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Focusing on Behaviors to Drive Change in D&I w/ Mandisa Diggs
37 Plays3 years ago
This week for out 6th installment of " The 3D Podcast" I am speaking with Mandisa Diggs,Global Head of Inclusion & Diversity at Marvell Semincondustor to discuss how we can use behaviors to drive change in D&I. I had an AMAZING conversation with Mandisa and can't wait for you to check it out! The show is LIVE NOW on all streaming platforms!
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Transcript
Introduction to the 3D Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hey, I'm Cedric Chambers, and I would like to welcome you to another episode of the 3D Podcast, a masterclass where we share with you everything you need to know about how to transform diversity and inclusion in your organization as well as in your community. We're on a mission to amplify the voices of leaders that are making an impact in the world today so that we can have a better tomorrow.
Podcast Goals: Amplifying Voices
00:00:34
Speaker
Our goal every episode is to keep it simple, honest, and transparent with you by uncovering the truths in diversity and inclusion with the hope of creating behavioral change all while presenting it from a unique perspective. So look, if you're ready, get your notepad out, pour you a drink, and let's dive deep as we discuss the dimensions of diversity.
00:01:03
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of the 3D podcast.
Meet Mandisa Diggs: A Leader in Diversity and Inclusion
00:01:05
Speaker
Look, I'm excited. I'm excited for our guests today. Today we are speaking with Mandisa Diggs and to provide a little background about Mandisa. She currently serves as the first global head of inclusion and diversity at Marvell Semiconductor in the Bay Area. Prior to Marvell, Mandisa led global DNI and TA strategies for Facebook, Cisco, Ford, GE, Humana, and Purdue University.
00:01:29
Speaker
She is an innovative, passionate, and driven HR executive that is dedicated to enhancing inclusive leader capabilities. Through her career, she's experienced success creating innovative recruiting solutions for technical functions and driving holistic DNI plans that have both engaged senior leaders and forged progress towards a more inclusive environment. Look, I'm excited for the discussion today. There's a lot of jewels in this discussion. And so I hope that you're ready. I hope you have your notepads. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to Mandisa Diggs.
00:01:59
Speaker
So, Mandisa, how are you doing today? I'm doing well, Sajid. Thank you. How about yourself? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I can't complain, or at least I won't complain.
00:02:08
Speaker
Look, I'm excited to have this discussion today. Today we're talking about, you know, driving behaviors with strategy when we think about this realm of diversity and inclusion and what's happening in the corporate spaces. And so, look, I'm excited to have this discussion, which I know the audience is excited to listen. And so, look, to kick off, you know, just a discussion, you know, I provided a little bit of an intro for
Career Path: Transitioning into Diversity and Inclusion
00:02:28
Speaker
you. But if you could just take us through kind of your background, you know, tell us a little bit about, you know, how you got into the work
00:02:35
Speaker
you know, what led you to this place, just so that as listeners, we can have a little bit more insights into your path and your journey up until this point. Happy to. Thank you. Yeah. So it's so interesting how I got into diversity and inclusion as a professional career. You know, today, those that might be coming out of school with their degrees in human resources or even MBAs, many people might intentionally choose to pursue a route in DNI, but it's a relatively newer field. And certainly those before me, I think of Andrea
00:03:05
Speaker
Andreas Tapia, I think is his last name, I may have mispronounced it, I hope not, but other kind of researchers, many of us, I'm not saying that I'm a researcher, but many of us in this work kind of fell into it versus waking up and saying at 18 or 21, I'm going to go off and pursue a career at DNI, really was around recruitment, you know, and falling into a role in recruitment first in higher education. And in that vein of looking for diverse students and thinking at the time of a national
00:03:34
Speaker
strategy to attract more diverse students to graduate school programs at Indiana State. I would call that my first real job out of college. I had several, but that was like a career defining role where you managed a staff, I had a budget, I traveled around the country. And at the time we still had paper view books, you know, and videos that we would make and the view book for brochures that we get out to share with prospective students of what it might be like to study their master's degrees and PhDs at our school.
00:04:02
Speaker
And it was having conversations that, well, we can't give these view books out to people without representation. So, you know, making sure there was a strategy around having diversity reflected and leveraging the diversity that was on campus and thinking through which historically Black colleges or Hispanic-serving institutions we should go to to promote. And that kind of opened my eyes to
00:04:22
Speaker
There really is some thought around what it takes to diversify your approach and then moving to Purdue University, taking a global approach to bringing in students to the business school and being able to travel to Latin America and being able to travel across Asia and engage with those different cultures and what it means.
00:04:42
Speaker
to collaborate with corporations looking to send their professionals to pick up their secondary degree. So those types of experiences for me earlier on, I started to think, man, how do I do more of this from a recruitment standpoint and ultimately, and I won't bore you too much longer, but I transitioned from higher education into HR and into talent acquisition. And as we know,
00:05:03
Speaker
There's plenty of opportunities in the formal talent acquisition world
Defining Diversity and Inclusion
00:05:06
Speaker
to be able to think through around recruitment. I did that for GE and manufacturing, and they were hiring mid-career engineers. I had already been associated with a number of organizations with Purdue that attracted engineering talent to encourage them to get their business degree. It's like, why aren't we partners as an organization with my small business unit? Why aren't we partners with NASB and SHIP and SWE and all these other awesome organizations that
00:05:29
Speaker
have huge pipeline of diverse challenges, so putting those strategies together. And lastly, I'll share that after years of recruiting, I started to wonder, where are these people going? And hey, I just recruited that person to an awesome test engineer role. Why are they no longer with the company? What's happening? And how do I engage with people now that they're part of the organization? And why aren't these folks being promoted? And how do we build community for the lonely onlys that might still be a part of their team?
