00:00:05
hi
00:00:05
my name is stephanie creary and i'm
00:00:07
assistant professor of management at the
00:00:08
wharton school university of
00:00:10
pennsylvania and i'm delighted to be
00:00:12
here today with gwen houston who is
00:00:14
consultant advisor committed to
00:00:16
issues of diversity equity inclusion for
00:00:19
over 20 years
00:00:20
she was a business leader and a former
00:00:22
chief diversity officer for several
00:00:24
global corporations
00:00:25
gwen we're so excited to have you here
00:00:27
and to learn from you
00:00:28
our topic today is is around the broad
00:00:31
idea
00:00:31
of creating equity and opportunity no
00:00:34
small feat
00:00:35
um in corporations today but we're
00:00:37
interested in getting your insights
00:00:39
on this topic um what you have had to
00:00:44
deal with and address in the past our
00:00:46
current times that we're
00:00:48
dealing with now as issues of racial
00:00:50
injustice and racism have become
00:00:52
exacerbated and magnified on the global
00:00:54
stage
00:00:54
and certainly our future is it hopeful
00:00:57
and what do we have to think about that
00:00:58
so that's sort of going to be the flow
00:01:00
of our conversation today
00:01:01
um and i'm just happy to have you here
00:01:04
uh you wrote this brilliant piece
00:01:06
uh it's called corporate america's black
00:01:08
equity gap
00:01:09
ceos must take the lead and you posted
00:01:11
it to medium
00:01:12
on june 29th and i just it hit me i
00:01:15
think in a really
00:01:16
um deep place probably because you know
00:01:19
i am a black woman and certainly
00:01:21
a piece about black equity and black
00:01:24
experiences in the workplace
00:01:25
is going to feel personal but like you
00:01:27
for
00:01:28
for some time i've been examining these
00:01:31
issues of corporate diversity inclusion
00:01:33
and i
00:01:33
just wanted to start by reading an
00:01:36
excerpt
00:01:37
just to set the stage for some of the
00:01:39
more specific questions i have
00:01:40
uh for you so in reflecting on the past
00:01:44
here's what you said for decades now
00:01:47
corporate diversity equity and inclusion
00:01:50
programs
00:01:51
have been in place across various u.s
00:01:53
industries
00:01:54
but the level of sustainable commitment
00:01:56
from leadership
00:01:57
has edged and flowed dramatically as a
00:02:00
retired corporate business leader and
00:02:02
former chief diversity officer for
00:02:03
several global corporations
00:02:05
this has been my life's work although
00:02:07
diversity practitioners have effectively
00:02:09
proven the business value of dei
00:02:11
initiatives
00:02:12
very few companies and organizations
00:02:15
have made meaningful strides to improve
00:02:17
the workplace and then you go on to say
00:02:18
that some industries
00:02:20
are at the beginning of this work and
00:02:22
some but many are making little to no
00:02:24
meaningful change so let's
00:02:25
start there with that sort of i i often
00:02:29
like to refer to things as you know
00:02:31
pre-summer of 2020.
00:02:33
that was certainly the situation can we
00:02:35
talk a little bit about the racial
00:02:37
equity problem for black professionals
00:02:39
in the corporate
00:02:40
sector historically what is this problem
00:02:42
and how bad has it been
00:02:45
well with first of all thanks for having
00:02:46
me stephanie it's wonderful
00:02:49
to engage in this type of conversation
00:02:50
because it is
00:02:52
it's so timely it's so urgent it's so
00:02:54
relevant and boy is it real
00:02:56
uh so when it comes to talking about you
00:02:58
know the whole issue of racial equity
00:03:01
and and black professionals in the
00:03:03
workplace
00:03:04
what i think what strikes me in terms of
00:03:06
how severe and how
00:03:08
how bad it is is that even after a
00:03:11
generation
00:03:12
of very well-educated and
00:03:15
um and extraordinarily talented black
00:03:18
professionals
00:03:19
have forged a path through corporate
00:03:22
america
00:03:23
and with another generation following we
00:03:26
still
00:03:26
don't see significant and sustainable
00:03:29
progress
00:03:30
case in point in 2014
00:03:33
black ceos made up about 1.5 close to 2
00:03:38
percent
00:03:38
of the fortune 500 today that number is
00:03:42
only four black ceos making up
00:03:44
less than one percent of the fortune 500
00:03:48
population so we're not moving in the
00:03:50
right direction
00:03:52
you know we're losing ground and it's
00:03:53
this constant feeling of
00:03:56
you know two steps forward three steps
00:03:58
back when it comes to
00:04:00
to our our success in the workplace
00:04:03
and i think that's what's uh what's
00:04:05
really glaring for me
00:04:07
also when you look at the the nation's
00:04:09
largest
00:04:10
uh healthcare companies so you have you
00:04:13
know cvs
00:04:14
uh they have no black executives on
00:04:17
their senior leadership team
00:04:19
what's interesting is they acquired
00:04:21
aetna a company i used to work for
00:04:23
which had us a black ceo and one of the
00:04:26
most
00:04:27
racially and gender diverse executive
00:04:30
leadership teams i've ever worked for
00:04:32
and so you know you see that in finance
00:04:35
you've got
00:04:36
bank of america jpmorgan chase wells
00:04:39
fargo
00:04:41
none of them have black professionals on
00:04:44
the executive team
00:04:46
and then let's move to tech which is my
00:04:49
last foray i retired as
00:04:51
microsoft's chief diversity officer zero
00:04:53
members of the executive leadership team
00:04:55
at amazon
00:04:57
microsoft facebook and google
00:05:00
so this is a real glaring issue
00:05:03
you know and i hesitate to ask this next
00:05:05
question especially since you just
00:05:07
explained a downward trend
00:05:09
um in progress if you can you can sort
