Frustratingly Optimistic – Tony Byers

Tony Byers, director of Diversity & Inclusion Programs at the ILR Center for Advanced HR Studies, and ILR Dean Alex Colvin examine the increased emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace and what individual employees can do to improve their workplaces. 

 Learn more about Cornell’s Diversity & Inclusion Program: https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/programs/professional-education/topic/diversity-and-inclusion  

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Transcript

Julie Greco  0:02  
Work is all around us. It defines us. The future of work impacts nearly every person on our planet, and the ILR School at Cornell University is influencing policy and practice around the world. In this episode of "Work! Exploring the future of work labor and employment," Dean Alex Colvin speaks with Tony Byers director of diversity and inclusion programs at the ILR Center for Enhanced HR Studies.,

Alex Colvin  0:28  
It's a pleasure to be talking today with Tony Byers from the ILR School, one of our experts in house here at the school, and we're gonna be talking today about their diversity, equity and inclusion, which obviously has come to the fore in 2020, particularly in the wake of the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis. This, this is something that obviously the school has been studying for and   teaching about for many years and Tony I know this is an area you've been working on for, for many years developing your expertise in this in this era of working with organizations. I want to maybe start off by looking at this question of how do organizations deal with this? M any organizations have been pledging that they're going to do better at D&I. Many of us in different organizations, Cornell included, have read the book. We've done that but but now what? What's the what's the next, next step, how do we move forward in this area?

Tony Byers  1:27  
Yeah, thank you for having me, and I appreciate the opportunity to be able to share a few aspects regarding diversity, equity and inclusion. And just to start with your first question. That's a very complex, but really simple answer. The simple answer is now it's time for us to act. Right? We have to now do something. The complexity comes from the standpoint of whatever type of business that we're in. And for us, we're in academics and for others who are maybe in for profit organizations, whether it's customer service or they're selling products or whatever the issues are that they're managing the question is, what are you now going to do to improve your environment so that the concept of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion lives. You know, like you said many organizations, we've read the book. And some people have made a pledge to do better, where you see things like they've placed a square over their social media box one day in August as their way of standing in solidarity with the concept of diversity, equity and inclusion. But what I think that we have learned from the George Floyd incident and the subsequent Black Lives Matter engagement is that it's no longer enough for us just to say we support you. What that community, this community, the individuals who are championing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, what they're asking for is, so tell us what are you going to do. You got a statement on your wall, you have a statement on your social media page. Your CEOs and leaders have all said "yeah I'm for this," but when you ask them what they're doing, people say "I really don't know. So we're going to go training, and we're going to read a book." And so, that's great, but that still hasn't got us to that point where you would have been willing to make some difficult decisions to change some policies and practices to hold people accountable for living this stuff so the question really is how do we make this value come to life, versus acknowledging that it should be valued and that's that's where the real trick lies.

Alex Colvin  3:36  
Right, so we've got to go beyond just making rhetorical statements, making commitments and then actually follow through on it. What are some of the examples that you've seen of organizations taking steps that do actually go beyond you know those kind of commandments that we hear a lot of organizations say they're going to, they're going to make. What do we see in terms of good examples of actual concrete steps that organizations can take that do make progress?

