 Well, welcome everyone to another crisis conversation live from the Better Life Lab. I'm Bridget Schulte, the director of the Better Life Lab, and I'm so thrilled to welcome everyone here to the participants and to our panelists. Today, we're going to be talking about you hung up your Black Lives Matter sign. You put out your statement. How do you actually build an anti-racist organization? How do you create that culture? How do you let that permeate the work that you do? So today we usually have a chat function. We don't have a chat function today. So I would encourage participants to use the Q&A. If you've got some questions, please send them our way. We've got a fantastic panel. So let me introduce them and then we will jump right in. So we've got Melanie Parker. She's the chief diversity officer at Google, whose team just produced the 2020 Diversity Annual Report. We've got Anselm Beach. He's the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Equity and Inclusion. And he's spearheading something called Project Inclusion that we'll hear more about today. We've got Sarah Todd. She's a senior reporter for Quartz and Quartz at Work. And she's the author of what an anti-racist workplace looks like. Finally, we've got Tim Sinova and Lauren Ruffin, CEO and Chief External Relations Officer for Fractured Atlas, a New York City based nonprofit that helps artists access funding. So Sarah, let's start with you. You know, you've written quite a bit about diversity, equity and inclusion. You've looked at this question of how to build an anti-racist organization. And what struck me in reading your reporting is you started out by saying there really aren't any. So can you talk about sort of the landscape that's out there and what did you find in your reporting? Yeah, absolutely. So that was something that a diversity consultant named Evelyn Carter told me that I was really struck by. There's no such thing as an anti-racist company. And by that, what she means is that every company has more work to do. There's no one company that is the ultimate model. And, you know, what we've seen, I think, in the past couple of months is a really interesting reckoning. Most companies already had some form of diversity and inclusion policy or program. But when the Black Lives Matter protests happened, a lot of them released statements in support of the movement and were met by accusations of wokewashing, you know, people saying you say one thing, but your actions reveal another. So for example, Amazon got hit by critics over the fact that it was selling facial recognition technology, which it has since agreed to spend for a year, at least. So there was a lot of critique happening in a productive way, I think, because it's pushing companies to know that the status quo isn't enough and they have to be doing more. So in terms of, you know, what the big challenges are right now, I think there are so many. But if I really had to boil it down, I would say hiring and promotions are probably two really basic, crucial issues. Only 3% of senior executives and leadership at Fortune 500 companies are Black, so there's clearly a huge gap when it comes to leadership. And that's something that a lot of companies are aware of and working on. And then when it comes to, you know, hiring and recruitment, I think that the issue isn't a lack of talented people, but that a lot of companies haven't set up the pipelines to be able to recruit effectively. And then also that there are a lot of ingrained biases in the hiring process itself that companies need to revisit. And in terms of, you know, what companies are doing, I think a lot of big companies are still in sort of the listening tour phase, which makes sense. It's a time when they have to be careful in re-evaluating their practices. But there have been some interesting pledges that have already come out. So just a quick overview of a couple of those. You know, a lot of companies recognize Juneteenth this year for the first time, which was really interesting moment, very important one. Take a moment to talk about what Juneteenth is for listeners who might not know and need to know. Oh, sure. Well, I'm not sure if I'm the best person to explain it in depth, but essentially it's a holiday celebrating the end of slavery. So, and, you know, a lot of companies wound up actually swapping out Juneteenth for Columbus Day, so taking one very problematic holiday and replacing it with a very important one. Then when it comes to specific companies, Adidas said that it would fail at least 30% of all its currently open positions with Black or Latinx candidates. Estee Lauder said, made a pledge that it will make sure that the percentage of Black employees at all levels of the company will mirror the percentage of Black people in the U.S. within the next five years. So we have seen several companies making strong public commitments to redoing their current practices. So thanks so much, Sarah. So that, Melanie, that's a perfect segue to talk to you about Google and some of the work that you've been doing. In 2014, Google was one of the very first companies, particularly in the tech sector, to release demographic data, you know, that being very transparent and what it showed, sort of not surprisingly is that there was, you know, a lot of white men and a lot of Asian men in a lot of positions and particularly positions of power in the tech sector. So talk a little bit about what you're finding in the, in your annual report, kind of what, how that's kind of shaping the work that you're doing and how you're thinking about it. Thanks, I really appreciate the opportunity and agree a lot with the points that that Sarah made, which is a lot of what we've incorporated at Google where, you know, diversity really is a verb it's that ongoing commitment. And we intentionally published our data six years ago because we're both leaders and learners, and we do publish like the largest publicly available DEI data set in our industry, we know every day is a day to get it right. And what we found is that focus on