0:01

I'm Ayesha Roscoe and this is the Sunday

0:03

Story. So story time,

0:05

I've been reporting and hosting at

0:07

NPR a few years now. Before

0:10

that, I didn't really have any broadcast

0:12

experience and when I got to NPR,

0:14

I was told they wanted me to

0:16

sound like myself on the radio. Now

0:19

I'm a black woman from the South

0:21

and I sound like it. Eventually,

0:24

some listeners would let me know

0:26

that I did not sound like

0:29

they expected. I've

0:31

been called lazy and unprofessional

0:33

and my intelligence has been

0:35

questioned. I have

0:38

to say, this is not the

0:40

majority of the audience. Most of

0:42

the audience has been really supportive

0:44

and so have my colleagues.

0:47

And standing out in some ways has been

0:49

really great for me. But I've

0:52

been thinking a lot about what it

0:54

means to be a black woman at

0:56

work. Especially in

0:58

light of all the well-reported

1:01

attacks on diversity, equity, and

1:03

inclusion programs or DEI. I

1:06

just feel like this is a

1:08

moment when a lot of black

1:11

women, whether in academia or the

1:13

corporate world or the government, are

1:15

carrying the weight of being hyper-visible

1:18

but often devalued. So

1:21

today I'm having a conversation about a

1:23

topic that matters a lot to me.

1:26

How do you show up to work

1:28

when your identity sets you apart from

1:30

most of your coworkers? I

1:33

sat down with Lauren Wesley Wilson, the author

1:35

of a new book called What Do You

1:37

Need? It's aimed at

1:39

helping women of color thrive in the

1:42

workplace. Something Lauren has

1:44

dedicated her career to doing as the

1:46

founder of ColorCom, a networking

1:48

community for women of color in communications

1:51

and media. We get

1:53

into what it means to have your

1:55

accomplishments questioned based solely on who you

1:58

are. And Lauren shares some

2:00

advice from her own experiences on

2:03

how to face workplace challenges without

2:05

losing faith or losing

2:07

yourself in the process. My

2:11

conversation with Lauren after the break. This

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What's the right amount of socializing

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betterhelp.com/NPR today to get 10% off

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your first month. Well,

3:47

Lauren, welcome to the show. Thank you

3:50

for having me. Yes, and

3:52

thank you for talking about this issue, which

3:54

I know your book is aimed at women

3:56

of color. So It's not just black women.

4:00

The same time we are both black

4:02

women and so I wanna talk about

4:04

black women in particular. I want to

4:06

start off with like this example in your

4:08

book. You start off talking about the fact

4:10

that as a new hire. Straight out a

4:12

grad school. You heard these

4:15

complaints? That's your coworkers didn't

4:17

really. Know you, they don't really

4:19

know the real more And gosh, many

4:21

many many years ago back and I

4:24

would say the two thousand and nine

4:26

era. write out a grad school. We

4:28

entered into a recession at the time

4:30

A I and I needed a job

4:33

and so what happens? I

4:35

got a job which was great. But. I entered

4:38

into this job without. Really?

4:40

Knowing who I was going to

4:42

work for with her values were

4:44

so. Back. Then. I

4:47

did my job and I went home

4:49

so I would get into work around

4:51

nine am. I would leave around six

4:54

pm and in part because I had

4:56

about a three hour commute. Ninety minutes

4:58

one way, ninety minutes another way and.

5:01

And. My mind at that time I I

5:03

thought that I couldn't afford to. Really?

5:05

Get to know my colleagues because I needed to

5:08

go home. You know I was. I

5:10

mean just. There are so many things that.

5:13

I. Would could have done differently, but when

5:15

I've got fired from his job so fast

5:17

forward a pocket of the punch I got

5:19

let go from this job. I'm one of

5:22

the feedback points was. We. Don't

5:24

really know you and

5:26

also. One. Of the pieces of

5:28

the back I received was. You're

5:30

not a good culture set. By.

5:33

The way this all happened on

5:36

Mlk We I. Gave them

5:38

driving. Home, You know, my long

5:40

commute and the crying and I'm

5:42

embarrass. Him same and years

5:44

later. I asked myself.

5:47

Did. I participate and a

5:49

culture. Where. you one of the

5:51

only other my the only people of

5:53

color in that i are you black women

5:56

in that environment one of the other

5:58

black women was the receptionist.

