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Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging . . . Not Just PC BS
The link between diverse organizations and financial performance has been studied extensively and the conclusion is clear: Diversity provides a competitive edge. This is especially true if the organization has a diverse leadership team.1
Given this reality, it’s no wonder that companies in the United States spend hundreds of millions of dollars on diversity initiatives. And that spend increases every year. That begs the question: Are these initiatives working? Are companies getting a return on their multimillion-dollar investment?
Unfortunately, the answers are currently not so good. Despite the resources poured into initiatives to increase the number of women, minority, and other underrepresented groups, companies have seen little change and, most notably, almost no movement at the top leadership and board levels. As I’ll discuss below, a key ingredient to a successful diversity program is authenticity. Over the years I’ve seen organization after organization say they are committed to diversity, but really only giving lip service to an initiative. What these organizations don’t realize is that being inauthentic not only means you’ll see no results when it comes to diversity, but that you’ll actually see negative repercussions for the insincere efforts.
But there is good news. There are companies who have successfully tackled issues of unconscious bias to improve hiring and retention of diverse talent. Hundreds of companies have designed and executed authentic and creative inclusion strategies that make all employees feel a deep sense of belonging, which leads to maximum engagement and loyalty. These companies remain steadfast in their commitment to diversity not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it’s the business-wise thing to do.
Unconscious Bias Explained
A foundational issue related to diversity and inclusion is the effect of unconscious bias on our decision-making at work. Although the study of unconscious bias isn’t new, it’s only recently become well known. But despite the increased awareness of the term, the influence it has on our decision-making is still not fully understood by most employees or company leaders.
Unconscious biases (also called implicit biases) are social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness. In English, that means that all humans are wired to function on auto-pilot when necessary and, as a result, we sometimes have to make assumptions. Usually, these unconscious assumptions are harmless, but sometimes they can be damaging or even dangerous.
Despite our belief that our decisions are guided exclusively by logic and an objective interpretation of data, research proves otherwise. Our beliefs, and therefore our decision-making, are influenced by a number of factors including our upbringing, the news, social media posts, our past experiences, our personal or family values, and by what we see in popular culture (to name a few examples).
Based on these influences, we form judgments about certain people based on characteristics such as gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. We also base beliefs about people on issues such as level of education, whether we have things in common with them, physical attractiveness, socioeconomic status, where the person lives, and a host of other reasons.
This means we’re making decisions at work that affect every aspect of employment—from interviewing to termination, and everything in between. In other words, we’re making flawed decisions if they are based on unconscious influences that should have no bearing in the decision-making process.
Researchers have identified a number of categories of unconscious bias and have recognized that they have an impact on the workplace. Two of the most common types of unconscious bias are confirmation bias and affinity bias (sometimes called “like me” bias).
Affinity (or “Like Me”) Bias
Affinity bias is defined as a positive response to people who are similar to us. It makes sense in the context of establishing relationships, whether friendships or deciding with whom we want to work. We all gravitate toward people with whom we can form connections. The problem is that if we only hire, promote, train, mentor, or value those who are “like us,” we become organizations made up of clones rather than organizations made up of employees with innovative ideas, a cutting-edge approach to problem-solving, and with the gift of resourcefulness.
The blind orchestra auditions
Orchestra leaders, who considered themselves progressive and inclusive, noticed that professional orchestras were made up almost exclusively of men. In a well-known experiment, orchestras made an adjustment to the audition process: They had musicians audition from behind a screen, preventing the decision-makers from seeing the aspiring professional musicians. The results were immediate and dramatic—the number of women selected to play in orchestras increased. The researchers realized, however, that sometimes the decision-makers could identify whether the musician was a man or woman based on the sound of their shoes (since many female candidates wore high heels). Based on this, they made an additional adjustment. The musicians auditioned from behind a screen, but took their shoes off before walking over to the audition chair. The results were even more remarkable: This additional change increased the number of female musicians selected to an even greater degree.2
The dangers of affinity bias at work can be seen at any stage in the employee life cycle. One of the most significant is the hiring stage since the effects of biased decision-making during this critical phase contributes to the lack of diversity and inclusion, and also increases the probability of experiencing workplace drama.
Take the case of Fred. Fred needs to hire an accountant for the consulting company where he is a senior partner. He’s rejected numerous candidates, many of them women and several men who are of a different ethnic background from Fred. He cites the same reason for rejecting each previous candidate—a lack of the specific work experience to help Fred in his specialized tax and accounting practice. Specifically, while Fred acknowledges that the rejected candidates have years of general accounting experience, they don’t have experience helping global companies with complex tax issues. A few months into the hiring process, Fred interviews Jeremy, who not only lacks global tax experience, he’s also only been in accounting for a few years. But Jeremy is friendly, eager, and enthusiastic and, Fred says, Jeremy reminds him of his younger self. Fred sends out an email advocating for Jeremy and says that while it’s true Jeremy doesn’t have experience, Jeremy promised he’d “give it 110%.” Jeremy is hired.
The result? The workplace is now made up of one more person who both looks and thinks exactly like Fred. The organization lost the opportunity to hire candidates who might have been equally eager and committed, but who didn’t remind Fred of what he was like years ago. And just as bad, all of these decisions are made in full view of current employees who are told that the company is committed to diversity and inclusion. So even if Fred’s decision-making was not meant to purposely exclude certain groups, the result is exactly that.
What’s a better way? How can we identify affinity bias so that it has less of an impact on our decision-making?
One approach is to build increased structure into the interview and hiring process. Companies have used this increased structure as a safeguard to prevent bias from affecting decision-making. Those companies do the following:
- Take a close look at the language used in job postings and job descriptions to eliminate words that might create subtle messages that attract one set of applicants and discourage another from applying for the job.
- Use low-tech or high-tech solutions to scrub resumes of information that does nothing to predict whether the candidate is qualified for the position. This includes information such as name (which could give away gender or ethnicity) or date of graduation (which might indicate age).
- Create a structured interview process that includes:
- A preset list of relevant and insightful questions to ask each candidate so that every applicant gets an equal chance to talk about his/her experience, background, and ability to succeed in the position;
- A hiring committee made up of diverse interviewers; and
- A pre-set methodology to grade answers and give the candidate an overall rating.
Although creating a structure doesn’t mean the process has no flexibility, taking steps like these reduces the likelihood that affinity bias (or other unconscious biases) will negatively affect decisions in hiring.
In fact, in the example with Fred, the company could have (and should have) taken one simple step to eliminate the drama. If the hiring process had included a decision before the interviews began about what was required to succeed in the position, the decision-making would have been based on those pre-established criteria, rather than the ad-hoc criteria set as the process moved along. If, for example, the decision-makers agreed that experience—general or specific—was an absolute job requirement, then Jeremy would not have even made it to the interview stage and they would have eventually hired a candidate with the requisite experience. If, by contrast, a decision was made that experience was only preferred but not necessary, then the candidates who interviewed for the job before Jeremy would have gotten a fair shake and been more likely to be evaluated for criteria other than their lack of experience.
Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to notice evidence that supports our beliefs, preconceptions, and hypotheses, and to miss, ignore, or dismiss evidence that contradicts them. Instead of trying to falsify a hypothesis, we tend to try to confirm it.
English psychologist Peter Wason first coined the term “confirmation bias” as a result of an experiment designed to examine how people test hypotheses. Numerous studies have been conducted since that verify Wason’s results and show that once our brain makes a judgment about something, we have a tendency to look for evidence that confirms that judgment, and we tend to dismiss or ignore evidence that refutes it.
Challenging preconceptions
In Wason’s experiment, he gave participants a series of three numbers, 2–4–6, and asked them to try to identify the rule that described the sequence by offering other three-digit sequences. In response, almost all participants developed the hypothesis, based on the example given, that the rule was “three even numbers in increasing order of sequence” and therefore offered sequences such as 4–8–10, 6–8–12, and 20–22–24. The experiment leaders would respond to the participants with “yes” or “right” when a correct three-number pattern was stated, or “wrong” when a sequence was given that didn’t follow the rule.
