The following is a summary and article by AI based on a transcript of the video "What DEI Gets Wrong — and How to Do It Right | Paolo Gaudiano | TED". Due to the limitations of AI, please be careful to distinguish the correctness of the content.
00:03 | I'm Paolo Gaudiano |
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00:05 | and I always like to start by addressing a couple of elephants in the room. |
00:09 | The first one is the white elephant |
00:11 | and it's me. |
00:12 | (Laughter) |
00:13 | What is a white, cisgender, heterosexual, |
00:16 | fully privileged guy doing talking about diversity and inclusion? |
00:20 | Now, normally I tell people about my history, |
00:22 | how I was really interested in diversity, inclusion, |
00:24 | how eight years ago I figured out |
00:26 | that I could actually tie my research work to find a way to have a proper impact. |
00:30 | So I feel a bit like an imposter being here today, |
00:33 | but I hope that you'll just let me get away with that. |
00:36 | Now, the second elephant in the room |
00:37 | is that I’m making this a little bit lighthearted start. |
00:41 | But the reality is that there is major backlash going on against DEI right now. |
00:46 | And I think that's a huge problem. |
00:49 | And I want to tell you about some of the research that I've done |
00:52 | and how it leads me to understand why we're seeing the backlash, |
00:55 | because I think that until we really understand it, |
00:57 | it's going to be very difficult to make progress. |
01:00 | I believe that one of the reasons, unfortunately, |
01:02 | why we're seeing the backlash |
01:04 | is because for five decades now, or more, |
01:07 | people in business that have been talking about DEI |
01:12 | have been focused entirely on the D. |
01:14 | I call it the diversity disconnect. |
01:16 | We focus entirely on representation, |
01:19 | and we sometimes forget about the E and the I. |
01:22 | And this, however, is a very big problem. |
01:26 | Because the D actually creates a few problems, including backlash. |
01:29 | And let me explain what I mean by that. |
01:32 | First of all, the D is a problem |
01:35 | because we don't have any tools that can tell us for one organization |
01:39 | what will happen if they make the organization more diverse. |
01:43 | Which is very interesting, because if you think about other areas |
01:46 | where we manage assets, |
01:47 | and I like to think of people in a company as being assets, |
01:50 | we know that diversification works. |
01:53 | We diversify our financial assets so that we make more money. |
01:58 | We diversify our marketing assets so that we sell more products. |
02:02 | But if I were to go to a company that was primarily white and male, |
02:06 | and I asked them what will happen if I could wave my magic wand |
02:10 | and turn half of the people into people of color or into women, |
02:13 | "What would happen to your organization?" |
02:15 | And the answer is, "We don't know, |
02:17 | because we have no tools that can help us |
02:19 | to quantify the impact of diversifying our human assets." |
02:23 | But there is a second problem, which is that unfortunately, |
02:27 | the focus on diversity tends to drive backlash |
02:29 | because it leads to accusations of reverse discrimination. |
02:34 | Now you all should be rolling your eyeballs here, |
02:37 | (Laughter) |
02:38 | and you'd have very good reason to do that. |
02:40 | However, I want you to think about it |
02:43 | from the perspective of the people that look like me. |
02:46 | My CEO just got up on stage today with the chief diversity officer, |
02:49 | and they said, "We have this new plan. |
02:51 | We're going to increase the number |
02:53 | of people of color in our company by five percent, |
02:56 | and the number of women by 10 percent in three years." |
02:59 | And you do a quick math and you say, |
03:00 | "Well, that means you're going to be eliminating 15 percent white men." |
03:04 | And how is that fair? |
03:05 | And you can tell me about all the injustices all you want. |
03:08 | But the fact is, it is unfair and it is discrimination. |
03:11 | But it turns out that that's the wrong argument. |
03:15 | But it's not the wrong argument because people are interpreting it wrong. |