00:05:12
of
00:05:12
make a downward trend sound like problem
00:05:16
my question is for you is maybe this is
00:05:18
part of our lessons
00:05:19
learned right what practices have have
00:05:22
firms put in place to manage these
00:05:24
issues because clearly they're they're
00:05:25
probably not
00:05:26
helping would be my assistant based on
00:05:28
those statistics that you just shared
00:05:30
with us
00:05:30
but what have we been doing what have
00:05:32
firms been doing and
00:05:34
and what's been the challenge here well
00:05:36
as you said earlier
00:05:38
they have embraced i think to a
00:05:40
significant
00:05:41
point the value proposition of diversity
00:05:44
uh equity and inclusion i think that you
00:05:46
know that being that
00:05:47
diverse teams are much more innovative
00:05:50
much more effective at problem solving
00:05:52
and creatively anticipating the
00:05:54
marketplace than
00:05:55
uh homogeneous teams are beyond that
00:05:58
they've invested in
00:06:00
in unconscious bias training there has
00:06:03
been
00:06:04
a strong recruiting efforts uh mostly at
00:06:07
the entry level and maybe into early
00:06:10
management
00:06:11
there have even been a number of
00:06:14
training programs leadership development
00:06:15
programs
00:06:16
there have been employee network groups
00:06:18
to really help employees of diverse
00:06:20
backgrounds
00:06:21
uh find affinity help support the
00:06:24
organization's business
00:06:25
outcomes through recruiting through
00:06:27
retention
00:06:28
uh through all kinds of initiatives
00:06:30
community based as well
00:06:32
so there have been a lot of things done
00:06:34
but i think what's missing and what
00:06:36
what causes companies to lose um
00:06:39
you know to the progress they've made is
00:06:41
that the commitment from the top
00:06:43
is not there and so what you and i both
00:06:46
know is that
00:06:47
effective dei engagement is leader-led
00:06:52
to be the most progressive it has to be
00:06:55
led from the top
00:06:56
so the message is only as important as
00:06:58
the messenger
00:07:00
and that is why my article focused on
00:07:02
ceos have to step
00:07:04
up you know they can no longer defer to
00:07:06
hr or
00:07:07
suggest okay it's let's go do dni today
00:07:11
this work has to be central to a
00:07:14
company's
00:07:15
culture as well as to is as mission
00:07:18
critical for driving
00:07:19
significant and long-term business
00:07:21
progress
00:07:22
that's how important it has to be so
00:07:25
let's unpack that a little bit because
00:07:26
certainly you held this title of
00:07:29
chief diversity officer um and
00:07:33
rightfully or wrongfully this is sort of
00:07:35
what has
00:07:36
traditionally happened and certainly has
00:07:38
happened now that there's all of these
00:07:40
chief diversity officer
00:07:41
roles opened i guess what would be
00:07:44
interesting to understand from your
00:07:45
perspective is
00:07:46
what are the opportunities and the
00:07:48
limitations of that role and how
00:07:50
what's the ideal working relationship
00:07:53
between the cdo
00:07:54
and the ceo because i feel like there's
00:07:57
attention and opportunity there as we're
00:07:59
having this conversation about
00:08:00
whose responsibility is it right and so
00:08:03
i've had the chance to work
00:08:05
in companies where the cdo role reported
00:08:08
into hr
00:08:09
versus reporting into a business
00:08:12
president or the ceo
00:08:14
and it's an interesting difference in
00:08:17
terms of that reporting relationship
00:08:19
and i'm not so sure i'm on i lean on the
00:08:21
side of having the cdo role
00:08:23
always reporting the ceo because i think
00:08:26
it to some extent it depends on the
00:08:28
maturity
00:08:29
of the company's leadership around this
00:08:31
topic because
00:08:32
i've reported into a ceo who couldn't
00:08:34
care less that i was even there
00:08:37
and really didn't exercise uh are
00:08:39
engaged with me
00:08:41
very often because he was uncomfortable
00:08:43
with this work
00:08:45
and it was just something that you know
00:08:47
that the
00:08:48
the leadership team chose to do because
00:08:50
i think they were trying to force a lot
00:08:51
of
00:08:52
a lot of change in this on this
00:08:54
family-owned company at the time
00:08:55
what ended up happening though is that
00:08:58
the ceo went out
00:08:59
to a business roundtable to talk about
00:09:02
diversity
00:09:03
never consulted me to say how are we
00:09:05
doing give me some talking points
00:09:06
you know as you would expect and got
00:09:08
blown out of the room
00:09:10
by some of the ceos from major
00:09:12
corporations
00:09:14
and this is food and manufacturing who
00:09:16
really were doing some things
00:09:18
you know to the best of their ability
00:09:19
and also were
00:09:21
sharing their their deep frustrations
00:09:24
with
00:09:24
you know their sense of commitment but
00:09:26
not necessarily seeing
00:09:28
the the outcomes they desired the next
00:09:31
thing i know i came back you know i was
00:09:32
at the office and i was told you know
00:09:34
ceo wants to see you and i thought i
00:09:35
wonder what this is about
00:09:37
and when i got up there he said to me
00:09:39
you know how long have you been with the
00:09:41
company and i said
00:09:42
at two years and he said well i imagine
00:09:46
you're about trying to leave you know i
00:09:48
bet you're frustrated because i've
00:09:50
not really connected with you i've not
00:09:52
spent much time with you
00:09:54
and he said and i just came back from a
00:09:56
meeting and it's sad to say it took
00:09:58
my own circle of ceos to really
00:10:02
open my eyes to the importance of this
00:10:04
work and he said if you stick it out
00:10:06
with me
00:10:07
i promise i will make it up to you and
