Resource Sheet (links to things mentioned in the episode)
👩🏾🏫Dr. Giscombe's Upcoming Academy of Management Session - Societal Inequality and Business Organizations: A Dialogue Among Scholars and Practitioners (session 1915) - August 9, 2022
Enrico E. Manalo 00:00
Hi everyone, this is your host, Enrico E. Manalo. The impact of the recent SCOTUS decision on Roe v. Wade is already being felt and seen all around the U.S. and in fact, throughout the world. While we don’t know yet what the full impact of this decision will be, we know that it will impact Women of Color—a group that is already vulnerable in many ways—disproportionately and ON TOP of the inequities they already face daily. To learn more about this issue, we talked to Dr. Katherine Giscombe, Founder of Giscombe & Associates who led the groundbreaking study (and several subsequent follow-up studies) on Women of Color in Corporate Management while at Catalyst. In this episode, we discuss the impacts of the decision on Roe v. Wade on Women of Color—for example, we can expect a 33% higher death rate for pregnancies—meaningful action organizations can be taking to support women and especially Women of Color, and opportunities for organizations to really practice what they preach—not only in terms of their DEI programming, but in terms of their political contributions as well.
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Stay tuned, DEI is: Taking Action for Women of Color, Present and Future w/ Dr. Katherine Giscombe is coming your way in 3 . . . 2 . . .
[The “DEI is:” Podcast Intro Music plays]
Enrico 01:31
Hello and welcome everybody. With me today is Dr. Katherine Giscombe, who led the groundbreaking study on Women of Color in Corporate Management while she was at the nonprofit organization Catalyst, as well as designing several follow up studies over the years, including research on Women of Color and mentoring, and trust between Women of Color and others within the organization. Her current consulting work involves an examination of equity, equality and fairness, and what organizations can do to enhance workplace inclusivity through a greater understanding and application of these concepts. To kind of set the scene here, Dr. Giscombe, why is it important for us to be talking about what action organizations can be taken for Women of Color, not only in 2022, but in the future?
Dr. Giscombe 02:30
Sure. Well, clearly Women of Color are very large part of the the talent pool out there. And we know that the more that organizations are savvy about using their talent, the more profitable they will be. And importantly, for just the the careers of people within the organization, they really need to be very objective at looking at the talent that exists in their organization. I mean, we know from various studies that even still, corporate managers may have some prejudice about who's talented, who "looks like they belong" in the upper ranks, etc. But there's a lot of effort that's been done to really disabuse corporate managers of this kind of viewpoint. And I did want to just cite some work that Catalyst has done in terms of getting senior women on boards. So a former colleague, Meesha Rosa has done a lot of work at Catalyst with getting Women of Color "board ready". And I think it's very important that people in corporations know that sponsorship is very important for advancing everybody in the talent pool. And there can be kind of a disconnect in terms of perhaps senior managers not being as comfortable with people who are different from them. But it really pays dividends to reach across those barriers, and see the talent that exists within the entire workforce. And again, sponsorship is a little bit tricky. It's not like mentoring. It's giving your sponsee a lot of tactical and strategic advice about how to increase the power that they have within their roles and what they need to do, what inside information they need to have, in order to advance within their corporation, and be seen as somebody who was who was ready for membership on a corporate board.
Enrico 04:27
Okay, so I'm really looking forward to diving into into more of that presently, before we do that I am going to pivot to our audience, and my question for those who are tuning in, is "what would be one clear indicator that organizations are taking action for women and specifically Women of Color in meaningful ways?" So as we're waiting for people to kind of respond to that question, let's move into the questions that we've developed for today. So first up, what I'd like to hear more from you is, how can business organizations better support Women of Color at all levels within organizations? And emphasis on "all levels" there.
Dr. Giscombe 05:10
Yeah, I think that's an important way of framing that question, because we know that typically, organizations with their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts tend to look just at the salaried workers or the managerial workers. But in fact, there certainly is a lot of evidence that people at lower levels in the organization are not having a very positive quality of work. So there was some work done a couple of years ago, by Berkeley, Berkeley University [UC Berkeley] about just the way that people who work in warehouses who are fulfilling orders, their quality of work life is very, very low.
Enrico 05:53
I've heard, yeah.
Dr. Giscombe 05:56
So organizations need to realize that, for example, when they do Future of Work conferences, they don't just need to have the senior people being represented, but they need to have a lower level people who are actually doing the hands-on work to keep the organization moving. And there's been, I think, a bit of a resistance for some business organizations seeing those lower-level workers, as obviously (to me at least) completely integral to their efforts at being successful.
