Why Your Diversity Programs are Hurting, Not Helping, Your Black Colleagues
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs are products, but they’re not one-size-fits-all.
It was early August. The webinar was entitled: the Impact of the Black Lives Matter Movement on the Workplace. I joined over 300 business leaders across industries and companies to hear a few sage speakers discuss this topic, eager to make sense of current events, and gather a few gems of wisdom on leading in these tumultuous times.
Ninety minutes in, I realized perhaps I wasn’t going to hear any earth-shattering insights.
But then… the white female moderator said this:
“…and, did you know that unconscious bias exists even when you least expect it? A study showed that when looking at two identical resumes, the same font and everything, those with the name ‘John’ get more follow up and even higher salary offers than those with the name ‘Jamaal’!”
She paused for effect as if to let this revelation sink in.
The (mostly Black) panelists blinked, keeping their poker faces.
Glad to be on mute, I guffawed audibly. I texted a friend about the statement who responded with a “shaking my head” gif.
Why was this funny?
If you’re Black, you may already know the answer. You definitely know that chuckle. It’s a burst of sad, cynical laughter, sometimes done silently, that happens when white people “discover” information, tout “insights”, or share a piece of history that we have lived with and understood deeply our entire lives.
For reference, that particular study is from 2003. Yup, SEVENTEEN years ago, two scholars published the now-famous and well-cited article, Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination. Yet this woman leading a call with dozens of seasoned executives acted like the information was brand new.
When you create DEI programs simply to help people get to a kindergarten-level of understanding about bias, it ignores the needs of those who have a life full of experiences that need to be acknowledged and addressed.
These “discoveries” have become quite common over the last few months. It’s mentally exhausting to be the recipient of “new information” that causes (usually white) people to become suddenly indignant over the feelings that Black people have experienced their entire lives. (I highly recommend reading The Weight of White Guilt in the Workplace Is Too Damn Heavy by The Only Black Guy In the Office if you want more on this topic.)
The formula
This instance made me pause and reflect: perhaps I did learn something from this panel —it illuminated a pattern that I had seen many times throughout my dozen or so years in the tech business world.
Corporations who initiate Diversity & Inclusion programs are usually solving for the woman described above. Those are the employees who have somehow made it 30–40 years on this earth unaware of biases that we all (yes, all) have, and generally lack the vocabulary to discuss such biases.
This results in a formula that looks something like the following:
- Hire a Head of Diversity and Inclusion with a big press splash
- Hire another senior executive in the C-suite who is diverse in some way
- Make everyone at the company take anti-bias training.
- Ignore the lack of diversity in your C-suite when the sole diverse person exits the company.
- If all else fails, blame the pipeline.
Then, pat yourselves on the back, quietly wait, until the next news cycle moves the public interest to another topic and consumers care less about your corporate hiring practices.
Who’s your customer?
If you’re a corporation designing a fresh new DEI program, you probably have every intention of getting it right. But before you announce anything, recognize this: you are designing a product for several different customers, not just one.
Product design 101 starts with understanding your customer.
Like any good product designer, start by acknowledging that different customers have different preferences. These preferences are driven by their experiences. Example: laundry detergent pods. Convenient, sure. Cheap? No. Some consumers would rather deal with the occasional blue goo on their floor than shell out more cash for cute little pods.
Your DEI program is a product. And just like Procter & Gamble, you may have to modify your programs to address different customer segments with very different life experiences and starting points.
Here are some common profiles:
Customer A is the tech bro, the head-in-sand person, or anyone that is starting from truly square one in how to talk about diversity. This is the person who somehow managed to go through life never speaking to a Black person, possibly even being taught incorrect information about the history of our country. Unfortunately, this is who the majority of DEI programs are actually designed for.
Customer B is the general public, customers, Twitter, etc. It’s everyone that’s not your employee but whose opinion, en masse, can make or break your company. When I joined Uber in early 2017, the company was learning this lesson the hard way (and arguably still is today). Customers more than ever are shopping brands that align with their values. The cynic might say DEI programs are just for the purposes of PR; virtue signaling to Customer B.
Customers C all the way to Z are usually less attended to. These include minorities, women, veterans, or other marginalized/minority groups inside your organization (and groups outside who you want to recruit). They’re the ones experiencing the bias inside and outside of the workplace.
When you create DEI programs simply to help people get to a kindergarten-level of understanding about bias — e.g., making sure people don’t have a public foot-in-mouth moment — it ignores the needs of those who have a life full of experiences that need to be acknowledged and addressed.
Instead of one-size-fits-all, try this
1. Product design 101 starts with understanding your customer.
Companies spend millions of dollars researching, studying, and collecting data about consumer preferences just to design laundry pods. Take the time to interview and hear the top issues from different groups in your organization. This means listening and empathizing with experiences both in AND out of the workplace.
2. Build it together.
What’s most inspiring is not a blank cheque to spend money on diversity initiatives — that matters, but not as much as committing to real partnership at the executive level.
3. Don’t try to solve everything at once.
You’re not going to solve years of systemic racism, bias, and exclusion with 90 days of cute trainings and all-hands meetings. Instead, set a 12-month vision and give yourself goals to work towards each quarter.
4. Create spaces for different needs.
Sometimes, employees just need to feel heard and feel safe. Acknowledge that the news cycle can be painful for many. That doesn’t mean your company needs to FIX every issue, but you can create spaces to talk about these issues.
5. Choose your public stances, but be prepared to back it up with real action.
Uber, a former employer of mine, recently launched an anti-racist campaign in support of Black Lives Matter. However, public backlash ensued when critics saw the campaign as opportunistic and surface-level, not tackling internal practices and equity for their drivers.
Getting your Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives right isn’t going to be an overnight fix. It’s tempting to just try to help the bad actors learn the basics, but that ignores a huge segment of your workforce. Listen to them, and design with them — you’ll be a DEI product design specialist in no time.
Erin Braddock Guthrie writes about anti-racism in the workplace with pragmatic, actionable tips for business leaders and employees alike. You can read her 4-part series on “Why ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ sets the bar too low” starting here. Erin has spent her career in both the public and private sector, working at companies such as Uber, McKinsey, and Amazon. She is currently the Director of the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity for the State of Illinois.
