Thank you, Mariana, and hello,
everyone. As you heard earlier
today, mentioned that diversity
is all about inclusive growth, and
that's what we're going to talk
about here today.
I am super excited to be here with
Kenji.
Kenji, I want to say a quick hello
and thank you for your time today.
The pleasure's mine.
Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah. So I'm looking forward to this
conversation because we're both very
passionate around the topic of
inclusive growth.
And as we think about this, we
know there are two ways of looking
at this. We have to look at it from
the business perspective and from
the people perspective.
And as I think about the journey
of inclusion and diversity, I know
that there are typically four
different faces.
We have the face of it's
the right thing to do while we have
the face of what is the business
case around it.
Then we get into, well, we got those
two already.
Now, who is accountable for all of
this? And as we think about the
accountability, then it really
evolves too.
It's really everybody's
responsibility at any level
throughout the organization.
So as I think about inclusion,
diversity, equality, equity,
I think about the business
responsibility and having leaders
look at it from the perspective
of that is a business advantage and
a business edge to be able to evolve
around diversity.
So as I think about this
kanji, I want to get your
perspective and your insights.
So how did you get involved
in this space?
I think for us that are really deep
in it like we are, we always
have a story around that.
But how did you get involved?
What inspired you to really step
into this space the way you have?
Yeah, I mean, as a breadth of
personal and professional answer
to that. So the personal answer is
that, you know, as an American,
as a gay man, you know, I struggled
for a long time to belong and really
believe that this is one of the core
things that not just organizations
need to do, but American society
needs to get right from
a professional perspective.
I thought that I was going to
vindicate those ambitions through
the law.
So I am to this day,
a constitutional law professor and I
teach civil rights law.
But over time, I realize that the
law is very limited and what it
could do to address certain
issues relating to diversity and
inclusion.
And I started to move into
the field as distinct
from simply looking at it through a
legal lack.
So specifically, I think my biggest
contribution, at least today I
hope I make others to the diversity
of inclusion, is this concept
of covering.
This is a subject of my first book,
and there I say, you know, I'm very
puzzled by the fact that the law
protects me from
discrimination against my
status as an Asian-American
or today my status as
a gay man.
But it actually doesn't cover the
behavioral aspects of my identity
that someone can say to me, you
know, it can do, you know, don't act
so fresh off the boat or downplay
the aspect of you that make you
stick out as an Asian-American.
Or alternatively, it's fine for you
to be gay, but you might want to
think twice about bringing your
husband to this big client
dinner, right?
Those kinds of sort of second
generation forms of bias are
things that the law has a much
harder time redressing.
I'm not saying that's impossible to
get redress for them, but it's going
to be very, very risky for our
plaintiff to say I'm going to bring
a lawsuit against that.
So at the end of this book, I say
this actually isn't a legal problem.
This is a problem that organizations
have to deal with as a matter of
culture.
So that's my story.
I love to actually flip it back to
you of your redoubtable figure
and the DNI world.
I'd love to hear a little bit more
about your story, how you got into
DNI at Accenture.
Thank you, Kenji, and thank you for
all that you've done in this space
and for also sharing your story.
I think when we out there and we are
advocating for diversity, I tell
people we have to carry this brand
of courage as we tell our own
stories.
So as I think about my story, it
starts from the perspective that
when I started at Accenture over
thirty five years ago, they were
not so many people like me.
So I knew that I wanted to change
the culture, evolve the culture.
And I always tell the story that I
came into a very conservative
environment and I showed up
in a satin tangerine suit
with six huge gold buttons, and
my shoes were yellow,
orange and black with gold hoop
earrings.
And if you think about back then a
conservative place and I'm showing
up with a very Latino ness
sort of culture.
It was a very challenging time, but
what I understood was that
I had the responsibility
to share my story, share
my culture so that I can help evolve
the current corporate culture.
And I think everybody needs to take
on some of that. So as I think about
what you said, couple of things
jump out at me, right?
If you want to leverage a diverse
talent, you have to be able
to create a psychological safety.