Enrico 06:27
Yeah, so if we're digging a little deeper here, what more can organizations do?
Dr. Giscombe 06:33
Well, for example, they can look more carefully at the working conditions of people within the lower ranks, and they can give them for example, more breaks—I don't know if you've heard stories about what it's like to work in warehouses fulfilling orders, but the quality of work life is quite terrible. And in some fulfillment centers, there have been reports of injuries of people lifting heavy loads/boxes that they really shouldn't have to. So in order to just protect the the health of their workforce, organizations need to be paying a little bit more attention to those who are lower in the ranks of their workforces. And by the way, there are a lot of People of Color who are overrepresented in those in those types of jobs. So that's one of my my key concerns at this point.
Enrico 07:31
Right in the companion to that is there are certain demographic groups that are overrepresented in the boardroom as well.
Dr. Giscombe 07:40
That's exactly true. That's exactly right. Yeah. [Unclear] boardroom in terms of, you know, getting more diverse representation there and hopefully, over time, there will be some effects on the lower levels of the organization. But I think my message to corporate managers is, you know, when you're looking at DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) plans, you know, please look carefully at your entire workforce, not just the salaried workers.
Enrico 08:07
Yeah, and, you know, I think it's worth repeating here. But those hourly workers are—during the pandemic, people have been referring to them as "essential" workers. And just to be super clear about this, a lot of those roles are foundational to the society that we've built and exist in. I will also pivot back just quickly to the audience question, we've got our our guest from last time, Kristina Smith, chiming in here with "a clear indicator would be advocating for women when they're not in the room". But I think this also speaks to this this sort of conversation that we're we're talking here, and Dr. Enin Rudel, an associate of mine chimes in just to kind of support that. And Dr., I don't know if you'd like to speak to that point about advocating for women when they are not in the room. But it does seem like an important point.
Dr. Giscombe 09:07
Oh, very much. Certainly, in looking at the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts, among corporate organizations, we see sometimes that there is almost an "invisibility" that happens with Women of Color, like suddenly, you know, people forget about the contributions that they've made to their departments, to the overall business. And it's kind of interesting that, you know, there is a deep kind of prejudice at work here. I mean, there's been a lot of work on bias within organizations, and a lot of academic work, a lot of hands-on work, about surfacing that bias, and trying to eradicate it. So certainly, there is a type of invisibility unfortunately, that happens with Women of Color. I mean, stereotypes are very pervasive. So a lot of people within corporate organizations simply don't think of Women of Color as being the type of person that they would expect to see in a high level position, even though they're obviously quite talented, and have made many contributions to their business. But eradicating that prejudice is difficult. But there are organizations who are very on top of things and who, you know, who are really training their managers to see their workers in a three dimensional way.
Enrico 10:38
So, you know, I know that you are somebody who you of course, are a Woman of Color yourself, you of course, you are a founder of an organization, you have been able to hold high-level positions. I'm just curious to hear some of your perhaps personal reflections on getting there. Because, you know, I mean, it couldn't have been easy.
Dr. Giscombe 11:06
Well, I have, you know, what I tell people [when] I talk about my work life, I say, "don't try this at home". I have kind of an unusual career path. So I got a PhD in Organizational Psychology many years ago at the University of Michigan, and I wasn't quite invested in that degree. I—you know, this is many years ago before there was a lot of effort around Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. And I happen to like surveys, I liked analyzing surveys and seeing what they you know, told clients about what was going on, and I pivoted to Marketing Research for about 10 years. Oh, so I was a Woman of Color in corporate management for all those years. And it was really eye-opening; the level of prejudice that I encountered was, you know, was quite breathtaking. I mean, certainly when I was in school, I went to a very liberal university, at the University of Michigan, I personally just didn't feel that kind of bias as a student. But then working on —I was, again, in marketing research for several years—I could see the dynamics of like, “who was listened to”, “who was valued over someone else”. I think a classic example is, I had a young white woman who worked for me who—I was doing her evaluation, and I gave her just kind of an average on—I think it was "interpersonal skills". And she was very, very upset about this, because she said, "I have really good interpersonal skills!" That convinced me right?
Enrico 12:51
Right, yeah!
