Talisa Lavarry

Just be yourself, right? We're complex people. Professionally, we're recent graduates, employees, star performers, and first-time managers. But we're also best friends, devoted family members, sports fans, pet parents, social justice activists, or any other combination of these and other traits. How much of ourselves—from cultural self-expression, to thinking style and beliefs, to gender identity—should we bring to the workplace? Authenticity, Identity, and Being Yourself at Work is filled with practical advice from HBR experts who can help you answer this and other questions like:What does authenticity really mean at work? How do I disclose personal information without oversharing? In what ways can I overcome feelings of imposter syndrome? What should I do when who I am conflicts with those around me? This book will help you figure out how much of "you" to bring to work so that you feel more comfortable and confident in who you are and what you're bringing to your career. Rise faster with quick reads, real-life stories, and expert advice. The HBR Work Smart Series features the topics that matter to you most in your early career, including being yourself at work, collaborating with (sometimes difficult) colleagues and bosses, managing your mental health, and weighing major job decisions. Each title includes chapter recaps and links to video, audio, and more. The HBR Work Smart Series books are your practical guides to stepping into your professional life and moving forward with confidence.

Just be yourself, right? We're complex people. Professionally, we're recent graduates, employees, star performers, and first-time managers. But we're also best friends, devoted family members, sports fans, pet parents, social justice activists, or any other combination of these and other traits. How much of ourselves—from cultural self-expression, to thinking style and beliefs, to gender identity—should we bring to the workplace? Authenticity, Identity, and Being Yourself at Work is filled with practical advice from HBR experts who can help you answer this and other questions like:What does authenticity really mean at work? How do I disclose personal information without oversharing? In what ways can I overcome feelings of imposter syndrome? What should I do when who I am conflicts with those around me? This book will help you figure out how much of "you" to bring to work so that you feel more comfortable and confident in who you are and what you're bringing to your career. Rise faster with quick reads, real-life stories, and expert advice. The HBR Work Smart Series features the topics that matter to you most in your early career, including being yourself at work, collaborating with (sometimes difficult) colleagues and bosses, managing your mental health, and weighing major job decisions. Each title includes chapter recaps and links to video, audio, and more. The HBR Work Smart Series books are your practical guides to stepping into your professional life and moving forward with confidence.

Dear Aspiring Ally, In my Anti-Racism Coaching Practice, I am always asked how one can be a part of the solution. My simple answer is, "True allyship is opening doors for the marginalized that they can not open for themselves". My goal is to serve as your personal guide on your allyship journey as you unlearn what you've likely believed your whole life, replace false narratives with real, diverse ones, and take bold actions, whether people see them or not. Parts of this transition will be hard, however, hard things are not impossible. Join me as I lead you towards the necessary contextual background and practices to help you embrace anti-racism, use your privilege for good, and shape a more equitable world. Some of the specific goals of this book are, but are not limited to: Understanding that authentic allyship is a journey, not a destination. Reviewing scenarios of aspiring allies that had great intentions yet harmful impact. Recentering the value and power of knowledge and humility. Understanding, owning, and utilizing the power of your inherited privilege. Creating and adapting your own personal and customized allyship plan. Go at a pace that is comfortable for you. Take notes, add stickers and reminders. Make lists. Write your deepest secrets. Challenge your own biases. Mess up, take a break and start again. This is your personal plan and journey. Own, live it, do it. Not perfectly, but authentically.

In the aftermath of the George Floyd killing in 2020, as U. S. society takes a deep look at its racist underpinnings, corporations are among the institutions being called on to revamp their treatment of black people. Confessions from Your Token Black Colleague: True Stories and Candid Conversations About Equity and Inclusion in the Workplace, provides a first-hand account of the discrimination endured by Author Tali Lavarry while working for corporations that failed to rise to the occasion when it came to creating and fostering a sustainable work environment for diverse hires. Revealing the injustices and hypocrisy that prevails, she makes a case for business leaders to examine their own unacknowledged biases and take action to address systemic racism. Through conversations with progressive white business leaders and professionals in the fields of human resources and diversity and inclusion, with their help she demonstrates what has to be done to create real solutions that protect and fortify people of color and other marginalized groups. Part memoir and part blueprint for change, this book lays bare the mechanisms of workplace racism, from microaggressions to false accusations. Relentless oppression, at a series of corporate jobs, led to her nervous breakdown and confinement to a psych ward. This experience served as the catalyst for a period of soul-searching that resulted in the biggest revelation of her life and the formation of her own diversity, equity and inclusion consultancy. In this book she articulates the attitudes and behaviors of corporate staff that need changing if equity is to be achieved. Through a series of "Proposals for Atonement and Reconciliation," she introduces a strategy that opens the door to the possibility of intrinsic change.

In the aftermath of the George Floyd killing in 2020, as U. S. society takes a deep look at its racist underpinnings, corporations are among the institutions being called on to revamp their treatment of black people. Confessions from Your Token Black Colleague: True Stories and Candid Conversations About Equity and Inclusion in the Workplace, provides a first-hand account of the discrimination endured by Author Tali Lavarry while working for corporations that failed to rise to the occasion when it came to creating and fostering a sustainable work environment for diverse hires. Revealing the injustices and hypocrisy that prevails, she makes a case for business leaders to examine their own unacknowledged biases and take action to address systemic racism. Through conversations with progressive white business leaders and professionals in the fields of human resources and diversity and inclusion, with their help she demonstrates what has to be done to create real solutions that protect and fortify people of color and other marginalized groups. Part memoir and part blueprint for change, this book lays bare the mechanisms of workplace racism, from microaggressions to false accusations. Relentless oppression, at a series of corporate jobs, led to her nervous breakdown and confinement to a psych ward. This experience served as the catalyst for a period of soul-searching that resulted in the biggest revelation of her life and the formation of her own diversity, equity and inclusion consultancy. In this book she articulates the attitudes and behaviors of corporate staff that need changing if equity is to be achieved. Through a series of "Proposals for Atonement and Reconciliation," she introduces a strategy that opens the door to the possibility of intrinsic change.