03:19 | It's because the very foundation is flawed. |
03:22 | The reason why we need more people of color |
03:26 | and more women in organizations |
03:28 | is not because we need to stuff more people into the entry level. |
03:32 | It's not because we need to go |
03:34 | and get a bunch of kids from HBCUs |
03:36 | and invite them into our company to make those numbers look good, |
03:39 | only to find out that their manager doesn't know how to deal with them, |
03:43 | their leadership doesn't look anything like them, |
03:45 | and then they will turn around and leave. |
03:47 | No, the reason why we have problems |
03:49 | is because when those people get into the organization, they don't stay. |
03:53 | McKinsey just released their annual study, |
03:56 | and they found that when you look at the ratio of white men, white women, |
04:01 | women of color and men of color in an organization at the entry level |
04:06 | you have roughly 40 some odd percent white men, maybe 35 percent, |
04:10 | and so on and so forth. |
04:12 | By the time you get to the executive level, |
04:15 | the number of white men has increased by more than 30 percent. |
04:20 | The number of women and people of color has decreased by more than 30 percent, |
04:25 | which means that for us to continue to try to stuff people in |
04:30 | at the entry levels |
04:31 | when our companies are not inclusive, is a waste of time. |
04:35 | And trying to solve the problem |
04:37 | by arguing that we should have higher ratios, |
04:40 | and setting targets at the company level |
04:42 | is a mistake, |
04:43 | because you're not addressing the problem. |
04:45 | I like to joke about the fact |
04:47 | that it's as if I walked in the house one day in the wintertime, |
04:51 | and I found that it was very cold. |
04:53 | Actually, it's very cold in here today. |
04:55 | I look at the thermostat and I say, "Oh my God, look, it says 50 degrees. |
04:58 | I know how to fix that." |
05:00 | I light a match under the thermostat |
05:02 | and look, the thermostat now reads 90 degrees, |
05:05 | but in the meantime, the windows are open, |
05:07 | the front door is drafty, and the roof is leaking. |
05:11 | The problem that we have with diversity, equity and inclusion |
05:14 | leads to what I think of as the definition of DEI. |
05:18 | Inclusion is about what we do as an organization. |
05:23 | Diversity is what we get. |
05:25 | In other words, we have to stop trying to fix the symptoms |
05:29 | and actually understand what the real problems are. |
05:32 | I will also tell you in a minute why I think that equity is what we want. |
05:35 | I'll come back to that in a moment. |
05:37 | But let's talk about that idea, inclusion is what you do. |
05:40 | Imagine a team that's the perfect team. |
05:44 | You cannot get any more performance out of it |
05:46 | because each individual performs at their peak. |
05:48 | And as a team they perform really, really well together. |
05:51 | And imagine that now something happens so that one of the people on the team |
05:55 | is unable to perform at their peak. |
05:56 | What will happen to the performance of the team as a whole? |
05:59 | It will decline. |
06:01 | Suppose that now a second person is unable to perform at their peak. |
06:04 | Not only is the team going to lose more performance |
06:08 | because of the loss of the second individual, |
06:10 | but the rest of the team is going to get frustrated |
06:12 | because they have to pick up the slack, |
06:14 | because they'll be late on delivering a project |
06:16 | and their manager will no longer give them the best projects. |
06:19 | That means that pretty soon the performance of the entire team |
06:22 | will decline dramatically because of that problem. |
06:26 | Now, I didn't say anything about what the people on the team look like, |
06:29 | or what they did or why they were not able to work, |
06:31 | but it leads to a profoundly important conclusion. |
06:34 | Anything that any organization does that causes someone to feel excluded |
06:40 | because of their personal characteristics |
06:43 | is shooting themselves in the foot. |
06:47 | This is a very important point. |
06:48 | (Applause) |
06:50 | This is why the third part, which is the equity, is what you want. |