6:01

Were you filtering yourself? I was definitely filtering

6:03

myself. I wasn't going to bring my full

6:05

self to work, but I didn't bring any

6:07

of myself. I mean,

6:09

when they had shared to

6:11

me, Lauren, it's not about your work,

6:14

but it's about culture. People

6:17

want people

6:19

in the office that want to be there, that

6:21

show up with a smile, that are excited,

6:24

that are proactive, that are thinking about new

6:26

ideas, that get involved. And I wasn't doing

6:28

that. I wasn't playing the game. I didn't

6:30

know that there was a game to play.

6:33

I remember there was a moment at this

6:35

particular job where they had invited me to

6:38

a group of them said, we

6:40

have a box at this

6:42

ice hockey game. And would you like to

6:44

join? And I said, no. And my mind

6:46

said, no, I don't really like ice hockey.

6:49

So. Yeah, because I mean, that's what

6:51

I would say. I would say ice

6:53

hockey. What I realized is it's not

6:55

about you liking a

6:57

particular sporting event. It's

6:59

about you being able to

7:01

connect with your colleagues in

7:04

a personal way outside of work that allows them

7:06

to get to know you better and you get

7:08

to know them better so that

7:10

ultimately we could do better work together.

7:13

Well, let me ask you though,

7:15

because I think that sometimes as a

7:17

black woman or as someone who stands

7:19

out, you may go, everybody else is

7:21

talking about, you know, Canadian rock bands.

7:23

You're like, I don't listen to no

7:25

Canadian rock. I don't know who Rush

7:27

is. I remember I went out for

7:29

like drinks with some coworkers and they

7:32

were talking about hipsters. I

7:34

had never heard of a hipster before. This

7:36

is me like a year, not probably not

7:38

even a year out of Howard university. So

7:40

I'm sitting here like a hipster. Is that like

7:42

a hippie? What is this? What do

7:44

you do when you feel like I don't know? I

7:47

don't even know this language.

7:49

First, you have to decide if this is

7:51

the environment you want to be in. Okay.

7:53

Okay. Because if you choose, it's a choice.

7:55

If you choose to say, I'm going to

7:57

work here, then you have

7:59

to. to decide that you're going to participate. You're

8:01

going to give effort. Because

8:04

if you don't, if you

8:06

check out, you're going to be labeled as someone

8:08

who we don't really want to invest

8:10

in. We don't really want to get to know. Can

8:13

I ask you, when it comes to

8:15

your growing pains from early on, how

8:18

much of that do you feel like

8:20

was just natural growing pains that anyone

8:22

just starting out would have versus things

8:24

that were specific to your identity as

8:26

a black woman, as a woman of

8:29

color, or just as a woman? I

8:31

think it's a mix, right? I think

8:33

that there are some growing pains that I

8:35

had as a young woman

8:39

being an early career, not

8:41

having experience. But then there

8:44

was also some growing pains

8:46

of being a black woman in the workplace,

8:49

where you are the only

8:51

one, and how you

8:53

have to operate differently. And

8:57

early on, I didn't. And what I mean

8:59

by operate differently is you

9:02

need to have a strategic plan

9:05

on how you plan to

9:08

advance. Because statistics will

9:10

show that more often than

9:12

not, people of color are

9:14

the first to get let go and

9:16

fired from their positions. And

9:19

so realistically, chances are many

9:21

people of color will have the

9:23

experience of getting fired or let

9:26

go, laid off at some point

9:28

in their professional life. We're

9:33

kind of going on a journey through your career.

9:36

So you start off, you're in the beginning, you

9:38

hit some bumps. But I want to get into

9:40

this other example in the book, where you're at

9:42

a point now where you're hitting your

9:45

stride, you've started ColorCom, and you

9:47

get on PR week's 40 under

9:49

40 list. But then

9:51

you are confronted by a white

9:54

coworker who basically says you stole

9:56

someone else's spot. No, he said

9:58

I stole his spot. his

10:00

spot, tell me this story, what happened

10:02

with this? Sure, so I was 28 years

10:04

old at the time when I won PR

10:06

Week's 40 Under 40 award and it was

10:08

such an honor and game changer for my

10:10

career at the time. And

10:13

when I did, they

10:15

called the CEO to let them know and the

10:17

CEO said, who

10:19

is Lauren Wilson? They

10:22

didn't know who I was. And they

10:24

were like going through the

10:26

database, the company's headquartered in New York, I'm

10:28

working at the DC office at the time, they had to

10:30

go find me, they found me, they

10:32

called me up, they congratulated me and it was

10:34

a fantastic moment. So I come up to New

10:37

York for like the festivities of the award and

10:39

I'm working out of the New York office and

10:41

I'm in the lobby about to head to my

10:43

desk and this white man

10:45

comes up to me and now listen, he's about

10:48

10 years older than me and he's a senior

10:50

vice president and this award is

10:52

something he was gunning for. He comes up

10:54

to me, no pleasantries, just be like me.