Since participants had already formed a belief that the rule was “three even numbers in increasing order of sequence” they continued to only offer sequences based on that rule and they continued to receive confirmation that strengthened their belief. If the participants had challenged their preconceived notion by offering a sequence that broke their rule, they might have discovered that the actual rule was quite simple: “three numbers in increasing order of sequence.”3
As with affinity bias, the negative effects of confirmation bias in decision-making can be seen throughout the employee life cycle. One stage that receives too little attention but is critical for organizations that want to stay drama-free is confirmation bias when receiving, investigating, and resolving complaints of misconduct.
Here’s how I witnessed it firsthand when doing work for a large employer:
Angelina complained that Brad had been harassing her for years. She complained to Jennifer, the head of HR and said she hadn’t brought up her concerns before because she and Brad were coworkers, but now that Brad had been promoted to supervise her, she was concerned that the harassment could affect her success at work.
Jennifer dismissed Angelina’s complaint, noting that she’d seen Angelina having lunch with Brad a number of times. During those interactions, she said, Angelina was clearly comfortable. Despite her assumption, Jennifer reluctantly agreed to conduct an investigation. Jennifer was convinced Angelina’s “complaint” was most likely a way to excuse her declining performance.
Jennifer focused on interviewing witnesses who would provide information on what she thought were the two key issues: (1) that Angelina was a poor performer (she learned in an investigation training course to look for a motive to lie when determining credibility) and (2) that many coworkers knew that Angelina and Brad had a friendly and at times even playful working relationship. Jennifer didn’t speak with the witnesses Angelina identified—colleagues she said she had spoken with over the years to recount her uncomfortable interactions with Brad. Jennifer decided that these witnesses would “take Angelina’s side” and were therefore untrustworthy witnesses.
In short, Jennifer made a decision the minute Angelina finished expressing her concerns. Her conclusion was that Angelina was not exposed to inappropriate conduct and that she was most likely bringing up her concerns as a way to excuse poor performance. As a result of the judgment she made in the blink of an eye, she conducted an investigation to confirm that belief, focusing only on evidence that verified her belief, and ignoring information that may have contradicted her conclusion. This hardly qualified as an “unbiased” or “independent” workplace investigation.
The findings of her “independent” investigation were, not surprisingly, that Brad did nothing wrong. Because Jennifer made her entire investigation fit the narrative she’d developed at the outset, the company would never know whether her conclusions were an accurate depiction of what happened. The company therefore missed an opportunity to resolve the issues presented by Angelina. Even worse, it created an increased level of drama, since now Angelina viewed her company’s HR department as an enemy of employees.
And unfortunately, as was true with the example of Fred at the accounting firm, other employees were keeping a close eye on how the organization approached Angelina’s concerns. The chances of increasing gender diversity at a company that approaches allegations of sexual harassment in this manner are slim. So in addition to failing to resolve the specific issues related to Brad and Angelina, the company ended up sending a message that had the likelihood of making a significant percentage of employees feel as if they didn’t belong and exponentially increasing the chance of more workplace drama.
So what are some practical ways to eliminate, or at least decrease, confirmation bias when we receive, investigate, and resolve conflict?
- At the outset: Professionals in charge of receiving employee complaints must be meticulous about taking complaints seriously and refraining from making judgments about their validity before conducting a fair, thorough, unbiased, and good-faith investigation.
- During the investigation: Investigators need to look at evidence that supports and contradicts the allegations and must reach conclusions that are not only reasonable and fair, but that also correspond with what the evidence says. Credibility determinations should be based on an analysis of all the evidence and findings should include a deep analysis, not just conclusory statements. One easy and effective way for investigators to test their analysis and conclusion is to play devil’s advocate. When veering toward a decision, think about what advocates of the other side might say to make sure you haven’t missed any important points.
- After the investigation: Remedial measures should be equal to the misconduct found and should be structured to avoid a recurrence.
(Read more about how to conduct fair and thorough investigations and how to implement effective remedial measures in Chapter 11.)
