Join us for a captivating exploration of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the workplace with two distinguished experts, Darius Johnson and Leland Jourdan of FTI Consulting.
Darius Johnson, a visionary DEI practitioner, and Lee Jourdan, former Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Chevron, offer unique perspectives on the future of DEI.
In this episode, we uncover the journey of these two thought leaders and their invaluable insights. We delve into the evolving DEI landscape, touching on the challenges posed by societal shifts and polarized discourse. We also highlight the importance of genuine commitment and impactful actions to address systemic inequality.
Our expert guests emphasize integrating DEI into every facet of an organization and the crucial role of curiosity in problem-solving. They discuss metrics, sponsorship programs, and inclusive leadership as vital components of successful DEI initiatives.
Discover how DEI dynamics impact a company's success and how leaders can strategically incorporate DEI into core business practices.
Join us on this enlightening journey into the Future of DEI, where we unravel insights, strategies, and the path forward in building more inclusive and equitable workplaces.
Tune in now to be part of the conversation shaping the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion!
Transcript below:
Erica D'Eramo 0:05
Hello and welcome to the Two Piers podcast. This is still season four and we've got some great guests joining us today to discuss kind of some context and future around DEI efforts and progress around diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace specifically.
Erica D'Eramo 0:33
Today, we've got Darius Johnson joining us, an expert DEI practitioner, and thought leader. He uses best practice Business and Leadership fundamentals such as change management, communication and employee engagement to maximize the value that organizations can create from their DEI initiatives. So over the last two decades, Darius has lived and worked in the US, Europe and Asia and has been helping organizations and their leaders drive transformational change across multiple industries. He's been a part of in house teams at some of the world's largest most influential companies such as Chevron and British Telecom. He's also been an entrepreneur and a trusted adviser to some of the most well known global brands. So Darius received his bachelor's degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rice University. So fellow engineer there and fellow Rice grad, and then Global Executive MBA from INSEAD business school. He's also a recent graduate of Santa Clara University's Black Corporate Board Readiness Program. He's currently a managing director at FTI Consulting's People and Transformation practice and he leads their client facing DEI services. Along with Darius, we also have Leland Jourdan. So Lee is an author and keynote speaker on leadership, diversity, equity and inclusion. He's a contributor to Harvard Business Review, the Washington Post and several energy industry publications. He's been featured on the front page of the Washington Post for his DEI insights. So while serving as the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Chevron, his work led to recognition by Business Insider as one of the 100 people transforming business in North America in 2020. Prior to his work in the diversity space, Lee led teams in Southeast Asia negotiating with Ministries of industry to acquire concessions to drill for hydrocarbons, and retired from full time work in mid 2021. Lee became an independent director on public private equity and nonprofit boards and is currently a senior adviser to FTI Consulting. He holds a Bachelors of Science in National Security and Foreign Affairs with a concentration in general engineering from the US Military Academy at West Point. So two very distinguished guests joining us today, and I can't wait for this conversation. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us for the podcast. So happy to have you here.
Darius Johnson 2:55
Thanks so much for having us, Erica. I've been really looking forward to the conversation.
Erica D'Eramo 3:00
Yeah, thank you. Thanks for making time. Lee, thanks for joining us.
Leland Jourdan 3:04
Same here. Erica. Really looking forward to it. Thanks.
Erica D'Eramo 3:06
Yeah, I reached out to Lee, actually the background of this, I reached out because Lee is a fellow contributor, columnist for Oilwoman Magazine. And he wrote an excellent piece around how essentially like this idea of inclusion being a new thing is kind of, you know, it's not a new thing, right? It's like table stakes, basic leadership skills. And I thought I would love to have this conversation with Lee, and Lee introduced me to Darius and we, we chatted about, you know, some of the great topics to discuss here, especially in terms of all the questions we've been getting lately around the future of DEI. So, so yeah, thanks for that. Do you? Darius, do you want to share a little bit in your own words around like, what brought you to this work and, and what brought you here today?
Darius Johnson 3:55
Yeah, happy to so I mean, I think it kind of goes back to my origin story, really. I grew up in Louisiana. I, I had a pretty okay upbringing there. But I did feel very acutely othered - there were lots of racial identity issues floating around and actually, as a child, I wanted to escape all things racial. And I couple that with kind of my my own journey where I started out in doing very, very technical work, and gradually got more into things like leadership, culture, transformation, communications, stakeholder engagement. And even as I made that transition, I wouldn't have really imagined myself getting into this work. I think I spent most of my life running away from this work. I spent a lot of time kind of being voluntold you know that I was gonna be on diversity committees, or "Hey, would you, you know, can you lead this initiative?" But But I think, kind of my background and the fact that I, you know, would kind of span the technical and the non technical. Plus the fact that I lived outside of the US for over a decade, got to see many, many other things in the world, I got to understand how critically important DEI work is not just to society at large, but really to value creation in the world of business. And I started to realize that everything I had experienced and learned and practiced throughout my life and career gave me a pretty unique perspective on it, and and perhaps even a responsibility I came to see, to help individuals, teams and entire organizations to navigate these issues and get it right.
Erica D'Eramo 5:59
Yeah, yeah, that's a powerful origin story. And I definitely... the piece around moving from that technical world into the what people term soft skills and stuff, which I don't, I see a lot of parallels between the engineering brain and the and the DEI work actually. Yeah, that really resonates for me, Lee, how about you? You're also an engineer. So we've got three of us on the call today. Yeah. How about you?
Leland Jourdan 6:27
Yeah, you know, it's interesting couple of things, Erica. One. I was talking to a fellow engineer the other day, and he said, you know, the soft skills are the hard stuff. You know, the things that we studied in school, you can you can measure, they're there. They're solid, they're, they're very objective. But But mastering the soft skills as the hard stuff. And as important stuff, it's, those are the things that make people want to come to work. The second thing I wanted to mention that was interesting that we didn't really touch on, you know, people listening to this, or those that are visually impaired, won't know that both Darius and I are African American, are Black.
Erica D'Eramo 7:07
Yes.
