Key takeaways from the session with Opal:

  • It’s all about Progress over Perfection. If you feel strongly about a cause and want to get involved, just get started. The rest will fall into place.
  • If you’re looking for recommended reading: “The Obstacle is the Way” by Ryan Holiday
  • If you’re looking for ways to get involved and get further education: Standing Up for Racial Injustice and White People for Black Lives Matter
  • If you’re a company wondering what you can do: Ask yourself, what are our strengths as a company? What skills/services can we provide that we are good at? How can we put these skills and services to action?


Why We Brought Opal In


Following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the movement it sparked, our CEO Travis addressed our company in an email memo. The following day, we had our regularly scheduled All Hands company-wide meeting, where we addressed the situation again - this time with more of a focus on what we planned to do as a company. This allowed us to hear from our employees about their opinions on how our company can create meaningful impact and change. We received a number of great recommendations to consider, one being the idea to bring in a guest speaker to discuss the BLM movement; another suggestion was to provide more consistent education to our employees.


Taking the feedback into consideration and putting it into action, we scheduled a town hall event with Opal Tometi, co-founder of BLM, which we held on June 24th. Ahead of the session, we sourced questions from our team and made the decision to invite family and friends of Holler to hear Opal, which was another great suggestion by a Holler team member. Ultimately, we shared the invitation to the event with all the contacts in our database through an email invitation to join us for the event. 


The Q&A With Opal


The conversation with Opal gave the team great insight into how BLM got started, what they stand for, and what they hope to accomplish in the future. Not only was Opal personable and clearly passionate about the BLM movement, but she provided actionable ideas about how we can all help propel the movement forward, both as individuals and as a company. 


One thing that really resonated with our team from Opal’s session was the concept of “Progress over Perfection.” Many leaders and HR professionals feel an immense pressure to build the perfect program to propel long term change. While that is a great goal to have, you don’t have to be perfect or have a robust plan in place today, you just have to get started.


Opal Tometi and many other speakers on racial injustice and diversity & inclusion can be booked through Keppler Speakers. Watch an abridged version of our Town Hall with Opal here.