How Organizational Diversity Initiatives Lose the Plot

Contrary to popular opinion…

Diversity is not an initiative. It is not an imperative. It is not a strategic priority.

Diversity… is a fact.

You see, nature tends toward abundance and redundancy. When nature is left to its devices, not only is there enough, there’s also a variety.

Not just one type of cloud

Or grass

Or cat

Or human.

But many. And for no more apparent or justifiable reason than survivability. Of the whole.

Nature: Better make sure we have a lot of different types of these, so if something happens to one of them, at least we’ll still have the others:

Humankind: Oh, so you mean, ‘survival of the fittest?’ 

Nature: Um, no. That’s not at all what I mean. 

Where there is either lack or ‘excessive sameness’, there is usually an unnatural and / or external cause.

An Impact on Diversity

Decreased genetic diversity in plant crops puts the entire ecosystem at risk.

A dam constructed.

A toxic chemical introduced.

A meteor fallen from the sky.

Something happened to cut off the naturally abundant and redundant supply. And it remained. Continued. Settled in. Permanently changing the landscape.

Later, someone with short sight or memory will come along and wonder, ‘Why are there none of that particular flower here? Is this not its natural habitat?’ 

A committee will be convened, monies will be raised, campaigns will be launched. The naturally abundant flower will be trucked in from its natural, undisturbed habitat and planted in this place with its nearby dam or insidious chemicals. 

Over time, most of the flowers will wilt, die off. A constant committee will be needed to transplant a new batch every growing season.

Annuals.

Not perennials.

And the numbers are reported out at the height of the growing season. “We have hundreds of them here, thriving!” 

But no one ever stops to ask the flowers.

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If the idea of solving the wrong problem could be summed up in a word, that word would be, ‘diversity’.

I’ve been involved in diversity initiatives at work in one way or another since I started working over 2 decades ago. 

I myself was what you’d call a ‘diversity hire’. Young, inexperienced, plucked directly from the natural habitat of an Atlanta HBCU thanks to a Big 4 diversity recruiting initiative. I was a lucky flower. I got transplanted into a patch with some experienced and invested black women who ‘understood the assignment’ and took me under their individual and collective wings, giving me the ability to take root in unfamiliar terrain with the aid of familiar associations.

This is an uncommon story. 

The more common one?

A ‘different flower’ is brought in as a transplant. She may thrive initially, but soon the toxic cultural norms of ‘one-size-fits-all’, ‘when you’re here, you’re family’, ‘it’s a lifestyle, not a job’ creep in. She realizes that there is no such situation as thriving here, there is: ‘conform and constrict’, ‘grin and bear it,’ or ‘wither and shrink’. Her other flower-friends, once she finds them, are usually the ones to inform her of her choices. After all, these are the choices they have made.

And so the flower makes a choice: survive, wilt… or grow feet.

In short, the story being told about organizational and corporate diversity is a narrative missing perspective. A thin plot hurtling toward a flimsy ending. 

Diversity initiatives don’t just need a rewrite, they need a whole new editorial team.

Black in Corporate America: on psychological safety

At the beginning of June, the Coca-Cola Company held a global town hall meeting to address employees in this difficult time. In the days after the incidents of racial violence and police brutality captured on video in Texas (Ahmaud Arbery) and in Minneapolis (George Floyd), and the tragic police-instigated death of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, many employees - including myself - wondered, how will our company respond?

In advance of the town hall, employees were asked to submit videos sharing their experiences or perspectives on racism and discrimination. I recorded this. 2 incidents that illustrate the subtle ways that racial bias is internalized and creates a burden that breaks down self-esteem and prevents open dialogue (aka, giving it a name) in the workplace.

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Kisha Solomon is an Atlanta-based writer, knowledge worker and serial expat. She is also the founder of The Good Woman School. She writes witty, poignant stories about the lessons she’s learned from her life, work and travels. She deals with the sometimes frustrating and often humorous side effects of being black, female and nerdy. When she’s not writing, working or travelling, you can find her in deep conversation with herself or her four-legged familiar, Taurus the Cat. www.lifeworktravels.com

Remembering Malcolm

I’ve been meditating a lot on leadership lately.

