Real Talk: Authentic Allyship Is Needed Now More Than Ever
Welcome to Real Talk with Loeb Leadership, a safe-space webinar discussion series as part of our dedication to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In this series, we gather a panel of executive coaches, leadership development and workplace culture experts, and DE&I specialists to discuss current, relevant, and often challenging topics related to DE&I in law firms and corporate environments.
The population of underrepresented communities at the leadership or manager level is small -- and the number of people in leadership advocating and advancing the careers of folks from these communities is also shrinking. A recent NBC report showed the attrition rate for DE&I professionals at the end of 2022 was 33% compared to 21% for non-DE&I professionals.
Our panelists will explore the critical difference between performative and authentic allyship, and provide practical strategies for building trust and fostering constructive dialogue. Additionally, we'll examine the importance of recognizing and addressing bias in the workplace, as we strive to create an inclusive and supportive environment for all.
Hello everyone, and welcome.
My name is David Sarnoff and I'm the director of strategic partnerships and an executive coach with Loeb Leadership. For those of you who are joining us for the first time, we are representatives of Loeb Leadership, a certified woman-owned business that is a management and leadership training and development company. Our tag is we develop extraordinary and inclusive cultures and leaders, and welcome to our Real Talk panel. And today, we're going to talk about allyship. And as we've seen in the media and in the workplace, allyship is becoming more critical every day to supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
There's been several reports and articles about how in this economic downturn, DE&I professionals are being laid off at almost a 15% higher rate than non DE&I professionals. After the murder of George Floyd, there was this big outcry and commitment of corporate money and resources and support and how things were going to change. And now, when things get tough, DE&I is the first to feel the brunt. And with the pending US Supreme Court case in the Harvard and University of North Carolina admission cases, DE&I programs and initiatives and affirmative action are going to be under even more assault and challenge.
So to start off, Joy, if we could begin with you, because you and I have a lot of these conversations. Why has allyship in particular become such a central focus to progress being made in equity and inclusion initiatives?
You know what, David? Allyship has always been a central focus because without having people in the room where it happens, so to speak, you don't have a voice. You're always outside beating on the window. You need someone internal to say, "Hey. Maybe we should open the door." Give us a crack in the door, and then we can get in and do programs and change things inside. But without having those allies to speak to an audience that otherwise might not hear me, I need someone that doesn't look like me to talk to people than look like them because it lands differently.
We all have our own internal biases. Think about how we treat our kids. If your child comes to you and says, "I've got a serious problem, you might either take it very seriously because you already know," or, "Oh, this is so cute. What little problem do they have?" You already have a bias on how you are processing the information. If an adult comes to you and says, "I've got a serious problem," you might take it more seriously. And not to get too deep into the child adult dynamic there, but when someone whose opinion or lived experience you don't have any understanding of or any experience with, when they tell you something, there's going to be that immediate, "Is this true? Do I get it? Are they serious? Are they exaggerating? Are they being too sensitive?" Et cetera.
But when someone that looks like you says the same thing, a lot of those interior or unconscious biases are shaken up and it can throw you for a loop to hear something, let's say hypothetically from your brother, from your niece, from your spouse, that you're going to hear that a different way than if I come knocking on your door. And so that's why allyship is so important as a staple to progress, not just an add-on.
Yeah. I was reflecting upon, after the passing of George Floyd, and I say that on purpose because I worked in some environments where they wouldn't say murder or death or the killing of. And in any of those environments, I would ask people before they embarked on this effort to change things, were they doing this work a year before or two years before? I'm a psychologist. I'm always asking people what they feel to check in and notice their own motivations. And what's important about allies if we use allyship, which is a trending word, but it's an old concept, it's participation. It's participation by individuals from a community who know enough about, not just know enough, but feel enough, have enough connection to others who may be suffering to care. And when that feeling gets into your body, when that feeling is there, then you're going to be able to maintain this effort.
And so my caution to people at the beginning of the pandemic when they were rushing to do something is ask yourself why you weren't doing it the year before, if you weren't. And if you are doing it now, make sure you're not just doing it because it seems right, it sounds right, it's the right thing to do, it looks good. See if you can find a reason inside or a reason that moves you like the connection you have to the people around you.
David Sarnoff:
Thank you so much, Fritz. And I'd also like to encourage our attendees to please feel free to share comments or questions in the chat or directly to the speakers.
Building on that theme, and what I get from you, Fritz, as I'm listening, is performative verse authentic allyship, and we'll get it more into specific examples. But Michael, if I could turn to you and ask is there a misconception that allyship is the act of doing someone a favor? Is that what allyship is? Being nice to somebody or picking up a pencil that falls on the floor or what are we talking about?
Well, I think the answer in short is yes. I think there's that perception that's out there. It's a misconception, and I also think that there's a perception out there that, oh, you're just being woke, which is on the flip side of that. So you have these two different extremes about what allyship is. And part of the challenge, I think for people who are invested in DEIB issues, like the folks that we have on this call, is to be super clear about what allyship is and is not. Allyship, to Joy's point, is A, educating yourself as a white person or a man or whatever, but also owning your privilege, but then also speaking up for those that are not in the room. Or if they're in the room, still being an ally and speaking up for them as well. Not on their behalf, but owning your own experience around it, becoming a confidant. And really, if you see something, say something.