Leland Jourdan 7:08
I think it's important to dimension that. Until you understand our perspectives. Hearing Darius's background story. We have a lot of similarities. We talk about these things a lot. So I grew up in Southern California. And when I was about eight years old, we moved from Los Angeles to a town called Rowland Heights, and we moved there. There are only five black people in the entire town. And they were all in my family. And so but it was interesting, I didn't have a lot of, of challenges racially growing up. It wasn't until I went to West Point, and was surrounded by, for the first time in my life, 200 young men that looked like me. And that was actually more of a culture shock and culture change for me. And it was an interesting process. That's a whole nother that's a whole nother webcast to talk about at some point. But the things that I experienced there any case, I got into this work, as you read my my background, my bio is most of my work in oil and gas was in the business development space. Later in my career, if you reach a certain level at Chevron, you may be tapped to serve in what's called a management sponsor role, where you essentially facilitate the movement of personnel in your function around the globe. And so I was moving directors and VPs in different positions. And because of that, I was privy to some data that others aren't privy to. And, you know, I recognized that there was a lack of people from underrepresented groups, people of color at the top of the organization. And that's not unique to Chevron. It's that's throughout most of the western world. And so I asked my analyst do some work to just try to understand that better and, and what he came back with was, was so disheartening. It was such a gut punch to me that, I'll never forget, it was two o'clock in the afternoon, I packed up my bags, and I went home. And I thought to myself, if if this is the kind of representation that occurs at this organization, if this is the way they feel about my community, I don't want to be here. And I went home, and I walked in the house about three o'clock in the afternoon, my wife was there, and she said, "What the hell are you doing home?" And I explained it to her. And she said, "Oh," she said, "So what are you going to do about it?" And I thought, right, because I am really not quitting. I just, I was just done for the day. And I went back and I started looking into what we're doing around diversity there at Chevron. And the good news was that we're doing a lot more than I had, than I was aware of. And Chevron has really been a leader in a lot of a lot of dimensions around diversity for decades, long before I got into the role. But long story short, that discussion led to more work in diversity around 2016. And then ultimately, a ultimately led to me being appointed as the Chief Diversity Inclusion Officer of Chevron in 2018. So that's how I got into the work. And then when I retired three years later, Darius reached out, and I was just really, really enthralled by the way FTI was going about this work. And it really has to do with understanding the many perspectives that play into this. It's not just one or two, and I think Darius and my background really kind of helps us see that. And so we're able to address things, I think, from different perspectives and understand there's a common ground, we have to get to, to unleash the power of diversity and inclusion in organizations. And that's what we tried to do.
Erica D'Eramo 10:42
Yeah, so in both of these cases, it sounds like pulling for all of us, I think like our work within diversity, equity and inclusion kind of originated well before some of the shift changes that we saw in 2020. And this like bow wave of interests that we saw, and what I would probably characterize as some, a mixture of well intentioned and performative actions around like to try to close some gaps after the murder of George Floyd. And I think that now we're sitting in 2023. And we're seeing, I keep seeing these questions around like, what's the future of DEI? Was, is DEI over? And to me, it's very unsettling because it was never new. And this has been sort of like basic business best practice for a long time. And so that's why I wanted to have this conversation. Like, I think it's really important that this question keeps coming up to me from clients, from friends, from DEI practitioners that are, you know, seeing the numbers about cutbacks in budgets, cutbacks in staff and so so yeah, I think, no better people to have this conversation with than both of us. So what are you seeing right now? What are you seeing? And like, how do you think we got here?
Darius Johnson 12:07
Happy to start. You know, it's a, it's a very, very interesting time right now. And I think that many people that are working in this space, as you know, what we would call DEI practitioners, grappling with these issues day in and day out, they might not use the word interesting. They might, they might feel that it's a distressed time. And, and really, that the spotlight is on them. And, you know, I think that is a product of the public discourse, that has really caused stakeholders across the entire landscape to focus in on this issue. And as with most dynamics in business, things are sort of moving in response to what's happening in the external and internal environments, I wouldn't dare suggest that DEI is cyclical, because I don't think that's true. But I do think that there are a number of dynamics going on. If you asked me, well, you know, are you seeing more kind of organic acquisitions of companies in the economy, or, I mean, a couple years back, we were seeing lots of SPACs. If people know what that is, it was just a different dynamic. And what I've seen and reflected on is, you had kind of two pretty pivotal moments in time in recent history. One was the summer of 2020. With everything else that we were dealing with in society, plus, George Floyd, that created a another sort of spotlight on on these activities. The discourse around those events had, you know, a very positive leaning, almost, here's the blank checkbook. We clearly need to do this. Tell me what I need to do. I am fully supportive. And I'm now ready to make a lot of commitments, now we can get into whether or not people have followed up on those commitments. But that was one discourse. The recent SCOTUS decision on Affirmative Action, although it dealt exclusively with sort of educational institutions and admission to institutions of higher education, has still had a pretty profound impact on that spotlight that has been placed on the DEI topic and the DEI practitioners except this time, it's not exclusively a positive spotlight, this is a much more polarized public discourse that has started. And that, of course, is going to span across the stakeholder landscape. How are investors talking about this? How are employees talking about it? How are the politicians talking about it? And and as we start to think about impacts on business, this is a much more nuanced and, and difficult landscape to navigate.
Erica D'Eramo 15:34
Yeah. Lee, how about you? What What have you been seeing?
Leland Jourdan 15:39
Yeah, you know, I think, you know, one thing to keep in mind is that, you know, progress is never in a straight line.
Erica D'Eramo 15:45
Yeah.
Leland Jourdan 15:46
And, and this is certainly no exception. This work is difficult. We're going to we're going to talk a little bit later, I think about about some suggestions, things that practitioners, mainly CDIOs can do to, to address what's going on. But the main thing is to keep in mind that, that this is just one more step in the change. You know, when you think back, and I'm just gonna, I'm gonna focus on the Black community first. You know, when you go back to slavery, and then Black codes, and then penitentiary, labor, unequal schools, economic inequality, Jim Crow, Voting Rights Act, these are all different fights, right? It's this, it's the same thing. It's inequality that has taken on a different facade throughout history. And now we're fighting it in a different way. This, this will simply continue. And so you have to be nimble, you have to be resilient, you have to be, you have to figure out how to be objective and understand things from again, different perspectives. So you can you can address those fears that people have about, about what equality really means. And so this is just this is another time in our history where we have to adjust to the fight and and and deal with it in different ways. And it takes it takes some some brave and courageous people to do that. And we've seen that throughout history. And this is this is really no different. You'll see people step up and make this fight and make progress and get the pendulum swinging back in the other direction. I think it's it's, it's been tethered a bit, if you will, with the latest SCOTUS ruling, it's been damp, dampened. And, and so we've got to do some things to to make sure it continues to move back on that path, and move it back in the right direction.
Erica D'Eramo 17:50
Yeah, I think there is. It feels like there's a bit of a dynamic to that for folks who sort of had an awakening when they were like, "Oh, wow, wait, things are much. I didn't realize it was this bad," or I didn't, you know, I think a lot of people sort of had a wake up call around 2020. And maybe don't have that, like longer purview of history around how this has not been linear. And it's not been binary that like one day things are unequal and one day, and then the next day, they're equal, like it's been a fight for, I mean, Reconstruction, right, like, we can look at how we've like made progress, and then receded with progress, and then made progress again, so have those folks who have been doing this for decades. You know, that's this is not necessarily a surprise. And maybe they have that, that resilience that, you know, we can be teaching to the folks who are maybe a bit more new to the fight. But I do think in 2020, it was almost like a spotlight was shown on like, like people started peeling back and looking like we just like, "What are DEI metrics? What are what is our representation in our company?" and people started asking questions that they hadn't been asking before. And I think companies got caught out a little bit. And then it was like a quick just paper over it with some money and throw whatever we've got at it. And because it didn't have that organic growth, I think we've seen like, less than 4% of the money that was pledged towards equity initiatives in 2020 has been actually been spent, less than 4%. So so in a way I'm I'm hoping that what we're seeing now is maybe we're maybe we're receding to what we what's actually not performative what's actually making a difference like we can get real about what we can do that makes a difference, has impact and not not just for first, I don't want to say for show but like not just to paper over some some metrics, what I'm what, how does that land for you guys? What are your thoughts?
