The Calls Are Coming From Inside the House
If companies want to make the world a better place, they should start by looking inward.
The events of the last 400 years keep proving that injustice is all around us, and it always has been — we just tend not to tackle it until someone else has made it culturally convenient.
Movements take hold when they make inconvenient, system-altering decisions the easier choices to make. We are in one of those moments now, and we have the Black Lives Matter movement to thank for it.
Lest we forget, just a few short years ago, this movement was being talked about in a much different light, and kneeling in protest was a polarizing political statement. Successful social movements make conversations easier for millions of people to participate in, and too loud to ignore.
But one thing is for sure — nobody is quicker to avoid a difficult conversation yet jump head-first into it once the water’s warm, than America’s Brands™.
Ours is a business culture that fetishizes risk, but only when it comes to other people taking it. The downside of taking a stand was seen as an unacceptable risk for a long time.
But times have changed.
Brand statements about #BlackLivesMatter are everywhere now. Even if they oversimplify the message, they help to normalize very important conversations, making it easier for us to have them in our homes.
But corporate leaders must do more for systemic change than symbolic posts and donations when it’s clear that their own institutional systems are contributing to the problems.
Hiring that diversity and inclusion leader bought companies some time and made executive leadership teams look slightly less white and male, but that bridge needs to go somewhere now. It’s time for companies to get as motivated by equality as they’ve gotten about climate and supply chains in recent years. And that work starts at home.
The best first question for companies to ask right now is not “what will our consumers want us to do”, it’s “what do our employees want us to do”. Employees see things that leadership doesn’t. Employees are the real conscience of a company because they are the ones who feel the brunt of every decision, and know the real filter those decisions are made through.
Whatever a company filters its decisions through becomes the company’s culture, and are the definition of its purpose. And if employees lose faith in a company’s culture and purpose, how can they be expected to be motivated by anything else other than a paycheck? That works for no one. Our current environment is too transparent, information too accessible, to look the other way.
American corporate culture has gotten so broken that “cancel culture” has come for them; except this time, it isn’t the Twitter mobs — it’s companies’ own employees. We’re seeing walkouts, resignations, open letters to management, and protests in this country’s worst labor market in 10+ years. No industry or category is immune.
The thing about “cancel culture” is that it’s what happens when people lose faith in their institutions. When we can’t trust established guidelines, standards, practices, rules, or laws, cultural rejection becomes a means of last resort and is truly a form of protest. And right now, company culture is not what management says it is — it’s the check and balance on their decisions that it needs to be.
Whether you’re a media company, an e-commerce company, a nonprofit, or a police union, if your own house isn’t in order, allyship is going to be impossible to get right, and your actions will ring hollow (at least), or worse, set you up for a hard fall.
Remember also, that a company’s culture is also defined by the bad apples they choose to keep around, not by how good the good ones are.
If you’re a corporate leader, it’s time to solicit and listen to the internal calls for change. The system that is being rebuked is one that companies are a part of. If American companies can’t fix themselves, if they don’t listen to their conscience (their employees), the machine will always be broken. All those posts and checks will only be triage until the next symptom arises.
Leaders listen, then decide. Only then will they survive being held to the highest standard. And in some cases, that will lead to new leadership. After all, if a company (or a country) is to survive (much less, be relevant), its purpose must be bigger than any individual leader’s ego, and its leaders must be held to the same standards as its other employees (or poorest citizen).
I’ll leave you with what James Baldwin wrote in No Name In The Street:
Well, if one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected — those, precisely, who need the law’s protection most! — and listens to their testimony. Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person — ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and then you will know, not whether or not the country is just, but whether or not it has any love for justice, or any concept of it. It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
PS: Take the time to check out these anti-racism resources from our friends at Good Good Good.
