Celina Caesar Chavannes - Finding My Voice in the Unlikeliest of Places

Celina Caesar-Chavannes is a business consultant, coach and international speaker, who currently serves part-time as the Sr. Advisor, EDI Initiatives and Adjunct Lecturer at Queen’s University. Her memoir, Can You Hear Me Now?   was published in 2021. Her leadership development app, MaximizingU, is available on Google Play and the App Store.

Celina was the former Member of Parliament for Whitby, Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Parliamentary Secretary for International Development. During her term as a Member of Parliament, Celina was awarded several distinctions, including a feature in the April 2018 edition of O (Oprah Winfrey) Magazine entitled, “What would you stand up for?” 

She has a Bachelor of Science, an MBA in Healthcare Management, and an Executive MBA from the Rotman School of Management. She is currently enrolled in a neuroscience PhD program at Queen’s University, exploring the intersection of empathy, leadership, and equity. Celina is also a [Deepak] Chopra Certified Health and Meditation Instructor and bases much of her work on Ayurvedic principles, self-awareness, and development.

Before politics, Celina founded Resolve Research Solutions, Inc. This research management consulting firm provides research, consulting, and education services to organizations seeking equity and advancing progress for those with multiple intersecting identities. 

A Quote From This Episode

• "This is the story of me falling in love with, at last with, who I am and finding my voice in the unlikeliest of places."

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Book: Can You Hear Me Now? by Celina Caesar-Chavannes
• Book: The Conversation by Robert Livingston
• Author: Isabella Wilkerson
• Author: Bell Hooks
• Author:  Michel Foucault

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Plan for ILA's 26th Global Conference in Chicago, IL - November 7-10, 2024. 

About The Boler College of Business at John Carroll University

• Boler offers four MBA programs – 1 Year Flexible, Hybrid, Online, and Professional. Each track offers flexible timelines and various class structure options (online, in-person, hybrid, asynchronous). Boler’s tech core and international study tour opportunities set these MBA programs apart. Rankings highlighted in the intro are taken from CEO Magazine.

About  Scott J. Allen

• Website
• Weekly Newsletter: The Leader's Edge

My Approach to Hosting

• The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace your reflection, research, and exploration of the topic.

Chapters

• 0:00 Falling in Love With Imperfect Self
• 7:51 Continuous Growth in Leadership

Transcript

Scott Allen  0:00  

Okay, everybody, welcome to a special edition of Phronesis: Practical Wisdom for Leaders. We're live at the ILA. We're here.

Celina Chavanne  0:07  

Yeah, 25th anniversary. So this is exciting.

Scott Allen  0:10  

And there’s people in the room. I've never had this, it's always just been me staring into a Zoom screen alone in my basement.

Celina Caesar Chavannes  0:17  

This is what happens when you invite Celina Caesar Chavannes to your podcast. We bring the rain a little bit. 

(Laughter)

Celina Caesar Chavannes  0:25  

It'll be fun. It'll be different.

Scott Allen  0:26  

We are going to have some good… We're going to have a good time. I am excited for this. So, okay, I'm going to introduce you first and then we're going to jump into a conversation, does that sounds good?

Celina Caesar Chavannes  0:35

100% 

Scott Allen  0:36

Okay. Celina Caesar Chavannes is a business consultant coach and international speaker who currently serves part-time as the Senior Advisor EDI initiatives and adjunct lecturer at Queen's University. Her memoir, ‘Can You Hear Me Now’ was published in 2021. Her leadership development app ‘Maximizing You,’ she's a technologist as well, is available on Google Play and the iTunes App Store. Celina was the former Member of Parliament for Whitby, Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Parliamentary Secretary for International Development. During her term as a member of parliament, Celina was awarded several distinctions including a feature in the April 2018 edition of O, Oprah's magazine, entitled ‘What Would You Stand Up For?’ She has a Bachelor of Science and an MBA in healthcare management, and executive MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the U of T. She is currently enrolled in a neuroscience Ph.D. program at Queen's University exploring the intersection of empathy, leadership, and equity. Celina is also a Deepak Chopra, certified health and meditation instructor, and bases much of her work on Ayurvedic principles, self-awareness, and development. Before politics, Celina founded Resolve Research Solutions Inc. This research management consulting firm provides research, consulting, and education services to organizations seeking equity and advancing progress for those with multiple intersecting identities. She can be followed on all social media platforms @iamcelinacc. You can learn more about her at www.celinacc.ca. Thank you for being here. Okay, we've got a live audience. This has never happened before, so thanks to all of you. Okay, can we get a little bit of a round of applause for yourselves? 