00:05:55
Speaker
And so I ultimately transitioned from just the talent acquisition focus to an MTN DNI focus, and they've been doing that for the last 10 years. No, understood. I mean, I would say that that's probably, I won't say true for everyone, but probably a lot of people as it relates to, hey, we didn't start off on this path. Even for myself, I came out of college thinking it was all about supply chain and operations management.
00:06:24
Speaker
got into a labor union and was like, hmm, I don't know about this, right? I had to get over to labor, you know, dealing with the union and kind of went down that path. But I think it always comes out of that aspect of like, you're seeing things happen that just don't seem right. And you're trying to understand and dig deeper. Why is that happening? What's going on? Is there something that I can do from my skillset, from the knowledge that I've acquired?
00:06:51
Speaker
to then go in and help this situation. So I do see a lot of diversity, equity, inclusion professionals come out of that thinking, that space when it comes to actually getting in the work. I think I've probably met very few people who have a background or education or form education around diversity or diversity and inclusion from that matter. So thanks for providing that. And so, as we're diving deeper, right, and we're thinking about strategy and diversity and inclusion, we're thinking about behaviors,
00:07:20
Speaker
I have a question for you. I want to know this. When it comes to diversity and inclusion, can you explain to the audience one, what is it? And then two, why should people and or organizations really care about it? Yeah, you know, at the, at the, at its core, diversity is really around valuing each and every one of us, you know, within our workforces and within our organizations around, I like to frame it as,
00:07:47
Speaker
the uniqueness that each and every one of us brings to the table. What makes us special, what's our special sauce, our gift, our lived experiences, all of the things that make us who we are. There's a lot of catchy things out there like with Verna Myers, you know, I think she's the one that coined diversity is being asked to the party and inclusion.
00:08:04
Speaker
It's being invited to the party and inclusion is being asked to dance, right? So I like to say diversity is about the uniqueness that each of us brings to the table that makes us who we are. Do we value that or do we say, yeah, but we want you to mirror everything that is happening as a group versus celebrating the uniqueness that you bring to the table. So really diversity is around, again, valuing the uniqueness that each of us brings and inclusion is,
00:08:29
Speaker
not just reaching out across the aisle, so to speak, to make sure that we have women in the room, make sure that we have underrepresented populations of multiple dimensions in the room, but then are you able to bring your voice to the table? It's so funny because if you look at the evolution of DNI, back in the day, diversity used to just be about compliance. Just make sure we stay out of the lawsuit to keep us out of
00:08:51
Speaker
litigation and then you know in the 80s and 90s it was around okay yeah we're a little homogeneous let's go get one of every everybody let's make sure we have one woman on the team let's make sure we have one black person in the group let's make sure we have one aspanic a latin next person in the group and then you don't even have the opportunity to really bring your voice to the table everybody had to dress the same in the 90s women and in the 80s we would dress just like the men you know with the suits and the same colors and try to really just look just like everyone else and so inclusion starts to enter into the conversation that says
00:09:20
Speaker
in the late 90s and 2000s is, yeah, you know, there is value into bringing your uniqueness. There is value into making sure that you're not just at the table, but you can actually speak up.
00:09:30
Speaker
and your ideas can then be used for innovative purposes. And then you started to see a lot more research around the power that it has in organizations. And so it moves from the right thing to do, which used to be around good faith efforts that companies would say, well, this is the right thing to do. This is a good faith effort that we can submit to the government for a government contractor to show that we tried. Moving from that to, whoa, research over the last decade or the last two decades is showing that
00:09:58
Speaker
This is impacting our bottom line and it would make sense if it brings someone that's coming from a whole different life experience. Maybe they speak different language than the rest of the group. They can help you tap into a whole other market. It just makes common sense. But yet we're so accustomed as a people, I think, to making people do things the way that you want them done that we discount sometimes individuality and we discount.
00:10:22
Speaker
the uniqueness that each of us brings. And that's why we're still at this work today. No, I agree. And look, you said something in the beginning. Look, what they did, I don't know if this is good or bad, but I'm not so good. It's just that.
00:10:33
Speaker
When you said that in the early stages about compliance and not getting lawsuits, to a large extent, it is still about that. The organizations you look at, all the different publicity things that have happened, whether it's in the clothing brand space, whether it's with large tech companies, it's almost like
00:10:57
Speaker
you know, that deja vu to where, you know, hey, are we still here? Like, you know, we're waking up, you know, we've been in this this journey for, you know, 20, 30, 40 plus years, even though it probably has had different names over the time. The idea, the thought, what needs to happen has been the same. But we still are in that place to where the approach is, you know, what do we got to do to make sure that we're not the next ones on the front page or the New York Times or we're not the next ones, you know, getting looked at as a bad employer.
00:11:27
Speaker
That's true. That is true. Yep. How the marketplace sees us, how future potential employees see us as an organization is very much top of mind. And really even the role, it's there to be an advocate for employees, but there's a certain level of.
00:11:41
Speaker
managing risk for their organization as well. So that's true. You're right.
