DEI Isn’t Enough; Companies Need Anti-Racist Leadership | HBR IdeaCast

0:01James White:This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+. Do you hear that? That sound, right? That means that summer's officially here. It means that grown adults just sprint into the street for a frozen dessert shaped like a cartoon.

0:34James White:But this summer, Mint Mobile has a better treat. Every plan, including unlimited, is$15 a month. And unlike ice cream, it won't drip down your wrist or look nothing like the picture. Does anyone have any cash? Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch.

0:47Krista White:Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms.

1:06Krista White:Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Alison Beard.

1:18Krista White:Over the past few years in the United States, we've seen some horrific examples of racism directed at Black Americans, Latinos, Asians, Jewish people, and those of Arab descent. We've heard anti-immigrant slurs, seen people of color attacked, and if we could stomach it, watched the murders of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. Amid all these tragedies and the public protests that followed, many U.S. business leaders promised they would do their part to fight the problem. They committed to making their workplaces more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. They came out strong. But for the past year and a half, they've been struggling with the hard part, putting their words into action, actually seizing this window of opportunity to make lasting change.

2:00Krista White:Our guests today are here to help. James White is the former chair, president, and CEO of Jamba Juice, drawing on his experiences turning that company into one that delivered on DEI and his conversations and work with other executives doing the same. He and his daughter, Krista White, wrote the book, Anti-Racist Leadership, How to Transform Corporate Culture in a Race-Conscious World. They also wrote the related HBR article, How to Build an Anti-Racist Company. James and Krista, thank you so much for being on the show.

2:29James White:We're thrilled to be on with you today.

2:31Krista White:Thank you for having us.

2:41Krista White:As Black Americans yourselves, this is obviously a pretty personal issue for you. I know this might be opening a huge can of worms right at the start, But could you first tell me a little bit about your own lives and career experiences and how they've shaped your thinking on these issues? James, let's start with you.

2:59James White:I'd make a couple comments. As a Black executive, first member of my family to graduate from college, the events of 2020 and the global racial reckoning really brought to the fore the need for significant work that is yet to be done. And I've been blessed and very successful throughout my career. But my first assignment in sales with the Coca-Cola company, we had to remove from my selling territory the headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan in Arkansas.

3:31Krista White:Oh, my goodness.

3:32James White:So there are not many white colleagues that have that challenge as a first generation graduate from college, first professional job. So that's just a challenge. And I think this is where we would love for all leaders to have much greater empathy.

3:50Krista White:I also feel that the 2020 situation was a huge moment of a lot of things coming to a head for me. Between the racial reckoning that Dad mentioned and the pandemic that we've seen have a disproportionate effect on people of color. has brought things to light for me after, you know, just my own experiences living as a black woman facing microaggressions, having people ask if they could touch my hair. There's certain challenges that you experience. I spend a lot of time in predominantly white spaces. So you feel othered. Those microaggressions, they add up. And there's some of them are macroaggressions.

4:43Krista White:And also there have been times in my work experience where I've observed and, you know, you question whether this is racial or not. You second guess yourself. But you've seen I've seen white colleagues.

4:57James White:This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think, you know, a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the Web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+. Be promoted with less experience than me.

5:26Krista White:Things like that.

5:28James White:And one of the other things that we talk about is the requirement for Black executives to need to prove it again and prove it again. And one of the stories that we talk about is the fact that I've never across a really long and successful career been promoted on the basis of potential. And I shared this story with a thousand people at one of the at a company town hall. Medallia, the CEO, had me in to address the group. And this was post the murder of George Floyd. and I made the comment around never being promoted on potential and I could see the CEO rock back in his chair. And he said, you know what?

6:11James White:We've got black medallions sitting in this audience. We probably, they don't even realize the potential that they have. And we probably should be thinking about opportunities for them to play different roles inside the company. Yeah.

6:25Krista White:And so that's a perfect transition. You know, this problem plays out at the personal individual level, but the solutions don't happen there. They happen at the organizational level. So I'd love to talk about your time at Jamba Juice, James. In broad strokes, what was the company like when you arrived and how did you change it to make it a more welcoming place for people of color, LGBTQ employees, a more inclusive organization?

6:55James White:I think the foundational strength of Jamba is that it would have been more inclusive from the start than most other companies. The founder of the company, Kirk Perrin, was a gay man. The foundation to be a really inclusive company was always there. the values and purpose of the company were very consistent with my own. But the focus that we brought over the course of the time that I was at the helm of Jamba was to add significantly more diversity of all kinds into the leadership level. The one place the job was not diverse was in the boardroom, and we added more diversity into the boardroom and then at all levels inside the company.

7:44James White:One of the things that you'll find in corporations and some companies, especially in an industry like the restaurant industry, are incredibly diverse on the front line. But as people migrate across their careers, you'll see little or no diversity in the leadership ranks.

