Actions Speak Louder: A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming an Inclusive Workplace - Hardcover

Singh, Deanna

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593418212 ISBN 13: 9780593418215

Verlag: Portfolio, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

"A timely, practical resource on creating teams and organizations where everyone has the opportunity to succeed."
--Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the podcast WorkLife
 
A step-by-step guide for managers, teams, and DEI leaders looking to create impactful, lasting change in their organization, from recruitment to retention, and beyond.

Are you tired of hollow promises about diversity, equity, and inclusion in your organization? Do you want to take steps towards real change – beyond issuing mission statements, signing checks, and holding listening sessions – but don’t know where to start? This book is your answer. Designed for teams to read together, Actions Speak Louder offers a comprehensive blueprint for leaders and teams who are ready to get out of their own way, look at their surroundings with new eyes, and turn their energy into a concrete plan.
 
Renowned DEI consultant Deanna Singh has led diversity trainings for a wide range of organizations, from non-profits to Fortune 500 companies. Using narratives, case studies, and the latest DEI research, as well as interactive exercises, Singh will teach you how to:
 
  •  Write inclusive job advertisements because “minorities just don’t apply here” isn’t an excuse – you’re just not reaching them
  •  Design an interview process that reduces status quo bias and challenges hiring decisions that are simply “no brainers”
  •  Create a retention plan that considers and prioritizes the needs of underrepresented employees – if you haven’t intentionally designed one to be inclusive, you’ve unintentionally reinforced one that is exclusive.
  •  Lead inclusive meetings – the bedrock of company culture – by practicing constructive dissent and elevating underrepresented perspectives
 
As Singh has seen time and time again, any organization can meaningfully change – you just need the right tools.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Deanna Singh is the Founder and Chief Change Agent of Flying Elephant, an umbrella organization for four social ventures. Through their work in the spheres of DEI, healthcare, children's literature, and leadership, these four companies aim to shift power to marginalized communities. Deanna is an accomplished author, educator, business leader, and social justice champion who speaks to over 50,000 people annually, giving audiences the tools and courage to imagine, activate, and impact the world as agents of change. She has been recognized by the Milwaukee Business Journal as one of the community’s most influential 40 Under 40 Leaders, the State of Wisconsin as a "Women Who Inspires," and by Forbes as an "African American Woman Everyone Should Know." She recently published a book with American Girl, entitled, A Smart Girl’s Guide: Race & Inclusion.

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Chapter One:

Use Your Privilege: Identifying Your Workplace Privileges

From the Block to the Boardroom

Spending years behind desks, staring at screens, and doing work so removed from immediate impact, I revere people who walk the streets and meet the people where they are: the elder who spends retirement running a community garden that employs kids from low-income neighborhoods, the peer who goes to murder scenes and prevents retaliation, and full-time doulas who spend long hours in maternity wards to improve birth outcomes for underserved populations.

This drive to get back among the people almost drove me to leave a job as the CEO of a multimillion-dollar foundation. The position was fulfilling, and it gave me the opportunity to fund amazing work. But I wanted to move beyond supporting the people who worked on the frontlines, so I could have more direct impact.

During this time, I attended a conference for Black foundation leaders. There, I met many like me, professionals who worked to serve the underprivileged and felt ambivalent about being so far removed from them.

On the final night of the conference, a colleague recalled a story where she sat in her high-rise office looking down on the streets below as they filled with marching protestors. Seeing the dedication of the crowds, she felt a pang of guilt. It grilled her, asking, "Who do you think you are? Better than them? Sellout sitting up here while your people are struggling down there. If you really cared, you'd go down there with them."

Unable to bear another minute of this interrogation, she changed her shoes, stormed out of her office, and hit the elevator button. As she descended, her thoughts began to race. Not only would she join the march that night, she'd join again the next day. She'd join the movement, dedicate herself to the cause, and quit her job.

When she stepped out the front door of her building and onto the street, she saw a pastor from the neighborhood. She ran to him and said she was ready. She looked for a picket sign and listened for the chants to repeat before rattling off her plans-this march, the one tomorrow, and then quitting on Friday so she could give her full attention to the cause.

