Promoting Diversity and Inclusion

Unleashing human magic by celebrating employees as individuals is, at its very core, about diversity and inclusion. As I write this, it has become even more obvious that diversity and inclusion are existential issues that must be addressed. Fostering environments that promote diversity greatly improves employee engagement and company performance. Seen in this light, diversity and inclusion are not a sideshow. They are key business imperatives.

When I talk about diversity and inclusion in the context of creating human magic, I mean creating space for every individual to contribute and be valued for who they are, as they are, with their unique perspective and experience. This of course covers gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. I also include considerations such as cognitive, age, social, and cultural diversity.

Although many companies are committed to becoming more diverse, change has been too slow. We are wired to favor people who look like us and think like us, which perpetuates systemic exclusion, particularly when it comes to gender and race. It takes more than good intentions or a diversity, equity, and inclusion program to tackle existing imbalances. It takes bold and sustained actions. It takes leadership. And it was during my years at Best Buy that I learned the most about diversity and inclusion.

Back in 2012, Best Buy was fairly diverse and representative when it came to its Blue Shirts. But from the store manager level up, everyone became progressively whiter and more male. Women made up fewer than one in five store managers, for instance, and all territory managers were men. The field had traditionally been an old boys’ network, which felt uncomfortable for many women. Few managerial positions were held by people of color, particularly African Americans. The racial imbalance partly reflected local demographics: historically, Minnesota had been on the paler side of the racial spectrum, populated by immigrants from Germany, Scandinavia, Finland, and Ireland. Yet more recently, the state has become more diverse, now home to a growing community of Latino, Somali, and Asian immigrants. That diversity was not reflected at Best Buy beyond the store floors.

We had work to do.

We started at the top. If employees cannot see someone who looks like them among their managers and in the boardroom, they don’t feel they have a shot. And if they feel they have few prospects, they cannot be fully engaged and give their best. I was fortunate to be able to quickly redress imbalances in the executive team. There is ample research confirming that companies with more women in their top management perform better. My long experience working with women had confirmed as much: Marilyn Carlson Nelson had been my boss throughout my years first at Carlson Wagonlit Travel and then at Carlson; when I was in charge of Vivendi Games, I also reported to a woman, Agnès Touraine.

Formidable women soon held key positions on Best Buy’s executive team, from CFO Sharon McCollam and head of stores Shari Ballard to Mary Lou Kelley, in charge of e-commerce, which led Fortune magazine to run an article headlined “Meet the Women who Saved Best Buy” in 2015. In the first half of its fiscal year 2019, 58 percent of Best Buy’s external hires at the corporate level were women. And in 2019, Best Buy named its first woman CEO, Corie Barry.

Revisiting Best Buy’s board of directors was also part of diversity efforts. We needed more diverse skills, perspectives, and experience than we had on our board, to support a major turnaround and then a major growth campaign. Starting in 2013, we recruited individuals who had experience in successfully transforming large enterprises; directors who had a strong focus on innovation, technology, data, and e-commerce; and more recently leaders with experience in the health sector. As I write these lines, Best Buy’s directors now represent a diverse mix of skills, gender, and ethnicities—all of whom have made invaluable contributions. Out of 13 board members, three directors are African American and seven are women. Effective diversity at the board level is about finding the right skills and building critical mass—not tokenism—so different perspectives and views achieve better outcomes.

Racial imbalances among employees turned out to be more challenging to redress. In 2016, focus groups I ran with minority employees and managers made one thing painfully clear to me: our African American colleagues often felt stuck at entry-level positions, with few prospects for advancement. At headquarters, they felt trapped in the call center, hardly ever considered for promotions. Best Buy’s General Counsel Keith Nelsen, as executive sponsor of the Black Employee Resource Group, was batting hard on behalf of black candidates, but they never got the jobs. Many employees of color were from other parts of the country and felt displaced in Minnesota. They found little awareness or understanding among their local colleagues that their life experiences were different from your average Minnesotan’s.

I was blown away, and frankly hurt, by what I heard in these focus groups. As a white Frenchman living in Minnesota, I had had very limited exposure to the challenges that people of color face. I was also aware that my experience in driving real change when it came to diversity of all kinds was limited. I needed to do more, starting with better understanding the depth of systemic obstacles facing minorities, especially our African American colleagues.

One of the initiatives introduced by Howard Rankin, who drove our diversity and inclusion efforts, was a “reverse” mentor program that paired Best Buy executives with employees who would mentor them to help broaden their understanding of differences. I was incredibly lucky to have Laura Gladney, an African American mother of two working in supply chain management at Best Buy, as my mentor. Our monthly discussions helped me see the world in general, and Best Buy in particular, through her eyes, which helped me measure the weight of history and what it means to be African American in the United States today.

At the suggestion of colleagues, I also met Mellody Hobson, the president and co-CEO of Chicago financial management company Ariel Investments, and a director in a number of boards, including Starbucks’s and JP Morgan’s. “You need to put it in business terms,” she told me over coffee in New York. Companies must reflect the demographics of their customers to be able to understand and address their needs.

Best Buy’s drive toward better diversity and inclusion has centered on workforce, workplace, suppliers, and community. We expanded our recruitment efforts by widening our slate of job candidates. This has included establishing a recruitment program and scholarships with historically black colleges and universities. In the first half of its fiscal year 2019, people of color made up 20 percent of Best Buy’s external hires at the corporate level and 50 percent of external recruits in stores.

Yet change is slow. Best Buy typically prefers internal hires, which, while offering many advantages, slows progress on diversity. In addition, turnover remains higher among employees of color, even though the gap has narrowed. There is more work to be done.

Besides pushing for more diverse recruitment, we worked hard to better support minority employees. A one-on-one diversity mentorship program was set up to help advance careers. Diversity and inclusion are now part of how all Best Buy’s officers are evaluated.

Best Buy, like other companies, is also leveraging its buying power to influence suppliers. For example, I encouraged our general counsel to explain to law firms that we expected the teams assigned to work with us to be diverse; otherwise, we would be happy to work with someone else.

Such a push toward diversity invariably leads to some discomfort. Making more space for underrepresented groups is often seen as squeezing other people out. However, the way I see it, this gives white males like myself an excellent opportunity to realize how privileged we have been and to feel what so many others have felt in the past. At the same time, the zero-sum-game perspective misses the point that, without diversity, everyone eventually suffers.

Just take a look at Lehman Brothers. If it had been Lehman Brothers & Sisters, I am convinced the story would have been very different.

— excerpt adapted from The Heart of Business (The Harvard Business Review, May 2021)

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