Darius Johnson 20:06
Well, I, I really sincerely hope that leaders and companies aren't intending to do things just for show. I do think that it's particularly challenging when you try and address issues like this that are both fundamental to the way you run a business and fundamental to the way that people view themselves and express themselves. It's really, really challenging to make good solid decisions when you're in reactive mode.
Erica D'Eramo 20:44
Yes.
Darius Johnson 20:45
And the vast majority of organizations did come out of the summer of 2020, in a very reactive mode. And even going into 2021. It was very much a mad dash to "What do we say? What do we do?" Quick, quick, quick. You know, my peers have made this commitment, you know, this money has been allocated. And I actually think, if we go back to, again, a fundamental here that DEI can be quite strategic. And rather, rather than looking at this as doing something for show, I think it does speak to the fact that lots of organizations really started leaning into this concept of altruism, which is one of three major lenses that that I think about, and that altruism lens is not a bad lens, or the wrong lens, it's the lens that says, We must do this work, because it is just the right thing to do. You know, why haven't we done more up to this point? What more can we do? It just should happen. And I feel deeply that it should happen, or the values of my organization would imply that we should be more involved in this. I'm fully supportive of that lens. And I think that many of the leaders and practitioners that do this work, favor that lens, right. And you will find business leaders that say, I don't know much more about DEI than how to spell it. But I also agree with you, the problem is that that particular lens is really going to ebb and flow with "well, how are we doing as a business? You know, what funding do we have available? What's going on in society? How much pressure are we under?" And that doesn't create a sustainable program of change or value creation? And that's why I think we need a couple other lenses to really apply this. And if you'll hear me, I'll mention those. Coupled with the altruism there, there are going to be some stakeholders and and we've actually had conversations where it's like, "Well, how are you thinking about DEI?" And it's, well, what do we have to disclose? How can we make sure that no one out there is doing things that are going to get us in trouble legally? How do we make sure we understand the different laws in different states or different countries and actually comply with those, we genuinely want to comply with those? That's about it, right? And so I kind of call that the business hygiene or compliance lens of DEI. And again, it's not a bad lens, but on its own, right, does it really move the needle? Or does it just keep you out of trouble?
Erica D'Eramo 23:58
Right.
Darius Johnson 23:59
And so I would say, Okay, well, let's put that together. Right? There's, there's that business hygiene lens, there's the altruism lens, and maybe we get a little more done. There's a third lens that I really think unites everything, which is the value creation lens, where I think you truly turn DEI into a strategic enabler by saying, what does this have to do with our business? Right? What does DEI have to do with whatever it is we exist to do? And how does it make it, how does it make us better? Perhaps we even dare to ask a question like, "What risks does it introduce to our business and our operations?" "How will we mitigate those risks, what opportunities does it present and how will we capture those opportunities?" That discussion is one that you should be able to have with just about every business leader, whether their, you know, initial angle is one of "Hey, I'm with you, I've always been with you, this is an important issue to me," or "Please keep us out of trouble." Just about everyone in the organization wants the organization to do better at whatever it exists to do sell shoes,
Erica D'Eramo 25:20
The mission, yeah.
Darius Johnson 25:21
...make hamburgers, build buildings, engage clients. Everyone wants that. And if you find leaders in your organization that aren't behind getting better at what the organization does, you've got a different set of problems much bigger than support for DEI. So I really do think as we think about, well, how do we come up with the right things to be doing and commitments that we will follow through on, activities that are sustainable, we want to get above the ebbs and flows of social discourse, we want to get beyond the minimum requirements that are set by government. And we want to think about how we make our business better, which is going to include all of that.
Leland Jourdan 26:03
I'm going to add a little bit to what to what Darius is talking about, in talking about the compliance piece a little bit. There are some organizations that are only in this because of the compliance piece, right. And there's actually been studies that that bear that out Seramount to it's kind of a think tank in the DE&I and culture space, did a study of CEOs and found that about 30% of them, were only leaning into dei work because they felt like they had to. And so and so if you're in one of those organizations, and you typically know if you are, you know, if your, if your CEO is thinking, authentic, or speaking authentically about about what they're doing, and if that's from the heart, and from the business perspective, if they're talking about altruism and the business case, and and that's what's driving them, or if they're just saying, you know, the the things that Darius described around compliance, if that's what they're focused on, then as soon as that heat is off, they're going to stop. And that's where you see, you know, the firing of CDIOs and the downsizing of, of DE&I departments and things like that. And so, again, to Darius's, Darius's point, it's about, it's about tying these DEI initiatives to your business initiatives and objectives, linking those, and so people can understand where the business value is. And that's the that's the sustainable driver to why DE&I is important to organizations and organizations that get that then have a competitive advantage over those that don't.
Erica D'Eramo 27:38
Yeah, and it's not an artificial tying to, like, we're not tying it to the value case, just to get it through the door, like this is fundamental, accessing a full suite of talent, right, like debottlenecking, your talent pipeline, so you actually access a full range of talent, and people aren't facing barriers into your company, that are arbitrary, or based on socioeconomic status or, or race or gender. And having an organization that is resilient, because it has different types of thinking and different brains in it. And it can, yeah, and they can like tackle all of the problems that come and it's, representative of client base. Like, these are fundamental good business. It's not an artificial tying. Lee, yeah, what are your thoughts?
Leland Jourdan 28:29
Yeah, yeah, you really hit on something I want to I want to drill into a bit more, Erica, and it has to do with how you help people define the business case? Because that's the next question is Okay, how is it? What's in it for me? What's in it for my organization? And what you talked about is a way to do that. Because even even people that push back against DEI will always argue, "Hey, we think everybody's the same. This should be merit based, you know, there is no separate group that is inferior or superior to another, right, we want to we want a level playing field. So let's make it fair for everybody." They're all going to say that, right? And so then you can go to the numbers and say, All right, if we believe that, but we're only tapping into 2% of this group, or 4% of this group. And if we're doing that, then we're not accessing the talent in those groups. And we're also not developing them. So that is, that's a very easy way to get to reach common ground on the business cases, hey, let's create an organization that is attractive to every group out there. And will will be attractive we'll skim the cream of the crop from each of these different organizations, no matter what their background is how they identify, we're going to get the best of the best in here. And that's how that's how we're going to create value. And that's a that's a good baseline. It's a good foundation for saying, here's the business case for this. If you agree that we're all the same, and we should be able to we should want to tap into all of the talent that's out there. Just want to emphasize that because I think that's a good way to just lock onto that business case.
Erica D'Eramo 29:55
That's where I think that I'm like, true curiosity in this space is really sort of a superpower, because if you look at the numbers, and you don't bring that curiosity about like, "What's, what's really going on there?" Like that root cause failure analysis brain of like Five Why's, if you're not looking at it with true curiosity, then you say, well, those folks just aren't interested or they're just not applying right, like you find the quickest, easiest answer to explain that away. And I think that's especially the case in, like, when we talked about the compliance versus the business case, I see this approach versus avoidance goals, right? Like, if you saying, let's set a goal to like not do X, Y, and Z, that's much harder to attain, actually and harder to get motivated around than an approach of, or than a goal of, let's do X, Y, and Z. And I see the business case around that, like approach goals, and that curiosity, that true troubleshooting to find out what's underlying this. And the compliance side is really I mean, it's risk mitigation, right? It's around avoidance of like, let's not make the mistakes. And, and it's necessary. And also, it is a bit harder to get people really energized around the compliance case.
