Check me out at the annual Black Effect Podcast Festival, happening Saturday, April twenty seventh in Atlanta. Live podcasts are on deck from some of your favorite shows, including this one, Black Tech, Green Money, and also some of the best podcasts in the game like Deeply Well with Debbie Brown and Carefully Reckless. Atlanta is one of my favorite cities
in the world. I've lived there for two years. Actually, in my worldview, seeing us successful in every industry and not having any limits on our potential largely was shaped by Atlanta. So to be there with you doing this podcast talking about how we build or leverage technology to bill wealth. Come on, man, doesn't get better. I want to see you there. Get your tickets today at Black Effect dot comback's last podcast festival. I'm Will Lucas and
this is Black Tech, Green Money. Jarvis SAMs, founder and CEO at The Rainbow Disruption with the mission is to partner with organizations to develop practical solutions that champion DEI in the workplace and enables systemic progress where authenticity, empathy, growth, mindset and transparency are celebrated. Previously, he was Chief Diversity,
Equity and Inclusion Officer at Nike. A large effort in DEI is to create equitable opportunities in spaces where people from various backgrounds can have a voice.
These are achievable goals.
So if we're successful in do DEI, executives ultimately work themselves out of jobs.
I think that the work equity and inclusion is actually never done, as we see as time goes on in different horizons change, different groups ultimately end up being at the center of experiences of marginalization.
Unfortunately, the raw reality of our work.
Is that because so many different factors social, political, environmental, economic tie into the way that we do our work, there's always going to be a need for organizations to understand how do we create equitable approaches and equitable outcomes that serve people and teams. I think the product inclusion space is critical here will if you take a look
at what new product development looks like within organizations. Every time a company drives in to stand up a new product, we have to consider it through the lens of ensuring that it's accessible to all people. I'llbe at disability status, language barriers, or otherwise. And so with some of those different constraints in mind, the work of equity practitioners to ensure great outcomes for all will forever be something that we have to continue doing.
And to that point, you know, I've heard you talk about before, specifically the around the time of George Floyd and coming out of the pandemic, there was so much focus on making sure.
Black people got equity in the workplace.
And then there was this big uprising in you know, Pacific Islander and Asians talking about they needed, you.
Know, equity.
So how do corporations manage effectively so many people you know, chomping at their heels saying, hey, you got to pay attention to us too when it when it changes so frequently.
Yeah, you know, for starters, organizations have got to not look at this as a zero of some game. Unfortunately, so many organizations have positioned the nature of this work through in us versus them mentality. The challenge is the USh and them are often too marginalized and minoritized communities ourselves.
I recall the exact experience you're describing will when we saw the rise and recognition through a period of racial and social reckoning following the murder of George Floyd May twenty twenty, and then by March of twenty twenty one, we started to see increasing narratives and stories highlighting this notion of hashtag stop.
Asian hate in numerous organizations.
You saw this conflict begin to be developed between how communities are interacting with one another, where support systems are built versus none, and you literally saw organizations positioning a perspective that what, we gave this much money to black communities, and so we need to think about how do we
support API communities. The harsh reality, though, is that the experiences of the communities are so different, and when you position it as a zero sum game, it assumes that there's only this amount of pie that's available for us to fight over. Meanwhile, those that exist in the space of the dominant discourse are enjoying all of their nourishment
and fruits and delight on this side. For organizations to be successful here, the lens of equity requires us to consider the specific needs of key organizations and recognizing where our companies may have been complicit in the marginalization of those communities. Take, for example, the sports industry and certainly
in the footwear industry. Arguably every streetwear, lifestylear performance space footwear brand has benefited off of the contributions of black bodies, whether it's the athletes that represent these organizations through a sports marketing lens or the consumers that patronize their businesses and organizations every single day in physical platforms and digital These organizations then have an obligation to think about how they support these communities that are a part of the
building and development of their bottom line. To do this effectively, though, we can cannot see the work of support of marginalized communities at awe to one another, but rather recognize that to truly move towards systemic solutions means gaining a stronger understanding of where we've been and how we got here, how does this show up in the present and its impact and implication on people, and then what investments are we going to make as an organization, since you're a betterment of future.