Challenges in Diversity and Inclusion Efforts
00:11:46
Speaker
No, I'm with you. And so, you know, when you think about that and then, you know, you think about organizations and the progress that we've made and you see how the approach is happening today, why is it that, you know, some companies continue to miss the mark when it comes to diversity and inclusion? And I mean, like, regardless of, hey, we've made the top 50 list for XYZ or we've made this,
00:12:11
Speaker
And when you pull back the cover, the veil, when you peel into this onion, you're like, it's still some of those things that are happening to where it's not quite right. You're not communicating the way you need to. You're not making an environment inclusive. You're not doing those things that's needed in order to take that organization into the future. And so why is it that organizations, even with everything that's going on, everything that's in the news, why are they still missing the mark?
00:12:37
Speaker
Oh, Cedric, if only we had the time. That could really be the topic of the residence podcast, seriously. You know, I think it's a number of things. I wouldn't say that there's just one element that would be the sole reason why organizations are missing the mark. The first thing I'll share is, you know, in this work, many of us will say it's our goal to work ourselves out of a job, right? To not have to have a pillar dedicated just to DNI, but that the work is still going on.
00:13:05
Speaker
I don't think this work will ever go away because we're talking about humanity, right? Just like the human resources function itself will probably never go away in the future of work. It may look different, but we're still talking about the human-centric component of each of us that makes up our workforces. So I think it'll always be there. The goal is to embed this work and just, you know, our everyday actions and everyday decision-making. And one of the reasons why I think, well, many of the reasons why I think it fails is first of all, not having
00:13:35
Speaker
really the right resources for the world, the right resources, the right buy-in. Oftentimes, especially today, you might have your C-suite that truly believe in the work, but the role might be placed at a level in the organization that is not effective. That's a big, big reason. That's why you see a lot of turnover in these roles.
00:13:53
Speaker
You also see a lot of restructuring, where maybe four years ago, there was a role at a director level that sits a few several layers within the HR organization. And then because it has been ineffective, not to the person's fault, but just the way that the organization and the role was positioned, they finally restructured to say, okay, let's try to move it up to perhaps a VP or maybe even put it at the C-suite level. But ultimately, if you look at the research, it's really the resourcing
00:14:20
Speaker
for the person to be able to have the tools and budgets and staff and resources within the organization and out to do the role effectively. And it's also a positioning that the role is within the organization because this is one of the few roles that
00:14:35
Speaker
You can't do this role by yourself often in a corner. It's not marketing where you have a special secret launch that's happening and you reveal it to the company and to the world when it's all done, perhaps 18 months later, know it's something that you really have to be able to connect with every pillar of the organization. If you're a little lower in the organization, you may not be as effective to connect with SDPs and EVPs that are running the P&Ls of the business.
00:15:02
Speaker
that need to be able to enact change that you're trying to drive. So resources and positioning the role is huge. The other thing is accountability for your leadership.
00:15:14
Speaker
So while the CEO may be truly ready to do this work, you know, that his staff or her staff and the VP level staff, they may not necessarily have the right buy-in or have the accountability such that just like with their numbers, their metrics for driving the PD&L, if it's not measured, it doesn't really matter at the end of the day. And so those are the two of the biggest reasons that I think this work fails. And the last one I'll share is strategy.
00:15:42
Speaker
Oftentimes, people want this work to be fixed overnight. This is a long-term strategic play. It's so amazing that so many awesome revolutionary companies will have product lines that they're working on today that may not be revealed to the market five years from now, 10 years from now. They're really thinking about the future marketplace and what's coming. Yet with DNI, we're very impatient. We want something fixed yesterday. If it's not fixed, then we scrap the program.
00:16:11
Speaker
We don't want to give it enough money. We don't want to really do the long-term pipeline programming that it takes to make sure that we're not only hiring, but we are investing in our future leaders that are more diverse in the markets that we work in for the next 10 to 15 years and keep at it. Having an end-to-end long-term strategic approach is what I've seen that's lacking. That also causes us to start, stop, start, stop. Those are the three things that I would say.
00:16:39
Speaker
You know what? You are correct. We could spend the rest of the podcast on that. It was so many things you talked about that I'm like, ah, let's, let's, let's dig deeper. I want to talk about two points here. So, so one is when you think about the longterm strategy, right? You know, when I go through and I have discussion with organizations, I agree with you. When you say you look at products, you look at technology, you look at all of the different functions, you got growth playbooks for these things, right? Five.
00:17:07
Speaker
10, 15 years down the line of what's about to happen. And when it comes to DNI, it's a quick work. And what you're starting to realize is that while a lot of organizations don't want to admit it, they realize that failure from a diversity and inclusion perspective has a bigger detriment to their business.
00:17:26
Speaker
in the short term. And so they're trying to figure out, how do I get rid of this issue that could possibly come up as quickly as possible when in actuality, it didn't take you six months to get to this point that you're at. It's not going to be more than six months to get out of this place. It's a process that you have to go through, systems and things like that. The second question I have for you is, speaking about leadership, the golden question is,
00:17:53
Speaker
Where should diversity and inclusion sit within an organization?