representation, which is hiring minus attrition, and that gap in between that is what Sarah so eloquently talked about, which is how we progressing our talent, not just how we're promoting, but what are the development assignments, how are we focusing on attrition, making sure that the folks that we're hiring are staying at the same time. And then very important is that leadership commitment and that leadership buy in. We're proud at Google like Sundar gets it, you know he's all in, and you know really helping us to lead the way, but we have to be transparent about our journey. We still have an opportunity that lies in front of us it's an opportunity rich environment. And so I want other companies to learn from, you know, Google as well, and to be willing to share that vulnerability because truly, it's a collective action that we have to take and not just as a company, but definitely as a society. What does education look like who has access to computing, who has access to health care who's well enough and so all of these structures really underpinned the systemic racism that we're facing right now. And so how do we come together as a collective to move that forward and we should do that very transparently. Yeah, you know you may raise such interesting points such important points you know with all of the structural racism if you don't have the education system. If you don't have access to broadband which is something that we are seeing so painfully in this in this pandemic. But to go back to, you know you talk about diversity being a verb. Can you talk a little bit about what are some of the specific things that you're doing at Google that you think other people, you know that you're learning from and what are some of the results that you're finding. Absolutely so we set aspirational goals around how we want to make sure that we're hiring the available talents as we look at black and brown talent. We're actually putting a stake in the ground as to how we want to grow. One of the public commitments that we've made is a 30% increase in our executive leadership roles for underrepresented minority talent, which is black, Latinx and Native American. We're also making sure that we have a very focused approach to sponsorship and advocacy and mentoring. So we have a pathways to sponsorship program. We piloted about two years ago, a retention program for underrepresented minority Googlers, so black and brown Googlers at and what we found there is that by giving that targeted support to people who were thinking about leaving. We're actually making big Google small Google and helping people navigate. So a lot of what we found is we need to set better expectations for and Googlers when they're coming in. What's expected. How are you successful. Are you getting the feedback. And it's not just about what's the fit for Google. What's the ad. What is it that we need to add, you know, to our workforce as well and how are we valuing that. And so there's no one program. It's looking at that data being informed by that and really customizing or targeting our strategy based on what the data is showing us and the collection of strategies is really what's going to help us continue to, you know, meet the goals that we've set for ourselves. So I want to ask you one last question and then I want to move on to answer them in a minute, but why, why is this important. You know, I think that, you know, we look at millions have been spent at diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. You know, and we've got a question in the, in the, in the chat saying, you know, can we probe a little bit more and see sweet representation as a key driver for equity and inclusion and Sarah opened with, you know, Fortune 500, you know, very, very minuscule representation. Not only of black and Latin X, but women, you know, that we still have structures that favor and promote white men. And so, you know, so, so can you talk a little bit about you know that that the C sweet, you know, and kind of the, how important it is, you know that these are efforts that come from the top down and when you're building the pipeline that's a long time to wait, right. Completely agree and I would sum that up by saying representation matters. And so we do need that representation at the top at the middle at all of all of those places because we need the voices at the table. We need the insights, the cultural competence. And so but that's where we have to make sure that we are fully representative across America across the world, and that we're representing the places that we operate in we're representing our user base, because we need to make sure we have all the right voices at the table, and that we're fully availing of all of the wonderful talent that's available so it's critically important. Great. So, Anselm, let me go to you. You know, so you are, you know, you're looking at all of this diversity, equity and inclusion in the military context in the army and, you know, it was not all that long ago there was a, I think I shared this with you the military reporter Mark Thompson. You know, racism and issues with diversity and equity inclusion and the in the armed forces, and he showed a picture of President Trump with all of the top uniformed leaders and every single one was a white man. You know, so talk a little bit about you know what you're trying you know what you're trying to do in the army, in particular you've got project inclusion. You know, because just as in the civilian world, you've got, you've got so many racial and ethnic minorities in the ranks, and yet your officer core is still very, very white and very male. You know, you've got the very first, you know, the Air Force General who is the very first officer of color now leading a service. So, so talk about kind of what the army, kind of like what you're doing and why and why now. Thank you very much for letting me provide a perspective from the United States Army. First of all, I, I think the picture that you talked about really helps us to start this conversation. And I think that as long