Diversity initiatives are a carnival ride of nothingness

Chase some of these stats, new-ish from Stanford:

Previous research shows that women hold only 7% of CEO posts at Fortune 500 firms while ethnically diverse employees hold only 9%. Larcker and Tayan dug deeper to uncover the size, structure, and demographic makeup of Fortune 100 C+1 positions. Of these, women make up just 25% while racially diverse executives hold 16%. There are six Fortune 100 firms without any ethnic or gender diversity at the C+1 level; 26 feature a woman or two but not a single ethnically diverse manager reporting directly to the CEO.

Another bleak angle to these figures: They show less diversity in positions that are likely to lead to a CEO or a corporate board spot. The most direct paths to the top tend to involve profit-and-loss leaders and CFOs, say Larcker and Tayan. Both women and racially/ethnically diverse people hold just 13% of these higher-potential positions. Additionally, among all Fortune 100 companies, only four CFOs are not white.

Every year we get these reports, sometimes based on 100, 1500, tech firms, or whatever else. They’re never very good. The numbers don’t seem to budge. Then something climatic happens “in the market” — say, George Floyd — and a bunch of brands “commit to social justice” and use the right hashtags and maybe give a Board seat to a POC, but broadly nothing happens and we’re all just waiting until the temperature drops a bit and it can be blowing and going business as usual.

Why isn’t there seemingly real progress?

Yes, why isn’t there?

I think the main thing that you need to understand is that work is a very complicated psychological place. We want it to be process-driven and logical, but it very rarely is — and this ultimately leads to frustration, or, honestly, a lot of people just coming in, doing their tasks, leaving, coming back, and waiting for the direct deposit. People get burned out on trying to change big things because shit is so inertia-laden, and they just become target-hitters looking for a check. Most of us are idealistic in our first jobs, be it 18 or 22. It’s very hard to find an idealistic 45 year-old in CubicleLand. They exist, but they’re rare creatures.

Diversity is a hard thing to accomplish because it’s so multi-faceted and it’s fraught with belief structures at every level. If you talk about standard diversity, like gender and skin color, there’s always a group who will come in saying that is limiting and wanting to talk about cognitive diversity or something else (which does have validity). There are lots of concerns about meritocracy, things changing, etc, etc. These are not easy topics. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try — we should — but the topics ain’t easy.

At the intersection of “work is a psychological place” and “diversity is challenging to execute upon,” there’s a whole dynamic where — as you can see in the pull quote above — a lot of executives focus on profit/loss silos. They are OK with someone diverse running HR, or maybe corporate comms, or maybe in-house legal. But when it comes down profit/loss silos, who will be meeting with the CEO the most, the CEO — who is probably a white male in his 50s — wants to be surrounded by like-minded people who get him, who look like him, who have wives that look like his wife, whose kids go to similar schools as his kids, etc. There is a sharp human need for belonging, and one of the most tangible forms of belonging is like-minded tribe-ness. Who wants a woman with green hair and a nose ring in meetings about CAGR and financial strategy? That almost makes the meeting less fun for the other people in it, because it’s not some breathless game of Whack-A-Strategy with the boys from the country club (the good one, not the nouveau one, of course).

Who can really act on this stuff?

Basically executives, who often don’t — or wait for storms to pass.

At the peon worker level, sure, you can post on Instagram. It’s likely performative. You can put up a “We’re Listening” yard sign. Are you? Awesome. Are your neighbors on either side POC? OK.

But the problem at the peon worker level is that eventually you need a check to buy groceries and pay rent and pay your cell bill and all that, and oftentimes a company is giving you that check. So you can push hard, sure, but you can’t break it — just bend it. If you break it, now you’re destitute and scrambling. Having been there as an adult, it’s not cool.

In the middle levels? Those guys and gals are usually ass-kissers to the execs, looking to get minted. Not a lot of change there. Mostly trains running.

HR? HR is an eunuch. It has no power even remotely except for firing people that execs don’t like — and, again, it serves the execs, not the workers or some social justice mission.

So there’s no real level we can change this stuff at, unfortunately. What tends to happen is that a report comes out, people tweet “We need to do better,” there’s a few debates online about what “diversity” is or means, and then we go back to task lists, collecting checks, scrolling social feeds, Netflix, and the like.

A few months later, another report drops. We need to do better! Rinse and repeat.

Meanwhile execs are holed up chasing fiscals. Middle managers are looking to get their nut. Peons are looking at fun videos on IG and sometimes tagging things #BLM. Everyone is doing the exact thing you’d expect at that level.

And it’s all lip service, going round and round…

Can we change it and make companies more diverse?

Might happen more organically as Gen Z gets into exec roles, but again, there is a pull of likeness in high-rank positions, so maybe not.

We had a rough year on the social justice front in 2020 and, honestly, all we seem to be discussing right now is vaccines and Trump, at least in the USA. Maybe that Greene crackpot. We’re not really doing the black squares thing. Instead, we’re introducing our spring ath-leisure lines.

So it does feel like a giant carnival ride of the same old bullshit, and I’m not sure we’re suddenly going to start seeing women of color running $50B companies. Do you think we will?