I think people need to understand what allyship actually is and how it manifests itself and be super clear about that. And I think that's part of the challenge, is that I'm not sure that we've done as good a job as DEI professionals really to clarify and explain what allyship looks like and what allyship is. And the fact that being an ally is a critical role and task in organizations that want to focus on DEIB issues. So that's my [inaudible 00:08:14].
David Sarnoff:
Yeah. Michael, can you share just a clear example of what an ally would do in a situation?
Michael Burchell:
So I actually think the see something, say something is a great example. I don't need to have Joy be in the room if I see something that is not just, that is not equitable, that is not attentive to what kind of inclusive environment we're trying to create in our organizations, say something. Say something. Name it, call it out, lean it into it. I think part of being an effective ally is also being a little putting yourself out there and risking when it doesn't feel comfortable. And so I think the see something, say something is really a great axiom for this. That's one quick example.
David Sarnoff:
Yeah. Thank you, Michael. Joy, would you like to share one?
Joy Stephens:
Sure. So pop quiz for everybody on the screen. Who introduced and when do you think it was the first, and I'm going way back and I know we're tired of talking about slavery, but who introduced the first anti-slavery legislation movement, et cetera? It was the Quakers in the early 1800s. They were already saying, "This is evil. This is wrong. We should not be doing this. We should not be enslaving other people." Not nary one of them was black, but they were speaking up because they saw an injustice and they did what they could to try and combat it. That was an ally move. They were participating in the legal structure of the country to try to dismantle something that they saw as a gross injustice from within the system. And so that's what allies do. They see something that is inherently wrong and they try to fix it.
Now, that can take the point of trying to pass legislation. It can be trying to champion certain groups within your organization, sponsoring an ERG or BRG, et cetera. It can be speaking out to people in your family that you know have misperceptions about other cultures. "Hey, that actually is not true about this community," et cetera. But it is always an action and it's an action that involves other people.
And I'm going to say something a little provocative, if you will. Blacking out your screen on Facebook is not something that says you're an ally. Wearing a button, wearing a ribbon, taking one day out of the year to change your LinkedIn profile, that is not allyship. That is performative. It's cute, and I mean that word on purpose, but it doesn't do anything because you're not really affecting anyone else around you. You're standing up and saying, "I believe this today and then tomorrow, I don't know if I believe this anymore." What are you doing on a constant basis to try to change a system that provides inequity for people? That's what allies do.
Yeah. Yeah. To build on what you said, Joy, being an ally is not something you do to make yourself feel good, like volunteering at your community church. I tend to get dramatic about this, but I think we have a moral obligation to speak up, to Michael's point, when I see something and say something. And yeah, I think the question that David started off asking is actually a really important one of this misconception around, I always use a zero-sum metaphor that equity does not mean you're taking something away from somebody else. So it's just leveling the playing field so we all have an equal shot at progressing.
And I don't know. Sometimes, there's a little bit of a patronizing feel around allyship, that it's those in positions of power and privilege are altruistically raising their hands saying, "You need help and I'm here to help you." That just feels wrong to me. It's more about, "Listen. We're all human and we all are existing in a system that we know is broken, and so let's collaborate and put our heads together and figure out how we get ourselves out of this." That, to me, is true allyship.
David Sarnoff:
Yeah. And just to add to that, I recently interviewed a woman of color named Lori Boozer, and she said, "When something happens, I don't need somebody to come to my cubicle an hour later and say, "Oh, I'm so sorry that happens." I have a psychologist for that. I need somebody to step in the moment when I feel unsafe or when someone commits an act of bias or takes an intimidating stance against me."
I'd like to go to a question that's been posed by a member of the audience and I'll just read it and whoever would like to chime in, please do:
How would you address HR or executives who respond to your allyship as being woke or you being a troublemaker?
David Robert:
That was a great question.
David Sarnoff:
Great question.
David Robert:
Well, there's lots there, but I'm going to focus on this woke concept. I don't know where, how this came about. It seems to come out of nowhere that now we have weaponized empathy. It makes no sense to me at all. From my perspective, if being woke means that I have made an authentic commitment to working with my colleagues and my peers and my friends and people I don't even know on correcting injustices that we know exists, then I'll be woke all day long. I'll drink woke every day. So I don't see it as being a negative thing.
But to answer the person's question, if somebody accused me of being woke, I would actually be proud of that. I'd be like, "Thank you. I really appreciate that you've noticed. I'm making a difference." It's easy, I think, in a social environment. At work though, especially if somebody who has power over you, reporting power, influence or who has the ability to threaten your job, it becomes very intimidating to speak up and challenge that person. And I can understand the discomfort that someone might feel raising their hand to somebody who has a position of authority and saying, "That didn't feel right," or, "That didn't sound right," or, "That's not good." But I actually would be proud if somebody who called me woke.
Joy Stephens:
It's the latest jargon. It popped up... So I will say in the black community, we were saying woke a decade or two ago, so we were already off that word, but it came back around because they needed something to dog whistle about. Before that, it was social justice warrior. And before that, it was just liberal, tree hugging hippie. All of these mean the same thing. You are looking to do something progressive that I don't agree with so I'm going to label you something that I can dehumanize you with.
