E101 Resiliently You part 6 – Featuring Lorienne Nseka
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Dr. Dave:
Welcome to the KnolShare with Dr. Dave Podcast. I'm Dr. Dave Cornelius, your host. We're continuing the series Resiliently You to discover what makes people resilient to build resilient organizations and sense belonging and healing. My guest today is Lorienne Nseka, Corporate Private Attorney at Scaled Agile Inc. So hey Lorienne, welcome and let's just get started with an elevator pitch and talk about your superpower a bit.
Lorienne:
My name is Lorienne Nseka, most people call me Lo. I'm a Corporate Attorney at Scaled Agile. I specialize in privacy and copyright law for SAI. We handle a wide range of contractual, or I handle a wide range of contractual transactions for them. SAI is a business agility consulting service provider and we help companies to become more confident in responding to the ever-changing economic market to scale their transformation while sustaining outcomes. And most importantly, we help companies empower their employees.
I think being a lawyer is a superpower in itself. Our job is to think critically and we're taught to question everything, cross examine everyone, people you're dating, your family, your friends, and we're taught discipline with how law school is structured and how hard it is. So we gain the ability to break down any problem, examine it, and put it all back together again. And that's not something that everyone could do.
And my personal power is my drive and my determination. I'm an extremely motivated individual. When I commit to something, I'm set and I'm determined to succeed. And my motivation enhances my capability of thinking, it helps me generate ideas and I'm always thinking and trying to find new creative ways to reach my goals. So, given my life journey, which is a subject for another podcast, I would not be where I am today without my superpower of motivation and drive.
Dr. Dave:
So how do you define resilient people?
Lorienne:
Resilient people. I'm going to start this off with a story. My father was born in a small village in the Democratic Republic of Congo. His mom was blind his whole life and both of his parents died at a very young age, or when my dad was at a very young age. So he grew up as a poor orphan in a third world country. And before my dad retired, he just retired last year, he was a aerospace expert consultant for all of Central Africa. He's helped his siblings move his family to America. He's brought, obviously me and my whole siblings here. He's helped my mom move her whole family to the US, and that's a big deal for people that are from a third world country.
My dad's very, he's a successful man, but his most proud accomplishment is the fact that he takes care of orphans, helping them see that there's hope and that bad things do happen to us in this world, but there is people out there that care and if you keep pushing for your goals, you will accomplish great things. And I say all this to say that I define resilient people as people who are able to adapt and do better than the traumatizing situation that they've been through. And not only that, but they have the capability of reaching back and helping people in the same or similar situations to realize that they too could make it. And that's what I think a resilient person is.
Dr. Dave:
No, that's an excellent response. And really just speaking about your dad who's overcome and has done so much great things. So, that's really great to hear.
Lorienne:
Yeah-
Dr. Dave:
So... Go ahead.
Lorienne:
I was just going to say, I get most of my drive and motivation from him, so I'm very proud of him.
Dr. Dave:
That's so awesome to hear. So in terms of you now, what makes you resilient? You said you have this great story, so you got to bring it.
Lorienne:
I mean, I'm resilient because like I said, I've been through a lot and you wouldn't know unless I opened up my mouth to tell you. Most people, even like close friends, I don't share it with, not saying that this is a good thing, but I don't like people to have sympathy for me. But for example, one of my core memories as a child is hiding under a bed because I was terrified. There was a war zone going outside of my home in the Democratic of Congo. I'm resilient because I grew up, or I'm from an impoverished country where education and women are not valued and most women are uneducated. I'm resilient because even through everything that I've been through and the circumstances that I come from, I still have the ability to be empathetic and understanding to others and what they're going through without thinking about my own scars. And I have this stubborn voice in my head that's always pushing me and telling me never to give up even though I'm faced with challenges. And that's what makes me resilient.
Dr. Dave:
Well obviously, you have it, you have the right energy that you bring to the table and that's really important stuff, right?
Lorienne:
Absolutely.
Dr. Dave:
So I just wanted to figure out, so why is resilience an important skill to nurture in a world that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, which we call VUCA?
Lorienne:
Resilience is an important personality trait to have because, like you said, it's a volatile world. This world is mean. People will kick you down when you're already down and they'll make fun of you when you need support. So you need resilience to be able to overcome things that the world will throw at you. Once in a while, we even have to go through things that it's unavoidable and we still have to deal with the consequences, however despite all those horrible things, when a person is able to reach for their resilience, they power and triumph over the obstacles instead of surrendering to it, you gain something from the experience. If you just succumb to the pain of this world, you really gain nothing.
Dr. Dave:
That's so true, if you allow yourself to fall into that space. So oftentimes, as an attorney, how do you guide organization leaders to create an environment that enable people to find a sense of belonging?
