The Time to Build Personal Connections is Now

June 2020. The world was quaking in reaction to the video of an unarmed Black man being asphyxiated by a police officer in Minneapolis.

After George Floyd’s murder, I talked to a Black employee at a client organization who expected a statement from their leadership. They waited for days and days. They got more and more upset with each day of silence, reading it as apathy.

The leaders finally sent out a message to the organization. They also instructed managers to reach out to their teams. As a result, this employee received a forwarded email from their supervisor with the opening line: “Leadership told me to reach out. How are you?”

This was a particularly egregious scenario, but it illustrates why these well-intentioned communications often don’t achieve their positive goals. Trying to build a connection in the midst of a tragedy is uncomfortable, vulnerable, and personal. There is very little emotional room for error.

If the first time you have a truly personal conversation with a colleague of color is after a tragedy, then it will feel opportunistic, obligatory, or forced.

The time to check in and to build personal connections is now, before the next tragedy. Ask questions and speak authentically about what is important to the members of your team. You might be awkward, make mistakes, and fumble—but you can be doing it at a time when everyone is less tense.

When bad things happen to people of color in America, many of us feel it in a way that is different from the way many white people feel when something bad happens to a white person.

Speaking for myself: I think there is a greater sense of community and connection among Black people across the nation; a shared experience even if we don’t know each other. I know people who have been profiled or mistreated by the police. I can imagine something happening to me or my children. It feels personal. I heard a Black woman on NPR describing how she felt: “I feel like we’re under attack and I’m afraid to leave home.” The cumulative effect of police killings, health disparities, erosion of rights, Confederate flags, white supremacist marches through Boston… is a heavy burden to bear.

When you work to build real connections across racial differences (or any other identity differences), you can deepen your empathy and understanding. Even if you don’t react to an event at a personal level, understand that someone on your team might. As a manager, you should be able to support everyone on your team.

So don’t wait until the next tragedy to connect with your employees. Do the work to increase your personal awareness and build relationships. Then when the news cycle calls for a reaction, you can speak authentically.

Shift from being reactive to being intentional with regard to racism (and all the other isms and phobias). Rather than responding and then dropping out of the conversation, you can be part of it.

I hope the next time you write a statement about racial violence is a long way off. But don’t wait. Reach out to your colleagues now.

The paradoxes of DEI

Diversity, equity, and inclusion work is full of seeming paradoxes: “You have to get comfortable with discomfort.” Or “You have to celebrate differences in order to build inclusion.”

One of the paradoxes I grapple with could be called “Go slow to go fast”—the challenge of finding balance between the urgency of the need for change (people’s lives are at stake every day) and the reality of how change works in groups of human beings (through relationships, slowly and not in a straight line).

This tension is clear when working with a client to set goals. The step is essential. Without a specific target, there is no way to know when an effort has been successful, and therefore no way to learn from success (or failure).

We know from organizational strategy that goals should be actionable but aspirational; with discrete steps that feel attainable, but with a destination that feels ambitious.

But what does that look like when talking about DEI?

Years ago, a law firm we were working with had assembled a diverse task force to create a strategic plan to govern their DEI efforts over the next three years. Throughout the months-long process, there was one partner who kept insisting on setting a dramatic goal: three partners of color within three years.

The first time she suggested it, the group looked at her in shock. The faces around this table were somewhat diverse, but the partner roster was 100% white. And, in one of the uncomfortable truths they were learning to be comfortable talking about, they had no pipeline of associates of color who could be promoted within that time.

A debate began that stretched over several meetings. Most members said it was unrealistic. If there was no plausible way to succeed, why set it as a goal?

But a few members had felt a rush when they heard the ambition. They argued that the boldness would be motivating. Gradually, more of them came around to this side. In the end, they decided to commit to it.

Frankly, I didn’t expect that. I was impressed that the partner who suggested it never gave up and managed to persuade her colleagues to agree. I didn’t think they would meet the goal, but I was excited that they were going to try.

At the end of the third year, the task force reconvened to review the plan and progress made.They met most of their other goals—but not that one. In fact, they still didn’t have a single partner of color.

