This Can Happen to Your Team, Too.

I recently facilitated a team workshop that left me slack-jawed.  About 15 team members and I came together to work our way through a workshop on efforts to drive inclusion, a topic that couldn’t be more urgent, or critical to the company’s culture and identity. This workshop was not about getting people to agree that inclusion is important; everyone in this Zoom room was already on board. Instead, this workshop was about drilling in on which efforts were most likely to move the needle. Despite the collective mindset, the workshop was a reminder that without people willing to speak up, even teams with the best intentions can easily leave an impactful policy change on the shelf somewhere to gather dust.

Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) initiatives have been a workplace topic for decades.  Forward-thinking companies have tried, over the years, to figure out ways to be anti-racist, anti-sexist.  Their efforts have not always succeeded.  But countless companies agree: the particular events of the past year have only shown a greater need to combat racism, sexism, and dangerous bias in our daily working lives.  To become more open, inclusive, welcoming, and understanding: these are real goals, human goals, that elevate a company to greatness.  

So there we were, all Zoomed up, agreeing on how to proceed.  The group was grappling with ideas for new hiring practices that would lead to more diversity and inclusion. One particular idea had generated unanimous support and agreement (and quite a bit of energetic commentary to boot): Promoting from within (as opposed to hiring senior roles externally) would lead to more diversity at all levels. The particulars of what made that policy meaningful to this team is not key to what came next—and what can happen on your team too.

I said, Show of hands: Who believes this idea of promoting from within will drive diversity and inclusion at your company?  All the hands went up. 100% of the people in the room signaled this policy would make an impact on inclusion. 

Second question, Show of hands: Who would be willing to be part of a group who raised this idea with senior leadership? (What’s key here is that nobody was being asked to go this alone; the power of the collective voice would lead the way.)  This time only 40% of the hands stayed up. Even with the comfort and protection of a collective voice, 60% of the group, all of whom had clearly stated this policy if implemented would move the needle, stepped back. 

Naming the hesitation, I posed a last question. Who would be willing to volunteer to gather this group together again, simply to continue thinking about the best way forward, how we might air the idea? 

There were no hands left in the air.

First silence.  It took a moment for me to break the shock. (To be clear, if I was hearing this story from someone else, I would likely be surprised by the person’s surprise. We’ve all experienced the human fear of speaking up. But something about how on board everyone was, how much agreement there was on this policy, and still the unwillingness to step forward, struck me.)  The complacent look on their faces sharpened by focus. I leveled with them: This is it, where the rubber meets the road. Where initiatives either change a company for the better or get shelved indefinitely.  This is where people have the opportunity to stand up and lead; be willing to act. 

In the end, someone stepped up.  Reluctantly, maybe, but it happened.  

It was only a moment, in truth, a moment’s hesitation, but to me it spoke volumes.  While there’s nothing particularly unique about this company -- after all, we’ve all been in that room, Zoom or otherwise -- the widespread temptation to opt-out of making difficult changes is the reason our collective intentions can come to nothing. We’ve all been those people.  We’ve all been okay with things as they are, with avoiding risk, with shelving big ideas for another day, or another group to deal with.  

In your next meeting, consider: what is the purpose of me being here if not to advance the changes I support? How do we become the person who is brave enough to speak up? We start speaking up.

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