Transcript

Speakers: Kay Suarez & Laura Morgan Roberts

Kay Suarez (00:02):
Hello Professor Roberts. How are you? Welcome.

Laura Morgan Roberts (00:07):
I’m doing well. How are you, Kay?

Kay Suarez (00:09):
I’m good, thank you. I know today is Tuesday, but it feels like Monday. So, that’s how I’m coming into today’s conversation. But I hope you are more grounded than I am at the moment.

Laura Morgan Roberts (00:24):
The long weekends will get you.

Kay Suarez (00:28):
Yeah. You think you have more time than you actually do. But it’s a pleasure to talk to you today. So, even though today is a little bit like a Monday, I was so happy to see that we were on the calendar for today because I can’t imagine a better way to start my short or any week really with a conversation with you. And we appreciate your bringing your brilliance to the Beyond DEI Podcast.

Kay Suarez (00:51):
So, we’re going to get into talking about your phenomenal article, but before we do, I wantedwanted to ask you to just introduce yourself, share a bit about your background as an academic and consultant so folks know a little bit where you’re approaching the work from.

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:08):
Love to, thanks again for having me. I’m Laura Morgan Roberts, and I’m an organizational psychologist. I’ve taught at several business schools, also taught in PhD programsprogram and leadership and change over the past 20 to 25 years, depending on how you count.

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:31):
I went to undergrad at University of Virginia in 1992. And I knew when I went to college that I was interested in psychology. I was interested in people’s experiences of engagement at work. I was interested in their career aspirations, and I was interested in diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:56):
So, I’m one of those very rare people who settled on what I wanted to do when I grew up, way back when in college. And then continued to pursue the path from there. Went to graduate school at the University of Michigan, got my PhD there and had wonderful mentorship in both of those places.

Laura Morgan Roberts (02:24):
I chose to attend schools where there was a strong history of growing and developing young Bblack leaders and that bore out in phenomenal ways. So, that really helped to set my path into the faculty life.

Laura Morgan Roberts (02:47):
So, that part was up and running pretty quickly, I guess. By the time I was in my late 20s, I was teaching full time. The consulting piece was also always part of the passion. I never wanted to be an ivory tower academic, as they say.

Laura Morgan Roberts (03:07):
I never wanted to be somebody who was just kind of sitting back detached, pontificating, writing think pieces for a very elite niche group of similar academics. I wanted to do work that could improve, enhance, and at the very least accurately explain the experiences that people were having of their own work, of their careers, of their lives on a day-to-day basis.

Laura Morgan Roberts (03:42):
So, once I was a few years into my academic career, probablycareer probably when I was in my early 30s, I first started to work independently as a consultant, primarily in the learning and development spaces, which is still where I’m often working.

Laura Morgan Roberts (04:01):
So, if it’s designing a curriculum, if it’s coming in and teaching or developing content for an existing curriculum for a company, for a professional organization, those are always fun and quite gratifying. I do a lot of that through our executive education programming at the Darden School of Business at UVA, which is where I’m now on faculty.

Laura Morgan Roberts (04:23):
But I also have some independent engagements. And I’ve engaged in more and more executive coaching and strategic advising around careers, around connecting to and tapping into our best selves and on leading diversity, equity and inclusion in contemporary times.

Laura Morgan Roberts (04:46):
So, I stay pretty busy. I’m a mom. I have two kids. I have a 16-year-old and an 11-year-old. And whatever you thought that you knew about people and about the world will get turned upside down very quickly, no matter what your website or business card says. So, I stay on my learning edge. They keep me humble. But that’s pretty much our world these days.

Kay Suarez (05:17):
Thank you so much for sharing. Your path is really interesting. And I know it’s complicated. You laid it out in kind of a linear and clear way, but I know from my friends who are in academia that the road to tenure is a long winding and challenging one.

Kay Suarez (05:36):
So, congratulations on all you’ve accomplished, because I know there are lots of valleys and peaks, but valleys along the way, many of which are tied to the concepts we’re going to talk about today in terms of either the lack or the presence of diversity, inclusion, and equity.

Kay Suarez (05:55):
I also really appreciated how you talked about describing the lived working experiences of folks accurately. That really landed for me, having been trained as a young consultant and reading all of these articles about what it’s like to work and not seeing your experience reflected there at all.

Kay Suarez (06:17):
So, the accuracy of your statement and now over time, the increasing accuracy, thanks to folks like you and others who are writing about the experiences of folks of color and beginning to dismantle the prevailing paradigm for leadership, which hasn’t been inclusive of us. That’s really powerful.

Kay Suarez (06:36):
And I know as a professional, I appreciate all the work that you’re doing. I also really admire how you publish articles in the HBS review, and it’s talking about freedom and liberation, which I think is something many of us never thought would be possible.

Kay Suarez (06:53):
So, excited to hear how you landed there and what the framework is that you shared. But sometimes I read your pieces, and I feel like it’s a little bit of a Trojan horse. You’re very transparent about what the article is about, but it comes in a package that I think not everyone is necessarily expecting.

Kay Suarez (07:11):
I never really expected to click on an HBS or an HBR article and read about freedom and liberation. So, thank you. Your work really represents the change that you’ve helped to accomplish over, as you were saying, those 25 years working in academia. So, we’re very grateful for all you’ve done and excited to hear more about it.

Kay Suarez (07:34):
So, because of the upcoming election, the term “DEI hire” was very much out there in the atmosphere, I feel like over the summer. And it’s been a part of many of our lives as folks of color, Bblack folks Nin corporate America, but also in lots of other sectors, academia, medicine.

Kay Suarez (07:53):
So, it’s not an unfamiliar term, but it ended up on the news a lot more than I think it has been in the past thanks to the upcoming election and the rhetoric in particular around Kamala Harris.

Kay Suarez (08:04):
So, your wonderful article which talked about the term “DEI hire” flipped the term on its head. So, wanted to ask you, what inspired you to write the article and what’s your approach to flipping the term on its head and reframing the power paradigm around folks of color or women, all underrepresented, historically underrepresented individuals in organizations?

