Intro - Enrico E. Manalo 00:00
This is Enrico E. Manalo, DEI Consultant, Conflict Management Practitioner and DiVerity PBCs Community Engagement Lead, and host of the DEI is: Podcast, a podcast about DEI practitioners, by DEI practitioners, for DEI practitioners and the organization seeking their help and support, where we dive deep on issues related to the DEI industry from an insider's point of view.
This podcast is produced by DiVerity PBC, which matches independent people and culture experts like DEI consultants, with the organization seeking them. In this episode, we're talking to Valerie Williams, a diversity champion and community builder with over 16 years of experience advocating for fairness and equity in the workplace. Prior to launching Converge, Valerie served as Global Head of Inclusion and Diversity at Stripe and helped create the foundational Diversity and Belonging program at Airbnb.
If you liked this episode, please subscribe, like and share. If you really love it, leave us a review. Don't forget to follow us on social media by heading to our link tree that's link tree slash diversity. Linktr.ee/diverity.
Stay tuned, DEI is: Harnessing Hockey Stick Moments for Real Growth with Valerie Williams starts . . . now.
[Intro Music]
Enrico E. Manalo 01:35
The history of the Diversity Equity and Inclusion industry as we know it today started in the 1960s, starting with the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Age Discrimination and Employment Act of 1967, with efforts focusing on Affirmative Action, non-discrimination, and what we commonly refer to as "representation".
We've come a long way since then, but the DEI industry is still prone to boom and bust cycles, all too common in the context of capitalist economics. But what it looks like on the ground is, there is an inciting incident (for example, the murder of George Floyd) and a sudden uptick of interest, a "hockey stick moment", followed by a tapering off or even a crash.
What DEI consultants know is that for this work to have the greatest positive impact, DEI has to become integral to how normal work functions are conducted. Not just in the C-suite, but throughout entire organizations. Here today to explore how we might do that is Valerie Williams, Founder and Managing Partner of Converge Firm.
Hey, Valerie, how are you?
Valerie Williams 02:38
I am doing great today. How are you?
Enrico 02:41
Doing really, really well. I was, you know, earlier, I was sharing with you that it's really hot in the Bay Area and I think it's hot down where you are as well. It was the longest day of the year yesterday's which was the I think the official mark of summer and I like summer, so I'm happy about it.
Valerie 03:00
Same here. Same here. I'm in LA. So it's definitely sunny and hot and 75 kind of feels like 85 these days.
[Laughter]
Enrico 03:08
Yeah, the sun is strong. So to kind of set the context here for you, what is the issue with organizations continually going after like “low-hanging fruit” rather than the full potential of the transformation that we know that DEI can offer?
Valerie 03:26
Yeah, it's a really good question Enrico, I think low-hanging fruit has its place in DEI work, you know, it's certainly helpful. When we're starting to kick off a strategy process with our clients. It may take, it may take, you know, a few months to really pull together a thoughtful, thorough strategic plan. And so low-hanging fruit really has its place with really having something you can do in the meantime, while you're building a plan. But you can't stop there.
You know, I think organizations often feel like, “okay, great, we're going to do this training, or we're going to, you know, launch this ERG or this committee, and we're going to stop there.” That's, that's the low-hanging fruit for them. But, you know, if you stop there, it's not really going to be integrated within the organization. And so you really got to you got to push beyond those "low-hanging fruit moments" to a more thorough strategic plan.
Enrico 04:21
Yeah, I love that. You know, I mean, people kind of had this idea that, I'd say, a lot of times people think about problem solving in like a very "linear" fashion or "sequential" fashion maybe? So like, “first we do this, and we do this”, but since everything's interrelated, and time bound, we’ve got to work on a lot of different things all at once, or at least that's that's what I know. I don't know if it's the same for you.
Valerie 04:46
Absolutely. Absolutely. You got to do your "keep the lights on" stuff while actually building a plan and running pilots at the same time and measuring impact on things and so it's a very complex plan when you're actually doing an integrated DEI strategy within an organization, there's a lot of different work streams happening at the same time.