And I think about we want people to
take risks. We want them to
innovate. We want to.
We can't have people do that
if they don't feel that they're
being advocated for and they're
being sponsored or mentored.
So it's important that we do that.
So as we attract.
Retain, develop and advance talent.
There are three things organizations
must do, and we did this in of our
research. He had Accenture, but one
of our International Women's Day
celebration.
We talk about how important it is to
have bold leadership.
We talk about how important it is to
have comprehensive actions
that are going to help change some
of the policies and the benefits and
how we really saw for people.
And we have to have an empowering
environment so people
feel empowered to be the authentic
self and be able to take those risks
to innovate and to to really
evolve an organization.
So as I think about that, I know
you've worked with many organizations,
Kenji, and what has been your
experience in doing so.
Yeah, those are wonderful insights,
and that's a lot of overlap with
what I'm about to say in a positive
way. So I've had the pleasure of
working with lots and lots of
organizations and the Fortune
500 an d the Le Bon
Hundred universities and other
educational environments.
And I think regardless of the
institution, there are three
things that I would say it really
critical with regard to creating
an environment.
And I use the term psychological
safety in my work as well, where
you have the capacity to uncover
your own talent.
So the first one of those is to
diagnose.
So this is actually self reflection
and just understanding what
you are doing with regard to
covering and my work, I just
aggregate among four different axes
of covering appearance, affiliation,
advocacy and association.
Do you cover along one of those
axes? Does it hurt you, right?
If it does hurt you, is there some
organizational value, right that is
being sort of implemented
that could justify that form of
covering at?
The answer is yes, I'm doing it.
Yes, it hurts me.
And no, the organization doesn't
have an overriding organizational
value then that you've completed
your diagnosis and you need to
challenge the organization to live
up to its own values of inclusion
rather than simply living under
them. The second point is
very similar to your point about
leadership, which is that in our
survey, we crowdsource what
people would want to see differently
and various organizations.
The survey of the entire Fortune 500
and what people said over and over
again is that we want leaders to go
first because the leaders don't go
first, we won't go at all.
So the reason it's important for me
to share my story, the reason.
Important for you to share your
story. And I love the story about
the bartender.
And it is because if we don't
go first and other people don't have
the kind of space to go at all,
because where are the senior leaders
and our respective spaces?
And so we have to actually make the
road right?
So, you know, sharing
your story stories of us,
both of these are incredibly
powerful initiatives
that among the kind of best
initiative I've seen and
organization.
And then finally, with your point
about creating environments where
people can succeed, you know, if
somebody says to me, it's fine for
you to be gay, but don't bring your
husband to a client dinner,
it actually can't be on me
and shouldn't be on me to respond
to that every single time.
I'm going to get that day after day
after day, you know, depending on
what organization I belong to.
So I actually need allies.
So building a culture that is rich
and ally is a critical
imperative. With regard to this,
and whether that's working
with Microsoft or whether
that's working with Disney on
allyship initiative, these
organizations have really stepped up
to the plate and said, like leaders,
as you said yourself, Nelly, and we
didn't plan this beforehand
audience. But as you said earlier,
leaders are really critical.
But then a step beyond the leaders
is to sort of bake it into your
culture and to make it everybody's
responsibility.
Because so many covering demands
like so many diversity and inclusion
issues are so infinite
and infinitesimal in their nature
that it can't be up to a few leaders
to put on their superhero capes and
fly around and solve the problems.
We're just not going to be able to
do that.
So it has to be distributed across
the entire organization.
This is not to let ourselves off
the hook as leaders, but to say that
there are certain things that only
a really broad based initiative,
like an allyship initiative, is
going to be able to solve
[inaudible] kenji, thank you for
sharing all that.
And if I sum all of this up
and I think about how I start, it is
thank goodness we work in an
environment today that I could have
shown up today with that tangerine
suit, and no one would ask any
questions.
So we have evolved.
And what I would say is that real
progress requires real work
with real satisfaction because
if we get this right, we solve for
everybody. So thank you so much for
what you do again and for your time
today, and thank you all.
And back to you, Mariana.