When we talk about the future of work
and we talk about what would happen
if we don't move on diversity, equity and inclusion,
I don't honestly think that there is a future,
that that's possible.
Studies have shown that more diverse teams
tend to perform better.
And many companies have made commitments
to hiring a more diverse workforce.
Yet creating inclusive work cultures
that are truly equitable and free of bias
remains a formidable challenge for companies,
especially since some of the biggest obstacles
are the very employees they're trying to change.
One of the challenges in this space
is that people do have really strong feelings
about what they should do and what's right,
but the strategies that organizations have used,
pretty much universally, are not effective.
They're ineffective and sometimes make things worse.
So many of us have incredible intentions,
but terrible actions.
And unless you can get your intention and your action
to align, then your intention is in vain.
But there may be actions
that companies and their employees can take
that can mean change is finally starting to happen.
If business would step in
and do this work, I think it would change society
outside of the walls of business.
And yes, it is disruptive.
Technology was disruptive.
Think about the companies that said,
we don't really wanna touch technology.
They're not here anymore.
But from the disruption comes change.
So, there's
a very strong link between companies
who are strong at diversity, equity and inclusion
and increased organizational performance.
This is Dr. David Rock.
He's the CEO and Co-Founder
of the NeuroLeadership Institute,
a consultancy company that advises organizations
on management strategies based on science
and evidence-based practices.
The most kind of salient way to understand this is that
we all see the world very, very differently
and when you get a homogeneous team,
or a team, that's all basically the same,
they actually make more
cognitive errors.
They don't see errors
that other people have made
and they're far less creative and far less innovative
than a diverse team.
While these diverse groups
may be more efficient, creative and faster at finding
and solving problems,
they often feel like
they're being less efficient
and less confident in their work,
partly due to a phenomenon
called cognitive elaboration.
Just a long word for saying,
you're gonna think harder.
The teams are thinking harder.
Thinking is generally aversive
and so we feel more confident and comfortable in teams
that are more homogeneous
where people basically agree with us
all the time.
And it turns out, that feels good,
but the team is nowhere near as successful.
If companies want to see the positive effects
of a diverse
and inclusive workforce, they need to find ways to mitigate
that naturally occurring friction.
Essentially they need to have
their employees be comfortable being uncomfortable.
In business, we go to work,
we do our jobs and we leave.
And we are so weary
of pushing against the grain
with a colleague, with a coworker, with an employer,
et cetera, with an employee.
And I think if we truly want to grow
and get to know each other better,
we do have to embrace some of that uncomfortable dialogue
for the sake of growth.
This is former NFL linebacker
and Fox Sports Analyst, Emmanuel Acho.
And in 2020, he launched a YouTube series
all about getting uncomfortable.
Welcome to another episode
of Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man.
When was the last time you sat down
just to have a conversation
with a group of Black people, Garret?
I could be honest with you.
I don't know that I've ever had a conversation
with a group of Black people.
I created Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man
out of an overflow of my heart.
After the murder of George Floyd,
I realized I had to do something.
The series would go on
to amass over 17 million views, inspire two books
and most recently, Emmanuel launched a podcast
with Accenture North America CEO, Jimmy Etheredge.
There's so many CEO, executives at companies,
they want to serve those under them, or those with them.
But they think they're doing what's best,
but unless you ask them what is best,
you will be sitting here spinning your wheels
and actually not serving the person at all.
Primary example, Jimmy and I recently spoke to a woman
who was hearing disabled and we started that conversation
on that episode.
I used words like,
that she was different,
you know, modified and all
these other fanciful words.
But the first question I asked,
hey, I'm gonna start with this,
disabled, is that wrong to say
or not?
And she actually told me she cringed when I said different.
She said, because she's not different, she is disabled
and she doesn't find any weakness in that,
but she actually finds strength in that.
If I don't start with
what is they very uncomfortable question,
I'm sitting here thinking I'm being polite
to try to, you know, be kind and in all honesty
she's cringing on the inside.
And that's what so many of us do in the workplace.
Well, this is what I'm gonna do to make sure
I help these Black men out.
This is what I'm gonna do to help out these Black women.
And so, my advice is, talk to the people
in whom you are trying to serve.
Talk to the people in whom you are trying to honor.
I had great intentions.
My intentions were amazing by trying to use a word
that I perceived to be more kind than disabled.
My actions, terrible.
In the last decade or so,
more businesses have promised
to make diversity a major priority.
Tech giants like, Apple, Google and Facebook
have committed to sharing their internal diversity numbers
and annual reports.
