How to get serious about diversity and inclusion in the workplace | Janet Stovall | TED
TED
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvdHqS3ryw0

Transkript (automatisch erstellt)

0:13 Everybody has that one friend -- you know, the single-minded one,
0:18 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.
0:26 I'm that friend. (Laughter)
0:29 And the thing that I'm single-minded about is racism.
0:34 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.'"
0:41 (Laughter) Or if they said, "Janet, I've got a joke for you:
0:45 Why'd the chicken cross the road?" "Uh, was it a black chicken?
0:49 Probably gentrification." (Laughter)
0:54 (Applause) But for me, single-mindedness is not just caring about something.
1:05 It's caring about something enough to do something about it. It's not just thinking, it's doing.
1:13 It's not just praying, it is moving your feet. And the reason I'm single-minded about racism is because I know
1:22 single-mindedness can destroy it. I learned that many, many years ago.
1:28 Back in 1984, I was a junior at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina.
1:34 Now, Davidson is a little-bitty town, Southern town, split by railroad tracks,
1:38 with white Davidson on one side, black Davidson on the other side, and, as black students lived on the white side of the tracks,
1:46 we got used to being stopped in downtown and asked for ID, until the police memorized our faces.
1:53 But fortunately, that didn't take too long, because out of 1,200 students, only 52 of us were black.
1:59 There was one black professor and one black assistant dean.
2:03 Things weren't a lot better on campus. Well, I wasn't OK with this.
2:08 And so, I started writing things. And then I started yelling things.
2:12 And after about three years of that, I got tired.
2:15 So I decided to write one more thing; I wrote something called "Project '87."
2:21 Project '87 was really just a challenge to Davidson: in three years, by 1987,
2:28 enroll 100 black students, hire 10 black professors,
2:34 create five Black Studies classes and hire one black dean.
2:39 It didn't seem particularly revolutionary, but what was different about it was,
2:43 we also challenged Davidson to say that if you don't do this, we will question your commitment to diversity.
2:50 It was a real problem. We put some real numbers to it.
2:54 We gave them some real consequences. Well, the campus went absolutely nuts.
2:59 But fortunately, in the middle of this, Davidson got a new president,
3:03 and that president was single-minded about racism, too. And so, he created a task force
3:10 to address the issues in Project '87. And several months after that,
3:14 we produced a 77-page report. That report was the foundation for all the change that came after it.
3:24 Now, I wasn't there to see that change, because, actually, in 1985,
3:30 I graduated. (Applause)
3:36 You are looking at the three happiest people on the planet that day, because I am leaving.
3:43 (Laughter) However, the change did happen,
3:47 and today, there are 185 black students, there are 16 black or multiracial professors,
3:55 there are four black deans, and there's an entire degree-granting Africana Studies Department.
4:01 (Applause) Project '87 changed Davidson.
4:09 But it also changed me, because what it taught me was there's a lot of power in single-mindedness.
4:16 Well, today, I'm an executive speechwriter for one of the biggest companies in the world.
4:22 It's a profession that is 92 percent white and predominantly male, which makes me a little bit of a unicorn.
4:30 But I'm a single-minded unicorn. (Laughter)
4:33 So the thing about speech writing is, it's very personal. So I spend a lot of time in deep conversation
4:40 with the CEO and senior executives, and a lot of times those conversations turn to diversity and inclusion,
4:47 which, of course, I'm always happy to talk about. But after quite a few of these conversations,
4:53 I've come to a conclusion: I believe that business is in a position to do something
4:59 that no other entity can do. Business can dismantle racism.
5:06 Now, colleges can't do it. There aren't but 5,000 of them in the United States
5:10 and only 20 million students enrolled. Church can't do it, either --
5:14 only 35 percent of us go on a regular basis, and when we do,
5:18 eleven o'clock Sunday morning is "the most segregated hour" in America. But business?
5:24 There are a 162 million people in the US workforce alone -- people of all races,
5:32 united in the spirit of wanting a paycheck and having to show up to get it. (Laughter)
5:39 Now, I'm aware that diversity is bigger than race, and racism is bigger than America.
5:45 But racial discrimination is the most prominent form, and Lord knows America is the absolute best at it.
5:52 So what if, though, what if we worked in diverse and inclusive environments
6:01 that we had something to do something with? And since we spend one-third of our lives at work,
6:07 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.
6:15 That can happen if business gets single-minded about racism. But the question is: How is that supposed to happen?
6:23 Well, I think there are three things that business can borrow from Project '87: real problems,
6:29 real numbers, real consequences.
6:33 Like it or not, diversity is not really a problem for business -- yet.
6:38 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
6:45 that diversity fuels innovation and customer insight. I mean, at this point, it's kind of a no-brainer,
6:52 a little bit like hearing a smoke alarm going off and standing with your hand on the hot door,
6:56 waiting for some data to tell you that your house is on fire. Because the data is already there.
7:02 Ethnically diverse companies perform 33 percent better than the norm. Forbes's best workplaces for diversity enjoy 24 percent higher revenue growth.
7:15 And yet, here we are in 2018, and there are only three black CEOs in the Fortune 500.
7:23 And if your name is Molly or Connor, you've got a 14 percent better chance of getting a callback on your resume
7:30 than if your name is Shanice or DeShawn. And all of this, despite the fact that by 2045,
7:38 America is projected to be a minority-majority country. Here's the thing:
7:45 the business case for diversity, as it stands today, doesn't really speak to any problem.
7:51 And the only way business is going to get single-minded about racial diversity
7:56 is if it has a problem that is urgent and relative to somebody other than people of color.
8:02 I got one: How about employees and customers?
8:07 Because no matter what business you're in, you're going to need those, right?
8:11 Well, let's talk about some real numbers. If you have employees and customers, wouldn't it make sense
8:18 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
8:28 and 18 percent Hispanic, because that's what the population looks like.
8:32 Maybe that's what your customer base looks like. But let's be clear:
8:37 diversity and inclusion are not the same things. Diversity is a numbers game.
8:43 Inclusion is about impact. Companies can mandate diversity,
8:48 but they have to cultivate inclusion. And if inclusion is what you're after,
8:54 you've got to calculate some slightly different numbers. How about 30 percent?
9:00 Because that's the point that research shows at which the voices of minorities actually begin to be heard.
9:08 If you want a real problem, you're going to need real numbers to fix it,
9:12 and if you're not willing to set real numbers, then maybe you're not real serious about diversity and inclusion.
9:17 That brings me to my third point: real consequences.
9:23 Think about this: when salespeople forget what they're doing and don't come up with their numbers,
9:28 what do we do? We give them a little time, maybe we give them some training.
9:32 But then if they don't hit those numbers eventually, we fire them.
9:36 However, when you start talking about diversity and inclusion, we use terms like "accountability."
9:42 And maybe we scold, and maybe we hold back an incentive or two. But you know what the best incentive is?
9:48 A job. And you know what the best disincentive is?
9:51 Losing it. So if companies really want accountability,
9:56 they should assume that that is a given. Consequences are what happen when you don't do what you're accountable for.
10:04 Imagine this: imagine a place where people of all colors and all races
10:13 are on and climbing every rung of the corporate ladder; where those people feel safe -- indeed, expected --
10:22 to bring their unassimilated, authentic selves to work every day, because the difference that they bring is both recognized and respected.
10:32 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.
10:44 That is what happens if we all work together to fix what's broken.
10:48 That is what happens if we stop praying for change to happen and actually start moving our feet to making it.
10:55 That is the power of single-mindedness. Thank you.
10:59 (Applause)