Tony Byers  4:07  
Really good question there as well. And again, this is one of those things that varies depending on the industry you're in, so I'm going to give a couple of different industries and examples. So let's start with banking. That's a group that has decided that, our way of demonstrating our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion is now, in addition to the services we provide to the larger general community like anybody can use his bank, what we've decided is that we are going to now dedicate some resources that are specifically geared to helping underrepresented groups, or groups to have had historical exclusion, in this case we're talking about those individuals who identify as Black or African American, and the approach that they have taken is that we're going to support you know, Chase JPMorgan Chase, you know $30 million over five, six years. You know some organizations have been looking at close to a billion dollars over a period of time and say we're going to support businesses, we're gonna you know do more around colleges and education, we're definitely going to look at our hiring and think about where is it that we can improve and ensure that we get more inclusive hiring, where is it that we can do to build more leadership that happens to represent larger communities and so what you're seeing is this intentional focus in every aspect of our business. Inside, what we do to hire and recruit people. What we do to develop and coach and support people, and then outside of the business, what is the services that we provide. But then they're going above and beyond their actual services and say, and now what we're going to do is we're going to provide a very specific support to those groups. So banking industry are some of the ones that are doing that. Technology industries are some of the ones that have done this. I work with small tech tech firm that does software, and what they decided is that they were going to actually start a coding academy in various communities across the country to teach young people of color from low economic backgrounds perhaps maybe even diverse backgrounds, how to code so they're looking at that long term viability. If we're going to get people opportunity to be successful in our environment, then how do we engage them earlier than you know what  we need two hires right now and this is our criteria or do we change it do we adjust it, can we find talent. They're just removing that question in a way and saying, we're going to just go and build our own talent and say that you know prepare people to be successful. So you see organizations doing that are going down to community level, really engaging really putting resources really trying to address some of the systemic disparities that exist because of school districts happen to have different tax bases and so students have different experiences. They're providing more services so instead its that direct contact that you see that's happening. It's above and beyond what they do, as a business. I think that's the key part, you know is yes we do sell software yes we are a bank, yes we are an educational institution, and we can make opportunities available in what we do every day, but where I think you see the real magic and those organizations that are saying, "Where do we go above and beyond what we do every day, and how can we touch people, young people provide opportunities and ensure that we'll have a viable future for Diversity, Equity and inclusion, moving forward." In addition to leaders deciding to say inside, we gotta be accountable. We're going to make some differences, and we're going to make some hard decisions. And that's really what it takes.

Alex Colvin  7:40  
To follow up on that. It's interesting, you talk about some examples both of things organizations can do internally in terms of their own workforce development there. And then also, these external examples of what we do as a business who we engage with externally what communities we engaged with how we engage with them. Are those two things linked together. How do they connect together with each other?

Tony Byers  8:04  
Good question. In some cases they are and so I think some of the best examples that I have been able to witness  recently, is this sounds odd, is that they were both right there. You know yes this is what we do but we haven't been as intentional. And then there are those others that are saying yeah we're clear about what we do, but we know we need to go out and do more, engage more and so you might decide to look at how do we expand our services that's directly related to our business. So, a software company for example, you know yes they provide software but they provide it to corporate organizations. Its financial software they do a lot of different things. They've never really thought about, maybe how do we expose our financial software to a community of individuals who may not necessarily buy the product, but they're still operating in their lane if you will. So they didn't have to create a brand new business or a brand new community based organization. We know software so we're going to do is just make it more accessible and decide to give people an opportunity to engage in the subject.

Alex Colvin  9:11  
It sounds like you're saying is that it needs to be really integrated into into your business like really part of what you're doing as an organization not sort of an extra add on thing that somehow separate from, what we're doing is going to be really part of what you're doing.

Tony Byers  9:25  
Yeah, I actually think that is where you see the better examples, when it's a part of your business, because you know, we gotta do what we know. And what we're trying to do is expand opportunities in our industry or in our area so if this is what we're good at, how do you do it. So, if it's a company that sells a product for example, you may not necessarily go out and teach people how to make tennis shoes. But you might decide to go out and engage with individuals inside to give them other skill sets, maybe it's more financial maybe it's more marketing, maybe it's design, with individuals that you have inside of your institution that can actually make connections with that community is where the opportunity lies. 

Alex Colvin  10:09  
Well we're, we're an academic institution so we have we do, we do research we do teaching, we try and educate about issues that we think are important And you're going to be leading one of our programs this spring the ILR's Chief Diversity Officer Training Program. If you could, tell us a little about how it's going to prepare workplace leaders to advance diversity, equity inclusion in their organizations.

