I'm going to talk to you about a notion and maybe one of the most important things that you will face, and maybe you faced already. It's something that is certainly one of the most difficult things for me to handle. And that was how to deal with a naysayer. Now I'll set the stage. I was at McCann Erickson Worldwide, a famous advertising agency. I was a young up-and-comer. And one of the things that I noticed increasingly was the behavior of a fellow named Eric. Now, every time I turned around, there he was. "Oh, you're not going to do that, are you?" Oh my God, that makes no sense, blah, blah, blah. You're never going to succeed in that. Blah. .."

Literally my nemesis. Every time I turned around, there he was. I wonder if you have someone like that in your life at a particular moment in time? Anyway. So I was on a shoot one afternoon, and it's pretty boring. You sit around for a while, and the idea came to me, brand citizenship. Wow. The idea that a brand is a community of individuals with a shared value system. Now, for those days, that was pretty forward-thinking stuff. And I shared it with a friend of mine at the agency. And he said to me, "Wow, Ken, that's a heck of an idea. I can get you a meeting, a slot every month. The senior members of the board of McCann invite the young up-and-comers to present their ideas." And so, he got me the slot. It was just amazing. Little did I know it was the same conference room that I would occupy when I was part of running the company several years later.

But anyway, on the appointed day, I was as nervous as I could be, and I walk into the conference room, which we called Battlestar Galactica, it was enormous. And there was one empty seat, where I was going to sit before I was invited to present. And who do you suppose is seated right next to that empty seat? Eric. I couldn't believe it, of all people. And I sat down. And he leans over to me and he says, "You aren't going to present that brand citizenship nonsense, are you?" And of course, I was really taken aback. Now, I did get up and I did make my presentation. But, I did something that I'm going to ask you never to do. I didn't do anything about it from that day forward. I let Eric convince me that my idea was unworthy. I let him intimidate me into thinking that somehow what I was working on, wasn't worthy of being pursued.

And I would say this to you. You can take advice from a lot of people. That's constructive criticism, but a naysayer and someone who wants to take you down, the only person in this world that can and should prevent you from following your instinct about something you believe in is you, no one else. So don't let an Eric get in your way. When you hear that kind of nay-saying, let it be the rocket fuel for you to pursue it even further.

Oh, and by the way, here's some good news. Many, many years later, I wrote a piece for the Harvard Business Review. And in it, I talked about brand citizenship. So Eric, wherever you are, how do you like that? I hope it's helpful to you. Have a wonderful day

  As a young manager at an airline catering facility, one of my first real leadership challenges was having to find out why silverware was disappearing at a rapid clip. The route to solving the mystery of the missing cutlery rested in my ability to  rise to the occasion was to  inspire and connect with my teams emotionally. I've called upon this story countless times during my long career and shared it on BBC Radio 4’s Four Thought.
​ Please enjoy and share this story with any new leader you may know.

    I have long believed, as many, that Diversity training was woefully inadequate, divorced from the mainstream of how we train our people and that we are afraid to address issues like privilege and oppression head on for fear of upsetting people. An employee of a firm I know so well who went through three days of globally mandated diversity training recently told me, "It was one big nothing burger. I identify as Asian-American, and it literally addressed none of the issues that are so obvious everyone."
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We at E.I. Games saw this issue, and recognized what needed to be done!

As a part of our wholesale rethink of what organizational skills training should contain. and are proud to announce we have been awarded the Gold Award of Excellence by our peers at the Serious Play Organization for our recently released

​Diversity Inclusion and Equity Game. It's part of our wholesale rethink of what organizational skills training should contain.

​This industry recognition is bittersweet too, as a major company we were working with towards launching the game was onboard, but decided at the last minute not to proceed, because, as their executive confided, with topics such as tokenism, they were just "not ready for it".
I wonder if they are now...

We believe it's fundamental that Diversity Intelligence is coupled with Emotional Intelligence as a central part of how we ready people for leadership!

As Dr. Claretha Hughes argues so rightly in her paper, Conclusion: Diversity Intelligence as a Core of Diversity Training and Leadership Development, "DQ arms them with the skill to not just understand emotional, cultural, and intellectual differences, but equips them to integrate people with different skill levels and cultural backgrounds to contribute at an optimum level toward meeting corporate goals."

Hear Hear!

For a free trial of the Diversity Inclusion and Equity game, its imbedded videos and self directed course, get in touch... it's all part of our new ELEVATE Emotional/Diversity/Communications Intelligence program. (EQ/DQ/CQ) Join me in remaking this vital part of our people's development and their future.

Kevin Allen, Founder and Chairman
Contact us at citizens@eigames.com

E I Games LLC, makers of award-winning game-based business simulation training has launched a new course and simulation in Diversity, Inclusion and Equity now offering companies an uplifting and contemporary approach to the subject in a highly engaging on-line format.
Miami, FL, March 24, 2020 --(PR.com)-- E I Games LLC, makers of award-winning game-based business simulation training has launched a new course and simulation in Diversity, Inclusion and Equity now offering companies an uplifting and contemporary approach to the subject in a highly engaging on-line format. This follows the development of game-based simulations in leadership, Business Ethics and Entrepreneurship in partnership with Universities like Arizona State, Ball State and companies like Oracle and Expedia. Characteristic of the course include:
Aligns with Emotional Intelligence: The training experience is built as a Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity learning module but leverages the strengths of emotional intelligence. It links the skills of empathy and self-awareness of E I into the Diversity experience in the form of the SEAS model developed by Best Selling author and company founder Kevin Allen.
Scalable: It is designed as an individual exercise that employees can take within an hour or so on their laptop or mobile phone. The learnings can then be enhanced by online webinar and team coaching.
Thought-provoking: Questions and scenarios are taken from everyday life and designed to appeal to all participants For example, some questions in the game deal with religious expression as a form of personal identity and celebrate the positive aspects of such expression as strongly as the more well-known forms.
Provides an Organizational Benchmark: At the end of the exercise, employees are given a score and a profile. The score measures overall diversity sensitivity and the profile score measures sensitivity based on the SEAS model providing a four-part rubric, Self-consciousness, Empathy, Accountability and Solidarity.

One of the early proponents includes Dr. Brent Scholar of Arizona State University and Dr. Ramon’s Jacobs, an MD, corporate executive, and a leader in Diversity, Inclusion and Equity, who observed, “My first impression of the Diversity, Inclusion and Equity training module via E I Games: brilliant! As a diversity and inclusion expert, I am well aware of stale and ineffective training modules on the market. Given the significance of diversity and inclusion awareness in the workplace, it is immensely important that these training modalities get it right the first time. The module by E I Games is exciting and engaging. Most importantly, it captures the interest of people in a witty, charming and imaginative way. One leaves the training feeling that they themselves can be experts on diversity, inclusion and equity. Kudos to this organization for changing the game!"

For more information write to kevin@eigames.com. For more information, visit www.eigames.com/diversity or www.semagie.com/diversity-training