10:56

He had been waiting for me. I'm

10:58

getting ready to go to my desk, I'm caught off guard and he

11:00

says, do you

11:03

even know how important

11:06

that award was that

11:08

you just got? Do you even know how important that

11:10

award was? My heart is just

11:12

racing. I am, I'm thinking all these thoughts and he

11:14

says, I was up for that award. You

11:16

took that award from me. It should have been

11:19

me. And I looked

11:21

at him and my mouth was open

11:23

and it took every bone in my body

11:25

not to cry. I was

11:27

holding back, fighting back, squeezing back tears. I was

11:29

like, do not cry, do not cry, do not

11:31

cry, do not cry. And I just

11:33

said, you know, I earned

11:35

this award and that

11:38

magazine made the selection.

11:41

And so I walked away. You

11:43

know, being in a position where

11:45

you stand out, a woman of

11:47

color in an industry, there's this

11:49

hyper visibility, but then there's also

11:51

this thing where people will look

11:53

at you and say, well,

11:56

maybe how did you get here? I

11:58

was killing it at this company. I was

12:00

working in the client service business. We were

12:02

doing media relations. I was getting our clients

12:05

on television and full spread articles

12:07

in the New York Times and all these

12:09

major things. And on top

12:11

of that, I was building ColorCom and

12:14

I was providing a platform for women

12:17

of color to be able to get

12:19

to know each other, for mentorship, for

12:21

business opportunities, and ultimately to help women

12:24

of color advance in

12:26

their fields. And so I

12:28

was doing something that

12:30

was groundbreaking and something that

12:32

was different at the time.

12:35

How do you stand in that though? Like how do you

12:37

stand in that? You have to hold your head high. How

12:40

do you stand in that? Because there's some people who that

12:42

might have overshadowed even the wind because

12:45

they're, look, I do all this work

12:47

and here this person's still coming to

12:49

me, talking to me like this. Like

12:51

that can really weigh on people. It

12:53

can. You have to know in

12:55

your heart, in your

12:57

mind, that you deserve

13:00

to be there. You earn this,

13:02

there's always going to be detractors.

13:04

And as you climb, more detractors are gonna come

13:07

out of the word work. But

13:09

you have to know, you have to have

13:11

confidence in yourself that you are meant to

13:13

be there. Can you talk about

13:16

the obstacles and the challenges

13:24

of being the first, being

13:27

the only? That's a very

13:29

specific weight to carry. It's

13:31

too much weight to carry,

13:33

the first and the only.

13:36

Because you don't see other people

13:39

who are doing what you're doing, there

13:41

isn't this path and this roadmap of

13:44

saying, well, this black

13:46

woman did it this way and she was

13:48

successful. So now I'm going to kind of

13:50

repeat her strategies. You have to

13:53

enter a lane on your own and

13:55

hope that you have the people around

13:57

you and the resources that you need

14:00

to be able to grow whatever you're trying to grow.

14:02

But it is a huge burden, and oftentimes,

14:06

there's too much weight put on us. Sometimes

14:09

we're set up for success. Sometimes

14:12

we're set up to fail. And so you

14:14

have to know going in, is

14:17

this a check-the-box effort, or

14:19

is this really the plans

14:23

and goals that this company has to be

14:26

able to drive change? Are they

14:28

putting their money where their math is? Absolutely.

14:30

Are they giving you the resources, the help,

14:32

you need, or whatever? You don't have staff,

14:34

and you don't have budget, run from that role. Run

14:37

from that role. Do not take that role

14:39

because the money, the shiny object of the

14:41

dollar. Because what I see so often is

14:43

women say, yes, I'm gonna take that

14:45

role. What I see is

14:47

those people aren't lasting in

14:52

those jobs for very long. And then

14:54

when a black woman fails, it's harder

14:56

for you to climb back up.