Tony Byers  10:33  
Yeah, so I'm really excited about this program, and you know the the original impetus for it was to, this was before the George Floyd stuff this, maybe over the last year or two, ee just started looking at the role of the chief diversity officer, sometimes called CDO. And one of the things that I've noticed is that there are a large number of organizations that are starting to tap individuals on the shoulder to serve as a chief diversity officer who do not come from the Diversity and Equity and Inclusion background. They don't have that experience or training. They are business leaders, line leaders, functional leaders and maybe they're utilizing the organization is utilizing  the role of CDO as a rotation into a larger leadership role. So now you have a group of individuals, very savvy business leaders, and they're being asked to lead diversity and inclusion. What we discovered or what I've discovered with them is that they can develop a strategy, they know certain tactics, they know the organization, but they still sometimes have a difficult time dealing with the nuance of diversity, equity and inclusion. And honestly, the speed at which it changes inside of an organization, and those things can take people back. So what we started to think about is what can we provide for those individuals who are business leaders, have business experience or line experience, but are new to diversity and inclusion, how can we provide some engagement or some development opportunities for them so that they can partner with researchers and academics like us, as well as individuals from the field who are leading leaders in diversity and inclusion and learn the nuances, the behind the scenes, of what I wish I knew as a diversity and equity, and inclusion leader inside of an organization, had I know this 10 years ago these things would be different. So it's this unique thing of getting best practice, best research, best change time data, along with practitioners who've actually done and lead it in the field and helping to accelerate the learning for those new chief diversity officers. And then finally, the last and I think the probably one of the most exciting pieces of this is, what can we as a diversity, equity and Inclusion industry, learn from these new leaders who can come and bring a fresh perspective, and hopefully develop some innovative approaches to how to lead diversity, equity inclusion inside of organizations. From that standpoint, I think it's just going to be very exciting for us to see what we learn, as well as what we can do to help prepare people to be successful.

Alex Colvin  13:14  
Yes. Sounds like a fantastic program and I'm betting you're gonna get some interesting conversation amongst the participants. It'll be really interesting to see who's who's part of the class as they're going through this course. 

Tony Byers  13:26  
Yeah, I think that's, I think that's where the excitement lies you know just the ability for individuals to say hey, how do we look at this differently. When diversity leaders have signal, this is the way to look at it. And I think that that approach is going to bring a lot of innovation, and it's exciting. You know, I always tell people diversity, equity and inclusion, or just diversity as an industry has been around for 60 to 70 years. And one of the fascinating things about it is that we're talking about the same things today, in which we were 70 years ago. So that to me means that we perhaps might even think about doing something different. If we want to have a new approach or have greater success in a space and getting these leaders with different perspectives together, who are responsible for D&I to learn the basics or to learn some of the behind the scenes but give us a new perspective, in my mind, that's that's that's where we're gonna get some innovative outcomes from there so I'm really excited about that.

Alex Colvin  14:27  
Yeah, that that is really exciting and the idea that we need to, to make this a long ongoing process, you know, as you said, it's been it's been around for 70 years and we've, we've been working on it for a long period of time 2020 might have given us this boost. But it's not a one shot deal.

Tony Byers  14:44  
Definitely 2020 has served as a flywheel for us, unfortunately, you know, because the thing that accelerates it means that someone in this case, a number of people had to have unfortunate experiences where they lost thier lives and now we got people at a point where they're paying attention to it. And so how do we seize the moment and and then how do we ensure that it's a movement, and it continues to move on beyond the 2020 experience. It wasn't you know, honestly, we're dealing with a lot of things in 2020 and sounds like 2021, and they're not a lot of mindshare for our emotion or energy for a lot of things but we are at a point where we can actually moonshot this and take a big step forward. So I'm pretty excited about that, that potential.

Alex Colvin  15:36  
We've talked a lot about what organizations could be doing and how to kind of develop the leadership of organizations, but it's also the case a lot of individual people have been thinking, "Hey you know I I'd like to do more to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in my organizations. What can I do as an individual, I may not be a CEO or CEO or a top position leader, but I want to help out in my organization. What can I do to advance Diversity, Equity and inclusion. Do we have any advice for what an individual can do?

Tony Byers  16:09  
Great question there as well. And this is that this is that one that is simple and complex. We need people to act right but the complexity is, how do we go back and get to the step. So I understand why individuals have taken an approach to development and reading, because there's actually stages of being able to make a difference in the space and the first stage is individual individual. What are you doing as an individual to learn, gather new knowledge, understand the issues that are relevant, those kind of things. So this is where we have been for a period of time. Oh, it's all about educating and learning. Now, inside of an organization or system you move from this individual perspective to this team. This team perspective asks us how do I behave on the team, or what's my role or responsibility on the team to create an environment that values equity and inclusion. And so then it is giving opportunity to people how am I engaging with people if I'm not a leader, how am I observing the environment and standing up when I see things that are not appropriate or go against diversity, equity inclusion. You have to be in a position in a place where you can call it out. You're speaking from your knowledge of what you learn and the experience. You see it, you understand it, now I'm now I'm taking steps to stop it and we're trying to try to do something different. So, from individual to team, from team to organization. So, as an organization, a collective of individuals, what are we doing to stop what we see that is inappropriate, create an environment of values equity inclusion, ensure that we have opportunity for people to participate in the process. And then now we're starting to make better decisions as an organization. And then finally from the organization to a community and that's where we get to the outside of our organization so you can see how this relates to what we talked about in the beginning of our conversation. So, there is a framework or tere's stages of this. And what I want people to take away from this conversation is that the individual learning aspect of it is actually just a first step. So you go from individual to team. The team to organization. The organization to community. And once we learn to pull all of those things together, then we start to create this environment where Diversity and Equity and Inclusion starts to permeate throughout our larger community. But what happens is that we stopped too much at the individual aspect. Now, I know this is a long answer but I often hear people say well you know Tony I read the book but not What do you want me to do.