(Applause)

Scott Allen  2:29  

Okay, nice. I feel more comfortable now. Okay, so we had this wonderful pre-conversation, and so I'm excited to jump in and have this dialogue now. This is your first ILA conference? 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  2:44  

I've been to a couple of other ones. 

Scott Allen  2:46

Oh, you have? 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  2:47

Yeah. I came in, and did my thing and fly out, but this is the first one that I'm here for the full session. 

Scott Allen  2:53  

Okay. So, we're going to kind of go there in a little bit and just get some of your impressions, which I'm excited to have. 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  3:01

You want to hear my opinion? (Laughs) 

Scott Allen  3:02

I know, it's good stuff, you all. It's very, very good stuff. As an individual who's kind of coming into our organization with fresh eyes, it's very, very important - her perspective. And so, now, however, I was saying to you that one of my favorite quotes, and people who've listened for a while will know this quote, but it's Bob Hogan, he said, “Who you are is how you lead.” And that quote has always just kind of resonated with me. And you have some things that I came across, things that you've written that just, oh my gosh… Okay. So, your book as you describe it, “This is the story of me falling in love, at last, with who I am, and finding my voice in the unlikeliest of places.” Talk about that because. you know what? That's just beautiful. That's absolutely beautiful. 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  3:53  

So, it's interesting. We're at a leadership conference, and everybody's talking about ways to lead, and adaptive leadership, and collective leadership…

Scott Allen  4:01  

Situational, emotional, intelligent (Laughs)

Celina Caesar Chavannes  4:02

There's a whole bunch of stuff around the word ‘leadership,’ right? So, who you are is how you lead. So, I think we need to start with ‘who you are’. Do we know who we are well enough to lead? Do we see people well enough to lead? Are we able to take that deep inner sort of journey to understand our power, our place, our privilege, our mistakes, our triumphs, everything that has brought us to this moment of leadership? And I'll keep using leadership in quotes because… We'll talk about that. But, in leadership, do we know ourselves well enough to do that? And I remember as a member of parliament, people say, “What would you do differently? What is the difference between the Celina now and the Celina then?” The Celina now went through the Deepak Chopra program, studied Ayurveda, was really understanding. One of the foundational principles of Ayurveda is, as is the microcosm, so is the macro. We want fairness, equity, justice, compassion, empathy, all of these things in our spaces, in our corporations, in our world, in our communities. But do you understand it enough in yourself? Do you understand it enough by having conversations with the usual and the unusual suspects? 

Scott Allen  5:29  

And I love that phrasing. I love that phrasing: “usual and unusual suspects,” right?

Celina Caesar Chavannes  5:34  

Right. And so, when I talk about falling in love, it's forming a perfect union with my imperfect self. Understanding, “I'm still going to make mistakes, I'm still going to have challenges,” but it's knowing who you are in order to become that better leader -- I'm going to continue to use it in quotation marks -- to become that better leader, and what does that mean?

Scott Allen  5:52  

Okay. You said something there that… Well, you said a few things there, but the last thing I can remember… (Laughs)

Celina Caesar Chavannes  5:58 

That's why I have a pen and paper with me.

Scott Allen  6:00  

Okay. In Union… Say that, again. 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  6:03  

I'm falling in love with myself means that I have a perfect union with my imperfect self.

Scott Allen  6:09  

Yes. Yeah. And Carol Dweck of Growth Mindset fame, she has this phrase that I just love also, which is “Becoming is better than being.” And so, I think, oftentimes, for me, if who you are as how you lead -- and we could put in some other words there; who you are is how you parent, who yours how you partner, who you are as how you coach, or teach. We could put some other words at the end of there. But, if that's the case, and each one of us are imperfect, who are we becoming? Are we in an active process of becoming better versions of ourselves?

Celina Caesar Chavannes  6:47  

Well, that's the intentionality around it. There's an intentionality that I have around understanding that leadership is not a destination, it is not a title. It's not anything that you could get to, it's something that you continuously become. And there's a couple of points here is that, one, sitting as a member of parliament, appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to our prime minister, essentially, being the right-hand person of the leader of a G7 country, and knowing full well, as the only black female member of parliament in the 42nd Parliament from 2015 to 2019, that your title does not protect you and your value has never been determined by your title. And so, if you use only the title of leadership, or the title of leader, or the title of whatever that title is, to determine the value that you bring or the things that you do in this world knowing that you're going to make mistakes, knowing that you are imperfect, if you are going to use the title, then how do you take that passion and purpose and voice when the title is gone? Because I could tell you that, when I decided to sit as an independent in the last few…

