June 13, 2023 • 47 mins
The fight for diversity and inclusion intensifies, and the silence is deafening. All the beautiful "inclusive statements" have dried up, and the propensity to push back against the erosion of inclusion is lost in the shuffle. The courage to say your actions against diversity aren't right is lost in the zeal to return to normal. What is normal if diversity and inclusion initiatives are being eroded before our eyes?
In this episode of Season 3 of Inclusion Unscripted, Margaret Spence will discuss the war on diversity and supporters' silence. Then, we ask the question, who still has our back? Honestly, I don't think anyone does. We will talk through recent layoffs, the canceling and acquiescing of Black History education, and the open war on inclusion - to what end?
Inclusion Unscripted, where we're not just talking about diversity and inclusion, we're living it. The Inclusion Unscripted Live Weekly Podcast, hosted by Margaret Spence, is unapologetically honest about diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Our goal is to empower diverse listeners to ask for what they want and to inspire organizations to co-create more equitable and inclusive workplaces. Tune in every week for a new episode. Inclusion Unscripted is a live-streamed broadcast every Friday at 2 pm EST on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Join us live, or find us on iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcasts app.
Inclusion Unscripted with Host Margaret Spence. Sponsored by The Inclusion Learning Lab - https://inclusionlearninglab.com Intro Music Credit (Canva Pro) The Winner by Tape Machine Epidemic Sound
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You're like a circle that floats around me, keeping me safe and sound, and when a fall you tied a rope to me.
(00:12):
You've blessed me.
Every day I was down with an illusion, like a sparrow with broken wings.
But now shine.
Will your reflection on.
Hello everyone and welcome to season three of Inclusion unscripted.
(00:35):
My name is Margaret Spence and I'm the founder of the Inclusion Learning Lab.
So today, the fight for diversity and inclusion intensifies the silence is deafening in all the beautiful diversity and inclusion statements.
(00:55):
Have dried up.
The propensity to push back against the erosion of inclusion is lost in the shuffle, and we are celebrating Black History Month 2023.
The courage to say, wow, what have we accomplished? And the courage to voice.
(01:23):
The dissent that is going on against diversity and inclusion, the silence to address the real issues that lie in our workforce is deafening.
The courage to say that actions against diversity aren't right, is lost in the zeal to return to normal.
(01:49):
So what is normal? If diversity and inclusion initiatives are being eroded before our very eyes, what is normal? Welcome to inclusion unscripted, where we are not just talking about diversity and inclusion, we're living it.
(02:12):
And in this Black History month 2023, I am honoring our history.
Honoring our ancestors, honoring our place in the universe, honoring our purpose, our passion, our real lived experiences that has contributed not only to the fabric of the United States, but to the fabric of the global community that we all occupy.
(02:51):
I'm Margaret Spence, if this is the first time you're joining us, welcome.
I'm happy to have you here.
We've been on hiatus.
We are back for the next probab, and as we retool inclusion unscripted, we will be bringing you some bold programs over the next several weeks.
(03:19):
Our goal is to educate, to teach, to empower, to create a vision, to give voice to, and to agitate within the space of diversity and inclusion.
So today I wanna talk about where we are from a diversity lens.
(03:47):
I think it's imperative that we have this discussion that we talk through where we are as organizations, as a country, as a people, and as a process.
So we're navigating the back half of the global pandemic.
(04:12):
We are in some people's eyes done with the pandemic, but I still know people are dying from the pandemic.
People are getting sick, people are still stressed out about it, and people have long covid and things that they're dealing with.
Your employees are also dealing with a lot of stuff.
(04:34):
Your black employees, during the month of February and for black history months.
Are being reminded of the promises that you made and the promises that are left to be fulfilled.
Your leaders who are managing diversity and inclusion are also questioning their purpose, and if they're not, they should be, because I know as a consultant, Who's been doing this work for 24 years? February 1st, a couple days ago was my 24th year as a consultant.
(05:20):
I was talking to my business partner in EGO a couple days ago, and he was saying to me, Margaret, read this article about diversity and inclusion.
Read this article about real estate redlining.
Read this article about this thing on D D N I and I gave him a lesson in my life.
(05:43):
See, we as black people are not building diversity and inclusion.
We are living this shit.
Excuse my French.
We're living it.
And for many of you, you think we're building it? No, no, no, no, no.
Darlings.
We're not building this thing.
(06:05):
We are living this thing every day.
We are living within the confines of a world that has never been ready for us as black people.
And so today we're gonna talk about what is going on in the world of work.
(06:27):
What is silently going on in the world of work? What progress are we truly making? And the title of today's program is The Fight for Diversity.
Intensifies Who Still Has Our Back, who still has our back, who is still having our back? Because that I think is the question all of you folks doing diversity and inclusion need to ask yourself, who still has our back? The leaders, the CEOs, the organizations, the boards that signed those pledges.
(07:20):
After George Floyd's gruesome murder, are they still committed to the journey? Do they still have our back as black people? I'm not talking about the entire planet now.
I am focused.
This is Black History month and we are talking about black people.
(07:43):
So if you wanted to hear something else, today's not the day we're talking about black people and the war on black people because it's an all out assault and war.
So I'm gonna go deep today and we're gonna talk through this.
(08:05):
If you've joined us for the first time, inclusion Unscripted is a weekly live podcast.
We stream live to LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.
And we are sponsored by the Inclusion Learning Lab.
The Inclusion Learning Lab is a program that I launched almost two years ago now, and the goal of the Inclusion Learning Lab is to support those doing the work of diversity and inclusion and to empower organizations to build inclusive workspaces because it's not enough to be diverse.
(08:45):
We have to be inclusive.
It's not enough to be inclusive.
We have to create belonging.
It's not enough to create belonging if your black and brown employees and women aren't thriving.
So let me take that again.
It's not enough to be diverse.
It's not enough for you to hire us.
(09:08):
It's not enough for you to hire us.
Okay.
It's not enough for you to hire us.
You have to help us feel that we belong there.
You have to help us feel included.
You have to create space for us to have equity, you have to create space for us to have equality.
(09:36):
And you have to make space for us to thrive.
Meaning the first job you hire me in should not be the last job that I occupy.
And so the four episodes we're gonna do for Black History Month, and the four that we're going to do for Women's History Month is gonna be focused on where we are, who has our back.
