The Business of Race: How to Create and Sustain an Antiracist Workplace-And Why it's Actually Good for Business
- 5h 41m
- Gina Greenlee, Margaret H Greenberg, Tom Rath
- McGraw-Hill
- 2021
In the business world, incident-driven, company position statements on Black Lives Matter or Stop Asian Hate are not proxies for the heavy lifting that will penetrate and sustain a shift in the status quo. Advancing racial equity to disrupt institutional racism requires more than a company-wide memo or a tab on a corporate website.
Businesses often water down, negate or skirt this reality by touting successes from its cousin ―diversity. However, you cannot advance a strategy you do not name. The general term “diversity” enables that dynamic. It’s impossible to create an antiracist workplace when we avoid speaking the words ``race” and “racism.”
Co-authored by two business women, one Black and one White, The Business of Race can help us all prepare for this transformative work. Rather than diving headfirst with well-meaning but ineffectual efforts, we must first ready our organizations. The authors outline both the inner work (raising our own individual awareness and creating new ways of thinking and being), and the outer work organizations must undertake. This includes honest and often uncomfortable discussions. And carrying out as core to operational business strategy and performance, policies and practices to reimagine a racially equitable workplace.
Whether you’re a rising entrepreneur, a supervisor or manager, a leader of a large multinational company, or a frontline employee, you’ll find concrete actions in this essential guide:
- Why Racial Diversity, Why Now – A Competitive Advantage
- Commitment, Specificity, and the Science of Small Wins
- Uncomfortable Truths and Fearless Leaders
- Look for Talent Where Others Are Not
- No Secrets in Pay and Promotions – Close the Wage Gap
- Discover Your “E” and Measure its Impact
Woven throughout The Business of Race are interviews with dozens of business professionals across myriad industries, fields and organizational levels. Their stories bring voice to the challenges and opportunities businesses face every day, and provide readers with the courage and tools to openly, honestly, and effectively address the deeply complex, emotional and intimidating dynamic of race and racism in the workplace.
In this Book
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Foreword
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Introduction—Claiming a Lane—Setting Expectations
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Using The Business of Race As a Workbook
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You Can't Solve What You Don't Discuss—Why the Workplace is the Perfect Place to Talk about Race and Racism
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Why Racial Diversity, and Why Now? A Competitive Advantage
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Who Snuck the “E” between the “D” and the “I”? The Evolution of DEI
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Shared Context—The Evolution of Race
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Consciously Competent—Insights for Your Own Race Journey
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Thinking about How You Think—Five Core Muscles
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Uncomfortable Truths and Fearless Leaders—Lessons from The Matrix, Singapore, and Texas
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Like Any Other Strategic Priority—Commitment, Specificity, and the Science of Small Wins
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Recruit Like Billy Beane—Look for Talent Where others are Not
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Hiring Made Visible—Individual Decisions, Institutional Changes
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No Secrets in Pay and Promotions—Close the Wage Gap; Crack Open the Concrete Ceiling
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Building Strategic Partnerships—Multiple Stakeholders, Multiple Pathways
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Discovering Your “E” and Measuring its Impact—Insights from Companies Outside Your Industry
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Reimagining the Future—The Power of Narrative
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Additional Resources
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Notes
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In Gratitude