14:58

Absolutely. I think this is

15:00

something that I see with a lot of, with

15:02

myself, with a lot of friends that I have,

15:04

all very high performers, black women. But

15:08

there's this feeling like I can never

15:10

make a mistake. Because if I make

15:12

a mistake, they gonna kick me out,

15:14

and I ain't gonna, but that is

15:16

like, I mean, that's why there's stress.

15:18

That's why you're in therapy. That's why

15:20

you can't, there's this feeling like, I

15:23

have to be careful because I need this job. And

15:25

if I lose this job, I don't know what I'm

15:27

going to do. And you know,

15:29

they don't let us make mistakes. Right.

15:32

I would say this. You wanna

15:34

be in a position where you

15:37

are in control of your career. You

15:40

put your success in your own hands and

15:42

not in the hands of anybody else. So

15:44

if you do make mistakes, if something happens

15:47

to you, and your company is

15:49

impatient, they can't allow you to see through

15:51

that mistake. They just say, you know what,

15:53

you're not a good fit. We're gonna let you

15:56

go. You have a safety net to fall on

15:58

because you've done the homework of building relationships. outside

16:00

of your company. You've joined organizations,

16:03

you've joined groups. There's a lot

16:05

of groups out there that allow

16:07

you to participate, join committees, be

16:09

on boards, volunteer, get

16:12

a strong industry network together, get

16:14

your own safety net together, so

16:17

that no matter what happens to you,

16:19

you're okay. Because it's

16:21

a huge burden, we don't need that burden

16:24

placed on ourselves day in and day out.

16:26

This fear of making common small

16:28

mistakes, or this fear of carrying

16:30

this whole race and gender on

16:32

our shoulders, that's too much to

16:34

bear. You can

16:36

be in the workplace and feel like you're doing

16:38

the best that you can do. You're

16:41

dealing with people who may look, some

16:43

people who may look down on you.

16:45

You're taking on other kind of projects

16:48

that just kind of fall to

16:50

you. Maybe it's mentoring this person

16:52

who's another young person of color.

16:54

This unpaid work that you're doing.

