June 24, 2020

The Black Experience in the Workplace, with Talisa Lavarry

Episode 51:

Tali Lavarry is the founder of Yum Yum Morale, a DEI Consultancy that focuses on the retention and advancement of diverse hires. Organizations large and small look to her, to bridge the gap between their leadership team and marginalized hires.

She is known for her ability to be diplomatic, approachable, educational, and understanding. Through her own personal stories, she boldly moves corporate power brokers from resistant to receptive. Candid conversations and vulnerability are her superpowers. Her talks, workshops, trainings, and retreats never fail to open minds and soften hearts.

Tali is the author of Confessions from Your Token Black Colleague, a former collaborator with Haas Berkeley’s Center for Equity, Gender & Leadership; and a member of Washington State University’s Foster School of Business Alumni.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • How Tali’s experiences as a “token Black” informs her work in diversity and inclusion and became the backbone of her book “Confessions from Your Token Black Colleague”
  • How a series of microaggressions at her workplace caused Tali to reach an internal breaking point in her career
  • Why “white solidarity” is a real problem for People of Color in the workplace, making it even harder to push back against racial bias
  • Where stereotypes such as “the angry Black woman” come from and why they live within our unconscious minds
  • Tali discusses the process of writing her book and how it is structured, and what lead her to write it
  • How Tali has experienced internal realizations that she deserves better than some of the experiences she has had in the workplace
  • Why Tali found herself having to fight against conditioned responses and internal corrections when writing her book
  • Why Tali teaches white male CEOs the importance of taking a stand and speaking out against racism
  • Why the pressure shouldn’t be on Black employees, but on the business leaders who can affect change within the organization
  • Where you will be able to find Tali’s book once it releases in August 2020

Additional resources: