Conference Agenda

Jason Butler is the author of The Village Mindset. The book explores the power of servant leadership to create belonging and expand influence. The Village Mindset is a model of leadership to meet the challenges of business in a post-COVID world that both empowers people and ensures profit. The key leadership principles of the Village Mindset cultivate belonging, empower connection, and expand the influence of the leader, the community, the employee, and the brand. You will gain the ability to TEAM UP↑ for greater impact.

This interactive workshop introduces key concepts for developing cultural competence. It will provide attendees with a general framework for understanding culture. Participants will consider interpersonal and institutional impacts of culture and how culture influences interactions with employees, clients, peers, and other relationships. Attendees will examine how personal cultural frameworks are relevant within a professional context and how inclusive leadership can lead to winning teams.

It is not uncommon to lead organizations in which the employees, participants, or members consist of individuals from five different generations. The generational gap can foster loneliness, poor communications, reductions in team morale, decreased revenue, conflicting values, and priorities. This workshop will examine the generation gap and why it is important to manage the gap and bridge the gap. Participants will be provided with strategies that lead to knocking down walls and building bridges needed to engage and respond to the diversity of several generations living and working together. Team Up to win with multigenerational players!

Do you value what everyone on your team has to offer? In this session, we will discuss the importance of inclusion and representation when building winning teams. We will correlate how inclusion and representation directly relates to healthy employees, productivity, and work performance. This session will help attendees understand and gain new insights that improve employee engagement, mitigate burnout, and reduce stress. Help your team to win against mental health challenges.

Microaggressions are common in the workplace. They are the everyday, subtle, and often unintentional interactions or behaviors that communicate bias toward historically marginalized groups. Microaggressions can impact a person’s ability to do their job, sense of safety, and overall happiness. The difference between microaggressions and overt discrimination (or “macroaggressions”) is that people who commit microaggressions might not even be aware they are doing something wrong. Learning how to recognize microaggressions and change language accordingly can have an enormous impact on the happiness, productivity, and retention of our colleagues. This workshop will provide practical examples of how language can be used as a tool for building understanding to create an inclusive environment. Inclusive leadership requires communication skills that winners use.

Do you find yourself getting angry or defensive when you think or talk about race? Do you look at the racial divide and wish there was a solution? Culture perpetuates racism by insisting that there are only two options. Us vs Them! Former NFL player, Miles McPherson, shares his experience as a pastor, author, actor, motivational speaker and unifier. His book, The Third Option, speaks out about the pervasive racial divisions in today’s culture and argues that we must learn to see people not by the color of their skin, but humans, created in the image of God. He will identify the cultural influences that shape our attitudes on race. This dynamic speaker will challenge us to focus our attention on our similarities, rather than our differences. He will offer language on how to approach the race conversation within your organization while honoring everyone involved. Participants will receive tools that will assist their ability to use inclusive leadership to further their goals and objectives.

This activity will give each person an opportunity to interact with the individuals sitting at their lunch table. It provides an opportunity for participants to empathetically connect and reflect on the experience of having (or not having) privilege. When we say privilege, we are talking about social privilege(s), or a special, unearned advantage or entitlement, used to one’s own benefit or to the detriment of others. Having privilege doesn’t make you a bad person. Groups can be advantaged based on social class, age, education level, disability, ethnic or racial category, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and religion. Participants will be able to identify privileges that they take for granted in their everyday life. Participants will discuss what types of privileges (social, financial, legal, etc.) are important to them and why that may differ from others in their group. Participants will be able to investigate and discuss what groups may have limited access to what privileges and the effect that lack of access may have on an individual. Participants will also see how their personal perspective, life situation, and lived experiences influence the types of choices that they make.

Each expert will give a 5 minute summary about inclusive efforts supported by their organizations. Participants will get to hear first-hand how embracing inclusion has impacted the speakers in their respective roles. Gain insights from community leaders in the following categories —

Business
Industry
Education
Workforce Development
Disability
Housing
County Government
Veterans Community

When the conference is over, you will have information and tools to assist you on your DEI journey, regardless of where you are starting. You will walk away from the conference ready to value all individuals. You will be empowered to use your inclusive leadership tools to TEAM UP↑ and WIN! This closing session will provide you with Wisdom, Insights & Nuggets to put what you have learned into action.