Advancing Racial Equity in Design: The Field Guide
In the summer of 2020, amidst the global pandemic and a contentious social landscape, it seemed like every day there was another story on the news about a Black person getting killed, or some instance of brutality being committed against Black people. The outraged public reaction to the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer captured on video was a boiling point, but sadly, the news and the list of those harmed and killed continued. Between the outrages committed against Black people, the protests, and then the backlash against the protests, people of all backgrounds were hurt, angry, frustrated. At this time, my co-author and I did not know one another.
This was a particularly challenging time. The hurt and anger was deep. I thought about my two older brothers. My younger sister. Myself. Black people were being killed in their homes! Where’s our safe haven? The ray of light in this dark time was the societal response. There was a collective frustration and a collective decision to do something about it. And it made me think of my parents, and how, if they were alive to see this, what they would do, and how I could make them proud in this moment in time. I knew I couldn’t stand by and do nothing. However I could serve the movement — whether it was marching, or writing, or designing, or some combination of all of the above — being a part of change was happening. — Renee Albert (RA)
I’ve always been outraged by the reality of racism and thought I usually made efforts to be completely consistent with how I treated people equally. And as a manager with a background in content design and development, I’ve worked with a wide range of people, diverse in race, culture, age, experience, and geography. I have many books in my home office that are dear to me, by Baldwin, DuBois, King, Coates, X, Belafonte, Tatum, Shetterly, Wilkerson, Abdul-Jabbar and many others. But after viewing the video of George Floyd’s murder, I was shocked, angry, and also had feelings of sadness and futility. What could I do with these feelings? And how were my colleagues, especially Black colleagues feeling? What could I do to help them, and to help us all? — Rob Pierce (RP)
Meanwhile, work, life, and some kind of work/life balance must go on. It is never entirely comfortable to show colleagues how you are feeling, or if it is clear that level of openness would be welcome. This time of upheaval and strife exposed a need for physically, emotionally, and psychologically safe spaces where people can share, grieve, connect, and trust.
While none of this ongoing trauma was particularly new for Black Americans, what was perhaps new was a greater desire by a broader spectrum of society taking action in some meaningful way, even if that meant just reaching out to a friend or colleague to check in with them, to try to help them feel cared about, supported, and not isolated. And at IBM, our leaders and colleagues spoke up, reached out, and advocated for the critical importance of diversity and inclusion and to unequivocally state that Black lives absolutely mattered.
Phil Gilbert, IBM Design’s general manager led a special town hall to address and discuss this sad reality and critically important topic. Design executive Nigel Prentice took on the additional role of leading IBM Design’s Racial Equity in Design initiative. Several Black Designers shared stories that shed light on their lived experiences. It was from these powerful conversations that the initiative’s workstreams took flight. And it was through these powerful conversations and the work of the Field Guide that connected Rob and I as colleagues and sparked a lasting friendship.
Teaming, Learning, and Trust
While racial injustice in America and its history evokes feelings of horror and outrage for many people, it is critically important to consider how the echoes of this system and its generational trauma impact Black people today. The awareness of structural/institutional, systemic, and pervasive racism, unconscious bias, and the impacts on peoples’ mental and physical health and well-being, are concepts and realities that many people do not notice or think about. No one wants to carry the burden of history on their shoulders everyday, but here we all are, gathered in our collective hallways, with the same brand of backpack, just in different colors and slightly different styles. As a design community of diverse colleagues, if our culture is one of growth and inclusion, we have to ask ourselves, what can we do? How might we apply racial equity practices to our internal processes and make measurable differences for Black designers, and ultimately enact change for all underrepresented communities?
The tragedy of George Floyd was one of the sparks that set in motion the IBM Design community to begin working on Racial Equity in Design. While embarking on this work had its unknowns, what we knew for certain was that we needed to build a community of trust, empathy, transparency, and psychological safety.
The Racial Equity in Design new language workstream was formed with the purpose of creating safe and brave spaces for Black designers. And as members of this team, we talked about safe spaces, what shape that might take, and how we could provide them for our colleagues.
For us, this meant being able to not only engage in honest and open conversation, but also be able to offer tools and support that ensure that these spaces exist within the company.
