. We have to include actively include diversity exists, whether we acknowledge it or not. Diversity is all around us. Equity is a decision and it is a decision to look for. What is fair? What is unfair? What are circumstances that cause unintentional consequences.

So we didn't intend for it to, but we have information. We have data that tells us, wow, we need to take a second look. So that is the quick, super simple, hopefully relatively simple answer. And I would say it's part of why I wrote infinite the power of love, which is a Bible study about diversity, equity and inclusion, because we need.

Believer to believer, we need a way to talk about these topics that are often talked about a lot at work, but not talked about as much at church.

Martha: Yeah. Let's just talk about that for a minute because you're so you have a Bible study. So not just a, not just a book that people can read, not just a here's somebody who's opinion, but we're actually a study where we can look at scripture.

Look at this conversation through the lens of scripture.

Kelley Johnson: Absolutely. Yes.

Catherine: And I was, I was just going to say, and you have that definition in, in this.

Kelley Johnson: Yeah, I do, because I know that we have to start with the basics. We're all in different spaces on this journey and that's okay.

Just like we're in different spaces on our faith journey, on our relationship with the Lord. Our understanding around diversity equity and inclusion is something that takes time and effort and energy and conversations like we're having today. But infinite, the power of love is actually part one of a two part series.

And so part one is it's a six session study, so it's great for small groups, whether in, in your workplace or in your church, here's life groups. But we start at the beginning, we literally start with creation and we talk about what was God's design God's design has diversity. Let's talk about night and day.

There's diversity. Let's talk about land and water. We thought diversity. So God had diversity on his mind and heart from day one, but then we move and we progressed to understand the practical application in our workplaces, our schools. And then we end with spiritual diversity. So we bring it back to our relationship with Christ and.

Their spiritual diversity in terms of our gifting. And what does that look like so that we can serve and support others. Yeah.

Catherine: And I, I love Kelley, you know, that I have the infinite study and it's, it's so well laid out. And so I definitely highly recommend that people bring that into your company, but, you know, you mentioned like diversity.

Exists. Right. But th but it is a matter of really embracing it and bringing it in. And so Kelley, you know, what can each of us do regardless of where we are, but level of the organization of what our role is, right. But what can each of us do to have a positive impact on embracing diversity, on making decisions around and supporting decisions around equity and on, you know, carrying out that action of inclusion.

Kelley Johnson: You know, and thank you, Catherine, for always, you know, you and I have had conversations that have been life-changing. So thank you for that. And I would say the simple answer is ask the Lord in a situation or in the moment, how can I demonstrate your love right now in this moment, in this interaction, in this situation?

And just like with any prayer, we gotta be careful cause God will answer. And that means he's going to give us an opportunity to act on what he tells us. And so if we're seeking the Lord, just like we seek him for wisdom in any other area of our life, we should seek him about how do we relate to others?

How do we demonstrate love and be willing to do it? Obedience is better than sacrifice. And so we have to really take those bold steps to demonstrate his love.

Catherine: Yeah. I love that. You said bold steps that I want our listeners to know that there, they can hear a lot more from you on that topic at the Boldly conference, which is Friday, October 21st, 2022.

And they can see more about that, about that event at Boldlyconference.com. But Kelley, we can work for God. Right. But it doesn't mean we've surrendered our work to him. What did it take for you? You know, you mentioned that you didn't always write, include God, you might've given him glory, but you didn't really include him in your work all the time.

What did it take for you to finally surrender your work to God? What does that look like for you?

Kelley Johnson: Oh, okay. That one is I'll try. Not get emotional because I remember I was struggling in my business and I was like, you know what, I'm trying to do it your way. So why isn't it working? And I remember walking in praying, I write about some of this in, in infinite, but I love to walk and pray.

And I remember walking from my daughter's school after taking her one day and I literally say, I surrender X, Y, Z. Like I just started listing all the things in my life. I surrender my family. I surrender my finances. I surrender my diet. I surrender my time. I surrender my business. I S I surrender, you know, I literally just, and I know it was spirit led cause I wouldn't do that on my own, but I literally just.