But addressing the other part of that question around HR or executives that may have a problem with your allyship as being woke, from an HR specifically perspective, HR tends to center around compliance. Compliance can sometimes intersect with government regulations, and the government changes all the time. And so their focus is, are we in compliance? Is anybody going to be upset? Is the company protected? And now their personal opinions can sometimes play into that, as it does with any human being. We all have our own personal opinions about different things, which is why I believe, and this is my personal opinion, that diversity and inclusion, equity and belonging should not fall under the umbrella of human resources. It should be its own standalone thing. You don't have sales under HR. You don't have marketing under HR.
So this should be another business imperative that reports into the C-suite just like everything else. And it should stand alone, it should have its own budget. It should have its own team just like every other business imperative, or even project that happens within a company, because you can run into, especially given federal changes, you can run into instances where HR will have some documented reason as to why they don't want to do certain things. They might be out of compliance during this administration that might be imperative in the next administration.
Right now, they're trying to pass laws in Florida to take away all sorority and fraternities that are historically minority, like all of the black and Hispanic fraternity sororities, of which I am one on public schools. And they do so much more than just strut around. There's a lot of them are community service organizations. And so if that becomes a federal mandate, how does the HR people or the Title IX people on that campus react? That is a different discussion versus how the diversity and inclusion people should react.
And the phrase are you being a troublemaker? I live in Atlanta, and so I'm going to quote John Lewis. Sometimes you need to get into trouble. You got to cause good trouble. If you're not causing someone to be uncomfortable, you're probably not doing a whole lot. If you're going to challenge the status quo, somebody's going to be upset with you for doing that. So then you have to decide in yourself if it's worth it to you.
David Sarnoff:
Thank you, Joy. Go ahead, Michael.
Michael Burchell:
Joy, I really appreciate what you just offered. And part of the idea of woke has been in different communities for a while, as Joy mentioned. I do think it is a shorthand way of undercutting credibility around DEI movement. That's clear and simple. That is the play that's happening here, right? It is we're trying to go ahead and take the wind out of the sail. And so as a HR or executive, I would be curious. I'd be open and I would be curious if that were to come at me. So I'm not really quite sure what you mean by being woke or being a troublemaker. What I can tell you though is that we're trying to create a high performing, high trusts organization here. So what do you mean when you say woke or troublemaker? Are you saying it's not about creating a high trust, high performing workplace? What exactly are you talking about?
So I would be open, curious, but pivot right back and not so much interrogate, but be curious and try to understand more about what's happening here and then position what this project is about, not what it's not about.
David Sarnoff:
Along the lines of, can you help me understand where you’re coming from?
Fritz Galette:
I was waiting to say that. Thank you, Michael, which is we pivot. Thank you for noticing I'm woke. I have a cap over there, I should have had it ready, that says stay woke on it. And I used to wear it until it got politicized and I started to get into interaction with the people where they would come at me and I would pivot. Michael, I would pivot, get curious because people's concerns and questions are statements about what's going on with them. The psychologist in me is going to make them go, "Tell me about what you mean. Walk me through your understanding." And a lot of times, that's where you're going to find out that they have a completely different understanding or definition of the things that we're working on. And we're in a polarizing time where if we don't take the time to get curious and meet people where they're at and try to have this conversation with them from a place of curiosity, we may not talk to them again. And then now they're off in a corner electing another president, you know who.
So we need to always try to pivot. Thank you for noticing that I'm doing this work. I noticed that you're bringing it up. You've got a question about it. Tell me more about what's coming up for you around it. Walk me through.
Joy Stephens:
And you make a really good point about listening and understanding. So when we talk about allyship, it ain't easy. And it's one of the things that even I, as a practitioner of this, find difficult at times is listening to someone whose ideas I might be diametrically opposed to. Can I give them the space to get that off their chest, to say their peace, to listen without trying to debate, trying to counterpoint, et cetera, et cetera, so they will know I have heard them. That is really hard to do. That is that is PhD level allyship if you can do it. And it takes a lot of energy and a lot of patience to do.
But one of the things that I encourage people, especially as they're beginning that allyship journey is be careful about canceling people, alienating people, refusing to speak to someone because you're doing potentially more harm than good. If someone is willing to talk to you, and again, they're talking to you potentially because you look like them and I don't. And your response is to call them names, shut them down, tell them that they're outdated, or you're so whatever, you're losing an opportunity to have a conversation that could potentially change someone's mind. And I need you to have the patience and the temerity to change their mind or at least to listen because you're having an opportunity that I'm not going to get.
Fritz Galette:
A wonderful thing happens when we create a space where the other person feels listened to and understood, and you might be going... You might be even more optimistic. I'm not trying to change people's mind. I'm trying to create a space within which we can share understanding and our respective visions, lay it out on a collective canvas in front of us and be able to see how different they may be. And we may still not agree at the end of the day, but we might have a greater respect for where each person's coming from.
David Robert:
Yeah. What Michael said earlier about if somebody accuses you of being woke or a troublemaker is pivoting that conversation and turning it around, because we can't underestimate how effective that woke strategy is from people who are trying to undercut and undermine the work that we're doing. So it's an incredibly effective strategy and I continue to be, maybe the word is shocked, of how many people just don't do the hard work. They don't do their homework and really do the hard work to really understand what we're trying to do, rather than picking up a tagline off of a TV news program and using that. We have to think for ourselves and it does require you to actually maybe get out of your comfort zone, do a little bit of the homework.
