DIVERSITY DISCOURSE SERIES
Why CEO’s are Powerless to Create Inclusion
Impact.
If there is one word that sums up the power of a CEO it’s “IMPACT.”
Every decision they make, every word they utter, even a subtle gesture or look, can have an outsized impact on an organization.
So why would I say that “CEO’s are powerless to create Inclusion”?
Let’s start with what CEO’s can do.
They can make daily decisions that change the lives of hundreds if not thousands of people.
Open or close a factory? Produce product A or product B? Litigate or settle? Enter or leave a market? To merge or not to merge? Hire and fire. And so on, and so on.
The CEO’s impact is not strictly limited to business decisions. One might argue that their overall behavior also impacts the lives of many people.
Play favorites or treat people fairly? Operate from an abundance or scarcity mindset? Favor Finance, Operations, Sales, or Legal? Demand total loyalty or respect boundaries?
All of the above behaviors and more set the tone for how the organization is run.
But do you know what a CEO cannot do?
A CEO does not have the power to change what is in people’s hearts.
Let’s say your CEO Pat loves golf and wants all employees to love golf.
So Pat buys everyone lessons, clubs, and hosts a yearly golf tournament with big prizes. And let’s say while for the most part, this is a big hit, there is a subset of employees who for various reasons could care less about golf and don’t see what it has to do with their job. They resent it.
And there is another subset of employees who really can’t stand golf and are actively against any efforts to support or promote it.
There is no proclamation, modeling, or incentivizing that will reliably change how these employees feel about golf.
Now, an employee might change how they feel about golf on their own terms, but you (I’m talking to you, CEO Pat) cannot make this happen with any amount of reliability or control.
Training all employees on the health, business, and other benefits of golf will not magically bring everyone on board. Not. Gonna. Happen.
Training is especially unlikely to work for the non-believers and frankly, that is their right to feel how they are going to feel.
There is only one person in the world who has the ultimate power to change what is in your heart and that person is you.
So what does this have to do with Inclusion?
I believe, and hopefully I’m not being naive in believing this, that many of the CEOs who espouse inclusion as a business and social imperative are true believers and are not just jumping on the DE&I bandwagon.
I trust that most of them are savvy enough to understand how in addition to it being the right thing to do, it is good for business and unlocks higher performance.
But there is that pesky principle of human nature that stands in the way.
No CEO or program can change how people feel about Inclusion — how important it is to them, whether they believe it improves performance, or whether they feel threatened by it.
I don’t mean to say having a CEO who believes in Inclusion is not important. It’s crucially important.
But perhaps not in the way you think. And perhaps CEO belief does not accomplish as much as you think or hope it would.
How might this limitation play out from a programmatic perspective? Let’s consider a simplified version of an Incusion strategy to explore this limitation.
Step 1. Get the CEO on board. Communicate internally and externally.
Step 2. Secure funding for training and programs to support DE&I.
Step 3. Watch hiring, retention, and advancement of underrepresented employees skyrocket.
Step 4. Pass Go and Collect $200.
So why do so many organizations stumble at Step 3?
How come after some initial progress, momentum stalls? How come retention and advancement, especially at the higher levels, remains an eye sore?
And what can organizations do instead?
If you will humor me for a moment, allow me to share a fictional example to illustrate the levers through which a CEO could impact, albeit indirectly, creating a culture of Inclusion within their organization.
Spoiler alert! It has nothing to do with changing the hearts of employees.
Remember earlier when we mentioned one of the powers that CEO has is the power to fire and hire?
Realistically, they aren’t personally hiring or firing anyone other than their direct reports — the C-Suite. So, let’s start there.
Let’s consider a thought exercise (not an actual proposal) to illustrate the principles at play.
Imagine our CEO Pat told every member of the C-Suite they have 2 choices.
- Get on board the DE&I train and ride with us
- Don’t get on and collect a generous severance package on the way out
No hard feelings if you choose to leave. We’re not trying to change your heart. Please keep it as you wish—we just need everyone who works here to be on board to meet our strategic business objectives.