The Strategic Importance of DNI Placement
00:18:00
Speaker
I had to go there. I had to go there. Yeah, that's why I giggled a little. It's so funny because the year of 2020, these conversations have been had for a number of years, so not new, but they really have taken center stage, if you will, this year. 2020 was so dynamic. The social justice definitely brought this work back up where everyone is speaking about it and the conversation of where should this role be placed has been front and center because organizations and just our society has asked
00:18:29
Speaker
Why haven't we moved the needle? Why are we still so far behind? This is shocking that we really not had much progress. And one of the reasons why is, as I mentioned before, where the role is placed in the resources. So ideally, for most organizations, for Morse corporations, the role should be at the CEO. It should be on the CEO's team, in the C-suite.
00:18:52
Speaker
And that is because, earlier to my point, when you're trying to work with those EVPs and those off-company officers that are owning big pieces of the business near their peer, you can collaborate and work together. There's that accountability, peer-to-peer accountability. But also, the D&I person has the ability to see, from an eagle's eye, what's happening across the entire enterprise.
00:19:13
Speaker
And when you're not at that table with your peers that represent every single part of the enterprise, then you don't know how to really work and focus and embed certain pieces of a DNI strategy that's critical to for success. When you're four and five layers down, you don't have that visibility.
00:19:29
Speaker
Really, the ideal situation is to be on the C-suite. The other might be one layer below where you do have that exposure and that pass down from the person that might be just one layer above you. But bearing the role is not the right move. And I think many, many organizations are saying that. I'll share this.
00:19:47
Speaker
Being in the field, I like to see who's hiring and why, not because I'm personally looking, but it's just interesting to see these roles evolve. And it's so funny this year and you see the posts on LinkedIn that says, I can't believe how many roles are open in DNI. Because again, we've discussed already that usually it's just a few people or one person or, you know, a small staff and you're off and trying to embed the work with your whole enterprise with all the other pillars and functions. And so as a result, there's never really been that many roles out in this space and yet this
00:20:16
Speaker
year of 2020, there's an explosion. And many of the roles that I've seen, there have been repeat roles. They were posted in 2018, they were posted in 2016, they were posted in 2014.
00:20:26
Speaker
That's a lot of turnover. And most of them have been restructured because companies are saying that how they have them placed were ineffective for themselves and, Julie, instead of for failure for the person that had the roles in the past. Look, I agree. I've recently, even this year and a little bit of last year, I saw a lot of big DNI leaders change roles and change positions. And I saw it to where they would go to a company and take on a chief diversity officer role.
00:20:54
Speaker
They'll be there for 18 months and two years and then go get a bigger Chief Diversity Officer for another company. I'm like, change just doesn't happen that quick, right? Being that really turn the ship in a lot of these large organizations just takes time and it takes that persistence. Changing out leaders every 18 to 24 months or in some cases three years won't ultimately get you to the place that you're trying to get to. I see that. Now, I'm not mad. Look, go get your money, get your bag, do what you got to do.
00:21:23
Speaker
But at the same time, expectations, organizations need to have an expectation that when you hire someone in these roles, you have to have them there five, six, seven years to be able to create the change that you're looking for. Because just to even get into the right direction is going to take two to three years. When you think about the turnover that's going to happen in the organization, you think about how are you looking at each of the different processes and systems that are in place, and then have the right team around you to go out and take that work on.
00:21:53
Speaker
not to add that it's an emotional work to where you can only do so much at a time, right? You could do a lot of things from an activity standpoint, but those things that stick, those things that captures people, you know, at the internal levels, it just takes time and takes connections and being able to, to make those connections in these type of roles is critical for success. And so
00:22:18
Speaker
Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, no, I'm vibing off of what you shared. I will just say the turnover comment, that's a long conversation as well. I think there's several reasons for it. One might be that the person themselves realizes that I do not have the actual internal support that we discussed during interview. And so as such, I've only been here 18 months, but I need to go to another organization that will truly
00:22:46
Speaker
allow me to do the work in full scale. That might be a reason not just the more popular company or the bigger bag, so to speak, but really the inability to do the job. I think the other aspect that leads to turnover too is an organization, I personally have experienced this,
00:23:07
Speaker
While well-intended, the organization really is only focused on one or two aspects of DNI versus the full end-to-end strategy. And that might not align with the person in the role that says, hey, no problem. I can help with recruitment. That is low-hanging fruit. That should be a part of the strategy. But let's also work at our consumer facing
00:23:27
Speaker
component of DNI and our strategic approach there, or our internal promotion approach there, we really need to give that some attention. And when those things don't align, then again, a person may choose to move. The last thing I say is, I've noticed that some of the larger organizations where Chief Diversity Officer truly has a team of five people, 10 people, 15 people, even 20 people, and I'm not saying that every organization should have 20 people, it may not make sense.
00:23:52
Speaker
But you tend to see that one that really is staffed up and they have folks aligned to every piece of the business as a full functioning pillar. You see them stay longer because they're able to slowly chip away at a 10 year approach. And they've got the staff and the buy-in from the company to do that as a full functioning pillar. No, I agree. I agree. Look, as a professional in the recruitment, diversity recruitment space, if diversity recruitment isn't tied to the internal aspect, when you think about promotion, when you think about retaining,
00:24:22
Speaker
You know, ultimately we're going to be back at the same place, you know, coming to see my organization again, because now that person has left the organization. Right. So if you're not turning it through, right. If you're not making sure that you're looking at each one of these steps through the candidate journey, through how they onboard into the organization, that process to kind of, you know, getting into the culture, you know, finding themselves and how they fit within and then being successful. Right.
