Jeff Ma
It's been over a year since businesses all over the world shifted their attention to addressing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion issues more seriously than ever before. commitments were made, processes were created, and change has been in the air, but have things really changed. In today's episode, we get together to discuss the reality of where DEI is in businesses today, and where it should go next. We obviously have a lot to say about how love fits into the picture. So enjoy the show.

Hello, and welcome to love as a business strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business. We want to tackle topics that most business leaders shy away from. We believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I'm your host, Jeff Ma, and I'm a director at Softway, a technology company that helps transform company cultures. I'm joined today by president CEO Mohammad Anwar. Hey, Mohammad, how you doing? Hey, Jeff. Hey guys. Chris Pitre vice president. Hi, Chris. Hey. And Frank Danna director. Hi, Frank. Hey, Jeff. Usual Suspects. So each episode, we dive into an element of business or strategy and we test our theory of love against it. As we all know, today, I wanted to talk about, I wanted to like take some time on air here to talk a little bit about a topic that's been floating just amongst even the four of us, personally, in our chats and our texts. Mohammad, you sent me an article, he said all of us an article that was really interesting, almost a month back came out for over a month that came out. And I'm sure we can put this in the podcast show notes for everyone check out. But it was it was is very interesting. It's very intriguing at the time, you just sent it, because it's interesting. But I think since then, we've also had a lot of thoughts of our own around now wanted to have a quick chat today, the four of us around the title, the article is corporate america promised to get more diverse, but it's still mostly white women making gains. And an article is not just about white women, I don't want to talk about just white women today. But it is about diversity inclusion and the efforts that have happened since really the murder of George Floyd to this point, and how it's been so center stage to be talking about DNI, the AI and these things in the in the corporate workplace. And, and yet stats and metrics and reality has shown that maybe we're not moving the needle, as far as, as we would expect. Right, Mohammad, can you tell us a little bit about that article and what we see in there?

Mohammad Anwar
Yeah, sure. So the article was meant to see how corporate America and their commitment to a more diverse environment, how had they fared over the last one year, since, you know, the murder of George Floyd and all the open commitments that corporate America made for more diverse and inclusive organizations. And what it saw was that while there was movement made, it was primarily for white women have seen most of the gains, especially on the board member seats, which is, you know, kind of representative of at leadership levels and board levels of Fortune 500 companies, how diversity is represented in them. And so while there were gains made, and I think that's a very good sign, it however, is not representative of the demographics of America, right, and it's still very underrepresented. Also, the rate of diversity growth really didn't change. year on year from 2004, the, you know, minority representation would grow by less than half a percent every year. While that hasn't changed, it's still less than half a percent between last year and this year. So there's far more to be done. And what we recognize is while commitments have been made, and there is some traction for one minority group, which is rightfully something we all should work on, which is the gender gap. But also it shows that it's not truly representative of all the minorities, as you know, in proportion to the representation of the whole population of America as a whole. So that was the essence of the article, Jeff.

Jeff Ma
Thanks. It was great. Yeah, I mean, it's almost like he wrote the article you're saying? No. So metrics, trends are showing, I guess, despite commitments, a lack of movement. I'm curious, Chris. What's your take on why that is? Like? I know, the article talks a little about it. From our perspective, why do you think that is?