On what it means, on how you come to be one, on the leaders I respect and admire. 

It’s not for nothing. I’ve been in a leadership training class at work for almost 6 months now. So it’s a theme that I’m engrossed in regularly. I remember one of the first questions posed to the class of middle and senior managers: Are leaders born or made?

It seemed an obvious answer to me. Leaders are made. It was therefore quite surprising to see an unexpected number of my classmates respond that leaders are born that way. It revealed more than I cared to explore at that time. 

In a different leadership session, with a different group of people, we were asked to bring 2 pictures of leaders who inspired us. I brought a picture of this man. Provocative, yes. But true.

A photo of a young Malcolm X, smiling

Malcolm has been an inspirational example of leadership for me since I read his autobiography in high school. Primarily because he and his life is a testament that becoming a leader is a process, perhaps a neverending one, but definitely one that will require you to stretch beyond your current boundaries, master a new level of skills and discipline, use that to accomplish great things, and then repeat the cycle again.

In his early life, Malcolm was an orphan, a pimp, a numbers runner, a thief, a convict. When that life had taken him as far as it could, a new life possibility was presented to him. He accepted and became a scholar, an orator, a community organizer, a husband, a father, a hero to some, and a villainous nuisance to others. When he was effectively cast out of that life, Malcolm was forced yet again to create a new life for himself - the first one he would create of his own volition, not just as a reaction to his environment and circumstances. It’s this life that we know the least about, because it was cut short before he could bring his newly defined self into full existence. 

At each stage of his life, however, Malcolm was a leader. He distinguished himself among both lowlifes and high-born with a natural charisma and a willingness to ‘take the weight’. So, then... are leaders like Malcolm born? Or are they made?

We are all born with everything that we need to achieve greatness. But we must be made ready through the experiences life presents us and the ways we respond to them. This is the lesson that Malcolm Little, aka Detroit Red, aka Satan, aka, Malcolm X, aka, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz taught me.

It’s the reason why I brought a picture of him into a corporate classroom, and it’s one of the many reasons that I, and many others will take a few moments of time today to celebrate the anniversary of his birth.

Happy birthday, brother Malcolm.

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Covid chronicles: The Digital workplace in the time of a pandemic

It should go without saying that as a member of Coca-Cola’s Digital Workplace team, my work life has immediately grown more hectic. Over the past few weeks, we’ve suddenly become the hottest ticket in the organization.

The Digital Workplace team owns and manages all of the web-based tools that allow employees to get work done in non-physical spaces. These tools include everything from the company intranet site, to email, to the videoconferencing system. But most importantly, it includes our collaboration and community-building platforms: Microsoft Teams and Yammer.

Enabling a global organization of knowledge workers to keep working while unable to leave their homes is a big ask, and many of our tools are brand spanking new. Plus, we’re a small team, so all of us are now wearing many hats, while dealing with a ton of new needs that we have to respond to quickly. In a way, it’s been kind of exciting. We’ve shifted from a slow-moving corporate department to a more scrappy, start-up like team. A welcome change for me with my unconventional career background.

Some of the ways I’ve seen the digital workplace change or be changed since the coronavirus pandemic began:

Metrics matter now more than ever.

I run the metrics and reporting function for Coke’s Digital Workplace team. Since the company mandated working from home, the demand for data, metrics and reports from my team has skyrocketed. Stakeholders in HR, IT, Public Affairs and the executive suite are keen to understand how employees are using our digital workplace tools, how much cross-functional collaboration is happening, are official messages reaching the right audiences? What are employees talking about and searching for? What’s the general sentiment at this time?

Innovation and experimentation are at an all time high.

They say necessity is the mother of invention. I’ve been amazed at the creative ways workers around the globe are using the existing digital workplace tools. The past month has seen us host the first company-wide town hall via Yammer livestream, create an internal classifieds tool to help identify and fill critical and shifting talent needs, create new client intake and feedback solutions….. People are using the digital workplace tools in new ways because they have to.