D, I, & B . . . What’s the Difference (and Why Does it Matter)?
Diversity programs have been around for decades. Initially, the focus was almost exclusively on numbers—in particular, getting “women and minorities” in the door. Although companies saw modest success with widening the recruiting net and including additional structure in the hiring, evaluation, and promotion process, the number of diverse candidates at all levels, and particularly in leadership, remained largely stagnant. It was clear that focusing only on numbers—getting people “in the door”—wasn’t going to move the needle. One reason was a high level of attrition among diverse employees. Many candidates leaving companies explained that they found the work environment unfamiliar or even unwelcoming.
This chapter focuses primarily on diversity initiatives related to increased representation of woman and ethnic minorities. This isn’t because other categories of diversity aren’t important, but because most of the research and real-life examples involve these categories. Over time, more attention will be paid to other groups, but it’s safe to assume that many if not all of the principles outlined here that are related to gender and ethnic diversity apply to other types of diverse characteristics. For example, there is every reason to believe that companies who value and highlight diversity based on factors such as disability, membership in the LGBTQ community, generational diversity, diversity in religion, veteran status, and other factors, would also lead to better business results.
The result? Companies began focusing not only on diversity (numbers) but also on inclusion. Organizations realized that while they might have had modest success getting candidates in the door, those same candidates left, often citing feelings of exclusion and discomfort as a reason for leaving.
This created a cycle: The already challenging task of recruiting diverse talent became more difficult since diverse candidates began asking about the company’s demographics, and the failure to bring in new diverse hires only made the current employees feel less included, which increased the chances they’d leave the company, therefore making it harder to recruit new diverse employees. And so on and so on.
Companies kicked their efforts up a notch and in addition to having recruiting mechanisms to increase diversity, they began adding programs aimed at promoting, engaging, and retaining diverse talent. This included mentoring programs, affinity groups (groups to represent needs of and be a voice for diverse employees), diversity councils, and various other programs geared toward bringing diverse employees into the company fold.
More recently, companies have adopted the term “belonging” instead of “inclusion” or “fit.” Belonging is the feeling of psychological safety that employees feel when they can be their authentic selves at work, without fear that they’ll be judged. The theory is that by focusing on belonging, rather than making people “fit” a preconceived notion, there will be a greater sense of true unity and collaboration and that will not only translate into more success in a company’s quest to achieve diversity, but will also translate into greater business success.
“Old School” Plans No Longer Work
There were a few other issues that came up along the road from “diversity” to “diversity, inclusion, and belonging.” In fact, less-progressive companies are still somewhere on that path and might still be looking at diversity through the old-fashioned (and unsuccessful) lens of the 1970s and 1980s diversity plans.
When diversity was first introduced as an important workplace goal, it was often mixed in with compliance and legal issues. Many believed that achieving diversity was only a matter of complying with the law: enforcing antidiscrimination and antiharassment laws and implementing a legally compliant equal employment opportunity (EEO) policy. For those companies with federal contracts, they also complied with legal requirements related to affirmative action plans. Affirmative action plans require that federal contractors track their employee demographics, specifically focusing on issues of gender, race/ethnicity, and veteran status. The plans also require that companies set goals to increase employee percentages in those categories if they are lower than they should be.
Unfortunately, companies conflated these legal mandates with diversity programs. We therefore saw (and still see) companies who say their “diversity plan” is to prohibit illegal discrimination and harassment and to publish and enforce an EEO policy. While it’s great that these companies are complying with minimum legal mandates, this is no diversity plan.
Why It Matters Now More Than Ever: Demographic Trends
For those of you who are on the fence about whether to start a diversity initiative (or strengthen an existing one), you should pay attention to two demographic trends that might influence your decision.
First, the United States is more racially and ethnically diverse and will be even more so in the coming years. In fact, by 2055, the United States will not have a single racial or ethnic group that makes up a majority of the population.4
Additionally, millennials—those born between 1981 and 1996—will surpass baby boomers as the country’s largest adult generation.5
The combination of these two trends means that the millennial generation is the most racially diverse adult generation in U.S. history, with 43% indicating they are “non-white.”6
Why are these trends important?