(10:01):
And what is it that we're asking for from organizations? If you have not heard my podcast before, we are on all the podcast apps and you can go out and listen to them.
If you want more beyond the podcast every Friday, this live that we do, you can join us for third Wednesday, which is our open forum for de and i leaders.
(10:25):
The open forum is coming up in two weeks.
And we meet every third on Wednesday at 1:00 PM Eastern, and we have an open discussion on talent, talent development, and issues within the diverse workspace.
We're also gonna spend a little bit ti of time for the next couple of months talking about vendor diversity, because I don't think we talk about that enough.
(10:54):
So today's topic, what have we accomplished? Are our CEOs living up to what they promised us? And the answer is no, they're not.
They're quietly using the layoffs, especially in the tech sector that's laying off.
(11:15):
They're quietly using layoffs in the tech sector.
To backpedal around diversity and inclusion.
They are using it to backpedal a lot of diversity and inclusion.
Leaders were laid off in November and December and in January, under the quiet of we need to trim the fat.
(11:45):
The initiatives have been scaled back to where organizations only want to do employee resource groups because they think that that's the best thing to do.
I'm checking the box.
Look over there.
We got an E R G.
While the real work to create inclusion for your leaders does not happen.
(12:07):
There's a report that Catalyst put out on colorism.
It is an amazing report.
I'm gonna unpack that probably in a webinar.
And the, the three women that contributed to that are amazing.
D E N I leaders.
But today we're gonna talk about what we are accomplishing.
(12:29):
So I'm gonna read you some data as the nation confronts the reality of institutional racism, the outcry for corporate accountability reverberated, 82% of CEOs said they were going to act on racial justice, and remaining silent was not an option.
(12:50):
The jobs in the de n I sector rose by 123%.
Yet over the last year, there's been a 70% reduction of de n I leaders in organizations.
They have been publicly hired and quietly fired.
(13:12):
Let me say that again.
We have publicly hired de and I leaders, and we have quietly fired them with no press release to say, Hey, I got rid of that woman or that man.
We have handed diversity and inclusion to non-diverse people because one of the things that organizations think is, you know, if I give a woman this job, It's gonna be handled, diversity's going to be handled.
(13:45):
The challenge is you haven't had my lived experience to understand what it means to be diverse in your workforce.
So that's a, I'm gonna stick a pin in that.
I'm coming back to that.
So chief Diversity officers are resigning their positions and.
(14:10):
Amid inflation and the somewhat deteriorating economy, CEOs are cutting the de N I commitment and the de n I cost.
So they've cut budgets and they've cut the expense line for D N I.
(14:31):
And according to McKinsey, organizational diversity leads to higher profits.
Higher profit margins, right? And most diverse companies outpace their peers by 36% in profitability.
But the promises of diversity, equity, and inclusion are unfulfilled.
(14:56):
And the, and the morale of that unfilled fulfilled process is a drain on the diverse people working in these corporate spaces.
It's a drain.
How can we trust you if you can't keep your promises to us? Let me rephrase that.
(15:21):
Can we trust you when you've demonstrated that you're not going to keep your promises to us? I happen to live in the state of Florida.
Yeah, that state, the one that wants to saw itself off from the rest of the United States.
(15:45):
There's an all out war in Florida being led by our governor around diversity, the word diversity.
But here's the thing, he didn't start that war.
That war has been around forever.
He's just showing the emperor's clothes.
(16:05):
Because the war on diversity has always existed.
I remember way back when, when you couldn't say the word diversity because it meant entitlement.
You couldn't say the word diversity because when you said diversity and talent together, people felt that you were sub standardly hiring for a position.
(16:29):
I can remember when the word diversity was a bad word, and those of us who were doing the work around diversity had to figure out another word to say.
And I am constantly reconfiguring to make people feel comfortable with the outcome because my thing now is if I could just get into your heart space.
(16:58):
We will do the work.
What I'm finding is getting into the heart space is wearing me out and everybody else doing this work.
We're tired.
And if you're black and doing this work and looking at black men being murdered by police and worrying about that as a parent and grandparent, we struggle.
(17:27):
We struggle mentally because the world cannot get itself to a place where they accept the fact that we are here.
Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of contribution has been made by black people in the United States yet, and still, you don't wanna teach our history and you white folks, you have been quiet.
(17:56):
As the assassination of our history has been underway, but you want to see you are our allies.
How can you be my ally if you are silent in the spaces of work? If you are silent in the spaces of public discord and you're silent in the erosion of our very being.
(18:25):
And for the black folks doing the work of De and I, how can we not find our voice in these organizations? Because honestly, we need a paycheck.
So we're not gonna put ourselves out on the limb to say what needs to be said because none of you want to hear truly.
(18:50):
How functionally untenable your workforces are.
You want us to dance the pretty so you could take the lap of victory.
So I still have to ask the question, who has our back? Who still has our back? When it comes to D n I.
(19:15):
So let me keep reading.
80% affirms the diversity trajectory.
80% of firms displayed a pattern of very minimal increases in diversity in their professional labor force, primarily driven by small increases in employment for Asian men and women with declines among non-Asian men and women and other minority men.
(19:47):
So basically what has happened, Is there's been a trading of the diverse population, but we're all in this together.
You can't push one group up to push another group down into the abyss.
(20:12):
We all need to rise together.
We all have to rise together.
We as people of color, cannot be pitted against each other.
I love and support my Asian community, my L G B T Q community, my Hispanic community, my black community, my sub communities within the black community.
(20:40):
But it is time for us in 2023 to combine our voices because when they come for one of us, it's a pattern to come for all of us.
When you deny the teaching of African American history, When you deny the teaching of African-American history, you are now emboldened to deny the teaching of Asian history.
(21:11):
When you deny teaching African-American history, you can deny teaching about L G B T Q history.
When you deny teaching African American history.
You can deny teaching about Hispanic history and the richness of the Latin history in this country and contribution.
(21:36):
So for anybody that thinks that it's okay to allow the black folks to get trampled on right now, they trample on us as an experiment to come trampling on you, and this is the truth.
They will trample on us as a gateway to trample on you, our illustrious governor has decided that diversity and inclusion in colleges should not be a thing, but what he's forgetting is that.
(22:14):
If I have a child who has a learning disability, who wants to go to college, the office of inclusion is who makes that happen.