Scott Allen  7:58  

I’m just seeing you’re smiling because I'm like… I'm forgetting I'm interviewing you, I'm just listening. Sorry for interrupting. Keep going, this is going to be the best interview ever. (Laughs)

Celina Caesar Chavannes  8:06  

Let me just say, because in that last dying moments of the 42nd Parliament in March of 2019, most Canadians in the room will understand what happened, there was a SNC-Lavalin scandal, there was all these scandals happening. And I decided at that moment… Nobody had known the interactions that I had with the Prime Minister. Nobody knew about it, and it was never going to be public. But then, there was a situation where there was this public apology that he gave, and this is not to bash the prime minister or to do anything related to our political views, but I want you to understand what happens with leadership sometimes, is that, at that moment, he was giving this public apology and he said, “My door of my office is open to everybody. It's free for you to walk in.” And I had two interactions with him within the two weeks prior which I knew that that was untrue. And I sat with my phone, and Twitter X, or whatever you call it now, I have no idea, but I sat with my phone and I'm like, “Click ‘send.’ Tell them the truth. Tell them the truth. Click ‘send.’” And then, I'm also thinking, “If you click send, it'll ruin your career. You will never work a day in this country again.” Leadership. When you press ‘send,’ and that title goes away, who are you? Who are you when that title disappears in one fell swoop? Or what I say, “I will stand with her. I will stand with the former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. First indigenous woman to do so.” And to stand with her publicly, knowing full well that the privileges that are afforded to other people that could stand with her are not afforded to me. When your leadership is challenged, and you have the opportunity to stand alone on the right side of history or stand with the crowd on the wrong side, do you protect your title, or do you protect your values and your principles? Do you preserve our humanity? When do we start to do that? When do we take that seriously? So, the title, what is a title?

Scott Allen  10:18  

You talk about in that quote the unlikeliest of places. There's obviously a lot of learning in that moment that this is one of those moments that matter where I can choose a couple of different directions. What are some other of those unlikeliest of places that you're referring to where you're learning about self? 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  10:42  

Yeah, so let's be clear, the Parliament of Canada, our center of our democracy was never intended for us to be there; women. No, I'm not being tongue in cheek here, we just renovated so that we could have washrooms for women and caretaking stations. There are still no… I don't know if it is now, but when I was there in 2015, there was no dress code for women because we weren't expected to show up, and we certainly weren't expected to speak. So, you go into an institution, which if you look around the parliamentary precinct in Ottawa, you'll see very little evidence that black people, black communities have contributed to the economic, social, and political growth of this country. We have been here for 400 years, and I could walk for miles on the parliamentary precinct and never see myself. So, then you have this structural violence being beared down on you. You are the only black woman there and you want to say, “Do I become complacent and just be glad that I have a seat at the table?” “Be thankful for your seat at the table, pretty little lady.” And I am cute so I don't mind you calling me that. 

(Laughter)

Celina Caesar Chavannes  11:47

However, do you then say, “I'm going to be complacent and ride this wave six years. I got a full pension. I'm going to be good,” or do you decide to be bold? And so, for the first two years, I navigated that chapter 10 of this book. I hate, because I knew all these things that were happening that were not right and I still said, “Oh, that's okay. I'll make an excuse for it. I don't have to worry about it” because I'm representing, and representation matters, doesn't it? So, I have to sit there at the table. But you know when you have a dinner party, and you invite people, and you invite the person that you really like to sit beside you, and the people that you have to invite but you don't really like sit at the end of the table? 

(Laughter)

Celina Caesar Chavannes  12:32  

No, I'm being serious; I do that. I know y'all do that, so don’t pretend you don’t. So, there's people that are sitting beside you, and you really love them. And then, at the beginning in 2015, I was like, “Oh my God, I'm sitting right here beside the Prime Minister, this is good.” And then, by the end of 2016, I was like, “Whoa, you didn't get the position at the side of the… Hello, pass the salt…” So, I'm at the end of the table, and I realized at some point that I was sitting on the row behind the table. And then, in 2018, I recognized that I was on the menu. So, there's a quote in my book that says from Nina Simone that you got to learn. You got to learn to leave the table when love is no longer being served. And so, you could be complacent, or you could do what I did in September of 2017 before I was on the menu, and I decided that the gloves will come off September of 2017. And my husband said to me, “Oh my God, babe, like maybe you could just take one glove off, maybe you can just take a finger out of the glove.”