And I like the word curious because, listen, I have lots of people in my ecosystem who I know I have significant differences, social differences, financial differences, whatever, but it doesn't mean I don't engage them. I'm very curious. I have very dear friends who are on complete polar opposite side of the social spectrum than I am, but we still can find things that we have in common, and I still care about these folks and I'm sure they care about me. But I think we're taking the lead from politicians in particular who have an agenda and who are benefiting from making us feel that we're different from each other, that we're a permanent divide that can never be mended or fixed, and it simply isn't the truth. I think that if we all just leaned in, stop watching the news, I think we actually have more in common than we probably acknowledge.
David Sarnoff:
Sure thing. Now, and so David, if I could just build off that a little bit, because over the past few months, it feels like, in particular, we've gotten many calls from organizations and firms of people like either in human resources or DE&I spacing, "Can you come speak to our leaders to explain why DEIB is important?" And there's this resistance that throughout the organization, there's a desire and a willingness, but leadership is stunting it. And I know Joy has done this and others. We've gone and spoke to executive committees and senior leadership teams and do workshops around this. How do you approach leaders who believe these efforts do more harm than good?
David Robert:
Well, I can answer that. I'm sure Michael has things to say as well, because whether we're talking about DE&I or a sense of belonging, I know Michael and I have a history with culture and trust. Whatever your ambition is, the path to get from point A to point B is the same. So it's to acknowledge that and follow the data, but acknowledge that when we work together and we have a collaborative work environment that's diversified, inclusive, or people can derive a sense of belonging, that those organizations outperform their peers, they outperform them financially, they outperform them from a profitability perspective, and they outperform them from a talent retention perspective. The data is absolutely clear.
And so that's where I would start. Michael, you can recall, we've had countless conversations with executives when they go through an engagement survey or a trust survey and the scores come back and they want to undermine the process or they want to ignore what the data's telling them. But the data is very clear about organizations that invest in high trust, and you can't have a high trust environment if you don't have an inclusive environment, those organizations win.
Michael Burchell:
1000%. Whatever he just said. 1000%.
David Robert:
Yeah, absolutely.
Michael Burchell:
I do think in terms of, if I can just maybe add just one piece here. I do think that when we look at the data, to David's point, you cannot open up a Harvard Business Review edition or look at now what's out there currently on the bookstore shelves around leadership and effective leadership without the issue of DEI becoming an essential theme and part of that. It always has been, but it's clear now.
And to the degree that organizations can really think through how they create allies at all levels of the organizations, not the L minus one and L minus two only. Your largest opportunity is with your mid-level managers always and consistently. How do we equip people to have the right tools and resources and skills? And then how do we support employees across the organization and have the right kinds of conversations to be curious, to be open, to really figure out how to educate themselves. And if I'm a white person or a man or both, how do I educate myself around what it means to be a white man in an organization and be an ally? And Joy mentioned before the history of abolitionism in the US. White people are carefully taught to not think about these issues, to not be attentive to these issues, to not know about these issues. And yet, there's a long history of advocacy and allyship in the US.
And so to just pivot for a second and say, okay, so now not only what does that look like in a historical terms for the US, but what is really great effective allyship like in organizations? And it goes back to what David was talking about. You create a high trust, collaborative work environment, innovation goes up, creativity goes up, support goes up, efficacy goes up, performance goes up. It just is consistent across the board.
David Robert:
But I think what might be causing, and I'm trying to be careful with my language here, what might be causing some of the resistance or pushback at the very top of our organization is this if it's not broke, don't fix it mentality. That a lot of these organizations that we talk to are making lots of money. People aren't leaving in droves. So as an executive, you might look at the landscape of the organization and say, "Listen. Things are going really well. We get great scores on our engagement. We got certified as a best employer of choice award. We're making record record profits. What are you talking about?"
And I know that from my work in driving big picture culture strategies is that that's the best time to pay attention to it. So why wait for a crisis to emerge to then scramble and put resources in place? When things are going well, that's the perfect time to say, "Wow. How do we continue this momentum? How do we make sure this is sustainable growth and sustainable success?" And you do that through reinforcing the infrastructure of equality and inclusion within your workplace.
David Sarnoff:
Anyone else? And again, I encourage the audience, please submit your questions, comments. You can do it anonymously. We really appreciate engaging with our audience.
Fritz Galette:
And I am listening, and I've been in some of these conversations and I'm listening to you all. And I know that when I see us in engagements and when we are... Joy, you told the story about the Quakers before, but when you tell the story about the Quakers, you don't just tell us this way in terms of intellectually understanding that they were the first. You tell the story of what was going on in their hearts and their minds and their emotions and how they felt this thing was wrong. And resistance, as a psychologist, doesn't come from just thinking. It comes from feeling and paying attention to what people are feeling. And in many times when we're engaging people around this topic, we try to meet them where they are, find out what they're feeling, why they want to make a change. Usually it's an intellectual idea. We try to connect it to something that's going on for them so that they can actually sustain it.
