The Top Ten 2018 Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging Events

Introduction

Both practitioners and laypersons thought resistance to cultural diversity in the United States could not get any worse. Yet, we found ourselves appalled at the sheer amount of divisiveness highlighted in the news media during 2018. Fortunately, there were glimpses of hope. Here are just a few of the highlights.

HIGH TECHNOLOGY EMPLOYEE DEMOGRAPHICS LOOK QUITE DIFFERENT FROM THEIR COMPANY’S CUSTOMER BASE

According to Pew Research Center, Latino or Hispanic Americans make up 28% of Internet users on Twitter and 28% are African Americans use Twitter. In contrast, only 20% of white American internet users are on it. Nine out of 10 of Twitter employees are white or Asian and about two-thirds are men. Four percent of Twitter staffers are Latino or Hispanic and 3% are African-American. That is happening years after the Reverend Jesse Jackson visited Silicon Valley to demand change and accountability.

INCIDENTS OF WHITE PEOPLE CALLING THE POLICE ON BLACK PEOPLE FOR BEING IN PUBLIC SPACES WENT VIRAL

Many of the stories covered in the news media were incredible. They would be difficult to believe if not for being captured on video and follow-up news reporting. One white woman who was later dubbed, Permit Patty, called the police to report a black child and her mother for legally selling bottled water to the public. Their goal was to raise funds for a trip to Disneyland. Permit Patty wrongly reported them for selling without a permit. They were in front of the condominium complex that they all live in. This was just about two weeks after a white woman dubbed Barbeque Becky called the police on a group of black citizens in Oakland, California for barbecuing at Lake Merritt Park.

Activist Carroll Fife spoke to the Oakland City council during a discussion of the barbecue incident. “The assault on black life is not an isolated set of circumstances. The recent emergency phone call from Jennifer S, a white woman angered by an African American family barbecuing in an unauthorized location at Lake Merritt, highlights how anti-black racism is used in a way to control black bodies and used in a way to control space.”

HATE CRIMES

We understandably get angry when someone unnecessarily reports an innocent victim to the police instead of allowing them to go about their lives. When the incidents become life-threatening, the seriousness reaches the next level. According to the FBI Hate Crimes database, “Of the 5,060 victims targeted for their race, ethnicity or ancestry, 48.6% were attacked because of the offenders’ anti-Black or African-American bias. Of the 1,749 anti-religious hate crimes, 58.1% were the product of anti-Jewish bias.” (https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2017/topic-pages/victims)

GENDER PAY EQUITY

Salesforce founder Marc Benioff appeared on 60 Minutes to describe his company’s and his personal reckoning with pay inequality. He admitted to CBS journalist Lesley Stahl that when Cindy Robbins, Salesforce’s chief of personnel, first suggested that the company was potentially practicing pay inequity, he wouldn’t even consider the possibility. Once he was able to learn more, it dawned on him that his views of the equity among Salesforce employees were erroneous. That is when he quickly put plans into action for making the necessary changes. Unfortunately, few of his fellow high-tech CEOs have followed suit. In fact, some vocally expressed being annoyed that his actions put pressure on them.

Source: QZ.com. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff Tells 60 Minutes About His Reckoning with the Gender Pay Gap.

VIDEO – https://adage.com/creativity/work/forbes-women-ii/54657

CORPORATE BOARD DIVERSITY

Most organization leaders are familiar with the research that shows the return on investment for having women on the board. Yet they over sympathize with white male board members who resent giving up a coveted seat to someone they believe hasn’t earned it. The result is a lack of progress that threatens competitiveness and sustainability.

One state decided that it needed to step in to put an end to the entitlement programs company the mostly white male board members enjoyed. California became the first state to require women on corporate boards. While the legislation is controversial, Norway offers a good example of the promise of imposing such a legal requirement. Once the Norwegian companies implemented the practice to align with a similar new law, the men quickly began to appreciate the clear-cut benefits.

DIVERSITY IN SPORTS

Ever since Colin Kaepernick dropped to one knee to protest institutionalized racism during the national anthem in September 2016, the National Football League has tried to figure out how to please an overwhelmingly black player workforce while increasing consumer appreciation for its brand. The fact that the teams chose not to hire Kaepernick after he became a free agent has not favored team owner public image.

While the NFL struggles to figure things out, Nike siege an opportunity. They featured a headshot of Kaepernick with the words “Believe in Something. Even if It Means Sacrificing Everything” across his face. The larger than life images were everywhere. People angered by the images posted videos of Nike shoes being burned and asked the public to boycott the sportswear company. It seems no one was listening. The company stock grew by 5% and brought in six billion dollars so far.

Nike understood the linkages between consumerism, social consciousness, and sports. It turns out that Americans prefer companies that make social statements in defense against injustice. The company exploited it to the fullest by doing what many people thought was a gamble – making Kaepernick its poster child.

RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY IS STILL A CHALLENGE – LESSONS FROM THE FALL OF A CULTURAL DIVERSITY CONFERENCE

Diversity, inclusion, and belonging is difficult to make happen. Thankfully, there are a few places practitioners can go to learn, network and commensurate with like-minded professionals. The Workforce Diversity Forum has grown into one of the leading annual conferences. Recently the forum’s leader wrote a letter announcing the end of its partnership with a Catholic university that was a major sponsor for years.

The diplomatic praise for the university expressed in the letter announcing the end of the relationship did not mention the incident that caused the breakup. Behind the scenes, negotiations had taken place to salvage the partnership. It turns out that the Catholic university had given the forum leadership an ultimatum. It needed to choose between maintaining the partnership with the university and it’s standing relationship with Planned Parenthood.

Although Planned Parenthood’s presence in the organization focused on cultural diversity, that the organization supports a woman’s choice became an issue for the Catholic university at some point after years of collaboration in support of inclusion. We are reminded that simply having cultural diversity in the room does not mean everyone is included, and that challenging deeply held values and beliefs for the sake of overcoming institutional barriers to inclusion is not easy.

DIVERSITY TRAINING

One of the most common suggestions for dealing with people who are misguided and violent is to subject them to cultural diversity training. After more than 40 years of offering some form of diversity training to too many people to count, it is logical to question the effectiveness of this solution given the present state of our society. It turns out that diversity training is too often a one-shot event, there is no uniformity in the content, the focus is more on awareness raising than skill building, and it is seldom directly linked to an organizational change initiative (see Diversity Training: From Pain Island to Treasure Island). The conclusion seems too obvious even without a single study – A single-day training session isn’t going to cut it.

Okay. How can we get better results? This is where research comes in handy. A 2016 research paper focused on studies that were either based on experimental design or at least used a pre-test baseline to measure effectiveness. It found that a series of characteristics correspond to training with good outcomes — longer training is better than shorter ones and interactive training where people from different backgrounds work together are better than lectures. But one of the better insights from the research is that the skills and information that people get from a diversity training are forgotten quickly. Lead author Katerina Bezrukova, professor of organization and management at the University of Buffalo said :“If a training session is like a vaccine, you’re going to need booster shots to keep it effective”.

Source: FiveThirtyEight.com A half-day diversity training won’t change much for Starbucks.

UNCONSCIOUS BIAS BECOMES A HOUSEHOLD TERM

Cultural diversity training remains on the margins of mainstream continuing education before unconscious bias publications and practices gave the field a shot in the arm. After Hillary Clinton referenced the term in her 2016 bid for the United States presidency, unconscious bias has become part of American vocabulary. While the training solution is not the panacea for the historical divisiveness in the country, the prevalence of the use of the term has moved the conversation from insensitivity to the psychology of managing differences that are largely outside of awareness yet result in similar consequences.

Source: See Seven Biases in the Workplace – Let’s Be Brutally Honest About It!

THE TERMS INCLUSION & BELONGING BECOMES POPULAR

The current controversy about building a wall and border security to keep out “illegal aliens” and increase in hate crimes within the United States reflect a reoccurring theme in American history. It appears that we have not learned from past mistakes. Italian, German, Greek, Chinese, Irish, and other immigrants have had to unfortunately go through periods being treated like a nigger. The treatment has unfortunately become a rite of passage. In fact, you know that your heritage has finally been integrated into American society when your people become the gatekeepers that treat new immigrants and refugees worse than they were treated. Treating new immigrants the way your group was once treated becomes a badge of honor. The assumption is that new immigrants deserve to be excluded because it gives what their family endured significance.

The inclusion and belonging movement is promising because it questions the status quo of automatically putting people into us and them categories. We can all relate to a sense of feeling excluded and how detrimental it is for living and working productively with others. While we understand the need for inclusion, the things we need to do to make people feel included has not been given serious attention. We assume that we know how to include others. The sad reality is that few of us do. It turns out that there is a gulf between our sense of being tolerant and the limited skills we have for promoting inclusion. One place to start is considering what we need to feel like we belong and what marginalized people need to enjoy a sense of belonging.

Let’s Pray for a More Inclusive 2019!

It is up to each of us to do more than get caught up in the tragic cultural diversity news coverage. We need to take personal action to develop the knowledge and skills needed to do model inclusion. Just keep in mind that cultural diversity always wins in the end. The unfortunate part is that we seem to not learn our lessons from early immigrant experiences. New immigrants and refugees are treated as the other and demonized for political gain and to give too many a false sense of belonging. True belonging is not based on cliques and discrimination. We can only feel truly included when we enjoy being part of a society that treats everyone with dignity and values what they have to contribute as individuals.

The Top Ten 2018 Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging Events

Introduction

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