I want to go a level deeper there because I've heard black women talk about this. You know, black women's diversity and equity inside the workplace lags behind Black people in the workplace. And I've heard black women talk about when organizations and companies talk about well you talk about women's issues, is black women get left out and white women ultimately benefit from the efforts that black women have raised their arms about.
What's your take on this?
You know, well, in addition to my work as the founder and CEO of the Rainbow Disruption, I also teach in academic spaces. So I am a professor of practice at Brown University. When that I work as part of the fully Employed MBA program as well with the University of California, Berkeley. And so a lot of my academic research and pursuits center around the topics of intersectionality and identity covering, and so the experience that you're describing is
squarely in that space of intersectionality. Originally a theory coined in nineteen eighty nine by Kimberly Crenshaw from UCLA. It argues that these interconnected identities that we have impact either certain privileges that we have in some cases or increasing marginalization in others. This is the exact experience that we
see with black women in the workplace. When organizations talk about women's issues, when organizations talk about making investments in supportive women, they're typically talking about experiences for white women. Rarely do they consider the intersectional identity of the approach. You can see this in the way affirmative action policies have been built up. The biggest beneficiary of approaches to
affirmative action have indep been white women. On the flip side, when many of these organizations, especially those in the technology industry, describe experiences of people of color or underrepresented communities, they're typically talking about black men or Asian men, and so black women end up getting lost in where and how
does this work is positioned. And yet that means that we're not able to effectively solve for some of the challenges that become impediments to her ability to be successful
in the workplace. Take pay equity will We often talk about the gender dynamic and the gender pay gap, and yet it was not until recently that we actually started to dig into conversations that found that globally around the world, if we look at where white women are positioned relative to non Hispanic identified white men and then applied another layer to look at black women, black women sit at
levels even below her white female counterparts. Furthermore, in terms of development, namely mentorship and sponsorship, she's often met with resistance in so many ways around the ability to grow,
advance and develop her career. And what's more, when you add on macro political and macro social layers like those surrounding the rhetoric and sentiment connected to the Crown Act, that's where we begin to see the biggest implication on her experience, where she has to make a concerted decision every single day how to wear her hair to avoid being the recipient of microaggressive behavior at best, an abject discontent and disrespect on what the evolution of her career
could actually look like because of how she wears her hair, which, as we know in the context of hair of politics, has so many deep connections to our experiences and identity as black culture.
When we think about the intersection of what it means to be both black and a woman, she finds herself at this intersection of certain aspects of marginalization where she's fighting to keep up in so many ways to not only the status of identity and experience, but she finds herself competing with her white female counterparts because we have been so preconditioned to believe that there is only one seat for.
Us that are available. I'll just add to this world. This is why even more when I talk in my lectures and the work that I do. I often say that to truly democratize diversity, equity, and inclusion, we have got to create equitable solutions for the most marginalized amongst us, and my work and studies we've discovered that is black
transgender women. To find yourself at the intersection of not only trans or queer identities, but female identities as well as being part of the black community or black identities means access to things like environmental protections from an environmental justice standpoint, health equity, and the ability to not only seek care and treatment from folks that understand your experiences, but also the ability to find a job and not be subjected to under or underemployment, because what was the
experiences of those The further you get away from the center, as Bill Hooks describes it, and the further you get closer to the margin.
You've talked about growing up, you know, giving speeches in debate as being critical to your success. I want to hear more about it.
You know, well, my family has a very long history of the speech debate space.
My mom was a debater, my older brother was a debater.
And so in high school I didn't really feel like I had a choice. It was just kind of what we do in this houshold, and it had the biggest impact on my life and career. So I went on to debate throughout my years in high school and went on to be a national champion debater for Rice University, and then went on to coach a number of schools at both the high school and collegiate level, including coaching
a number of national changions. What speech and debate provides for people is the ability to understand the mode and means of effective communication, both verbal and written. It allows you to under stand what self expression of identity is, and it allows you to not only find your voice, not only use your voice, but leverage your voice as
a means of having power and impact. The beauty of it is well in the DEI space, we often talk about this concept of giving us a seat at the table, and I've often challenged that because this table could be broken, this table could be being held up under the bottom by communities that we don't even see down there, which is the case with many fortune one thousand organizations, this table could be ratch. I don't necessarily need the seat at the table. I want the voice in the conversation.