You see, at the beginning of the pandemic with George Floyd and the protests, there was a whole lot of external pressures making people feel all kinds of ways. And we predicted that as those pressures went away, exactly what's happening right now would happen. But nowadays, when we're talking to people and we're trying to get them to work through their resistances, sorry to talk like a therapist and a psychologist, we don't just talk about what they're thinking. We get them to get in touch with what's going on inside with them around it. "So if you want to sustain the incredible profits you're making, how would you feel like some of the profits you're making would be 10X if you actually engaged in these processes of DE&I?" "Oh, I would love that really more." "And how would you feel if right now you're losing money because you're not working together as a team or engaging or leaving a lot of money on the table?" That's what gets people feeling. And that's the sort of work that can help push through these resistances, especially now during times where things are getting cut.
David Robert:
That's a great point. I love that, Fritz, because we always talk about that with our clients. Why would you want to leave money on the table? No reasonable person would do that. And when I look across an organization, every relationship that has a lower level of trust is a cost to the organization. You're leaving money on the table. So there's a lack of collaboration, a lack of knowledge sharing. All that has bottom line implications. You might not be able to touch that money. It's softer, but it's there. So there's lots of ways to recapture that cost.
Again, I'm biased because a lot of my career history is in the culture work, but if you focus on building high trust relationships, and you can't do that without being inclusive and equitable, that you again outperform your peers from a bottom line perspective, but also in terms of all the other money you're leaving on the table through a lack of collaboration and creativity.
Joy Stephens:
And I'm a huge proponent of psychological safety. And we've talked about whether or not people feel safe to speak up about problems and issues or questions, concerns, mistakes, et cetera. And psychological safety is not only for the employees, it is for the leaders as well. And I think that's something else that when we talk about how people resist, there's a fear that is causing that resistance and that fear can be tied to, especially as we talk about leaders who have been in those positions for the last couple decades, maybe a generation or two ago, they're in their 50s, 60s, 70s, in some cases, they were raised in an environment where the boss is never wrong. The boss doesn't show weakness. The boss doesn't show fear. The boss doesn't do any of these things. The boss is infallible and therefore, unapproachable. And that's what they learned. So there's some deprogramming of that that has to happen.
You're telling someone who's only examples before they became a leader were people who were never wrong. My way or the highway. I'm going to tell you what to do. I'm so strong mentally, et cetera, and never make a mistake. And they're trying to fill those imaginary shoes in some cases. And now we're telling them share your feelings and they're looking at us like, "You must be out your mind. I'm not sharing my feelings with these people." Because the fear of them being taken less seriously, of their status or gravitas being diminished because they admit, "I don't know how to handle this," or, "Maybe I've made a mistake," that's real.
And so when we talk about, and a concept like psychological safety is not just for the individual contributor to feel like they can speak up, the leaders, the C-suite, they have to be able to say, "I'm not sure what's going to happen in this situation," or, "I want to be an ally. I don't know what I'm doing and I'm trying my best," which is potentially a better message than we're going to wait six months before we put out a message to get it absolutely perfect. By then, your window has passed and your employees feel like you didn't do anything. So that uncertainty needs to be shared, but you're asking people who have grown up in an environment of don't you dare. Don't you dare talk about something you don't know. And we're asking them to be vulnerable. And that is work that I don't know a lot of DE&I specialists understand is a part of what they have to do, which is why we need you, Fritz.
David Sarnoff:
Well, lot of hand clapping popping up on the screen, including Fritz. So let's pivot a little bit and say we've engaged with a client and they seem to come around, understand why these programs and initiatives are important, contribute higher employee satisfaction, revenue, profitability, all these things. What do they do next? How do we educate? How do we inspire allyship? What do you actually do to raise the awareness of wanting allyship practiced in an organization?
Joy Stephens:
I think the next step is deeper understanding of individuals. And so we have a lot of leaders and then middle management as monoliths. And then individual contributors or employees, again, is another monolith. Bob needs to know Brenda, Brenda needs to know Dave, Dave needs to know Sharon. And so if we don't start seeing people as individuals, we're always going to have this hump that we can't get over. That takes a lot of time, a lot of patience, a lot of energy, but it is a great investment. It is a sunken cost that needs to happen.
If I, as a C-suite person, can see one of our employees, an up and comer or middle manager or a new hire and talk to them and understand them and their lived experience and have that conversation and get them to know me, sponsorship is just another step away because now I know that person. They're no longer employee B24995 or whatever. They are now Jonathan. I know Jonathan. I understand Jonathan. Jonathan may be the exception to some of the biases that I've had in my mind. Maybe I can open up in a different way.
Some organizations try to encourage that along by pairing people. Some people will mentor up. You have someone who's maybe five or 10 years or less with a company mentoring, from a cultural standpoint, someone who is a senior leader, to help understand the different generations, maybe different ethnic or racial or sexual backgrounds, sexual orientation backgrounds, gender expression backgrounds, et cetera. Getting someone to see you for you is imperative, and that's the work that I think needs to happen next. We've got to get out of titles, status, unapproachability, and really get vulnerable with each other. That's going to take probably the next decade to do.