00:10:10
we will drive this
00:10:11
deep and aggressively and we're going to
00:10:13
start with some you know give me five
00:10:15
things you would want to see me do
00:10:17
tomorrow if i could things that you told
00:10:20
him you wanted
00:10:21
him to do first of all i wanted him to
00:10:23
get a little bit of education and i
00:10:25
always start with that because
00:10:27
sometimes you know when right rightfully
00:10:29
or wrongfully
00:10:30
when ceos are empowered by the board and
00:10:34
have high expectations
00:10:35
they tend to imagine they should know
00:10:37
everything
00:10:38
and quite honestly nobody does and i i
00:10:41
personally
00:10:42
you know submit to a learner mentality
00:10:44
that i'm all about always learning
00:10:46
continuous learning so
00:10:48
i wanted to begin with some key books
00:10:50
that i thought were
00:10:51
were important i also in one of the
00:10:53
books i recommended at the time this was
00:10:55
years ago was a book by
00:10:57
dr beverly tatum why are all the black
00:10:59
kids sitting
00:11:00
together in the cafeteria and other
00:11:02
stories of race
00:11:04
and i set him up with a mentor and that
00:11:06
mentor was
00:11:08
dr jeanetta cole i had him
00:11:11
meet with employee groups and spend time
00:11:13
out in the field
00:11:15
and then i wanted him to have a deep
00:11:17
conversation with me about the strategy
00:11:19
like how do we get the leaders to own
00:11:22
aspects of the strategy and drive
00:11:24
greater accountability at the top of the
00:11:26
house
00:11:26
so those were some of the things that
00:11:28
that we immediately began to put into
00:11:30
place
00:11:31
so i think that and he said i also
00:11:34
invited ted childs
00:11:35
i don't know if you remember ted who was
00:11:38
probably the guru
00:11:40
of diversity chief diversity officers at
00:11:42
ibm
00:11:43
under gerstner at the time and i invited
00:11:46
him to come and speak to the executive
00:11:48
leadership team and ted came in with
00:11:50
all of his ted-ness which is profound
00:11:53
and
00:11:54
um amazing and awe-inspiring
00:11:57
and after he left my ceo said to me you
00:11:59
know why he's so effective
00:12:01
because his ceo empowered him that's
00:12:04
what i need to do for you
00:12:05
right and boy was that a turning point
00:12:08
and probably one of the best
00:12:10
experiences and relationships i ever had
00:12:12
with a ceo
00:12:13
was in that you know in that scenario
00:12:15
and and then and the aftermath of it so
00:12:17
so a ceo empowerment endorsement
00:12:22
of of this role and what it can become
00:12:25
uh can be the difference between a
00:12:28
highly effective
00:12:29
sense of dei engagement commitment and
00:12:32
progress
00:12:33
versus one that can hardly get off the
00:12:35
ground or is fleeting at best
00:12:38
so it's a lot about that senior
00:12:39
executive and ceo
00:12:41
accountability and and empowerment
00:12:44
so before i ask you some questions about
00:12:46
that bring us to the current context i
00:12:48
have one more question for you
00:12:50
um and i think you started to hint at
00:12:52
this a little bit when you were
00:12:54
saying the progress that's been made
00:12:55
around the business case
00:12:57
for diversity what would you say if you
00:13:00
had to summon her eyes
00:13:02
are the key challenges or have been the
00:13:04
key challenges in creating a
00:13:05
conversation about
00:13:06
racial equity and inclusion in
00:13:09
corporations in the past
00:13:12
yeah i think in the past has been the
00:13:14
discomfort
00:13:16
that comes from you know white leaders
00:13:19
in
00:13:20
thinking that um you know that they are
00:13:23
the cause that they are
00:13:25
the problem and um and so you know
00:13:28
i even wrote that you know for a long
00:13:31
time
00:13:31
it seemed that racial issues were black
00:13:33
people's problems to go
00:13:35
fix go resolve that that's how it felt
00:13:37
for me and many others
00:13:40
and so it was really difficult to talk
00:13:42
about racial equity unless
00:13:45
the world gave us a major reason to go
00:13:48
do it
00:13:48
right otherwise in the tech world
00:13:52
there's a desire our comfort with
00:13:55
exceptionalizing the problem
00:13:57
saying that there just aren't enough
00:13:58
blacks in the pipeline getting
00:14:01
computer science you know degrees
00:14:03
engineering degrees
00:14:05
um becoming developers they're just not
00:14:07
there
00:14:08
and eventually to prove that wrong i
00:14:10
mean they said the same thing about
00:14:12
women too in computers in in computing
00:14:14
and we started to go gather numbers
00:14:18
in partnership with the talent
00:14:19
acquisition team
00:14:21
we engaged upon an effort to hire a
00:14:25
recruiting firm to just go find all of
00:14:28
the individuals map them out across the
00:14:30
u.s who graduated with those degrees and
00:14:32
who happen to be hispanic
00:14:33
are black and we presented this sort of
00:14:37
mapping
00:14:38
and said here they are and they're there
00:14:41
they exist
00:14:42
now we just have to convince them to
00:14:44
come work for us
00:14:45
because guess what just like women
00:14:48
they're not
00:14:48
choosing us that you know even though
00:14:51
the pipeline may not be as robust as we
00:14:53
would want it to be ultimately in this
00:14:55
field
00:14:56
it is it is certainly present
00:14:59
and it exists but they are opting out of
00:15:02
coming into
00:15:03
companies like ours right they're
00:15:05
choosing to you know women were choosing
00:15:06
to go to banking and healthcare
00:15:08
companies and working
00:15:09
as computer scientists technologists in
00:15:11
those firms because they were more
00:15:13
female friendly
00:15:14
right and so certain groups of color
00:15:16