I want you to understand my sentiments, I want you to respect it, and I want to have the ability for my sentiments and perspective to be built into the way that this organization runs and thrives strategically and operationally.
Speech and debate gave me those skills to understand how to build an effective argument, how to build sound logic and rationale, and how to combine those great theories that are so deeply rooted in the idea of public speaking, to eat those logos and paint those that make the ethical, emotional, and logical appeals. To be able to forge connections for people, whether I'm informing you about a topic, attempting to persuade you about something, or just trying to make you laugh.
This is why I highly encourage especially underrepresented communities. One of the biggest issues that we face in both governmental spaces and nonprofit spaces, academic institutions, as well as in our companies is feeling voiceless, feeling that we don't have a way or means to be.
A part of this conversation.
It's why I encourage underrepresented high school, middle school, and college students in role in public speaking courses, join speech and debate teams, because the confidence that you build and the ability to find your voice becomes something will that no one can take away from you, and it becomes so highly impactful in how we lead and thrive over time.
I've had this conversation with several people recently who built companies or you know, whether they be small businesses or tech companies, but in traditionally non melanated spaces, right and so, and I ask, I'm always interested in how they manage themselves in environments where they are not represented. Particularly, I was talking to Derek from Cloudy Donut about the Nonisota tooe y'all. I was talking to him and all of his donut shops are in white neighborhoods, and he was
talking about how he doesn't assimilate. He is who he is and completely who he is. He doesn't change his the vocal tone of his voice, you know. And I'm so interested in your take on this because I was reading something where you said where I finally began to understand the culture to which I wanted to be a part of. I no longer had to think about this
construct of assimilation. I could be myself and I think about this from a perspective of there's got to be some wisdom behind that too, because and I want you to correct me if I'm thinking about this wrongly, because I think about, yes, you can be you, but you can't just give sometimes you got to give doses until you've proven yourself in the room.
And so can you talk about that?
You know, well, if the question is that I always look like this, no, I don't know.
Fortunate one dousand spaces.
With rainbow locks and living my truth, you know, it was a journey of authenticity, you know when I think about assimilation. And I'm actually really thrilled to share with the viewers of this podcast. It's actually the first time
that I talk about this publicly. I have just finished the manuscript from my book Dei Credential, which will be coming out this summer, and in DEI Credential, one of the pieces that I described is a definition for me around assimilation, and I posit that assimilation is a tool of the oppressor, which is utilized as a means to destroy culture and character, to degradate history and heritage, and
to overcome the personal to the personality. With assimilation, it forces us to think through gaslighting techniques that who we are, that our experiences, that the loves that we have in life are bad, are harmful or negative, and that to truly be successful and thrive in a deeply capitalistic environment, we have to harness perspectives that shies away from what our actual cultural heritage is and moves toward or in service of, everything that the.
Dominant discourse tells us it should be. Well.
I have rejected this almost every single day in my professional career. It's hard, the dissonance that exists between trying to show up as somebody else, to serve a group of folks, just to get to that next promotion, just to get that next raise. You end up working yourself so much that the burnout both physically, mentally and emotionally becomes so deeply pressured. In the book, I write about this conversation of the emotional tax, also known as the
black tax. It's this construct of working twice as hard to only get half the progress, or have to work. Here's the challenge with that. When I was going into workplaces very early in my career, I found myself giving smaller doses than I should have, and so I found myself in conversations that felt microaggressive, that felt incredibly disrespectful, that felt racists, that felt homophobic in so many ways.
And I was working in big oil and gas and telecommunications companies, and so when you're doing professional services or client services work, you don't always feel comfortable speaking out about the behaviors of those clients because those individuals are ultimately helping the firm grow and helping the firm drive. By the time I jumped into the technology industry, though,
will I changed my whole perspective on this. Now, let me be clear, a lot of folks will will walk around and tell you to be your authentic self and bring your full self to work. My full self did
not belong in anybody's corporate space or anybody's corpus. Seting me after five PM is real fun and probably does not belong in the four wall on the corporate But what I did find is that authenticity is defining those values that are important to you and being unwilling to sacrifice, shift or move away from those values at.
Eighty and all costs. And so that is what was important to me.