David Robert:
But Joy, the challenge is that these organizations that we're talking about don't exist in a vacuum. They exist in a culture that is very polarized. I saw a recent poll that said, it's not to pick on any political party, but I want to say it's about 40% of Republicans or people who lean Republican think that DE&I initiatives actually do more harm than good. And these are our friends and our family members and our bosses and our colleagues. We don't leave our political affiliations when we walk through the front door of the lobby every day. And so that has tremendous impact on how people feel about DE&I and initiatives internally. So if you know are one of those 40% of people who don't think these things are beneficial, then why would you make that commitment to invest time and energy to support DE&I initiatives, find the resources, be that ally?
So this is, for me, one of the biggest challenges is that if we had a little experiment lab and we had organizations that had no outside influences, it would be, I think, a little bit easier but we don't. So we are operating in a very complicated polarizing environment, and that does seep into our organizations.
Joy Stephens:
And I think it is on that educational journey. I think about a couple generations ago, sexual harassment was still a class everybody had to take. You still have to take it from a compliance standpoint. What started off as helping women feel safe in the workplace has turned into a mandatory training for all new hires. Everyone that comes into any company anywhere because it's a federal thing.
And so yeah, we've got that governmental overwatch on those sorts of things. It's going to take a while to get there for everything else, but if your senior leaders, I'm talking your board of directors, your managing partners, your CEO, CFO, CHRO, et cetera, if they make it clear this is what is required in order to continue to prosper and be here, it's going to make several people uncomfortable, but you're not required to agree with everything. You're not required to change your whole life outlook, but you are required to listen. And if we can get people to, you're going to be in this room and listen and have a chance to speak your piece, we're going to listen to you as well. But if we make that listening event mandatory, not training, discussion, then I think you'd start to change people.
And again, we don't have to all agree, but you can understand where I'm coming from and I can understand where you're coming from. And that bridges some of that polarization.
David Sarnoff:
And I think Fritz often talks about finding those common values. You value family, I value family. You value education, I value education. But one of the things that popped up for me, listening to this dialogue, is the practice of accessibility and how that supports allyship and vice versa, in my opinion. And I'm still a novice, I'm educating myself on accessibility and attend webinars and reading and being proactive, anticipating the needs of others, having close caption, having other types of things that... I think the school of universal design says universal design is good design for everybody. It benefits everybody. You don't see doorknobs anymore. You just see push downs because that makes it more accessible for people with physical disabilities. And I think if, again, just my opinion, if we partner accessibility with allyship there, it might create more support for it as a business imperative, as a people imperative.
David Robert:
Yeah. So going back to what Joy said, David, about, I kept thinking about individual responsibility. We audit onboarding programs all the time, and usually, it's very compliance heavy and things you should not be doing and not reinforcing the positive behaviors you want to see. So why couldn't an organization open up their onboarding process and share with new employees, "Here's our expectation of you. Here's what it means to be an employee or a colleague at this organization." And that's the first thing I would do.
The second, and this is true with all culture work, is that you have to have the aspiration, but you have to have the infrastructure to support the behavior change you want to see. And it's tricky. It's hard work. You have to look at your both formal and informal incentives and reward system and organization and understand is it rewarding the right behavior? And if not, what needs to change in that infrastructure so that we actually are encouraging people to take those risks, to be an authentic ally and having a reward system that actually supports that? Because my guess is in many organizations, the reward process probably discourages people from truly leaning in because there are incentives that are having you focus in other areas and not focused on this important work.
Michael Burchell:
I think there's lots of different ways to, going back somewhat to your question, David, I think there's lots of different ways to intervene in an organization. Recently, there was an organization I worked with that set up intergroup dialogues, which actually were very effective. If you think there's different levels of allyship, that was a way to help people understand the different various levels and intervention and ways around being an effective ally. So they had to practice skills around giving and receiving feedback and being curious and being inquisitive and learning from each other. And to Joy's earlier point, once I get to know you and who you are in your head and your heart, then I'm a more effective ally on your behalf.
So I think creating those moments and those opportunities to have that intergroup dialogue conversation can be really, really instructive. And I think you learn skills around how to be an effective ally and the different levels of being an ally only through those kinds of opportunities, those kinds of structured opportunities. Because most organizations, they don't spend a lot of time... We don't have a lot of language around diversity. We don't have a lot of courses and classes and ways of thinking about these issues. And I'll speak for myself, particularly as a white man in corporate America, I tend to sometimes think when we talk about diversity issues, I'm not in the equation. I think that's a default. So they're talking about diversity over there. That's not about me. I can be over here, but it is about me. So I think having those structured interventions and opportunities is really, really critical. That has to happen in order for this to develop.
Joy Stephens:
That sparks two thoughts for me when you say it's over there, it's not about me. Two things can happen when that mentality takes route. One, somebody else's problem. Good luck with that. I hope you fix it. Let me know when you're done. That's the first problem. The other problem is they are coming to attack me. And so the White man becomes the villain in the story and nobody wants to be the villain in the story. And so again, there's that resistance. "I want to do this because it's going to turn into we hate the White man story." And I've heard literally those words come out of someone's mouth. "Is this going to be another we hate the White man workshop?" And we spent the first 20 minutes of that workshop talking about why he felt that way. And by the time that workshop was over, I had to catch a plane. He's the one that gave me a ride to the airport because he wanted to keep talking.
