Just some thoughts on diversity, equity, and inclusion, as an HR person now

"It's my job to know, but it's not anyone's job to tell me"

That’s been my mantra for twenty years now. It was not exactly a conscious decision, and after it became a conscious decision, there were still a number of years before it took that precise form. Now that focus has come to diversity, equity and inclusion, it’s still the work: learning about other concepts, thoughts, experiences than my own without forcing that growth and development out of anyone else.

I had some advantages, relative to my peers: parents who grew up in the south and moved north, who could see—and told me about—the endless variations in how white people chose to mistreat black people, and many others (a pattern so well-established and known that Tocqueville wrote about it 200 years ago). My freshman year of college, I went to hear Cornel West give a lecture on the Holocaust, was spellbound, and followed the trails of influences he so generously bestowed. I was fortunate, most of all, that the first trail I followed was W.E.B. DuBois’ The Souls of Black Folk.

And then twenty more years of reading, and listening, and watching. Things that are about race in America; things about what it’s like to be in America; things about what it’s like to be a person. Some I agree with entirely, some I agree with in part, some where agreement isn’t really the point. Black Reconstruction in America. Feminist Theory from Margin to Center. God of the Oppressed. Sing, Unburied, Sing. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. The Beautiful Struggle. “Everybody’s Protest Novel” and “Equal In Paris”. “What to a Slave Is the Fourth of July?”. Blowout Comb. Fear of a Black Planet.  Black Star. Small Talk on 125th and Lenox. There’s a Riot Going On. Do the Right Thing. To Sleep With Anger. Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.

(That list is meant to be evocative, not exclusive. There’s something for everyone and many places to get started.)

To my colleagues, some suggestions:

1. A lifetime of listening and learning can’t happen overnight. Focus on taking one good step, and another.
2. The moment of intensity seems like a good time to push for as much as we can—and it is indeed a good moment for that. But we also need institution-builders, who can think about what companies will be doing in six months, in a year, in ten years. Lasting progress comes from consolidating gains once they’ve been won. We’ve all seen change initiatives die out from indifference or sliding back into old habits. Don’t let it happen here.
3. Bring the whole of yourself to listening, to the absolute peak of your abilities as a coach and a business partner. Listen for understanding, listen until you can reconstruct the whole of someone else’s picture of the world entirely in their words. Then apply your own thinking and understanding, where you agree, where you disagree, where you can’t quite envision it and where you need to sit on it for longer. Wait and think. Read and listen more. Ask yourself whether you’re the right person to say what needs to be said, or whether someone else should say it. Back them up when they do.