How to (Not) Fail at Diversity and Inclusion

Hello, all. It is a gorgeous morning, welcome back to the show! I’m your host, Wanda Thibodeaux, and you’re listening to Faithful on the Clock, the podcast where we make sure with every episode that your faith and work align. This time, we’re gonna go just a little longer, not a lot, just a bit, because we’re digging into diversity and inclusion. We’re figuring out where companies are missing the mark, and how to make sure your business can create a safe, welcoming culture for everybody. Let’s head on out.

All right. So just to get us going, I want to highlight the fact that there’s a clear business case for doing better with diversity and inclusion. McKinsey did an analysis and found that companies who were in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25 percent more likely to have above-average profitability. And where they saw more women on teams, more ethnic and culture diversity, the teams were more likely to outperform their competitors. There was another CNBC survey that found that 80 percent of workers want to work for a company that values diversity, equity, and inclusion. And more than half of employees say working for an organization that prizes diversity and inclusion is very important to them--not just important, but very important.

So I think leaders understand the need for diversity and inclusion from a bottom-line perspective, and from the perspective of what workers are looking for. But that same McKinsey study acknowledged that companies have made very little progress in terms of improving D&I. You know, in 2019, the percentage of movement for gender diversity was something like just 1 percent, for example. And there also are some really eye-popping statistics aggregated by BuiltIn that show the reality different groups are in and just how much work we still have to do. I’ll link to that so you can have that as a resource.

So then the obvious question is, why are we so stalled on this? You know, what’s holding real change back? And perhaps what’s most telling with this, Michael Slepian, he did an article for Harvard Business Review, and he highlighted research that essentially concluded that, when people perceive that companies are going through D&I efforts just because they have to, you know, when they ask workers for their opinion or that kind of thing just out of obligation, rather than because they really care, then the employees actually feel like they belong less.

Now, Slepian offered some really good suggestions on how to make things better, such as finding a balance between recognizing and not overemphasizing the differences among people on your team. But doing any of that requires getting leaders to start thinking that they can’t just go through the motions. They have to change their mentality and really believe that it’s something that matters, not just financially, but from a moral perspective.

And that, in my view, is the heart of the problem. Leaders come up with all of these action points, you know, like they’ll say, oh, we’re going to hire so many more women or African Americans over the next however many years. They look for really measurable and quantifiable things. And they’re not even looking at, ok, but how do we actually get people in our space to see the other people around them as real human beings who matter. That is so much mushier, it takes time. You can’t even say how long it’s gonna take to get rid of the biases that are in place. And I can understand, I mean, those kinds of uncertainties don’t look really great to investors or your board. But successful D&I starts with addressing how leaders think, and then transferring those new ways of thinking to the entire organization. The best, most laid-out, most financially solid initiative in the world will fail if people don’t truly believe in or aren’t aligned with it.

So if your goal is to change how people view each other, the biggest thing you have to remember is, you are not just fighting culture, although that’s a big issue, too. You are going to have people getting reinforcement on their biases from just about every side. But you are also fighting neuroscience. When a person has thoughts, when they believe something, every time they think that way, they’re making neurological pathways in their brain stronger. It’s like adding layer after layer of insulation on a wire or expanding lanes of a highway. And what that does is, it allows the electrical impulses for those thoughts to fire and travel faster and faster over time, so it gets easier and easier to have those thoughts again. You know, the car on the highway can really speed along.

So what it boils down to is, you have to give people repeated exposure. Every time they have the chance to hear something different, every time they have the opportunity to spend a little time with somebody they’re not used to, they have the chance to build new neurological pathways. That’s this concept of neuroplasticity, or the idea that the brain is actually malleable and can change over time. And over time, as those new pathways get used more and more, they get built up and are easier to use quickly, and the new way of thinking becomes more automatic. The old way, you know, it might not die entirely, but it atrophies. And this is true for any bias or poor way of thinking you have, not just D&I. You always need repeated exposure over time. And as a leader, part of your role is to provide that exposure, whether that’s hosting mixer events or whatever you want to do. You cannot just do an afternoon of anti-bias training and think everything is going to be fine, because scientifically, that’s just not how it works. And as you get people to go through these experiences over and over, you have to teach them to use good imagery, too. And that just means you intentionally rewrite the script. So for example, if you see someone in a wheelchair, you purposely imagine them as doing really capable and positive things, that you use good, empowering language in your mind about them. All of that imagery and language shifting helps you reframe the person in front of you and lay down those new neurological pathways that are so important to better behavior.