Surrendering everything I could. And so I would say that it takes a declaration. It takes a declaration for me, it took a declaration to say I will surrender. And it, after that it was it was a matter of listening and acting as quickly as I could to do what the father was asking you to do.

Catherine: And it's daily, right?

You have to surrender every single day. Okay. I surrender again. Right? Well, you're listening to, sheWorks4Him with your host, Martha Brangenberg and Catherine Gates. We're listening to Kelley Johnson and we're going to take a short break. So be sure to stick with us. Hey listeners.

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Martha: Welcome back to sheWorks4Him with our guests, Kelley Johnson. You have pointed us towards a lot of resources that God has allowed you to have the privilege of writing. And I'm so grateful for it. And I believe that a lot of us are thinking, oh, this is a Bible study. I want to take to some of my friends, this infinite study that you guys, you have just shared.

We're going to have all of those links and details in our show notes for people to go back to. And I just wanted to highlight, and thank you that you are given a little bit of extra bonus content for our listeners to be able to gleam from. So everybody just check out the show notes to get that information, because I really think that we need to take this to the next step and see what scripture really has to say.

And Kelley you've helped us along the way to do that. So thank you for that. You. You are such an encouragement to other people. Where do you go to get encouragement when you are in a difficult season or you have something that you're struggling with? I'd love to just hear how, what God's doing in your life, in that area.

Kelley Johnson: Yeah. Thank you, Martha. And thank you for the work that you and Jim have done over the years to support and encourage so many other working professionals. I consider us all co-laborers and so it's just a pleasure. I'm active in my home church. And so, you know, faithfully attend and have served in prayer ministry for years and the women's ministry.

I did a little stint in the youth ministry. That was probably my most challenging but in terms of encouraging getting sort of fed is what I, how I kind of think of. I'm listening to two to three additional sermons a week outside of what I get on Sundays. You know, of course I have my morning devotional time, which is usually brief.

I'll be very honest. I, I have not yet gotten to the point where I can have like a one hour devotional time every morning. But then I would say sort of my big investment in myself and I highly encourage it is once a year, I try to go away for a couple of days and attend a conference. Kind of a Christian development type conference, or I've even done a silent retreat for three days.

Just to be still and hear from the Lord in a, in a more kind of big way to really get big picture direction on what he has next for me.

Catherine: That's that's awesome. I love the silent retreat. That's not something I've done yet, but it's something I would love to do. So Kelley re we've got a wrap up.

We're running out of time, but is there a verse that is really speaking to you right now at this stage of your life that you would like to share with our listeners?

Kelley Johnson: Yes, I'd love to. So Zephaniah 3:17. And do I have time to read it? Yes. For the Lord, your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior.

He will take delight in you with gladness, with his love. He will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs. I just love that.

Catherine: Yeah. That's such a meaningful verse for us right now in the time that we're in. Isn't it? Yeah. Well, Kelley, thank you so much for your time for your insight.

We pray that many women are inspired by what you've shared today. So you've been listening to, sheWorks4Him with your host, Martha Brangenberg and Catherine Gates. We are Christian working women, helping other Christian working women to live out their calling at work. As sheWorks4Him

Intro: as Christian women, we have many roles from daughter, sister, friend, wife, and mother to analyst, accountant, executive or educator. Is it possible to balance our roles at work and home in a way that honors God? The answer is yes. And our new book, sheWorks4Him will help show you that. Written to celebrate, encourage and equip women in the workforce.

sheWorks4Him. Discusses the diverse experiences of today's Christian working woman. Pick up a copy by going to, iWork4Him.com/bookstore. You've been listening to the, sheWorks4Him podcast with your host, Catherine Gates, Nadia Dickson, and Martha Brangenberg. Please like us on Facebook and subscribe on YouTube under sheWorks4Him and to access any of the resources we mentioned on today's.

See the show notes at sheWorks4Him. Dot com that's she works the number for him. Dot com. This podcast was created to empower you to live out your calling. It works. The world knows sheWorks4Him.