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Re-envisioning Inclusion: Narrow the Gap Between Stated Values and Lived Values with Kenji Yoshino, Professor, NYU School of Law; Author
Not all forms of assimilation are per se bad. Not all forms of assimilation are per se good. So that leads to the $64,0000 question which is how do we tell the difference. And I have a one word answer to this which is values.
The Talk vs. The Walk
Many of our respondents said I feel uncomfortable hanging out with somebody of my own ethnicity at work, association based covering. Many gay individuals said, you know, I cannot bring my same sex spouse to work. So these people who are out – so they weren’t passing but nonetheless they thought that they would look too gay if they didn’t cover by downplaying their association with their spouse. So these are obviously enormously consequential issues. But the important thing for us was that they contravened the values that the organization had articulated at a higher level of generality. So all the organizations that we surveyed said we believe in inclusion on the basis of race and ethnicity.
But nonetheless when you got to the nitty gritty and the daily experience of the individuals who actually work for those organizations, you got a lot of reports of these forms of covering. So one of the ways in which to winnow out the good forms of covering from the bad forms of covering is to think about whether or not the form of covering that you’re asking individuals to engage in is consistent with the values of the organization, right. So if your organization doesn’t say anything about political affiliation and you ask people to cover their political affiliation then, you know, from our perspective we’re not here to dictate values to organizations. We’re here to help organizations live up to their stated values.
On the other hand, you know, there’s a lot of low hanging fruit here in a sense that organizations articulate these values but then don’t live up to them so that the organization which out of one side of its mouth is saying we believe that inclusion on the basis of race and ethnicity is crucial is still allowing race based covering demands to occur on the ground such that people of the same ethnicity feel like they can’t hang out at the water cooler together.
So it’s that gap between stated values and live values that we’re trying to close. And mind you when we surveyed these organizations we got, you know, the best in class organizations to take the survey. The organizations that didn’t feel like they were well along the maturity curve with regard to diversity and inclusion ran screaming into the night when confronted with a survey like this. But even in those best in class organizations we do this all anonymously but, you know, we know who the organizations are. The best in class organizations still had a significant gap between what respondents said their values were and what respondents experienced their values as being. So you ask respondents, does your organization have inclusion as one of its values? Ninety-three percent of respondents said yes. But then we asked does your organization live up to those values of inclusion and only 78 percent said yes. So even in these best in class organizations that routinely make the Diversity Inc top 50, we saw a 15 percent drop between the talk and the walk.
Choosing Between Competing Values
Some of the most interesting conversations that I’ve had with organizations have to do with when the organization’s values are up in the air or when they’re competing values. So let me give a crisp example of this. There is a relatively conservative firm that hired an avant garde Gen Y firm to do web design for it because they didn’t have that capability in house. And the first day of work the Gen Y firm showed up in, you know, torn jeans and dyed hair and piercings and face tattoos and pets. You know the pets were my favorite.
And the receptionist at the firm that had acquired them had not been warned that they would show up in this way because no one knew that they would show up in this way. And she said I think you’re on the wrong place and wouldn’t let them through security. So this is like the worst first day of work ever. The engagement survey went through the floor. And then the firm’s question was what should we do. And my response was well it really depends on what your values are because this is an opportunity for you to reflect on your values. It’s not like there are these values and then you just impose them. It’s much more interesting when it’s a two way conversation between the values on the one hand and the people on the other. And so I said, you know, on the one hand I can easily imagine you saying look, we are a sartorially conservative firm. We acquired them, you know, they need to assimilate to our values and our culture because otherwise they won’t feel fully integrated within the firm. Or alternatively we’ll have to make accommodations to other groups. This firm had had a terrible experience with casual Fridays a few years back and so that experience is kind of burned in their memories. And so I said if you want to project conservatism to your clients, to your colleagues then maybe it’s time to just sit them down and just say look, you know, we’re sorry but you just have to conform, right. And that would be a values forcing conversation where the value would be driven to the surface and then imposed on the individuals. But alternatively I said one of the reasons that you acquired this firm was because you didn’t have the capacity in house to do what they are doing. And so you valued their innovation.
So if innovation is a value here and these respondents say, as they did, that this sartorial style and the way in which they present to the world, their authenticity is part of what makes them innovative and cutting edge. Then maybe you don’t want to spend six months, one year or five years arguing back and forth about whether or not people should have piercings and just let them do their work, right. So again my thought was I’m not here to dictate values to you. I’m just trying to help you understand that there are competing values here and that you have a choice to make but that choice should be as mindful as possible. And ultimately they went the second route rather than the first route and it all worked out really well. But, it’s always the product of a dialogue and that’s a dialogue that we’re trying to stimulate.