I NEED MORE THAN AN ALLY

By Valeria Edmonds, MBA

It’s fantastic to have allies within Black and other employee resource groups within corporations. It’s a proactive show of support for inclusion and diversity. However, it falls short of what is needed to move the needle concerning equitable representation at all levels, and create a culture that embraces the unique strengths of diverse employees. We need leaders and employees to form an alliance to achieve the aspirational cultures defined by company I&D mission statements to advance both the collective and individuals.

As business-minded individuals in an increasingly competitive global economy, we need to move from incremental improvements, to strategic and step-change innovative actions. The time has come for us to do more than meet the minimum requirements by law and take measurable steps to realize our well-crafted words of support for inclusion and diversity. Creating an inclusive environment for a globally diverse workplace is a competitive advantage—however, when I&D is personal, we can bring about sustainable changes.

Let me explain. When I joined the workforce thirty years ago, there were very few women, and they spent a lot of time focusing on assimilation (e.g., trying to fit into a very male-shaped mold). However, I noticed a significant shift when the wives and daughters of our executives started complaining about the challenges they were facing in the workplace. Suddenly, work-life balance, childcare, and flexible work became essential to the men in power. It became personal. When someone you know and care about is struggling, you want to do everything in your power to help them out. These weren’t uncaring men. It just took a while for women’s issues to become their issues.

In a recent conversation with a diverse group on racial equality, I wondered why a group of late-career or retired white men and women cared about the topic. IT ALL CLICKED once I learned that they were either immigrants to the U.S., in a biracial relationship, or had biracial grandchildren. Before that, other races were just that, other. Those people. When something doesn’t concern you, it doesn’t mean you don’t care. It’s just not something you think about on a day-to-day basis. However, substantive change depends on our ability to care about the entire human race. The generation entering the workplace today sees this more clearly than the baby boomers, who made little progress since shortly after the civil rights movement.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” Likewise, we must learn to create truly inclusive work environments. Allies should work to break down silos in the workplace and help the next generation succeed. As an alliance, we can work to leverage the capabilities of all the amazingly talented people that we hire and channel their collective energy into building better companies, better work environments, and a better world. We all win when we ensure everyone feels valued and respected for their contributions to the enterprise. u