Author and PR consultant Nikki Walker visited BYU’s campus on Nov. 13 to speak to the Global Supply Chain Association and the Black Student Union.
Kimberly Guerrero Campaz, president of the Global Supply Chain Association, coordinated the activity and collaborated with the Black Student Union. The two groups wanted to have the activity so students could learn from Black professionals, she said.
Walker is an Amazon best selling author and founder of Nikki Walker Public Relations and Consulting. She spoke on leading with love and compassion in the workplace.
Walker shared stories of the value of leading with compassion rather than judgement. After speaking, she expressed she wanted the event to be more discussion-based rather than just a lecture.
Part of the discussion highlighted how students felt about the environment of BYU after the recent election. Several students reported that the environment felt polarized, while others said they did not feel a difference.
The discussion also focused on learning to understand those with differing opinions and treating them with compassion regardless of their political affiliation. Students also discussed equity.
“You'll hear some people say equality. You'll hear some people say equity. They are not the same and they're not interchangeable,” Walker said. “Equality says everybody gets the same thing, but equity says everybody gets what they need in order to succeed — totally different things,” she added.
Students in attendance asked questions about equity, including how to create a space of equity.
“I think that the first step to getting people to listen is to listen to them first,” Walker said. “Make sure that you are listening to understand and not listening to respond to the person that you disagree with.”
Walker and the students in attendance discussed other topics, like leading with compassion in the workplace and leadership in public relations, before the discussion came to a close.
After the discussion, some students stayed to meet Nikki Walker as she gave away free signed copies of her book, "Awareness Put Me On," which she wrote with several authors.
“I really liked how she brought in recent events like the election and made that connection that we may feel like divided right now as a country and as people,” Lee Lindsay, a student in attendance, said. “We're all human at the end of the day … imagining ourselves in scenarios of other people allows us to have that love and understanding of what they're going through."
Members of the Global Supply Chain Association were happy with how the event turned out.
“She talked about equity, the importance of equity. You need to talk about those things. And I think bringing in a diverse perspective helps our students to learn and grow,” Campaz said.
Guerrero stressed the importance of talking about diverse cultures and equity since the global supply chain is a global major and needs to have people in it who are culturally aware and educated.
There were more than 60 students in attendance. The Global Supply Chain Association and the Black Student Union considered it an overall success.