Laura Morgan Roberts (08:34):
Yeah, well, thank you. It’s definitely about playing the long game. And so many things, not just my career, the work, where the work finds a home, when the moment is right for the work to find a home or a platform. Having the connection with the right editor who is receptive to that paradigm, to that narrative is imperative.

Laura Morgan Roberts (09:12):
And thankfully, over time, I have been able to build some of those connections with editors. And so, I don’t always rush to play the numbers game in publishing as frustrated as I get personally by my own pace. I know that timing is everything.

Laura Morgan Roberts (09:41):

And so, with the piece about the “DEI hire”, obviously that wasn’t a new conversation as you’ve mentioned. So, why did the piece come out in August of 2024 saying what in many ways was stating the obvious?

Laura Morgan Roberts (10:02):
I mean, for me, it goes back even all the way back to college, when affirmative action practices around attracting, developing and retaining kids in higher education from Bblack and brown and underserved communities that was the top priority for colleges and universities, and nobody made any bones about it.

Laura Morgan Roberts (10:27):
It was an asset to be able to draw a critical mass of talented, innovative people from diverse perspectives, because it was obvious to people who were really interested in creating the universities, the world, the communities, the workforces of the future, you can’t just keep copy pasting what you’ve done in the past and expect that you’re going to be prepared for the ever changing reality of today and tomorrow.

 

Laura Morgan Roberts (11:06):
The only way you can get there is to bring in people who see the world a little bit differently, think a little differently, are willing to ask a different set of questions, are just a little edgier, just a little bolder, just a little less comfortable with the way things have always been, the way things have always gone.

Laura Morgan Roberts (11:26):
So, the idea that diversity is an asset was not something that I felt I ever needed to make a case for. Not in terms of my own self-regard, not on behalf of anyone else. To me, that case had been made a million times over.

Laura Morgan Roberts (11:49):
If we just look at the history of all of the ways in which people who were not white, who were not men, who were not European, who were not cisgender, who were not heterosexual, who were not in the top 0.1%, who were not part of a monarchy, who did not inherit intergenerational wealth, who are not at the top of the caste system, have innovated, have experimented, have built the beautiful society in which we are able to access forms of convenience and advanced technology and medicine and hygiene, and learning and insight around the world that otherwise didn’t exist.

Laura Morgan Roberts (12:42):
So, then here we come in 2024, and it just sounds like the same old tune over and over again. “You didn’t deserve to get that promotion. You didn’t deserve to get admission to this college. You didn’t deserve to be at the top of the ticket. You’re only there because somebody said they wanted diversity.”

Laura Morgan Roberts (13:07):
And so, when people come at me like that, I’m not going to dismiss you out of hand. I’m not going to say, “Oh, no, diversity doesn’t have anything to do with why I’m here.” No, you might be right. You might be right. They may have selected me because they were interested in becoming more diverse, and I’m able to bring and offer that.

Laura Morgan Roberts (13:33):
However, you are making a logical leap, which is now becoming a policy leap that suggests that putting any kind of positive value or weight on those differences is inherently wrong. And with that, I say, what’s the alternative? What’s the alternative?

Laura Morgan Roberts (14:01):
Either if you’re seeing it as either my differences have to be irrelevant, or they have to be a liability. To say that my differences are an asset is now framed as something that suggested inadequacy within me. And the fact that I needed a special hand up, I needed special accommodations to get to where I am because I’m different, is preposterous on its face value.

Laura Morgan Roberts (14:37):
There’s also a lot of data that debunk those assumptions as well. So, when you look at a presidential candidate who has played the game, got the degrees, check, was a district attorney, check. This is not someone who even came through the Barack Obama legal path as a community organizer.

Laura Morgan Roberts (15:15):
This is someone who came through a different path in working in the criminal justice system from the side of the table as a prosecutor, was elected at a state level, California, just a huge state, very competitive. Then is elected to the Senate, and is currentlyis currently the vice president.

Laura Morgan Roberts (15:39):
And now you want to say the only reason that this person is being considered for a senior leadership position is because of their identity categories. It’s so dismissive and so absurd that it obviously begged a response, but unfortunately Kamala Harris, Vice President Kamala Harris, is not the only one who was catching that flack. And we can talk more about that as well.

Kay Suarez (16:12):
Yeah, thank you for that brilliant intro to set up theup to the article and why it was needed. And she’s certainly not the only one who’s catching that flack. Each of us has in our own careers caught it. And the irony, as you said about the preponderance of data that demonstrates that not just people of color who get into these elite positions, that they’re overqualified for their roles relative to their white or male, or as you were saying, straight able-bodied heterosexual peers.

Kay Suarez (16:48):
When you contrast Vice President Harris with the Republican nominee, there are a whole set of standards that defy logic and common sense that are applied to him simply because he is white, male and wealthy.

Kay Suarez (17:04):
So, she has actual credentials that you outlined, and he has a different set of credentials, but one that in spite of the obvious behavior that we’ve all witnessed, maintains his credibility in the eyes of many simply because he is white, male and wealthy, whereas her bona fides, so to speak, are discounted because she is also diverse.

Kay Suarez (17:29):
So, that discounts everything, where generally those of us who are the first or the only in a space are multiple times more qualified than are more traditional peers because we had to fight to get there. Even if we got in the room, as you’re saying, and I know it’s been the case for myself because we were viewed as diverse and that that was additive.

Kay Suarez (17:51):
We still have to have all of the bona fides to even be considered for inclusion in, let alone the presidential election, but just a general entry level job at a corporation or a law firm or an academic institution. And I know, you know even better, far better than I, the data that came out a couple of years ago about the number of years that female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies were qualified for their jobs before their male peers.

Kay Suarez (18:21):
So, I think if they ended up getting the jobs something like eight years later. Then their male colleagues who had far fewer bona fides or qualifications for that top job before they got it. But women, of course, in predominantly male spaces have to prove themselves time and a time again before they’re offered the position. So, that irony isn’t lost on me.

Kay Suarez (18:43):
So, how does homogeneity lower standards in organizations and why is it overlooked as a problem?