And while there has been an increase
in the overall percentage of employees of color
at these companies, for some groups,
only minimal progress has been made.
When it comes to Black or Latinx employees,
their percentage in the last six years
has only been raised to 1-3%.
While hiring is only step one,
retaining and growing diversity is a major focus as well
and something that companies have also struggled with.
Just having bodies in the building,
doesn't get you anywhere.
You have to be able to leverage that diversity.
And that means you need systems, you need metrics,
you need accountability.
This is Janet Stovall,
a veteran of the corporate communications world
and a Senior Client Strategist
for the NeuroLeadership Institute.
At NLI, we talk about priorities, habits and systems.
So, the first thing you have to do,
is you have to make this a priority
and it has to be a priority like any other business priority
that a company decides that it wants to pursue.
Then you have to look at the habits
that are in place to make people either
live up to those priorities, or not.
And so, once you prioritize, you look at the habits
that are getting in the way of that priority
and then you build a system
to make sure that you can change those habits.
But according to NLI research,
some of the most common strategies that companies turn to
in order to create inclusion,
can often have the opposite effect.
One example is in the area of unconscious bias training.
It feels really
intuitive to mandate, you know, bias education.
You know, bias is clearly a problem.
It seems perfectly logical to say,
well, look, everyone should really go through bias training.
Now, there's very good evidence that that does nothing,
or makes things worse.
I mean, you might get a program
that gets a small amount of results, but on average
requiring people to do awareness-building bias training,
is not gonna help very much.
In 2016, researchers who studied
30 years of data from over 800 companies
wrote in the, Harvard Business Review,
that the positive effects of diversity training
rarely lasts beyond a day or two
and a number of studies suggest that it can activate bias,
or spark a backlash.
Now, bias is everywhere 'cause at the end of the day
everybody is born with bias.
The problem is when bias gets into business decisions,
we sometimes make sub-optimal decisions.
And we actually can't see
the vast majority of our own biases,
no matter how much we want to,
or how much we know about them.
But what we realized is
you could do something about bias in teams.
Their strategy takes over 150 forms of bias
and groups them into five broad categories.
Then, instead of asking individuals
to self-police their own actions,
companies can create systems to encourage teams
to get into the habit of identifying biases as they happen.
What we found is
when you teach that to people relatively quickly,
people start to see these biases as they happen
and relatively quickly, they're able to label bias
in a process, or in a decision
and then work out what to do to address it.
And our studies are ongoing, of course, in this space,
but we're seeing about 78% of people
who learn this framework, start to use it weekly.
At least one to three times a week.
It doesn't get us anywhere pointing the finger.
What we have to be able to do
instead of giving people labels,
is we have to be able to label behaviors.
If we can label behaviors
and then agree on a common language for those behaviors,
we can talk about what people do
separate from what they are.
So, labeling people racist doesn't help
in the business workplace.
It just doesn't help at all.
But coming up with things that help you change the behavior
that might be racist behavior, that's what changes things.
One of the most important things to do
with each and every individual
is what we call, find common ground.
And this is a habit of creating in-group with people
and really bringing each of you into the same group,
in a sense.
Or in the brain, it's both of you being in this circle
that we all draw around ourselves
and being on that same team.
And so, the habit is in every interaction,
whether you're an employee, or a manager, or a leader.
In every interaction,
you're really finding common ground with that person,
ideally creating shared goals.
And this creates a really strong sense of inclusion.
I heard it said one time, you know, I can't change hearts,
but I can change laws.
Well, I'd like to paraphrase that and say,
you know, I can't change what you think,
but I can certainly change what you do.
And as long as I change what you do,
I'll end up getting the results that I want.
Improving workplace diversity and inclusion,
isn't just about building one set of habits,
or eliminating a certain behavior
and it is likely to be uncomfortable.
But if the future of work can truly leverage
diverse and inclusive cultures,
it can have effects beyond just the company's bottom line.
I truly believe that the business workplace
is the only place that some people ever come into contact
with anybody who's different from them.
We can spend our lives around people
who are no different from us outside of work all we want,
but if we go to work and if you have an organization
that decides it is committed
to diversity, equity and inclusion
and it is committed enough that it is gonna have priorities,
habits and systems in place to make that grow
and be what it needs to be, you have a choice.
If you work in that environment,
you're either gonna get on with it, or you're not.
And so, I think that the business is the one entity
that could actually change this
'cause no place else has that reach,
no place else has that context,
no place else has the power, the money and the resources
to change things than the commercial world.
And so, if we step into this and do this work,
I think it'll change society.