06:54 | If you have an organization |
06:56 | in which you have people that are treated differently |
06:59 | and you see it because you see that the retention rates are not the same, |
07:03 | that the performance is not the same, |
07:05 | you are witnessing inequity. |
07:07 | You’re witnessing inthe difference in the outcomes |
07:10 | that people experience within your organization. |
07:13 | When you see that happen |
07:16 | it means that there are people that are performing below their peak. |
07:19 | And just like that example that I gave you, |
07:21 | it means that you're making less money because you have less productivity. |
07:25 | It also means |
07:26 | that those people do not feel that they belong in your organization, |
07:29 | and they're going to leave. |
07:31 | If the retention rate of men in your organization is 90 percent, |
07:35 | but the retention of women is only 80 percent, |
07:39 | that means that you're losing 10 percent too many women. |
07:42 | If your company has 1,000 women, which is not a very big company, |
07:46 | and you're paying them an average of 100,000 dollars a year, |
07:48 | and we know that it costs about one year's salary to replace them, |
07:52 | it means that you have lost 100 people, |
07:55 | and it's going to cost you 100,000 dollars each. |
07:58 | That's 10 million dollars a year that you're throwing out the window |
08:02 | because you're not treating women inclusively. |
08:05 | And the same is true of people of color, people with disabilities, LGBTQ. |
08:11 | We have created a way of measuring inclusion, |
08:14 | and this is where things get really interesting. |
08:16 | Why are people so obsessed with measuring diversity only? |
08:20 | Because it turns out that really, we talk about DEI, |
08:23 | but look outside, look around you, look at any company |
08:25 | they just measure the D. Why? |
08:27 | Reason number one, |
08:28 | because it's much easier to define, right? |
08:31 | You just ask people, do you belong in this or that category |
08:33 | and you count them. |
08:35 | When it comes to inclusion, |
08:36 | the most popular definition that I've heard, |
08:38 | and there are many out there, |
08:40 | was the one given by Vernā Myers, formerly of Netflix, |
08:42 | who said, "Diversity is being invited to a party. |
08:45 | Inclusion is being asked to dance." |
08:47 | I love the definition because it's very intuitive, |
08:50 | but if you're running a company, unless it's a party company, |
08:53 | it's not going to help you very much. |
08:55 | When it came to understanding what I told you earlier, |
08:58 | that inclusion is about what you do and diversity is what you get, |
09:02 | and we started to investigate that, |
09:04 | we realized something profoundly important. |
09:06 | Inclusion is invisible. |
09:09 | It's just like privilege, we don't see it, |
09:11 | those of us that are fortunate enough to have it. |
09:13 | And I use the analogy with health. |
09:15 | When I introduced myself, I didn't say, "Hi, I'm Paolo, I'm very healthy today." |
09:20 | But if I'd been coughing, if I just had COVID |
09:22 | if I had had, I don't know, |
09:24 | a few years ago I fell off a bike and I had a cast on my shoulder, |
09:27 | I might have said something about it. |
09:28 | We don't notice when we're healthy, we notice when we're sick. |
09:32 | We don't tend to notice when we're included, |
09:34 | but we sure as hell notice when we're being excluded. |
09:36 | And we've heard a lot of examples from the other speakers |
09:39 | about situations in which people felt excluded. |
09:42 | What does that tell you? |
09:43 | Well, something very important. |
09:45 | If you're very healthy, |
09:47 | you tend not to know a lot about diseases. |
09:49 | You may not even know the names of the diseases. |
09:51 | You don't know the symptoms. |
09:53 | You certainly don't know how to cure them. |
09:55 | So similarly, if you're very included, you don't know what exclusion means, |
09:58 | you don't know the symptoms, |
10:00 | and you sure as hell don't know how to fix it. |
10:02 | However, if I were to ask people in this audience |
10:04 | if anybody in this audience has ever been sick, |
10:06 | probably all of you know what that's like. |
10:08 | But if you go in a company |