Lorienne:
Well, I never go hunting down for these scenarios of people feeling non-inclusive. I believe that when anyone, every one of us witnesses something that they might consider non-inclusive, that we have the responsibility to note that incident and privately speak to leadership about what we've noticed. And I feel doubly responsible as a minority, both by being a woman and a person of color, because I have a keener insight into what non-exclusivity looks like or what is considered non-inclusivity. So the goal is not to bombard leadership with accusations, as more than likely those accusations, leadership likely just doesn't realize what's happening. But if you provide them, if you sit down with them, talk to them privately, and you provide them examples of how the situation could have been handled in an inclusive manner and clearly explain to them how to be inclusive in the first place, that's how I go about it.
Dr. Dave:
But as an attorney who works for an organization that speaks to business agility, or agility in general, that speaks to inclusivity of everyone, how do you actually maneuver that at SAI?
Lorienne:
So at SAI, I would say giving every customer and everyone fair treatment. But in terms of internally in our organization, because I have this "superpower" of working with contracts and stuff, I'm able to ensure that we're including everyone. So, employment way, employment contracts and all that.
Dr. Dave:
So do you think organizations gain any tangible benefit if their employees have a sense of belonging?
Lorienne:
Definitely. Most certainly. The goal of the sense of belonging is to make the company feel more like a cohesive functioning group, which then turns the employees to feel responsible for the work that they're contributing to. It gives the employees a larger sense of pride in improving their quality of work, because at that point, you don't want to turn in anything crappy because you're like, "Oh, I belong here, everyone's going to see this." And when employees have a sense of belonging, they work harder because they feel like the company's success is their own personal success.
Dr. Dave:
Yeah, very succinct.
Lorienne:
Yeah.
Dr. Dave:
Yeah. So in terms of just language, the kind of language that you would want to, do you believe would increase a community of belonging?
Lorienne:
Using gender neutral pronouns and using language that can be understood by all ages. For example, not using slang that only a certain age group could understand because then people get uncomfortable. And on a different side note, something that might not be considered language necessarily, but I think it's crucial to building your community, building the community sense of belonging is acknowledging contribution of others, especially how people are helping the company or the community. So just putting those people out there and being like, "Hey, these people are doing a great job," that helps build that cohesive environment.
Dr. Dave:
So what about things like psychological safety, right? I mean we, in the agile space, it's one of those attributes that we welcome in our teams. How does that help us to build a stronger sense of belonging?
Lorienne:
What do you mean by psychologically? In terms of-
Dr. Dave:
Psychological safety? So it's a concept that we have the freedom to be able to share what's on our mind, share our ideas, to be innovative.
Lorienne:
Oh yeah, absolutely. I agree with that too. Being able to speak up, for example, how we were talking about what do you do when you see non-inclusive situations happening. If you're at a place where you're able to speak up, or even when you're wrong, you feel comfortable speaking up, that also builds a sense of belonging. So just having that ability and free will to speak and will to think definitely increases the belonging.
Dr. Dave:
Oh, without a doubt. So I'm going to ask you a personal question because you just came back from your honeymoon. Where did you go?
Lorienne:
Jamaica. Yes. Oh, it was so amazing.
Dr. Dave:
You going to share anything with that experience? What you did? Or-
Lorienne:
We did all the things, experienced all the things, ate all the food. We stayed at an all-inclusive resort, which was actually my first time. And I mean I spoiled myself. I didn't say no to anything. I said yes to everything. I got my hair braided. It was just an amazing experience. We got to visit Bob Marley, which my brother is named after Bob Marley, so that was fun. It was great. I loved it. We can't wait to go back, honestly.
Dr. Dave:
Oh, that's amazing. So congratulations again.
Lorienne:
Thank you.
Dr. Dave:
Yeah. So in terms of just wanting to find some words of encouragement that you would like to provide as a gift to our listeners today, what would you tell the next Lo or Lorienne who's listening to this, what words of encouragement would you have for her, or even him?
Lorienne:
If you want a happy life, pursue your goals. And if you want to achieve those goals, work hard. And there's no such thing as good luck. And finally, my last advice would be, be a good person and that's how you get places.
Dr. Dave:
Wow. That's why you're a lawyer. You're to the point, like, ba, ba, ba, ba. You don't want to give us too many words that leave-
Lorienne:
[inaudible 00:14:24].
Dr. Dave:
Yeah. Well good. Is there anything else you would like to add or share before I close?
Lorienne:
No, that's it. Thank you so much for having me here.
Dr. Dave:
No, no. Thank you for agreeing to do this. I think it's really important that we highlight women and women of color who are doing amazing things and make sure that they're seen, right? So that's really important for me. So...
Lorienne:
Thank you. I had a wonderful time.
Dr. Dave:
Awesome. So let me close and say thank you for listening to the KnolShare with Dr. Dave Podcast. I invite you to come back to gain more insight and perspectives that may help you with discovering Resiliently You. KnolShare with Dr. Dave Podcast is streamed on Spotify, Audible, Apple, and Google. Thank you Kiana Brown Hendrickson for dropping in music for this podcast. It was so much fun working with my niece. It's for her to do the music for this. This podcast is copy written 2022 by Dr. Dave Cornelius and knolshare.org. Again, thank you for listening and stay tuned for our next episode of Resiliently You in our series as we continue to share our stories and experiences. So be well and speak soon.
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