The Conversation with Dr Robert Livingston

Beyond Busy

This week on Beyond Busy we are happy to e-meet Dr Robert Livingston, author of the book "The Conversation: How Seeking and Speaking the Truth about Racism Can Radically Transform Individuals and Organizations".

Dr Robert Livingston is a social psychologist, based at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is one of the World's leading experts on science underlying bias and racism.

In this episode, Graham talks with Robert about biases, what we can learn from the #blm movement, and what YOU can do in your workplace. In the first part, the guest talks about the reason he wrote a book.

'My book is a tool so it's neither a thesis nor a testimonial. I wanted to write a book that would help move the needle on racial equity. So the purpose of my book was to provide a tool for managers, leaders, organisations that are interested in increasing the level of diversity, equity, and inclusion.'

Robert tells us about his experience and his press model. Also, Robert explains why black people are really tired of educating white people on interacting with them.

'It isn't their job to educate white people on racism. In many ways, it's my job. This is why I wrote this book. Read the book!'

He also explains how to learn not to hurt the black people community:

'It's a skill that you can learn. There are books out there that will tell what the right thing is and what the wrong thing is. Do you care enough to spend one day reading this? The simple answer may be that they don't care.'

Dr Robert Livingston talks about the problem of different values as well. Interestingly, Robert used very extraordinary metaphors for this one.

'The other layer to this is people have different values and some people don't want equality - they want power, they want to dominate. So, if you come to a shark and tell them about the four cookies and the zero cookies. They're gonna be great! That's the way it's supposed to be. Because they operate on the model of greed. They are not trying to strive for two cookie allocation for everyone. That seems like communism for them and what they want is the Game of Thrones.'

The full conversation is also available on Graham Allcott's YouTube channel.

Graham Allcott is the founder of the time-management training company Think Productive.

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