Safe spaces are places such as forums, Slack channels, physical and virtual gatherings, where people can let their guard down and be authentic, and have the safety to be brave enough to have those conversations about sensitive topics, no matter how difficult they get.
We engaged a wide range of people and resources to inform the definition of safe space, and how people would benefit from them. We learned from each other as we shared and allowed each other the trust and empathy for discussion to happen with honesty, curiosity, and caring.
In order for a safe space to be successful, we identified four areas that were needed in order for them to thrive: Trust, Transparency, Empathy, and Empowerment. Key to the success of the workstream was truly living those values.
We asked ourselves questions such as, “how can we practice this safe space among ourselves right now?” We thought a lot about and discussed what was going on in the world all around us and how can we better support Black designers at work? We held difficult conversations and asked difficult questions.
As a Black designer, it was a scary yet liberating experience to expand conversation outside of my trusted circle of colleagues. Scary, in that opening up meant exposing my sensitivity and closely held feelings to people that I did not know well. It was liberating in learning that my apprehension was not unique. -RA
As a white manager contributing to this effort, did I realize, and was I mindful of, the words, phrases, and tone I might be using and the impact it might have on a diverse set of colleagues? The answer is mostly an emphatic yes, but was I sensitive to the wide range of lived-experiences from which colleagues were coming from and living in? Perhaps not as well as I might be doing… — RP
Our learning process was informed by a diversity of resources, research, and conversation with our fellow colleagues. People started sharing their stories, their lived experiences, and more people were listening and caring about those stories.
I learned that we need to lean on the strengths of our community to learn, grow, heal, and impart change — together. Some days we will traverse miles, some days only a few steps. But we keep walking, and we continue to inspire and lift each other up, until we ALL cross the finish line. — RA
I learned, and frankly became mortified, by the depths of structural racism and its impacts to the safety, health, and well-being of Black Americans every day. — RP
During waves of racial unrest, difficult conversations can make for stronger connections. Obviously in life, particularly when you are speaking with folks from different backgrounds, different lived experiences that you may or may not be clued into, informed of, or even sensitive to, creating safe spaces for dialogue can build a shared understanding.
In our Field Guide design work, we put these ideals into practice.
Co-creating a Field Guide
Fostering an environment of diversity and inclusion for Black designers isn’t solely on the Black designer. It is on all of us, as colleagues, managers, leaders, and friends, to support our teams and build an authentic culture of trust among one another. Ultimately this is what led the Racial Equity in Design new language workstream to develop a field guide for leaders and managers.
As stated in the guide, it is “intended to help design managers take the necessary actions to advance racial equity on their teams, lead conversations on sensitive topics, and foster engagement instead of retreat. This guide can be used both in response to difficult current events and as a general and ongoing primer.”
The key call to actions within the guide are: designing an inclusive culture, building diverse teams, and sponsoring underrepresented designers. Each section contains suggestions and conversation starters to help “design managers take the necessary actions to advance racial equity on their teams, lead conversations on sensitive topics, and foster engagement instead of retreat.”
Inclusive culture
Inclusion is “the practice of ensuring that people feel a sense of belonging in the workplace.” It also involves fostering a culture of acknowledgement and recognition that makes our workplace one in which people are committed to long-term.
An inclusive culture means one where people are mindful about what they see, hear, and say. The words they choose matter — in meetings and in casual interactions, both onsite and virtual.
Culture must be designed to improve a sense of trust, safety, and belonging.
-Field Guide for Managers and Leaders
Leaders and managers should be alert to the visual, oral, and written communications for inclusiveness. For example, are the people in a training video truly representative of the diversity of the people watching and listening? Is it alienating anyone?
Design managers can nurture a greater sense of trust, safety, and belonging by being authentic advocates for racial equity and model that behavior for their team. This includes calling out injustice where it exists, supporting team members, and creating a shared set of inclusive cultural values, activities, imperatives, and language regardless of team composition.
Diverse teams
Building diverse teams is a forward looking statement. Take a close look at your team and other teams.
Design leads and managers are responsible for building successful, culturally diverse teams.