Team structures are more fluid. There’s less of the rigid organizational hierarchy and organizational politics at play. Priorities have shifted almost overnight, leaving some previously top-of-mind projects overstaffed, while other teams are struggling to keep up with new demands. The digital workplace infrastructure enables previously un-connected teams to quickly and easily create blended teams to meet these demands. Individual workers are proactively seeking out other teams and projects they can lend their talents to. Tools like chat, video calls, Sharepoint knowledge repositories, and digital whiteboards make the re-tooling and re-teaming frictionless and has eliminated many of the artificial barriers that have kept teams from collaborating more often.

The potential for message overwhelm is high.
Coke already sends out several employee surveys and lots of official announcements to the employee community on a regular basis. The surveying and messaging has probably doubled since the coronavirus pandemic started. While I think it’s always better to communicate more than less, it can be overwhelming for employees who are also dealing with anxiety, uncertainty and possible increased workloads. Where do I look for what? Where was that one message I saw that one day? The proliferation of 1:1 chats and meetings also adds to the communications overload some employees are experiencing right now.

Authentic storytelling is becoming more commonplace.

In a time when people really need to share and express more than just data and facts about their work, the digital workplace tools provide the media for this expression to happen. Sharing a peek into their non-work lives - anything from a funny meme, to a story about an elderly family member who contracted coronavirus and pulled through, to celebrating what small feat they’re most proud of accomplishing this week (and yes, getting dressed everyday counts!) - is helping employees mete out a little psychological comfort to themselves and their colleagues. This humanizes the experience of work - especially in uncertain times.

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Kisha Solomon is an Atlanta-based writer, knowledge worker and serial expat. She writes witty, poignant stories about the lessons she’s learned from her life, work and travels. She deals with the sometimes frustrating and often humorous side effects of being black, female and nerdy. When she’s not writing working or travelling, you can find her in deep conversation with herself or her four-legged familiar, Taurus the Cat. www.lifeworktravels.com

work is play – what I learned from kickball

When I get the opportunity to work with larger, corporate clients I often hesitate, even cringe. My main reason for deciding to pursue a non-traditional career was because most corporate cultures are just too dysfunctional for my tastes. Bad behavior, internal politics, and power plays are often rampant in corporate environments, and no matter how long I usually succeed in avoiding them, I eventually either get pulled into them or fed up with them. Besides, I have my health to consider. Even though corporate gigs tend to pay well and offer more perqs, what good is it if I’m increasing my stress and blood pressure in the process? In short, I’m not dying to work.

Which is why I often prefer to work as an independent contractor (aka, freelancer). As an independent, I’m essentially a company of one, so any dysfunction is all my own. I can deal with that. But the downside is that, as a freelancer, I usually work alone. In my home office. With no one else for company other than the voices in my head.

As entertaining as those voices are, I like working with other people. Especially if they’re smart and talented. There’s something very motivating, inspiring, and well… fun about working on a common objective with people who have the talent and the drive to make it happen with you. I guess you could say, I like working with people who take their work seriously but don’t take themselves seriously.

That’s the basis of my primary philosophy about work: ‘work is play’.

I tend to view work very similar to the way I viewed recess in elementary and middle school. Back then, the playground game of choice for me and my classmates was kickball. We’d play every day without fail. It was less a game, and more like a recurring chapter in the ongoing daily saga of our pre-teen lives. Two people would be appointed team captains, and the captains would choose teams, making sure each team had a couple of really good kickers, a pitcher, at least 1 person with a good throwing arm, and some really, really fast runners. Once the teams were decided, the rules of play were agreed to – no bunting; you have to tag somebody out, not hit them with the ball; the foul zone was between the edge of the pavement and the monkey bars. Eventually, play would begin. Each game had its high points and low points, conflicts and petty arguments. There would be hilarious moments when something ridiculously funny would happen, and when recess ended, we’d recount the game’s highlights long after that day’s winner and loser had been decided.

Reflecting on those playground sessions has helped me realize some important facts about work and working that I consider fundamental principles of my ‘work is play’ philosophy. Namely:

The best teams have a diverse mix of people.