Secondly, you have to be absolutely clear and consistent about policies and enforcement. Being clear about what your expectations are on D&I, what the report or escalation procedure is, all of those boundaries and protocols have to be formalized so that there are no surprises and everybody on your team can have shared accountability. Because, you know, I think we consider how the way we think influences what we do. But it goes the other way, too. What you do can influence how you think. So the more you set people up so they have to act in a certain way, or the more you say, hey, no, that’s not appropriate, or yeah, we want to see you treat others in this or that way, then the more you’re going to define for people the new thought normal they should have. The new behavior builds the new thought. This doesn’t mean you have to beat people over the head with a stick, because remember, building those new pathways is going to take time. People are going to make mistakes, and you can be forgiving the way God wants you to be when those happen. But it’s part of your job to provide some guardrails as they learn to make sure they progress in the right direction.

Now, there are two scriptural subpoints I want to make about this. The first is just that, you know, as bad as it is today, as divided as we are, Jesus lived in a rough time, too. They’d shun people with specific conditions, you know, leprosy, people were really scared of that. People who were lame or blind, they’d beg at the city gates, because employers were free to just turn them away. And the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37, where a man basically saves another guy from the group he’s supposed to hate, that’s entirely centered around social conflict and prejudice. Jesus told that story not just as a general reminder to be kind and caring, but specifically to confront all of the hate and conflict that surrounded Him. So as a leader, that’s your call to stand up, stand firm, and model what you want to see to confront the divisions that are in front of you, too.

And secondly, over and over in scripture, we see that Jesus understood what it meant to be thought of and treated as lesser. When He was preaching and people found out where He was from, you can read it in John 1:46, they questioned Him and His authority just because of that. So he was able to have empathy for the people who got the short end of the stick. He always was their defender, He always was going out and helping the people that other people said He shouldn’t waste His time with.

So when you try to provide your experiences and enforce your policies, it’s really important that you start from a real place of understanding in your heart. You have to think about how the divisions and treatment are creating pain or anxiety, and you have to connect that to your own struggles as much as you can. I mean, I’m a short white girl, I’m never really going to understand what being, I don’t know, a tall, 300-pound African-American man or any of that is like. And I do not ever want to minimize what’s really serious for others just by saying, oh, I can relate. Because sometimes others really have had it a lot worse, and you know what, I can’t know exactly what it’s like. But I have had people behave inappropriately to me for things I can’t control, appearance-based stuff, I do know what it’s like to feel that. So I at least can take that and say, you know, I don’t want anyone else to feel that kind of thing, either, even if they’re in a different group than me. And I can make an effort to learn and ask questions, rather than leaving it all on the other person to volunteer their story or the facts. You know, my ignorance is not their problem to solve, it’s always mine. So think about how they feel, try to educate yourself, and close the gap. However little common ground there might be, find it and defend it and use it to your advantage.

So let’s take a moment and pray.

Father in Heaven, we are facing some of the worst divisions and prejudices we’ve ever had. But flipping social scripts is in your plan, and the people at the bottom won’t stay there. And thank you for giving us Jesus, who is such a wonderful example of having courage even in the face of hate. Grow His courage in all of us so that we can appreciate and fight for the value every one of your children has, no matter what they’ve done, no matter where they come from, or what their experiences might be. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

That’s everything I’ve got for you today, people. To give you my usual heads up, next week, the topic’s going to be artificial intelligence. When and how do you use it, and what are the ethical and moral implications when you do? So, if you haven’t already done it, tell somebody about the show, go to faithfulontheclock.captivate.fm to subscribe or join our email list, and until next time, be blessed.