And so throughout my time at Nike, for example, you know, I came into Nike in April twenty eighteen, Ball fade part on the side, still trying to relive my early nineties truth and by the time I departed the company in November twenty twenty two to launch my firm, The Rainbow Disruption, you know, I was walking around navigating the world with rainbow locks and dressing exactly how I wanted to because those experiences of growing up as a black
man in Houston, those experiences in surrounding myself in queer spaces and LGBTQ plus serving spaces, those are all a part of who I am, and so they have to be brought in spaces because they're a part of that value set that I hold and that I support. My message to the listeners on this will and I get that what I'm saying is not easy. I'm not saying that you go to your job tomorrow and you're like, I'm good here, Thomas show up. That's not the case.
It is a journey. I recognize and understand that. But what I don't think enough of us do is write down what those values are and then be unwilling and unwavering in the lack of sacrificing those as you navigate workspaces, even if it may come at the impact.
Of your career.
We are brilliant, we are great, and so understand and leverage that and recognize that even if that's not a great fit here, there's a lot of organizations that desire your talent.
There is DEI, the role of death.
I mean, let's be honest, who people decide to work with can be very personal. People like to do business with people they like. But part of the work of diversity is to show that people outside their bubbles and norms add value.
But there's still that human struggle.
Does the work of pushing require you to put yourself on the line at every time?
Jarvis speaks on.
It, It is a really great question, Will and I think it depends on one, the maturation of the organization in terms of their readiness for great DEI programming and work. And then two, it depends on both the resilience and
impact of the leader. I'll say this hand or heart, working for myself now owning my own firm and in the work that my team does with the Rainbow Disruption, I am no longer bridled or stifled by this duality of having to force the uncomfortable conversation while also having to worry about the political nature of my own career management, having to think about if I give this leader this type of feedback which is necessary for them to grow and develop and provide impact in the organization, is that
going to impact my performance review or my ability to take on my next role in the company. It's just not something I have to worry about anymore. And so I can show up and authentically engage with the various different clients, partners, and organizations that I work with, because that constraints not fair, like I'm not on y'all's benefits play, and so I can talk to you about what is
actually necessary in your organization. You know, well, over the last three years, the term diversity, equity and inclusion, and when it's positioned to people, it's met with resistance by a lot of communities. And the reason that happens is diversity, equity and inclusion, when done right, is literally a challenge
to the status quo. It is a perspective that says, the way that we have done things historically have not fostered the outcomes to which we desire going forward, and so how do we create points of intervention to challenge
that systemically. As you can imagine, this causes a lot of fear to a lot of people because if you have built your career and your last three promotions have come via some connection to systems of nepotism that have allowed you to grow and develop, and now I'm saying we're actually going.
To change that.
We're going to focus on inclusive hiring measures where we have a diverse slate of talent. We're going to position diversity in our interview panels, and by the way, we're going to think about inclusive succession planning and how we develop, advance and promote talent. This causes fear with folks where they end up resisting the future state approach. It's not that they actually have a problem with understanding the car
tours of diversity and what elements of identity is. There is a fear that if you change the system so much that I have been a beneficiary of, I now have no clue what approaches to advancement and development might actually look like. And so well, I don't believe that it has to be the role of death.
Do I think it's difficult?
Absolutely? Do I think DEI leaders really have to focus on the protection of our own mental health and well being, and organizations need to prioritize resourcing to support us absolutely, because the reality is George Floyd's murder was such a big moment that organizations basically starting to position the chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer and essentially a public affairs type role.
You got cdios right now having to be the voice of response when there's an earthquake in Turkey, when there's violence in the form of war between Russia and the Ukraine, when there's continued conflict between Israel and power sign with literally every shooting and experience of gun violence in this country, the CDIO is now looked at as the voice of reason and rationality.
There. That is such a shift.
In dynamic to where now this leader is playing a role of government and public affairs without the accountability, responsibility, or the authority to actually make.
GPA based decisions.
They are having to opine on global sustainability based topics without being an expert in spaces of climate change. They are having to navigate conversations about social and community impact without overseeing the multi million dollar budgets that are used to be spent in these spaces for organizations to be successful, you have to understand the significant amount of work that's
being put on. These leaders exhibit the grace with understanding, No, they will not create solutions in three years that resolves something that you have built over the last fifty seventy five and one hundred years in many of these companies. And so we have to understand how do we give the same rigor and intentionality to social innovation with diversity, equity and inclusion that we do with product innovation When we're developing that new app, piece of footwear or a pail based product.