16:57

But a lot of this can

16:59

come at a cost, right? An

17:01

emotional cost, a burden. How

17:03

do you decide when you're actually

17:06

feeling like, this is too much

17:08

for me, I'm burnt out? Like, how do you

17:10

decide when enough is enough? I

17:13

don't ever want people to make decisions

17:16

when they're burnt out. So

17:18

a lot of times when we're burnt out, we're like,

17:20

this is time for us to leave this job, it's

17:22

time for us to quit, it's time for us to

17:24

move on. We need to be

17:26

able to understand the

17:28

principles of burnout and help

17:30

ourselves not get there in the first

17:33

place. And that really comes with enforcing

17:35

our own boundaries. Boundaries that we keep

17:37

to ourselves, not that we announce, because

17:40

it's not everyone's job and responsibility to manage

17:42

our boundaries, but they're boundaries that we keep

17:44

to ourselves. We have control

17:46

over our workload. Yes, we get

17:48

it assigned by our employer, but

17:51

we can always say, we have five of

17:53

these projects on our plate. We're unable to

17:55

take on another project. Or these are the

17:57

things that we need to prioritize. How would

17:59

you like? me to do prioritize some

18:01

of this work so that you're not

18:03

in a place of burnout overwhelmed trying

18:06

to catch up hamster on a wheel

18:09

but what if you're scared that you won't get

18:11

fired if you don't say yes to everything it's

18:13

gonna come but listen it's gonna either

18:15

you're gonna fire yourself because you can't do it

18:18

all you can't do it if you say yes

18:20

everything you're still gonna you're still guess what's gonna

18:22

happen you're gonna miss deadlines you're gonna be

18:24

late on assignments now you're starting to look like

18:26

a bad performer you're not you're not a bad

18:28

performer you're just have too much work on your

18:30

plate you have to say no when

18:33

is it worth it though to leave

18:35

like when do you look at a

18:37

culture and say look I've given my

18:39

all they're not appreciating it they are

18:42

devaluing my work or I've tried to

18:44

fit into the culture I gotta

18:47

go someplace else this is not working

18:49

for me so I think it's time

18:51

to leave when you're no longer learning

18:54

and you're no longer growing and

18:57

this is when you might be doing the same

18:59

type of assignments you might be raising your hand

19:01

for more and more is not

19:03

coming to you there are no growth

19:05

opportunities coming to you when companies

19:07

say there are no growth opportunities here

19:10

they mean there are no growth opportunities

19:12

for you there's

19:15

a lot of talk now about going

19:17

where you're wanted and not just where

19:19

you're like tolerated you know where is that

19:21

place for black women where

19:24

where are we wanted going where we

19:26

wanted do you think about that it depends

19:31

so when people tell you you're not

19:34

supposed to be in that environment they don't want

19:36

you there but you

19:38

want to be there you've worked

19:40

really hard you have the experience you

19:43

have the brain you can

19:45

deliver don't listen to that so if someone

19:47

were to tell me you're not

19:50

supposed to be here you're not supposed to get the

19:52

PR week 40 under 40 award am I supposed to

19:54

just not show up to the dinner because

19:57

that guy was I not

19:59

supposed to to participate in the occasion.

20:02

I felt low, I felt not

20:04

good enough in that moment. I felt

20:06

sad and I felt unseen. So

20:09

don't listen to what other

20:11

people say because in some environments, some people

20:14

want you there, some people don't want you

20:16

there. You gotta ask yourself, do you wanna

20:18

be there? Is this an environment

20:20

where I can grow and I can learn a

20:23

lot? Let's get out of our own way. Racism

20:26

in the workplace, microaggressions in

20:28

the workplace, they exist in

20:30

almost every workplace. They

20:32

do, let's face it. It's

20:35

a hodgepodge of all of us in the workplace to

20:37

begin with. From different backgrounds, from

20:39

different experience, different upbringings, different sides of

20:41

the country. Some grew up

20:43

poor, some grew up wealthy, some grew

20:45

up going to Ivy League schools, some

20:48

went to community college. Nobody is perfect.

20:50

We are gonna put our foot in

20:52

our mouths. There are going to be

20:54

missteps in the workplace but what we

20:56

wanna see is the attention to do

20:58

better is there and if the intention

21:01

to do better is there, that's an

21:03

environment where we can grow. I wrote

21:06

this book because I wanted women of

21:08

color to stop searching for the perfect

21:10

environment. We can be hopping around from

21:12

company to company, company, company, company, company,

21:15

looking for a perfect environment and

21:17

I want us to sit somewhere,

21:19

park it, find a place

21:21

that is good enough for

21:23

us to be able to learn, to

21:26

grow, to thrive, to do

21:28

good work, to be celebrated and appreciated

21:30

but to understand the realities of the

21:32

workplace are not going to be perfect.

21:34

It sounds like what you're saying is the

21:36

institution will not love you. That's what Trustee

21:38

McMillan Cotton often says, so look out for

21:40

yourself. Now that is what I tell everybody.

21:43

I say not only look out for yourself

21:45

but worry about yourself. Make sure yourself

21:47

is taken care of. Of course be

21:49

kind to others but look out for

21:51

yourself because these institutions will always look

21:53

out for themselves. For sure. Obviously

21:58

you're the head of ColorCom. How

22:00

important is it for women

22:02

of color, for, you know, black

22:05

women to find that

22:07

community? Community building is

22:10

so, so important. When

22:12

we got started over a lunch 13 years

22:14

ago in Washington, D.C., we asked

22:16

the women in the room, what do you

22:18

need? What do you

22:20

need? It's a simple, simple question. And

22:23

I ask this question because so often we

22:26

are in spaces where we don't even know who the

22:29

people in the room are. We're so

22:31

laser focused. We don't ask the person to

22:33

our right to their left what their name

22:35

is. And we certainly don't know their needs.

22:38

And so by asking what do you need allows

22:40

us to give intake. I

22:43

believe everyone in the room has something

22:46

to give and something to receive. And

22:48

that's how communities are built by having

22:50

conversations. Lauren,

22:53

thank you so much. I really have

22:56

enjoyed this conversation. It's great to be

22:58

able to talk with you about all

23:00

of this. Thank you. Thank you for

23:02

having me. That was

23:05

Lauren Wesley Wilson, author of

23:07

What Do You Need and the founder of

23:09

ColorCom. This episode of The

23:11

Sunday Story was produced by Justine Yan.

23:14

Our audio engineer was James Willett.

23:17

The Sunday Story team includes Abby

23:19

Wendell, our editor Jenny

23:21

Schmidt, and our supervising producer, Liana

23:24

Simstrom. Irene Noguchi is our

23:26

executive producer. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. Up first

23:28

is back tomorrow with all the news

23:30

you need to start your week. Until

23:32

then, have a great rest of your

23:34

weekend. Listen

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to Untangled, a new podcast that

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