Diversity Work Is Like Working Out

You have to do your own squats

I hate working out. Always have, always will. But I also want to feel good - I want to be fit and healthy and strong. So, I hired a trainer. She’s fabulous — tall, with the body of three goddesses. She loves to work out. 

When we started working out together, she asked me about my goals. I told her I wanted to be mistaken for her on the street. Aspirational? Absolutely. But that was my goal - be recognized for my fitness. On the days when I don’t want to put in the hard work, she doesn’t remind me of her goals, she reminds me of mine. 
 

Diversity and inclusion work is the same. I’ve never had success telling companies or individuals what they have to do. With that approach comes rational and inevitable resistance, and the conversation becomes “Amelia said we had to do it,” rather than “the business needs it.” Leaders across the business have to Do The Work. My role is to create the roadmap, put in the foundational elements, and track and measure progress. 

Don’t want to do it? Hey, fine with me. That leads me to believe what you’re really looking for is someone to offer you a quick and easy fix — like a diet pill you order from TV at 3 a.m. You know the pill won’t work but you order it anyway because you’re hoping you can skip the effort. 

The work of retraining your brain and your business about the truth of what success in diversity looks like is hard, the truth is uncomfortable, and the journey is long. 

I'm not here to do your squats for you, or tell you that you have to, and I’m not going to try to make you love it. I’m here to remind you what your goals are, and that you have to do your own work if you want to change. 

The first time I met my trainer, we didn’t even meet at a gym. We met for coffee and she asked me to tell her about my life. We didn’t talk about exercise; she was more interested in my goals and my lifestyle.

That’s what I like to do with businesses. The first conversation should have nothing to do with diversity. I really want to talk to the leaders about business objectives – growth, trust, customer success. Once I know them and understand them, I can make a recommendation. Diversity and inclusion initiatives are a conduit to business success. But they don’t work in isolation and you have to help put them into the language of the business. It all falls apart when your diversity initiatives are seen as a project or “owned” by a department or leader, rather than a strategy to succeed. 

No matter what the business goals are, creating a diverse and inclusive company culture is hard work. Most often it means you — the business, its leadership, and the culture — have to change. It means embracing new metrics to measure the progress toward diversifying the organization.  It means changing yourself and by extension your company culture so that it is ready to welcome and receive more diverse candidates and employees into your organization.  

Here are six phases a business goes through to set up a culture where everyone does the work of inclusion, 

1. Intention setting: Ask yourself: what do we want to accomplish? As a diversity leader, I want to know what your business goals are. What has to change in order for you to hit your goals?

2. The warm-up: With a plan in place, you need to start the education efforts. Are you aware of your own limitations? Are you aware of all the forms of diversity – conceptually, you know about gender and race, but what about neurodiversity and LGBTQ+?. and how they each have a role to play? What role do you expect your employees to play in diversifying your company? You’ll have hard conversations - this is the warm-up, you’re just getting the organization moving in the right direction.

3. Working up a sweat: When we talk about diversity in business, most companies want to focus on recruiting; it takes the pressure off of changing ourselves. Isn’t it enough to find people who look different but act just like me? The answer is no. The deep work is really about changing the environment. You can recruit great people all day, but you also have to create an environment that’s ready and welcoming to a diverse workforce so your new hires stay. (What about recognizing diversity already in the business? Have you looked at the data about where you’re succeeding or failing with existing employees? For example, is your turnover higher among people of color?

4. Beginning to thrive: Some companies may hit a plateau - you’ve gotten good results but nothing else is changing. You need to push through those plateaus because the real changes happen at the next level - where employees start to bring issues to light because they trust the reporting structure and leaders are vocal advocates for the work because they are seeing the impact on their results. Don’t trust the plateau.

5. The before and after: At this stage, when you bring new people into the environment, integration doesn’t feel so hard. The organization is flexible enough to support diversity and strong enough to thrive in inclusion. The job of recruiting is just a little easier because now you have a story to tell. You look good, more importantly, you feel good knowing you’ve done something good for yourself and for the business. If you keep going back to driving business results, will your business leaders be advocates for the program because they are seeing success in the business?

6. A virtuous cycle: Celebrate the wins and get back to it. Wash, rinse, repeat. The more consistent you are with the work, the better the results, and you don’t have to work so hard because you’ve done the heavy lifting up front. 

There are only two ways to make squats stop hurting: you either keep doing them or you stop doing them. You get to choose, but you also have to accept the likely outcomes of your choice. Don’t abandon your efforts because it’s hard — revisit your intention and recalibrate based on how your business has changed and where you want to grow. 

Amelia Ransom is the Sr. Director of Engagement and Diversity at Avalara. Prior to this role, Amelia spent 26 years at Nordstrom where she held team, regional and corporate-wide leadership positions including Store Manager, Corporate Learning and Development Director, Corporate Early in Career Director and VP Diversity Affairs. Her areas of expertise include leadership development, Early in Career and Millennial engagement, executive-level mentorship and advisement and Diversity and Inclusion strategy and execution. Amelia serves on the boards of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, Seattle Goodwill, The Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion and Building Changes. She is also on the advisory board for the Seattle Chamber of the Association of Latino Professionals in America (ALPFA). Amelia is also a thought leader, a sought-after mentor and an inspirational public speaker Follow @ameliajransom Visit https://www.avalara.com