To be clear, this is about strategic staffing and not judgment, coercion or punishment — hence the severance package.
This is just a thought exercise so don’t worry about HR and lawyers.
Now I know what you may be thinking. What if someone could care less about Inclusion, but loves their benefits and team so they just pretend to be on board?
We don’t want to put any managers in the position of having to judge or see into people’s hearts and minds. So instead, you make it a strategic business goal that is built into performance evaluations. This serves to identify people who think they can free-load or fake it .
I realize this is not the same thing as identifying how people actually feel, but if everyone is doing the things that promote and advance Inclusion, then that’s as close as we can realistically get.
When you identify someone who is not meeting this strategic business goal, you treat it as any other performance-based issue and if it cannot be resolved, you let them go — at this point sans severance.
Again, this is just a thought exercise so don’t worry about HR and lawyers.
What impact do you think this would have on the decision-making and culture of the C-Suite?
How much more energized and elevated would ALL the people who work directly for your C-Suite leaders feel?
And what if Pat directed the C-Suite to give the same offer and institute the same performance framework to their direct reports? And so on and so on?
All the way down the management chain until there is almost no one left at the company who doesn’t truly eat, sleep, and breathe Inclusion.
And to keep new hires from jeopardizing this culture, Pat instructs HR to screen applicants for Inclusion-supportive experience and activities and to make this one of the non-negotiable requirements for candidates. And, just to be safe, offer all new hires the same stay or go offer after 1 year on the job.
Now you may be thinking there will still be some hidden, difficult to identify pockets of non-believers. No one can truly see into another person’s heart and some people are really good actors!
That is totally true. And also, totally okay. Because now (and I’m making these numbers up) you have gone from an organization that had maybe, and I’m being generous here, 25% of people actively supporting Inclusion to an organization made up of 90% true believers.
Think about the impact this will have on mentoring, sponsorship, access to opportunities, and promotion. Thinks about the increased psychological safety, creativity, and innovation it will unleash.
We are way beyond metrics, have moved firmly into belonging, and will begin to unlock higher performance.
Consider how having this sort of workforce is how the promise of diversity as a competitive advantage is truly realized.
Again, I am NOT proposing this as an actual strategy for any organization. I’m merely using this as a thought vehicle to put into stark relief where the real problem is and why your DE&I efforts will always be less effective than they could be.
The problem is your people.
Or rather, how you pick, promote, and fire your people.
If you wanted to win a rowing championship, would you keep anyone who wasn’t in sync with the rest of the team? Would you keep anyone who only wanted to follow the team standards they wanted to and disregarded the rest?
What impact would that have on the morale and performance of everyone else? What impact would that have on team culture? And how much harder would that make it for your team to compete at the highest levels?
Of course, we all have inherent autonomy to choose, but when it comes to participation in organizations, we know our choices have consequences.
Let’s come back to the real world now. Consider any organization you might work for and how people are managed.
Every person kept on board who doesn’t support Inclusion will be a drag on the company’s DE&I efforts. They will, in unconscious and conscious ways resist. They will, in subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways, sabotage your efforts to build a more inclusive workplace. Even not doing anything is doing damage.
Every person you promote into management who could care less about Inclusion creates an even bigger drag on your company’s progress.
When the majority of your workforce does not care about Inclusion, the unmistakable result is that all your efforts to build a truly inclusive organization will be delayed, which will negatively impact the high performance of your organization.
It’s about equity and high performance. The two go hand-in-hand.
The CEOs that understand that DE&I is a strategic business goal and competitive advantage will only reap the benefits if they find a way to transform their workforce into one that truly supports Inclusion.
Now let’s get to work!
If you found this useful, check out my new daily podcast, Diversity Bites. Watch or listen to preview episodes now and join us for the official launch on November 7 at 7:25 am Eastern time.
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