If everyone on the team were the same type of player, it wouldn’t be much of a team. The teams that I’ve had the most fun with and learned the most from were those that were made up of people with backgrounds, cultures, and interests quite different from my own. Besides, it makes water cooler conversations a treat, to say the least.

Be clear about the rules can you live with / without.

In kickball, some of the rules were standard for the game itself, others evolved as we played the game repeatedly. It’s only by playing a few games that you get a feel for which rules you prefer and which ones you absolutely have to have. I tend to prefer working in situations where the rules of play aren’t as rigid as most. Flexible work hours, casual attire, a short commute – these are some ‘rules’ I prefer, but aren’t absolute deal-breakers. But frequent travel, lack of autonomy, and weekends in the office are work rules that just don’t work for me.

It’s just a game.

Play stops being fun when games are taken too seriously. The game is a part of life. It isn’t life itself. You are not a great person because you are a great kickball player, anymore than you are a great person because you are a high-level executive. The position you hold in the game is not the source of your power or strength or worth. It is the qualities and traits that you bring to the position. If and when the game ends, you will still possess the qualities and traits that make you who you are. In short, the game should neither consume nor define you.

The game can go on without you.

You don’t always have to be in the game. I remember a period during middle school when, instead of playing during recess, I would sit by myself and read or write in my journal. This went on for months. Then one day, I decided I’d had enough and went back to play. Not much had changed with the game since the last time I’d played, and I returned to the daily routine as if I’d never left. It’s okay to sit out a few rounds, if you need and want to. Take time away from the game to do something for yourself, with yourself, or by yourself – especially if it’s something that will make you a better player when you return to the team. Not only can the game go on without you, but you can go on without the game.

After-game reflection is almost as important as the game itself.

Conflict was an inevitable part of almost every playground kickball game. Occasionally, tempers would flare so high that there would still be tension after recess was over. Fortunately, the class immediately following recess was one in which our teacher would take time to help us work through any unresolved issues. Because our class was so small and close-knit, it was important that our relationships remained intact. Our teacher (a truly wise woman), gently forced us to reflect on our own behavior and that of our classmates, so we could grow in our understanding of each other, and ultimately go back to play another day. Taking time to reflect after every job or project is essential. It gives me the chance to assess how well I performed, what I might do differently next time, and what lessons I learned from any conflicts or issues that arose during play. After-game reflection is the #1 way to get better each time you play.

When I think back on those childhood kickball games, I realize that all of those playground maneuverings, all of the wins and the losses, and the occasional accidental injuries were teaching us how to work together, how to navigate relationships, and how to achieve a common goal with a group of not-so-common people. For me, work serves the same purpose – it’s the ‘playground’ where I show up to contribute my talents, to learn something, and to have fun in the process.

Once you’re able to approach your work with the mindset of play, you open up the potential for some serious learning experiences, simply by not taking everything so seriously. In work as on the playground, you have the ultimate say in what game you’re playing and what rules you play by.

2 weeks notice

I pretty much began to consider leaving my job, oh…about 26 minutes after I started working here. But I decided that it’d be better to stick it out and see what I could get out of the place before I made my resume look like I have ADD. Anyway, a recent series of fortunate events have opened up an opportunity for me to work in (what I hope will be) greener pastures, so I’ve finally made the decision to switch plantat…er, i mean jump ship.

 The problem with the whole 2-week notice thing is that once you let everyone know that you’re a short-timer, you’re immediately seized by this listless, languorous feeling that is a direct side effect of knowing that you’re no longer on the hook to perform, just to show up. Maybe it’s just me, but it’s awfully hard to keep up the façade of being a hard worker, when you know nobody cares anyway.

Well, tomorrow is officially my last day, so on this, the eve of my departure, I’ve decided to take some time to reflect on the last 10 days . Read: I’ve pretty much run out of other ways to goof off. 😀

Day 10
• In keeping with the 2-week protocol, today I informed exactly 6 people – my boss, the HR lady, and 4 of my regular lunch / water-cooler buddies – of my decision.
• My boss lets me know that, after tomorrow, he’ll be out of the office for the next 2 weeks. I am convinced I’m being rewarded for some good deed in a former life.
• For the rest of the day I traipse around the office like Michael J. Fox in that montage from ‘Secret of My Success’ where ‘Walking on Sunshine’ is playing in the background.