Dr. Giscombe 12:51
She went over my head to my boss, who basically told me that I had to fix, basically, you know, her—what I've written down about her skills in this performance evaluation. And I had to be very strategic, and thinking, "Okay, I don't want to completely give in and say, 'Oh, yes, you've got great interpersonal skills'." So I think what I did was, I lowered her performance on one attribute, which was communication, saying, you know, you really do need to communicate more carefully with everyone that you work with, because I've heard, you know, XYZ in terms of how you've communicated, so I lowered one attribute, and then to compromise, I raised the attribute on the interpersonal skills, I said, "Yeah, you know, informally, you've got great interpersonal skills, but you really do have to watch your communication with others in other departments." So to have to go through that kind of compromise is something that I did not see my white co-workers going through. So just being silenced, you know, having to look for compromises and how I did my work and how I was judged.
Enrico 14:06
Right. Yeah. So I can see clearly that there's a lot of emotional labor there. And certainly just additional mental resources that over the length of a career, excuse me, could really add up to a lot of additional strain. So—
Dr. Giscombe 14:22
Oh, but I just want to say something else about marketing. I was really glad to have a marketing background. Because when it came time to release our, you know, the first big project I did at Catalyst on Women of Color and Corporate Management there was another organization that seemed to be doing some similar work. And we kind of wanted to beat them to the punch, we wanted to release our study before they released theirs. And so even though it wasn't a great time of year to be releasing a report, I really pushed saying, "you know, the first one in the marketplace is the one who owns the marketplace." So based on that advice, we did get the report out very quickly. And it got a lot of publicity. And it (really, I think) helped put Catalyst on the map as an organization that really cared and was doing, you know, very generative things for Women of Color.
Enrico 15:19
Yeah, that's incredible. You know, we've had a couple of other comments come in again from Kristina Smith. So I think responding to the personal story, you were just sharing, "sounds very familiar". For those who are listening in. Christina Smith is also a member of the diversity community, and also a very highly accomplished practitioner in her own right. And if you'd like to learn more about her, then you can check out our last episode. Another LinkedIn user writes, "the tightrope we walk as Women of Color".
Dr. Giscombe 15:54
Still, yeah, after all these years.
Enrico 15:57
And Tara Robertson, an advisor for DiVerity is chiming in here and just, you know, singing your praises in support "it's so good you spoke up". Wonderful. So, um, to pivot back to our questions, what impact can we expect to see if organizations are better able to support women and especially Women of Color at all levels in real ways, but especially when it comes to reproductive health?
Dr. Giscombe 16:26
Hmm. Yeah, that's the question that really is on a lot of people's minds right now especially—well concerning reproductive health with what's happened with the overturn of Roe v. Wade. So, I and many others are deeply concerned about the effects on Women of Color. And, you know, that's one reason that I wanted to talk about the hourly workers at the beginning of our segment, for organizations not to discount the well-being of these workers. So in doing some research on just the presence of Women of Color in business, and also looking at disparities in treatments regarding health, there has been an estimation that because of the overturn of Roe v. Wade, there's going to be a 33% higher death rate among Black women who—
Enrico 17:24
33%?!
Dr. Giscombe 17:27
33% HIGHER death rate for pregnancies, given that they're not going to be allowed to terminate a pregnancy that they do not want. So that's, you know, looking again, at, I just did some analyses with the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And there are approximately 16 million Women of Color of reproductive age in the workforce in the United States. So when you think about that huge number, there are just so many deleterious effects that are going to happen. And I know with both Asian women and Hispanic women just doing some research quickly, sometimes there's a language barrier that may keep them from accessing reproductive health services. And clearly, it's going to be much harder to access those services, given that many states have enacted a total ban, on, on well on abortion for any reason, even to it, this sounds really terrible, but it seems that even to save the life of the mother, that there could be instances where certain procedures are withheld from women when they're pregnant, because it MIGHT harm a fetus.
Enrico 18:48
Yeah, I've been seeing these headlines. And you know, I think it bears repeating here that all of this is going to be added on top of all the already existing and exacerbated inequities that Women of Color already face, is that accurate?