00:24:43
Speaker
you know, ultimately going to be in this revolving door, right? So, you know, just take that. So as we think about this, right? So, you know, you see organizations that have put these roles out there around diversity and inclusion at this point where we are. When you think about a starting point, what are the first steps or where should the organization start when they think about, okay, we want to go out and not create this diversity and inclusion program?
00:25:11
Speaker
For folks that are listening to this, there are some, they are new in their role. The company never had a diversity, you know, anything right within the organization. So, you know, I think sometimes our mindset can default to, well, let me do a BRG or a business resource group or let me do, you know, unconscious bias training or, you know, but where should they really, really start when they're coming in and to get them on the right path to really creating the change that they're looking for?
00:25:36
Speaker
In the past, and I mentioned it because it wasn't long ago, not so distant past, meaning just a few years ago, organizations looking to start this up, they would create a small task force, a small tiger team, and they would have some listening focus groups with their employees so they can understand from their employees what they wanted to see within the organization, what some pain points were, what the experience might be.
00:26:00
Speaker
And they would also send their title team off to do really long, robust surveys and, you know, bring to the CEO the business case. What's the business case for our specific organization as to why we should, why we should bring this work to bear. And now, you know, there's so much research out there that I would say you really shouldn't have to spend too much time showing the business case. You should already kind of know that. And I would, you know, I wouldn't spend the next 18 months to 24 months trying to build a business case because it's there.
00:26:29
Speaker
And so really, I would really want the C-suites to have a conversation about where they're taking the organization. Set D&I aside for half a second. Where's the organization going? What are the pain points just from a culture perspective, just from a product perspective, and then fold in how D&I, how to think D&I can help make sure that they're really clear on where they're headed as a team, as a company, and identify the biggest pain points. Is it representation? Is it community?
00:26:56
Speaker
Is it equity? What is it so that they can be clear on the type of skills that they want for that DNI leader? And think about the resourcing and start to program that and plan for that so that the person can start and hit the ground running. So last thing I will share is the accountability. They can always start to bake in the accountability structures before this person even gets into the organization and really think through their commitment. Because if this is just a PR role, they're going to have a lot of turnover and it's really a waste of energy.
00:27:24
Speaker
So really, I think the C-suite should have a number of conversations about what it is that they want ahead of time and what the gaps are today and what they think that the company is headed to be able to really shape an intelligent conversation around what they're looking for for a D&L leader.
00:27:38
Speaker
No, I agree. So you hear something there, we talked about taking a step back and putting DNI to the side for a second and looking like the vision, and you talk about accountability.
Behavioral Barriers and Cultural Competence
00:27:47
Speaker
So you think about companies leadership today, leadership today, what behaviors are they currently exhibiting that are holding them back from progressing this DNI strategy? I think some are conscious and some are unconscious. I think the conscious behaviors are, and I have seen this with peers and friends in the work and also myself personally as well as
00:28:08
Speaker
An organization might be new to this work. They hire someone and then say, which this happens across multiple pillars, of course, but then they say, well, we don't do that here, or that won't land you, or let's change the tone here. We gotta be the tone police instead of just being real. Now you don't want to put your company at risk. I understand that you want to phrase things that will meet the company where they are, will meet the audience, of course, but sometimes you can water down the training, water down the message, water down everything that you're trying to do that. It's really ineffective. And so the bottom line is that,
00:28:38
Speaker
being willing to take calculated risk sometimes is lacking and being willing to be bold. In service of that vision that they said that one is lacking. So yeah, being the lack of the ability to be bold and take risks. You bring in some great people to the organization and they say, we don't do it that way. On every recommendation, it can hinder their ability to foster the right behaviors that will help
00:29:03
Speaker
model inclusivity that will help challenge the status quo that might be happening in an organization. Frankly, that will help address systems that that new person may have uncovered because they have their first advice. This is, hey, this system that we have in place with how we're evaluating challenge during our annual review process is having an impact on certain populations. I don't think we've been aware of that up until now, but shooting everything down has been the issue.
00:29:30
Speaker
Then unconsciously, I'm a proponent of the IDI, and so the IDI really shows many of us that we have an inflated sense of our intentional behaviors and an inflated sense of how we lead across difference just because we have a team that's an age or just because we have a team that's a lifetime, and yet we still might minimize people often. We still might participate in microaggressions or we may not participate in them, but when someone brings
00:29:58
Speaker
an issue to our attention. We may be participating in minimizing that experience. It says, oh, well, that has nothing to do with race. That has nothing to do with age. You're oversensitive. All these types of behaviors that we don't have the capability and the training for. And so being really clear there, I think, is an issue for leaders. That skill set, that capability training. Oh, man.
00:30:22
Speaker
Thinking about, hey, we don't do it this way when you get that pushback. There's this conversation I think needs to happen.
00:30:29
Speaker
And I think that we traditionally, whether it's an HR, just overall business, right? You hear the word change, right? But when an actual ally, I think the word really needs to just be transfer. Because when you think about, and I don't know if you've ever heard the analogy, but I use this a lot when I speak to clients is that you can either be one or two things here. You can either be the frog,
00:30:57
Speaker
who ultimately at the end of the day, if you think about the metamorphosis, a life cycle of a frog, right? You start as a tadpole, you get bigger, you grow legs, you lose your tail, you know, but ultimately at the end of the day, what the frog ends up being is where the frog, is what the frog started as, right? It looks very similar in nature. That is that idea of changing, right? You've changed the outside a little bit, but you're still at the same individual, the same company, the same culture, the same person.