latinos latinx and blacks were
00:15:19
not choosing to come to big mega
00:15:21
companies perhaps like microsoft and
00:15:23
and others so so it was to help them
00:15:26
see the error of that thinking because
00:15:29
that
00:15:30
took they that that let them off of the
00:15:32
moral hook or their moral the emotional
00:15:34
hook of thinking
00:15:35
that they just we were not aggressively
00:15:37
going after this population
00:15:40
we had got gotten complacent thinking
00:15:42
that they just don't exist
00:15:43
and now we have to come up with a new
00:15:46
way to explain
00:15:47
this outcome and it forced them it
00:15:50
forced them to really think on it
00:15:51
the other thing is we went and did a
00:15:53
study of the marketplace
00:15:55
because you know we talk about the value
00:15:56
proposition of dei
00:15:59
and also talk about the fact that we
00:16:00
want to be able to reflect
00:16:02
understand and anticipate an
00:16:05
increasingly diverse
00:16:06
customer base and so we went and did
00:16:08
research on
00:16:09
who over indexed on microsoft products
00:16:12
and it turned out the number one and
00:16:14
number two groups who over index on
00:16:16
using our products were
00:16:17
latinos and black people and it was like
00:16:21
a drop the mic
00:16:22
moment uh a drop your surface moment
00:16:25
and and you could see
00:16:28
how shocked leaders were and we
00:16:30
presented this at a
00:16:32
a broader leadership conference or a
00:16:34
discussion
00:16:35
and it was a real eye-opening moment
00:16:38
and those are the types of things that
00:16:40
cdos have to do
00:16:42
to really convert leaders into
00:16:46
re thinking so sort of like learn i want
00:16:49
you to learn about some stuff
00:16:50
and then i want you to unlearn some
00:16:52
things you were doing and relearn
00:16:54
how to go after this group of very very
00:16:58
talented people
00:16:59
and by the way when i when we talk about
00:17:01
diversity
00:17:02
there's no substitute for equality
00:17:05
right and one of the phrases i'd love to
00:17:07
get out of people's mouths are saying
00:17:10
qualified diverse candidates you really
00:17:12
think i want to go after unqualified
00:17:14
talent
00:17:15
that's not who i am but those terms are
00:17:17
not mutually exclusive
00:17:19
and those are some of the
00:17:20
microaggressions that
00:17:22
that people of color black people
00:17:24
experience all the time
00:17:25
that were lowering the bar lowering the
00:17:27
standards to hire them
00:17:29
and that is it couldn't be furthest from
00:17:31
the truth right
00:17:33
so it's interesting is as i listened to
00:17:35
you to talk about all this work that you
00:17:37
did
00:17:37
um from it from a tech space to attract
00:17:40
and recruit
00:17:41
and bring people to tech i can't help
00:17:44
but
00:17:45
reflect on how much we've talked about
00:17:48
in the context of
00:17:49
uh you know my own university is how
00:17:52
we've seen the shift
00:17:53
from students who've traditionally been
00:17:55
going to banking and consulting
00:17:57
moving towards tech so i think you know
00:18:00
just sort of anecdotally
00:18:02
qualitatively listening to what's been
00:18:05
shared with us
00:18:06
i think it there was some effectiveness
00:18:08
to this strategy to draw people
00:18:10
towards tech that said i wanted to
00:18:14
reflect back on
00:18:15
i i actually had pulled that same quote
00:18:18
that you had
00:18:19
started to share about black people's
00:18:21
issues so i want to read that as i
00:18:22
transition us into
00:18:24
the present context and so you write um
00:18:27
after years of being told that racism
00:18:29
was black people's issues to solve
00:18:32
this new response of white solidarity is
00:18:35
at times disorienting but also
00:18:38
cautiously
00:18:39
uplifting it is a time of deep reckoning
00:18:42
and activism i found that very powerful
00:18:44
so i want to
00:18:45
in your own words and certainly i just
00:18:47
gave them some some of them back to you
00:18:50
is how would you describe
00:18:52
this outpouring of corporate support for
00:18:55
black
00:18:55
racial equality for black lives this
00:18:58
summer the summer of 2020
00:19:01
yeah it's been it's been very difficult
00:19:05
to express the myriad of emotions i have
00:19:07
had and i know so many
00:19:09
of my friends and colleagues have had
00:19:13
as we watched what unfolded in this
00:19:16
country
00:19:17
i still don't have words to explain it
00:19:19
but i i don't think any of us saw it
00:19:21
coming
00:19:22
you know while we hoped for um
00:19:25
more than just our own bodies to be
00:19:27
present
00:19:28
in this in this public demonstration and
00:19:31
outcry
00:19:32
for social justice who would have
00:19:35
expected
00:19:36
that such a broad coalition of
00:19:40
people i mean white suburban housewives
00:19:44
you know certainly millennials exers
00:19:47
boomers
00:19:49
corporate leaders all stepping into
00:19:52
the mix to declare uh
00:19:55
how unjustice was and and and and
00:19:58
calling for
00:19:59
deep activism and deep change uh
00:20:03
at the heart of this country you know
00:20:05
it's sort of like
00:20:06
uh it was a soul-searching moment in a
00:20:08
highly reflective moment
00:20:10
so it's it's been um it's been crazy i
00:20:14
i really haven't known what to make of
00:20:17
it and i think part of it is
00:20:19
deeply personal for me because i'm so
00:20:22
afraid to get let down
00:20:24
if i get if i allow myself to get
00:20:26
emotionally invested
00:20:28
in the power of these voices even though
00:20:30
i do believe in them
00:20:32
i'm so not sure where this is going to
00:20:34
go and if we're going to hit a free fall
00:20:36
because when you think about the
00:20:38
cross-section of so many different
00:20:40
