Back to the Future: Building Competitive Advantage
Over 20 years ago I co-authored a book focused on how organizations could re-envision diversity as a competitive advantage. Fast forward to the present and I realize I did not anticipate how the DEI effort would look in 2024. The need, when my colleagues and I penned the book, for an enlightened perspective on the value-add of equity in the workplace (not to mention the ethical impetus to address this issue) seemed both clear and compelling, as it well remains. As I look back and gaze forward with some hope that the competitive advantage might still emerge, with focus and intentionality, I plan to hold on to that brighter outlook from two decades ago.
Because I envisioned that the dominoes in the workplace were lined up neatly and the first ones were falling, I anticipated that the next stage of the initiative would pick up momentum and make major inroads through the tangle of debris wrought by lack of systemic efforts and change during the centuries of racism, sexism and homophobia that had interwoven irrevocably within our country. In my mental model of achieving equity at work, at least in recent decades and during the Civil Rights movement and Black Lives Matter imperative, the arrow of social justice had been launched, and it seemed as if our aim was true and our intended bulls-eye was within reach. In retrospect, and sadly, I was naive and lacked accurate foresight.
Many, many elements of my "straight shot" vision have gone off that path. Some have been viciously attacked (and some successfully killed, such as the elimination of DEI roles in certain state university systems, or court rulings taking down affirmative action in college admissions) while others have been surreptitiously moved aside. But a startling number of derailments have been the result of our own misguided efforts. A major factor in this failure of the pursuit of social justice to achieve the victory it so desperately needs and merits relates to how we communicate. Sadly, we seem to have reached a place where it has become almost impossible for us to listen and exchange ideas in ways that might be described as civil discourse.
SmarterWisdom believes that it is important for us all to remember that workplaces are NOT immune to the shifting norms and culture in our wider world. The political roiling and social volatility across the US in 2024 is not separable from the attitudes and issues which arise at work. The working population of course brings the attitudes and understandings of the world into organizations. Our highly conflicted society has now been even further replicated in our workplaces, and we might, sadly, be even more inclined to avoid being confrontational in any way. Calling out bias and prejudice seems to have become more difficult and risky.
Social conflict is a powerful tool—and can be effectively leveraged at work. When the movement was making progress, and society’s roll-it-back advocates felt threatened, the call to arms by resisters was focused around the rising toll of political correctness. In this argument, organizations’ pursuit of social justice was making victims of unintentional perpetrators, as we showed fear of offending anyone. This argument had the very real effect of dampening discussion of even routine workplace equity issues. In today’s volatile environment, we see even the longstanding proponents of equity more carefully weighing when or when not to raise many issues—issues that in a different, more supportive and open context, could perhaps be tackled and laid to rest.
Ironically, early efforts to improve equity at work produced anti-discrimination employment laws designed to protect workers (and employers.) Their real-world execution, however, has also engendered unintended, negative consequences. Efforts to actually apply these legal rulings have incidentally exacerbated the very problems they were created to eliminate. A focus on issues such as fair hiring and employment practices at work—particularly in the context of a reactive and politicized population—has made these issues targets for those seeking to stifle the movement toward workplace equity.
One major mechanism in which this problematic situation manifests is workplace communication—or, rather, non-communication—specifically content and language choices related to employee categories or information which is legally protected. Laws related to hiring equity have made certain subject matters including categories such as marital status, religious affiliation or parental status, off limits. Specific word choices (at the extreme, hate speech) are identified as code red. These are widely known as off limits in employer-mandated conversations (for example, interviews or performance reviews) and are certainly regarded as “watch out” areas in regular workplace discussions and other less formal communications.
When effective communication doesn't happen, feelings fester, action goes underground and employees and managers spend valuable time with workarounds—or, when actions are taken, the intentions behind them are often misinterpreted by those who are affected.
What does this look like at work? The dysfunction of non-communication becomes a self-fueling downward spiral. In our work in organizations, we observe that many employees are increasingly anxious about the boundaries related to what they can legally speak or ask questions about. Many tell us they are hesitant to discuss issues in which they feel unsure about the acceptability of certain words, ideas or expressions. Surfacing, confronting and correcting has been moved off the strategy agenda of many individuals; ironically, at one time, a fair number of these same people once saw themselves as foot soldiers in the march toward social justice.
The conundrum around the perceived high degree of risk around direct communication regarding equity issues in the workplace has left too many employees today feeling that they should already possess the requisite competencies to deal with these issues. That belief creates a sense of shame about needing to admit to ignorance or insecurity. This is a catch-22 to be avoided if we are to develop a workplace that truly engages employees in a way that reflects both the spirit and the specifics of the law.
Disrupting this cycle is not a matter of political correctness: organizations have the responsibility and the legal mandate to create an employee experience that is perceived as equitable and safe. It is also in organizations’ self-interest. It can feel unsafe to employees to believe they cannot, for various reasons, have necessary conversations and communication; failure to feel they can do so promotes employee disengagement, poor morale, talent attrition and, organizationally, opens the door to costly blunders and liabilities.
The answer lies in education and continuous, informative, clear communication. Employees that know better, do better, and that promotes organizational success. Continuous communication on this subject also makes an important statement about the organization’s stance on employee equity issues: it tells workers that the enterprise is not expecting that everyone already knows everything they need to know on the subject. It sends the message that, in this arena, the organization holds a development mindset. Everyone, regardless of who they may be or where they may sit, can be better and must be provided with relevant information on a regular basis to stay current and well-equipped to fight the scourge of bigotry at the workplace.
A few smart actions can help organizations alleviate the perception that these issues are “no go” areas and relieve the resulting impasse:
· Be clear with employees about what is “in scope” and what is “outside of scope” in terms of approved workplace subject matter.
· Be specific about acceptable/unacceptable language choices.
· Remove the shame from not knowing and encourage and support inquiry (confidentiality and anonymity can be very helpful in supporting the voicing of “touchy” questions.)
· Create a “judgement-free” zone for asking questions, making it easy for tentative employees to get clear answers about what they can/cannot discuss and the words or phrases they can or cannot use when discussing related subject matter.
Employees that take advantage of these opportunities will help minimize the ignorance and attendant anxiety in dealing with equity at work. They can help create a culture which demonstrates that the organization values and respects all employees. SmarterWisdom contends that most employees do not rise in the morning with a plan to head to the office to diminish their fellow workers. Organizations that equip workers to treat each other well, in both the legal and moral sense, will create a more sustainable environment for building belonging and inclusion. An enterprise that fails to do so is ignoring the possibility to improve community and culture.
And, just as in 1994, I urge that improvements, of a deep and generative kind, are actually within reach. Or to paraphrase from the movie referenced in our title: “Your future has not been written yet. No one’s has. Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one….”