00:31:27
Speaker
But when you think about this aspect of the butterfly, where they start as a caterpillar, that process and where they in is a place that one, once you get to be a butterfly, there is no going back to be in a caterpillar. There is no looking like you are a caterpillar, right? You don't know that piece of it. And so when you think about that transformation process, it's almost to that place where you're saying,
00:31:51
Speaker
the place that we're about to go, we have to get agreement that we're not going back to the place that we're leaving. And if we don't have that agreement, then we should probably part ways right now because we're not going to be successful if we don't understand that there's a change that needs to happen. There's work that needs to get done to do this change. And for us to do that, we have to leave some things behind.
00:32:15
Speaker
and change our appearance, change our culture, change the fabric of what we do, how we do it, and why we do it in order to get to this place that we're trying to get to. Well, that's powerful, Sandra. And I would like to mention to use that from time to time, because I love it. That is beautiful.
00:32:35
Speaker
No, take it, take it. Look, I've heard it from one of my favorite speakers a while ago, a while ago, and I just love when it's stuck, and I think it's just so appealing to the situation. So let me ask you this. As we're thinking about the programs that are being put in place, as we're thinking about the change that needs to happen from a behavior standpoint,
00:32:56
Speaker
What are some of the systems and processes you put in place to hold leaders and ultimately entire organization accountable when it comes to continuing down this journey? I know that there's this aspect of, hey, metrics in, is this in their performance? But are there other ways to look at this? Is there other ways to hold the organization accountable outside of, of course, we need to make sure that their performance is attached to it.
00:33:22
Speaker
What else are there any, anything else that we can do to, to get to this place we're trying to get to? Yeah. I think there's a number of things, like a good recipe, right? A number of ingredients will make the outcome favorable, will make the outcome desirable, desirable dish, so to speak. And so yes, metrics, I'm a huge proponent of metrics. I come from organizations like Cisco and GE that instilled in me the importance of that and the power of, of, of that.
00:33:49
Speaker
But you have to be careful with metrics because you can drive the wrong behaviors as well. So we have to be careful with how they are interpreted and who has it and what's gleaned from what the story is sharing. I love being able to engage leaders in their own action planning. What's important to them? What's happening with their organization? How can they be a part of writing their own story? So if you have the strategic overview for the company, great. But what does that mean specifically to supply chain?
00:34:18
Speaker
and what's happening in supply chain and how can as a group reform together really with you leading your approach to leading DNI and to taking one of the four elements. Let's say if the company has four goals that they're working toward, which one really applies to supply chain based on what's happening in their org around the world?
00:34:38
Speaker
and really letting that leader and then their teams being able to put together action plan that they can work against and own and speak to and update at their own own hands and so on and so forth and cascade to the organization. So that's huge for me. I think I've seen the power in that and I like to continue to use that approach. The other is just as in business,
00:34:58
Speaker
I'm a huge proponent of ongoing leadership capability opportunities where, as peers, there's a space and place created so that the learning continues, particularly around that skill set that we talked about earlier and all the different things that block inclusion. How do you keep the learning capability moving forward year over year so that it's not just check the box. I've got to take this one class. My new hires have to take this one session on onboarding.
00:35:24
Speaker
Just as with our professional function, how do we year-over-year continue to stay current and continue to sharpen the stool set with skills that push me beyond just one-on-one or two-on-one education around D&I? That makes sense.
00:35:42
Speaker
Once again, like you said, this is a lot of work right in the way that you got to approach this in a way you have to look at this, you know, has to be with that long term approach to be able to accomplish what you're saying right to be able to get to this place and to look at this a little bit differently. And so, you know, thinking about, you know, what you what you said there and then kind of looking at
00:36:03
Speaker
You know organizations as they're starting down this journey, like, look, we're in heightened times today right with a pandemic with unemployment, you know, that is steadily increasing. You have various different, you know, injustices that we are experiencing, which seem like at this point like every other week.
00:36:22
Speaker
When you think about all that's going on, what are the long-term or the long-term repercussions of getting this work wrong out the gate? So for organizations that are starting, if you don't approach it with the right strategy, if you don't focus on these behaviors, like one, what are the repercussions to getting this wrong? And then how does it impact employees and their trust and willingness in participating in this journey? I like the question. I think that's a good one to pose to leaders,
00:36:50
Speaker
to have them work through as an exercise. So I have to keep that in mind for myself, Cedric. But to answer it, I think there's a number of repercussions that will happen. One, and it goes back to this comment that I made earlier around, companies have our products that are in queue 10 years from now and five years from now. The same with marketing plans, right? And I think that getting this wrong will continue to see. Everybody makes mistakes, so let's put that out there. We know that. But we'll continue to see just
00:37:20
Speaker
glaring, silly, obvious, blatant issues that come up when we don't have the right people in the room. And so if we're not grooming the next group of product managers and engineers and marketing professionals, then we're going to continue to see egregious
00:37:35
Speaker
advertising campaigns and egregious products that are coming to market that hurt the business bottom line and their reputation with the communities that they're trying to do business with because they're racist or sexist or ageist or xenophobic because we don't have the right folks in the room working on some of these big initiatives. So I think that's one. Two is this generation Gen Z
00:37:59
Speaker
They're not playing around. We have the data that shows that they're one of the most diverse generations of all time. They come from a number of backgrounds that biracial or maybe not even multiracial even. And they have certain expectations that they are demanding. And so if an organization doesn't have the ability to back up what their mission statement says on the website, they're not going to get the best and brightest in the world as these young folks start to come out of school and start to
00:38:29
Speaker
look to build their career. They hold these organizations to task. If we don't have the right people in the room, if we don't have an end-to-end D&R strategy where we ask ourselves, who's missing? Whose voice is missing? Who's not in the room? Who haven't we thought of? Then you'll continue to see the marketing campaigns where I think Heineken says sometimes light is better. It came out so racist, even though I'm sure that wasn't the intent, but the impact was huge, huge, huge, huge, all the way around from
00:38:59
Speaker
the words, but then the words matching the visual within the commercial where you had the lighter and darker skin women and the ones who got attention was a lighter skinned woman. So you'll still continue to have some of that year over year and the repercussions of that with your consumer base, right? And ultimately impacting the bottom line. And then you have what happens is actions not matching probably what's on that company's mission statement or what's in their diversity strategy or what's in their website.
