March 11th, 2009
The problem with intentions…
I believe that diversity is one of the most misunderstood issues of our time. Whether looking at the business disciplines of management and leadership development, human resources, talent management, organizational development, or the worlds of education, organized religion, non-profit work or entertainment, I see little real understanding of these issues and little real concrete action.
This is unfortunate to say the least.
Diversity is rapidly becoming critical to the success and even the survival of organizations, institutions and communities. But maybe the more significant point is this…if you do not understand diversity, then you do not understand the human condition and you do not understand a basic, fundamental component of human social interactions.
So.
If you do not understand diversity, if you are not clear on what it means, how it influences our work and our lives and what its value is…you should probably not be leading people. If you do not understand diversity you should probably not be leading, teaching, training, policing, diagnosing, analyzing, organizing, or marketing to human beings.
There is much evidence of this misunderstanding regarding diversity and inclusion. More and more organizational, institutional and community leaders are saying the right things about diversity, but because few really understand the issues there is rarely an adequate investment or commitment.
A common manifestation of this misunderstanding is the confusion around intentions and consequences. Far too much of the conversation and thinking around issues of diversity is focused on intentions (our good intentions and the questionable intentions of others), and not nearly enough is focused on the consequences, outcomes and results.
Intentions on their own are nearly irrelevant.
For example:
If an article ran in your local paper that a high school teacher was intentionally failing 3 or 4 out of 10 African American students in their class, simply because of their race…there would be outrage. There would be an immediate backlash and this teacher and the school would come under enormous scrutiny most likely ending with the firing of this teacher. And appropriately so, it is not too high a bar I think for our teachers to not be blatantly and intentionally racist.
However.
There are schools in many communities today where the graduation rate for African American students is 70% or 60%…or less…and considerably different than that of their white classmates. Is there outrage? Are we outraged by the disparity in outcome? Are we demanding answers from teachers, schools, administrators, policy makers? No. Sure, some people are paying attention, but there is not a shared sense of outrage. The difference between these two scenarios? Intention. The first scenario involves someone with bad intentions…we can demonstrate how “good” we are by being outraged at a “bad person.”
The second situation is actually much more dangerous to us as a society (I would also say much more prevalent today), but it is also much more complex. As a result…we do not respond to it with as much frustration and vigor…and as a result of that, it goes unchanged. And our silence on this disparity (as well as our silence on racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare, income, criminal justice, etc.), says something very profound.
Lying is done with words and also with silence.
-Adrienne Rich
If minority students have very different graduation rates in our public schools and we are not collectively outraged, then we are saying that they have inferior graduation rates because they are inferior students…we are saying that there is nothing wrong with our education system…we are saying that the problem lies with the students. That is what we are saying with our silence.
If we truly believe the things that we say we believe about people and about talent and about ability, we would be outraged at every outcome that is disparate by race, ethnicity, gender, etc.
I would say that real leaders and change agents relentlessly focus on the gaps between outcomes and aspirations. Real leaders are very clear that those gaps need our attention and efforts regardless of whether they are the result of individual bad intentions, systemic bias or just general ignorance.
Real leaders understand that:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
-Martin Luther King Jr.
When we talk about the fact that there are no women in positions of senior leadership in our organization, but do not do anything about it once we convince ourselves that the men making hiring and promoting decisions have good intentions, we are saying that there is something wrong with the women…for some reason they are not capable of reaching the top of the organizational chart. This problem really boils down to our confusion about this: we have convinced ourselves that someone (or an organization, institution) cannot be “good” and oppressive at the same time. Regardless of ones intentions, the practices and policies they participate in, benefit from and support can still be biased and produce biased results. We must focus less on whether we think people have the right intentions and more on whether our outcomes match up with what we say we believe.
Be good to each other.