Laura Morgan Roberts (18:57):
How does homogeneity lower standards? We probably have to pause and assert homogeneity lowers standards. I think I’m going to flip your questions and answer the second one first. Why is it overlooked? I mean that for many people is an earth shattering assertion that it’s not diversity that lowers standards. It’s actually homogeny, homogeneity that lowers standards.

Laura Morgan Roberts (19:38):
Well, let’s just talk about the positive aspects of homogeneity to give credence to that. We know through the similarity attraction paradigm also known as homophily, that like attracts like. So, we are drawn to people who are similar to us.

Laura Morgan Roberts (20:05):
Some say that this is in part an evolutionary tactic because we’re trying to identify who is safe and who would best partner with us in living in community or collaborating against all of the different unpredictable or dangerous forces out there in the world.

Laura Morgan Roberts (20:28):
So, if we are trying to find another human that’s going to help us to battle the lion, tigers and bears, then attracting aattracting to a similar species is sensible. Because most of us are probably going to do better in a band of humans in that situation than we would try to go hang out with the lions, the tigers, and/or the bears.

Laura Morgan Roberts (20:58):
So, it’s fun as well. It’s fun to go to a football game, to wear your team’s gear to cheer for them. It’s fun to go to a concert and sing the lyrics together with yourof your favorite audience. I was at the Maxwell concert a few weeks ago, and it was so fun to hear an entire basketball arena of people, most of whom looked like me, Bblack women and their friends and partners singing these 20, 30-year-old songs at the top of our lungs. We had a good timea time. Homophily is really pleasant. It is fun. It can also be an important safety mechanism.

Laura Morgan Roberts (21:52):
What happens though, is we start to make our tribe, make our world of similarity smaller and smaller. And we introduce distinctions between us, often artificial constructions to serve our own purposes. So, it becomes more about me and mine than it becomes about connecting to and benefiting all of humanity.

Laura Morgan Roberts (22:25):
A few humans get really greedy. And the next thing you know, we have racial stratification, we have fixed gender roles, we have class stratification because we’ve got a certain group of humans who desire to hoard all of the resources for themselves and to not distribute those resources, to not share the resources more broadly with others.

Laura Morgan Roberts (22:53):
So, now we’ve got ingroup, outgroup dynamics, and now we have to make up stories about our ingroup being the good group, the strong group, the wise group, the more evolved group with the outgroup, we’re going to start comparing the outgroup to the lions, the tigers, and the bears.

Laura Morgan Roberts (23:09):
We might even value the lions and tigers and the bears more than we value the outgroup. Oh-oh. So, the ingroup homogeneity has a lot of power, a lot of access to resources. They also have a lot of flawed cognitions about other people about the world and the way in which it functions. And they tend to be self-serving and self-enhancing cognitions.

Laura Morgan Roberts (23:40):
So, liability number one, when you’re in that kind of homogeneity, you really start to drink your own bath water. You start to believe things about yourself that simply are not true. You put yourself on a platform above other groups because it serves your interest to believe that whatever you’ve gained or hoarded away for yourselves, maybe taken, likely exploited, possibly even appropriated in many circumstances from the other group.

Laura Morgan Roberts (24:12):
Because you know they have good stuff, you know they have desirable stuff, you know they have assets, you know they have resources, you know there’s some good there, you know there’s some strength in the other groups, but you’re going to take their stuff, but talk about them like they aren’t worthy to be in your room. And we’ll take your stuff from you and we’ll use it in our room as part of the end group.

Laura Morgan Roberts (24:37):
But at the same time, we’re going to keep telling stories generation after generation after generation about how those Africans didn’t have anything yet we came for centuries and harvested from them intellectually, from the land itself.

Laura Morgan Roberts (24:59):
So, it’s all a foil to start with. A lot of it is a foil to start with. You want to get to corporate in 2024. What’s happening? Are we looking at fiefdoms in the boardroom in the c-suite in 2024? Yeah. We are stillWe still looking at insider outsider dynamics, and homogeneity is still leading to flawed decision making, where in the absence of other perspectives, we are less creative. We’re less critical in our questioning of reality.

Laura Morgan Roberts (25:40):
We’re less likely to identify flaws. We’re also less likely to identify new possibilities. And so, that creates performance challenges. It creates group think. It undermines our psychological safety. It makes the board the boundaries between the ingroup and the outgroup impermeable.

Laura Morgan Roberts (26:05):
And so, then that constrain the freedom of any given individual to move in and out of groups, or to move in and out of spaces. It’s sort of, if you live in an us versus them world, then you have a set of limited, and perhaps false, but still very consequential choices about where your alliances will be, where your identities will be.

Laura Morgan Roberts (26:35):
So, when we start talking about the lack of freedom and liberation, I’m talking about it on ain a structural level when I’m saying there’s an ingroup that’s got the goodies and an outgroup that doesn’t. But I’m also talking about what this does even to the members of the ingroup.

Kay Suarez (26:53):
Yeah, the group. The ingroup.
Laura Morgan Roberts (26:55):
So, how it confines men, gender expressions. Because they experienced this pressure of having to always demonstrate or prove beyond demonstrate, prove their masculinity. And so, their gender expression is constrained, not to mention other kinds of constraints that it would pose on their identities as well.

Kay Suarez (27:24):
No. Well, I have a question for you, and I’m going to ask you that in a minute, but I completely agree with you. And just want to name for folks that what you are outlining is basically the system of white supremacy, which is basically the white supremacist patriarchy that has hoarded resources for some and then marginalized others.

Kay Suarez (27:44):
And so, what I want to ask you about is how that shows up in corporations and how folks who are coming into those spaces as diverse individuals who may have been labeled “DEI hires”, how they can navigate those ingroup outgroup spaces without this undue burden that’s placed on them to prove that they deserve to be there, even though their credentials are more together than the ingroup credentials on average.

Kay Suarez (28:09):
But I just wanted to flag what you’re saying for folks if they hadn’t clocked it, is that within a system of white supremacy, even white people are not free, within a system of patriarchy, men are not free because you’re constrained by these archetypes on which the pyramid of the pyramid of human value is based, which says you have to show up and be and do in a certain way.