So when you all think diversity and you only think black people, you are missing what's really going on here.
(22:35):
It's the white male experience that is being propped up.
And the rest of us are being pushed down.
So if you, if you couch it in diversity, you get to push everybody down.
You don't just get to push one group and the corporations who promised us as black people that you are going to have our back and do the thing.
(23:06):
Our quiet, silent.
In fact, many of them are politically contributing to the erosion of black empowerment.
So you say inside of the organization we want D N I, but you contribute to the system that wants to erode.
(23:33):
D N I.
And you want us to be happy to bite the apple and eat it.
It's 2023.
My dad is 93 years old and in three weeks he will be 94.
(23:53):
When my dad was born, all the rights we take for granted today was not an option.
But if we don't stand up for the rights we have gained, our children's children's children will not have a space to occupy.
(24:20):
They won't have a space.
So many of you are okay with being handed the red Ball of Diversity and inclusion.
When the reality is we are making no progress and here's why.
We haven't asked for what we want and we are not clear about what we need, and we're not joined together as a unified voice on what we expect.
(24:53):
And so the institutions get to move the balls, rework them.
Give us the apple and we get to eat it.
Oh yes.
It's Black History Month y'all.
I came fully prepared for season three of the Inclusion Unscripted podcast.
(25:18):
Fully prepared for this today.
I don't want your platitude.
I don't want your gratitude.
I don't want your heartfelt, Hmm, what's the word? Responses.
What I want is action.
I wanna see results.
(25:40):
I want to see real movement within leadership spaces.
Within hiring spaces, within promotional spaces, within vendor spaces, within vendor spaces.
Y'all don't hire black vendors.
At least you do, but you don't hire them at the rate where we make the money, you hire us at the peanut gallery.
(26:07):
And you still continue to give big HR contracts to the big companies and you leave the black vendors on the side of the street and we supposed to think we making some progress, y'all.
We ain't making no progress.
We are just more comfortable.
(26:29):
The hoses aren't being turned on us.
The dogs aren't out biting us.
The sign doesn't say black and white, but the institutional process got deeper, y'all.
(26:54):
So in 2023, what do we ask for? What do we demand? What should we be required to ask for? Here's what we ask for.
(27:15):
We ask for effective career management from the day we joined the organization.
We asked for Uplevel development from the second we joined the organization.
If I'm gonna give you my blood, my sweat, my tears, my 40 hours my life, if you are gonna stress me out to death almost, then you're darn short going to help me navigate and manage my career inside of your freaking organization because giving me a paycheck is not enough.
(27:51):
I wanna rise, and that's what we're asking for.
We're not gonna allow you to shift the burden of diversity and inclusion onto the backs of the people who are asking for diversity and inclusion.
You cannot shift the burden for inclusion to us.
(28:17):
You can't make us do the work.
You as an organization have to do the work.
If your c e O promised an increase in hiring, then you need to get your talent acquisition leaders together in a little circle and say, how do we make this happen? But before you do that, you need to get your leaders in a room and talk to them about their biases around hiring black and brown people and women of color and men of color.
(28:44):
Because, see, here's the thing.
Diversity and inclusion is not an add-on to the job.
It is the job.
Let me say that again.
For all of you who are struggling to figure out what do we do around this diversity thing, how do we sustain it? Here's the thing.
(29:09):
Diversity and inclusion is not an add-on to your job.
It is the job.
Being diverse is who you are.
Even as a person who is not of color, you are diverse.
What you may not be is inclusive.
(29:30):
What you may not be is creating belonging, but getting you there is not my job.
Getting you there is your job.
It's time for us to stop doing the work to get people to change.
(29:53):
We as people of color, In this Black History Month 2023, it is not our job to help people feel comfortable with black people.
They gotta go do that job on their own.
I cannot spend my time helping you be comfortable with me.
(30:16):
And if you're leading me and you're not comfortable with me, then you've got a problem and the organization needs to say, Hey, Mr.
Leader, go take some classes around how you handle your unconscious bias and how you handle your inability to see black people as potential as leaders.
(30:37):
It is not my job as the employee, the frontline employee working in the organization to help your leaders get more comfortable being around me.
It is not my job, but if you put me in a situation where your leader is not ready for me, then you're doing me a psychological harm.
(31:00):
You are doing me a psychological harm.
That's the truth.
So the first thing that we have to ask of organizations is show me the numbers.
(31:23):
I just taught a class on de and i data storytelling, and a part of that I talked about the archetypes within organizations.
And how those archetypes prevent us from building effective inclusive strategies.
If you wanna learn more about that, you can visit our website, inclusion learning lab.com,
(31:47):
but we've got to ask for the numbers.
We have to demand the numbers.
Where are the people of color in this organization? What are the roles that they're being hired into? Let me give you another little thing that I don't know that everybody understands.
In every organization, there are two types of roles.
(32:11):
There are profit center roles and there are cost center roles.
In profit center roles, when you are bringing the bacon into the organization as a profit center employee, when you get ready to leave, they dial up accounting and they ask the accounting department, how much money do we have to give Margaret to get her to the parking lot when you are in the cost center role.
(32:41):
They call up HR and say, put together the severance package so Margaret can hit the parking lot with a thump.
90% of black people in organizations are hired into cost center roles.
We are hired into cost center roles where the profit in the organization is not divided to us.
(33:07):
So what are we asking for? We're asking for profit center roles where the pie is divided so that we are not just getting a paycheck, we are getting a paycheck plus something else.
A bonus structure, an equity structure, a cash structure.
(33:30):
And maybe as a black person, you are on the profit center side of the house, but you don't understand how the profit is really divided because your organization keeps that secret because the white men in the organization know how to divide the pie among themselves and they're never interested in di dividing it with women.
(33:52):
Period.
Black, white, purple, green.
Or people of color because here's the thing, I heard Brene Brown say this.
The men own the land.
The stadium is built on, they own the stadium cuz they built it.
They rent us the bleachers and we buy the tickets to go sit there.
(34:14):
They own the popcorn stand and we buy the popcorn, they own the ticket concession and we buy the ticket and we go in and cheer.
In the stadium that we don't own.
Oh yeah.
Fact today, I'm preaching today.
(34:37):
So the first thing we needed to ask for, let me go down the list, is career management.