(Laughter)

Celina Caesar Chavannes  13:34 

“But do all the gloves have to come off right now?” And I said, “Yes, gloves are coming off, and we're going to see the real Celina.” But that comes at a cost; you do the mental math, “Can I not work in Canada for another…?” “Can I take from my kids’ college, and can I borrow from my retire…?” “Can I risk not having a pension?” “Can I look at myself in the mirror?” “Can I look my children in the eye?” And the gloves came off. The gloves came off, and I started to -- what I call the awakening, sometimes we call them acts of resistance. I'm going to speak out loud, I'm going to wear my hair natural. I'm going to click-clack my heels. I'm going to be bold. I'm going to speak up. We call those acts of resistance. Are the actual acts of resistance, or are they moments of awakening towards our human self, our whole self, towards our journey, towards humanization? We cannot expect people to see us if we don't see ourselves. So, the gloves came off and I started to see me. That was the beginning of that journey. So, how I found my voice, and whatever that title is of this book, I didn't find my voice in there yet. That was just the beginning of finding the voice. And I decided I'd be bold. And I decided I'd speak up about my mental health, about race, about all of the issues that we had in Canada. The opportunity to show our mettle in 2018 and not just follow the crowd in 2020. We had an opportunity to have that real conversation. Because everybody thinks in the US it's so bad, and them over there are so bad because they're worried about building walls. But we in Canada sit and build fences between ourselves and our neighbors, and we think that's okay because we didn't say we're going to build a wall, but we go home and we build a fence. And we sit beside each other and office spaces, and in rooms, and we don't even say hello. We don't treat each other with the dignity that we should. And we want to write legislation and regulation that is supposed to impact 37 million people, especially the ones that we don't want to leave behind, but we cannot sit with a person beside us and treat them with dignity. So then, at some point, somebody has to say bold, “They're going to talk about me anyway; I might as well give them something good to talk about.”

(Applause)

Scott Allen  16:11  

We talked about authentically trying to build relationships. You said that, okay, I'm in the situation. I'm in Parliament, and I'm interacting with people, and they're seeing through me, right? 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  16:25

Yeah. 

Scott Allen  16:26

And the need for us to see one another, hear one another. Maybe we don't agree on everything, but we try and find those spaces where there is some common ground. And we see the humanity in one another. We stay curious, we stay humble in our curiosity. And don't walk in thinking, “I have it all figured out, I have the solution, I am right, my worldview is correct.” But let's co-create. Talk a little bit about that.

Celina Caesar Chavannes  16:54  

If I may, I'll introduce the concept of why I keep leadership in quotes. Because a very interesting book by a philosopher called Michel Foucault. Has anybody read Michael's and his work on docile bodies? Well, one of the structures that we use to create docile bodies, to create these human beings that just continue to do their jobs and to work within a capitalist structure is hierarchy. So, let me just give you a quick synopsis of Michel Foucault; he talks about how we've moved from execution and torture of people in the public square to disciplining them in prisons, meaning there's somebody always supervising. I, if you're on good behavior, you could get a… Not a promotion, what do you call it, parole or what? How you get out of prison. I've never been in prison, so I'm not about to learn the ins and outs of that. But you're of good behavior, so you got rewarded, and then you could get paroled, or move out of solitary, go to minimum. And you have to be timed, so you have to go out in the yard, and then you have to get up at a certain time, you have breakfast at a certain time. And that was how discipline was enacted in the prison system. But doesn't it sound like every other system that we live in? Doesn't it sound like you going to work? There's a hierarchy. Somebody says, “Oh, you're doing well today, you're going to get a promotion, you could move up the ranks. But make sure you watch that Scott shows up on time.” But Scott, you have to self-supervise your own self, “Got to get to work on time, I can't leave before five o'clock because somebody will see me.” But I'll see when somebody else, when Celina leaves early. So, the mechanisms that we use to create docile bodies we recreate when we think we're trying to foster liberation. So, when I think about the title of leader, it still creates that hierarchical mindset because there's a definition that we understand around leader. So you could have these collective leader or what are the other titles?

Scott Allen  19:09  

So we have, just real quick, we have transformational, situational, authentic, emotionally intelligent, we've got servant, adaptive, situational, relational.

Celina Caesar Chavannes  19:19  

They're all leaders at the end of the day. At the end of the day, they all have a leadership root. They're rooted in a structure that people know is hierarchical. So then, how do we start to change that? How do we start to even remove the barriers that exist in our language that prevent us from actually connecting and finding our way to humanization? And when I think about this more broadly in some of my dissertation work, it's around saying, “How can we democratize justice as a mechanism for our humanization?” 

