Headwinds and Tailwinds in Biased Systems: Thoughts on systemic racism from a white guy raised in rural Tennessee.

Headwinds and Tailwinds in Biased Systems: 

Thoughts on systemic racism from a white guy raised in rural Tennessee.

George Floyd’s death ignited protests around the globe. The video, statements, and accusations elicit a visceral response in many of us. Floyd isn’t the only one. Jacob Blake, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, Stephon Clark, Atatiana Jefferson, and many other Black men and women have been murdered or senselessly killed. Bias was likely at play in most if not all of these instances (see Ross, 2015). We easily forget these names and stories and aren’t even aware of the microaggressions, harassment, and acts of violence not resulting in death that happen every day. Some of us ignore the situation for fear of being called racist, some of us act like it’s the result of a few bad police or of misunderstood context, some of us stand up and call out the powers that allow this behavior, and some of us just don’t know what to believe. Justice, duty, honor, and courage are values that have been handed down over the generations from my Irish-English roots. My family’s journey has been anything but aristocratic; I am white and I am a cisgender man, and I am also the first Newnam in my bloodline to be brought home from the hospital to a house with indoor plumbing.

As mentioned briefly above, I have struggled through life and I have been blessed at the same time. My Saturdays are usually spent on my bicycle in the National Forest near Houston, Texas, rather than cutting grass, maintaining the land, and burning brush, like my family generations before me did. As I ride and connect with nature and test my endurance, my mind considers these times and my heart reminds me of the values imprinted there. Cycling and systemic challenges have some similarities. My desire is that this article spawns discussions among diverse groups and everyone grows together. White people must act, yet convenience and fear hold us back. No one is perfect, so let’s be imperfect together, assume good intent, love one another, and grow. The thoughts, comments, assumptions, and beliefs in this paper are my own. They are told through the lens of the way the world occurs to me and me alone. My intention and my hope is that upon reading this, white and privileged people, particularly leaders, will expand their awareness and take action however they can to stop injustice, racism, and oppression.

Wind patterns are very predictable where I ride. Once the sun starts to rise, the wind usually begins to move toward the north. I’m usually heading north when this starts and I continue that direction for a couple of hours. I feel unstoppable. My speed compares to that of a car in the suburbs. I feel energy in my legs, and my brain lavishes me with dopamine. My ego reminds me of how hard I work, how well I eat, and what great shape I am in. This is what it feels like to be white in corporate America. I’ve had the opportunity to see inside some of the world’s largest companies. When I first entered the corporate world, I figured everyone who was well paid, in leadership positions, or in the C-suite must really know their stuff. After a while, though, I realized that wasn’t the whole story. Much like me on my bike headed north with the wind, some of these people had strong corporate and social winds at their backs. In fact, if you’re born riding with a tailwind, you might not ever even know it’s there.

When I turn around and start heading south, the sun is usually high in the sky at this point and the wind has started to move. These normal winds will sometimes approach 12 to 16 mph. Instantly my speed reduces by about half as my effort nearly doubles. My ego quickly quiets down as I slowly make my way back to where I started. Had I not anticipated this from experience, I would most definitely tap out from loss of will, a lack of food, or dehydration. Could you imagine riding next to me with a tailwind while I had a headwind? You’d probably think, “Geez, Charles should train more, work harder, eat better, lose some weight, get a better bike” or whatever comes to mind. When we have a “life headwind,” we believe that our lack of performance is directly linked to the circumstances surrounding us, but when we see others lacking performance we attribute it to factors they control—a tendency known as the fundamental attribution error (Ross, 1977).

So how do we make people aware of the wind, especially when their ego is happy not seeing it? Imagine trying to explain a headwind to someone who’s only experienced tailwinds or vice versa. You might struggle to find the words to articulate the experience, but you sure do feel it! If I could speak to every Fortune 500 company with a white-male or privileged CEO, I would discuss the four themes outlined below and what these leaders could do in their organizations to increase diversity, create real inclusion, elevate performance, and become a purpose-led organization. Hopefully, the concepts below make you aware of the winds in your organization.

• The fallacy of meritocracy. White Americans love the idea of meritocracy. If I have ability and I put in effort, good things will come—I mean, look at all the financially prosperous people in the United States. They all have ability and put in effort. 