Chris Pitre
Well, I think the is a great sort of movement and initiative to kickstart inside of an organization is to really get serious about the AI. The reality that we've seen and heard and, and, and I think anecdotally, I've heard so many stories about is that the starting place that those organizations went in with, which was anti racism was probably too much too soon, for where those organizations really were and the readiness they had around being a part of those conversations, no matter what side of the table you were on. And so when you think about starting in those really controversial, deep, deep seated discussions, it's likely going to lead to a polarization effect, right, and where people are going to walk in, sort of hungry for real change, and wants to be a part of something. And then what they hear are on one side guilt, guilt messages, and on the other side, you know, reliving trauma, and again, being in a room with just silence and people nodding their heads, or asking you how you feel about that, but, but not really changing systems, tools, process behaviors, interactions, all those things, right. And, you know, while I know that in many DEI efforts is typically I call it monkey see monkey do, or, you know, bandwagoning, where you you see someone else commit to I want to commit to it, and we're gonna do it better than they did, right. And in DEI can't really do that and be effective, you have to assess where is our organization, what is really the state of readiness from a leadership perspective, from a budget perspective, from a time perspective, right. And you have to be honest, right. And if there isn't a space yet, for honesty, in general, there definitely isn't a space for honesty about these types of topics. And so, the reason why so many of these organizations like we are still stalled out, or, you know, went all in and got nowhere fast is because they likely googled anti racism training brought that in, or unconscious bias training brought that in, and it didn't go over very well. Many folks who are successful naturally see themselves as inclusive, you know, supportive, enabling, and all those things. And like all the positive things that you associate with just leadership in general, people already see themselves doing those things. And so when you're told that you're not that, right, you can imagine sort of cold water being thrown over you. And again, this is not an indictment on leaders who might sort of be resistant or hesitant to wholly listen and accept and adopt those types of things. But, you know, we've learned that, you know, when you come in, and you just start the conversation off, you know, from a place of one self awareness, you avoid pushing people into that place where they turn off all listening ears to any topic around sort of inclusivity. Until, from my perspective, just the approach that so many people tried to just Google and copy and rinse and repeat, has probably led themselves, you know, finding themselves further from the starting line than where they wanted going in.

Mohammad Anwar
agreed to totally agree, Chris, and they think, I think the intent is there, all of the organization's commitments, and everything. And I think we saw those open commitments. And I think, in the moment, the intent was great, I think it's just the approach that they may have taken to build upon that commitment is where maybe the outcomes that they had hoped for having been achieved. And we've observed, as Chris rightfully mentioned, that, I think a lot of them went too hard with the angle of anti racism training or unconscious bias training. And I think, to be honest, in a state where society is polarized, these kinds of initiatives probably furthered the polarization and did not help. Because ultimately, I think, the way you approach and I believe the way to approach and we've seen this inside of our own organization, ourselves is to start with a commonality start to use love as a way to get people to the table to start having the conversation. But if we start with differences, let alone starting with almost accusation or type initiatives, even though it's not directly accusation, but it can infer that guilt. I think it doesn't help people even come to the table to listen, to even explore to be curious. And so we believe that The approach is to first start with love, get people to the common table from the left or the right, you know, from whichever side you sit on. And then once you have people at the table, then we can start to speak about our differences and learn about our differences. But then we look at it from a lens of really getting to know the other person out of love, and not from an accusation or opposition. So it helps you then truly take your organization through education and information where they are keen to learn. Because at the core, we're all human. And if you can share stories and empathic storytelling, and share lived experiences, from another person's perspective, that may not be from the group I represent, it's far more inviting for me to get to learn and educate myself so that I can embrace and appreciate the differences. So that's what we believe, is the right way to go about making organizations especially leaders, getting them to truly embrace DNI initiatives, and, you know, change their behaviors and mindsets around these types of topics and realities that exists in the world.

Frank Danna
Yeah, for me, it's, it's interesting, because Mo hammad, you talked about building relationship, right. And there's this great quote by the director of Finding Nemo, named Andrew Stanton, he says, frankly, there isn't anyone you couldn't learn to love once you've heard their story. And I think that's such a powerful testament to the right approach for organizations to take, not like Chris Chris mentioned, not jumping into the anti racism training upfront, but rather, beginning from a place of empathy, learning the stories of the people that are part of your organization, building real relationships. And that's really how it starts, when we're able to see other people not as the different socio economic components that make them up. But actual human beings that have lives that have families that have cares that have desires that have ones that have needs, that have struggles, when we start seeing each other as human. That's when we actually get a chance to learn about how our differences make us special, and what those differences can bring to the table. And so, you know, I think it's, I want to go back, there's this, there's this quote that Ted lasso says, that I love, he says, taking on a challenge is a lot like riding a horse. If you're comfortable while you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong. And I feel like what's ended up happening over the course of the past year is, these organizations of companies have said, we're committing to this, but they take on this challenge. And it's uncomfortable. Because let's be honest, this is not a comfortable topic. This is not something that's easy for us to have these discussions are challenging naturally. And so organizations have, from what we've seen, taken their foot off the gas a little bit or diverted into other opportunities that are a little easier. But I think what's ironic to me is just building real relationships is the core fundamental starting point. And while it's, it's uncomfortable, to have conversations that are outside of what you typically have, it's still far easier than trying to ram a new diversity and inclusion initiative down people's throats and trying to force them into these discussions about things that will polarize them and actually push them further into their unwillingness to to learn and grow and explore. So