Kay Suarez (28:33):
And there are a number of folks who have done writing about this, that even those who have hoarded all of the natural resources and the land and the people for their particular demographic, that they are not free. They are wealthy and powerful, but not free because they can’t make choices within the system that you just outlinedoutline.

Kay Suarez (28:52):
They have to align to the ingroup to maintain their position and the power and the wealth that that comes along with that. And in the United States, since we are coming off of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, it’s like the people who were stolen from Africa, the land too, and the natural resources.

Kay Suarez (29:07):
But all of Turtle Island was stolen fromI indigenous folks. And that’s something that we’re still all complicit in invisibilizinginvisiblizing because of how we’ve been socialized in terms of white supremacy. Because we’re not supposed to remember that the land is stolen.

Kay Suarez (29:23):
So, back to my question, if you are an individual in a corporate or a non-profit, a philanthropy, really any environment, and you have this label of “DEI hire,” how do you navigate the structures and the culture that you just outlined without assuming that undue burden that has been placed on you by the system and often by your colleagues explicitly in conversation? How do you navigate that?

Laura Morgan Roberts (29:48):
Yeah. Well, I think the first thing is to recognize that that phrase is being used to weaponize the relative status inequality that exists within the organization to reify it, meaning they’re trying to keep you in your place.

Laura Morgan Roberts (30:11):
And so, we’re policing the boundaries here of power and influence and access to resources. And we do that by diminishing, devaluing, disregarding, disappearingdisregarding disappearing, your strengths, your capabilities, your contributions, your accomplishments. If we can have a tagline that makes everybody question whether or not you deserve to be in the room with just two words, wow, that’s a really powerful weapon.

Laura Morgan Roberts (30:52):
So, when somebody comes at you and says, “DEI hire” in the same way as a kid who came to me senior year in our boarding school and said, “You’re going to get into so and so college,” we were both applying to Stanford actually. And he said, “You’re going to get into Stanford because you’re a Bblack girl.”

Laura Morgan Roberts (31:18):
And I was like, “No, I’m going to get into Stanford because we’re at the Indiana Academy for Science, Math and Humanities. I have a 4.0 GPA, and these are my SAT scores. And I’ve also had all of these leadership and extracurricular experiences. Thank you. Good luck on your college search.”

Kay Suarez (31:38):
Good luck because I know your’re an SAT scores aren’t…

Laura Morgan Roberts (31:42):
So, I mean, maybe they’re, and if so, good luck to you. I hope that you can present an interesting story about who you are and what you’ll add to an organization. But what happened when these spaces became more diverse? They became more competitive, Kay.

Laura Morgan Roberts (32:00):
And so, someone is going to use that term, “DEI hire” to grapple with their own levels of insecurity or try to quell their own levels of insecurity about the increased competition. And their fears and anxiety is about whether or not they’re still going to have the fast track to success, or is their road now going to become more windy? Is it going to take them longer to advance to leadership?

Laura Morgan Roberts (32:30):
There are more people applying to all of these colleges now who will be legitimately considered. In a segregated U.S. society, that was not the case in a gender exclusive society. The University of Virginia, the year I was born, 1974, the University of Virginia graduated their first class of women the year I was born.

Laura Morgan Roberts (32:54):
Now, 18 years later, by the time I showed up there, women were everywhere from administration to of course the dorms in the classrooms and the professors. So, it didn’t take long, but that also meant that, hey, you are going to have to try a little bit harder now insiders, because there are a lot more people who were being considered for these jobs or these promotions.

Laura Morgan Roberts (33:23):
And so, that’s an ego defensive response to say, you’re only here because you’re a “DEI hire.” So, we need to know that. If you’re like, what do you do if, I mean, you need to continue to acknowledge and affirm and contextualize what’s happening, why it’s happening. It’s often a sign of someone else’s insecurity.

Laura Morgan Roberts (33:49):
Your job is to not internalize it and allow it to become your insecurity because they are trying to project that baggage onto you. And they’re doubting their capabilities and their access to resources. There’s so much conversation now in the political sphere about young men not knowing what their place is in society anymore.

Kay Suarez (34:17):
Yeah.

Laura Morgan Roberts (34:18):
Interesting.

Kay Suarez (34:18):
Because of competition.

Laura Morgan Roberts (34:20):
Interesting.

Kay SuarezLaura Morgan Roberts (34:21):
For roles that have traditionally been held for them. And I appreciate your naming the competition because like you’re saying, the ego defensiveness is at the root of so many of the dynamics that we navigate in society, but also in organizations because the playing field shifted, so to speak, with integration, with the influx of women following the Civil Rights Act.

Kay SuarezLaura Morgan Roberts (34:46):
And we know there was a spike in white women because in terms of preferable new entrants into the workplace, they were ahead of we too. And our colleagues, so if we-

Laura Morgan Roberts (34:58):
Yeah. They’re more proximate to white men. So, degrees of proximity, it still feels like, okay, if it’s not just the guys, let it at least be me and mine. Let it at least be my sisters, my daughters, my partners. And so, we’re still kind of keeping it in the family, keeping it amongst ourselves.

Laura Morgan Roberts (35:21):
When you start to extend farther then and you get to Bblack women, you keep going farther and farther away from proximity to white men and you get to Bblack women. And so, I just want to be explicit here in saying that the “DEI hire” label is most frequently applied to Bblack women.

Laura Morgan Roberts (35:44):
They might say other disparaging things about members of other groups who get a seat at the table. But that “DEI hire” is one that has been applied most vehemently toward Bblack women. So, yeah. So, it is a disparity.

Kay Suarez (36:06):
A Black woman, how dare you take some man’s rightful position?
Laura Morgan Roberts (36:12):

And so rightful position, Kay, what we’re talking about is leadership. Because if you can be in an organization in a lower level, lower status role, and that’s perfectly acceptable. So, as I say, we don’t have a problem with diversity. Do we have a problem with equity?