Scott Allen  20:03

Would you talk about that? 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  20:05

Yes. How can we remove those barriers that exist between us that prevent us from connecting on a human level? And sometimes, it is just ourselves. The language that we use, the biases that we have, the inability for us to have those conversations with the unusual suspect. B, because we want to sit here and talk about, “Let's leave no one behind. Let's make sure that what we're doing is leaving no one behind in our journey towards the sustainable development goals, our journey towards X, Y, or Z.” But are the people that you are so concerned about part of the conversation that you're having? Are you seeing them? The worst feeling I ever had as a leader, as the right-hand person to the leader of a G7 country, is that people didn't see me. They didn't see my humanity. They would have conversations with me because of my title. I'm not going to apologize about understanding that as Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, I got that position not because of who I was, my intellectual prowess. The fact that I was running research studies on neurological conditions. I was co-chairing Canada's first national epidemiology study on neurological conditions. I was understanding the scope, impact, and risk factors for things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and epilepsy. I wasn't there for that purpose; I was there for the socially constructed identities that have nothing to do with my humanity. I was there because I have dark skin and I have breasts. And it was in that moment that I realized, “Oh, my God.” It had never dawned on me as starkly as in that first year of 2016 as parliamentary secretary. I was like, “Oh, my God. Would y'all come take a look at this? Y'all come take a look at this. I'm black.” Yeah, wow. Y'all come together, take a look at this.” And you put them together, I was like, “I'm a black woman. Oh, my God. I'm a black woman.” It was so apparent because, in that first year -- and I want people to google it like, the receipts are all out there -- In that first year of our administration, Trudeau got a lot of flack for talking more to international media. So, he was like really out in the international audience, everybody was loving him, it was the greatest… It was a great time. I was loving it, everybody was loving it. We were “Canada is back.” As a Parliamentary Secretary to a Minister, any minister, you are the right hand person of that minister. So, Scott, if I'm your parliamentary secretary, you're going left, I'm going right. You're going north, I'm going south. We're trying to spread the message of Canada in the biggest way possible through having these people who will assist. I don't mind assisting the Prime Minister; I'm cool with that. That's a pretty good gig. But then, I look back, even when it was happening, it wasn't even like that I had to look back. That's why I said in chapter 10 is… I just want to tear it all out of my book. But even when I look back, I was like, “Hmm. This is interesting. He's been to like a million countries globally, I was invited to three events, international events, and they were all related to black community.” Imagine living through that. Everyone went, “Mmmm.”Yes, I lived through that. And it was the state dinner, the White House State Dinner with Obama. But I was not invited to the dinner; I was only invited to the south one. Probably the only elected official who was not invited to the dinner. Then the opening of the African American Museum, and the National Museum. I sat behind Oprah, that was cool. It's not bad, again, not a bad gig. Then to the inauguration of Akufo-Addo in Ghana, those three events. And it was when I was actually landing because there was a shuffle as we were in the air coming back from Ghana, there was a cabinet shuffle, and I knew that I was going to resign as Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. I knew I was going to resign because I saw it. And then, when I was landing, I was like, “Where does our humanity go? Where does our humanity go in these moments? When did we stop seeing each other?” I don't even know if I'm answering the question right now, but when did we stop doing that? 

Scott Allen  25:11

No, you are? 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  25:12

When did we stop having the dialogue that says, “Look, I will never wear a jacket like that. I literally, I will never wear a jacket like that.”

(Laughter)

Celina Caesar Chavannes  25:24  

I mean, look at me. Style.

Scott Allen  25:26  

You’re doing just fine with style. 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  25:32  

But I don’t need to… This, Scott. Scott clearly has his own style, I have my own style. And we could come to common ground with the fact that we have our own style.

Scott Allen  25:46  

I probably won't wear that.

(Laughter)

Celina Caesar Chavannes  25:51  

True, true. But we can come to common ground with that, as opposed to me saying, “Never.” And Scott saying “Never.” And, in our mind, we've now closed off any kind of possibility of us having a meaningful dialogue. where I could show up, I could be 100% of who I am, and not have to worry about Scott saying, “Well, really, Celina, you at least you got to go on the Prime Minister's plane. Get thicker skin. Why are you being so sensitive? Everybody would love to have done that.” And maybe that is true; that is all well and true. But the point is that…

Scott Allen  26:37  

But a lot of things can be true. 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  26:41  

At the same time. And a lot of things can be true and still be very hurtful and dehumanizing. And a lot of things can be true and still make you feel, at the end of this journey, so small, so small, so small that you spend the rest of your life studying humanization. That you spend the rest of your life trying to understand the mechanisms of dehumanization as to develop a praxis towards humanization that others could follow. 

