Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tex Dworkin. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Tex, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you have any thoughts about how to create a more inclusive workplace?

I wish more people would ask how to create a more inclusive workplace because it benefits employees and the companies they work for.

I worry that inclusion is a passing fad when the reality is—there is so much work to do be done around workplace inclusion. We’ve hardly scratched the surface!

In inclusive workplaces, a diverse range of people feel welcomed, wanted, and heard. Humans can usually tell when they don’t feel those things and they shut down and disengage. And when this happens to employees—it often leads to them leaving. So creating a more inclusive workplace can result in higher retention rates.

Creating a more inclusive workplace has to start from the top with management and requires long-term commitment… intentional practices, tools and trainings that foster, reinforce, and consistently nurture an environment of inclusivity. I suggest communicating with employees about these efforts and involving them as much as possible.

You’ll know if you’ve made progress when all employees feel psychologically safe to be themselves and express themselves without fear of backlash.

One particular situation that helped shape my view on meeting inclusion involves this woman who hardly spoke up in meetings that I was facilitating.

There was this one guy in the meetings who dominated every conversation.

By executing proven facilitation techniques, we were able to foster a psychologically safe environment, which helped her comfortably contribute.

Some of the facilitation prompts helped the dominant speaker speak less, and as more space in the conversation opened up, she started coming out of her shell more—and sharing some truly innovative ideas. It was awesome to witness.

I imagined so many bosses in her life who probably just wrote her off as an introvert who never contributed in meetings, when the reality was—she just had yet to experience a meeting environment that maximized her potential.

Witnessing transformations like this fuels my conviction to make meetings inclusive for all.

Worth mentioning—being introverted is just one of many reasons people under talk in meetings. Other contributing factors include English being their second language, neurodivergent, new hires, and people were brought up not to interrupt.

The same goes for overtalkers. Some people over talk to avoid uncomfortable silence, or because they’re nervous, or simply out of habit.

So each scenario requires unique responses, with the end goal being: meetings where every person feels heard and that the meeting was a good use of their time.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I worked at a student-run cooperative at UMass while I was getting a degree in Social Thought. That’s where I learned how to facilitate inclusive meetings and saw the gamechanging effects facilitation has on conversations. It keeps things flowing and on track, helps make sure every voice is heard, and makes it possible to hit every item on an agenda.

Fast forward all these years and it’s mind blowing to me that most meetings are ineffective wastes of time when proven facilitation techniques and tools are readily available but not being incorporated.

I spent the next 20+ years working in socially responsible business. I was active in the fair trade movement which is all about equitability and transparency in business.

At a career crossroads, I met my co-founder Liyani Rodriguez and in 2021 we launched Raddle— a facilitated virtual brainstorming platform for diverse entrepreneurs.

But we soon discovered that the core of what our product produced— inclusive conversations, is what folks loved the most. At the time, we were consistently delivering this experience by using Raddle-trained human facilitators. So, we dove deep into how we can scale these conversations and built an algorithm for facilitating equitable, engaging, and effective conversations.

Now, Raddle’s AI Meeting Facilitator improves the ways teams communicate, engage, and make decisions in real time so that they can reach their maximum potential and employees feel heard. We leverage voice as an input and our facilitator algorithm to send prompts to attendees to make this happen.

While I never imagined myself working in ‘meetingville’, I get to apply my expertise around building greater equity for all to transform everyday business conversations where every voice is heard.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

Soon after we started building Raddle’s AI Meeting Facilitator, we got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to demo our product to about 12 heads of a fortune 500 company during their annual event for innovative tech companies. Just us and them.

This was a huge opportunity. The only problem was—we didn’t have our product built yet!

But you don’t get to choose when opportunity knocks. You just get to choose whether to answer or not.

Our options were A-tell them thank you but we’re not ready, and risk not being invited next year, or B-figure out a way to demo our vision. We went with B and it was a day I’ll never forget.

My cofounder and I walked into the event with a conviction that cannot be faked. We’d been up for hours prepping and were caffeinated and raring to go.

Then one of the women greeters asked us, “Is there anything you need? Because we need you to go in there and kill it for all of us.” At that point we noticed that among the founders waiting in the courtyard for their demo turn, we were the only women and there were few people of color.

We both knew this moment was bigger than us or our product. We were also representing female tech founders and founders of color.

Moments later, we went into the demo room—more determined than ever to kill it. And that’s exactly what we did. Our team combined product wireframes, designs, audio and product collateral to demo Raddle with very specific use cases that we knew spoke to this customer.

For instance— to demo what happens when someone overtalks during a meeting, I wrote a script for a long-winded, know-it-all overtalker dominating the conversation. We recorded my husband reading the lines which synched with the product demo. He sounded funny but also relateable.

After our ‘demo’ was over we listened to the executives’ feedback and fielded their questions, and before we knew it—our hour was up. Then it was a waiting game to find out what they thought.

Three weeks later we received their official response: they were ready to move forward. And the rest is history.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Before I was a tech startup founder, I worked in the fair trade industry—the global movement of producers, companies, and consumers that prioritize people and planet. Fair trade is about worker self-empowerment rather than charity, which really appeals to me.

By all accounts, I had a successful career:

I worked on the ground in Asia, Africa, South America, and Central America with NGOs, governments, and local entrepreneurs to develop equitable trade relationships; served on multiple boards including Fair Trade Federation and ebay’s World of Good; and appeared on CNN, NPR, and CBS to raise awareness about worker equitability.

But after 10 years or so, I felt professionally stagnant. I had this growing drive to pivot to something equitability-focused but on a bigger scale, I just didn’t know what.

I spent the next few years as a successful consultant while I figured out my something next. That journey of professional self-discovery was very challenging. When you’re in it—you have no idea where you’re going to land, and if your story will have a happy ending.

That experience has given me a real soft spot for people who leave the ‘comfort’ of a successful career (and paycheck!) when it no longer serves them to pursue their hearts’ desire.

Eventually I met my co-founder and Raddle was born. I certainly didn’t pick the easy road. But it feels like the right road for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://getraddle.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/raddleai/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/texdworkin/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/texdworkin