Dr. Giscombe 19:07
That's really true. And, you know, I have written an op-ed, and my editor is shopping it around. And I really, you know, I don't know if the major publications are going to print my op-ed, but I did at least want to share something I found out in doing this research, And there. Yeah, there was actually investigative reporting done by a magazine, Business Insider. And it talked about how there was a disconnect between organizations that have really good Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs on paper and yet, a lot of these organizations have contributed millions of dollars to support trigger bans, in states about to overturn Roe v. Wade. And I was kind of shocked, I don't remember that. It was like AT&T and other telecommunication organizations that have contributed money to these trigger bans. Now, these organizations have very good Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs for their employees. And yet, there's a contradiction there, in terms of supporting this kind of initiative that again, I'm just so struck by the data about the 33% higher death rate among African American women. And you know, going back to another story that was in the papers, like, I guess, a couple years ago, now, there is such prejudice out there, that you might remember Serena Williams, when she was giving birth, she was having difficulties. And you know, she's obviously very sharp, very smart. She knew what was going on with her and was trying to explain to the medical caretakers what they needed to do, and they dismissed her. She really had to be extremely, you know, aggressive about saying, "you know, this is what's going on with me and you need to do X, Y, Z." So unfortunately, prejudice is so I think almost “hardwired” into our society, that it is obviously very difficult for people to break through that prejudice and see Women of Color as you know, just full citizens, you know, who are—who really need all the rights that other people in the United States have.
Enrico 21:32
Hmm. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that's such a great example because that's somebody that so many look up to and who is widely admired for their strength, their skill, their you know, their thoughtfulness in how they play the game. And yet, they can so easily be dismissed and reduced to—if we're being frank here be dehumanized, right. In spite of all of that accomplishment, when it really mattered the most, was just able to be dehumanized, categorized, and dismissed.
Dr. Giscombe 22:10
And that's how deeply prejudice runs in this country, and quite frankly, other other countries as well.
Enrico 22:18
Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to pivot to our audience again. So you know, what I'd like to get some insight from those tuning in right now is, "if you could jump ahead one year into the future, what would you like to see organizations accomplish through better supporting the reproductive health of women, especially Women of Color?" So I'll leave that question up here for a moment. But to move on into our next question. So what are principled organizations doing right to support Women of Color post-Roe v. Wade, or after—following the SCOTUS decision?
Dr. Giscombe 22:59
Oh, well, actually, there were several organizations that had been contributing money to help women needing abortions, for example, traveled to other states that allow that (legally) now still allow abortions. So that's, that's a major contribution. And certainly, you know, I and you know, another women are grateful that so many companies are doing this.
Enrico 23:25
Got it? Yeah. So if we're kind of thinking about the role of DEI practitioners in supporting organizations in staying the course on what they've committed to for DEI, but also what they committed to doing for women, not just following the SCOTUS decision, but even before that, you know, how, how can (in your mind), how can the practitioners have like a greater impact? Or is that even a possibility?
Dr. Giscombe 24:02
Oh, I think it's a possibility. I think that they need to have really hard conversations with business leaders, about how sometimes some of their priorities or their practices may be working against the Women of Color within their organization. And I think a good example, again, is the number of organizations that contributed, you know, millions of dollars to the trigger ban on abortions. I mean, clearly, there was some belief behind that—I'm sure that there's a reason that they wanted to do that it could have been the personal beliefs of the very senior people within organizations, but it would be so good if business organizations could take just a deeper look at the entire lives of the Women of Color who are working in their organizations, and again, not just managerial and salaried workers, but the lower-level workers who are going to be most vulnerable to something like the you know, the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
Enrico 25:16
Gotcha. Yeah, you know, as we're talking here, something that kind of crossed my mind is so much of the work that we're trying to advance with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion stems from people just kind of overlooking other people's humanity. Right? So getting too locked into what they're trying to accomplish organizationally, or, or what have you, but I don't know. Just kind of in the moment here, in your mind, is it even possible for organizations to, to operate in a way where they are continually kind of thinking [about] and centering people's humanity? Because the pattern seems to be indicating that that is not the default?
Dr. Giscombe 26:07
Hmm. Well, actually, that's a question that I'm going to try to answer. I'm actually giving a—I’m chairing a panel at the Academy of Management in about three weeks. It'll be in Seattle, August 9th is when we're doing our panel. And we're actually you know, I've got a number of experts with me who are looking at how business organizations can more deeply look at systemic inequity. And ironically, business organizations are basically the recipients of inequity with these enormous tax breaks that they again, and just the millions of dollars that, you know, very senior people in the organization are paid. So to recognize that there's a huge gap between the quality of life at the very senior levels, and the quality of life at the very lower levels and organizations is kind of a big deal. And actually, I think we're probably going to quote from a researcher named Mor Barak, who talked about how business organizations can become just more humane in terms of broadening their definition of who their stakeholders are. So traditionally, the major stakeholder for corporate organizations is the shareholders, you know, you want to increase what monies the shareholders get based on what your organization's doing. But in fact, what Mor Barak advocates is corporate organizations just expanding this list of stakeholders to include the community in which they're located, and even the nation. And in that regard, I suspect that if business organizations took this to heart, they probably wouldn't, you know, want to contribute money to the trigger bans. You know, that happened after Roe v. Wade.