Don't hire me and forget about me.
Don't hire me and put me in the desk for 20 years and think I'm supposed to be happy that you're paying me every week.
And here's a message for all of you.
If you've been sitting in your role more than five years and you're making no level set advancement, get your head up out of the work, look out into the horizon, and ask yourself, where am I going from here? What is this role preparing me for? What exactly is this job preparing me for? And where am I going? Because we could be tactically strong, which is what most black people are.
(35:27):
And what we hear is, Margaret, you're too good for me to let you move up because you do this job so well.
And what you tell yourself as black people is being in leadership is just so hard.
I'm comfortable staying in this desk.
See? We as black people live in our comfort zone because our parents way back when told us the opportunity of the job is what we were supposed to seek.
(36:00):
I'm telling you something different.
The opportunity opens the door.
You walk in with purpose, and if you don't have purpose, no one will care.
So let me go down the list again.
Number one, career management.
Number two, profit center roles.
(36:25):
Number three, data.
Where are my black people? Where are they? Where are my brown people? Where are my diverse people? What roles are they concentrated in, and how do we get them out of those roles and prepare to move up the ladder? You know, I heard Endura, Noy say when I, when the job at PepsiCo came along, I was the only option for the role.
(36:52):
How do you make us as black people, the only option for the role versus us applying for the role only to be told we're not ready? How does that look? How does that work? The next thing that we need to be asking for in 2023, It's not more programs for us to gather in.
(37:20):
If we are gathering inside of an E R G, then the ER G must be giving us something back.
We're getting ready to do something on strategic ERGs.
ERGs are not a place for black and brown people to gather, so we are happy and we don't become insurrectionists in the organization.
(37:43):
Let me say that again.
ERGs are not a place for us to gather and do the work of diversity because the organization doesn't want to do the work of diversity itself.
So you shift the burden of empowerment to the ERG structure.
(38:07):
I build ERGs.
I love building them, but I always build them with a purpose.
We're building a couple right now.
They're built with a purpose.
Many of you, your E R G does not have a purpose except to gather black people in, put on some fluffy, fluffy stuff for 12 months, and at the end of it, you put some data together and you say 900 black people showed up.
(38:31):
500 women showed up, 400 Hispanics showed up.
300 Latinx people showed up.
400 Asian people showed up.
And, you know, 500 L G B T Q folks showed up but they got nothing for it cuz they didn't get anything better and they weren't better off because they joined.
So we shift the burden of the real work to the E R G.
(38:56):
I don't build those.
Your E R G should have a purpose.
There should be targeted.
Leadership development programs, your executives should be asked to mentor people of color and women.
(39:16):
You should never have an executive say, I don't have enough time to be a mentor.
No.
If you are a leader, you will carve out time to be a mentor, but you will carve out time to be a champion and you will carve out time to be a sponsor of a woman or man of color who is currently not in your executive suite, and it's not my job as the person of color to help you feel comfortable doing that.
(39:51):
Go take a class.
I'm not gonna help you feel comfortable doing that.
I'm calling you out and I'm saying, CEOs, make your leaders be leaders.
Leaders lead by being inclusive.
Leaders lead by seeing my possibility.
(40:11):
When we train leaders in our programs, the thing I ask them is, can you train your successor? And many of them say, absolutely I can train my successor.
Then I ask, can you train your next boss? Let me see that again.
(40:34):
If you are a leader of teams, if you are leading a team, can you identify a person on your team? Who will be your next boss? And can you identify a person of color on your team who has the potential to be the c e o of the organization? Because see, if you can't see what's possible for me, you will never be able to empower me to be more than I could be.
(41:10):
You will always be the one that puts the guardrails around my life purpose.
You will always be the one who turns the light bulb off for me.
See, many of your leaders who claim to be inclusive are actually electricians.
(41:30):
They specialize in light bulb disconnection.
Because people come into the organization with the full light bulb on wanting to be empowered and groomed and grow.
And your leaders, your leaders who you claim are building inclusion and building diversity, all they do every day is put a dimmer switch on a person of color until we are so tired and so frustrated that they turn the damn lights off and we are still sitting there.
(42:04):
Because we don't think we have somewhere else to go.
That's what your leaders are doing to us.
So the question is, is diversity and inclusion a window dressing for your organization? Is diversity an inclusion, a window dressing, a press release, a data point? We have a program on our website.
(42:34):
We have information on our website about d and i and about what we're doing and about the awards that we've won as an organization.
When the reality inside the door, the people of color and the women are not progressing, it is still a white boys club with the really pretty, pretty dress of diversity and inclusion.
(42:59):
So as I wrap up today, I ask the questions on this live, who still has our back? Honestly, I don't think any of you do.
I think everything you do is window dressing because the real work isn't this hard.
(43:27):
The real work is getting into the groove of what it is and making the change.
The real work is complicated.
It's not hard.
It's complex because you have to unpack so many layers and layers and layers of inequity to get to equity and equality.
(43:53):
But it's not hard work.
It's the unpacking work.
It's the, it's the ability to unpack and say, we will do better.
Let's examine this.
We will do better.
It's the accountability work.
It's not the hiring.
The next diversity and inclusion leader.
(44:13):
The next de and i vice president, who is a paper tiger, who has no power, no budget, no staff, no team for thousands of employees.
The layoffs is a masking of the erosion of diversity and inclusion, especially in the tech sector.
(44:39):
The silence around what is happening with black and brown people and the L G B T Q community is an erosion of diversity and inclusion.
The silence around the fact that boards are still not diverse is an erosion.
(45:01):
There is an open war on diversity.
I want all of you to see it for what it is, and if you're going to be our allies, I want you to find your voice.
The next episode next Friday is about being an ally.
And I'm gonna unpack allyship for everyone because I want you to understand what allyship is, and I'm actually gonna teach a class on allyship for everyone next week.
(45:32):
So thank you for joining Inclusion unscripted.
I appreciate all of you who joined Jane.
Thank you.
Wonderful to see you too.
I'm so happy to see you.
Karen.
Same here.
Gina, same here.
And Sabrina.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for joining me today.
So I will see you all next week.
(45:53):
If you wanna get more information about me, go to inclusion unscripted inclusion learning lab.com.
Inclusion unscripted is on all the podcast apps out there downloaded.
