It’s time to stop talking about diversity and start talking about race at work

It's 2020 and America can't stop talking about race. Whether it's the monuments and building names on our college campuses and public squares; the people and stories we highlight on the silver screen; or who we believe should reside within our borders; we are boiling over with confusion about how we should understand and portray our racial past, present and future. 

But take one step into the office — where Americans are most likely to talk with people from different races — and all you get is silence. Instead, executives rush to talk about race's safer, sanitized sibling, "diversity."  

The word “diversity” removes the kind of tension that “race” often elicits. But this avoidance comes at a dire cost to corporate America, alienating key members of the workforce. And interviews with more than a dozen researchers, inclusion consultants and employees across industries reveal that it may be hurting Black women most of all. 

“People are very happy to talk about diversity as ‘happy talk,’” Laura Morgan Roberts, a Black professor of practice at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, said, pointing to research on the topic. “But when you specifically call out race, their enthusiasm declines precipitously.”  

Black women comprise fewer than 12% of managers, hold less than 5% of senior management positions and less than 4% of executive roles at Fortune 500 companies, according to a 2019 study by McKinsey and LeanIn.org. Some 45% of women of color are often the only, or one of very few, people of their race or ethnicity in the room at work. 

More and more companies are launching and growing their diversity and inclusion programs to confront this reality. But Roberts and colleagues found through their research that not a single company has figured out how to use these programs to bring more Black women into positions at scale. 

Why the disconnect? A cottage industry of consultants is now trying to help America’s workforce find out. 

“I actually hate the word diversity,” said Desiree Adaway, the Black founder of The Adaway Group, which specializes in helping corporations discuss race at work. “Folks don’t want to have difficult conversations around race. It’s the big elephant in the room. When we have those conversations… that really helps to free people up to do good work.” 

‘Who is this company built by and who's it built for?’ 

Adaway, 54, founded her North Carolina-based consultancy roughly nine years ago. During her career at IBM and non-profit Habitat for Humanity, she saw people avoiding the kind of conversations that help build truly inclusive teams; the kind where people of different backgrounds trust their peers enough to bring the full scope of their experiences to work. 

This is possible when companies include different racial perspectives from the start, not as an afterthought once problems arise, she says. To figure out how companies are performing on issues related to equity, inclusion and social justice — terms Adaway prefers over diversity — she conducts a comprehensive culture audit that includes employee surveys and meetings with company leaders. 

After working with corporate leaders for close to a decade, Adaway estimates that less than a third are willing to have these conversations.

“I really do start off saying, ‘Who is this company built by and who's it built for?’” she said. “Most organizations are built by white men and they're built for their comfort and for their ease.” 

Whether it's team meetings that are scheduled at convenient times for the CEO or after-hour events centered around sports or drinking, Adaway points out how many companies are built to reward straight white men. By asking people to consider how an organization is built, Adaway can begin conversations about what makes other groups uncomfortable.

For Black women, those awkward moments often start with their hair. It’s common for Black women to straighten their hair for work, in many cases to counteract bias against natural styles. Lynn Obiero, an assistant vice president at Wells Fargo, said she has had managers and other employees touch and make comments about her hair without her permission. 

The 42-year-old is one of several Black women who reported such experiences in conversations with LinkedIn. In 2019, California became the first state to make discrimination based on hair style or texture illegal. New York City has adopted similar policies. 

“Being unique and not having your hair like everyone else’s, it makes you feel a little self-conscious in speaking up and taking charge even though you know that you can do it,” she said. 

If an office has reached the point where white colleagues are making comments about a Black person’s hair, it may be too late for the organization to become inclusive, according to Adaway. Creating an inviting environment for people of color can’t be done half-way. Everyone has to buy in, from the CEO on down. That’s why Adaway insists that all senior leaders — not just those in human resources — take part in the training. 

Nina Baliga — the South Asian managing partner of Breaking the Bias in Denver, an organization that connects tech companies with underrepresented talent — agrees with Adaway’s demand. It’s common for companies to want to silo race conversations to a specific part of the business, but Baliga says real change only happens when all of the company’s leadership is involved. 

In a recent survey of CEOs conducted by consultancy GLG, executives were more likely to have plans to change their firm’s hiring practices to advance gender parity than racial justice. 

“We have to get the whole C-suite level in one room and start talking about what is the culture that you have, what is it that you're trying to build and what are the barriers that are in place that are stopping that,” said Baliga. “That's where the conversation needs to start.” 

Torin Perez, 32, has made it his mission to convince leaders that diversity and inclusion are more than just a buzzwords. The founder of diversity consultancy Globally Bold, Perez has addressed thousands of employees at companies like Cisco, Genentech and Liberty Mutual, discussing how race can influence collaboration at work. 

