I enjoy having meaningful conversations with business leaders interested in shifting the scope of diversity practices in their company. However, there is one refrain that often creeps its way into our interactions. After spending some time talking and creating synergy, we move the conversation into planning and next steps. That’s when it happens. I notice a slight downturn in the voice and countenance of the person with whom I’m speaking as they regretfully say, “I would love to work with you, but I have to get my CEO on board first.” OR “I have to educate my CEO on why diversity matters and why it will be to our detriment not to adopt and implement its practices.” Hope dissipates, and forward movement halts.orative thinking to further the overall value proposition.
Bring to the table win-win survival strategies to ensure proactive domination. At the end of On the one hand, I appreciate the pause. Company leaders must have equity and diversity as personal values, or their efforts will be performative and potentially cause profound harm. On the other hand, these responses remind me that CEOs must recognize two levels to this work: personal and professional. I wrote this post to provide tools for leaders to start with the personal work and allow that work to guide them in their professional spheres of influence.
Why?
A couple of contributing factors of the centuries old lack-of-diversity-problem is a deficiency of fair opportunities for diverse hires to enter companies and elements that keep minority populations out of higher level positions in said companies. Company executives are the gatekeepers of businesses, determining who comes into the organization and dictating who is ushered out. Leaders must align themselves with equitable practices that create unbiased circumstances for minority hires to enter and flourish.
It takes personal determination, intentionality, and focus to see how the intersections of employee’s identities have precluded them from professional escalation. Systemic changes must occur, and business executives must realize that they are crucial to taking risks and making those shifts. Diversity must be penultimate as a personal value to leaders at the topmost levels of businesses. What we’re talking about is personal growth and development.
How?
Personal growth is not a simple process, but it can begin with just a few intentional steps that will significantly impact your company. Below I’ve listed the beginnings of an interrogative process that company heads can journey through to assess their experiences and perspectives and become more inclusive gatekeepers of executive spaces.
Evaluate: Evaluate your personal life and value system as it pertains to diversity. Are your social circles diverse? What do your communities look like? Are there people in your circle that don’t look like you? Do you engage in intergenerational spaces?
Engage: Should you find that your personal spaces lack diversity, proactively participate in experiences that ground you in other people’s realities. This might include trying new foods, listening to music different from your preference, having lunch with other leaders in the field whose audience is different from yours, researching articles on diverse realities.
Execute: As you return to your spaces, realize that while this work is on-going, the changes you direct do not have to wait until your journey is complete. What can you change now? What small shifts can you make along the way? What are the topmost areas of your company that lack diversity, and how is the company being negatively impacted as a result?
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