Enrico 05:05
Yeah, so I think my first question to the audience who are tuning in, and thank you everybody for tuning in once again. But there—there are different ways of going about this right? And so the question is, "do you prefer sprinting toward DEI goals or moving steadily toward them?" So if you can explain in the comments, that would be great! You know, like, I think we're all looking for better ways forward and one of the best ways that we can do that is to leverage Social Learning. So learning from one another, from our peers, people who we consider to be equal. So love it if you could all share that.
While we wait for those answers to come in, I think we'll pivot to our our main body of questions today. So, many have the embedded assumption that the, "real" value of DEI consulting is that it will increase profits, or at least the bottom line, or maybe even help organizations to navigate conflict, which often is not what the consultants are directly concerned with addressing. So from your view, what is the “real value” that DEI consultants can bring to organizations?
Valerie 06:14
I love this question. I think it's such an important question for us as a body of practitioners to consider and to really check in on ourselves annually, quarterly on this question. I now believe that the true value that we bring to our clients is our ability to help them set a plan that works for them, that is impactful and meaningful. But that is something that they can manage, right? We, to the question about thinking about this in a “sprint” way, or in a “long-term” way, we think about this as a “journey”. This is a long-term journey.
So, you're an organization that's going to be doing this forever, like, as long as your organization is going to be around, you're going to be doing DEI work. So how can we really design a plan that works for you, but that will help you grow and evolve as your organization grows and evolve? So I really think that our value as practitioners is to demystify this very complex space for our clients, and to be able to provide them with a sustainable plan, so that the work doesn't die with the committee if the committee leaves or the DEI person leaves or the consultant leaves, right. We want it to sustain beyond our time there.
Enrico 07:39
And so, you know, we use that language of sustaining as well, right? But I think what I'm noticing is that often, what organizations would like us to do, is to stick with them post-engagement, and to hold their hands during implementation. But often we can't do that, right? They don't have the budget, we don't have the capacity. There are all kinds of issues here. So sometimes people, like, we have this plan in place, but then they're not really seeing that the plan is for them to then implement, right? So I don't know, like, what does it look like? Because I feel like the issue is one of integration, right?
So, what does it look like to truly integrate DEI work in a given organization? So of course, you're saying like, it has to be really particular, really specific, but just kind of generally speaking, like, post-engagement, like how can how can clients be incorporating what we've been doing with them into what they think of as their "real" work?
Valerie 08:44
Yes, yes. So important, right. So, you know, we often will (as strategists), go into an organization, uncover what's happening in the organization, give recommendations on where they should, you know—or how they could improve things that are happening within the organization. And then we're like, "okay, good, good luck!" Like, "go do what we tell you to do, good luck!" right? So I think part one is, how can we (with our service offerings), really be thoughtful about understanding where our client is at the current moment, so that our recommendations can be as specific and tailored as possible, as you mentioned.
But beyond that, I think for us, we had to go beyond our strategy of like “building a strategy” like, “yeah, we'll do discovery work, we'll hear from your employees, we'll build a strategy.” And to your point, sometimes we stayed on with implementation and integration, and sometimes we couldn't, but even if we couldn't, we provide our clients with a lot of guidance on a lot of elements of like, “how DEI fails”.
So, 1) communication, right, like how are we clearly communicating this work and how are we circling back with employees, 2) change management, it's a real thing. Like "how are you structuring change management within your organization?", like really going through these elements of like—elements where integration and implementation fails, and really giving our clients guidance on that. Now, we, we would love to stay on to your point, to really help guide them through that because resources can only take them so far, but I think it's really not just thinking about, again, those recommendations, but "how far can you go into an operating model? Who owns what of these recommendations? What team within your organization needs to own some of these recommendations?" So I think we need to be as specific as possible. But I also want our clients to be able to, you know, pay us to help them with this implementation as well [laughs].
Enrico 10:43
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, something that I wish that I had the time and capacity to do sometimes is to stick with people, at least through their first attempt. Because I think what often happens is people make the attempt, it doesn't go perfectly and often—we never say that it would go perfectly to begin with, like, right up front about like this, it's not about being perfect, right?