Chris Pitre
I got to drop out I mean, to draw and when you when you think about just like, the history around business initiatives, and the the, the ways in which they have stripped initiatives of the human factors, right, so when you think about HR, you think about policies, you think about systems, you think about benefits, you think, but you don't think about training, you don't think about, you know, the people side of things. First, you always think about the systems that incorporate the function of the business, as well as the processes associated. And DEI is one of those where you can't fix a system, you can't create a process, you can't start with those things that are stripped of human factors you actually have like it's all in majority about the human factors. And those are the things that go back and influence the systems, the policies, the process. And so, you know, the business world has just done a fantastic job of, you know, removing the humanity from a number of things. Right. Right. And this and it's not again, this is not an indictment on sitting leaders who are probably like Well, of course, you got to operationalizing it's like that's, that's the that's the challenge is like delaying that mindset and starting with the mindset, but before we operationalize it, who? Who is like, you have to figure out the who, right. And, and that is typically the last thing in most business, most business strategy development is who always is last, whereas with DEI who has to be first, and if you can't answer who, and that starts with leaders like figuring out who they are, you know, how they lead, why they lead, you know, why they behave, the way they behave, and figuring out that stuff. And then changing their mindset, looking at how they are, you know, doing things maybe not the best how they are, you know, you know, failing at certain things, how they are, maybe overreacting to other things, and taking that time to really think about that. Because if they're not embracing a new mindset, they're only going to replace a failing system with another failing system, right? Like you're, you're, you're bound to repeat the same mistakes if you're going to take the same approach with the same mentality towards it. And so with DEI, you can't approach it the same way as you would any other business strategy. Let me Google a competitor or an aspirational competitor, see what they did. And then I'm gonna go and find the same vendors, the same processes, the same tools. And then I'm gonna bring that here, which works in literally just about every other function. But then with DEI when you try and Google someone else's strategy, like they have a different set of humans, they have a different context, they have different sort of, you know, situations that are going on. While there may be patterns that are similar, like you rarely hear in case studies, like the behaviors of the groups that are being sort of touched by these solutions or these processes, right? You don't hear about the mindset, you don't hear about the the baggage and the resentment that is that has built up like I have yet to read a case study where they actually outlay Oh, leaders are super arrogant. And so therefore it made everything right. Like, you don't get that you don't get those realities. If you want to try and copy what they did. And you get you know, mesmerized by the numbers and the stats and the results and the cool things I did. Right, but you don't hear way. Were there problems and situations one for one with me? Am I trying to replicate something that won't work for me? Have I done the hard work of looking at myself looking at my team looking at the whole business? And actually looked at how ready are we for this? Where is our starting line? Do we start with antiracism? Or do we start with just building better self awareness? And what does that look like for our team? Do we start looking at our commonalities? First, we start understanding what is it that makes us all tick? Why are we all here? What are all of our goals? What behaviors should we all be exhibiting? Right? Coming from that place first, typically is one easier two safer. And three, it allows for the right conversations to happen up front. So that when we get into the hard conversations, you have sort of that Lifeline that you can go back to insulin to weight, remember, goals were the behaviors that we said we want, and we got to get back to that place. Right. But when you don't have home base setup, it's really hard to to know how to move forward or let alone repair, potentially, you know, hazards that can actually happen when you go into those deep, deep issues that, you know, you know, can be traumatic for some are polarizing for others.

Mohammad Anwar
So Chris, I know we've looked at a lot of organizations making, you know, policy changes and procedural changes, and you know, recruitment changes and so forth. And it's been great to see efforts made over there. I think you touched briefly on this. But how behaviors are not the foundations of the change initiative, they're starting with processes and policies. I know you had some interesting points of how data can be misleading when it comes to DNI. Would you share that example you shared with us the other day about employee engagement data and how sometimes corporate leaders can mistake that information and how it doesn't help, please?

