The system is changing slowly.
My company has made a visible change in how it recruits, hires, promotes, and reports on its efforts to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion. I welcome the change and have already seen visible results. But … It’s not enough to wait for the system to take care of itself.
I am becoming the system.
I have spent most of my career feeling like an underdog, with an eye for disrupting some of the default. I always thought of it as “punching up,” what is thought of in the world of comedy as “making jokes at the expense of someone who is of a higher level of power in terms of status or privilege.” The thing, at some point I had achieved enough influence and autonomy that there was more below me than above me. I had gained privilege and agency within the system; that makes me a big part of it.
I change the system.
When I joined a newly forming team at my company a few months ago I realized we were sitting on a rare and special opportunity. Because the team members were all senior-level or higher, and because we would need to hire and expand quickly, we had an opportunity. We could reshape the norms of what senior teams look like. We could also recapitulate the systemic bias already among our senior ranks.
My appeal to you for change…
I sent my team an open post on Slack. I used negotiation techniques in drafting the post, and you can learn about that at the end. Here is a lightly edited version of what I wrote to my team:
I’m going to raise an issue that might bring up some strong feelings. You might be surprised, and you might already be thinking about this. As we continue to hire people to this team, there is a risk of recapitulating systemic bias among our senior ranks. What I mean is that if we are adding highly senior and principal staff to the team, and as these ranks historically have less diversity, we run the risk of recreating that lack of diversity on our team.
To give you an example, a female professional contact was up for promotion and lost out to someone else that “has home court advantage.” As these two candidates were otherwise equally qualified, that one difference-that-makes-a difference is what I mean by recapitulating systemic bias.
You might wonder if the risk is all that great. You may be surprised at this notion. You may be shaking your head in recognition. You may be wondering how to make a difference. You might be worried that you can’t make a difference. You might feel nervous about the scrutiny of whatever your efforts may or may not be. And you may feel overwhelmed by the idea of thinking about yet another factor while building our team’s capabilities.
I want to make sure we all feel we are working well together. If at any point you feel I am taking us away from what matters with this or any discussion, I want you to stop me: we will rewind the conversation back to where we got sidetracked, and we will start from there.
Our leadership has asked all of us to help refer people to the open job listings. I ask you to take extra time to think about the qualified people you know who would also help round out the team’s perspective. Think about those whose ears, eyes, and voice are missing from our team. This is an investment.
How to talk about social politics in the workplace (because no, it’s not okay to deny or ignore)…
There has been much discussion of late about whether or not to talk about social politics in the workplace. I’ll make it simple: if you want a diverse team and to be inclusive, that means you will have people join you whose mere existence can be a topic in social politics; to deny social politics is to deny a part of your team members’ existence. Claire Lew clarifies these thoughts beautifully in this article on teams and politics. Moving on…
How I made this request to my team
I was brand spanking new to my team and I was aware that I didn’t really know much about people’s backgrounds or politics. I needed to speak my peace without “punching noses.” As with most things, I approached this as a negotiator in the vein of Chris Voss and his “tactical empathy” approach. (If you find that term challenging, think of it as “highly practical empathy” skills or simply “the practical habits of empathy.”)
I am like a magician that always reveals their secrets, even while performing tricks. I don’t want this to be magic — I want everyone to be better communicating with empathy. Here are the techniques on display in the above post:
- Accusations audit: I imagined what people might have objections to by broaching this topic and pre-labeled those objections. The more I do this, the more I demonstrate I have them in mind. Notice that I don’t deny or explain away any of them.
- Set an extreme anchor: I made a bold statement about what is at stake and set people’s expectations at an extreme. When we get to the actual big ask, it won’t feel so big.
- Tell a story: I provided simple evidence on a personal level by telling a relatable (and true) story. This doesn’t come from Chris Voss but it’s a good way to relay meaning.
- Rewind accusations audit: this is a special version of the accusations audit that leads into a rewind request. The rewind request gives people autonomy to interrupt me if I’ve gone astray. It also relieves the requestor of the risk that someone comes back later to say, “that was unfair.”
- Big ask: the rewind request is the first ask that paves the way for the big ask. You may notice that by the time I’ve pre-labeled objections, set an extreme anchor, told a human story, and delivered rewind accusations request, the big ask* isn’t so big.
*I have decried the use of “ask” as a noun in the past, but am now a reformed prescriptivist, thanks to Amanda Montell.)
Please feel free to use this or a version of it to make the case changing the diversity and inclusion on your team and in your company. 🙏🏽
N.B. At no point do I “place” myself or the audience with regards to race, gender, or other categories. This was a choice on my part to focus on the system we were operating in rather than our characteristics as operators. I don’t even define what is and isn’t “diverse”; I purposely left this up to interpretation by the reader. You may find that you want to be more explicit or precise in your situation or context.