We are on YouTube.
If you wanna watch the video again, go to YouTube live and join us third Wednesday for the Open forum on de and I and visit our website.
(46:20):
So take care of everyone.
Take care of yourself, and enjoy and celebrate, but acknowledge our history.
Acknowledge our history.
You are like a circle that floats around me, keeping me safe and sound, and when a fall you tied a rope to me.
(46:47):
You listen me every day.
I was down with an like a sparrow with broken wings, but now shine.
Will your reflection on me.
Take care everyone.
And remember, subscribe on YouTube.
Download the podcast on Apple, iTunes and all the other podcast apps, and register on our website for our upcoming events.
(47:14):
See you soon.
Take care.
You're like a circle that floats around me, keeping me safe and sound, and when a fall you tied a rope to me.
(00:12):
You've blessed me.
Every day I was down with an illusion, like a sparrow with broken wings.
But now shine.
Will your reflection on.
Hello everyone and welcome to season three of Inclusion unscripted.
(00:35):
My name is Margaret Spence and I'm the founder of the Inclusion Learning Lab.
So today, the fight for diversity and inclusion intensifies the silence is deafening in all the beautiful diversity and inclusion statements.
(00:55):
Have dried up.
The propensity to push back against the erosion of inclusion is lost in the shuffle, and we are celebrating Black History Month 2023.
The courage to say, wow, what have we accomplished? And the courage to voice.
(01:23):
The dissent that is going on against diversity and inclusion, the silence to address the real issues that lie in our workforce is deafening.
The courage to say that actions against diversity aren't right, is lost in the zeal to return to normal.
(01:49):
So what is normal? If diversity and inclusion initiatives are being eroded before our very eyes, what is normal? Welcome to inclusion unscripted, where we are not just talking about diversity and inclusion, we're living it.
(02:12):
And in this Black History month 2023, I am honoring our history.
Honoring our ancestors, honoring our place in the universe, honoring our purpose, our passion, our real lived experiences that has contributed not only to the fabric of the United States, but to the fabric of the global community that we all occupy.
(02:51):
I'm Margaret Spence, if this is the first time you're joining us, welcome.
I'm happy to have you here.
We've been on hiatus.
We are back for the next probab, and as we retool inclusion unscripted, we will be bringing you some bold programs over the next several weeks.
(03:19):
Our goal is to educate, to teach, to empower, to create a vision, to give voice to, and to agitate within the space of diversity and inclusion.
So today I wanna talk about where we are from a diversity lens.
(03:47):
I think it's imperative that we have this discussion that we talk through where we are as organizations, as a country, as a people, and as a process.
So we're navigating the back half of the global pandemic.
(04:12):
We are in some people's eyes done with the pandemic, but I still know people are dying from the pandemic.
People are getting sick, people are still stressed out about it, and people have long covid and things that they're dealing with.
Your employees are also dealing with a lot of stuff.
(04:34):
Your black employees, during the month of February and for black history months.
Are being reminded of the promises that you made and the promises that are left to be fulfilled.
Your leaders who are managing diversity and inclusion are also questioning their purpose, and if they're not, they should be, because I know as a consultant, Who's been doing this work for 24 years? February 1st, a couple days ago was my 24th year as a consultant.
(05:20):
I was talking to my business partner in EGO a couple days ago, and he was saying to me, Margaret, read this article about diversity and inclusion.
Read this article about real estate redlining.
Read this article about this thing on D D N I and I gave him a lesson in my life.
(05:43):
See, we as black people are not building diversity and inclusion.
We are living this shit.
Excuse my French.
We're living it.
And for many of you, you think we're building it? No, no, no, no, no.
Darlings.
We're not building this thing.
(06:05):
We are living this thing every day.
We are living within the confines of a world that has never been ready for us as black people.
And so today we're gonna talk about what is going on in the world of work.
(06:27):
What is silently going on in the world of work? What progress are we truly making? And the title of today's program is The Fight for Diversity.
Intensifies Who Still Has Our Back, who still has our back, who is still having our back? Because that I think is the question all of you folks doing diversity and inclusion need to ask yourself, who still has our back? The leaders, the CEOs, the organizations, the boards that signed those pledges.
(07:20):
After George Floyd's gruesome murder, are they still committed to the journey? Do they still have our back as black people? I'm not talking about the entire planet now.
I am focused.
This is Black History month and we are talking about black people.
(07:43):
So if you wanted to hear something else, today's not the day we're talking about black people and the war on black people because it's an all out assault and war.
So I'm gonna go deep today and we're gonna talk through this.
(08:05):
If you've joined us for the first time, inclusion Unscripted is a weekly live podcast.
We stream live to LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.
And we are sponsored by the Inclusion Learning Lab.
The Inclusion Learning Lab is a program that I launched almost two years ago now, and the goal of the Inclusion Learning Lab is to support those doing the work of diversity and inclusion and to empower organizations to build inclusive workspaces because it's not enough to be diverse.
(08:45):
We have to be inclusive.
It's not enough to be inclusive.
We have to create belonging.
It's not enough to create belonging if your black and brown employees and women aren't thriving.
So let me take that again.
It's not enough to be diverse.
It's not enough for you to hire us.
(09:08):
It's not enough for you to hire us.
Okay.
It's not enough for you to hire us.
You have to help us feel that we belong there.
You have to help us feel included.
You have to create space for us to have equity, you have to create space for us to have equality.
(09:36):
And you have to make space for us to thrive.
Meaning the first job you hire me in should not be the last job that I occupy.
And so the four episodes we're gonna do for Black History Month, and the four that we're going to do for Women's History Month is gonna be focused on where we are, who has our back.
(10:01):
And what is it that we're asking for from organizations? If you have not heard my podcast before, we are on all the podcast apps and you can go out and listen to them.
If you want more beyond the podcast every Friday, this live that we do, you can join us for third Wednesday, which is our open forum for de and i leaders.
(10:25):
The open forum is coming up in two weeks.
And we meet every third on Wednesday at 1:00 PM Eastern, and we have an open discussion on talent, talent development, and issues within the diverse workspace.
We're also gonna spend a little bit ti of time for the next couple of months talking about vendor diversity, because I don't think we talk about that enough.
(10:54):
So today's topic, what have we accomplished? Are our CEOs living up to what they promised us? And the answer is no, they're not.