But, when you don't have a “roaring success”, the first time out of the gate, a lot of people get discouraged. And what really needs to happen is that Looped Learning thing, right? "Okay, so it didn't quite work. Let's go back, the plan is still solid, we just have to figure out how to do a slightly different, what are those changes going to be? Let's document this so if it doesn't work out, again, we can come back and try it another time,” because—but people are not happy with that. Like, I'm just curious, do you have any insight as to as to why that might be?
Valerie 11:44
Well, I think I think you're—you started to go into the road down the road of framing. I think it's important to frame recommendations as "pilots"—"these are going to be pilots"—because there's so many things that influence and employees well being, you know, employee sentiment around inclusion within an organization. And so you're going to roll out a program or try an initiative, and it may or may not work, to your point.
And so I think if we—what we've started to do is to frame our recommendations as "pilots"—so "we're going to pilot this, and we're going to figure out, you know, at the end of this pilot, if this makes sense if this had the intended impact that we wanted it to and if not, well, we'll try a different pilot." And I think that language really helped frame that there's no silver bullet, right? Like we're we're designing—this is a little bit of an art and your your organization is the “clay”, we're like, trying to figure out what actually works within your—with your work.
Enrico 12:46
You know, what I love about that, too, is we get so many people asking us about like “the right things to say” and what they're getting at is often language and more specifically, like, “how to frame things”. But right there, what you did was—I just want to highlight, it elevate it as good communication, right? So you've taken something that is familiar, framed it in a way that is more accessible—that people can say, "Oh, this is not supposed to be some shiny, you know, perfectly crafted thing. We are seeing if this works. And we are knowing that if it doesn't work, we can try another pilot", right? So that even that simple change of language helps more people to get on board and the message to be communicated a little more clearly.
We've got a couple comments here. We’ve got one from Sabrina, thank you so much for your contribution. Her preference is to move steadily. One of the issues that she sees is that companies have unrealistic expectations on how quickly change can occur. Yeah, sounds familiar. This is heart work. That takes time. And that's "heart", like, you know, “the heart in your chest” work that takes time if you want to see long lasting change. Yeah, absolutely.
We've got another comment from Liza Katzman, also a DiVerity PBC Community Member, so very nice to have you comment! Thank you, Liza, who also prefers to move steadily unless there's something that needs to be addressed immediately for a particular employee or individual. Otherwise, it's not sustainable and doesn't allow for proper change management. Okay. Yes, yes. Thank you both. So, so much. Anything else to add there, Valerie?
Valerie 14:27
Just shout out to Liza. Hi, Liza! Thank you for your comment to Sabrina. I agree with both of you. It's a—it's a steady race. You know, it says this is slow and steady. And we, you know, often say "as long as your culture took to evolve to its current point, it's going to take just as long or longer to shift or change something and so we’ve got to be patient with ourselves as we roll this out."
Enrico 14:53
That is a fantastic point. I mean, to draw a parallel here. One of the issues—I love to cook—one of the issues that a lot of people have is they don't rest their food long enough, right. But for a lot of things, what you got to do is you got arrested for half as long as you cooked it. And if you rush it, it's just not going to be as good. And we all want to eat good food, you know?
Valerie 15:12
So yeah, that's why I'm impatient in that sense [laughs].
Enrico 15:17
And to be fair, I burn my mouth regularly, so that's how I know what I'm talking about. So, back to the audience question, I've got another one: "What is one clear indicator that we as DEI consultants need to do some work to get a client on the same page as to what DEI really is?" I think that loops back to that communication piece that you raised for us, Valerie. And you know, if you've got thoughts or comments, please do add them in the—in the chat here. My next question for you, Valerie is "how can we as a body of professionals work with one another to better articulate for our prospective clients, what we're seeing as far as 1) DEI work that needs to be done more globally and 2) DEI work that can realistically be undertaken by given organizations successfully?
Valerie 16:07
Yeah, it's such a, it's such a thorough question. I mean, I think my first thought, you know, I think about, again, these pilots that are running in this moment that we're in where the workplace—we're in this Great Reset—the workplace is changing, the pandemic has changed it, you know, all these things, have—the Great Resignation—all these things are happening in the workplace and so there's this opportunity for us as a body of practitioners to say, what is going to be our "thing" in this moment of reset? How are we going to push organizations forward?