One recent survey provides an answer. It shows that millennials not only expect companies to be committed to diversity and inclusion for business reasons, they see it as a moral imperative and have unique ideas about how to measure success—subjectively by measuring engagement and connection, rather than just through numbers. In fact, data from the survey indicates that more than half would take a pay cut to work for a company who shares their values and nearly half (47%) actively look to see if their prospective employer has a diversity and inclusion program before making a final decision about whether to join a company.7
This is not to say that companies should ignore the obvious and proven financial benefits that come from having a diverse workforce, including the competitive advantage of talent acquisition and retention, but it does mean that a modern initiative will incorporate subjective factors related to innovation, relationships, and a sense of belonging into their initiatives.
Best Practices and Emerging Trends for Creating, Executing, and Selling Your Initiative
So how do the concepts of diversity, inclusion, belonging, and unconscious bias work at work? What can companies do to successfully design and execute a diversity initiative?
Leading companies make inclusion part of their DNA—not just with employees, but with customers, suppliers, investors, and other stakeholders. Here are some specific ways they use their commitment to these issues as a key to stave off workplace drama.
Authenticity
I’ve talked about the importance of authenticity already, but it’s worth repeating, especially in the context of diversity and inclusion. Too many companies say they’re committed to an inclusive culture that welcomes diverse employees. They write about it at length on their website; their recruiting and hiring managers know the “we love diversity” script by heart; and the company shows off the various diversity awards they’ve won over the years. There’s only one problem—they don’t really mean it.
When you dig a bit deeper with these companies, you realize they have a hard time recruiting and even more so retaining women, ethnically and racially diverse professionals, disabled individuals, members of the LGBTQ community, and those who are allies to members of those communities. But why? After all, these companies have affinity groups for all those employees, they have a diversity council and they have leaders who say they are fully committed. Yes, but . . .
The truth is that when push comes to shove, their decisions highly favor the status quo. There is rampant bias—women getting “low-balled” during salary negotiations, diverse employees asked to serve on diversity councils with no rewards for that work at compensation time, high-powered leaders allowed to get away with misconduct, and the list goes on.
Here’s the truth about authenticity when it comes to diversity: A company is much better off being honest and saying it doesn’t choose to emphasize diversity, instead of deceptively saying it is committed to it.
This point bears repeating: If your company isn’t fully and genuinely committed to diversity (or is lukewarm in its commitment), it’s better to be quiet about diversity than to promote it as a core value.
I guarantee that faking it will come back to haunt you. Saying you’re committed to diversity to be PC, to improve your chances of getting investors to pay attention, to make it on a list of best places to work or simply to look good isn’t enough, and employees will smell the bogus pledge from miles away.
Seeing through inauthenticity
Here’s an example of a typical way in which a company with an inauthentic commitment to diversity fares.
A diverse employee joins the company believing the hype that the organization is a champion of diversity. Soon, that diverse employee discovers she is paid less than her male counterparts, she sees male leaders are allowed to get away with misconduct, she sees hiring and promotion policies being skirted for the boss’s cronies, and she meets other employees who are equally dissatisfied with issues of fairness and equity.
This employee receives emails and attends events where the company brags about diversity awards and publishes its diversity newsletter touting the impact the company’s diverse employees have in the industry.
Rather than having a positive effect, the company’s disingenuous boasting about its commitment to diversity causes anger and backlash. “I mean, it’s bad enough that the company isn’t really committed to diversity,” the employee thinks, “but what’s worse is that the company leaders think I’m naive enough to believe they are, just because they publish glossy marketing material about it and brag about their substandard diversity numbers being only slightly better than the pathetic industry average.”
All of the money, time, and effort this company has wasted on publicizing its commitment to hiring, promoting, and retaining top diverse talent is wasted and would be better spent on a corporate effort toward which the company has a true dedication.
Authenticity is a key ingredient to get your company to the top of the Healthy Workplace Culture Pyramid, but it’s especially critical as it relates to a company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Trickle-Down Effect
Yes, a true commitment to diversity starts at the top, but that authentic commitment needs to flow down to other managers and supervisors.