They're quietly using the layoffs, especially in the tech sector that's laying off.
(11:15):
They're quietly using layoffs in the tech sector.
To backpedal around diversity and inclusion.
They are using it to backpedal a lot of diversity and inclusion.
Leaders were laid off in November and December and in January, under the quiet of we need to trim the fat.
(11:45):
The initiatives have been scaled back to where organizations only want to do employee resource groups because they think that that's the best thing to do.
I'm checking the box.
Look over there.
We got an E R G.
While the real work to create inclusion for your leaders does not happen.
(12:07):
There's a report that Catalyst put out on colorism.
It is an amazing report.
I'm gonna unpack that probably in a webinar.
And the, the three women that contributed to that are amazing.
D E N I leaders.
But today we're gonna talk about what we are accomplishing.
(12:29):
So I'm gonna read you some data as the nation confronts the reality of institutional racism, the outcry for corporate accountability reverberated, 82% of CEOs said they were going to act on racial justice, and remaining silent was not an option.
(12:50):
The jobs in the de n I sector rose by 123%.
Yet over the last year, there's been a 70% reduction of de n I leaders in organizations.
They have been publicly hired and quietly fired.
(13:12):
Let me say that again.
We have publicly hired de and I leaders, and we have quietly fired them with no press release to say, Hey, I got rid of that woman or that man.
We have handed diversity and inclusion to non-diverse people because one of the things that organizations think is, you know, if I give a woman this job, It's gonna be handled, diversity's going to be handled.
(13:45):
The challenge is you haven't had my lived experience to understand what it means to be diverse in your workforce.
So that's a, I'm gonna stick a pin in that.
I'm coming back to that.
So chief Diversity officers are resigning their positions and.
(14:10):
Amid inflation and the somewhat deteriorating economy, CEOs are cutting the de N I commitment and the de n I cost.
So they've cut budgets and they've cut the expense line for D N I.
(14:31):
And according to McKinsey, organizational diversity leads to higher profits.
Higher profit margins, right? And most diverse companies outpace their peers by 36% in profitability.
But the promises of diversity, equity, and inclusion are unfulfilled.
(14:56):
And the, and the morale of that unfilled fulfilled process is a drain on the diverse people working in these corporate spaces.
It's a drain.
How can we trust you if you can't keep your promises to us? Let me rephrase that.
(15:21):
Can we trust you when you've demonstrated that you're not going to keep your promises to us? I happen to live in the state of Florida.
Yeah, that state, the one that wants to saw itself off from the rest of the United States.
(15:45):
There's an all out war in Florida being led by our governor around diversity, the word diversity.
But here's the thing, he didn't start that war.
That war has been around forever.
He's just showing the emperor's clothes.
(16:05):
Because the war on diversity has always existed.
I remember way back when, when you couldn't say the word diversity because it meant entitlement.
You couldn't say the word diversity because when you said diversity and talent together, people felt that you were sub standardly hiring for a position.
(16:29):
I can remember when the word diversity was a bad word, and those of us who were doing the work around diversity had to figure out another word to say.
And I am constantly reconfiguring to make people feel comfortable with the outcome because my thing now is if I could just get into your heart space.
(16:58):
We will do the work.
What I'm finding is getting into the heart space is wearing me out and everybody else doing this work.
We're tired.
And if you're black and doing this work and looking at black men being murdered by police and worrying about that as a parent and grandparent, we struggle.
(17:27):
We struggle mentally because the world cannot get itself to a place where they accept the fact that we are here.
Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of contribution has been made by black people in the United States yet, and still, you don't wanna teach our history and you white folks, you have been quiet.
(17:56):
As the assassination of our history has been underway, but you want to see you are our allies.
How can you be my ally if you are silent in the spaces of work? If you are silent in the spaces of public discord and you're silent in the erosion of our very being.
(18:25):
And for the black folks doing the work of De and I, how can we not find our voice in these organizations? Because honestly, we need a paycheck.
So we're not gonna put ourselves out on the limb to say what needs to be said because none of you want to hear truly.
(18:50):
How functionally untenable your workforces are.
You want us to dance the pretty so you could take the lap of victory.
So I still have to ask the question, who has our back? Who still has our back? When it comes to D n I.
(19:15):
So let me keep reading.
80% affirms the diversity trajectory.
80% of firms displayed a pattern of very minimal increases in diversity in their professional labor force, primarily driven by small increases in employment for Asian men and women with declines among non-Asian men and women and other minority men.
(19:47):
So basically what has happened, Is there's been a trading of the diverse population, but we're all in this together.
You can't push one group up to push another group down into the abyss.
(20:12):
We all need to rise together.
We all have to rise together.
We as people of color, cannot be pitted against each other.
I love and support my Asian community, my L G B T Q community, my Hispanic community, my black community, my sub communities within the black community.
(20:40):
But it is time for us in 2023 to combine our voices because when they come for one of us, it's a pattern to come for all of us.
When you deny the teaching of African American history, When you deny the teaching of African-American history, you are now emboldened to deny the teaching of Asian history.
(21:11):
When you deny teaching African-American history, you can deny teaching about L G B T Q history.
When you deny teaching African American history.
You can deny teaching about Hispanic history and the richness of the Latin history in this country and contribution.
(21:36):
So for anybody that thinks that it's okay to allow the black folks to get trampled on right now, they trample on us as an experiment to come trampling on you, and this is the truth.
They will trample on us as a gateway to trample on you, our illustrious governor has decided that diversity and inclusion in colleges should not be a thing, but what he's forgetting is that.
(22:14):
If I have a child who has a learning disability, who wants to go to college, the office of inclusion is who makes that happen.
So when you all think diversity and you only think black people, you are missing what's really going on here.
(22:35):
It's the white male experience that is being propped up.
And the rest of us are being pushed down.
So if you, if you couch it in diversity, you get to push everybody down.
You don't just get to push one group and the corporations who promised us as black people that you are going to have our back and do the thing.
(23:06):
Our quiet, silent.
In fact, many of them are politically contributing to the erosion of black empowerment.
So you say inside of the organization we want D N I, but you contribute to the system that wants to erode.
(23:33):
D N I.
And you want us to be happy to bite the apple and eat it.
It's 2023.
My dad is 93 years old and in three weeks he will be 94.