Scott Allen  27:13  

Talk about some of that work with the Ph.D., would you? To better understand. 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  27:20  

Yeah. So, there are parts of your brain that become lit up or activated when you are presented with images that… If you're asked the question, “Is this person human, or is this person like an animal? Can you put them in that category?” There are parts of the brain where you hold up the same picture and say, “Do you like this person, or do you not like this person?” Different parts. So, dehumanization and liking people are not the same parts of your brain. So, you could dehumanize groups, “But I have a black friend, Celina.” That is that whole, “But I have a black friend.” So I could like her, but the rest of y'all, Mm-mm. So, when I talk about tokenism and dehumanization… There is different forms of dehumanization, first of all, I won't get into all of that. But when I talk about tokenism as being a blatant form of dehumanization, it's using the socially constructed parts of who you are as a way to include you…

Scott Allen  28:33  

But just use you.

Celina Caesar Chavannes  28:33  

…But you're not actually including me at all. You're putting me up as window dressing. And that's called mechanistic dehumanization, where you're not even seeing… At least, with animalistic dehumanization, I put up this picture and you say, “Well, this person might be an animal,” or some kind of way in which they are grotesque, or there's something about them that you don't like, but you still see parts of their humanity. With mechanistic dehumanization, you don't even see them. They're a cog in the wheel. They're a means to an end. So, with tokenistic dehumanization, what I want to argue is that that level of dehumanization means that we say, “Let's look at the company here, Scott. What do we got? We got a woman over there. Yeah, that's great. We got 50% of those. Do we have any blacks? Do we have any blacks? Yeah, we could hire Celina. We'll get her in. Yeah. And then we get a black and a woman, we get a two for one. And she has like that mental health thing, so does that cost as like a disability? We'll check that box, too.” How is that supposed to work? And when we think about the future of work, when we think about the fact that the World Economic Forum said by 2025 we will have lost 85 million jobs and gained another 97 million, where's that 12 million gap going to come from? How are we going to realize that 12 million? It is by understanding that we just don't use individuals for the checkbox. Celina comes with a bunch of experience, expertise, skills, that when you are launching a product, a service, a policy, we'll be able to see where you have the potential to make the mistake. She'll be able to see where you have the potential to use a marketing strategy to be able to get into other demographics. She'll have that cultural sensitivity that you might not have. It's not good, or bad, or right, or wrong, but you might not have it that allows you to have success. It is the complementary stories. So, you have the diversity, but the engagement, the ongoing intentional interactive engagement with that diversity, having the conversations with the unusual suspects is where you start to get inclusion. And then, in that complimentary system that is inclusive is where you start to build the programs where you can have equity. And you can really start to democratize justice because the goal of everything that we are doing, or what you're doing in this conference, shouldn't just be about getting to the leadership. So what? So what your company's bottom line increases because you've taken a few leadership courses? So what your community organization is able to then get funding, and grants, and whatever? At the end, it's more than just about the collective. Who is the collective? What is the collective in that leadership? It's about maintaining our humanity. It's about understanding that we cannot. It's never been about you or me; it's always been about us. But who is the ‘us’ that we're talking about? The us that we go home and have dinner with? The us that we're comfortable with? The us that we're okay with because we like that one, they're not too contentious? We liked that one, they're palatable. I tolerate. You know what you tolerate? Spinach. You don't tolerate people. So, when we talk about humanization, or democratization of justice as a mechanism for humanization, when we really talk about removing those barriers, most often, the barriers exist in the people that you call “leader.” So, good luck. Good luck with leaving no one behind. And when you think about who is going to be left behind, and one of the reasons I'm so passionate about this is because the people who are going to be left behind look like me. Am I not worth more than talk? Am I not worth more than… You know what? Screw it, I am, we are. We are better than this. This is a leadership moment big time, but it requires all of us to decide. We need to maintain our humanity as the end goal, irrespective of where you lead. Irrespective. Whether that's in education, or it's an NGO, or it's wherever, see our humanity, see me. Don’t see through me. The amount of meetings I've had where, “I'm looking for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister,” and everybody is pointing at me and the person is going, “Yeah, no, it has to be that guy.” Like, literally looking right through me. Yeah, we, humanity is better than this.

Scott Allen  34:04  

What are some things that we… The simplistic question is ‘do,’ but what are some ways that you think about shifting that system? How do you think about that question?