As stated in McKinsey’s leading report on inclusion and diversity:
Companies increasingly recognize that commitment to inclusion and diversity starts at the top, with many companies publicly committing to an I&D agenda. Leading companies go further, cascading this commitment throughout their organizations, particularly to middle management. They promote ownership by their core businesses, encourage role modeling, hold their executives and managers to account, and ensure efforts are sufficiently resourced and supported centrally.8
This means leading companies don’t focus on old-fashioned metrics like setting numeric goals to evaluate manager performance (quota-setting); they develop fresh ways to teach managers how to create a sense of belonging. Leading companies teach managers innovative ways to discuss sensitive topics to help employees better understand each other, connect, and build empathy. Leading companies give managers clear information and guidance so they fully understand and are on board with the company’s inclusion goals and can clearly communicate those goals to their own employees. And leading companies involve managers in decision-making about the initiative, so they feel a true sense ownership in the process.
Creative Communication and Branding
Words matter. While the terms “diversity” and “inclusion” should conjure up positive images, they have become politically charged words, often eliciting extreme reactions.
I’m not suggesting we ditch these words altogether, but I do suggest taking a careful look at your workplace to gauge whether or not such terminology will doom your efforts from the start. Try working with your company’s marketing and branding experts to come up with a unique brand for your diversity efforts, including any training.
While there is no magic word or phrase, I’ve had success with slogans such as “We Are One,” “Stronger Together,” and “One Team.” This and similar messaging that precisely defines the ultimate goal of your efforts—bringing together the entire mosaic of your talent—leads to a win-win for employees and companies alike.
Staying Current
Stay abreast of important terminology and what impact is has on your diversity and inclusion initiative. Your employees are probably hearing or reading about many of these cutting-edge terms on TV, podcasts, or on social media posts. A professional committed to inclusion must therefore keep up.
Belonging
Belonging isn’t synonymous with “fitting in.” Brené Brown, a professor at the University of Houston who studies vulnerability and belonging, explains the difference as: Fitting in and belonging are separate things. Fitting in involves people changing themselves in order to be accepted. Belonging allows people to be accepted as they are.9
Covering
New York University Professor Kenji Yoshino is a leading researcher on the topic of covering. Yoshino conducted research with his colleague Christie Smith based on a hypothesis that the pressure to “cover” sometimes prevents employees from bringing their authentic selves to work. He says, “underrepresented groups pay a ‘tax,’ which we call ‘covering,’ in which they are asked to downplay their identity in order to fit into the mainstream.” He asked study respondents whether they covered along four axes: appearance, affiliation, advocacy, and association.
In addition to collecting aggregate data, his survey also asked respondents to share stories. Two he notes are, “When I wore my natural hair it always seemed to be the subject of conversation as if that single feature defined who I am as a person” and “Even though I am of Chinese descent, I would never correct people if they make jokes or comments about Asian stereotypes.”
Yoshino’s research also found that straight white men often cover. He gives the example of Franklin D. Roosevelt, because the president was careful to hide his disability by sitting behind a desk for meetings and only being photographed or filmed from the waist up so people did not see him in a wheelchair.10
In fact, Christie has performed research that suggests that up to 45% of straight white men cover, for example, to downplay a mental health issue they might be experiencing.11
The significance of this research is that it highlights the importance of creating a mechanism to make sure all employees at your organization feel safe and comfortable being authentic, without fear that showing who they are (within the bounds of professionalism and appropriateness) will result in exclusion.
Cultural Competency
With an increasingly diverse workforce that works with global colleagues and clients, it’s essential that everyone at work becomes well-versed in customs, communication styles, and worldviews that are not recognized as stereotypically “American.” While this doesn’t mean we have to turn ourselves into pretzels or that we have to always be ultra-vigilant about political correctness, it does mean that if you’re committed to being respectful and inclusive, and if you want to make everyone at work feel like they truly belong, then you will seek to not only become familiar with how others communicate, but will also be open to sharing information about your own preferences. This type of curiosity and mutual respect are hallmarks to a successful inclusion and diversity program.
