Ideas in the Wild: Joann Wortham On How to Lead the Market with Diverse Teams
If leaders want to leap ahead of the competition with a fast, creative team that brings the next big thing to market first, every time, they must start by eradicating the implicit EDI-related biases that make it impossible for trust and cohesion to thrive.
Diverse teams foster innovation at a much faster rate than their competitors. That’s a proven fact. For any leader looking to build these teams and move their organization’s culture barometer toward a welcoming, diverse, innovative workforce, EDI Is the New Black offers a roadmap to success.
Right now, there’s a sweeping reckoning of equity, diversity, and inclusion occurring at the highest levels within both government and private industry. Instead of struggling to make meaningful change or handling resistance and backlash, leaders can create a work environment that fosters equitable, inclusive operations — increasing employee engagement and bolstering the organization’s mission, values, and bottom line. I recently caught up with Joann to learn more about why she wrote the book and the ideas she shares with readers.
Why did you write this book?
When employees find themselves in an inequitable work environment, the organization loses employee engagement, team innovation, work productivity, employee retention, and return on investment. Employees lose a great deal as well: authenticity, energy, ingenuity, individual creativity, career advancement goals, and engagement and connection with the employer and work.
Most leaders have taken the first steps to make cultural change simply because it is the right thing to do. This is admirable. However, research supports that most organization’s equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) initiatives are dead in the water before they start because of the narrow focus on minority representation. Building a diverse workforce is without a doubt a smart move, but forward-thinking leaders learn to look beyond numbers to tap into the wealth of knowledge and transformative gains diverse teams can offer.
EDI Is the New Black is my answer to a question I’ve heard from many executives: How do leaders create a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive organization and ultimately ensure that every employee thrives and gives their best? Some of these executives secured my services after flurries of employment practice liability claims. Many others brought me on as an organizational culture consultant. In all cases, I could have used a book like this to steer leaders away from quick fixes to recoup finances and regain reputation to a long-term model of change that encourages and values diverse people and ideals.
My goal is to help leaders steer their organization “into the black.” This expression was first coined by accountants who recorded positive earnings in black ink and negative debts in red. While the information I provide may lead to additional earnings and expanded market share, the net gain is more than the sum of the bottom line. In this instance, “in the black” reaches beyond mere financial earnings into gains in human capital return on investment, work process evolution, and innovative problem solving — the new black.
What’s an idea you share that really excites you?
Creating an equitable work environment benefits all employees and the employer by ensuring an engaged workforce. Employers can start operationalizing equity by taking the following steps:
Start with an assessment of current practices. Equitable organizations do not get that way by ignoring their everyday business operations. As a risk manager, I have participated in employment practice liability (EPL) risk assessments that comb through policies and procedures associated with hiring, onboarding, compensation, promotions, disciplinary procedures, dismissals, exit interviews, and other documentation related to employment practice law. I consider this type of assessment “bare boned” because risk mitigation is strictly centered around applicable federal and state laws.
More advanced assessment tools examine culture, engagement, employee safety, employee wellness, and diversity and inclusion subsets. These go a step further to analyze additional quantitative and qualitative data streams.
Alongside the assessment, organizations should conduct formal employee interviews using a gap analysis methodology. A gap analysis involves looking for varying degrees of access to resources and privileges. If you want to know what is really going on in the organization, ask the people who inhabit the environment on a daily basis. Personnel can often speak to hidden inequitable practices and cultural dynamics and even offer solutions. The least you will get for your trouble is appreciative employees who thank you for taking the time to listen.
Then the task is to furnish resources to those with less access to allow them to take fair advantage of the opportunities offered to all employees. For instance, to decrease possible bias, minority candidates may have a better chance of being hired if you put a diverse hiring committee in place rather than one hiring manager. Once they are hired, how can you support minority and underrepresented groups to further their career? Leadership coaches? Mentors? On-the-job training? What would help to increase opportunity and remove institutional barriers to advancement?
How will implementing your idea improve your readers’ lives?
In an increasingly complex and culturally diverse world, we cannot expect anyone to innately understand and know how to work with others from different cultures, occupations, or professions. We must sit in the learner’s seat, assuming we have much to gain from connecting with those from different races, cultures, backgrounds, and thought groups. This is the art of collaboration, culture change, and purposeful leadership.
Hiring candidates of various cultures and backgrounds is only the start of the journey. If leaders fail to create an environment of belonging and inclusion, their hires will leave, and the vision of having diverse teams will fail repeatedly. It takes a workplace with fertile ground for EDI growth and sustainment to realize the benefits of diverse teams.
By following the playbook I provide in EDI Is the New Black, leaders and organizations can successfully create a work environment that values individual authenticity and foster individual creativity that furthers institutional goals. They will learn how to advocate for all employees to realize their career advancement goals, which will, in turn, help the organization reap the benefits of team members’ unique skill sets and cultural offerings.
Furthermore, by making headway with fostering equity, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace, organizations will see sustained levels of high energy and ingenuity in the workspace, increased human connection, and less employee turnover.
At the end of the day, EDI Is the New Black will help leaders create a work environment where they and their employees can thrive.