You tie THEI efforts because they can't just be tied to you know, this the right thing to do? How do you tie it to actual value and business goals?
Yeah, you know there's a few things I think on the ethical argument for diversity, though, this right thing to do, this so called moral imperative. I don't think we can overlook that too much because a lot of organizations try to move so clearly to the business case, and when you do that, you lose sight of the fact that, like, there's a whole bunch of sociological, anthropological and psychological impact and implication that got us to where we are today.
I need you to understand how periods and and development enslavement impact it. Jim Crow laws and policies which now impact how black communities show up each and every day, and particularly in the workplace. I need you to understand how the media is representation and raffine of certain stereotypes that impact underrepresented communities all come from the history of
our experience. So we can't overlook that moral imperative because I argue, will it is the right thing to do, because we are better not saying we are better as people than another group. I'm saying, as humanity, we are better than the systems, tools, resources, and processes that we have chosen to accept that continue to put some communities
out of the ability to equitably engage in society. We as humanity are better than the tactics and strategies being deployed by the current state of the criminal justice system. This is a topic that we've known for years that continues to have such far reaching impacts and implications not just on black and brown bodies, but black families, black men,
black women, so on and so forth. We are better than that, and so we have to resolve that and so a lot of companies then turn to the business case for diversity.
I will tell you well, I was very proud women get see.
A company release the studies around this work in twenty fifteen and corroborated it into twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen, and then Deloitte and BCG added some additional imminence connected
to it. However, the one critique that I've always positioned around the business case so called for diversity, equity and inclusion is that it considers this work in such a deeply aggregated nature that it doesn't force organizations to understand how their own history continues to contribute to the negative
impacts and implications of the work. The business case in many ways would lead organizations to believe that if you certainly hire or position black and brown bodies in certain roles, you're immediately going to see this thirty five percent greater likelihood of financial outperformance.
And that's not the.
Reality of the case. If your organization has not done the work to shift your culture or the climate within your organization, this talent that you've put in role will not be set up for success. They will continue to be pushing up against a cement ceiling that has always been positioned against them. And then when you don't achieve those great business results that have been highlighted by the study, you can now not hold yourself accountable but rather blame
shift to put it on that individual. And so will to answer your question directly, how then do we tie this to business goals? Goal setting is absolutely critical. Employees care about four main things in the workplace transparency, visibility, accountability, and belonging. I am a huge fan of the idea
of consequential accountability. This is the idea that we as an organization have set a goal or a target that we want to achieve and there are consequences connected to it, not through the lens of blame, but through the lens of accountability. So, when we choose to tie executive compensation, for example, to growth and representation goals, or commitment to DEE education or advancement to community and social impact policies.
In addition to that, when we set these goals, it needs to be specific enough in such a way that even if we put position and growth opportunities for representation, in particular for growth of women, in the growth of communities of color, how are we digging into that concept of intersectionality to make sure that our women numbers are not just growing because of elevation and promotion of white women, and that our people of color are underrepresented numbers aren't
just growing because of the hiring and development of new black or Asian engineers. Rather, how do we understand both through pay equity, through core experience, through education, development and community that we're solving for those intersections of identity along the way that we're providing experience and pull surveys to understand that impact and that DEI has a place not just on the team and talent strategy for an HR or people in culture organization, but that it is positioned
right on that corporate strategy for the organization. That's how you drive results. Will if every strategy coming out of DEI can tie back in some way to the core goals that the business is looking to drive from a strategy and operations perspective, That's where impact is created. And that is why I often highlight and lecture and serience
that I do. I'm a business leader. It just happens to be that my field of practice is helping organizations realize their fullest social and economic potential through the lens and advocacy of DEI.
You know one thing we haven't discussed here that I've got you for a few more minutes, and I want to talk about this concept of supplier diversity, right. Yeah, So one thing many companies lean on as an excuse is, you know, black owned companies don't have the capacity, particularly corporations. You know, larger small businesses lean on that, yep. And how can they instead help smaller companies black owned companies build capacity versus count them out?
