Courageous Conversations

It doesn't matter if your a racist!

What matters is your behavior! Tim talks (04:08 minutes) about what really matters: helping leaders match their actions to their words. A recent New York Times article, Our Overrated Inner Self, prompted this post.

95% of law firm partners are white. 2% of CEO positions are held by women. 2% of advertising agency executives are minority (barely an improvement over the last 40 years). And yet nearly every major organization says it values diversity. Our actions do not match our rhetoric.

Forget trying to figure out how to get people to admit they are racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. Engage in Courageous Conversations to hold people accountable to their words and their actions. Don't worry so much about what lurks in their heart of hearts. And do the same for me.

Download the New York Times article: Our Overrated Inner Self

"I know this is awkward"

It is performance review time and Fred, the manager, needs to give feedback to his new employee, Ethel. Ethel worked for Ricky most of the year, but joined Fred’s team about 6-8 weeks ago. Fred’s job is to convey Ricky’s information, keep Ethel engaged in the conversation, and be future-oriented. (10:15 minutes)

Click here to download as an MP3

Lessons Learned

• Set a positive tone and language - Set a positive tone. Despite the impulse to do all the talking and make this about the manager’s need to convey information, try to start with a positive tone that is about building the team, together with the employee.

• Be honest - acknowledge the awkwardness. Fred and Ethel are in an awkward position. Acknowledge that fact. Ethel talked about the relevance of talking about information that Fred hasn’t necessarily seen firsthand. Fred acknowledges her statement as a true fact, but agrees to do the best he can. This prevents the concern from being a “show-stopper.”

• Ask what the employee needs from you - Fred took a risk to ask Ethel what she needed from him. She wasn’t able to respond right in the moment, but it did open the door to future conversations where she can ask for something from Fred. Fred seemed to be open to being a partner in creating Ethel’s success

• Create a plan - What happens next? How will success be defined? At the end of the conversation, both Fred and Ethel agreed to a plan to develop her action plan. There will be multiple conversations. Fred wants to take the “guess-work” out of knowing whether Ethel has been successful. Create a plan to define the behaviors as clearly and succinctly as possible.

Download Lessons Learned (86.5K)

Homophily: Birds of a feather, flock together

Homophily is the concept, first coined in 1954, as "love of the same." The idea being that we, as people, like to hangout, talk to, and network with, those who are similar to us. No news there.

But Diversity asks us to do the exact opposite, i.e. Heterophily. To mix and communicate with the "other" or people who are different than us. No news there either.

The point is we have to make conscious efforts to move out of our own "homophily" and into a more "heterophily" mindset.

Listen to Tim (04:45 minutes) talk about homophily and how Courageous Conversations can help people learn the skills to effectively operate in a heterophily-manner, experience some "serendipity," and increase their business effectiveness.

Here are a variety of links and articles that will tell you more about Homophily:

Wikipedia - Homophily is the tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others

CIA Advertising: Homophily Theory - most human communication will occur between a source and receiver who are alike

O'Reilly Radar: Homophily in Social Software - ...raises the question of...how much they should encourage homophily and how much they want to mix it up

Washington Post: Why Everyone You Know Thinks the Same as You - ...shows that homophily is on the rise in the US on nearly every dimension of social identity.

Let me know what you think.

Talk to you soon, Tim.

Law Firms and Ad Agencies feel the heat

1/15/07 - Update. To keep you in the loop, another Advertising Age article on the actions ad agencies have begun to take on minority recruitment. Download "Ad Agencies Scramble to Hit Diversity Targets"

1/12/07 - Update. The New York City Human Rights Commission has released the minority hiring goals from the ad agencies. Here is an article from Advertising Age.

1/9/07 - Update. Another Ad Age article on the pressures advertising agencies are feeling to increase their minority hiring and use of suppliers. Download "Diversity Hiring Returns as Topic in '07 for Ad Agencies"

"We've seen stagnation and even decline when it comes to race" - New York City Bar Association. How is this still possible? In this video clip (04:16 minutes) I update this story due to two recent articles in the New York Times. (Downloads are below.)

It is time to actually do the things we all know need to be done to increase retention - reach across the differences, deal with the discomfort, confront the biases and assumptions - and begin to recruit and retain not just those who look and act like me, but those who bring a unique skill, ability or viewpoint, that will improve the business.

The 06:40 minute podcast below is my original commentary from articles published this past summer. I make the case for a new, bolder, yet simpler approach to honestly fixing this problem.

Click here to download as MP3

"...of 60,394 partners at 1,523 law firms, nearly 95% are white."

"...hiring of black workers had barely improved since an inquiry found similar problems 40 years ago."

"The nation's largest law firms, long dominated by white men, have struggled to attract, keep and promote minority and women lawyers."

There are six articles for you to download - The New York Times (4), Advertising Age, and the Wall Street Journal.

Talk to you soon, Tim.

Download New York Times article: "Lawyers Debate Why Blacks Lag at Major Firms"(99.8K)
Download New York Times article: "Straight 'A' Student? Good Luck Making Partner" (88.8K)
Download New York Times article: "City Ad Firms Agreet to Hire More Black Managers" (164.8K)
Download Ad Age article: "Several Agencies Sign Agreements to Forestall Diversity Hearings" (163.6K)
Download New York Times article: "Pushed by Client, Law Firms Step Up Diversity Efforts" (164.8K)
Download Wall Street Journal article: "Shearman and Sterling Strives to Keep its Black Attorneys" (333.2K)

This Courageous Conversations podcast is available at the iTunes Store.