Open Letter to Leaders: Where to Begin, 6 Stages of Action

Image: crumpled paper background, text “You wrote a Black Lives Matter statement… NOW WHAT?”

Published on: 11/25/2020
Dr. Linet Mera

You wrote a Black Lives Matter statement, now what?

This article is a follow up to our first letter on how to begin the leadership path with conversations on supporting your employees. Part two is longer, take your time, digest it, and come back to it as you build your approach.

You’ve told your employees that you want to support them, now what do you do next when even bringing up the term “race” makes you uncomfortable? Dive in with purpose.

1 — You don’t have to be an expert, there are resources. Most businesses, nonprofits, and governmental institutions write the legally required non-discriminatory clauses at the bottom of their job descriptions and have received little to no training on how to talk about race in person, with real live people, and with real consequences. There are resources! Yes, I do co-run the Unconscious Bias Project, and to be quite frank, we exist because most organizations out there don’t have this expertise!

• Check out the best company in your field that’s known for being inclusive, equitable, and diverse, and ask them what are their best practices. Pro tip: establish a long term relationship with their team to learn from the best and help each other as you grow.

• Hire a DEI professional. They know how to do #2 through #6 and can counsel on how to do it too! Trust me, it takes more than just being a good facilitator to navigate these issues.

• Don’t have a budget? Go to #2 and make sure you read through to #4. Spoiler alert: get a budget!

2 — Listen to your employees and colleagues — they will know what needs work in your organization. Seek input to set diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals.

• How do you start listening? Here’s a script:

“Hey, I know our company doesn’t center issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. If we want to be the best in the field, we need to recognize that supporting our people to do their best is how we are the best in the field. We can better support our people, our community and our innovation by engaging in diversity, equity, and inclusion work. I want to listen to you so we can be better. “

That’s it, that’s how you start the conversation.

• Follow up with a climate survey (see #1) or have a way for folks to share anonymous suggestions.

• Make sure you’re actually listening and there are ZERO repercussions for any complaints, unless we’re talking about the big NO’s like sexual violence, harassment, bullying, and blatantly intentional discrimination — these you need to address yesterday! A letter on big issues later. (Practice listening with this National Disability Service workbook by futures Upfront)

• No matter how you do it, steer clear of centering the majority voice or creating a forum where you could potentially be excluding or harming your underrepresented people that you’re most looking to retain. There are expert facilitators that steer clear of these pitfalls. (See #1)

• Make sure you’re taking power dynamics into account when you’re soliciting input.

• Weigh the input of traditionally underrepresented groups more than overrepresented groups. Here’s a Huffpost article on why.

3 — Make a strategic plan to meet those goals. When you craft a DEI plan, make sure your whole company is included. Check these things as you go along:

• Center these DEI goals over your whole organization, not just hiring and HR. (Yes, I mean sales, custodial staff, marketing, VP and C-suite too!)

• As you’re building, consider how you will measure success. What are your milestones? How can you keep yourself and others accountable?

• Just as you would set out business strategy goals, you want to assign point people, check-ins, incorporate feedback, and find out what effects this has on your bottom line. In time, more inclusive and welcoming environments are going to improve innovation and your bottom line. Tracking the impact makes it easier to ‘sell’ being better humans to anyone that is skeptical of the change.

4 — Make it a priority. If you don’t make it a priority now, it will never happen. There, I said it. There are way too many good intentions out there without action. Deliver on your promises and your employees will know if you promised and didn’t deliver and it will reflect in their work and trust in you.

• Set a budget, set aside company time to talk about it and work on it. This is not an after-hours extra-curricular activity, this is an important brick in your foundation that you urgently need to reinforce. Once you start learning about DEI work, you’ll find out what all activists, people with disabilities, Black, Brown, and First Nations people know: issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion are everywhere and impact everything.

• If you’re at a non-profit or are a volunteer-run group there are often grants and sponsors that are willing to help you do the real DEI work to help you shine. Also, there are some DEI professionals that offer discounted services for nonprofits and volunteer organizations. This work is specialized and if you want to reach your goals you’ll need to invest in quality resources and real experience to help get you there. Think about it this way, do you really want to skimp on DEI when it could cost you exponentially more in damaged trust, people leaving, productivity, lawsuits, and brand damage down the line?

• Make sure those that take the time to work on these issues are compensated for their time or are rewarded for their work. Whatever you do, don’t force your Black employees to do it for you, unless they offer to do so. Even if your favorite employee offers to help, make sure they know what they’re doing or are well-supported by folks who do. We’re experts in this field for a reason (see #1 above).

5 — Take it to the next level. After working on what your organization needs internally, go into the community where you are headquartered to ask how you can give back.

• Brick and mortars and schools can work with the community to create paths for contributing back to the local community and hiring from there. Make sure hiring is not just entry level, and if you can’t get enough recruits, consider whether your hiring process itself is setting roadblocks.

• Have a social enterprise or leading a nonprofit? Talk to the people you’re trying to serve, hire from that pool, and include them in leadership. Better yet, a seat or two on your board of directors.

6 — Be humble and open. I admit, Humble and Open are part of UBP’s core values and they are there because we recognized they are critical to this process. Engaging in anti-racism, anti-bias, becoming aware of your unconscious biases, and acting to counter them — all of these are long term commitments. You’re setting yourself and your organization onto a journey that is ongoing and dynamic with many moving parts. Unlike inventing a patent or reaching your Series B funding, this is a continual conversation and journey with yourself, with your family and friends, your employees, and your community.

You will make mistakes. But guess what? Great leaders know how to make mistakes, own up to them, restore relationships, learn from those mistakes, and move forward with new knowledge.

Image: wood painted background, overlaid words: “Great leaders know how to make mistakes, own up to them, restore relationships, learn from those mistakes, and move forward with new knowledge.”

Being a leader is hard. Your community, your employees, your volunteers, students, and colleagues need you now more than ever. Open up this new chapter in the world with conscious action instead of reaction.

Stay tuned for the next in our Letters for Leaders series “Building from the Ground Up” next month. Be first in line to receive the next letter through our mailing list.

This article is part of our #TogetherAgainstBias free resources for the public. Find more resources on our website including podcasts, videos, and more articles.