It is so necessary, you know, the supplier diversity space. It has been around a really long time. In fact, work around supplier diversity has been around longer than a lot of the core team and talent strategies that we know, like the Rooney Ruler, the diverse later proch on the
team and talent side. And so there's a number of learnings, especially from folks who I would consider absolute maven's in the space, like McDonald's, like University of Chicago, who continue to do such amazing industry leading work in this space.
But you're right, will so many companies argue, well, in a competitive process of an R ANDP, we're just not finding enough black owned businesses that can support this work, and so you end up giving us the small contracts for things like minimal food service, occasionally bringing us in to do some content creation and marketing or videography work, where the big contracts are going to major technology suppliers,
major marketing suppliers. For organizations to be successful, they have to move beyond the programmatic and truly go to the systemic. The programmatic is to say we're going to go out and create this list of underrepresented suppliers and hopefully they lay in we're going to try to position these black
small businesses into these smaller areas within our company or organization. Rather, we should be finding ways to help them grow to scale and through the lens of sustainability, help them understand what results in a successful RP.
Within your organization.
Help them by positioning some of the smaller entities within your company or organization to be successful. For example, if we think about the footwear industry, while a vendor may not yet be perfect for Nike eight, could they do work to support the converse brand to understand the infrastructure around the organization but build from there. While an organization may not be fully equipped for example, to support a large retailer, could they work on one aspect of the
merchandising space. That way they're knee deep in the ecosystem and growing and developing. And then what's more, how are companies actually investing money into ensuring that these businesses can grow by providing them core skills on how to effectively run a business. When you think about some of the major I'll even say Fortune one hundred companies, will they have some of the best communications teams, operations teams, supply chain teams, merchandising teams.
What would it look like to.
Have those leaders and their teams extend pro bono support and engagement with these organizations to ensure that their business model is air tight so that when they come to you a year from then with an RFP, they're not only competitive in the process, but we know how they
grow at a scale. If your organization is focused on the impact that you're having in terms of carbon reduction, for example, to drive towards applimate change goals, make sure that you're equipping these folks with the knowledge upfront so that they're aligning their own approach to global sustainability with that that you have as an organization, and finally, we'll align to the same previous question that you asked around
goal setting. We have got to set targets around supplier diversity, but I want to see disaggregated targets because a lot of companies will set one billion dollar targets five billion dollar targets over the course of a couple of years. If you dig into it, the majority of those funds are going to term women owned businesses, which is absolutely incredible. We do need to be investing even more significantly in women owned businesses, and in veteran owned businesses, and in
underrepresented owned businesses. However, if we're not considering if ninety percent of those women owned businesses are owned by white women, and that none of the funding is being distributed or allocated to support Black women, Latino women, Native women, are First Nations women, or API women, we have not done our job effectively. We're giving ourselves a pattern the ba for what is arguably a participation trophy to make us
feel good or better about what we're doing. It's often argued that disaggregation of data helps us to make more intentional and deliberate and accurate decision making, and so I implore organizations disaggregate it, hold yourselves accountable, and enable your consumers, vendors, and stakeholders to be a part of that journey.
With you in the matter of respecting DEI expertise. Right, So, if I'm a business and I'm looking for a DEI person, how do I know that this person can actually do the job effectively one? And how can I be a respected DEI leader?
I think on the first front, well, this is show topic ho you know. Following George Fwitz Murder, I saw a lot of organizations either go out to the marketplace to find DEI leaders, and I found others elevate leaders within their organization. Some elevated leaders that had a great experience in the space or at least knew some effort around how to drive great progress in the war. Others
elevated leaders who simply had a passion for it. It is unfair to those leaders, you know, when I think about other functions within an organization, As I said, to drive DEI effectively, we must think about it and connects to our business strategy and business operations. In no other function would we ever take a leader and just position them in a role based off an element of identity and passion. Will I actually really like product development? I
almost failed out of art class in eighth grade. I can't draw, And so my passion for design and product development.
Does not mean that I could go and become a chief.
Design officer at a Fortune five hundred company. And so the fact that we have taken in some cases it's very lackadaisical approach around just placing a talent in role. It's unfair to the organization. It's unfair to all equity serving communities that are part of that engagement.
With the organization.