Chris Pitre
Yeah, so traditionally, we look at data, especially when it comes to like market share, or, you know, the traditional things that we review for business reasons. We see like, Oh, 80 or 80%, higher, oh, we have like, you know, 80% of market share. Great, we're doing great. And then when with engagement surveys, we tend to take that same mentality, right? And it's the right mentality in certain places. But here you can see, or I hope you see how it can be problematic. But you take that and you see like, oh, wow, 80% of our team is super engaged. We're doing great. You guys. Like our DNI efforts are gonna be easy. We don't have to do that much. It's great. Like 80% of the people are enjoying it here and I having an issue and we have the 3% like, yeah, they're right. And you sort of dismiss the 20%. If you're really committed to DNI or DEI or diversity, equity inclusion, if you want me to say it out full right, full stop. We set out to JeVon, we miss you, JeVon. If you're listening to this and have not heard the podcast we've done with JeVon McCormick from scribe media go back and listen, and all of this will make sense. But if that's if you're really committed to DEI, from that perspective, you do have to lean into that 20%. And that is where your focus and attention has to be, you can't dismiss the 20%, you have to maintain what's going on with the 80%, and figure out ways to improve the experiences for the for the 20%. And so many leaders miss that. And so when they get those engagement results, they can easily find themselves quieting or dismissing the 20%. Like, oh, that's only a minority, and it's like, well, DEI is about the marginalized experiences, right? Like, so. You know, it's it's, it's a really interesting paradigm to shift that line of thinking and that line of analysis to go in and say, why do we have 20% of our team having a different experience from the 80%? And when you just stop and ask yourself that question, hopefully, there's a curiosity there that will drive you to want to learn, understand, and not be offended, if it comes back that you are contributing, potentially, to that cross screen experience. And, you know, what I will tell everyone is that you can be a marginalized person or in the minority or person of color or a woman and still be contributing to the bad experiences of another marginalized group. So this is universal. And many times there's, there's leaders that I've met and spoken to that, that this that they believe is just a certain group that is contributing to this experience. And that's not true, right. And when you think about all the different dimensions of diversity and identity, it goes beyond just race and gender, you have socioeconomic status, you have education, and pedigree, you have neuro diversity, you have physical diversity, physical ability, veteran status, right? You have all sorts of slices and dices that can change who's dominant and who's not in the room. And when you are in a room where you are the one who doesn't have what everyone else has, you feel it, and you sense it and the conversations happening around you. And you're just like, no, this is I can't do anything, can't say anything. Nobody's counting on me and supports me, right. And it's very easy for those types of experiences to happen. And they go unseen, unnoticed, and underreported, of course.

Mohammad Anwar
And I think our approach to solving a lot of this is through behavior change, building inclusive behaviors. And many times whenever we've proposed our solution to start with behaviors, a lot of leaders and, you know, stakeholders that corporate organizations struggle with understanding the connection between behaviors and DNI. And you've always caught ourselves with cross question examination of wait, what does behaviors and behavior training have to do with DNI? You know, so it kind of shows the immaturity in understanding what it really takes to build a diverse era, you know, equitable and inclusive environments. Because it we believe it starts with behaviors, behaviors at the bottom line. In fact, I know Chris, Jeff, and Frank, just saw this article on BuzzFeed about the Sony employee who sued Sony for discrimination. And when you look at that article, and you read through everything, everything that is outlined as what was done to her in terms of discrimination comes back to behaviors. And, and when you really come to think about it, a behaviors that we might be demonstrating to anyone, potentially. But if it does happen with a minority represented group or an individual from a minority group, it could become a cause for an EEOC claim or a legal lawsuit. And so our approach is we start with behaviors, let's work on changing the behaviors and the mindsets of leaders and the individuals in your organization. If you really want to make a difference in the dei efforts, you have to start with behavior change. And so if we really think about it, a lot of the EEOC claims could have been avoided had we just were able to train our talent, how to have the right behaviors to be inclusive, regardless of who the person on the other side of the table is.

Jeff Ma
Like a lot of times they they asked like, oh, what why? Why do they treat black people this way? And the question is, why do you treat anybody that way? Why would you treat right anybody that way? Like why the behavior exists.