00:39:28
Speaker
what's in their ERG vision and all those great things not matching up. And so you'll continue to have that and that can continue to have mistrust within the consumer market. The other thing I wanted to share is with Gen Z. As they come out of school and even the generation behind them, we have the data and I don't have the number in front of me, I should. But I think it's over 50% if I'm not mistaken that says that
00:39:51
Speaker
that generation is at least biracial, if not multiracial, very, very diverse and they have high expectations and they are holding companies accountable. We have things like the corporate for equality index that are holding organizations accountable to walk the talk when an organization doesn't get this right. The ramifications will be not only losing the bottom line, which is important and keeps an organization alive, but not attracting the best talent. And that isn't a cliche statement that I'm trying to articulate here.
00:40:20
Speaker
Truly, Gen Z's, they're not playing around. They'll go where the walk is being backed up by the talk with organizations. We know that this is a competitive market. We know it will continue. If we want those brilliant minds, we have to be able to create a space and place that really will allow them to thrive and that really match
00:40:38
Speaker
mission statements and the vision statements and the pre-words that are on our solidarity statements across our corporations today. No, I agree. Yeah, I think the number is 50.1%. 50.1, you know. Yeah, 15, right, are people of color, right? And so, like you say, it's one of those things to where, look, you get ready now, because whether you like it or not, right, it's coming, right? And
Gen Z's Impact on Diversity Expectations
00:41:04
Speaker
your business, right, is going to hinge on your ability to right now prepare for what's about to happen. I mean, in the next three to five years, right, if not, you know, sooner, because, you know, it's the world is moving fast, you know, and everything is just, you know, at this place to where you have to be thinking, you know, five, 10 plus years down the road and what you need to do today, because like I said before earlier, it's going to take that long to get some of these things done. And so,
00:41:34
Speaker
And I think the other piece, you know, is, you know, as you're thinking about the intent, right, when you say lighter, lighter is better. Wow, that may not have been the intent.
00:41:44
Speaker
I will say, that's who you are, right? And so, you know, your intentions can say, oh, I didn't intend for that to come off that way. Okay, but that's who you are, right? Because it was such of a natural thing for you to say, or for you to do, or for you to not see anything wrong with, or for you to look at that and say, okay, yep, let's publish it, let's push it out. Because I know that there's a lot of people that ads go through before they actually come out to the public.
00:42:12
Speaker
to where it's not just, oh, that wasn't my intentions. What about the intentions of the rest of your team? And if you don't have, let's say if you do have people of color and diverse individuals on your team and you still didn't get the insight, then the next question is, are you empowering them?
00:42:31
Speaker
to read, to step up and say, this is not right, right? Because if you're not empowering them, you're going to get those situations. But I believe it was like, you know, Gucci had the situation a little while back and H&M had the situation where I'm saying to myself, clothing go through so many eyes before it hits the product shelf.
00:42:50
Speaker
And before it hits online, then I'm pretty sure why it may not have been a lot of diverse talent. There were some that looked at it and said, that's just not right. But because of the culture, because of them feeling that, hey, if I say something, this could be my job, they just let it go.
00:43:08
Speaker
And so what are you doing as an organization to really combat that, empower your teams to really be the change, right? Because at the end of the day, no matter what your job title is, it should be finance and manager slash diversity and inclusion specialists because.
00:43:23
Speaker
If we're not all looking at this, if we're not all being conscious of this, if we're not all pushing this forward, we can't just rely on a group of one or a group of three or four people on the DNI team to say, you're going to take this organization of 7,000 people plus and change what we've been doing for the last hundred years and some of these organizations. No, thanks for that. That's something that you said that I think is important just with that scenario. When you have
00:43:53
Speaker
ads that are passed through so many hands or products that pass through so many hands. We feel like, okay, maybe there was diverse representation, but they weren't empowered to speak up, or maybe they were empowered, but then overwritten because we know that there's a shortage of diverse individuals at the management levels and our senior management levels that ultimately can make the decision and make the call. Let's say all of that has happened. I think one of the repercussions too is that
00:44:19
Speaker
Even without diverse representation on the teams or even
Empowering Diverse Voices in Decision-Making
00:44:23
Speaker
with the small numbers that exist today that are unacceptable and we want to change it, when we don't get this right in terms of all of us having a level of cultural competence, for those that might be part of the majority culture, in this case, we were using that lighter is a better example. It's why people are the majority in Heineken
00:44:42
Speaker
There should be a level of expectation of cultural competence to know that while you may not get everything right, of course, none of us will. When you're not living in your own bubble or swimming in your own culture so much that you have the ability to know some high working level understanding of what's culturally acceptable and what's not in society.
