How to get serious about diversity and inclusion in the workplace Janet Stovall
Everybody has that one friend –
you know, the single-minded one,
the one who, no matter
what the question is,
always finds a way to make the answer
whatever it is she’s single-minded about.
I’m that friend.
(Laughter)
And the thing that I’m single-minded about
is racism.
If someone were to ask me, “So, Janet,
got any plans for the 4th of July?”
I’m subject to answer, “Yeah,
I’m going to binge-watch ‘Roots.'”
(Laughter)
Or if they said, “Janet,
I’ve got a joke for you:
Why’d the chicken cross the road?”
“Uh, was it a black chicken?
Probably gentrification.”
(Laughter)
(Applause)
But for me, single-mindedness
is not just caring about something.
It’s caring about something enough
to do something about it.
It’s not just thinking, it’s doing.
It’s not just praying,
it is moving your feet.
And the reason I’m single-minded
about racism is because I know
single-mindedness can destroy it.
I learned that many, many years ago.
Back in 1984, I was a junior
at Davidson College
in Davidson, North Carolina.
Now, Davidson is a little-bitty town,
Southern town, split by railroad tracks,
with white Davidson on one side,
black Davidson on the other side,
and, as black students lived
on the white side of the tracks,
we got used to being stopped
in downtown and asked for ID,
until the police memorized our faces.
But fortunately,
that didn’t take too long,
because out of 1,200 students,
only 52 of us were black.
There was one black professor
and one black assistant dean.
Things weren’t a lot better on campus.
Well, I wasn’t OK with this.
And so, I started writing things.
And then I started yelling things.
And after about three years of that,
I got tired.
So I decided to write one more thing;
I wrote something called “Project ‘87.”
Project ‘87 was really
just a challenge to Davidson:
in three years, by 1987,
enroll 100 black students,
hire 10 black professors,
create five Black Studies classes
and hire one black dean.
It didn’t seem particularly revolutionary,
but what was different about it was,
we also challenged Davidson
to say that if you don’t do this,
we will question
your commitment to diversity.
It was a real problem.
We put some real numbers to it.
We gave them some real consequences.
Well, the campus went absolutely nuts.
But fortunately, in the middle of this,
Davidson got a new president,
and that president was
single-minded about racism, too.
And so, he created a task force
to address the issues in Project ‘87.
And several months after that,
we produced a 77-page report.
That report was the foundation
for all the change that came after it.
Now, I wasn’t there to see that change,
because, actually, in 1985,
I graduated.
(Applause)
You are looking at the three
happiest people on the planet that day,
because I am leaving.
(Laughter)
However, the change did happen,
and today, there are 185 black students,
there are 16 black
or multiracial professors,
there are four black deans,
and there’s an entire degree-granting
Africana Studies Department.
(Applause)
Project ‘87 changed Davidson.
But it also changed me,
because what it taught me
was there’s a lot of power
in single-mindedness.
Well, today, I’m an executive speechwriter
for one of the biggest
companies in the world.
It’s a profession that is 92 percent white
and predominantly male,
which makes me a little bit of a unicorn.
But I’m a single-minded unicorn.
(Laughter)
So the thing about speech writing
is, it’s very personal.
So I spend a lot of time
in deep conversation
with the CEO and senior executives,
and a lot of times those conversations
turn to diversity and inclusion,
which, of course, I’m always
happy to talk about.
But after quite a few
of these conversations,
I’ve come to a conclusion:
I believe that business
is in a position to do something
that no other entity can do.
Business can dismantle racism.
Now, colleges can’t do it.
There aren’t but 5,000 of them
in the United States
and only 20 million students enrolled.
Church can’t do it, either –
only 35 percent of us go
on a regular basis,
and when we do,
eleven o’clock Sunday morning
is “the most segregated hour” in America.
But business?
There are a 162 million people
in the US workforce alone –
people of all races,
united in the spirit of wanting a paycheck
and having to show up to get it.