(23:53):
When my dad was born, all the rights we take for granted today was not an option.
But if we don't stand up for the rights we have gained, our children's children's children will not have a space to occupy.
(24:20):
They won't have a space.
So many of you are okay with being handed the red Ball of Diversity and inclusion.
When the reality is we are making no progress and here's why.
We haven't asked for what we want and we are not clear about what we need, and we're not joined together as a unified voice on what we expect.
(24:53):
And so the institutions get to move the balls, rework them.
Give us the apple and we get to eat it.
Oh yes.
It's Black History Month y'all.
I came fully prepared for season three of the Inclusion Unscripted podcast.
(25:18):
Fully prepared for this today.
I don't want your platitude.
I don't want your gratitude.
I don't want your heartfelt, Hmm, what's the word? Responses.
What I want is action.
I wanna see results.
(25:40):
I want to see real movement within leadership spaces.
Within hiring spaces, within promotional spaces, within vendor spaces, within vendor spaces.
Y'all don't hire black vendors.
At least you do, but you don't hire them at the rate where we make the money, you hire us at the peanut gallery.
(26:07):
And you still continue to give big HR contracts to the big companies and you leave the black vendors on the side of the street and we supposed to think we making some progress, y'all.
We ain't making no progress.
We are just more comfortable.
(26:29):
The hoses aren't being turned on us.
The dogs aren't out biting us.
The sign doesn't say black and white, but the institutional process got deeper, y'all.
(26:54):
So in 2023, what do we ask for? What do we demand? What should we be required to ask for? Here's what we ask for.
(27:15):
We ask for effective career management from the day we joined the organization.
We asked for Uplevel development from the second we joined the organization.
If I'm gonna give you my blood, my sweat, my tears, my 40 hours my life, if you are gonna stress me out to death almost, then you're darn short going to help me navigate and manage my career inside of your freaking organization because giving me a paycheck is not enough.
(27:51):
I wanna rise, and that's what we're asking for.
We're not gonna allow you to shift the burden of diversity and inclusion onto the backs of the people who are asking for diversity and inclusion.
You cannot shift the burden for inclusion to us.
(28:17):
You can't make us do the work.
You as an organization have to do the work.
If your c e O promised an increase in hiring, then you need to get your talent acquisition leaders together in a little circle and say, how do we make this happen? But before you do that, you need to get your leaders in a room and talk to them about their biases around hiring black and brown people and women of color and men of color.
(28:44):
Because, see, here's the thing.
Diversity and inclusion is not an add-on to the job.
It is the job.
Let me say that again.
For all of you who are struggling to figure out what do we do around this diversity thing, how do we sustain it? Here's the thing.
(29:09):
Diversity and inclusion is not an add-on to your job.
It is the job.
Being diverse is who you are.
Even as a person who is not of color, you are diverse.
What you may not be is inclusive.
(29:30):
What you may not be is creating belonging, but getting you there is not my job.
Getting you there is your job.
It's time for us to stop doing the work to get people to change.
(29:53):
We as people of color, In this Black History Month 2023, it is not our job to help people feel comfortable with black people.
They gotta go do that job on their own.
I cannot spend my time helping you be comfortable with me.
(30:16):
And if you're leading me and you're not comfortable with me, then you've got a problem and the organization needs to say, Hey, Mr.
Leader, go take some classes around how you handle your unconscious bias and how you handle your inability to see black people as potential as leaders.
(30:37):
It is not my job as the employee, the frontline employee working in the organization to help your leaders get more comfortable being around me.
It is not my job, but if you put me in a situation where your leader is not ready for me, then you're doing me a psychological harm.
(31:00):
You are doing me a psychological harm.
That's the truth.
So the first thing that we have to ask of organizations is show me the numbers.
(31:23):
I just taught a class on de and i data storytelling, and a part of that I talked about the archetypes within organizations.
And how those archetypes prevent us from building effective inclusive strategies.
If you wanna learn more about that, you can visit our website, inclusion learning lab.com,
(31:47):
but we've got to ask for the numbers.
We have to demand the numbers.
Where are the people of color in this organization? What are the roles that they're being hired into? Let me give you another little thing that I don't know that everybody understands.
In every organization, there are two types of roles.
(32:11):
There are profit center roles and there are cost center roles.
In profit center roles, when you are bringing the bacon into the organization as a profit center employee, when you get ready to leave, they dial up accounting and they ask the accounting department, how much money do we have to give Margaret to get her to the parking lot when you are in the cost center role.
(32:41):
They call up HR and say, put together the severance package so Margaret can hit the parking lot with a thump.
90% of black people in organizations are hired into cost center roles.
We are hired into cost center roles where the profit in the organization is not divided to us.
(33:07):
So what are we asking for? We're asking for profit center roles where the pie is divided so that we are not just getting a paycheck, we are getting a paycheck plus something else.
A bonus structure, an equity structure, a cash structure.
(33:30):
And maybe as a black person, you are on the profit center side of the house, but you don't understand how the profit is really divided because your organization keeps that secret because the white men in the organization know how to divide the pie among themselves and they're never interested in di dividing it with women.
(33:52):
Period.
Black, white, purple, green.
Or people of color because here's the thing, I heard Brene Brown say this.
The men own the land.
The stadium is built on, they own the stadium cuz they built it.
They rent us the bleachers and we buy the tickets to go sit there.
(34:14):
They own the popcorn stand and we buy the popcorn, they own the ticket concession and we buy the ticket and we go in and cheer.
In the stadium that we don't own.
Oh yeah.
Fact today, I'm preaching today.
(34:37):
So the first thing we needed to ask for, let me go down the list, is career management.
Don't hire me and forget about me.
Don't hire me and put me in the desk for 20 years and think I'm supposed to be happy that you're paying me every week.
And here's a message for all of you.
If you've been sitting in your role more than five years and you're making no level set advancement, get your head up out of the work, look out into the horizon, and ask yourself, where am I going from here? What is this role preparing me for? What exactly is this job preparing me for? And where am I going? Because we could be tactically strong, which is what most black people are.
(35:27):
And what we hear is, Margaret, you're too good for me to let you move up because you do this job so well.
And what you tell yourself as black people is being in leadership is just so hard.
I'm comfortable staying in this desk.