And it's unfair to that person because when they step into the role and they are unable to be successful because they've never driven approaches that actually foster systemic change in this arena, we still point the finger at them because the accountability exists within them. All the other leaders will have absolved themselves of their own accountability and how they drive progress in the space, and so.
That leader is ultimately unsuccessful.
And so for businesses, I highly encourage them think about what engagement and partnerships, for example, what firms like mine might look like with the rainbow disruption, we can help that great DEI leaders for and with you, as well as help to establish the infrastructure that's necessary as you build your own strategy and operating model around engagement in this space.
The whole goal is we need to be doing.
This work to drive longer term sustainability and to ensure that we're creating measurable and monitorable frameworks to do the work even more effectively. And so organizations have to make sure that they are prioritizing both experience and knowledge in the space even more than passion and lived experience is critical though I see a lot of organizations promoting and elevating folks who do not speak from the community or do not speak from the eye of experience, and that's tough.
It does not mean that these folks cannot as allies, advocate or access activists for.
The communities that are there.
But unfortunately, the black experience is one that is so unique in the United States and in various spaces. There's various parts of Western Europe, certainly South Africa, and so we need folks in these roles that can actually speak to those experiences, that understand what it means to be at the margin of experiences of racial minoritized status, to be able to actually impact change on the flip side
for DEI leaders. Will I get the question a lot in my LinkedIn inbox, And when I do lectures at universities of a number of college students who are like I want to go into the DEI space. And I think part of it is rooted in gen Z and jen ALPA's strong knowledge connection and commitment to overcoming systems of oppression and resolving things like institutional and structural racism. And yet in most cases I tell them, don't do
it immediately out of college. I think there is something so critical about getting experiences outside of this space, whether it's in HR directly, in marketing and product roles, in finance and sales. There is something so critical about learning foundations and fundamentals of how businesses run and operate so that when you do step into the DEI role, you can be effective and you can drive great work in progress.
Now I get it.
Well, that may sound a bit counter productive or counterintuitive to exactly what I just argue, this idea that you need to be hiring experienced professionals. My recommendation is entered organization and do a role in a different function for two to three years, and then step in as a coordinator, as a specialist, as a junior manager to learn the framework and understanding of the space.
Read the text from.
Leaders that are driving thought leadership and engagement here, follow the right folks on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn that are positioning thought leadership on this topic, and then parlay that into a growth and development opportunity in the space. Furthermore, though, I highly encourage my peers and colleagues in the space that are chief diversity officers or DEI leaders, continue to
grow in your own practice like keep yourself sharp. I talk to a lot of DEI leaders that at times I feel like they may rest on their lawrels of their experience from doing this work so well and for so many years. The reality though will is times were changing so significantly, and as gen Z and Janalpa are very actively and rapidly entering the workforce, expectations are different.
There are many DEI practitions who have not had to navigate this construct of identity, for example around pronoun utilization and understanding how to create inclusive spaces for transgendering non binary communities. They have not had to navigate conversations around neurodiversity and neurodivergence. They have not had to navigate effective accommodations for individuals with disabilities.
We all have to continue to row in.
Our own countenances, to be sharp, to be effective, and to grow this work even more while also ensuring to protect our own well being.
Black Tech Green Money is a production of Blavity, afro Tech on the Black Effect Podcast Network and I Hire Media, and it's produced by Morgan Debond and me Well Lucas, with additional production support by Sarah Ergin and Rose McLucas. Special thank you to Michael Davis sivin That's a Serrano. Learn more about my guests and other tech this refors and innovators at afrotech dot com joining Black Tech Green Money.
Share this with somebody, go get your money, peace and love.
Check me out at the annual Black Effect Podcast Festival happening Saturday, April twenty seventh in Atlanta. Live podcasts are on deck from some favorite shows, including this one, Black Tech Green Money, and also some of the best podcasts in the game, like Deeply Well with Debbie Brown and Carefully Reckless. Atlanta is one of my favorite cities in the world.
I lived there for two years.
Actually, in my worldview, seeing us successful in every industry and not having any limits on our potential largely was shaved by Atlanta. So to be there with you doing this podcast talking about how we build or leverage technology to build wealth. Come on, man, doesn't get better. I want to see you there. Get your tickets today at black effect dot comback Slash Podcast Festival