The task force was disappointed, of course. But they weren’t demoralized. The sense of urgency they had summoned at the start had focused them. They had adjusted their recruitment strategies, and paid attention to inclusion and associate development. They pushed harder than they would have with a more modest goal. As a result, by year three, they had a pipeline of associates of color. Within a couple of years, they had their first Black partner.

Would it have been better for them to have set a goal of “three senior associates of color,” since that’s what turned out to be realistic? Maybe. They would have been able to say they met the goal.

But in this case, the value of the goal was one of those paradoxes: they didn’t succeed, but they did. By trying to reach one impossible thing, they made something else possible.

Why set an ambitious goal? Because if you don’t set it, you’ll never get there.

A story about the stories we tell

One of the important premises of unconscious bias trainings is that no one is immune. Spotting patterns and making quick judgments is built into every human’s brain. DEI facilitators are not immune.

Several years ago, a colleague and I were co-facilitating a workshop at a law firm on building an inclusive culture. A group of men walked in, sat down in the back row, folded their arms, and stared at us. They weren’t hostile, but they didn’t look friendly.

In a matter of seconds, an entire story unfolded in my head about this group. These men had only come because the managing partner had made the workshop mandatory. I knew what they were thinking about: all the work on their desks, and the billable hours that they are missing. I knew that they believed DEI work isn’t worth their time. I even knew their future behavior: they were not likely to be very engaged during the session. And I would want to be prepared for one or more of them to be, shall we say, difficult.

Now, resistant participants don't throw me off. I have enough experience to understand that everyone comes in with different life experience and knowledge. Challenging people with new perspectives and information is an essential part of the work. Still, their skeptical energy triggered a set of facilitation strategies for me. I mentally adapted my approach in subtle ways to account for their state of mind.

Fast forward to the end of the workshop. The group was synthesizing what they’d learned and brainstorming strategies to make change in the organization. The topic had turned to barriers women face in the firm, and whether family leave policies might be an area to examine. In the midst of this active discussion, a young woman in the front made a comment:

“There is no glass ceiling for women in law firms,” she said, with intensity. “Women shouldn’t get any special accommodations. Being a lawyer is demanding, and if you do the work, you’ll make partner. If you don’t, this isn’t the career for you.”

I looked at this young woman, surprised and a little disappointed. It was clear to me that she wasn’t anywhere near the glass ceiling, yet she was adamant in her position. What gave her such a strong opinion about something she hadn’t yet experienced?

As I was thinking about what I was going to say to her, I saw a hand go up. It was one of the men in the back. He had a look of irritation on his face.

My heart sank. I had to call on him but feared he’d jump on this contrary bandwagon with limited time for us to course correct. I inhaled and gestured to him. “Yes?”

“Come on,” he began. “If the firm really wanted to fix this problem, we would. It’s not that hard.” Everyone turned to look at him.

“Fifteen years ago, a colleague in my department went out on maternity leave. There wasn't any formal program in place so the rest of us stepped up to handle her matters while she was on leave. We helped her transition out and back in. Now she is a partner. We just have to pull together to do it. It’s not that hard.”

In that moment, I realized I had fallen prey to one of the key lessons we teach in our workshops. We tell ourselves stories about people very quickly, and those stories stick. I had formed a model in my head about this participant based on his gender, his age, his race, his body language. That model was influencing how I facilitated—who I made eye contact with, who I called on, how deep to take certain lines of questioning.

And then, one of the people in my mental story who was supposed to be disinterested showed up as a strong ally, making a passionate argument for a concrete way the organization could be more equitable. Meanwhile, the pushback had come from someone I assumed would be an advocate, based on her gender. I had read them both wrong.

I now think of this workshop as a double success story. We had fostered an environment where people could speak freely and honestly, ultimately voicing constructive solutions. The dialogue that opened up here was going to make a difference for their firm.

But there was another learning moment too: my own. It was a reminder to watch out for my own biases.

Even as an anti-bias facilitator, I can never prevent my brain from forming instant stories about people. But now, when I see a group of men settling into the back row with their arms folded, I have a new story to tell.