Your session "The Diversity Advantage" had a powerful impact on our group as evidenced by the standing ovation they gave you. You truly have a gift for presenting a sensitive topic in a manner which makes people feel comfortable and open to learning.
Lenora Billings-Harris
20+ years Authority on Making Diversity a Business Advantage
Featured Topics
Fee Range
$18,500Travels From
Greensboro, North Carolina, United States
Lenora Billings-Harris
Biography
Lenora Billings-Harris, CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) is a CPAE Hall of Fame speaker and a recognized authority in the areas of inclusion, diversity, and bias. She has been included as one of the 100 Global Thought Leaders on Diversity and Inclusion by The Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) and was named by Diversity Woman Magazine as one of the twenty top influential diversity leaders in the US. Her award-winning diversity leadership research is recognized in academic journals internationally. Additionally, she serves on the Advisory Council of the Nido Qubein School of Communication, High Point University, as well as being on the adjunct faculty of other two universities.
Diversity, inclusion and mitigating bias is a full-time focus for Lenora. She partners with clients to help them leverage their diversity of thought which impacts employee engagement, customer satisfaction and sales, community and corporate relations. Her powerful yet engaging style inspires audiences to take personal and organizational actions that disrupt bias and accelerate bottom-line business results.
She has presented to audiences in over 40 countries and six continents, and recently keynoted at the Inclusion Conferences in Cape Town, South Africa and in Tel Aviv, Israel to share best practices with leaders within business, government, education, and NGO communities.
Billings-Harris co-authored TRAILBLAZERS: How Top Business Leaders are Accelerating Results through Inclusion and Diversity and is the author of The Diversity Advantage: A Guide to Making Diversity Work, 3rd Ed.
In addition to management positions held with two Fortune 100 companies plus the Business School at The University of Michigan, Billings-Harris has held leadership positions with several non-profit organizations. She is a past president of Win-Win Resolutions with a mission to reduce bullying, violence, and prejudice in schools and communities, and was a founding charter member of the Maricopa County Black Chamber of Commerce. She is a past president of the National Speakers Association and past president of the Global Speakers Federation. In 2016 she was the Cavett Award recipient, the highest honor bestowed upon professional speakers in the USA. In 2018 she was inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame.
Before launching her business in 1986, she held management positions at two Fortune 100 companies and managed executive development seminars for the Graduate School of Business, University of Michigan.
Lenora Billings-Harris
Featured Video
Current: Speaker Reel
Time 05:28
Lenora Billings-Harris
Featured Keynote Programs
Maximizing the Power of Inclusion by Uncovering the Impact of Unconscious Bias on Business Results
The most successful leaders accelerate results by leveraging diversity of thought.
Diversity, inclusion and bias have been misunderstood for years. Due to the recent neuroscience of bias research, we now know that everyone has bias, and our daily decisions are impacted by them without our awareness. The good news is once we become aware of the impact of our unconscious biases, we can choose to mitigate those that produce negative outcomes.
Internationally recognized author and speaker, Lenora Billings-Harris will help you examine and reframe your approach to diversity, inclusion, and bias. Using a no blame no shame approach, you will explore what bias is, why it is necessary in our lives, and how unconscious bias impacts productivity, talent management, innovation and bottom-line business results. Lenora will reveal the interdependence of these concepts and the missing components needed to create an environment of high performance. Using an evidence-based approach, Lenora will provide practical yet cutting edge insights that can be immediately applied.
AUDIENCE TAKEAWAYS:
Easy to remember definitions of diversity, inclusion and unconscious bias
Recognition of the impact of implicit bias on business outcomes
The B-BASIC approach to creating inclusive workplaces
S.T.O.P.™️
How to Diminish Cultural Collisions through Courageous Conversations
Inclusive cultures encourage courageous conversations.
There are barriers, booby traps, and blocked roadways on our journey toward achieving a culturally competent work environment. People say and do things in the workplace without malice of intent, but nonetheless, some of these actions create a less than inclusive environment. What do you say to the co-worker who always wants to touch your hair? How do you tell your manager to stop giving you a high-five every time he agrees with something you say? How do you get your Baby Boomer colleague to stop reminding you that you are too young to know…?
The biggest barrier to giving feedback in these situations is fear. The major reason people do not speak up when they experience micro-aggressive behaviors is they do not know how to do so, if they must interact with the colleague on a regular basis.
Lenora’s four-step process called S.T.O.P. is easy to use and produces surprisingly successfully results. It works because there is no blame or shame in the process. Invite her to share this highly interactive skill-based session with your audience to learn a technique that can be used at work, home, and even with children.
Audience takeaways:
Ability to identify common micro-aggressions that impact productivity
Recognition that biased behaviors often occur unintentionally
Application of the 4-step S.T.O.P. feedback process to encourage courageous conversations and disrupt micro-aggressions
Inclusion and Diversity
The Oz Perspective
Lenora uses the characters of the Wizard of Oz as a metaphor to help you understand how you can use your brain, heart and courage to make a real difference in today’s multi-cultural world. This fun, yet thought-provoking message will inspire you to embrace the gifts you have and to value the gifts of others to increase your organization’s options for multicultural success. By realizing the power to make a difference is within each individual, you will discover ways to go beyond stereotypes and bias to create and sustain an environment that supports high productivity while celebrating differences. Lenora uses life-size stand-ups of the characters and music from The Wizard of Oz and The Wiz to create an entertaining learning environment.
Beyond Diversity Rhetoric
Are you ready to go beyond diversity awareness? Is your organization ready to effectively create and sustain an environment that enables all contributors to achieve their highest potential without regard to their differences? Are your leaders ready to learn and then implement the Transformational Diversity Management Principles™ that will support your organization’s vision, mission, and business strategy? If so, this program is for you.
This presentation offers participants an opportunity to enhance awareness and understanding of Transformational Diversity Management Principles™ based on the work of Lenora Billings-Harris, CSP in her book The Diversity Advantage: A Guide to Making Diversity Work, and her research with the University Of North Carolina-Greensboro.
Lenora Billings-Harris
Featured Books
The Diversity Advantage
by Lenora Billings-Harris
Trailblazers
by Lenora Billings-Harris
Lenora Billings-Harris
Featured Reviews
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