coalitions of types of people coming
00:20:43
together to demand equality
00:20:46
you have to wonder how do we problem
00:20:49
solve for such a
00:20:50
a diverse spectrum of expectations right
00:20:54
uh because our millennials will want a
00:20:57
certain
00:20:57
outcome and will that match what you
00:21:00
know other groups expect and want so
00:21:02
so i i've been a little restrained uh on
00:21:05
the emotional side because
00:21:07
i i've feared getting let down
00:21:11
uh so let's talk a little bit about um
00:21:15
and we started to get to this but i just
00:21:16
want to give you an opportunity to say
00:21:18
more um when you look inside corporate
00:21:21
um entities and you know we could think
00:21:23
about the talent management system we
00:21:24
could think about just day-to-day
00:21:26
management
00:21:27
what would you say have been some of the
00:21:28
barriers that have
00:21:30
prevented this type of support
00:21:31
internally internally to firms
00:21:35
yeah i think the barriers
00:21:38
particularly around black black equity
00:21:41
is that
00:21:44
people have sometimes lulled themselves
00:21:45
into a false sense of believing
00:21:47
hey you know we're all equal all lives
00:21:50
matter
00:21:51
and in the workplace it's all about
00:21:54
meritocracy
00:21:56
when in fact that is probably the
00:21:58
biggest
00:21:59
misconception that i've seen in many of
00:22:01
these corporate sectors because there is
00:22:03
so much
00:22:04
um opportunity and and privilege if you
00:22:08
will
00:22:08
afforded certain communities at the
00:22:11
expense of others
00:22:12
and i think not coming to grips with
00:22:14
that and not understanding that and not
00:22:16
having willing to
00:22:17
have an honest conversation about that i
00:22:19
think in the advent too of electing a
00:22:21
black
00:22:21
president a lot of people wanted to
00:22:23
believe hey you know we're a post-racial
00:22:25
society now
00:22:27
we don't have any issues everybody's
00:22:29
equal don't ask me for
00:22:30
you know for for me to have to give up
00:22:33
my piece of the pie so that
00:22:35
someone like you can actually get ahead
00:22:36
because you guys have made progress
00:22:38
you're in
00:22:39
you know everything's good and i think
00:22:41
that that's the biggest misconception
00:22:44
uh about racial equity in the workplace
00:22:47
is that everybody
00:22:48
is is you know on the level playing
00:22:51
field and we know we're not
00:22:52
um i wrote about amy cooper in my piece
00:22:56
and the and what she represents um
00:23:00
amy cooper for those who just as a
00:23:02
refresher was the white woman who
00:23:05
was in central park with her dog and she
00:23:08
came into an area where there was a
00:23:09
black man
00:23:10
bird watching and there was a legal
00:23:12
leash requirement for dogs
00:23:14
and she didn't have her dog on the
00:23:16
lesion this man asked her to please put
00:23:18
her dog off
00:23:18
on a leash and he videoed her ranting at
00:23:22
him and one of her rants was to say i'm
00:23:24
going to call the police
00:23:26
and tell them that a black man is
00:23:28
harassing me is threatening my life
00:23:30
and and the fact that what's huge about
00:23:33
amy cooper
00:23:34
and her presence and and and what she
00:23:36
understood
00:23:37
was that her behaviors toward this
00:23:40
individual were conscious there was
00:23:42
nothing unconscious about
00:23:43
her racial rant right there was nothing
00:23:46
unconscious but number two she also
00:23:47
understood
00:23:48
the power that she had
00:23:52
in this position as a white woman
00:23:54
calling the police
00:23:56
about a black man she understood all too
00:23:58
well
00:23:59
that her white privilege afforded her
00:24:01
the ability to do that
00:24:03
and imagine the police would just come
00:24:05
to her rescue and arrest this guy or
00:24:07
worse off even kill him right there for
00:24:10
nothing
00:24:10
but she knew it and she's a woman in her
00:24:13
forties
00:24:14
and i imagine working in the financial
00:24:16
industry amy cooper
00:24:18
had an opportunity to recruit hire
00:24:21
promote and manage black people
00:24:23
and i wonder how that went i mean she's
00:24:26
an executive right
00:24:27
she was an executive she was a vp
00:24:29
absolutely
00:24:30
and it made me reflect on the reality
00:24:34
that we have personalities
00:24:36
like amy's and even worse perhaps in our
00:24:39
workplaces because our workplaces are
00:24:41
microcosm of broader society
00:24:43
what's happening in the world finds its
00:24:45
way into the work environment
00:24:46
so we're not on a level playing field
00:24:48
this is not a post-racial society not
00:24:50
when you have a 40 year old white woman
00:24:52
doing what she did
00:24:53
and obviously educated obviously um
00:24:56
very successful in her professional life
00:24:58
so so
00:24:59
to the extent to which amy cooper
00:25:01
mindsets
00:25:02
our mentalities exist in the workplace
00:25:06
how then could we say that we're
00:25:08
post-racial
00:25:10
that everybody's on a level playing
00:25:12
field and i think it's
00:25:13
because of that that we see at times
00:25:16
black people getting some of the lowest
00:25:18
promotions
00:25:19
in the company when you think about
00:25:24
what we call readiness for advancement
00:25:26
promotion readiness we sometimes
00:25:28
say we'll assess people you know ready
00:25:30
in two to three years
00:25:32
um you know three to five years you know
00:25:34
or longer
00:25:35
and i know in one company we actually
00:25:38
did a study of that and we began to look
00:25:41
at the difference between how black and
00:25:44
brown people blacks and hispanics
00:25:46
are latinos progressed along those
00:25:50
career advancement
00:25:52
recommendations versus white people
00:25:55