Celina Caesar Chavannes  34:17  

So, I'm going to use Robert Livingston. Yeah, Robert Livingston wrote this amazing book called ‘The Conversation.’ 

Scott Allen  34:27

It's an incredible book. 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  34:28

Has everybody read the book? ‘The Conversation’ by Robert Livingston, and the fact that the neural pathways in your mind can change just by even the thought of having a difficult conversation with someone? Just the thought of having a difficult conversation changes the neuroplasticity of your mind so that you could come up with the solutions to the wicked problems of the world. Do you know the wicked problems that we’re having? Turn on the TV. Geopolitical issues, climate change. You name it. Refugee crisis, that is not going anywhere. It sounds easy. Have the conversations with the unusual suspects. We're at a conference now, and I'm sure you have the opportunity, and I know I'm not great at this, talk to people, engage. Hey, Christine. She was so nice that we're like friends now. I'm bad at it because I'm a total introvert. I am a trained extrovert.

Scott Allen  35:25

I am as well. 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  35:26

Yeah. I turn on the big switch on the back. I just…

Scott Allen  35:31  

After this, when they leave I will just do this. 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  35:34  

And I'm on, and then when I go back to my room, I turn it off. And I'm like, “Oh, God, someone gets me a bottle of wine.” But the ways in which we do it, we have a conversation. We start with the conversation, but not with the usual suspects, with the unusual suspects. Number two is Bell Hooks. A couple of points from Bell.

Scott Allen  35:53  

I don't know Bell. I don't know Bell. 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  35:57

Wow. (Laughs)

Scott Allen  35:58

No, teach me.

Celina Caesar Chavannes  36:00

Hold on. Hold on. Wow.

Scott Allen  36:03

I know Livingston.

Celina Caesar Chavannes  36:04  

We love. That’s okay. You’re schooling me on stuff that I didn't know too, so when you send me the link, I'll send you the link.

Scott Allen  36:12  

There’s too much to learn.

Celina Caesar Chavannes  36:12  

Yeah, there’s too much to learn. 

Scott Allen  36:13  

There’s too much to learn. That’s what I learned when doing this podcast is there's too many cool things to learn. Okay. Bell Hooks.

Celina Caesar Chavannes  36:16  

But Bell Hooks talks about love. And she uses this… It's not hers, it's from Erich Fromm that she talks about love is the ability to use your own gifts to nurture someone else's spirit. Act in love. Act in love. The other thing that she talks about is the margins, the beauty of the margins. To find those collective groups. To find those areas that are not right in the center. Right in the spotlight. The other day literally, the other day, I ran for mayor City of Toronto. “Why would you run for mayor of the City of Toronto Celina, have you lost your mind?” 

Scott Allen  37:04

Literally, the other day you just ran. (Laughs)

Celina Caesar Chavannes  37:05

Yeah, in June. It was a catastrophe. I've won elections clearly, but in this one, the person that one got 250,000 votes, guess how many I got? 250. The person that won got like a hundred… What? A thousand times more votes than I did. It's crazy. Anyhow, what it did was teach me that you don't actually have to be in the center all the time. There's a hard way for the universe to teach me that lesson. They could have just told me that before I ran…

Scott Allen  37:35

It’s another one of those unlikely places. 

Celina Caesar Chavannes  37:37

Unlikely places, right? But the margins. And then, the last thing I'll talk about is some work by, and I cannot remember, and I apologize for not referencing, is compassion. We have to move beyond empathy. “I feel you, I feel your pain, Celina. That sucks, I feel you.” I don't want you to feel any more, I want you to do. Empathy plus action is compassion. And I apologize; I should know the reference to this person, but the work that they do… We have so much power and privilege in this room. I understand the power and privilege that I have. It is not a bad word to acknowledge that we have power and privilege and is turned into that, but we cannot continue to say that. Some people have more power and privilege than I do. Acknowledge that. But then, to use that power and privilege to say, “Not only do I feel your pain, but now, because I have power and privilege, I'm going to do something about it.” I don't want your hurts, I don't want your thoughts, I don't want your prayers, I want none of that. I want you to do. “Our hearts and prayers go out to this, and our hearts and prayers go out to that.”  Come on now. We've sent people to the bloody moon. Do you see skyscrapers, like, do you see buildings that little human beings can make? Do you actually look at our world and just see the phenomenal feats that we as little tiny human things could do? But we cannot have empathy plus action enough to eliminate discriminatory practices? We don't have that capacity? Come on, y'all, give yourself more credit. We can, it is a choice. It is a choice to continue to perpetuate dehumanization. It is a choice. And I'm not just going to say racism, or sexism, or xenophobia, I'm going to say it is a choice to dehumanize. It is a choice. It’s a choice because if you walk by someone and you just decide you're not going to talk to them, and in your mind, you're thinking, “Oh my God, I don't really like those people,” nobody knows what you're thinking. But that act of dehumanization is a choice that you could decide you're going to continue to do, or you're going to choose to do something different. You're going to choose to act in love. You're going to choose to act in compassion. You're going to choose the type of leader you are going to be. And you're going to choose whether our humanity is preserved through you or not. It is a choice.