as we look at that picture, and we keep it in that dimension. We really create a one one dimensional construct of diversity and I think my colleague at Google. I think got to this a little bit because I think we need to think a little broader when we talk about diversity. So, at the United States Army, what we want to do is to be able to expand the conversation on diversity, equity and inclusion beyond the visual and really talk about the value of diversity. Last year, October, in the United States Army, we published the army people strategy and army people strategy is really the roadmap for how we manage talent. I think that when we, when we talk about diversity, we can't talk about diversity just in the shades of people, we've got to talk about the value that these different, the different backgrounds bring. General McConville, who is the chief of staff of the army says the army should reflect that you know what it should reflect America and we appreciate that and that is what the army people strategy is driving for is driving. So, in the army people strategy, which really looks, which really looks how the army attracts talent, how we, how we recruit how we retain and you know how we sustain those efforts. We, in the equity and inclusion agency published the diversity inclusion annex to the army people strategy. And in that annex, what we really are doing is really providing an operationalize a pathway to operationalize the army people strategy, specific to the areas of diversity, equity and inclusion. In the, in that, you know, that is really the driver for project inclusion, which really looks at our strategic plan, which has five objectives about 25 tasks. And, and those we focus on those one at a time, you talked about the, about the officer core and, and I was really struck by that one of the things that you're doing is removing photographs as they go for promotion, can you talk a little bit about why you're doing that. Absolutely. Because, because when we think about diversity as a value construct, what we must be able to do is to examine the systems that prevent us from getting the very best talent. In the United States Army, we are charged with really one thing, and that is the defense of the nation. And in the defense of the nation, we need every talent that we could get diversity equity and inclusion is a complex issue. And it simply can't be looked at just simply based on, you know, few quick fixes fixes here and there in the United States Army, before somebody could make it to general, we grow offices, we don't just, you know, you don't just have somebody one day and appoint them to a general line with the defense of our nation. So what we need to do is to be able to look across what systems do we have that prevent people that removes barriers. And so because we know in this in our country, there's always a history of race and preference and stereotypes that that that go with certain demographic groups. We, we look at this at this issue, what are some of the barriers that would prevent people from that pathway. And so after studying this issue, that was one of the one of the pathways that we look at. And so when we go into blind promotion systems with no pronouns with no photographs, and then the promotion board that looks at these promotion packets could then make a decision, and they're not looking at a photo and having these biases. One last point I would like to make is that with our with project inclusion what we are actually doing is is is culture changing. And we are culture changing because what we want to do is prevent people from doing automatic thinking. So for example, if I told you come from one to 10, because it's wrote you could tell me one to 10. If I were to ask you to be deliberate in your thinking and count from one to 10, but in alphabetical order, you have to pause and you have to think and it's a whole different paradigm. And so make me do that. Precisely. And so, and so as we examine these systems, what we are doing is taking a very deliberate approach and saying, how we examine these systems. How do we ensure that the population of our officers of our enlisted of our war and officer of our civilian population because there's a huge component of civilians in the United States as well. We must make sure that all those all those different groups adequately represented because when our nation calls us to defense. It doesn't tell us we should just show up and somehow things would be okay. This is a very tactical operational event and the nation relies upon us to win. So we must have the very best talent that we could have and utilize all the skills and talents that people diverse groups bring so that we could continue to fight and win. So at this point, let me go to Tim and Lauren. You know, you're, you're both at fractured Atlas, Sarah featured you and in the piece that she wrote that really caught my attention and really sparked the idea for putting this podcast together. So thank you for that Sarah. So, Tim and Lauren talk about talk about fractured Atlas talk about what it is that you do that makes your organization, you know, so intentional in this, you know, diversity being a verb in this journey toward being an anti racist organization. Thanks for extra Alice the organization where Laura and I are both co CEOs is about 20 years old. When I joined 11 years ago, we're almost entirely a white organization, maybe one person identified as a person of color but we didn't ask. We recognize the value that comes from having a diverse organization and team, you know probably back then we would have said we wanted to organization that reflected the membership that we hope to serve. And each year we set a goal for us to diversify our staff and board. And each year we did a poor to wholly inadequate job of achieving that goal. And it wasn't until 2013 when two of our staff members used a portion of their professional development allowance so they get a year to attend the undoing races and workshop by the People's Institute for survival and beyond. And that moment led