Laura Morgan Roberts (36:32):
We have a problem with power and status and increasing the number of non-white men, non prototypical leaders who now have access to the resources and are controlling and influencing how those resources and opportunities get distributed. So, you don’t see “DEI hire” coming in when you’re hiring entry level employees in food service at a hospital or university?

Kay Suarez (37:07):
No, because they’re assuming the roles that within this hierarchy of human value, that is their rightful position. Like we the helpers. Because we as Bblack women are perceived to be the helpers not the leaders.

Kay Suarez (37:19):
So, that’s why when we show up in leadership, all sorts of shenanigans ensue in terms of what folks say and project onto us because how dare we be leaders and be powerful and brilliant and then exercise that power, which is often where the shenanigans and the hurt feelings come into play when people who look like us exercise their power.

Laura Morgan Roberts (37:39):
That’s right.

Kay Suarez (37:40):
And make decisions and again, how dare we. And then shenanigans ensue and microaggressions because people really still haven’t accepted that the pyramid, the hierarchy of human value on which our society was established, and it’s really global, but we’re in the United States, that that has begun to shift.

Kay Suarez (37:58):
And so, the system seeks to revert back to where it was. Which brings me to a question tied to 2024 in the election. So, in the current environment given the structure that you outlined and how it manifests in organizations and in companies how do organizations maintain their commitment to equity and inclusion and diversity in the current moment despite what’s happening in the political arena and what’s happening inside of organizations, the rollback.

Kay Suarez (38:33):
And the real deeply felt belief that something that is rightfully theirs is being taken from white people and specifically from white men. So, how do we navigate that in organizations as we’re trying to stay committed to equity and inclusion?

Laura Morgan Roberts (38:51):
Yeah. So, yeah, I think we’re probably in a more realistic place around this work than we were in 2020 when it was trending when everybody and their granddaddy was jumping on the bandwagon and wanting to be perceived as one of the good guys. The rubber met the road.

Laura Morgan Roberts (39:26):
This work does not move forward without compromise, without sacrifice, without making some shifts and adjustments. And some people are going to feel uncomfortable and displaced by those changes.

Laura Morgan Roberts (39:45):
Now, in the long run, those changes are going to benefit the whole, serving the needs and placating the fears and the anxieties of the few is actually not going to benefit the mass majority, the mass majority of us. And so, this is where we see making structural changes to our hiring practices, to our selection practices, building more positive cultures that …

Laura Morgan Roberts (40:23):
And they call it universal design principles. Because if I’m changing the very foundation of the organization and the way we do things around here, it doesn’t just benefit the marginalized group. It actually helps us to all work together better.

Kay Suarez (40:40):
And the data says that.

Laura Morgan Roberts (40:41):
The data says that. Yeah, exactly. And so, what leaders need to do is to remember that, leaders need to remember that, leaders need to be able to tell that story, that what we’re doing is to benefit the whole, it’s to benefit us. That’s point one. It’s not a punishment, this is an opportunity.

Laura Morgan Roberts (41:10):
Point two, it works when we do the work. And so, setting expectations, research also indicates that leaders who don’t set realistic expectations end up falling short in meeting their DEI goals and backpedaling much more quickly because of the resistance that they face.

Laura Morgan Roberts (41:30):
But if you are clear, not just in your own understanding, but in the way that you present this work to the rest of your organization and your stakeholders, we’re playing the long game. It’s going to take some serious investments over time, but it works if we do the work, it works when we do the work.

Laura Morgan Roberts (41:50):
And that perspective helps people to have a higher level of engagement than they would otherwise. I mean, the last thing I would say is we know that the business case, as much as the positive selling point about performance and innovation outcomes and so forth, all bundled into this business case where there’s an ROI on DEI. And I would say it’s possible, but again, it only works if we do the work. We want to have a maximum return on a minimal investment.

Laura Morgan Roberts (42:29):
And so, these programs and initiatives are essential. They’re significant. Many streams lead to the same river. So, everybody’s approach doesn’t have to be exactly the same. It doesn’t have to be cookie cutter, it should align with the strategy of your organization, with your core work, with your region, with your demographic.

Laura Morgan Roberts (42:57):
You should have something that is not off the shelf copy paste from what another organization is trying to do. You have to go internally and do the work to develop a set of inclusive practices and equitable outcomes that really make sense for you.

Laura Morgan Roberts (43:14):
So, invest in people who have the leadership, who have the insight, who have the wisdom around doing this work. People think that they can watch one TED Talk and then go facilitate a DEI workshop. And it doesn’t work that way.

Laura Morgan Roberts (43:37):
It takes thousands of hours of practice regardless of what credential you may have attained. It takes thousands of hours of practice, of reading, of learning, of developing in order to be able to do this work in a way that generates the outcomes that you seek and that doesn’t do harm instead.

Kay Suarez (44:01):
Harm. Yes. Thank you for naming that because we all, as practitioners know that post 2020 people did watch that TED Talk and they did go out there and start holding space for these types of really high stakes conversations and they did harm folks and organizations.

Kay Suarez (44:17):
And being an equityin equity and inclusion practitioner is an expertise. And I remember talking to one colleague, I think I was interviewing for something, and they were like, “Organizations need to understand that when you bring in someone to help with this kind of work, it’s expertise like any other.”

Kay Suarez (44:32):
So, you have an auditor, you have an attorney, and no one bats an eye at the hourly rate that these folks charge for their expertise cultivated over decades. And folks who do the work that you do, and our colleagues do bring that same level of expertise.

Kay Suarez (44:47):
And the harm piece is at the center of how we approach our work, because that’s what you’re trying to prevent. And just to be clear, naming that some of us have privileges and some of us don’t. That’s not the harm we’re talking about, that making you aware of your privilege and how it lands. That’s not the harmful part that we’re talking about. We’re talking about the deeply culturally and structurally embedded harms to folks who are not in the majority.

Kay Suarez (45:13):
And an adept practitioner can hold both of those things and bring people along. But it takes years of experience to do that. I want to be respectful of your time. So, one, my final question is around the four freedoms.