Darius Johnson 31:17
It's hard, it's hard to get some people really energized around it...
Erica D'Eramo 31:19
True!
Darius Johnson 31:20
And others are extremely energized. You know, your Chief Compliance Cfficer to General Counsel's and partners and law firms, they're very, very enthusiastic about that lens, and that's why I don't think it's a bad lens. And as a matter of fact, you know, just a little bit of nuance to to this discussion. The the business hygiene or compliance lens is part of the business case, it may be a substantive part of your business case for your organization. Let's imagine you are a multinational, you know, an international organization with footprint across multiple geographies, and especially as you step outside of the US, you're operating in Europe, right? You should have your eyes wide open, what are the requirements here? And how do I fulfill them, you can be very, very well intentioned and still run afoul of those. Now, that alone, though, doesn't maximize the value creation. And, and so I think we would want to add that and the other thing that I think is important to keep in mind is, we do tend to think about diversity work as being centered around employees. And what I tend to say is that your employees are your most important stakeholder group in this work, however, right, this concept spans across the entirety of any given business. And so not, we don't only need to think about how we access the best talent and keep the best talent and develop the best talent, right? We also want to think about things like how we derisk our supply chain, right? How many people are talking about supplier diversity programs as community service or corporate social responsibility, as opposed to you know, a key aspect of how the supply chain is actually managed and approached and, and derisked. We also want to think about other aspects of how we engage the community. Environmental Justice is very much a topic for certain certain industries where, let's think about industrials and energy companies where there is a significant impact on community. And getting those things wrong, can have a very material impact on the bottom line. And so, again, this, this starts to get us into this idea that the DEI work you're doing is not off in a corner. And it's not about just making people feel good about themselves or about the company. It's also about making sure the company is doing the right things. With a very diverse group of stakeholders, your customers are more diverse than ever. Your employees, just look at society, are more diverse than ever. Investors are more diverse than ever. Entrepreneurs and business owners are more diverse than ever. So to turn a blind eye to this and say, "This is not material," is very, very unwise for the vast majority of companies.
Erica D'Eramo 32:05
Yeah, yeah, it's that's a, it's a great point. I think we so often focus and maybe because it's so visible and accessible the employee view of it, but you Write that it's really threaded throughout the entire workings of the business. Yeah. I see some parallel, and maybe this resonates with both of you having worked in energy, but I really see some parallels, or potential parallels between sort of how we view safety in some of these more industrial realms and the progress that we've seen over decades around how we view safety, and how we view DEI, in that it's not just an add on thing that you can like tack on, it's threaded throughout the entirety of the business and it's not a matter of, "Well it's the right thing to do!" Yes, it is. And also, it is the right business thing to do. It's the responsible business thing to do. But also like a safe operation is usually a reliable operation is usually a disciplined operation, right? So like, it comes down to how, the culture of the organization and like it's part of every element, you wouldn't say, "Oh, well, that's the safety officer's job," like "Safety is not my job." You would never hear that in an energy company. Right? That's almost a fireable offense. So that's where I could see that as like, just an analogue that maybe some people can help to understand how this is not just one lens that we're looking through. I love your three lens approach and how it's it really helps just to show how its integrated throughout. Yeah.
Darius Johnson 36:32
Yeah, if I could pick up on something there. I think the safety example really does resonate. For me. I started out in energy. And what what really stands out is if you look at where several industries, not just energy, but if you look at where that industry is today with safety, right? Most organizations really have woven it into like, it's in their DNA. It is just how people do business, not just how they do business. It impacts how they walk along the sidewalk, literally and right, how they walk down stairs, or when they go to the mall, right. Yes, that's how deeply ingrained it is. However, it's a, it's a fallacy to think that you can take any topic, and just get to that point.
Erica D'Eramo 37:31
Right.
Darius Johnson 37:32
Right. It is a journey.
Erica D'Eramo 37:34
Yes.
Darius Johnson 37:35
And and we grapple with this idea that, well, let's we can't have DEI off in the corner as a separate thing. We should have it fully integrated in the business. So let's just do it. Alright, everybody. Now, DEI is part of how we do things. That is not how it works, right? The The first thing we have to do is we have to sort of learn the exercises, build the muscles, be very deliberate about repeating things. We have, sometimes have to use carrot and stick, we have to have visible examples. We have to make mistakes, we have lessons learned. And in the energy industry, this took decades.
Erica D'Eramo 38:15
Yeah.
Darius Johnson 38:15
It really did take decades for it to become fully ingrained. And before it did, right, some big tragedies, absolutely right. There were absolutely and the tragedies were there before, right. Yeah, it was always around, you know, getting getting to zero incidents, right? That was, that was kind of a wild thought like, zero? Well, let's let's let's think of something more reasonable, and it's no not zero is attainable, we, you know, we can get to zero and we're going to operate that way. And I think when we think about the DEI world, we have to understand for every organization, they're gonna be in a different place in their journey. And the more foreign this concept is to that organization, the more we are going to have to put deliberate effort into it. At the beginning of that journey, as we learn the exercises, build the muscles, learn the lessons, etc, and start to change the culture. That's when you can start to take the spotlight off and say, well, actually, if I work in procurement, supplier diversity, of course, that's a part of my job that's just baked into what I do. If you've never thought about that before, then perhaps you do need someone whose job it is to say, "Hey, have we thought about this?" And, you know, let's have this project or program to build capability and change our mindsets and change our habits and show that this creates value that this leads to a better company and better value for all of our stakeholders across the board. When you show that when you do the exercise and and actually let it become ingrained, you don't have to put so much deliberate emphasis on it. And it can be more natural.
Leland Jourdan 40:06
You know, it's interesting, I think, what's what's driven a lot of the view of DEI of it being something separate and new is the fact that that it's it was really high, a lot of recent highlights came because of the murder of George Floyd, right and in 2020. And so what that what that did was, it so when people talk about DE&I, what they really hear is diversity. And when they hear diversity, what they really hear is, this is about Black and brown people and women getting jobs. Yeah, that's what it narrows down to in a lot of people's minds. And so how can that be part of the broader business objective when it's really just about getting Black and brown people, women jobs, it's so much more than that. And, and it's important for practitioners to recognize that take a step back and see where they are on that journey to talk about, Darius, you know, some organizations were called doing diversity before diversity was cool, right? And those folks, it's so ingrained in the organization now, and I'll just use Chevron an example Chevron, Chevron's got its issues, I'm not gonna say they're perfect, but, but they're in their 20th year of Employee Resource Groups. They've had employee resource groups for 20 years, they have a dozen of them now. And they're an integral part of that organization, they come up with, with business solutions. I mean, they're really ingrained and and adding value, that organization, where you get some some organizations that just started doing this stuff a couple of years ago, and they're where you are Darius, they're trying to figure out, well, how does this add value? What does it really mean to us? How can this be an intrinsic part of our DNA, like safety is and it's going to take a while to get there. And so you have to be patient in this process. But you have to keep, you have to keep moving forward. And that's, I think we talked about a lot now is folks that are new to this game are going "Oh, my gosh, this was great a couple of years ago, you know, everyone, they were tripping over themselves to see how they could support all these initiatives. And now they're not, oh, my gosh, we're dying, we're just going to do, DEI is over." It's not over. Yeah. It's just understanding where you are, what the next steps are, celebrating the wins along the way. And continuing continuing along that path.