us to rethink how we were approaching the work at we created a task force that we eventually disbanded task force we created leadership team book club so we could read books as a leadership team and really start our journey through that we brought in facilitators for mandatory all staff convenings. We spent one year looking at oppression. The next year we spent just looking at racism and systems of oppression as they relate to race and then what this meant in our organization and what we were going to do about it. Then that group worked with our board of directors. We've we paired these mandatory trainings with trainings in crucial conversations. Because we felt like staff needed tools to help them engage in challenging conversations. And if it was going to be mandatory part of their work we wanted them to have the tools. This led us to have monthly race based caucusing. We have a white caucus and a people of color caucus that meets monthly we've been doing that for about four and a half years or so. Can I stop you right there. You know that that's one of the things that struck me in Sarah's Sarah's piece you know to have a white caucus and a person of color caucus. You know that seems that on the surface could could potentially be very problematic how how is that not problematic and how is that part of the solution. I mean it's not you know because to the unaccustomed that could sound an awful lot like segregation and isn't that what we're trying to you know move beyond. Yeah so let's let's talk about the purpose of the caucuses you know the purpose and they have very different purposes the purpose of white caucuses to write a space for white people to learn about systemic racism. The purpose for people of color as a caucus is for us to exist in an organization outside of the white gaze. So how can we talk about our experience with an organization. And sometimes it's discussing you know the sort of micro aggressions that happen. So for instance we have a fixed year compensation level. When you have a white associate who talks about spending two weeks in Europe and we know that person makes $55,000 a year as opposed to when they're talking about that vacation with somewhat their same level makes the same amount. It's clear that we have differences within the organization. However there's we have to prepare white colleagues to be able to have that conversation away that is acknowledges that privilege. And perhaps acknowledges systems generational wealth and all the benefit they have and being able to do that with their organizations that's just one microcosm of sort of how the caucuses function in a different way. But we get a fair amount of questions about caucusing both in terms of segregation question and why don't you do other types of caucuses why don't you have a women caucus why don't you have an LGBTQ caucus. And for us it's we've really been very specific about using the word anti racism and anti oppression and not sort of creeping into diversity equity inclusion because you know racism in the United States anti black racism is sort of the root of the tree from which all the other isms learned how to behave. So that's sort of our thinking around caucuses. And so what are you finding is the result you know from from the caucuses from some of your other efforts what are you what are you seeing happening in terms of your culture, you know in terms of the work that you're doing. Yeah, I mean I think that the big thing for us and and it's been interesting watching how the work we've been doing over four and a half years has positioned our staff to have conversations during the pandemic and during the uprising, really about grief. You know my first week at Fractured Atlas was the week that Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were murdered and I came from organizations that were predominantly black we worked in community in service and it wasn't uncommon for a woman in the organization who might have been someone who was preparing food in the kitchen who was doing direct support to staff to bring us together to grieve about things that happened in our community. And that was sort of the most interesting interesting thing to me about Fractured Atlas is when I got there and had that experience everybody was clearly grieving in the office but no one talked about it. And so you know one of the first thing I said was like hey let's just gather in the conference room if you're remote pop on zoom and let's just sit there quietly sort of Quaker meeting style and reflect together. And then from there sort of that work we've done allows space for really authentic conversations to pop up in the organization around grief around what's happening in your lives. And you know I didn't know then that we'd be in the middle of pandemic now but a lot of that language that muscle that we build over time has has really changed our culture and prepared us for you know the work we're doing right now just to survive this pandemic in a way that's healthy and whole. Yeah, so you know we're coming down on time. You know I want to what I'd like to do is ask each of you, you know, Sarah, starting with you with from your reporting and the rest of you from your experience for the people who are listening the people who are participating. You know, what is one thing they can at least begin to think about or what's like one thing to start focusing on you know that there is, there, this is a big issue we've got to, you know, you know, just as Lauren said deal with the root of anti blackness and as Melanie talked about there are structural issues that lead to this. So where do we start you know so Sarah from your reporting what you know what are some of the most innovative or hopeful things that you have seen and Melanie I'll go to you next. Sure, so I'll give one answer that's more directed at company leadership and then one that anybody can do like any employee. And so at a high level, a lot of research shows that one of the most effective ways to incentivize people to hire, you know, mentor promote diverse stuff