But that was when the smiling reverend scoffed that she didn't have to be so extreme. She could march tonight, work tomorrow, and march the next night. She didn't have to quit one to do the other. He told her to look at all the people marching, a whole line of people filling the street. There were plenty of people who could march, but few had her privileges. According to him, the organizers needed her to be in that office representing them when nobody else would. They would be on the block, but they also needed her in the boardroom.

Having the education that can gain a job, the social stability to retain a career, and the resources to read this book is a privilege. Sometimes that advantage can seem like a disgrace that makes some want to quit so they can join the march down on the block forever. At the same time, however, that privilege can also provide opportunities to achieve goals even up in the boardroom. People in our position have privilege. Facing that reality, many feel the shame that compels them to deny its existence, and others experience the guilt that drives them to renounce it.

But advantages can become ethical if you use them to benefit the disadvantaged. For this reason, this chapter will walk the fine line of avoiding the temptation to either deny privilege or renounce it. Later chapters will explore organizational changes at the level of practices, policies, and operations, but to increase the likelihood that those other goals will succeed, start with identifying ways to use your privilege.

Defining Workplace Privileges

The most popular text regarding privilege is "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." In that article, Peggy McIntosh, former associate director of the Wellesley Centers for Women, focuses on the racial advantages whiteness affords people in the United States. Some examples she covers include the following: "If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I want to live"; I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me"; "I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed"; I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented"; When I am told about our national heritage or about 'civilization,' I am shown that people of my color made it what it is."

Over time, the concept of privilege has taken on a life of its own in public discourse. Some assume that claiming someone has privilege suggests they've had no difficulties at all. Some argue that the phrase "White privilege" implies every White person is racist, oppresses people of color, and enjoys the rewards of a racially unequal society.

For our purposes here, privilege has a different meaning. Here, privilege means gaining benefits based on your social identity. Everyone has certain privileges in certain situations. For example, I am a woman of color, and the meaning of that identity differs from one context to the next. In certain spaces, my racial identity presents challenges, but in other places, my education, work experience, and financial security grant me opportunities. While I might not have racial privilege in relationship to White people, having lighter skin means I have it in comparison to darker people. I am a woman who doesn't have the social privileges attached to being a man, but being cisgender shields me from the particular social disadvantages reserved for transgender people.

In addition to recognizing the degree to which everyone has certain privileges, it is important to remember the level to which everyone has certain difficulties. A White woman might have racial privilege but not gender privilege. A Black man might have gender privilege but not racial privilege. There are White business managers struggling to pay back student loans, make the mortgage, and save for retirement, all while knowing they are two checks away from financial ruin. Reductive definitions of White privilege can suggest that the 15.9 million White people who live below the poverty line in the United States have access to unbelievable riches when so many make less than $25,000 a year.

For these reasons, when talking about "privilege," this chapter won't imply that the people who have things like native-born, Christian, or neurotypical social identities automatically live a life of ease. Furthermore, having any kind of privilege doesn't mean someone intentionally stole advantages from another or consciously participates in immoral actions that ensure others suffer disadvantages. Certain social contexts privilege certain social identities. Regardless of who we are, what we think, or what we do, just showing up in particular social contexts with specific social identities gives us certain kinds of privileges.

While widening out privilege to address multiple kinds, it is also important to narrow our scope. When people talk about privileges, they usually concentrate on a broad kind. Most focus on social, political, legal, psychological, and cultural privileges. In these aspects, to have privilege means my group's values structure social interactions; my group is overrepresented in politics; my group's interests drive the creation and enforcement of laws; my group enjoys psychological comfort, security, and confidence; and my group membership grants me the cultural benefits that come from being overrepresented in media.

Besides social, political, legal, psychological, and cultural privileges that garner the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Portfolio
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593418212
• ISBN 13: 9780593418215
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: M.E.G Cards & Gifts; 443000000000; paula@megcards.com; ; 48 Cloyfin Road; Unit 4, 48 Cloyfin Road; Coleraine; Londonderry; BT52 2NY; Irland