While this is generally true, many examples exist in which people with ability who put in effort are not successful or not as successful as their white male counterparts (Castilla, 2010). Furthermore, if the environment is one that perpetuates a stereotype, it will affect performance and individuals’ merit subsequently will suffer.  

Stereotype threat occurs when you remind someone or a group of people of a common stereotype that exists about their group (e.g., women are bad at math and science, Black people aren’t smart, white people are not good athletes). When you evoke these stereotypes, the people in the stereotyped group will predictably perform worse than a control group (Spencer et al., 1999; Steele, 1997; Steele & Aronson, 1995). Circling back to a point I made earlier, stereotype threat happens when white people try not to appear racist. If you’re white and know that others expect you to be racist, you’ll predictably come off a little more racist despite—and partly due to—trying really hard not to be racist (see Dovidio et al., 2002). No group is immune to this effect.

• You get what you expect. An outgrowth of a theory called the Pygmalion effect, this line of thinking stems from the mythology of Pygmalion, a legendary ancient Greek king and sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory and fell in love with her. Pygmalion secretly wished that Aphrodite would turn his statue into a real person. One day he went home and kissed the statue a few times and, to him at least, it had turned into a real woman that he eventually married. 

Millennia later, researchers have appended Pygmalion’s name to the theory that teachers subconsciously behave differently toward students based on the expectations they hold for the students’ performance. In 1992, Rosenthal and Jacobson conducted a study that showed that students’ performance in the classroom was influenced by the teacher’s expectation of that student. The evidence shows that there was in fact a correlation between others’ expectations and one’s subsequent performance. In 2009, Bezuijen et al. showed that the same phenomenon happens with leaders in the workplace. If you are a leader operating with an unconscious (or conscious) belief that people of certain races, genders, political affiliations, and so on perform differently in the workplace, then you likely cause and confirm your assumptions.  So much for all the money spent on unconscious bias training without clear success criteria or measurements, right?

• Diversify your people and your minds. In the United States, we act as if a broad color palette in leadership positions in our organizations is proof that we have a diverse, inclusive, and progressive company. However, you could look at diversity in many ways without ever even touching the inclusion dimension. When we consider diversity, we typically think about race, gender, sexual orientation, and sometimes age. However, many other dimensions of diversity in the workplace are often overlooked. These include disability, religion, ethnicity, educational level, socioeconomic status, language dialect, geography, military service, values, and mindsets, among many other characteristics.  

Organizations are adding more race and gender equality to the mix, but basically stopping there. Some organizational leaders do this for show, or as “window dressing,” but let’s consider those who truly desire to make a change from the old, systemically oppressive ways of running an organization. The old way of thinking would identify a diversity problem and think, “I know! We’ll add some Black people to leadership positions and put some women on the board and that will solve our challenges! It will really help!” 

Unfortunately, in most cases it won’t. First, the environment and culture in your organization must include the people you bring in the door. Adding diversity at the top is a good step but doesn’t necessarily solve the problem. (Sherbin & Rashid, 2017) Second, where do you find the talent? Likely you’re pulling it from somewhere else in your industry, geographical area, educational connections, or network. This is a systemic issue, so why would bringing someone in (regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or other popular diversity dimension) solve these challenges if that person thinks like someone in the old system?

Let’s put it this way: Suppose my company builds boats and we’re trying to offer our customers a more diverse and inclusive service. We work with clients who want to travel across oceans to other continents. We want to have a better offering and build more innovative solutions. We look at our workforce and say “Aha! We have a lot of white people here; that’s our issue!” We then recruit the top talent of diverse boat engineers, bring them in the organization, and ask them to totally rethink how we can get our clients from point A to point B. We ask them to change everything from workflows to incentives and HR policies. Guess what—they’ll likely still build boats. Why? Because they’ve evolved and thrived in a system by thinking like every other boat engineering company. 

If you get people together who think the same way, they will build the same type of things over and over again. We need people who fundamentally think differently about the issues, challenges, and opportunities. The old guard in most organizations, health care systems, and governments has too many people who “think” the same way. We need different thinkers, risk-takers, rebels, and life experiences, not just a broad color palette that’s evolved through similar life experiences.

