Designing for Inclusivity

“There has to be this understanding that this is going to be slower. It might be more frustrating. It’s going to be the more challenging road, but it’s going to have the longer payout in the end.”

Last week, BLEEKER’s 2017 Fellowship cohort gathered to design solutions on behalf of an exciting and quickly-scaling early-stage company seeking greater inclusivity in their business practices. We thought that our Fellows’ intelligent + thoughtful recommendations might be helpful to other founders who aspire to bake inclusion into their business, so we decided to publish an edited transcript of their presentations.

The following recommendations were presented to the participating company’s leadership team on Wednesday, February 15th.

First, we wanted to say that we appreciated that you came in and said, “We have this problem,” and the problem that you presented is a problem that makes yourselves vulnerable. And you are recognizing it and wanting to do something about it yourselves. So kudos for that. Now, where to start…

One thing I said to my group is the problem of racism is every problem everywhere. We have to put that on the table. And I want to encourage you to be as explicit as possible as you’re thinking about that problem and how to tackle it. When you’re working on racism, especially speaking white person to white person, the place to start is with yourself. So, where to start is with [your leadership team]. We could have come in with ideas about your business plan, but we wanted to start with you. And asking you guys to take a good look at yourselves and where you fit in all of this.

The problem of racism is every problem everywhere.

An analogy for racism that somebody else came up with is this:

We’re all on this moving escalator. And you could either be walking up the escalator as it’s moving, and moving with it. Or you could be standing still, but you’re still going to move with it because that’s the direction our society’s moving. But if you want to do something, you’ve got to jump off and run the other direction.

And so again, there’s this idea of thinking about yourself: How are you going to take those proactive steps starting with yourself? One question is How are you going to educate yourself? What are you listening to? What are you reading?

We have some tactical suggestions and I’m not going to get into them for the sake of time. But fundamentally, what are you doing to educate yourself about race, class, issues of diversity inclusivity in society?

That also goes with your network. We’re all naturally attached to certain networks. That’s who we grow up around. That’s who we interact with through business. So, what are you doing to expand that network? How are you using social media to expand your network and to bridge the gap, bridge the cliques? There are some people who are clicking over here, clicking over here, but how are we bringing those together?

And then there’s purpose. In terms of purpose, we think that there’s work for you to do around defining why do you want to do this work. And what is it about inclusion that you want to accomplish?

We also wanted to throw out that the word “diversity” itself is really a word for white people. It’s not a very compelling word for people of color. And so we have “inclusion” there as a suggestion. There are other words too, like “racism” and “racial inequality” if that’s the angle that you want to take. But be specific about what it is you’re trying to tackle because “diversity” is a broad, feel-good word. You should get away from that word and be specific about who’s being impacted with that.

We also wanted to throw out that the word “diversity” itself is really a word for white people.

We drew up a table of contents here that includes three ways that we think can bring about the change you desire. One is training via Undoing Racism at The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. But there are so many other training sessions, programs, etc. We think we can talk from a very high level about how to attack [racism,] but if you’re not in the weeds, and really touching the curriculum, then you can’t really change your business.

And then there’s reading. There is an author, her name is Nikole Hannah-Jones, and she writes about school segregation and integration, in New York City especially. She had a piece in the New York Times magazine called Choosing a School for my Daughter in a Segregated City. She brought her daughter into this story, but normally she write about it just as a journalist. And what she does is she tackles the history. She really looks at why are we so segregated in school spaces, but the idea here is the problem that you’re trying to tackle, it’s steeped in history. You have to know why it is that we are where we are. Secondly, it’s a problem that’s being addressed in so many different industries. So whether it’s through education, or other organizations that are tackling it, there are lots of things you can read, as long as you are reading specifically about this issue.

And then there’s dialogue. So how are you — aside from just reading — interacting around the subject matter that will inevitably change your business? You should have some some ways to dialogue or some people to dialogue with.

Who are your advisors? Who are those people that really do understand what’s happening systemically and/or have started businesses where they’ve reached the same problem of — whether they have nobody on their teams that are of color, or nobody actually showing up who is of color, who are those organizations that have reached this point?

It’s more than just, “Let me take my boy who’s black and bring him into the business,” because that may be faulty. That person may have a very similar background to a lot of the people who support your organization. And what do they provide? That brings us back to the question of, do you just want to look inclusive in your photos or do you really want an inclusive environment?

Then there’s a Racial Equity Impact Assessment. Basically, it’s seven or eight questions that you, as an organization, would ask yourself every time you’re making an organizational decision. So maybe do this assessment. And then after you’ve gone through all of this training, reading and dialogue, do it again. That’s how you can measure change. Like, what is your mission now?

After having realized all this history that maybe you didn’t know or these other organizations that have reached the point at which you are. How does that change your business? And maybe it changes your business model. Maybe it changes everything.

So, be clear about what your mission is today, and then what your mission is once you’ve been able to sort of digest this.

We wanted to talk about things that, from a business perspective, that you can do that will really impact diversity, and impact your product, and impact the way that you see this desire or this growth in inclusion throughout your business.

What we’ll break down for you is really this idea that you must have this vision of inclusion from the inside. And when we talk about from the inside, we’re talking about it from a number of areas. The people and the talent. The resources and partners. And even your vendors. Inclusivity needs to be a part of your values. And so you have to really have it ingrained in everything that you do, and so as you roll out your values, it’s something to keep in mind.

The earlier you consider inclusivity and the earlier you add it into your business and your values, the easier it’s going to be and the more it’s going to yield in the longer run. Hopefully, it won’t put you in the position where you’re backward looking. And so we thought a really important thing that you can do quickly, a little hanging fruit, is looking at an advisory board. And knowing that if your ambition is to have a more inclusive society that [supports your business], you must have that reflected in your advisory board. And if you can find the real ambassadors who you feel you can empower and get them into the fold of what you will embrace as real values that would be helpful.

The earlier you consider inclusivity and the earlier you add it into your business and your values, the easier it’s going to be and the more it’s going to yield in the longer run.

The second piece of that is your suppliers and vendors. It might take longer to establish relationships with those vendors who exactly can satisfy your needs. But you’re including the inclusion and the diversity at the front-end rather than trying to reverse-engineer it later.

Regarding your company’s investors, if you can bucket them in ways that support your inclusivity goals, while this activity doesn’t really help you achieve certain goals right now, it will help provide you with balance. Maybe the lead time and the education that is required for specific investor buckets are different depending on where they’re coming from or the culture they’re coming from. And so that might be a consideration to have when you’re looking at that financing. Maybe some investors that have the money that’s right there, ready to be put to work, aren’t necessarily going to help you achieve an inclusivity goal that you’re seeking. Maybe you need to give yourself some more time and vet some other people.

So, there has to be this understanding that this is going to be slower. It might be more frustrating. It’s going to be the more challenging road, but it’s going to have the longer payout in the end.

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We were founded in 2013 for all the extraordinary people fed-up with doing ordinary work. Over the next three years, we interviewed 1,000+ cross-disciplinary professionals to better understand the unmet needs of these extraordinary people. We’ve used this understanding to develop programs that support companies and individuals.