Kay Suarez (45:27):
And so, folks, you can go to the HBR website and search for Professor Roberts names, and you’ll see her name and you’ll see lots of articles. So, the DEI hire article was one, but there’s also a really brilliant article on the four freedoms.

Kay Suarez (45:39):
So, in terms of the examples that you just shared about how things actually have to work in organizations, would you mind sharing a little bit about the four freedoms and how they align with goals of equity and inclusion? And maybe share an example or a policy, folks or you’ve seen work in organizations that people may be able to bring into their practice?

Laura Morgan Roberts (46:00):
Yeah, I wouldwould be happy to. I bring the four freedom framework as a way of naming the most pressing challenges and dilemmas that people are facing in organizations.

Laura Morgan Roberts (46:15):
So, I will start out with a caveat in saying there are no easy answers or quick fixes, I guess, around this work. As with any type of liberation work, it truly is a journey, and it takes a lot of courage, compassion, clarity and conscientiousness.

Laura Morgan Roberts (46:39):
So, you need to know yourself. You need to know your organization. You need to be brave enough to advocate for those needs, to fight for freedom. You need to be able to read the room and understand what kinds of weapons that you need, what kinds of tools or magic potions or secret sauces, call it whatever you want, that’s going to help you to have the most impact, the most influence within that situation.

Laura Morgan Roberts (47:06):
So, that’s your conscientiousness and have some compassion as well in doing this work. Understanding that we’re really talking about the human experience, which is ridden with a lot of fear and anxiety as much as it is fueled by passion and hope and aspirations. We are a lot more risk averse when it comes to this conversation of freedom at work than we are imaginative and explorative.

Laura Morgan Roberts (47:40):
So, the four freedoms, one, the freedom just to be, let me be who I am in the context of work. How can I be able to show up at work and not have to suppress the most important valued or distinctive aspects of myself in order to build my credibility or to get the work done? Some of the things that people have to do, people on the margins, they don’t fit the prototype.

Laura Morgan Roberts (48:16):
They stand out in some way. They modify, they tweak, they think about how they’re going to package all of those characteristics. They make a strategy for when and how they’re going to disclose different things about their condition, about their backgrounds, about their family status or their lifestyle. And that’s cognitive and emotional work. It’s an additional tax.

Laura Morgan Roberts (48:44):
So, if we were to say, remove the tax, that’s not fair. Some people get to roll out of bed and go to work with their hair the way that it naturally grows out of their head. And other people have a lifetime of products, of processes, to modify-

Kay Suarez (49:08):
Chemicals.

Laura Morgan Roberts (49:09):
Say again?

Kay Suarez (49:09):
Chemicals.

Laura Morgan Roberts (49:11):
Chemicals, right. Cancer causing chemicals actually, hundreds of dollars on protective styles and hair extensions or coverings so that they can package that one aspect of their experience to be perceived as more professional at work.

Laura Morgan Roberts (49:33):
So, if somebody questions whether or not another person’s appearance is professional or unprofessional, I encourage you to explore how that evaluation or judgment is culturally coded. And on what basis are you making that kind of evaluation or judgment?

Laura Morgan Roberts (49:52):
I would ask you to consider what are the consequences of them showing up in the way that they do? And is it fair? Are we putting an equal burden on one group versus another? So, that’s the freedom to be, and authenticity. Infinite directions, we could go with that one.

Laura Morgan Roberts (50:19):
But that’s just one example. And I really think about the four freedoms in terms of sort of unlocking the different layers of a vault. So, first, you’ve got to get the outer layer, which is just, can I just bring myself?

Kay Suarez (50:38):
To work maybe?

Laura Morgan Roberts (50:39):
Yeah, yeah. To work. To my family, to churchfamily to church, it’s lots of community spaces where in order to be seen as one of the ingroup, can I fit in here? Do I belong here? That’s the first thing that people are trying to find a way to configureway configure so they can just kind of get in the room.

Laura Morgan Roberts (51:00):
And then the second thing that they’re trying to unlock, they’re trying to unlock their potential. So, how can I be free to become my best self? Can I tap into the opportunities to grow and develop in the context of work?

Laura Morgan Roberts (51:18):
Or am I surrounded by a bunch of dream killers and soul crushers who are constantly telling me what I can’t do? Don’t think too much of yourself. Michelle Obama talks about going to college counselors and my parents’ generation, they were part of the college integration generation. They’re older than the Obamas, obviously. And many of them were not encouraged to attend certain types of colleges or universities if attending college and university at all.

Laura Morgan Roberts (51:50):
So, how are you going to tap into your best self when people have already created a limit around who they think that you are or what they think you can become?

Laura Morgan Roberts (52:00):
Third, freedom to fade. So, I push, I push, I push, but guess what? I don’t need to burn myself out. I don’t need to put the gas pedal so heavily that I’m not able to sustain itsustain. I’m not stopping to refuel. I’m always trying to go, go, go. So, I’m going to burn out. I’m applying too much pressure or I’m internalizing the pressure that others are applying to me.

Laura Morgan Roberts (52:38):
See, because I don’t want anybody to say, I’m only here because I’m a “DEI hire.” So, you won’t say that about me. So, I’m going to show you. So, I’ll keep working twice as hard. I know the bar is higher for me to get any kind of credit for my work output.

Laura Morgan Roberts (52:58):
And so, the freedom here comes from not having to do, whereas the other two are the freedom to have permission to do, this freedom is I want permission to not have to do X, Y, Z. So, workplace, whereas for the second freedom, it’s a lot of sponsorship, mentorship, leadership development programs are important there with the freedom to become our best selves.

Laura Morgan Roberts (53:27):
Here with the third, the freedom to fade. This is where we’re looking at workplace flexibility arrangements, things that allow people to craft the way that they work and when they work so that they’re still meeting their obligations, but they’re not having to expend a lot of time and energy on non-promotable tasks and inconsequential tasks.