Enrico 28:08
Yeah. So interesting to hear you say that, you know, I remember in grad school learning, you know, when I was studying organizational conflict, that organizations often—well, whether they realize it or not, they are embedded in the communities from which their workforce is drawn. And so the conflict dynamics that people experience within those communities often get drawn into the organization simply by people being present there, right.
Dr. Giscombe 28:38
Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, interesting.
Enrico 28:39
Yeah, we have this idea that there's this division of our professional life and our personal life. But, you know, if we're being real here, it's the same person sitting in the office chair, as sits down in the easy chair. And you know, that false separation does not serve us well.
Dr. Giscombe 28:57
And also, what's happened is that, more and more this the hours that people contribute to working, I mean, with the advent of the internet, and suddenly, you know, you may be on call throughout the weekend, you know, it's very common to get a series of emails from coworkers, from bosses. And, you know, time that should be spent just relaxing, recharging, being away from work isn't really part of the equation anymore. I mean, just objectively, having worked for so many years, I can see the differences in the hours that people expect to be working every work week, say 30 years ago versus now. And it's a huge difference. It's a huge difference.
Enrico 29:42
So huge burden on again, mental health, which is another hot topic right now and not for no reason. We've got another comment that's come in here. And I think this is in response to the audience question, which was, what they would like to see if we could fast forward a year from now is "advocating for systemic change while supporting individuals in their orgs." And I think that speaks very well to what you were saying earlier. To kind of close out intentionally here, I wonder if we can drill down to maybe something a little bit concrete for those who have tuned in and what's on my mind is like, let's say that somebody is tuning in to watch us today and you know, really processing the information in those great statistics that you've sketched out for us. What is something that they can be doing themselves in their workplace in their life, to contribute to, you know, improving the conditions for women everywhere?
Dr. Giscombe 30:46
I think forming deeper relationships with others in the workplace, getting to know them as individuals, and being sure that you're judging them objectively based on their talents and also just being well less prejudiced in terms of being able to see talent in people who look different from you.
Enrico 31:11
And I love that for you, it came down to relationships, you know, so one way that I look at opportunities for equity, it often falls along, developing our knowledge, developing our communication skills, or developing our relationships and often some mixture of all three. We also know—and my background is in conflict resolution—that when you have a relationship, then it's a lot easier to invest in navigating conflicts—small ones, large ones, large social conflicts like the conflicts we're going through right now, but if we remain kind of "numbers" or faceless "other people", or "job titles" to others, then it's really hard for them to connect with our humanity. And you know, if we're not reaching the "hearts and minds" kind of space, then motivation can also be in short supply. Any final thoughts as we close out here Dr. Giscombe?
Dr. Giscombe 32:07
Just that I hope that people are very conscious of seeing their co-workers, people who report to them their bosses as three dimensional human beings with lots of complexities and making an effort to get to know the people that they work with beyond just the tasks that they do within the workplace.
Enrico 32:28
Thank you. And thank you so much for your time. And I know this was not an easy episode for us to put together but just really valuing your insight, your knowledge, and your expertise. And thank you so so much for everything.
Dr. Giscombe 32:44
Oh, and thank you.
Enrico 32:45
Hey again, Enrico here. Thanks so much for tuning in! If you like this episode, please like, share, and subscribe! It would REALLY help us out! For comments, questions, suggestions, or thoughts, send us an email at info@diverity.com. That’s info-at-D-I-V-E-R-I-T-Y.com. For all our links head to linktr.ee/diverity, l-i-n-k-t-r-dot-e-e-slash-d-i-v-e-r-i-t-y
We’ll be back in two weeks with another episode of the “DEI is:” Podcast with Erin-Kate Escobar, an LA-based DiVerity Network Consultant who has worked in the field of promoting social justice and education for over a decade, their focus being conflict transformation facilitation, non-violent communication, mentorship, unlearning bias, identity exploration, and transformational leadership. We’ll be talking about ERGs—that’s Employee Resource Groups—and their potential for transformational change as well as some of the tools they can leverage to get there. That’s coming your way on August 5th OR you can join our live recording on August 3rd at 12:30PM ET/9:30AM PT by following us on LinkedIn, which you can find the link to on our linktree. See you soon!
DEI is: Taking Action for Women of Color, Present and Future