But it requires you to not knee-jerk reaction and want to correct him in the moment or vilify him or whatever for saying that. Understand why do you feel that way? And that takes a lot of patience and time, but it's always time well spent to understand anyone and where they're coming from.
Fritz Galette:
I believe that we need to always look at this as living and breathing, a living, breathing, evolving entity. A lot of organizations will ask us where to start as if there's a beginning, middle, and end. There is no end. It's continuous. So if in the last three years, you've seen a historic rise in a number of interventions that we've done, we need to constantly be checking in with each other and with the people we gave those interventions with to find out, "How is that for you? Was that helpful? What could we do next?" We need them to inspire our leaders to continually be engaged with and communicating with one another on an ongoing level. Because a lot of the things that we do may not move the ball up the field, but we need to be connected to the people we did this with to find out what it was like for them so that we can keep on working together.
And as another important piece is a lot of times, we're brought into an organization by somebody that's trying to make a change and we come up with something in our groups, in our meetings with them and then we go do it. But really, if we're trying to change a culture, we need to build in a process where the culture, the people in that culture could have been part of the formation of the thing that we did. So that as we keep on doing it, because remember I said, there's no end, there's no beginning, it's just a continual process. Yes, Joy, for generations, if that's what it takes. But even for the time being, to have that active engagement with the community, we can do a lot to change things.
David Sarnoff:
And if I could ask now for members of our audience and those who will listen to the recording, what is one thing they should absolutely not do in trying to establish effective allyship in an organization?
Joy Stephens:
Don't shut down somebody when they're trying to talk regardless of what they're saying. It needs to be heard even if it's rough. Doesn't mean that you give them an unending platform, but don't shut them down because then they will find a way to get that voice heard somewhere else and you could be subverting your own plan because they're going to go underground with their thoughts and feelings. You need them to be able to talk about it.
David Robert:
Yeah. I think messaging and tone is important as well. I think it goes to what you said a few minutes ago, Joy, is that, I've listened to this podcast from Malcolm Gladwell called Revisionist History, I think it's called. And he had an episode on these college students in the south who were upset with their university leadership because of statues and other artifacts on campus being displayed that celebrated the Confederacy. And they had a valid point, but the way in which they brought this to the leadership's attention was very aggressive. And it immediately put the leadership in the defensive posture and the conversation devolved into name-calling and finger-pointing, and they didn't really get what they wanted.
And Malcolm's point was, "Listen. You have a valid point, but you have to come into the conversation with a sense of respect and have a way to make your point that is not going to alienate other people. Otherwise, you've accomplished nothing because as soon as you feel defensive, you stop listening and you remove yourself from a productive conversation." So I think tone and messaging becomes really important here.
David Robert:
I was going to say, are we going to, in the 10 minutes left, are we going to maybe get some examples of allyship? I hear that, it's like, "Well, I'm not really sure what you want me to do. How do I demonstrate I want to be helpful, I just don't know what to do?" So I thought it could be an interesting question to cover.
David Sarnoff:
Yeah. Please, kick it off, David.
David Robert:
It's dated, but I think it's a really clear example of, I can tell you the first time I experienced was a recipient of allyship. This is before marriage equality. I'm not even sure people are aware of this, but if your employer offered same sex health benefits, the federal government taxed you on that. So it was called imputed income. So your straight peers didn't have to pay that tax on your health insurance, but because you weren't federally recognized as a married couple, that was treated as income. And so people like me just tolerated it and you pay the tax. And I recall being at an all-hands meeting and a woman who I had never met before, not in the same sex relationship. She was married to her husband, had children, she stood up at the all-hands meeting, went to the microphone, and said to the CEO at the time, "You may not be aware of this, but our gay and lesbian colleagues are being punished through the tax system just because of their relationship. Are you aware of that? And if so, how do we fix this?"
She had no skin in the game, and I wasn't brave enough to go up the microphone and say that, and that was the one paying the tax. They actually ended up actually covering from that point forward, covering the tax so that it was no difference in terms of taxation between gays and lesbians and straight people. But that was the first time I was like, wow, that was A, took courage for her to stand out, but she also had no skin in the game. She could have been quiet and her life would've been the same. And it's so vivid in my mind that day that happened. I was grateful. It was amazing.
Fritz Galette:
I think that's a great example of somebody doing something with a person they don't have a relationship with, but they can see there's a clear... They're in a privilege or they're in a position or they're in a space where they can go and do something. I often tell people also starts with the small things of interactions within your organizational community, that if the first time you're approaching somebody is to try and help, "I want to be an ally, I want to help." Well, previous to that, do you have any relationship with them? And were there opportunities before that to create relationship by actually having meaningful small talk?
Your question, David, before was about in terms of, what I thought about in terms of the answer, I don't remember the question, but it was about not doing anything that doesn't come from an authentic place. So even when you say to somebody, "How is your day?" Or, "How are you doing?" Are you doing that just to be nice because it's performative or do you really mean to connect to them? And so I'm usually encouraging people, one of the first things you can do on a regular boring day where nothing else is happening, take any opportunity that you can to connect to people in a meaningful, authentic way in whatever way that is. And then we ask, as David's pointing out, if you also have a chance to do something or get to the mic or take an action, definitely.