Laura Morgan Roberts (53:52):
So, busy work, FaceTime, they can shave off a lot of that and focus more on higher impact work. It’s a dilemma for managers. It’s a huge dilemma for managers, because I think post pandemic and with generational changes, well, we’re never post pandemic, but post the quarantine and fully remote phase of the pandemic is what I’m saying.

Laura Morgan Roberts (54:20):
And all of the geopolitical trauma that’s currently taking place, people are exhausted. They’re absolutely exhausted, and they’re bringing that into work because they just know no other way at this point. And so, until we develop a set of restorative practices that can all help us to work together in healthier ways, I think, it’s going to continue to be this push and pull between heads of corporations, heads of universities, and heads of other organizations feeling like other people are cheating the system.

Laura Morgan Roberts (55:10):
And those same people are feeling like they don’t have the flexibility to do their best work. So, we have to renegotiate that in terms of our social norms and practices. And I don’t have a quick fix for that, but as a manager, I would say, trying to be able to have some flexibility where you can and come to some shared understandingunderstandings is more important now than ever. You can’t take it for granted.

Laura Morgan Roberts (55:36):
The fourth freedom is the freedom to fail. So, we get to that inner sanctum in the vault where the gold bars are really being stored where few people know the code and are able to just tap into it and access it. That means I can flail about wildly; I can be entirely incoherent. I can say the most offensive, terrifying things about the kind of leader that I am, the kind of leader that I would be, the type of society that I’m trying to create.

Laura Morgan Roberts (56:19):
And people will say, “Oh, you know what? They didn’t really mean it the way they said it, was that what they said? I don’t think that’s what they said.”

Kay Suarez (56:27):
That’s what’s happening on a daily basis.

Laura Morgan Roberts (56:28):
I just played you to tape, this is what they said. Literally. “Oh, no, no, they didn’t mean it. The last time they tanked the economy. This happened, that happened. The business almost went bankrupt, and so on and so forth. Things happen, not really their fault.”

Laura Morgan Roberts (56:48):
So, the “DEI hire” goes two ways, Kay. It’s on the one hand, I’m not getting as much credit for my success. So, I don’t have the freedom to fade, grinding, grinding, grinding. On the other hand, or at the same time, I am being scrutinized and penalized for any hint of a failure, a mistake, a shortcoming.

Laura Morgan Roberts (57:16):
Whereas my insider counterpart is getting the benefit of the doubt on both sides. So, getting credit for things that they didn’t even do, I’ll leave that there. But also-

Kay Suarez (57:34):
Just because they come in a certain package. And so, they get that benefit of the doubt, even if they just finished burning something down.

Laura Morgan Roberts (57:44):
That’s right. And right on the flip side, even if they burn it down, so the good that’s there, even if they weren’t responsible for it, they get the rewards, the badge for that. When things go wrong, they don’t have to carry the blame for it. They’re treated with an infinite amount of grace. And almost erasing of the slate in a nearly biblical sense in what we see in our social treatment of certain people with the most central power and access in society.

Kay Suarez (58:20):
Failing up.

Laura Morgan Roberts (58:22):
Failing up.

Kay Suarez (58:23):
We often talk about those folks as failing up. And then the rest of us who don’t meet that demographic profile, we just fail.

Laura Morgan Roberts (58:30):
We just fail. We just fail. So, what do we do with that, Kay? Because here’s the conundrum. We can’t learn, we can’t grow without trying some new things. When we try some new things, we’re not going to be very good at them in the beginning.

Laura Morgan Roberts (58:47):
We’re probably going to mess some things up. You’re going to botch your hiring when you’re first a leader, you’re probably going to hire some folks that don’t work out. You may mix up some numbers on a spreadsheet or use the wrong version of the slide deck, or have your technology go south or make the wrong call on an investment or lose a case in the courtroom, or lose a patient in the OR, or say something that is hurtful in your class if you’re an educator and have to go back and do some restorative work. We all fall short.

Laura Morgan Roberts (59:27):
We’re human. That’s the whole point of the four freedoms is in acknowledging and tapping into our common humanity. And we can’t walk around pretending as though we are perfect. We’re not human if we do.

Laura Morgan Roberts (59:47):
And so, it’s creating enough space for us to fail and learn from the failure, to be willing to engage in restorative and redemptive acts when our failure has caused harm to other people. Let other people down instead of pretending like it didn’t happen at all.

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:00:10):
So, if I’m more free to fail, it doesn’t mean I’m just walking around wildly dropping balls and making a mess of things for everybody else. It means I’m very, very thoughtful and aware of that in quite a humble way. And I’m trying to grow and learn and improve.

Kay Suarez (01:00:29):
Yeah. And that’s how we will get wherever we’re going because we’re not quite sure where there is because we live in a society that was designed to be inequitable.

Kay Suarez (01:00:38):
So, in coaching, sometimes I’ll tell folks that we’re trying — we at Equity Iin the Center say building a Rrace Eequity Cculture™, but we’re trying to create something that the overwhelming majority of us, but really as a society as a whole, we have not experienced because our society is inequitable by design.

Kay Suarez (01:00:57):
So, there is no playbook. You literally have to innovate your way to equity. And if you are not failing, if you are not making mistakes, I like to say that you’re not taking the sufficient level of risk. Because if we were in a startup and maybe we had some Bitcoin or pick your cryptocurrency of the moment we would be failing wildly all over the place, bankrupting people. We would totally get another loan for our next business.

Kay Suarez (01:01:23):
But when we’re talking about race and equity and inclusion, the failures are deal breakers often for us individually but perceived as non-starters for organizations. So, I’ll often talk to folks, you have to accept that failure is inevitable, and it is part of the learning process. It’s accepted as part of the learning process in other aspects of our business in prototyping.

Kay Suarez (01:01:46):
And so, we’re not going to get to this new way of being and doing together in organizations and in society if we don’t fail some together demonstrate grace and move forward. But the way our society is structured, some of us are more deserving of grace than others.

Kay Suarez (01:02:02):
And so, as we’re failing and iterating, we have to reconcile with all of those things as we’re doing it. And it’s a really steep learning curve. So, your framework is a really wonderful way to think about it and to approach it as we’re learning together.