• Authentic leadership. Are your inner values, beliefs, virtues, mindsets, and convictions consistently aligned and observed by others (Harter, 2002)? How would you know if this were true? What could your organization ask you to do that would misalign with your true self to the point where you would take action contrary to the company? Would you take a stand or be noncompliant if asked to give up precious family time, sacrifice your health, actively discriminate, prey upon others’ misfortune … what would it take? What are you willing to fight for—I mean really dig your heels in and not budge—within your organization? Maybe you’d be willing to risk a promotion, get fired, or lose some friends to fight for others, including your true self. 

You may think I’ve lost touch with reality and don’t understand the difficulties of life. However, authenticity pays off (Gino, 2020). Companies that have people who act more authentically, have purpose, and propose out-of-the-box ideas reap greater profits (Sweet & Shook, 2020). 

Even with all the evidence, I’m sure you're thinking of all the things you would stand for in the face of opposition. But don’t be so quick to feed your virtuous ego! You're more likely to rationalize your behaviors and believe that they are consistent with your values in order to maintain the power your group has obtained. You may feel that your company is built on merit and hard work and your group (i.e., white men) deserves to be at the top with most of the organizational power—they’ve earned it! However, as Wells & Jennings (1998) propose, “your company is more likely a regime that is sustained by a constellation of unconscious forces and a complicated set of proprietary beliefs that are maintained by the ruling group” (p. 399). How do you break free to know and express your true self?

So now what? Those of you who’ve made it to this point in the article might feel stuck or paralyzed, with no idea of how to put any of this into action. You might even be angry with me. Perfect! Use that emotion and go into motion. Take action now! Here are two themes with several actions you can start doing today to expand your awareness.

• Be curious and ask why. Get curious about what makes you you. Why do you think a certain way or believe a particular ideology? As a leader, start to ask yourself, “What could I do?” rather than “What should I do?” Real leaders aren’t constrained by their own assumptions, beliefs, religions, ideologies, or nationalities. They are able to separate themselves from their beliefs. 

 Get curious about your people, your company, and your communities. With your teams and companies you can set up small coffee chats or have lunch with a group of people. Don’t talk unless asking a question from a place of genuine curiosity. Listen to the stories, struggles, and motivators of the people who are talking. Within your community, spend time volunteering in a cause that’s important to you. You may already donate but this won’t cut it. Get out there and spend a couple of hours serving someone from a different walk of life. 

• Involvement drives commitment. Start to tackle tough issues in your organization. If you recognize that blanket metrics and meritocracy are curtailing your D&I efforts, then do something about it. However, when it comes to doing, make sure you involve the people you’re doing it for. Too often I see leaders make significant decisions around D&I and never consult or include the very people they're trying to reach. Be the inclusive change you are looking to see in your organizations and hold your direct team members accountable to be the change as well.

My hope is that we all look at systemic racism and oppression a little differently after this. For most of us (especially white and other privileged people), we may not even be aware of what is happening. If you were born into a tailwind, you might not even know it’s there. If we were to collectively acknowledge our privilege and take the lead, others could draft off of us and we’d become a force to reckon with within our companies, communities, and country. Every time you follow a leader, spend a dollar or sit quietly in a meeting, you are making a choice to change and transform or making a choice to reinforce the current system. Be bold. Be brave. Be blessed. And, cut the wind.  

About the authors

Author: Charles Newnam is management consultant executive specializing in leadership and culture, the chairman and co-founder of a thriving veteran focused non-profit, VEL Institute, and a former US Navy submarine officer. Charles holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, a Master of Business Administration from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and a Master of Arts in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University. Charles enjoys exploring his own physical and mental limits through endurance sports. He continues to travel his own path while continuing a love filled life of service to others.

Contributor: Abby Corrington is an Assistant Professor of Management in the Providence College School of Business, and a Lecturer in Management at the Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business. She received her Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Rice University and conducts research on diversity and inclusion, with a focus on leadership, gender, and diversity in organizations. She has published numerous journal articles and book chapters in outlets such as Harvard Business Review, Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Organizational Dynamics.

References

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