Culture Fit
This term culture fit has received a bad rap, but for good reason. For too long, the term was used to weed out those who were considered “not like us” and that usually meant not of our race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or gender. The term itself has value, however. The key is to use the phrase precisely and to define it whenever it’s used. It most often comes up during the hiring process when a hiring manager is choosing between candidates and wonders whether they will “fit” in their workplace culture.
If this term is used to exclude candidates based on a protected category, it’s not only bad business, it’s illegal. If, however, the term is being used to define the work culture—that is, the values, mission, and behaviors that make your company your company—then it’s appropriate to use the phrase. But make sure everyone is on the same page. At an interview, tell the candidate, “At our company, we take our jobs seriously, but we don’t take ourselves seriously. That means we are all committed to meeting our objective of working together and working hard to achieve our company goal to go public next year. We work long hours and everyone needs to wear five different hats in order to get the job done. But we’re very casual . . . professional and respectful, but casual and fun. We’re really like a family here. We’ve found that people who are on board with this type of corporate culture succeed here. Does that sound like the type of culture that you’d thrive in?”
One final word on culture fit: Hiring for fit shouldn’t mean that you hire only those who will blindly follow what is currently being done. Hiring those who are a “culture add” is often an effective way to keep your ideas and actions innovative.
Equity
Leading companies focus on equality, sure, but they also focus on equity. The distinction is important—whether achieving equity in hiring, promotion, or pay, savvy inclusion professionals know the difference. In short, equality means treating everyone the same, assuming the same resources will lead to equal success. Equity means giving employees what they actually need in order to succeed. This means learning your employees’ language of workplace motivation, being open to providing a different way of succeeding without judgment that it is different from “your way,” and having honest conversations with employees about what tools they need to succeed. It might also mean changing systems to address possible systemic barriers to equity.
Insider/Outsider
There is no magic definition for these words. An “insider” is someone who feels like she belongs while an “outsider” feels like she’s on the outside looking in. The importance of these terms isn’t in their definition but in their application. If the goal of a sophisticated inclusion program is to make people feel authentic and as if they belong, then it’s equally vital to recognize that there are a number of reasons why an employee might feel like an outsider. The trick is to develop mechanisms that recognize that some might feel excluded and then design plans to increase inclusion.
Intersectionality
Although still not widely recognized by the general public, intersectionality is a key term for anyone who wants to fully understand inclusion. The term was coined by legal scholar and law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw. She first used it in a 1989 essay that discussed how antidiscrimination law, feminist theory, and political movements aimed to eliminate racism all fail to address the experiences of black women because they only focus on a single factor—race or gender. Crenshaw says that because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account can’t fully explain the subordination black women are exposed to.12
Her research has been expanded to include other women of color as well as any other individual or employee who has intersecting characteristics. In fact, in the 2017 joint McKinsey/Lean In research study on women in the workplace, they found:
“The intersection of race and gender shapes women’s experiences in meaningful ways. Women of color face more obstacles and a steeper path to leadership, from receiving less support from managers to getting promoted more slowly. This affects how they view the workplace and their opportunities for advancement. Overall, two patterns are clear: compared to white women, things are worse for women of color, and they are particularly difficult for Black women.”13
Microaggressions
“Microaggressions are the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership.”14
Although some might dismiss these microaggressions as meaningless because they tend to be minor slights, in the aggregate they not only cause psychological harm to the recipient, they decrease the sense of belonging and therefore can sabotage your diversity and inclusion efforts.
Privilege
According to author and professor Michael Kimmel, “privilege comes in a myriad of forms, including race, gender, wealth, physical fitness, safety, and educational attainment and indeed height. However, the people who have those things are usually unaware of their power and influence.” He recommends that companies recognize and talk about the privilege and power that comes from having certain characteristics and use those to more evenly distribute power in workplace decision-making. Specifically, as it relates to gender relations at work, he recommends:
- Making gender visible and showing men why having these conversations and solving problems is just as important for men as it is for women.