It's hard question for some, and so yes there is

another framework that they call it three A's. And that is awareness, and that's what the book reading is supposed to do. And then there's awareness or acknowledgement we need to kind of have to acknowledge that it's happening. You know, for a long time we weren't comfortable saying that this stuff actually exists anymore. So we need you to acknowledge it. And then once you acknowledge it, you get to the stage where you can affirm as to second A, and an affirmation comes from, you know, you've been able to talk about it, you've been able to point it out, you've been able to see things that take place. And then after you get to the affirmation, then you can act. And then taht act, you know, then becomes easier for you once you have acknowledged and then you have, have some awareness. So once you need to, I'm sorry, where you refer. So what you need to be able to do is just to pull those two things together. And then, where you act, how you act, why you act, becomes so much easier for you to answer.  But what people do is they see it as experience, they feel the emotion which we all do, and then they want to act right away when they're not aware, or they haven't even affirmed actually what was going on. And so I want to give people a break, take yourself through these stages, and you know I stumbled on it but I definitely want to make sure that I get clear about them. It is the ability to be able to acknowledge and then affirm, and then you can act, and that's where we get the best.

Alex Colvin  20:22  
Yeah, I think that's a powerful message for people to hear that. This is a long journey and we need to understand that there's going to be multiple steps along the way. You know you've started off talking about that with organizations need to go beyond that kind of statement of wanting to be an inclusive organization and actually take actions and then the same thing as individuals. Are you an optimist? Where do you see us at the, at the end of this process? Do you think we're going to make progress? 

Tony Byers  20:53  
I love that question. And the way that I respond to it is I tell people that I am frustratedly optimistic. You know, so that's the phrase that I've kind of created. I'm definitely frustrated because people had to lose their lives. We seem to be having the same conversation over again. You wonder if there's going to be anything different this time because there are a lot of moments slash movements that I can point to over the last 60 years where I thought this is the one this is the one that's going to make change. I am eternally optimistic and hopefully optimistic from the standpoint of, I can definitely see how this time is very different than any time that I've seen before. Part of it has been the breadth of it. You know this is turned in from a local community movement in Minneapolis, which by the way I lived in, I grew up a block and a half away from where George Floyd was murdered. That's my neighborhood community. So it started at a community issue that became a global phenomenon. And then you throw in, or you add in you know Breonna Taylor and others who have experienced you know these tragedies. And so what we see is it went from a community issue inside of a small state in the US to this global thing where you have individuals that talk across the globe carrying signs that read Floyd or Taylor, who are making conversation or creating conversation and asking organizations. It's different. To sports figures being a part of it, to community leaders, to business leaders, and to young people, to old, to all different types of backgrounds, all over the world. That is, you have to be optimistic when you see all of these people come together and decide at the same time. "Let's all do something." So this whole movement of everyone locking arms and deciding we need to take one big step forward, creates a great deal of optimism for me, and I'm super super excited about it. Versus one person taking a step forward we have the entire world willing to do something at this moment. The question is, what will we do, how will we do it together. And there's this famous quote that says, "After it's all said and done, let's just hope there's a lot more done and said." 

Alex Colvin  23:12  
Well, that's a great way to close. Thank you, Tony. I appreciate  the insights you've given us and let's, let's all try to stay frustratedly optimistic going forward.

Tony Byers  23:22  
Thank you, I appreciate the opportunity to work with you and be here. And yes, let's remain frustratingly optimistic.

Julie Greco  23:31  
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