Erica D'Eramo 42:18
The part about showing the showing the wins, I think is so valuable. And I think that that's where some folks when they look at like, "Oh, we invested all this time and money and energy in 2020 and in 2021. And then I don't know, we haven't really seen progress." Like, well, it's like your garden got audited? And you were like, oh, no, shoot, we don't have any tomato plants, let's just stick some fully grown tomato plants in and not worry about the soil health and not worry about like how we're fostering that and like sort of that inorganic, just, "Look, it's done, it's good." Well, it's no surprise, it didn't come back next year, it's no surprise that you didn't get that long growth because it takes time. You have to plant the seeds, foster them, grow them and like create that environment and ecosystem that then starts showing the rewards, but it won't happen with, I mean, some of the rewards, I do think even immediately, you could see the benefits of a diverse team working together. But, Lee, you mentioned earlier, like that's it's not easy. And so there are there's some growing pains to like, you know, diverse teams disagree with each other, sometimes that's like a part of it. So can you can you expand a little bit on your comment earlier about it not being easy? Or it kind of?
Leland Jourdan 43:44
Yeah, it's I mean, you know, one thing I realized the CDIO is, is, no one's ever happy. In fact, my my boss who was, she was CHRO at Chevron, a Black woman. And at one point, we were making a lot of good progress. And she said, "You know what, we finally have equality, because now even the white males are unhappy." Everybody's unhappy now. So we have equality. And you have to recognize that that no matter what you do, someone's going to think you're doing too much. And someone thinks thinks you're going to be doing too little right. But it's important that, as you said, to measure your progress, and share that progress, and that was a challenge that I think we had is that we weren't initially as transparent as we ultimately realized we could be. And that is a key to success. The transparency. In fact, we'll talk about that for a minute if we could switch subjects to metrics if you will. Because metrics are really the the key to settling on one version of the truth, right? It can because when one group will say "Hey, you know, Group X isn't getting any promotions" and another another group will say, "Well, group Y is getting all the promotions," and the only way to know for sure is to be transparent about that. There are very few organizations today that are sharing promotion rates. But some are and some surprising ones I'll share with you, for example, you can see on their website, Consolidated Edison of New York, we talked about the energy, business and utilities, right? That was a surprise to me to find, because you think of them as being them, those new utility energy business has been behind in this DE&I journey, it was surprising for me to learn that they are ones that share their promotion rates. They're right up there for everybody to see, wow, divided by ethnicity, gender, you know, all of that. Walmart, shares their promotion rates. So you know, folks, it can be done. And once you do that, then you've got to sit back and say, okay, are we, is it is it within balance or not, and there are risks associated with that, of course, you've got to get to a place where, frankly, and I think that's what a lot of organizations are waiting for, are they close enough that we can actually be transparent about this, because if they're not, then we're just asking for a class action lawsuit. But when you can get to transparency around around something like promotion rates, then you can get to where you can recognize if you're making progress or not, you know where to focus. There are actually seven metrics that that that we talk about at FTI that we encourage people to use. In fact, I wrote an HBR article about this. It's called, and we use the acronym APPLE PI, because it actually used it speaks to those seven metrics. I'll list them briefly. Attrition, performance, promotion rates, leadership pipeline, which is succession planning, or your future leader planning. Your employee pipeline, not just who comes in the door, but look at your application, interview, offer all those percentages along the way that pipeline, pay equity, and inclusion, which is measurable, a lot of different ways now. And I'll just talk about pay equity here real quick for a minute. Pay equity, there are, I read, there are at least 58% of organizations that voluntarily do pay equity audits. Why don't the other 42% do that? Why don't they want to know whether or not they're paying equitably or not? You have to ask that question.
Erica D'Eramo 47:16
Yeah.
Leland Jourdan 47:16
And once you have that information, why don't you share that? Why don't you make that transparent? And there are organizations that do, in my mind, that's the easiest way to just put all of this argument to rest about who's getting what, where, and are we transparent about it. So we really encourage organizations to do pay equity audits, make that make that, if you see if you see areas where there's there's inconsistency, make those adjustments to be transparent about that, that's the easiest way to build trust, and to identify where you need to focus, and to have one version of the truth about what's really going on in your organization. So so metrics are a great way to recognize the wins, to measure your progress, and to know where to focus going forward in this space.
Darius Johnson 48:02
I, I just wanted to add to that. I, you know, the I love APPLE PI. You know, I think that's, both literally, and and in this context. But what really strikes me when we have these conversations is that there are some aspects like pay equity, that we're naturally going to say, let's look at this, by default through some lens of diversity, am I looking at pay equity by gender or by race, or, you know, there are a number of other dynamics that you that you might look at. Most of most of the aspects though, putting that one to the side, are not purely DEI topics. These are not topics that we we've just thought about because of George Floyd or, or because of Affirmative Action or anything else. These are human capital management topics. These are topics where if you're not doing the right things, as a business, put gender, put race to the side for a moment, if you don't have good practices here, your business is not going to do well. And what we see when we look at large datasets is that, let's let's take attrition, a company that is not doing well at retaining its talent at managing performance, you know, those sorts of things will disproportionately disadvantage people of color or women in general. Companies that make improvements to their practices in those spaces for all of their employees, disproportionately benefit. minorities, generally speaking, that's the trend. That's what we can expect to happen. And so when we start talking about these issues, one of the ways that we can really cut to the chase is when I start when I see that, for example, you know, Latino employees are not being promoted at adequate rates, my hypothesis becomes the promotion process isn't working very well. I don't necessarily start to think, well, you know, let, let's figure out how to engage this community better, because that might just be a bandaid, right? And so as we start to navigate APPLE PI, or any other sort of list, I mean, there are all sorts of standards out there ESG frameworks, and there's a new European CSRD standards that have come out with with a list of these considerations. If we're not getting it, right, fundamentally, we're probably not getting it right, when we apply that DEI lens. And if we, if the DEI lens is happens to be where this problem bubbles up, I'm very, very interested, through that value creation lens, at addressing the root cause of the problem. And and this leads me to, you know, a really interesting realization that I had several years back where I started to realize that we had this conver, conversation about diverse teams, diverse employees, etc. And when we say that we're generally talking about minorities, we're, "Well, we need more diverse hires." What does that mean, exactly? What you're saying is you want to, you want to bring people in that aren't currently represented. But actually, when we think about this, from a human capital perspective, we're talking about everyone, right? When I talk about our diverse employees, I include white males, straight white males are part of my diverse employees that I have in my organization. And as I start to think about these initiatives that are going to bring out the best in my diverse employees, I mustn't neglect the majority, because guess what, there are more of them. And I also want to know what they think and I want to bring out the best, I want to develop them, I want to promote them, I don't want to do so unfairly or disproportionately, right? But I think just that small mindset shift of saying, these programs that we create are not just about Black people, or women, or part or the LGBTQ community, they are about the fact that we're all working together, we all have different backgrounds, different perspectives. As Lee mentioned, we want the best talent out of every single one of those groups. And by the way, the level of intersectionality is higher than it's ever been, right? The number of multiracial people, people that are part of a minority racial group, and also LGBTQ well, how do I pick? What do I know about these folks, I'm getting myself into a jam if I start to just address certain aspects of identity. But I'm actually right in that value creation mode by recognizing, "Hey, however, many of these papers identify with, I want the best talent, I want to bring the best out in that talent, I want fairness and equity across, you know, this group, including the majority. That's a huge shift that opens a lot of doors in terms of how business can best move forward.