Scott Allen  40:33  

That is a great quote to end on. That is beautifully phrased. Beautifully phrased.

Celina Caesar Chavannes  40:42  

Thank you. I want to thank everybody in the audience as well for being… I was expecting a couple of people I invited, like a couple of people I knew, four people definitely would have showed up. But, thank you. Thank you all for coming.

(Applause)

Scott Allen  40:59  

So, Celina, I always end the podcast by saying what have you been reading or consuming? Or, what's caught your attention in recent times that listeners might be interested in? I'll put some links to some of the resources that… I did a conversation with Robert Livingston on the podcast, awesome episode. That man has so many just wonderful phrases. One of them that just sticks out to me was “When it comes to mental gymnastics, most of us are Olympic athletes.” Beautiful. But again, he just has so many phrases like that throughout that book that are so captivating. So, I'll put links for listeners into the show notes. But is there something, it could have to do with what we've just discussed, it may have nothing to do with what we just discussed, but is there anything that's caught your attention recently?

Celina Caesar Chavannes  41:51  

So, I'm reading ‘The Warmth of Other Suns’ by Isabel Wilkerson. So she wrote Caste. Of course, Ava DuVernay doing the Origins. There's just so much. But it's interesting because my dissertation is on looking at the experiences of black women who leave corporate and go into entrepreneurship. And I use a lot of quotes here, the experiences I want to understand, whether they are actual experiences, are they acts of resistance, or are there moments of awakening? And because the largest growing demographic in North America of entrepreneurs are black women, I want to understand whether entrepreneurship is a proxy for our humanization. So, are you looking for entrepreneurship, are you looking to be your own boss, to be whole, to be those kinds of things? And the reason why I bring up ‘The Warmth of Other Suns,’ is that, in the book, Isabel Wilkerson talks about the fact that the great migration of the US from 1915 to 1970, people were coming from the Jim Crow South and going to the North, including Canada, or to the West. And she says in the book that this was the first great migration of African Americans in America. Two, it was the first time that this mass exodus happened, and African Americans did not have to ask permission. And third, it was a way for them to find their humanity in this great migration. I'm wondering if the exodus of black women from corporate is the second great migration. Where else are we going to go? We can't go North any further; it's cold up there, y'all. And I own a goose jacket, it is the real cold. But where are we going to go? So, is this the second great migration, to not have to ask to leave to find our humanity? it’s a question of what I’m reading, and I should have just answered the question, “I'm reading the book,” but there’s so much insight in that book into how I'm living my life. Thank you. That was like the third person I invited, and she came. Is that what's happening here? And so, I read a lot. I'm reading like, at least, 15 books at the same time. I’m reading books that are not even released yet because people send it to me, and I kind of like, edit and like, say, do something different because, “I don't like how you phrase this,” but whatever. I give unsolicited advice all the time. ‘The Warmth of Other Suns.’ Went back and reread ‘The Gettysburg Address' and started like… I really like just reading and then going back and looking at different things. I'm reading Bell Hooks, all of Bell Hooks, and Patricia Hill Collins, also reading Michel Foucault's work as well because I think he gives a good understanding of structures and how the system actually works as it should, so don't complain. Don't try to change yourself to fit into it because it was never designed for you. So, good luck with that.

Scott Allen  44:58  

Final question. I know that you are a major Prince fan. Favorite Prince song of all time?

Celina Caesar Chavannes  45:05  

Let's go crazy. I've made major investments to see Prince. And he opened in New Jersey for theComing to America tour, he opened for Dearly Beloved. And I actually thought I was going to pass out like I thought I was going to die. And then he called the sexy people on stage, and I was like, “Shoot, he must be talking to me.” So I went up on stage.

(Laughter)

Scott Allen  45:25  

We will name the episode ‘When the elevator tries to break you down.’

Celina Caesar Chavannes  45:28  

Yes. Go crazy and put your higher floor. 

Scott Allen  45:32

Okay, you all. Thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate it.

(Applause)

[End Of Audio]