- Tackling resistance to the idea of privilege in ways that increase understanding.
- Making a business case for gender equality at work.
- Making it personal by sharing stories about life at work and at home.15
. . .
Not every workplace will be ready to discuss some of these cutting-edge concepts in relation to their inclusion work, but for those of you who are ready to design and deploy a more advance, relevant, and elegant plan, understanding these terms, and helping your workforce understand them, is crucial.
Measure, Analyze, Adjust
A strategic plan related to diversity and inclusion goals must also include a way to measure a company’s progress. First, determine your baseline—where are you now? These measurements might include demographic data related to your population and should also measure employees’ sense of belonging, engagement, and statistics that track the employee life cycle to identify barriers. These barriers might be evidenced in promotion rates, disparate salaries, candidate statistics, and employment yield rates (how many diverse candidates are offered jobs; how many accept the position offered). Also look at data related to attrition rates and data related to complaints, investigation, and resolution of misconduct claims.
Once you’ve measured the information, analyze the data for possible blind spots or areas where additional intervention is necessary. And don’t forget about the value of comments and stories. Combine those with the quantitative data to create a snapshot of where you are now, and create a plan for where you want to go (and how to get there).
Link to Your Business
Remain meticulous about linking efforts to drivers of business growth. Make the business case for diversity, but do so in a way that is customized for your organization.
Design Creative Training Programs
As I’ll discuss in greater detail in Chapter 10, the key to workplace training is to focus on building skills, increasing understanding and empathy, and positively impacting behavior (as opposed to using fear-based, compliance-focused training, which companies have used for decades and which have done nothing to improve workplace culture).
One method I use in my “We Are One” sessions is to create meaningful connections. In an effort to promote genuine bonding and camaraderie, use training activities that highlight what employees have in common rather than focusing exclusively on differences.
Researchers from various universities banded together recently to explore this further. Specifically, they wanted to see if some creative diversity training techniques might be successful in creating greater understanding and connections.
First, the researchers used “perspective-taking” training, which “is essentially the process of mentally walking in someone else’s shoes.” They also used an activity involving goal setting, “asking training participants to set specific, measurable, and challenging (yet attainable) goals related to diversity in the workplace.”
While the researchers recognize that their experiment involved a small-scale sample of undergraduate students, their findings are nonetheless instructive. They found that both these exercises (perspective-taking and goal setting) positively affected behavior. The participants displayed more support and engaged in less mistreatment toward marginalized minorities.
The researchers recognize that these activities might be better (or worse) suited depending on the employee. For example, the perspective-taking exercise might be especially effective for employees who lack empathy, and might not have the same effect on those who already have strong empathy skills (likely because empathetic employees essentially already do perspective-taking exercises on their own, even if they’re unaware they’re doing so).16
The value of this experiment is to both highlight the need for creativity in training and to shift the focus away from attitudinal outcomes (the bias felt toward a group) or cognitive outcomes (how well-informed a person is about stereotypes and biases), and instead focus on positively affecting understanding, empathy, and behavior.
Relinquish Control
A pioneer in the study of workplace diversity efforts, Harvard Professor Frank Dobbins correctly advocates for companies to give managers more control in the process of developing and executing an inclusion and diversity strategy. Professor Dobbins notes that tools used by companies that are not authentically committed to diversity instead use tools that are “designed to preempt lawsuits by policing managers.” They are not meant to actually move the needle but instead are seen as an effective way to manage legal risk. But, Professor Dobbins notes, people often rebel against rules that are meant to repress autonomy, and therefore these measures often do more harm than good (“Try to coerce me to do X, Y, or Z, and I’ll do the opposite just to prove I’m my own person.”).
Instead of trying to control managers, Professor Dobbins suggests we engage them in solving problems, increase their on-the-job contact with diverse employees, and promote social accountability (the desire to look fair-minded).17
Many companies have realized that paying attention to acquiring and retaining diverse talent, creating an environment of inclusion, and establishing ways to make all employees feel like they belong are key ways to prevent drama at work. The key is to study what leading companies are doing right and customize a plan in your organization to replicate those winning results.