Erica D'Eramo 54:05
I think that that's where I, like not to harp on the curiosity part. But again, this looking at the, if you look at these metrics, and you can see them as a mixture of like leading and lagging indicators, and we're not just trying to fix an outcome here. We're trying to actually be curious about the outcome outcome and understand what's leading to it, because it doesn't make sense. Like, it doesn't make sense, if we believe that, you know, engineering skill is not distributed based on racial background, right? Like, then it wouldn't make sense that you would have such disproportionate promotion rates. And so let's get curious about that and understand why rather than say, like, "Uh oh, better start promoting XYZ more," because that's, again, not fixing the root cause, not being curious. You're just trying to fix an outcome. And so when we get in conversations about metrics, they're so powerful and necessary. And I always want to make sure that people, like take a few steps back and try and make sure they're looking at that big picture like, like you said, Darius and, and Lee to understand the whole ecosystem, how it's playing together, because you can't just like, fix one thing. On the output side. Yeah.
Leland Jourdan 55:24
That is spot on, Erica, I love that you're actually drilling in on and leaning in on curiosity. That's the purpose of aspirational goals. You set these goals and you're not reaching them, then you go back and you look at your systems and your processes, you know, some things that Darius talked about earlier. And what's wrong with our hiring process, that we're not getting representation of all these groups there? What's what's wrong with our promotion processes, that we're not seeing people of color being promoted at the same rate as everyone else? It's not to just jumped to the conclusion of, "Oh, now we got to do all these things and just start promoting people." And that's actually not what people do.
Erica D'Eramo 56:00
Yeah.
Leland Jourdan 56:00
That's, that's what, that's what programs are accused of getting. But you don't really see that happening. What you see happening is the focus in on, "Okay, what what do we need to do differently, to create these opportunities for people?" The one example I'll give is around sponsorship. Sponsorship is a very important but typically informal process that occurs in all organizations. And that's where you have and just, you know, for folks out there, the way I think about sponsorship is a mentor, a mentor talks with you, a sponsor talks about you.
Erica D'Eramo 56:33
I love that framing.
Leland Jourdan 56:34
About you in rooms you're not in, and they also provide the other mentoring and an opportunity building processes for you. But But sponsors, typically, it's an informal process. And what happens is, because "like likes like," the expectation is that if most of your senior executives are white males, they're going to be attracted to other white males, people that are like them. And those are the people they're going to sponsor. It may not be intentional, but it happens. And if you don't measure that, if you don't call it out and say, "Okay, we're going to formalize our sponsorship program, we're going to, we're going to see who's sponsoring whom. And we're going to we're going to feed people into this pool of high performing sponsorees, based on performance, we're going to look at that pool and be curious about why it's not valid, why it's not representative, if it's not. And then once it is, we're going to assign formal formal sponsorship to that. So everyone has an opportunity to get that sponsorship they need to succeed." So having those kinds of conversations creates that curiosity. And you answer those questions right way and you develop programs, then that bring everyone in. So your formalized sponsorship program should include white males, because guess what they still need formal sponsorship too, you don't exclude them, and create a program just for just for minorities and women, that that creates that that tension that we don't want to invite everybody in there, make sure using the right criteria and provide that that opportunity for for the right kind of outcomes that you're looking for. So I love that you're talking about curiousity.
Darius Johnson 58:08
What, just just one thing to extend that, which I think is is really, really important. So what Lee's talking about, is this dichotomy between informal processes and formal processes, and I mean one of the great things about living in the year 2023 is we actually we've got hundreds of years of research around human behavior. And if you are geek like me and dig into that research, you start to see that okay, is racism real? Yes, absolutely. Right, do we have to deal with a lot of these dynamics? We do, as a society, in business, everywhere. However, these dynamics are just part of human nature.
Erica D'Eramo 58:52
Yeah.
Darius Johnson 58:53
Right. If you the, the overriding principle here is, is comparing a phenomenon called mutual adjustment with formalization. You can take a group of straight white males. And let's keep it simple and say we're going to take them from different regions of the United States, put them into an organization and get them to work together. Well, it's going to be a little bit difficult. And what's going to happen is people will gravitate towards others that have a similar like, culture, upbringing, background, and that goes all the way back to what was the climate, where you on a farm or living in the city? There are all kinds of things that have nothing to do with race, or gender, that just go into human behavior. And the science shows that if I take a group of people, even if they're different genders, different races that have similar culture and behaviors and ways of communicating I can actually believe that group and they will figure it out, they will just naturally do stuff. Because there's so much that goes unspoken. And, you know, they give a little bit of a look. And it's understood what's going on, and they just adjust on their own. As soon as I start to introduce meaningful difference, and guess what we call that, diversity, right? As soon as I start to introduce meaningful difference, not racial, not gender, but just difference. mutual adjustment starts to become difficult, because, well I saw that same look, but that rubs me the wrong way. Or I have no idea why that person is looking at me that way, what do I do? Let me take a stab, oh, they didn't really like that, you know what, I'm not going to talk to them anymore.
Erica D'Eramo 1:00:45
Yeah.
Darius Johnson 1:00:46
This person, I see my I see a young version of myself there, I'm going to help them. This is just how humanity operates. And the science says, when you have, you know, any substantive, meaningful difference, you need to introduce formalized processes to work through those differences. It's just a risk mitigation approach, where you say, Look, I understand that certain people, when I say this are going to hear it this way. And others when I say it are going to hear it that way. Because I now have a diverse group, right? I am now going to need to put time in for us to sit down and talk it through. And does anyone have questions, right, because I'm now a leader of leaders. And I know that I'm dealing with a diverse group, I now need a more formal process for how we mentor, sponsor, work through career development, do our performance management process, that is one of the responsibilities that we take on by having a high performing diverse team. And we don't even have to go to this topic of racism or sexism, because that same phenomenon is present even without those dynamics. And that gets us right back to this idea of, hey, if we want to create value, if we want good human capital management, let's just go back to what we know about how people work, let's have that curiosity, let's be willing to introduce formalized processes to bring out the best in our people and get to the best business outcomes. And we're not doing that, because there's a Black person on the team, or we're not doing that because they're, you know, it's 30% women and 70% men, we're doing that because there's meaningful difference here. And we want to get to the best outcomes overall.