and we often found that if they if if
00:25:58
for a black person it was noted that
00:26:00
they were ready for promotion
00:26:02
in you know two to four years it
00:26:04
actually took three to five
00:26:05
or it actually took double um for them
00:26:08
we could we could see evidence of that
00:26:11
with no real explanation
00:26:12
for why um so the reality is
00:26:16
is that yeah we've loved people have
00:26:17
loved themselves until false sense of
00:26:19
thinking
00:26:20
that everything's good and everything's
00:26:21
okay but i have often been in rooms
00:26:24
where the conversation
00:26:25
allows us you know if i'm in hr to look
00:26:29
at the data on
00:26:32
performance ratings if you will and see
00:26:35
where
00:26:35
the demo racial demographic mixes come
00:26:38
out
00:26:39
and in many sad scenarios i have seen
00:26:42
situations where
00:26:44
uh black and brown people are in the
00:26:45
lower quadrant
00:26:47
of those promotion opportunities or
00:26:49
those ratings
00:26:50
and having to to begin the series of
00:26:53
questions like a two-year-old
00:26:55
but why but why is this per so
00:26:58
okay so you say they plateau but why did
00:27:00
they plateau
00:27:01
who was managing them did they have a
00:27:03
mentor did anybody reach out
00:27:06
you know you start to do that you can
00:27:07
see you're aggravating people
00:27:09
because you're forcing them to have to
00:27:11
go get a reason
00:27:13
rather than an excuse to just say well
00:27:16
you know they just they just didn't
00:27:17
perform
00:27:18
are they just not a fit that's the other
00:27:21
catch-all phrase
00:27:22
for when certain people don't quite
00:27:24
measure up or
00:27:25
we're not comfortable with how they show
00:27:27
up in the workplace
00:27:28
the excuse again not a good fit
00:27:32
so there's something that you said that
00:27:33
i i definitely want to amplify
00:27:36
um and that is this idea that we don't
00:27:39
leave
00:27:39
ourselves at home we actually bring
00:27:42
those same selves
00:27:43
to to work and so whether it's amy
00:27:46
cooper or somebody else that's right
00:27:48
if you see people acting and engaging in
00:27:51
racist sexist homophobic ways outside
00:27:54
of the workplace it's very hard for us
00:27:57
to imagine that they wouldn't be doing
00:27:58
those same things inside of the
00:28:00
workplace
00:28:01
and when that happens that's why we have
00:28:03
inequity
00:28:04
and lack of opportunity is that fair
00:28:07
summary of
00:28:08
absolutely that's fair that's very
00:28:10
eloquently said
00:28:11
too and i and i think it just what i
00:28:14
what i started to do in some companies
00:28:16
again the education the book reading
00:28:19
especially if i have senior executive
00:28:21
leaders who were not born in the united
00:28:23
states
00:28:23
i try to you know give them a sense of
00:28:26
how can i
00:28:28
offer you something that will help you
00:28:30
you know get a grasp of
00:28:32
the magnitude the gravity uh of you know
00:28:35
racial oppression in this country and
00:28:37
many of them have absolutely embraced
00:28:39
the opportunity
00:28:40
and i think what they've come away with
00:28:42
oftentimes
00:28:43
and i love when they want to have that
00:28:45
deep conversation is
00:28:46
how did i not know how did i not see
00:28:50
the depth of these inequities in society
00:28:53
how did i not
00:28:54
how did i overlook it and the truth is
00:28:56
when something isn't your reality
00:28:59
you don't see it when it's not it you
00:29:02
know it's not your perspective and it's
00:29:04
like like anything you know imagine for
00:29:06
example
00:29:08
someone who has not had an experience
00:29:10
with some type of disability suddenly
00:29:12
finds themselves wheelchair bound they
00:29:15
start to experience the world very
00:29:16
differently
00:29:17
but before had a person said to them in
00:29:20
a wheelchair you know i really can't
00:29:22
handle this because it's not done this
00:29:24
way it's not done that's not not
00:29:25
convenient for me
00:29:26
this environment is not inclusive for me
00:29:28
and you know you might not
00:29:30
be able to understand what they're
00:29:31
talking about because it's not your
00:29:32
reality
00:29:33
what's important when that happens is
00:29:35
that you see this as a learning
00:29:38
opportunity
00:29:39
to broaden your insights and knowledge
00:29:41
about things that you just don't know
00:29:43
about you're not aware
00:29:44
you're not um perhaps you're not paying
00:29:47
attention to some extent
00:29:48
because i certainly think when it comes
00:29:49
to race i don't know how they don't know
00:29:51
it but
00:29:52
okay um let's talk about all the things
00:29:54
that have happened in the news
00:29:56
and i think for a lot of the scenarios
00:29:58
where we see
00:29:59
the police issues happening to people
00:30:02
and that's why i i like the amy cooper
00:30:04
example so much because it's not about
00:30:05
the police killing black people because
00:30:08
i think we've almost become
00:30:09
desensitized to it as a culture because
00:30:12
we see it so much and it's always been
00:30:14
out there and in order to protect
00:30:16
themselves emotionally a lot of people
00:30:18
just sort of shut that thing down
00:30:20
but when you have a regular person
00:30:22
behaving in this way
00:30:23
to a black man for no real reason it
00:30:26
sort of
00:30:27
shifts the conversation to wow white
00:30:30
privilege
00:30:30
is real and this sense of thinking that
00:30:34
her you know her her ability call the
00:30:36
police to get this man
00:30:37
removed is okay that what she did was
00:30:40
okay
00:30:41
so i think the ability to to help them
00:30:43
see
00:30:44
no this has always existed you just
00:30:47
didn't notice it
00:30:48