00:45:01
Speaker
And some of the things that we've seen come out, anybody should know, honestly. But when you don't take the time to empower your entire organization with a working level of a cultural competence, and this is what we get. I'm going to add this to what you just said, even from a leadership perspective, however may be right. It came out and it could be a lot of different factors. Another point you could put on that is, well, what's the market that they're targeting? Because the market that they're targeting
00:45:28
Speaker
might feel okay with this, might not see any issue with this, might look at it and be like, oh yeah, that's a cool shirt, or I know what that means, but I get it, ha, ha, ha. You got to think about who they're targeting, right? I think a lot of things in the election that just passed, a lot of stuff that just happened lets you know, people are targeting specific people, specific groups.
00:45:50
Speaker
could be, hey, it might have been, you know, they can come out publicly and say, hey, it wasn't intentional. But then they know, like, well, look, message out that we were trying to get out at the end of the day.
00:46:02
Speaker
And so, so many factors there. So look, I think that, no, this is awesome, this is awesome. So look, look, we've tackled, you know, quite a few things here, you know, as we're coming to the end to wrap this up, right? I wanna make sure that we leave the audience with some nuggets that they can take back and start to utilize within their organizations. So if we think about everything that we've spoken about today,
00:46:21
Speaker
What are two to three actions that companies and or their leaders can take tomorrow after listening to this podcast to begin to use strategy to drive their behavior change when it comes to developing an inclusive culture? Yeah, no, I think there's a couple of things that leaders can do tomorrow. One is just understand what the biggest gap is on your team, what the biggest gap is in your organization. Most leaders have the ability to define what that is, just like you do for products or marketing or communications or sales.
00:46:49
Speaker
You can understand what the biggest challenge is, and then we all rally around it to do that. If it's representation, if it's not representation, but maybe it's the ability to speak up or the culture, whatever that is, and then think about how you within your own team and spirit of influence can make short actions to be able to work against that. Here's an example. If we feel like we want to improve the empowerment within our team, within our entire organization,
00:47:17
Speaker
Then why not ask yourself, you know, who did not hear from today in my staff meeting? Who didn't have the opportunity to speak? How can I send my agenda out ahead of time so that maybe some of the introverts in the room want more time or all of the team wants more time to think about what it is we're going to discuss can have 24 hours.
00:47:34
Speaker
and can email me their responses. And then I can, you know, share the highlights and invite people to speak who are always, you know, quiet or never have the opportunity or spoken over. Just little things like that may seem like not big game changers, but it invites those in the room that oftentimes are overlooked or spoken over or discounted.
00:47:53
Speaker
and being able to solve for those that might be impacted the most empowers all of us. It helps us all for solving for those that are impacted the most. Those are several tips I think I gave all in one in terms of being able to create an inclusive culture. How do you shake it up so that we're not just all talking on the spot, but
00:48:12
Speaker
you think creatively around what might meet the unique needs of those that might not be as outgoing or as local or as extroverted. So those are some things. The other thing is just what small actions can you share with your team that you're working on for the quarter around DNI so you can open the door for your team to know what you're working on, why it's important to you, and maybe how you can together learn from each other.
00:48:34
Speaker
These are little things that you can weave into the staff meeting every week. It doesn't have to be astronomical, big splashy events where it's a small, subtle, everyday intentional behaviors that I think move the needle within a team and an organization. There it goes. That's awesome. Thanks for that. Well, look, this has been an amazing conversation. Before we go, do you have any shout outs, any parting words? Where can people find you to further dive into your brain, your thoughts about this topic or any other topic in this space?
00:49:03
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for having me, Cedric, and thank you for the great conversation. We could talk about this all day. I do love the topic, and so I thank you for the opportunity. People can find me on LinkedIn. I try to keep a regular presence there, and so I do respond. I might be a little slow, but if you write me, I'll definitely write you back on LinkedIn. I think it's the best way to reach me. Yeah, I'd love to hear from Patrick. I'm trying to make impact in our organization. I think together we learn from each other.
00:49:29
Speaker
Happy to help support me when I can. Well, look, that does it for us. Well, thanks to everyone for joining for another episode of 3D Pocket. This has been Cedric and you've been listening to Mandisa Diggs, Global Head of Inclusion and Diversity at Marvell, Semiconductor. We out.
00:49:44
Speaker
Awesome. Well that does it for us. Thank you for joining us on another episode of the 3d podcast if you would like to connect on social media follow me on Instagram Twitter or Facebook at Cedric and Powers and if you have any questions you'd like me to read or answer on the show or just want to know more about my thoughts around diversity and inclusion Entrepreneurship or just overall business you can text. Yes. I said text me
00:50:09
Speaker
at 770-285-0404. You'll receive content straight to your phone on a regular basis and you can message back and forth with me. Not a bot or an assistant. All responses come directly from me. But look, this has been a great episode. Until next week, this has been Cedric Chambers and you've been listening to the 3D Podcast. We out.