Day 9, I mean 8
• About 5 minutes after I get to my desk this morning, my boss stops by and asks if he can speak to me in private. He does so in a tone that would have me fearing for my job, if I hadn’t already quit. In the ensuing conversation, he basically asks me if I could quit a day early. I can’t disclose his reason for asking here, but suffice it to say, the whole exchange reaffirms that my decision to leave this gig couldn’t have come at a better time.
• Today, no less than 20 people know about my imminent departure – none of them heard the news from me. It’s an interesting affirmation of the power of viral marketing, to say the least.

Day 7
• Given yesterday’s exchange with my boss, I have an even worse taste in my mouth about this place. I spend a significant amount of time brooding on all the reasons I loathe it.

• The lady that sits directly on the other side of my cube burps. Loudly – and often. She’s also prone to whinnying like a horse for no apparent reason.

• The gentleman that sits behind the gassy woman has frequent bouts of upper respiratory congestion. He clears it out by coughing loud enough to wake the dead and then spits the results into his trashcan.

• The vending machine contains 3 types of skittles. The damned red bag is always in front- I hate the red bag.

• We use Lotus Notes for email (I feel dirty just admitting that).

• The PMO – my own personal Gestapo 🙂

• On all of my projects and in almost all of my meetings, I am the only African-American. Out of maybe 15 offices in the building, 2 are occupied by females. There are roughly 12 people in the building that hold Director-level or above positions – none are minorities, none are female. Can we say: glass ceiling?

• To celebrate individuals who’ve made ‘significant contributions’, the company rewards them with – drum roll please – a Lego block.

Day 6
• I take small pleasure in the fact that I no longer have to slip my copy of “The 4-Hour Workweek” into my desk drawer for fear that somebody might read one of the sensational, subversive statements on the cover, like: “Warning: Don’t read this book unless you want to quit your job”
• I officially inform all of the project teams that I manage that I’m leaving. I also inform them that I will not be in the office tomorrow. The development manager looks like I just peed on her sock.
• Other people are starting to look at me like the little green aliens from Toy Story – like I’ve been chosen by…’THE CLAAAAW’!

Day 5
• I am not thinking of my (new or old) job. I am on vacation.

 Day 4
• Despite my most gallant efforts, I can’t seem to get to work any earlier than 10:45 am.
• My major to-do’s today are a 1 o’clock meeting and clearing off my desk décor, which consists of:

• Two framed pages full of quotes from Lao Tzu and Buddha

• A small transparent glass globe / paperweight with the word ‘wisdom’ affixed to the back

• Another frame with a story from Winnie the pooh that I use to remind me not to take my job too seriously.

• Three post-its with the following hand-written self-reminders:

  • Travel Light, Live Light, Spread Light, Be the Light

  • A Clean Desk is the Sign of a Sick Mind

  • Chickens Aren’t Eagles

• A flurry of papers and folders that could be deposited into the trash bin with one sweep of my hand

Day 3
• Today I managed to make it in by 10am. However, I don’t see any point in staying past 4pm.
• Everything between 10 and 4 is a complete and total blank…. I’m not even sure I showed up today – maybe it was a very vivid dream.

Day 2
• Today’s major to-do: Compose my official farewell email to send off to all the people I’ve worked with over the last year and 10 months.

Day 1
• Today my boss called me from his vacation / surgery recuperation to see if I could track down the source of some gross mis-communication about one of the projects I’m working on. Um yeeah, I’m all over that one…LOL!
• The offshore QA liaison on one of my projects asked me in a half-panicked voice: ‘So you’re not going to be at the meeting on Monday?’ I now have a vague understanding of how weaning mothers must feel.

Day 0 (daaaaayyy-ohhh. daylight come and me waaaan go home…. sorry, couldn’t resist)
• Highlights of the day include: the going-away luncheon, the exit interview, and the surrendering of company materials. It’s my busiest day this week!