but now that you do you can't unsee this
00:30:52
you cannot unsee it and it should stay
00:30:55
in your mind and it should cause you to
00:30:57
look at things in a with a new filter
00:31:00
right it should change the way
00:31:02
you view things going forward so you've
00:31:04
already started to give us some
00:31:05
brilliant
00:31:06
uh suggestions for the future certainly
00:31:09
uh you know the title of your article
00:31:10
where you're talking about the ceos
00:31:12
should lead is certainly a very concrete
00:31:15
uh suggestions you're talking about
00:31:17
helping them
00:31:18
to see before i ask you about some more
00:31:20
uh
00:31:21
concrete actions that you think we
00:31:23
should do and
00:31:24
by we i mean senior leaders middle
00:31:26
managers and individual contributors
00:31:28
basically people who have
00:31:29
no particular authority but certainly
00:31:32
might have passion
00:31:33
or responsibility i want to just give
00:31:36
one last piece
00:31:37
uh from your article that i thought was
00:31:39
a nice way of beginning to frame
00:31:41
the possibilities for the future and you
00:31:43
said um
00:31:44
you know with reference to uh the ceo is
00:31:47
the very first step
00:31:48
these leaders should take in mitigating
00:31:51
racial
00:31:52
inequities in society is to look inward
00:31:55
starting with their own corporate
00:31:57
cultures and that struck me i think as
00:31:59
being very
00:32:00
powerful because so much about these
00:32:02
statements
00:32:03
is reflecting on external society and
00:32:06
i think that is important because again
00:32:08
i think it helps people to understand is
00:32:10
the external world is showing up inside
00:32:14
but i think it's also very possible that
00:32:16
we get stuck
00:32:17
there that it becomes a very
00:32:18
philanthropic um
00:32:20
set of strategic initiatives as opposed
00:32:22
to
00:32:24
you know retooling um and unearthing the
00:32:26
issues that exist
00:32:27
inside our corporate culture so let's
00:32:30
talk about cultural change let's talk
00:32:32
about interpersonal behaviors
00:32:34
um how do we begin to think about from
00:32:36
this perspective again of those three
00:32:37
groups senior leaders middle managers
00:32:39
and then
00:32:40
individual contributors what should be
00:32:42
they be doing to
00:32:43
to help advance racial equity and
00:32:45
inclusion
00:32:47
well certainly senior leaders have a
00:32:49
considerable amount of power
00:32:51
and positioning um on this topic
00:32:54
that the other groups don't have but i
00:32:56
think at a base level
00:32:58
all groups need to invest in this effort
00:33:02
whether you're an individual contributor
00:33:03
or middle manager
00:33:05
or senior leader decide make the choice
00:33:09
to consciously invest
00:33:11
in issues of equity for all employees
00:33:16
i think you know for some reason and i
00:33:18
don't know this is a
00:33:20
if my theory holds water but i kind of
00:33:23
feel like if you make the work
00:33:24
environment
00:33:25
equitable for black people then probably
00:33:28
all ships will rise with that one
00:33:30
because certainly we've seen
00:33:32
historically that
00:33:34
with initiatives like affirmative action
00:33:37
uh
00:33:37
white women have actually seen the
00:33:39
greatest gains as a result of those so i
00:33:41
tend to think that when we focus on
00:33:43
racial equity
00:33:44
all all boats get lifted all all
00:33:47
people's lives improve
00:33:48
um but i think it's about having crucial
00:33:50
conversations
00:33:52
i think the the the honest dialogues
00:33:54
creating a safe environment
00:33:56
inside the workplace to have these
00:33:58
honest dialogues
00:34:00
is critical because uh especially
00:34:03
when working in very very large
00:34:05
organizations where you have hundreds of
00:34:07
thousands of people
00:34:08
you know there and you're trying to get
00:34:10
a grip around
00:34:11
what can you do how can you help the
00:34:14
culture
00:34:14
transform to be more inclusive i do
00:34:17
believe that
00:34:19
seeing people as individuals and
00:34:21
learning their stories
00:34:22
getting to know people having that sense
00:34:25
of connection across a shared humanity
00:34:27
makes a huge difference and one of the
00:34:30
things before i left microsoft that we
00:34:32
we were really invested on trying to do
00:34:34
that
00:34:34
and we created with an external
00:34:36
consultant uh a learning and development
00:34:39
initiative not a training a learning and
00:34:41
development initiative called
00:34:43
dialogues across differences and we use
00:34:46
theatrical
00:34:47
you know people actors who were very
00:34:49
well
00:34:50
honed in hr policy
00:34:54
mediation and they would create scenes
00:34:57
from the workplace
00:34:58
that were very credible and real to our
00:35:00
culture and
00:35:02
freeze then the activity on stage at the
00:35:05
height of a conflict
00:35:07
and then engage with the audience in
00:35:09
what they saw
00:35:11
and now throughout my 25 plus years i've
00:35:14
worked with a number of theatrical
00:35:16
groups they're not all equal this one
00:35:18
was extraordinarily good it is a
00:35:19
facilitated
00:35:21
um scenario as well and the facilitator
00:35:24
plays
00:35:24
an important role with setting the tone
00:35:27
in the room and helping to manage the
00:35:29
dialogue
00:35:30
because you can have saboteurs in the
00:35:32
audience like anything else
00:35:33
you really don't want to buy into stuff
00:35:35
but but the level
00:35:37
of in-depth tension at times but
00:35:42
deep exposure and learning
00:35:45
that took place in those sessions
00:35:49
i think garnered us some of the best
00:35:51
applause from inside microsoft
00:35:53
people said this was the first time that
00:35:56
they had had a chance