10:10 | and you find out who are the people that are the most included, |
10:14 | it's the leaders, |
10:15 | it's the ones that look like me |
10:16 | who are the least qualified to understand it, |
10:20 | to see it, and most importantly, to know what they should do about it. |
10:24 | And this is a profound problem. |
10:27 | I firmly believe that it's not necessarily that white leaders are evil, |
10:31 | and they want to keep the power that they've worked so hard to grab. |
10:34 | Yes, some of them do that, there's no question about it. |
10:37 | But a lot of them would love to do the right thing, |
10:39 | they just don't know how, they don't see it. |
10:41 | So my organization helps them to do that by measuring inclusion. |
10:44 | And the way that we do that is actually by measuring exclusion. |
10:47 | We do workshops in which we talk about some of this work. |
10:50 | We show these computer simulations |
10:52 | that show relationship between what happens in a company |
10:55 | and how the company actually looks and performs, |
10:59 | and then we ask them, using a confidential online platform, |
11:01 | to share specific things that have happened to them, |
11:04 | that have made them feel uncomfortable in the workplace. |
11:07 | And then we also ask them, |
11:09 | did this have to do with work-life balance, |
11:11 | with compensation, did it have to do with being able to use your skills? |
11:14 | And was this something that was because of your manager, |
11:17 | leadership or policies? |
11:18 | And we get a combination of qualitative data |
11:20 | in terms of the descriptions of what happens to people |
11:23 | and quantitative data that tells us where to look and who is most impacted. |
11:27 | And I want to read you, I brought with me, three examples. |
11:30 | We asked people permission to share some of the stories. |
11:33 | I want to tell you about some of the things |
11:35 | that people write when we ask them to share experiences. |
11:38 | Number one, "After introducing myself, |
11:40 | I've had individuals ask to speak to "a guy who works in IT" instead of me." |
11:45 | This was a senior engineer, who is a woman, in a cybersecurity firm. |
11:51 | Number two. |
11:52 | "I was passed over for travel opportunities |
11:54 | because I had young kids at home |
11:56 | and it was assumed that I couldn't travel |
11:58 | even though I was never asked." |
12:01 | We hear this kind of stuff all the time. |
12:04 | Number three. |
12:06 | "In a meeting with about 50 people, |
12:08 | a vice president said that Martin Luther King Day was not a real holiday |
12:12 | and that we shouldn't take the day off." |
12:16 | What's going to happen to these people? |
12:19 | They're going to leave and it's going to cost you money |
12:21 | and you're going to lose amazing talent. |
12:24 | The last thing I want to leave you with is a number. |
12:27 | Thirty. |
12:29 | Thirty is the ratio between how much money |
12:34 | every company in the United States spends in one year |
12:37 | on advertising, all forms of advertising. |
12:40 | We spend a lot of money advertising. |
12:42 | Two hundred and fifty billion dollars a year. |
12:45 | When we look at payroll for the same companies, |
12:47 | not all labor costs, just payroll, |
12:49 | 7.5 trillion dollars a year, |
12:54 | 30 times as much. |
12:56 | So if you are the CEO of an organization |
12:59 | and you have ten people that work on optimizing your marketing, |
13:03 | you should have 300 people working in DEI. |
13:07 | And if you're not doing that -- thank you. |
13:09 | (Applause) |
13:11 | If you are not doing that, |
13:13 | you are failing your responsibility as a leader to your shareholders. |
13:19 | So I don't care whether you do it |
13:20 | because you think it's the right thing to do, |
13:22 | or because you think it's the right business choice to make. |
13:25 | But what I'm going to ask everybody out there |
13:28 | is be mindful of the fact that when we think about DEI, |
13:32 | we need to realize that it's not that diversity impacts performance, |
13:36 | it's that creating a more inclusive organization |
13:39 | is going to lead to organizations that are more diverse, |
13:43 | more equitable and make more money. |
13:45 | Thank you. |
13:47 | (Applause) |