is to really make that something that they track and measure. And that's something that is really important. So, for a manager that might mean saying like, Okay, you know, I'm building into your performance review every year, whether or not you've hired and promoted people of color and if you do there's a there's a bonus so there's also a monetary incentive. You know, I think that that's one really effective way that research shows can can definitely help. And then for employees who want to get involved in in this case I'm speaking specifically to, to white people who want to be more involved in health. And one thing that I was really struck by I looked at a recent survey, and it found it was a survey of white men, and it found that of the group of white men that said that they cared a lot about diversity and inclusion so they thought it was very important. And still, only about half were actively involved with any diversity and inclusion efforts at their organization. And the most common reason that they gave was, I'm too busy. And I think it's really easy to fall into that way of thinking you know we all have jobs we're all pressed for time. And it sort of belies a thinking that participating in those efforts is something extracurricular and it's like not courtier job. But I'd say, you know, realize that it is courtier job realize that it is an essential part of what you're being asked to do to create a more, not just a more moral organization, but also a better one we know that diversity makes companies stronger. And, you know, so reframe your thinking about, you know, the, the time and effort that it takes to get. And I love that thinking about it as core rather than additional or extracurricular which I do think is very common Melanie, you know, talk about one takeaway and I know we haven't really had a chance to address this in the pandemic and you've written about how, you know, how to, you know, have some of these, you know diversity as a verb, even in this pandemic, you know what are, you know, sort of what's your one big takeaway that you would really encourage. And I would say, I would say Bridget that to be an anti racist is to be an active ally, not a neutral ally but an active ally so that what all of us can do, we can all leave from our seat to co curate the culture we want to see in our organizations that we sit in that fosters that belonging that we all want to see happen. And so it really just starts with us so I would start with active ally ship is that antidote to being an anti racist. And so we have a we have a question from the chat or comment really looking at some of the research that even in disciplinary situations in the military there's research that shows that white officers tend to be much more understanding of other other whites that and less so of others of color, you know, sort of seeing individual whites as individuals and people of color as a group. So what's your one big takeaway and how, how can we begin to begin to build systems where people see people and not groups. Well, so I think you know the first step in doing that is that I think we all have stereotypes based on automatic thinking. And for each and every one of us. It's time that we check our stereotypes, it's time for us to create better awareness. And it's one thing to have recruitment efforts for unrepresented populations, but it's another effort to really keep them retained and feel that sense of belonging, and we could only get there, once everybody makes this individual responsibility to become a lot more self aware, and a lot more understanding of the complexity of this issue. Tim and Lauren will give you the last word. You want to go first to go for it. I'll give you the last word that great. Okay, I'll go. I was just reflecting on this conversation and really appreciate everyone's thoughts. I've got nothing else that I think this is really great. Yeah, Sarah and your your core leadership team or core leadership competency understanding race racism oppression as a core leadership competency is is necessary. Leaders are shirking a core responsibility of their job and not doing this. We're living in a moment in our lives and it's pandemic and social revolution where the impossible is now possible, where things six, six months ago, didn't seem possible, you know the big idea is the far fetched ideas the ideas where we can create a world where everyone can thrive that's now possible. It doesn't take a grand strategy or strategic plan. It starts with simple informed action and the best way to begin and speaking directly to white male leaders is pick up a book, listen to a podcast, and then struggle with it sit with the unease and discomfort that you might have and then talk with other white male leaders about or other white people and struggle together that that is our responsibility, our duty and that's part of what will help make it possible for us to co create a future, the future we all want and the future where we can thrive. And it reminds me so much of what the Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said, we know we have to do more work, and we know we're going to have to have some uncomfortable conversations. So I think that that's wise words for all of us. So I want to thank all of you for being part of this conversation today I want to thank our participants for sending in their questions. I'm grateful for the space for this conversation and some of these wonderful innovative ideas, and a sense of commitment that this is something we all need to be committed to individually as well as in our organizations. So, next week we'll be talking about women and leadership, what a perfect time to be doing that looking at diversity, as we have just seen Kamala Harris the very first woman of color nominated to a major party ticket. So in the meantime, I'd like to again thank our panelists today thank the participants thank the new America events team my better life lab team David Shulman our producer. So in the meantime, wash your hands, wear a mask, stay safe, and we'll see you next week.