Erica D'Eramo 1:02:36
And also, we're not doing it because you have failed to like, be professional, right? Like this is introducing these processes, is not some sort of indictment on the capabilities of people to work together like they, it does... It's a structure that then allows you to reap the benefits of having those diverse viewpoints and all of the benefits that come with that. And I think I mean, in my entire MBA program, I think one of the most, just like thought provoking articles I read in the entire program was an HBR article about how even when we know about our own biases, we cannot avoid acting with them. So in order to actually mitigate bias, knowing about it is not enough. You have to have some sort of process to do that. And once once I realized that, like that was such an empowering, enabling thing to understand that, Okay, I have a tendency to do XYZ, I know that about myself. So let me make sure I put like a checklist in place to make sure I'm not forgetting things or whatever that looks like but something external that can help counter my bias. So that's not an indictment on my ability, right? Like it's just how a human brains work like behavioral economics, Kahneman, biases, all these things. So I think that viewing it as just like standard business to put some of these processes in place, normalizing that to to mitigate for that is is really valuable. Yeah. I love your framing on that, Darius.
Leland Jourdan 1:04:15
You know, it's unfortunate that we've we've come to understand bias within the frame of of diversity and all this because it because what happened is, what came with it was the stigma of bias is, and without without the... we don't always recognize that everyone has bias. If you're human, you have bias.
Erica D'Eramo 1:04:38
To survive.
Leland Jourdan 1:04:38
We need to grasp that, right and, and have some training education around how to manage that and mitigate that going forward. There's nothing wrong with having bias you have bias. You're human.
Erica D'Eramo 1:04:50
Yeah.
Leland Jourdan 1:04:50
Recognize that. And the other thing that you touched on was, both of you touched on I think, is is the why we're doing all of this stuff. And we don't always spend enough time I'm on that in each organization. Why are we doing any of this anyway? Because if we don't do that, then people will draw their own conclusions about why they're doing it, they'll think they failed, or were discriminatory, or, you know, whatever the reasons may be, and they may push back against it. And so and so you cannot over communicate the why the purpose of why you're doing these things. And again, tie them back to the, to the business purpose that the business objectives, but you make that link very, very clear, then people can can relax and step into it and say, "Okay, I'm doing this not because I'm a bad person, but because I want to be a better leader. I want to add value to my organization." All those reasons that we want to advance this work.
Erica D'Eramo 1:05:39
Yeah, yeah, it's money on the table flowing like this. Yeah. Yeah. Darius, what were you about to say?
Darius Johnson 1:05:46
It reminds me of something you said earlier, that it's very, very difficult to tell people "Don't do this," especially when thing you're telling them not to do is very much baked into how human beings have evolved to survive on the planet and be on top of the food chain, that that bias that I'm talking about?
Erica D'Eramo 1:06:08
Yeah.
Darius Johnson 1:06:08
Bias is much more of a positive tool that we have as human beings, that a negative one, with its downsides, but but to your point, rather than spending it, getting people in a room for three hours, and convincing them that "You are biased. Stop being that." Right? Let's just get to "What should you be doing?" Right?
Erica D'Eramo 1:06:36
Yes.
Darius Johnson 1:06:37
Bias leads to exclusion. Alright, bias leads to isolation. Bias leads to missed opportunities. What's the solution to that?
Erica D'Eramo 1:06:46
Yeah.
Darius Johnson 1:06:46
Right?
Erica D'Eramo 1:06:47
Yeah.
Darius Johnson 1:06:48
Maybe we all need therapy on some level, and we can continue working on ourselves. But actually, why don't we just focus on how to be inclusive? And, and and that's just a great leadership principle, how do we create psychological safety? How do we amplify voices that would tend not to be heard. And again, I'm going to take race and gender off the table. If I'm on a team where everyone has graduated from Harvard, and someone joins the team that graduated from MIT, how do I make sure that biases don't create a certain dynamic in that environment that that is part of what I want to do as a leader is make sure that everyone has a seat at the table. And so I think focusing on that piece is really important. And it it resonated with me, because we, we don't do unconscious bias training at FTI. We do conscious inclusion training, because right away we're flipping the script to, well, let's be conscious, and let's be inclusive, but one of the things that tends to catch people off guard, and you know, if anyone goes in and has me as a as a facilitator, don't cheat here. But we go through these scenarios that we craft for each business, so it's very realistic for them. And the first time we do a scenario, there's a clear setup of well, something happens. And there's clearly someone who's wrong. And it's clearly someone who's, you know, experiencing a microaggression or something is is they feel wronged. And one of the first questions I ask after people have a chance to deal with it in groups is I say, "Well, who's biased in this scenario?" And it's like, well, you know, there will be an 80% That's like, "Well, that person over there that did this thing, they're biased." Okay, and we sit and we sit, and then someone eventually says without me telling them, "Actually, that other person's bias too," right? And it just gets to that point of, well, when we're dealing with this, it's not about who's right, who's wrong. It's not adjudicating all the time. But recognizing that we are all biased, those of us that are human, we have those biases, we have to figure out how to navigate them. Whether you're the transgressor or the victim in the scenario, at the end of the day, I want everyone to be able to come back to the table, do great work, get along and put put the biases to the side at the end of the day, so that we can move forward as a high performing team.
Darius Johnson 1:06:48
Yeah, yeah. In the coaching realm, you know, I find myself often times having the conversations about like, right and wrong versus effective. Like, sometimes the question we're trying to answer here is like "what's most effective to get to the shared goal and outcome?" And we're not really, this is not a, I don't think that I think accountability is important and in, and especially in terms of growth. And I think that there's an element of shame that sometimes creeps in that can be really difficult to overcome in order to get that true growth. And so I I love this focus on like the attainment versus the I don't know, rectifying thing.
Erica D'Eramo 1:10:13
Okay, so taking, you know, the current environment in into account and some of this conversation, some of the pushback that we're seeing lately the shift in tone, what advice do you have? Or what thoughts do you have for folks who are working in this realm who are really trying to make change, whether we call them DEI practitioners, nonpractioners, you know, people who are just showing up to work wanting to do the right thing? What are your thoughts?
Leland Jourdan 1:10:37
Yeah, so I'll start I, you know, I and I had this conversation a lot with some of my fellow peers that that are CDIOs are considering becoming CDIOs. And that's to understand the business that you're in. And what I mean by that is your you're not you're not in this business to win the war. Particularly if you know, if you if you came into this work in the last few years, and things were on a high, and unfortunately, initiated high because of the death of George Floyd. And people were supportive of DE&I and all that. Now you see it tapering off, you're getting pushback and all that. Understand this isn't this isn't a war that you're losing. This is a, this is you're in this to fight battles, that that, whose faces change and have changed over time, and will continue to change. And as I mentioned before, you've got to be flexible and resilient. You've got to find ways to give yourself self care, to stay mentally healthy as you work through this, because it is very, very challenging work. From from a very practical standpoint, though, I would say focus on the metrics. You know, one of the things that that that was hinted at in the after the SCOTUS ruling in the letter from the thirteen Attorneys General was, was that there was blatant discrimination against white males. Use that as leverage to begin to measure, to look at metrics and say, "Whew, is that going on in our organization? How do we make sure that's not going on in our organization?" And what you'll find most likely as that, in fact, your white males are not being discriminated against, you may find areas of concern, you know, in other communities, and so use that as leverage to, to to get your organization to measure where they hadn't been measuring before. We talked earlier about about some metrics to look at, use those, use others, but but lean into metrics to figure out what's going on, and kind of set a foundation, one version of the truth that you can build from from there. The other thing that will allow you to do is to understand, Darius talked earlier about understanding where you are on the journey. And so as you engage with your organization, and as you engage with individuals, one of the first and best things you can do is try to understand where they are on a journey, because one of the most frustrating things you'll run into is assuming everyone is where you are, and getting frustrated when you realize they're not. And so take, you know, take a moment to try to understand where they are, be curious, listen, understand, and start from where they are having those conversations, and help them move along in that journey with you. So just a couple, a couple points, I think it will help.