Frank Danna
Exactly. So like part part of our approaches is to build self awareness, right to help us understand our surroundings, the impact we're having on others and how others are impacting us like, and when we're able to build self awareness of our behaviors, we start to recognize the fact that that is where the inclusion piece of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion actually plays, right, because if you have representation across your organization, most people consider diversity covered, right? Like I have a strong diversity and inclusion program. But if behaviors are not considered, you'll never unlock the value of different dimensions of diversity. So in order to get to that point, you have to create behavior that is actively seeking opportunities to not just give a voice to people, but also create opportunities for people. And that's where we a year into this right a year into these massive commitments. That's where corporate america still needs to move and progress into the recognition and understanding that inclusion is unlocked as a result of our behaviors as a result of the self awareness of how we're treating others. And finding and making sure that we use our positions, to make sure that there are people that need to be in the right positions, the right places. So I mean, it's, it's, it's nice to see, like you said, Mohammad, the progress that's happened over the past year, but there's so much more work that needs to be done. And I feel like, it's it's not as hard as people have made it out to be when it comes to a starting point. But a lot of folks just haven't recognized that it starts with building real relationships and building that self awareness.

Mohammad Anwar
Agreed. And, you know, I think there's a incredible focus systemic issues, right? And when you really think about it, how did these systems come into existence, it's not like they just miraculously just appeared, it started with people's mindsets and behaviors, because the some people in positions of power, instituted those processes and systems that are discriminatory, right. And they may have done it unintentionally or unconsciously, whatever the reason might be, the solution isn't to go, try to tackle the systems, you have to start with tackling the behaviors and the mindset of the very people who are responsible for instituting policies and systems Otherwise, you will never break out of the cycle of changing systemic issues, if you don't start with building self awareness, and changing behaviors and mindsets. And, you know, there might be situations where people do behave differently towards minority representation. So very no way saying that people may not treat, you know, minority represent groups differently, it's just that they may not just have the self awareness that they're doing it. So to help them with that, we have to start with behaviors and mindset, you know, awareness and training. And from there, you are able to fix the root cause to then change the systems, which is a symptom of people's mindsets and behaviors. So if you started systems, but don't address the root cause, are we really going to make a you know, path forward? And that's where the question becomes. And so the answer to solving people's problems is to start with the people. And the people here is in mindset, not with systems.

Jeff Ma
And not to sound hokey. But it starts with love, right. And it starts with our culture of love. Obviously, we're biased, but this is everything we talked about on this podcast in the book. Because when you're able to see people as humans, and start from that space, start from humanity, even with biases, even with other issues that may be present, you're able to work through it and get to a place and utilize moments of vulnerability and trust and forgiveness to get through this, because that's what it's going to take to really get uncomfortable and really get through these things, which is where the real change happens. And, you know, there's no magic wand to just say, here's the new process, here's a new policy that we all follow. And all of a sudden, these real human issues and conflicts and pains and struggles just disappear. It has to be a human solution to a human problem. And so love is kind of, you know, the most powerful weapon if you will, to to addressing these, right.

Mohammad Anwar
Yeah, I totally agree. And the other benefit is, if you are looking at Diversity, Equity and Inclusion from the lens of humanity and love and like say, hey, if we can help the most minority or marginalized groups, you're actually going to benefit everyone. And Chris, I'd love for you to share case study of how Looking, you know, working towards helping minority groups how it helps the majority of the groups? If you don't mind sharing that story, that'd be awesome.