During a recent presentation at a tech company in San Francisco, he recounted how, as a Black man, he was terrified during the first — and only — time he was pulled over by a cop. At that moment, his “diversity” was much more potent than a word you gloss over on a PowerPoint presentation. It had become dangerous. 

“All the traumas, all of the images that I've seen of people that look like me getting killed by officers were flushing through my mind,” he said. “It might be a hot topic for somebody who has never experienced it before, but it's not a hot topic for me.” 

Corporate leaders will need to come to grips with this reality before any meaningful change can take place in the workplace. 

‘Accused of playing that race card’ 

While advocates like Adaway, Baliga and Perez work to bring race conversations to the fore at workplaces across the U.S., they haven’t yet taken hold in every workplace. This forces Black women to address these issues on their own, and they frequently end up paying a price for their efforts. Many minority women are penalized for bringing up race at work, according to research from the University of Colorado, and their white and male colleagues aren’t rewarded for broaching the topic either. 

The result? Silence, and stalled progress.

“Whenever I did think that bias was in play, I never felt comfortable speaking about it because then I would be accused of playing that race card,” said Minda Harts, who recently published a book on the experiences of Black women in the workplace. “Fun fact, we don't like to play that card. It doesn't make things better, but we don't get to talk about it.”

The lack of dialogue is particularly disturbing during critical, often tragic, national news events. Chauniqua Major, 30, is a director of public relations of a small communications company in Orlando, Fla. In 2016, when there were multiple, heavily publicized killings of Black and brown people, she got used to coming to work and dealing with the pain alone.

Major said that she felt that, unless she brought it up, her colleagues would be too nervous to approach her — a Black woman — about it. 

“It is not my responsibility to teach you. It is my responsibility to share my opinion and my story,” Major said. “There might be a lack of diversity in human resources or leadership, but no one lifted their heads up to their employees to see how it was impacting them.”  

Creating cultures that put the pressure on minorities to bring up racial injustices is particularly detrimental to Black women, points out Michelle Molitor, the founder of The Equity Lab, a consultancy that advises companies on race and equity. Well-researched stereotypes of the “angry Black woman” continue to plague corporate America, making it particularly important for conversations about race to span different groups at work.

“You have to think about power," said Molitor. “If I am a Black woman who is lower in the hierarchy in my place at work and I am voicing something that I am seeing as inequitable, I am taking an extraordinary risk. You either assimilate and you succeed, or you keep your mouth shut so you can keep your job.” 

Eventually later that year, a white colleague did approach Major about the several shootings of minorities in the news. “It made me feel like I didn’t have to hide the fact that I was angry and hurt without dealing with the stigma of being the ‘angry Black woman,” she said.

‘It's all a lie, actually’ 

To help companies come to terms with inherent biases embedded within their organizations, the consultants recommend not just a new term, but a shift in how we lead.

Conventional notions about leadership tend to prioritize decisiveness, confidence and extroversion. But in a workforce where there is no single way of viewing given events, emphasizing diplomacy skills, a willingness to forgive and make mistakes goes a long way.

“What we have been taught about a leader is that it's everything that white dominant culture is. It is tall, it is male, it is alpha. It is the smartest in the room,” says Adaway. “You can never make a mistake. You have to be decisive and all these other things. It's all a lie, actually.” 

Research is starting to catch up with this mentality: A 10-year study conducted by management consulting firm ghSMART of 17,000 C-suite executives including 2,000 CEOs discovered that “virtually all CEO candidates had made material mistakes in the past” and nearly half have experienced a career blowup. 

After spending four years working with Adaway, Hilary Kinavey, 44, now accepts that she will regularly stumble as a business owner. She asked for Adaway’s help when she realized the clients for her health and wellness startup looked mostly like her: white and female. While she was aware that being a white woman brought her a certain level of privilege professionally, it wasn’t until she took Adaway’s two-part course on social justice that she said she had the tools to discuss race in a productive way. 

Today, Kinavey said she views her role as a leader very differently and she requires anyone she works with to take a class with Adaway. Her goal? Relieve the burden that many non-dominant people have to educate their white colleagues about race. 

“We just accept now that a majority of our conversations will be difficult ones and we are constantly renewing that commitment,” she said. 

Globally Bold's Perez believes that too many leaders ask for the "business case for diversity" to justify company investment in D&I focused initiatives like creating an employee resource group or hiring a consultant like him to speak to employees. In other words, how will the cost benefit the business? 

Perez has a simple answer.

“You're asking me for a business case for why we deserve to be here,” he said. “And the question I want to return back to that person who's asking is, ‘Did you have to provide a business case for why you do?’”

Photo Captions (Top to Bottom): 1) Nina Baliga speaks at a conference, 2) Minda Harts speaks on a panel discussion, 3) Chauniqua Major types at work, 4) Hilary Kinavey (right) poses with Adaway (center) and business partner Dana Sturtevant after a workshop and 5) Torin Perez gives a presentation