Erica D'Eramo 1:13:24
Yeah.
Leland Jourdan 1:13:25
Our peers in this space.
Erica D'Eramo 1:13:26
Excellent points. Darius, what are your thoughts?
Darius Johnson 1:13:30
So I really like what Lee said, and I'm gonna, because we always play off of each other, I'm gonna go to the other side of that coin. And I think this is equally important. I have spoken to a lot of people that consider themselves to be business leaders. And they say that they don't understand the DEI landscape. And I've also talked to a lot of people that consider themselves DEI leaders, DEI practitioners, but they're not able to explain to me, you know, the core business that their organization's in, right? How do you make money as a company? Like, talk to me about that. Right? These are senior people. I mean, post post, George Floyd, a lot of these roles that have been created are very senior roles, at least in title that are looking after DEI. And yes, it's important to understand where your stakeholders are in the journey. It's important to have the metrics Absolutely. Successful DEI leaders are business leaders. Right?
Erica D'Eramo 1:14:41
Yeah.
Darius Johnson 1:14:41
This has to be fundamental and core to the way your business runs. This is a C suite topic. This is a boardroom topic now. Right. So successful leaders, successful DEI leaders are business leaders, and successful business leaders understand how financially material DEI dynamics are to the success of their organization. So what I see is that practitioners and leaders, they're, they struggle a little bit in navigating how to contextualize and fully integrate DEI into core business strategies. This isn't just about the business case, it's about how does this all work across the business, which we talked a bit about earlier. And, and to get to, you know, the actual takeaway here: DEI practitioners and DEI leaders tend to go to the business with a wish list. They might have some metrics, some data, they've got some initiatives, and they will go out and they'll, you know, meet and greet, or do a road show and go talk to business leaders, and they say, here's what I really need from you. Let me tell you why DEI is super important. Let me tell you, you know how you can help, can I get you to sign up here. And they will have some degree of success. In some organizations, that works perfectly fine. In other organizations, we run into frustration and difficulty. And in that context, I say to them, "You are a business leader, as the DEI leader, you are a business leader, before you go talk to that CXO, or that functional head or that VP of whatever, what do you know about what they're facing? Have you done your homework? What are their goals and objectives? What are they trying to achieve? Can you contribute even a little bit to that?" And if you don't know, for some reason, maybe that's the first conversation you should be having is, "Tell me what's going on. What are your challenges? What are you facing?" Because DEI is so all encompassing: employees, suppliers, access to capital, operational efficiency, right? All of these things are covered under DEI, I'm willing to bet that there is something you can do to help that leader.
Erica D'Eramo 1:14:44
Yeah.
Darius Johnson 1:15:25
And the minute you go to them with an offer of help, right, I'm going to be much more surprised that they're slamming the door in your face.
Erica D'Eramo 1:17:19
Yeah.
Darius Johnson 1:17:19
And that business leader, through that experience, starts to understand that, "Oh, what what's going on in the DEI space is actually helping me. It is material to what I'm trying to do." And you might find that they're coming to you and saying, "How can I help?" Right, which is, which is really where we want to get to, and that's part of that whole, this is how we get this woven into the DNA, the DNA of organizations, and the culture and the mindset and the behaviors of the organization, is by working together.
Erica D'Eramo 1:17:51
Yeah.
Darius Johnson 1:17:51
That's what I would suggest we do more of.
Erica D'Eramo 1:17:54
I... right and what you're describing is like understanding your stakeholders too. That's, this is again, back to the originating piece that brought me to contact Lee is, that is, that's leadership behavior, right, understanding your stakeholders, understanding what their drivers are their motivators, their risks that they're managing, and mitigating as well. And, and yeah, seeing this as an integrated effort, rather than an attack on, you know, cost center. Yeah, absolutely. Really, really insightful. Thank you. So for anyone who loved what they heard today wants to maybe read a bit more or follow your work elsewhere. Where should we point them to?
Leland Jourdan 1:18:43
So I'll start I mean, just look me up on on LinkedIn, I spell my last name, though, J O U R A N D, Lee Jourdan. And a couple of articles you'll find in my featured section, the one I mentioned, the HBR article on metrics, titled APPLE PI, and pie as PI, by the way, is one hopefully you'll find useful. Another one I wrote for oil one magazine is is called "Did DEI DIE?", and it talks about, the answer's no. Spoiler alert, answer's no, did not die. But there are some things in there I think will be helpful for you to to engage with your organization on how to advance your efforts there.
Erica D'Eramo 1:19:28
Excellent. Thanks, Lee. And Darius, how about you? Any, any ways you want people to engage?
Darius Johnson 1:19:34
So first of all, I do think you should read everything that Lee Jourdan writes, it is very good, very good writing and, and, you know, so relatable. So I'm gonna highly recommend that first of all. You can you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to connect and talk about these issues. You can learn more about what FTI does in this space, where at FTICommunications.com. You can find some some of the work we've done and some of our thought leadership there. But I also want to encourage, because back to where we started this conversation, a lot of the discourse for people that are interested in this topic has come around the recent SCOTUS decision on Affirmative Action, and I speak to so many people that say they care very deeply about this to their core. And for those that do care deeply about this topic of Affirmative Action, its history, its impacts, and its relevance in society and business, I'm going to actually encourage you to read the most recent SCOTUS decision. It's not a short read, but it's not War And Peace. And if you want a tip to get to the heart of the issue that we're going to continue debating as a society going forward, I would start by focusing on Justice Thomas's concurring opinion, and Justice Jackson's dissenting opinion, that's a subset of what's a pretty long document. And I bet if you start there, right, those are those are two Black justices that wrote very compelling opinions on both sides of this issue. I bet if you start there, you'll end up end up reading the whole thing. And again, if you really do care about this, if you say it's core to who you are, and and you want to really get up to speed, read the read the opinion.
Erica D'Eramo 1:21:43
Yeah. Primary Resources. Yeah, doing your own research, but that's, um, that's a great pointer. And I admittedly have read many pieces about the opinion. And I'll put my hand up and say, I have not read through the entire opinion myself, including the concurring and dissenting, so that's my homework. I will, I will definitely be doing that. Thank you, gentlemen. So so much for sharing your thoughts engaging in a really great discussion. I appreciate it. And I know our listeners will appreciate it as well. And for folks wanting to find the transcript for this so you can find it on our website, and we look forward to seeing you next episode. Thank you, gentlemen.