Chris Pitre
Yeah. So this was back in what the 60s or 70s. I am not a historian and dates are not my thing. But the stories are. So way back before I was born, the the community, for people with disabilities, were really trying to advocate to governments locally and federally around building in curb cutouts into sort of sidewalks. So that way, crossing streets became easier if you were in the wheelchair. And, you know, they got pushed back, you know, people were, you know, thinking about the budgetary impacts, of course, and, you know, all sorts of finding all sorts of reasons why it might not be ideal. Nevertheless, they got it approved, moved ahead, curb cut outs were a thing became a thing. And they did studies afterwards to see how like the impact of those. And what they noticed was that it wasn't just people with disabilities, who are now able to move easily and freely around cities and street corners. But it was also women with strollers or men with strollers, it was people who were moving things on wheels, such as delivery men, etc. Right? Like anybody who had additional things that they were pushing or carrying, actually made it easier or made it easier for them. So they benefited. And then the other interesting thing was that, you know, deaths for pedestrians dropped, right, who were crossing streets, because now they had somewhere to stop to signal that they were walking into oncoming traffic. Right. So like all of these things, just like blossomed after those curb cutouts. That would have never happened had that community not advocated for, for those things to be implemented. And now we will find it weird to go to a curb but where, where do I start? Why is this right like that? Would we all be frustrated. And so the idea behind that story in that, you know, example is to show everyone that when you take care of the most marginalized group, you solve problems for everybody. And so I know that sometimes when people hear diversity, equity and inclusion, when they hear DEI and they hear culture, they hear, potentially, you know, something is being taken away from me, or opportunities are not going to be there for me, or I have to give up something now so that someone else can win and I lose, right they it's a natural human thing, right. And there's a thing, that's not a bad thing, it's just a thing. But when you hear that type of story, you can see like wait, everyone benefits from mentorship programs. Everyone can benefit from ally ship, everyone benefits from sponsorship, everyone benefits from being able to be their whole selves inside of the office, right. And so there isn't anything that you give up, even though it might feel that way. Because some of the efforts initially might be focused on enlivening, or at least enriching the experiences for those who might be starting from a different place than you are.

Mohammad Anwar
Yep. And that would agree in that same vein, the way that we've taken an approach for inclusive behavior training, is while there are visible things by the eyesight, that you can see differences from physical identity, gender, ethnicity, and race, our focus is, don't just stop there, you need to be inclusive of things that are invisible to you, maybe the way people think maybe the way they manage time, how they make decisions, what they value more in life. And when you are able to make space and be inclusive in your behaviors, towards every you know, even the invisible aspects of elements or diversity, you are now creating a better environment and place for every human at the workplace, because now the leaders and the co workers demonstrate inclusive behaviors, that's not just needed to treat, say, a person of color better, but also anyone who is human and interacting. And, you know, being able to experience those behaviors, benefits serve it. So by teaching inclusive behaviors, you're not just making space for the minorities and the marginalized communities, but also you're making space for everyone, no matter what their situation is, what background they have, and even the things that are invisible to us in terms of how they are different. You're making space for all differences to come together different perspectives to come to the table, and you're able to become a much better high performing innovative organization that is resilient. And so, you know, I think that's the real solution that corporate America has to jump on is start with behaviors to see a true long lasting change in all of corporate America. To truly become diverse, equity, diverse, equitable and inclusive, if we started processes, we're going to probably not make a lot of traction might do short term traction, but it's not going to be sustainable. And secondly, if we even start having education and training, starting from the lens of, you know, polarizing conversations, or maybe borderline accusation or type positions, you're going to distance the people from the people to have those conversations. So that's our approach. That's how we like to take our customers. And that's what we strive to practice inside of our own organization. And so we're hoping that we can bring about this awareness and spread this information and message for those leaders out there who are really looking to who are committed to a change, but don't know how to go about it. Hopefully, this, this, this discussion of ours is going to bring value and helps you guys with your commitments out there.

Jeff Ma
Absolutely. Thanks for that most perfect close to this conversation. Thank you, Chris. Frank, Mo, of course, for having this talk about this uncomfortable thing. I know there's more to dive into. I'm looking forward to some future conversations as we talk about getting really tactical around this stuff. But as Mohammad mentioned, this is our entire mission. It's built around, bring humanity back to the workplace. That's why we do what we do. And it is possible. So you know, anyone out there feeling like they're losing hope losing confidence in what's going on. It's not all bad. We've seen it work. We've made it work. And we want to make it work for more people. So opening that conversation, come talk to us, check out our book. You know, keep keep on the podcast and those things. Hopefully, the message will get through and grow from there, this movement will grow. So with that, you know, we do post new podcast episodes every Wednesday. And if you like what you're hearing you like to have any suggestions or topics you'd like us to cover, let us know it softway.com/laabs and be sure to leave us a review and share with your friends. We appreciate all that support. With that. We will see you all next week.