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:02:19):
Thanks. Yeah. In a white supremacist culture, as you mentioned earlier, the harm and damage that it imposes on everybody, even those who seem to have the most access to power and resources, it really bears out when we talk about the freedom to fail more so than any of the other freedoms, because members of the dominant group don’t admit that they failed either.

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:02:47):
They’ll blame somebody else; they’ll explain it away, they’ll pretend like it never happened at all. But they’ve not found ways to engage in a psychologically safe manner with these learning and innovation processes. And especially not when it comes to doing the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:03:11):
I love that you said we have to innovate our ways to equity, because senior executives have asked me in the coaching and advising to help them. They don’t want to do things that are hurtful. They don’t want to say the wrong thing. They don’t want to do the wrong thing. And I say I can’t help you with that. You’re going to say the wrong thing. So, where do you move forward?

Kay Suarez (01:03:37):
And that’s really hard for people to accept, particularly senior leaders and it’s people perceive their literal job. And I think if you look at folks’ job descriptionsdescription, often your literal job is to know. But we’re talking about a body of work where none of us know.

Kay Suarez (01:03:52):
Some of us have been practicing longer than others, but there is no recipe. And that’s one of the hardest things I think I struggle with in coaching chief executives that you don’t know. And you have to say that you don’t know. We all don’t know. It’s not just you.

Kay Suarez (01:04:08):
Some of us have been practicing longer, but it is not your individual leadership failure that you don’t know how to center and operationalize equity in every aspect of your work. I will not be able to find you an individual who has that totally tied up with a bow.

Kay Suarez (01:04:24):
Each of us who practice continue to make mistakes and perfectionism is a pillar of white supremacy and how it manifests in society and organizations. And that is a really difficult thing for people to let go. And I know as folks of color, it’s hard for us too, because we have not had the privilege to fail. We know what happens when you make a mistake, and you are of a diverse background.

Kay Suarez (01:04:53):
So, I find that even myself, I’m still on the journey with perfectionism and we all are, but often when I coach teams or leaders of color, they’ll say, but I’m not allowed to do that. I’m not allowed to make those kinds of mistakes.

Kay Suarez (01:05:06):
So, you now want me to go in front of everybody and say that I’m going to make mistakes? And so, I’m just having trouble wrapping my head around that. So, it’s complicated work, but the way you talk about it and articulate it in the framework is so deft.

Kay Suarez (01:05:22):
And I’m so grateful to you for sharing your brilliance with us today. And always. And it’s been so fun for me to join you on your leadership program journeys and to make some good trouble together at Darden and-

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:05:35):
I love it.

Kay Suarez (01:05:36):
So, thank you.

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:05:37):
I love it. Thank you so much.

Kay Suarez (01:05:39):
Thanks. Any closing words? Anything you didn’t say that you’d like to?

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:05:46):
Gosh, we’ve covered so much. I guess, the last line in the article speaks to a body of work that I’ve been developing over the past four years in tandem with the freedom framework, which is evolving my work on positive identities and tapping into our best selves.

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:06:11):
And how that intersects with diversity, equity, and inclusion. And we do find that it’s those feelings of insecurity and inadequacy that are taking us all out. And so, if somebody says thate DEI means, not worthy, not deserving, I flip it and I say, “Look, I know how much it took not just for me, but for my ancestors, for me to be able to stand where I stand in this moment today.”

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:06:47):
So, whatever I have in that moment of question, if I know I’ve given what I can, if I can stand on my work and I can stand on my ethics and what I did to get to where I am, which not going to lie, not everybody can.

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:07:06):
And just because you’re Bblack or brown doesn’t mean that you followed a straight and narrow. And we can look at a number of different examples of Bblack and brown senior leaders who have leveraged, appropriated and really pillaged our communities while they sort of walked on our backs to their ways of senior leadership, the C-suite, the Supreme Court, the governor, Lieutenant Governor, on and on and on.

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:07:35):
So, I do think that there’s something about the quality of work. There’s something about integrity that matters herein really trying to claim that asset and the positive identity. But all that in consideration, I would say, if somebody says, “You’re a DEI hire,” I say, “Thank you. Because I definitely earned it.”

Kay Suarez (01:08:01):
Amen. Absolutely. Thank you so much. That’s a wonderful note on which to close. And it’s not an insult, if you actually think about what, like you’re saying, each of us took and then our parents and their parents what it took for them to accomplish whatever they have in their careers, their road … so to speak, kind of speaks for itself.

Kay Suarez (01:08:26):
I hope that will be encouraging to young folks who are trying to find their way. I think a lot of young, Bblack and brown college seniors are wondering what’s out there for them in the professional world? And to lean into your own accomplishments and what it took to realize them and to ground yourself in your inherent worth.

Kay Suarez (01:08:48):
And the entire system, if I think back to when I was a recent grad, is designed to make you question it. So, if you can just start there. I think, if new graduates are able to start there and ground themselves in that, I think that puts them miles ahead, certainly of me when I graduated from college. Because I had to learn not to believe the lies that white supremacy told me about myself despite my degrees. So, thank you.

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:09:14):
Yeah. You have to be firmly rooted so that you can grow. And if you’re floundering and wandering, then you’re not going to be able to grow effectively.

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:09:25):
And so, I think we are talking about how to use this positive mindset, how to use this understanding, this evolved understanding how to use affirming practices to help us be rooted in the ground. Then we can start to nourish that soil so that we can all grow and become better. Otherwise, we’re just going to be withering on the vine. Right?

Kay Suarez (01:09:55):
We will. And that reminds me of weathering, with which the fading, which is important to minimize weathering. But we have to be able to thrive. So, I hope as you build out that framework, you’ll come back and share again. But I look forward to the article because I know one will drop soon.

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:10:10):
Anytime.

Kay Suarez (01:10:11):
And now I’m like, “Oh look, it’s all fully formed and brilliant.” So, thank you so much, professor.

Laura Morgan Roberts (01:10:17):
Thank you, Kay.

Kay Suarez (01:10:19):
Awesome. So, I know our team will work on it and then they’ll share a version of it.