00:35:59
to hear a person share their truth
00:36:02
in in a way that was meaningful to them
00:36:05
because they knew this person they had
00:36:07
no idea that they had these lived
00:36:08
experiences
00:36:10
so i think when people come together and
00:36:12
say places
00:36:13
to have these conversations and their
00:36:15
lived experiences
00:36:17
are shared in ways that are deep and
00:36:20
meaningful and help create
00:36:22
empathy in the workplace then you get
00:36:25
somewhere you kind of break down
00:36:28
the silos or the the the notion that you
00:36:31
already understand what's happening in
00:36:33
the world and and you
00:36:34
you know you don't want to invest um but
00:36:37
i
00:36:37
so i think that that those those those
00:36:40
sessions were extremely helpful we
00:36:42
learned to do them virtually and we did
00:36:43
them in on every continent
00:36:46
which is not easy um so i think things
00:36:49
like that
00:36:49
really really help i also believe that
00:36:51
at the executive level
00:36:53
having intentional talent talks around
00:36:56
black professionals women latinos
00:37:00
asians all the different groups is
00:37:02
important because what i find
00:37:04
in organizations where where
00:37:07
particularly
00:37:08
black and latinos are not well
00:37:11
represented
00:37:13
no one sees them you know they can
00:37:16
become very invisible they can become
00:37:18
the only
00:37:20
one in the team and and it is a it is an
00:37:23
issue with retention because of that
00:37:25
especially
00:37:26
in the tech world developers coming into
00:37:28
large teams and you're the only
00:37:30
woman of color woman or black or brown
00:37:32
woman there
00:37:33
you feel so isolated so alone and it can
00:37:37
be really hard early in your career
00:37:39
to build the resilience for that so i
00:37:41
think intentional talent talks get to
00:37:43
know
00:37:44
who these individuals are and stop just
00:37:46
looking at the data looking at
00:37:48
spreadsheets and numbers
00:37:49
because at the end of the day and i used
00:37:51
to say this all the time hey they're
00:37:53
real people connected to these
00:37:55
these definite points and percentages
00:37:57
and they have very differing
00:37:59
experiences in our workplace and it's so
00:38:02
important that we drill down on what
00:38:04
that is
00:38:04
and not just focus on the numbers we
00:38:07
have to focus on people at individual
00:38:09
levels
00:38:10
i think this has been such a wonderful
00:38:13
opportunity to
00:38:14
learn the core set of issues
00:38:17
but also to feel that there are things
00:38:20
that can be done
00:38:22
and i love these two examples certainly
00:38:24
we've heard a lot about
00:38:26
having conversations and why that's
00:38:27
important and we've certainly seen
00:38:29
an equal amount of criticism let's stop
00:38:31
talk let's stop talking and start acting
00:38:34
but talking actually is action
00:38:36
especially
00:38:37
when we need to learn right
00:38:40
we need to understand right or we
00:38:43
actually do and so i think that
00:38:44
sometimes gets shortchanged
00:38:46
and certainly you know as a faculty
00:38:49
member
00:38:49
at an institution we love talking about
00:38:52
evidence-based practice and so we love
00:38:54
our numbers
00:38:55
but what you're saying is there's a
00:38:56
story behind the numbers and let's make
00:38:58
sure got that
00:38:59
right so that we can create um policies
00:39:03
practices initiatives that are that are
00:39:05
targeted um
00:39:06
for the specific needs of individuals
00:39:08
and not just based on our gross
00:39:10
estimations gwen thank you so much i
00:39:14
just had one
00:39:15
go ahead one quick thing sorry just you
00:39:16
know to talk about how do we move from
00:39:19
you know from conversation to action the
00:39:21
intentional talent talks are all about
00:39:23
getting us to action
00:39:25
because when you drill down and
00:39:27
understand who these individuals are
00:39:29
what they've accomplished
00:39:30
in their time at your company or even
00:39:33
prior to
00:39:34
and where they hope to go what what are
00:39:36
their ambitions career-wise
00:39:38
then you can be much more strategic in
00:39:40
making sure
00:39:42
that something great happens for them
00:39:43
that we now you know who they are
00:39:46
let's go move them forward and we have
00:39:48
in in some companies taken
00:39:50
aggressive action steps and created the
00:39:52
plans
00:39:53
here the hear the ready for promotion
00:39:55
now people
00:39:56
they have hit all of the buttons that
00:39:58
we've said we needed
00:40:00
go promote them within the next month
00:40:02
here's what you will do we actually
00:40:04
created the action step for the leader
00:40:06
and said here's what you will go do now
00:40:09
so
00:40:10
that can actually be one of the most
00:40:13
aggressive and probably most successful
00:40:16
approaches because it's it is
00:40:17
evidence-based
00:40:19
and now it helps the leader know how to
00:40:21
go move forward with the right steps
00:40:23
and uh and it was one of the most i
00:40:25
think successful initiatives
00:40:27
that i had seen in my career fantastic
00:40:30
gwen thank you so much your your time
00:40:33
your expertise is absolutely
00:40:35
an invaluable resource for us all i look
00:40:37
forward to continuing to engage with you
00:40:40
i'm around the topic and seeing all the
00:40:42
great work you're doing so thank you
00:40:44
again and again the article that gwen
00:40:47
wrote is called corporate america's
00:40:48
black equity gap
00:40:50
ceos must take the lead it was published
00:40:52
on medium on june 29th
00:40:54
2020. um have a great afternoon gwen and
00:40:57
i'll talk to you soon
00:40:58
you too thanks so much stephanie enjoyed
00:41:04
it
00:41:06
you