And I think about like the Four Day Work Week—there were a group of people that came together and said, “this is going to be our ‘thing’”, “what is going to be our thing?” So I think as practitioners, I would love to see us collectively, you know, come up with what that recommendation—or what is the one shift that we want organizations to be doing during this time, during this reset. So that's my first thought on that.
I think, you know, what organizations really need to be doing—and this is not going to be a surprise to anyone that talks to me—is really get clear on those beliefs, your "why", your vision for this work. And if you're not clear on that, that's gonna make this space very complicated, and gonna make it hard for you to roll out anything. And it will help you as things continue to come into society, things are going to keep happening, it's going to help you figure out how to authentically serve your employees and your ecosystem. As these things happen, if you get clear on your vision, that's really what we want organizations to do in this moment. But I also want us as practitioners, to have some collective force behind where we want to push this workplace.
So if anybody has ideas, drop them in the chat, let us know, or initiatives that are happening out there that we can all put our weight behind, you know, definitely let us know.
Enrico 18:08
Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I think one of the ways that we can start building that collective power is by building community, you know, so it's—for those who are watching, a lot of you are DEI practitioners yourselves. Although, if you're watching from the organizational side, what you might not know is we're [DEI practitioners] often fairly isolated, right? We're busy, we operate in small firms, we don't often have the opportunity to come together. So, what I would love to see is for us to build greater community.
And to your point for anybody who might have been listening to what you were just saying, and like, "oh, that sounds kind of" uh, like just very easily dismissed, right? Like, “finding a ‘thing’, whatever”. I'll remind everybody that we have the weekend because of unions, and they made “having a break from work” their "thing", right? We also have stronger child labor laws, which certain parties are trying to roll back. But we have these protections, because people got together, they did “the thing” and it took a long time. It took a long time, a lot of blood, a lot of sweat, but they got it done. And now we take it for granted. We can do the same thing. There is no reason why we can't.
So, in your view, what can organizations and organizational leaders be doing to ensure that they are ready to work with internal and external DEI professionals and how do they get there?
Valerie 19:34
Yeah, I mean, after starting with that, "why" (because you got to get clear on your "why") I think you also need to set realistic expectations of what can actually be accomplished in an engagement. I think sometimes we get clients that are expecting just the world in three months, and we're like, "Okay, well, we we have to really understand your organization and take the time to be able to give thorough recommendations."
And so I think what organizations can do to be better prepared to work with us, is to properly scope engagements, but also to be open and flexible and to allow your consultant to be able to guide you. So, I think, you know, again, start with your "why" that will inform what—who's your right partner, given their background and their experience, and then really be thoughtful about how you scope an engagement, but allow for some flexibility for that consultant as they come in and learn your organization.
Enrico 20:37
So what I'm hearing you say is, we need to be really meticulous when we are laying down the foundations because of course, everything else rests on top of that, is that fair to say?
Valerie 20:47
Absolutely. Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, we've, we've worked with so many clients that we're going back to the foundation, because they rolled so many things out without doing that, and then something got stuck. And what got “stuck” normally, is because there's misalignment on our collective vision for this work. So foundation-setting is critical to this work.
Enrico 21:11
I don't know if you were ever a fan of that Gary Larson cartoon The Far Side, but I remember one where it's God pulling an earth out of the oven and it's still steaming, right? And the text says, "Something doesn't smell right." [Enrico’s note: The name of the comic in question is God’s Kitchen and the text actually reads “ Something tells me this thing’s only half-baked” my bad! - E.] That's the whole comic, and it's like, "yeah, that would explain so much".
So, but my other question to the audience here is, "if you could fast forward to a year from now, what's one thing you want organizations engaged in DEI work to be better at?" You know, so I can think of a few things, but I'm just really curious to see what others in the community think.