David Sarnoff:
I was just going to read the question. Yes. Okay. I think it's a good question from the audience:
How do you work with individuals in an organization that don't want to be an ally or don't want to see the organization supporting allyship because they see it as supporting a demographic that they don't agree with? i.e., that they view as wrong? After listening, if nothing changes and their voices continue to be contrary and loud, does leadership have to ask them to leave?
I want to thank the participant for such a thoughtful question.
David Robert:
Absolutely. Well, I can jump in here, David. So I know I've said this multiple times on previous webinars, but it goes back to the importance of culture. I think of culture as an organization's immune system. If you're super crystal clear about who you want to be as an organization and what you value, then that increases the likelihood that you're going to invite people to come work for you who actually share those values. And if you don't share those values, you stand out. It becomes very difficult to hide.
And Michael, you know this. Every organization that makes a true authentic commitment to an aspirational culture will get to a point where there is somebody who's not fitting in and they have to make a decision about whether to ask that person to leave or not. And not every organization gets this right because it's usually that person who's not coming on board, not coming along, is usually has a very important role in the organization or is a rainmaker and you're struggling with do we ask that person to leave? We know that they don't fit in.
And I always say yeah. That's the right choice, is to have them leave because that person can be so destructive because they can influence other people who are on the skeptical fence. And then you now have a growing population of people in the organization who don't feel the same way that you want them to. And Michael, you know this, every organization that has gone through a large scale culture commitment hits that roadblock where uh-oh, we have somebody who brings a lot of value to the organization, maybe from a financial perspective, but we know doesn't fit here. What did we do with this person?
Michael Burchell:
I was going to say Fritz and I were recently working with an organization together and what's really super clear, and Fritz and I talked about this, is that the worst behavior that leaders are willing to allow is the limits of your culture for your organization. So if you don't actually or aren't super clear about what's okay and what's not okay, but I also think to give a lot of space for people to figure stuff out, I think the project for those of us who are on this call is to create frictionless organizations, to create less friction. And every time that this kind of stuff comes up, it just adds to the friction that people of color experience, that gay and lesbian people experience. We want to create more of a frictionless organization so people can actually be their authentic selves and show up and have an empowering, useful experience and create a great organization.
So when this kind of stuff happens, it just creates just ick, but people are trying to do their best. I also take that perspective, that people, regardless of who they are and where they're coming from, they're trying to do their best. So we give a lot of grace and a lot of space and help them figure it out. If at some point they don't figure it out, then they can be successful someplace else and we can help them figure that out. Joy, I'm sorry. You were going to say something.
Joy Stephens:
I have my own little YouTube channel, The Moment of Joy, and I literally just put out a video this morning about this. And David, the reason I smiled so big when you said immune system is because it was called herd immunity. And it was about the idea that especially if you're dealing with microaggressions in the workplace or whatever, if half the people will say, "We don't do that here. We will not accept that," to the other half that may either be neutral or engaging in microaggressive behavior, you reduce the amount of space for that negative, that virus to grow. And if half the people are protected, then it stops the transmission of negative behaviors, bad attitudes. Again, what you will allow to have happen in your organization. So I'm going to post that video on LinkedIn later.
But one of the other things that I wanted to touch on, building off of what both of you have said, is this idea that your culture is only as good as what you allow. This is a behavioral issue. And if there were any other behavior, if they weren't meeting targets, if they were stealing from the break room, if they were doing anything else that is unacceptable behavior in your organization, there would be some sort of performance improvement plan in place. They would have a specific amount of time to improve their performance or their behavior or they would be separated from the company. This should not be any different. Now, I'm not saying we go out and anytime anybody makes a mistake, they get punished for it, but if there have been multiple... We all know who that person is, and they need some reform in their behavior. What is the plan to reform them? And if they don't want to take those steps, they can self-select to do something different somewhere else.
But I think as an organization, if you're going to try and say you have a good culture, you can't say we're doing everything we can, but this guy gets a pass. No, he doesn't, or she doesn't or they don't. We've got to make sure that we're giving focus feedback on a negative behavior that needs to be corrected like any other feedback we would give to a manager.
David Robert:
I agree with you. I think for many of our clients... We do a great deal of work in the legal space. I think law firms are in a bit of a trickier position because of the ownership structure. So if a partner's behaving in a way that is proving to be problematic, it's not an employee where you can say, "Hey, go and behave that way across the street." They're an owner of the company, and so it becomes a little bit more challenging how do you actually instill a system of accountability when you know that the ownership structure is very different than a regular organization? And we have clients who are dealing with this very issue. Partners who are behaving poorly and there's not a, I wouldn't say no accountability. That's not true, but not a process of accountability that actually makes them feel the pressure to change.
David Sarnoff:
Yeah. It's different standards as we sometimes refer to the partner protection program because the value of what they generate is considered more of a priority than their toxic behavior.
So as we're coming up on the hour, Joy Stephens, Dr. Fritz Galette, Dr. Michael Burchell, David Robert, thank you so much. Lindsay, thank you so much for helping us with all the operations and logistics. And thank you to the audience. We greatly appreciate you spending the time with us. Please feel free to email us questions, connect with us on LinkedIn, follow Loeb Leadership's LinkedIn, visit our website, loebleadership.com. Thank you all so very much.