-Field Guide for Managers and Leaders
Of the managers that we collaborated with to get their feedback on the guide, not all of them had Black designers on their teams. Design managers must advocate for diversity on their teams. IBM Software VP and Chief Design Officer Arin Bhowmick noted “we have to realize that we aren’t just assigning resources — we are framing our approach to the problem,” and diverse teams “tend to generate more ideas, making them more effective problem solvers [and] will have the deepest impact in building products and experiences designed for everyone” (Bhowmick, 2017).
Design managers and leads can engage in dialogue with their leadership on the lack of representation on their teams and take an active role in recruitment, and talk to the team. Use your team members’ input to continually evaluate and improve the environment, from the onboarding process and beyond.
Sponsorship
Sponsorship means going beyond coaching or mentorship and nurturing career growth, opportunity and progression.
Advocate for underrepresented designers when they’re not in the room.
-Field Guide for Managers and Leaders
Sponsorship is helping, it is enabling, it is nurturing, it is coaching. It is creating and offering opportunities through connections to folks who might be inaccessible, or even unknown, to the individual. Design managers are in a unique position to support Black designers by addressing and removing these limitations in order to help them advance their career. Key to this is co-creating the career path with the individual team member. Share your expertise but remember to listen and acknowledge their needs to help them design their future.
Putting Theory into Practice
We created the field guide to serve as a tool to educate, inform, raise awareness, and offer real examples and actions design managers and leaders can take with their colleagues and in their broader work environments.
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all on how to put the guide into practice. This resource is not, by design, overly prescriptive. It recognizes that there is no one solution nor set of actions to take for all managers, individuals, situations, and challenges. But the field guide does, through information and examples, provide tools to take forward and put into practice through awareness, mindsets, and actions.
As well as serving as a resource for leaders and managers, it is our hope that Black designers — and all designers of color — who find this guide feel supported by knowing that this resource exists and is designed with their needs in mind, and can take comfort in knowing that this guide is becoming part of the fabric of our leadership community.
The Road Ahead
And the work continues. Racial inequity is not going to go away by simply calling it out. We cannot rest on our laurels — we have to continue to do the hard work, everyday, to continually learn, grow, and change. The Field Guide is part of a compendium of work of the Racial Equity in Design team, which includes a Call to Action for our design community, career success guidance, and a podcast series, “It’s About Time” highlighting the voices of Black designers telling their stories and sharing their truth. Internally, the impact of the work of the Racial Equity in Design team is truly palpable — the IBM Design community has embraced the movement, and actively working toward change. The conversation in the design community, and the changing landscape of designers in the field, continues to fill us with hope.
While the Field Guide was designed for design leaders and managers, it is also our hope that the Guide is equally relevant to, and will be of use for, leaders of any discipline.
Please share this resource with your colleagues, and we invite you to share your feedback with the authors of this article directly.
Meet the authors
Renee Albert is Design Culture Programs and Social Media Lead for the Global Design Leadership, Culture, & External Engagement team, within the IBM Design Program Office. An IBMer since 2016, she is a seasoned communications, design, and project management professional specializing in advancing the design practice through developing internal design culture and external engagement programs for the design community, leading social media efforts, commitment and action to advance racial equity in design, and forwarding IBM’s Design Thinking methodology.
email: rcalbert@us.ibm.com
Rob Pierce, an IBMer since 2003, is a Design Manager for Watson Health Life Sciences and also a Content Design and Content Strategy leader. Rob is a strong advocate for multidisciplinary approaches to learning, sharing, problem-solving, and team collaboration. He is also deeply thankful and inspired to be a part of the IBM Design and Racial Equity in Design communities. Diversity and empathy are keys to optimal user experiences of all kinds.
email: robertp@us.ibm.com
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References
Advancing Racial Equity in Design: A Field Guide for Leaders and Managers — https://www.ibm.com/design/racial-equity-in-design/field-guide/
Bhowmick, A. (2017). Designing for diversity. Retrieved from: https://medium.com/design-ibm/deisnging-for-diversity-e3c58ef1ef3e
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Many thanks to Raven Veal for leading the Field Guide workstream, team members January Holmes and Andrew Friedenthal for their dedication and work on this effort, and the members of the Racial Equity in Design team for their support.
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The above article is personal and does not necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies, or opinions.