Valerie 21:55
Me too, me too! I gotta list okay! [Laughter]
Enrico 22:01
All right, maybe can share some of those in a little bit! But I'm really curious to hear from your perspective, how can we as DEI professionals better support our clients in handling the full complexity of DEI work? So not just in being prepared, but like, once they are prepared, right, it often is a lot more complex than then they reported to their DEI, consultants or CDO [Chief Diversity Officer]. But clients kind of come to us with this thing like "this is the problem". But in that discovery phase, we will often uncover in fact, there's a lot more to the problem than meets the eye. So I don't know. What do you think?
Valerie 22:40
[Sighs] Yeah, it happens all the time. It happens literally all the time. We're like, "Oh! We didn't know we were walking into this. Okay . . . " I think for us, you know, one thing I would recommend is that we, we are getting so much more thorough with our recommendations. We used to really just give general guidance in general areas of focus, but we've been REALLY thorough with our recommendations. So instead of just saying, "okay, great, you need to roll out this training or have this curriculum for your organization", it's like, "yes, AND you have to think about this change management process. This is how you communicate that training. This is how you tie that training into this program that you're doing."
It's like, the full gamut of what needs to be kind of "rolled out" when you roll out of a plan. So not just programs and initiatives, but policies and communication structures. And these change management elements that I keep pointing back to. I think that's really where the rubber meets the road. And so we have to be able to—with our recommendations, not just get the “high-level” pieces, but get clear on what we're solving for, get clear on a clear strategic framework, get clear on goal setting. We haven't even talked about KPIs today, I can't believe it! But, get clear on all of these things because I mean, it's just any of those things can really make an effort fall flat. And so you got to really think through all of those elements.
Enrico E. Manalo 24:15
Yeah, you know, sometimes I kind of flash back to that experience of like learning how to drive. There's so many you know, that there's the pedals and the wheels, but then there are so many other things and it's like "Oh no, it's fogging up what do I do?"
Valerie Williams 24:31
Yes! [Laughter]
Enrico E. Manalo 24:33
The thing is like, sometimes when you are a big organization, it's not really a car that you're driving, but it's an airplane, and you know, if you’ve looked into the cockpit, it's like, "I don't even know half the stuff does!" That's alright. But once you get through it that first time you get then you build the confidence, right. And I think that's often what a barrier is. So if we're talking about the "law of minimal barriers", like nervousness or hesitancy or even a little bit of fear, that's not nothing. Like that's real. And to your point, when we can get really granular and help people to walk through, then they feel a lot more secure in doing that.
Valerie Williams 25:13
That's right. That's right.
Enrico E. Manalo 25:15
So, you know, the last thing that I've got for you is, how can DEI professionals and the organizations that we work with better prepared to be able to sustain the work or to continue making progress on the work post-engagement, even as the complexity of the context that the work sits in, is (to your point) evolving in real time?
Valerie Williams 25:36
This is—you just gotta . . . you gotta be committed. I mean, I think that what, what establishing your perspective and vision does is that it allows you to just keep going. A big element of inclusive leadership is just to be able to KEEP moving, keep going forward. And so I think the more that we can equip organizations to be able to do that, the better off they will be to move on in their journeys, so I think that's one thing. And then again, as thorough as we can be with our recommendations, as specific as we can be with our recommendations, we have the benefit as practitioners to have a breadth of visibility to so many organizations. And so, how can we bring that knowledge in to our clients in a way (again) that meets them where they are, and sets them up for success? And so I think our unique positioning allows us to be able to do that.
Enrico E. Manalo 26:41
Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, I'm not going to advocate that we “give away” the work for free or anything like that, but there is something to building good relationships with people, right? Perhaps in an advisory capacity or what have you. But it is really building these relationships, that's going to allow us to build something of a safety net for ourselves, right? So when we're unsure, when something "weird" happens, are there people that we can reach out to personally, professionally, spiritually, emotionally, who can kind of help us out?
You know, and it's like, I think what I would love to—for people to understand is there are lots of people in the United States, around the world, who are engaging in this work, right? So, some might be a little further along in that process might just be getting started, but you might actually have some insight to share with somebody else on their issues, right? And so by relating to one another in this way we can move the work forward without having to resort to the "paid expert" all the time. Right? And I think that as experts, we can also be doing more to perhaps connect our clients with one another. That's not always possible.
Valerie Williams 28:04
Yes.