(Laughter)
Now, I’m aware that diversity
is bigger than race,
and racism is bigger than America.
But racial discrimination
is the most prominent form,
and Lord knows America is
the absolute best at it.
So what if, though, what if
we worked in diverse
and inclusive environments
that we had something
to do something with?
And since we spend
one-third of our lives at work,
what if we did that with people
who didn’t look like us?
I think the world would be
a totally different place outside of work.
That can happen if business
gets single-minded about racism.
But the question is:
How is that supposed to happen?
Well, I think there are three things
that business can borrow from Project ‘87:
real problems,
real numbers,
real consequences.
Like it or not,
diversity is not really a problem
for business – yet.
I mean, it’s a nice thing to have,
it’s the right thing to do,
but for decades, we’ve been trying
to make the case
that diversity fuels innovation
and customer insight.
I mean, at this point,
it’s kind of a no-brainer,
a little bit like hearing
a smoke alarm going off
and standing with your hand
on the hot door,
waiting for some data to tell you
that your house is on fire.
Because the data is already there.
Ethnically diverse companies perform
33 percent better than the norm.
Forbes’s best workplaces for diversity
enjoy 24 percent higher revenue growth.
And yet, here we are in 2018,
and there are only three black CEOs
in the Fortune 500.
And if your name is Molly or Connor,
you’ve got a 14 percent better chance
of getting a callback on your resume
than if your name is Shanice or DeShawn.
And all of this, despite
the fact that by 2045,
America is projected to be
a minority-majority country.
Here’s the thing:
the business case for diversity,
as it stands today,
doesn’t really speak to any problem.
And the only way business
is going to get single-minded
about racial diversity
is if it has a problem that is urgent
and relative to somebody
other than people of color.
I got one:
How about employees and customers?
Because no matter what business you’re in,
you’re going to need those, right?
Well, let’s talk about some real numbers.
If you have employees and customers,
wouldn’t it make sense
if they looked a little bit like
the people that work for you?
So if that’s the case, maybe your employee
base should be 13 percent Black
and 18 percent Hispanic,
because that’s what
the population looks like.
Maybe that’s what
your customer base looks like.
But let’s be clear:
diversity and inclusion
are not the same things.
Diversity is a numbers game.
Inclusion is about impact.
Companies can mandate diversity,
but they have to cultivate inclusion.
And if inclusion is what you’re after,
you’ve got to calculate
some slightly different numbers.
How about 30 percent?
Because that’s the point
that research shows
at which the voices of minorities
actually begin to be heard.
If you want a real problem,
you’re going to need
real numbers to fix it,
and if you’re not willing
to set real numbers,
then maybe you’re not real serious
about diversity and inclusion.
That brings me to my third point:
real consequences.
Think about this:
when salespeople forget what they’re doing
and don’t come up with their numbers,
what do we do?
We give them a little time,
maybe we give them some training.
But then if they don’t hit
those numbers eventually,
we fire them.
However, when you start talking
about diversity and inclusion,
we use terms like “accountability.”
And maybe we scold, and maybe
we hold back an incentive or two.
But you know what the best incentive is?
A job.
And you know what
the best disincentive is?
Losing it.
So if companies really
want accountability,
they should assume that that is a given.
Consequences are what happen when you
don’t do what you’re accountable for.
Imagine this:
imagine a place where people
of all colors and all races
are on and climbing every rung
of the corporate ladder;
where those people feel safe –
indeed, expected –
to bring their unassimilated,
authentic selves to work every day,
because the difference that they bring
is both recognized and respected.
And imagine a place where the lessons
we learn about diversity at work
actually transform the things we do,
think and say outside of work.
That is what happens
if we all work together
to fix what’s broken.
That is what happens if we stop
praying for change to happen
and actually start moving
our feet to making it.
That is the power of single-mindedness.
Thank you.
(Applause)