See? We as black people live in our comfort zone because our parents way back when told us the opportunity of the job is what we were supposed to seek.
(36:00):
I'm telling you something different.
The opportunity opens the door.
You walk in with purpose, and if you don't have purpose, no one will care.
So let me go down the list again.
Number one, career management.
Number two, profit center roles.
(36:25):
Number three, data.
Where are my black people? Where are they? Where are my brown people? Where are my diverse people? What roles are they concentrated in, and how do we get them out of those roles and prepare to move up the ladder? You know, I heard Endura, Noy say when I, when the job at PepsiCo came along, I was the only option for the role.
(36:52):
How do you make us as black people, the only option for the role versus us applying for the role only to be told we're not ready? How does that look? How does that work? The next thing that we need to be asking for in 2023, It's not more programs for us to gather in.
(37:20):
If we are gathering inside of an E R G, then the ER G must be giving us something back.
We're getting ready to do something on strategic ERGs.
ERGs are not a place for black and brown people to gather, so we are happy and we don't become insurrectionists in the organization.
(37:43):
Let me say that again.
ERGs are not a place for us to gather and do the work of diversity because the organization doesn't want to do the work of diversity itself.
So you shift the burden of empowerment to the ERG structure.
(38:07):
I build ERGs.
I love building them, but I always build them with a purpose.
We're building a couple right now.
They're built with a purpose.
Many of you, your E R G does not have a purpose except to gather black people in, put on some fluffy, fluffy stuff for 12 months, and at the end of it, you put some data together and you say 900 black people showed up.
(38:31):
500 women showed up, 400 Hispanics showed up.
300 Latinx people showed up.
400 Asian people showed up.
And, you know, 500 L G B T Q folks showed up but they got nothing for it cuz they didn't get anything better and they weren't better off because they joined.
So we shift the burden of the real work to the E R G.
(38:56):
I don't build those.
Your E R G should have a purpose.
There should be targeted.
Leadership development programs, your executives should be asked to mentor people of color and women.
(39:16):
You should never have an executive say, I don't have enough time to be a mentor.
No.
If you are a leader, you will carve out time to be a mentor, but you will carve out time to be a champion and you will carve out time to be a sponsor of a woman or man of color who is currently not in your executive suite, and it's not my job as the person of color to help you feel comfortable doing that.
(39:51):
Go take a class.
I'm not gonna help you feel comfortable doing that.
I'm calling you out and I'm saying, CEOs, make your leaders be leaders.
Leaders lead by being inclusive.
Leaders lead by seeing my possibility.
(40:11):
When we train leaders in our programs, the thing I ask them is, can you train your successor? And many of them say, absolutely I can train my successor.
Then I ask, can you train your next boss? Let me see that again.
(40:34):
If you are a leader of teams, if you are leading a team, can you identify a person on your team? Who will be your next boss? And can you identify a person of color on your team who has the potential to be the c e o of the organization? Because see, if you can't see what's possible for me, you will never be able to empower me to be more than I could be.
(41:10):
You will always be the one that puts the guardrails around my life purpose.
You will always be the one who turns the light bulb off for me.
See, many of your leaders who claim to be inclusive are actually electricians.
(41:30):
They specialize in light bulb disconnection.
Because people come into the organization with the full light bulb on wanting to be empowered and groomed and grow.
And your leaders, your leaders who you claim are building inclusion and building diversity, all they do every day is put a dimmer switch on a person of color until we are so tired and so frustrated that they turn the damn lights off and we are still sitting there.
(42:04):
Because we don't think we have somewhere else to go.
That's what your leaders are doing to us.
So the question is, is diversity and inclusion a window dressing for your organization? Is diversity an inclusion, a window dressing, a press release, a data point? We have a program on our website.
(42:34):
We have information on our website about d and i and about what we're doing and about the awards that we've won as an organization.
When the reality inside the door, the people of color and the women are not progressing, it is still a white boys club with the really pretty, pretty dress of diversity and inclusion.
(42:59):
So as I wrap up today, I ask the questions on this live, who still has our back? Honestly, I don't think any of you do.
I think everything you do is window dressing because the real work isn't this hard.
(43:27):
The real work is getting into the groove of what it is and making the change.
The real work is complicated.
It's not hard.
It's complex because you have to unpack so many layers and layers and layers of inequity to get to equity and equality.
(43:53):
But it's not hard work.
It's the unpacking work.
It's the, it's the ability to unpack and say, we will do better.
Let's examine this.
We will do better.
It's the accountability work.
It's not the hiring.
The next diversity and inclusion leader.
(44:13):
The next de and i vice president, who is a paper tiger, who has no power, no budget, no staff, no team for thousands of employees.
The layoffs is a masking of the erosion of diversity and inclusion, especially in the tech sector.
(44:39):
The silence around what is happening with black and brown people and the L G B T Q community is an erosion of diversity and inclusion.
The silence around the fact that boards are still not diverse is an erosion.
(45:01):
There is an open war on diversity.
I want all of you to see it for what it is, and if you're going to be our allies, I want you to find your voice.
The next episode next Friday is about being an ally.
And I'm gonna unpack allyship for everyone because I want you to understand what allyship is, and I'm actually gonna teach a class on allyship for everyone next week.
(45:32):
So thank you for joining Inclusion unscripted.
I appreciate all of you who joined Jane.
Thank you.
Wonderful to see you too.
I'm so happy to see you.
Karen.
Same here.
Gina, same here.
And Sabrina.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for joining me today.
So I will see you all next week.
(45:53):
If you wanna get more information about me, go to inclusion unscripted inclusion learning lab.com.
Inclusion unscripted is on all the podcast apps out there downloaded.
We are on YouTube.
If you wanna watch the video again, go to YouTube live and join us third Wednesday for the Open forum on de and I and visit our website.
(46:20):
So take care of everyone.
Take care of yourself, and enjoy and celebrate, but acknowledge our history.
Acknowledge our history.
You are like a circle that floats around me, keeping me safe and sound, and when a fall you tied a rope to me.
(46:47):
You listen me every day.
I was down with an like a sparrow with broken wings, but now shine.
Will your reflection on me.
Take care everyone.
And remember, subscribe on YouTube.
Download the podcast on Apple, iTunes and all the other podcast apps, and register on our website for our upcoming events.
(47:14):
See you soon.
Take care.
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