Enrico E. Manalo 28:05
But you know, I know that when, when I was teaching, when I was able to leverage a student that I had had greater success with, with a student who was struggling a little bit, they were often closer to the same level, a lot of that fear kind of went away, they were able to say, "hey, this worked for me, maybe it can work for you, we got these similarities". And you know, it was really great to see those relationships turn into something where it's like, we can learn from each other, we can grow together and you know, we know that one another are out in the world trying things.
Valerie Williams 28:38
I love that anytime we've been able to connect our clients together with people that are working on similar issues, or rolling out similar programs. It has been nothing but magical. So, I, if, if there's an opportunity for you, you know, you ought to do that. I highly recommend that it's always been valuable for our clients. I love that.
Enrico E. Manalo 28:59
Nice, nice. So to close out, you know, "intentionally" here and on a good note, are there any exciting things happening for you or Converge or anything that you're excited about?
Valerie Williams 29:10
Yeah, we are. We're so excited. Like, like you said, summer just kicked off. We we have two MBA fellows [Julia Hamilton (she/her) and arohi bhatt (she/her)] that are with us this summer. And so, we're excited this summer to reinvest in Converge and so we're looking at our processes and looking at better articulating our thought leadership around pieces and capturing our client stories so that we can share those with with everyone. So we're excited to just, you know, be able to still support our clients, but also work on some of this internal programmatic work and excited to have our two fellows this summer. So that's exciting!
Enrico E. Manalo 29:53
That's super, super cool. And, you know, I had something scrolling across the bottom of the screen here, but of course we're producing this for a podcast, so if people want to get in touch with you or with converge, where can they best do that?
Valerie Williams 30:05
Yes, please reach out to us! We're at ConvergeFirm.com, we’re on Instagram @convergefirm as well, as well as LinkedIn. We have a podcast, Converge With Us and I just closed out season one. And it's really for the busy founder/executive that wants to go quick and dirty on a topic and really get some quick resources. So, a very practical podcast. Every episode is under 15 minutes, so not gonna take up a whole bunch of your time, but definitely check those out and reach out to us. We love talking to people and building partnerships and collaborations and supporting each other's work.
Enrico E. Manalo 30:48
And full disclosure. I don't think we mentioned this, but Valerie is actually an advisor to the DiVerity team. And, you know, to go back to the podcast for a minute, I listened to an episode just before we went live today. And yeah, what I loved about it was, super practical, just very, very clear. And like Valerie said, it's under 15 minutes, like I think the one I listened to was just a little bit over nine minutes long, but I really did come away with a lot of things from that. So please do check that out, check out our podcast as well, anywhere that podcasts are available, you can check us out on anchor.fm and that will take you to all the different outlets that we're on.
And let's see anything else that I gotta plug today? Oh, yes! I have a Community Event coming up on June 30th so if you're already part of the DiVerity PBC Consultant Network, then please do join us for that, that is going to be on Leveraging Intentional Friendships for Collective Care, so I'd love to see you there!
Thank you everybody for tuning in. And we will be going live again in two weeks with Kristina Smith of D&I Strategists. So really looking forward to that. And thank you so much, Valerie, once again, really such a pleasure to get to know you a little bit and to, and to chat.
Valerie Williams 32:12
Same to you Enrico, thank you so much for having me and for all that you do for the community! We really appreciate you.
Enrico E. Manalo 32:19
Oh, that's so nice to hear. Thank you!
Outro
Enrico E. Manalo 32:21
Hey, Enrico here. Thanks so much for listening. If you liked this episode, it would really help us if you could subscribe, like, share and leave us a review for all our links including our websites, social media. And if you'd like to join our consultant network, or if you're an organization that would like to join our beta, head to our link tree that's link tree slash DiVerity. linktr.ee/diverity. Thanks so much for listening! We'll see you in a couple of weeks with another episode of DEI is:. This time we'll be talking to Kristina Smith, President and Chief Strategist of D&I Strategists about why diversity training hasn't worked.
Follow us on social media to see when we'll be recording live so you can jump in on the conversation too. See you soon!
DEI is: Harnessing Hockey Stick Moments for Real Growth