8:04Krista White:And Krista, after your dad stepped down, why did you two want to come together to write this playbook for other companies? In particular, what perspective did you want to bring to the table? Yeah, so we had started working together on some consulting projects. And the more we were learning, the more we realized how much there was to share in that dad had this extremely unique perspective as someone who had been a black operating executive versus the usual perspective is from DEI leaders and HR folks. and my perspective in the book is one that is very uh it's informed by my experiences as a millennial I'd say and someone who's not necessarily in the corporate world but someone who is very uh passionate about social justice and um in naming the things that we really have to reckon with of white supremacy, of the systemic nature of racism in this country and within a lot of corporations.

9:20Krista White:So pushing the book.

9:23James White:This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+.

9:48Krista White:Forward in that way and naming anti-racism was really important to me. So this term anti-racist has really come to the fore over the past couple of years. Krista, how do you define anti-racist leadership? Yeah, I'd say that anti-racist leaders are really committed to looking at these systemic things within their company, looking at the processes and looking at the rituals. they move beyond lip service a lot of people have put out uh black lives matter statements and anti-racist statements for their companies but who is actually taking action who is holding their top leaders accountable who is being really honest about where they stand currently because everyone has somewhere to go in terms of anti-racism.

10:46Krista White:They understand that it is an ongoing journey. It's a moving target. We are constantly evolving and learning, and an anti-racist leader is open to learning and acknowledging what they don't know. They recognize the implicit humanity in people and lead with empathy. And they're also, you know, surrounding themselves with great people who they can learn from and learn with and collaborate with. And they are also open to listening to their team from the top down. Everyone within the company has the ability to have a voice. There's formalized opportunities to speak to the top, such as town halls and one-on-ones with leaders.

11:37Krista White:They're just really committed to this multi-year journey. And James, why is it so important for all leaders, you know, from the top to the team manager, not just the HR department to lead this charge?

11:55James White:I think the critical thing that we wanted to bring is really not the micro, but we wanted to step back and think about the systems and the institutions and how we make sustainable change and sustainable progress around this work. And to the point that Krista mentioned, the systems and processes that are biased need to be retooled, rework. And from a leadership perspective, we've got a number of beliefs. One, the CEO has to lead this work. She can't delegate it because this work is inextricably linked to culture and values of the company and that you never delegate. It's important that the HR and the chief diversity officers are connected to the work where there's a chief diversity officer present.

12:47James White:But the most important segment of the organization and population that we focus on in the book is the middle management. Most of us experience our own, all of our work experiences with the middle managers, which is the place where most of the people report. So your experience with an organization is at that middle management level. And we believe you need to bring process and tools and policies and incentives that enable that middle management group to really change the organization to create more inclusive workspaces that allow us all to bring our full selves to work.

13:33Krista White:And so you have seven steps for making this happen. We just talked about enlisting the support of senior executives. Then it's I'm going to go through them quickly for our audience. It's audit the culture, document what's already happening.

14:02James White:article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

14:14Krista White:Happening with DEI, find ways to measure progress, form action learning teams, and develop and communicate a plan. So let's dig into some of those in more detail. Krista, what do you mean by audit the culture? Yeah, so you want to really dig into those, all the different processes that touch culture. So it's important to look at the HR systems and see where there are gaps, see where there's bias. It also means looking at your digging into your data and looking at, say, what are the real numbers of diversity within your company? What's the representation of different people? And also disaggregating that data so you're know, for example, how many women of color you might have at different levels.

15:05Krista White:And just really having an in-depth look at those numbers, as well as looking at employee survey data by different populations to see what experiences your employees are having and if it changes based on race or gender or other identity categories. Because it seems so easy to fall back on things like the number of people of color hired and then at a certain level of management, but to not think about how things actually feel on the ground at the organization. How do you figure out which metrics are the most important? Like, what are the areas in which you think it's most important to document where you are now and ensure that you're making progress?

15:59James White:It's going to be situational. Every organization is going to be different. And one of the ways that I talk about it is I think organizations need to start with where they are. You do it in the context or with the filter of what are the company's values and mission, this is going to be, as Krista mentioned, a multi-year journey. And the most important thing is that we start.

16:22Krista White:And Krista, what are action learning teams and how do they inform the plan? Sure. So action learning teams are cross-functional teams that bring together folks that may or may not have worked together before to tackle business issues and solve problems. It's a way that people can be brought together that aren't usually in the groups of folks who get to do these more high profile assignments. It's one way that you can identify these high potential people who might be in marginalized groups or might not just be the traditional cookie cutter fit of what your company has been promoting. One example we use in the book is using action learning teams to bring more Jamba juices into airports.

17:22Krista White:They brought together people from different departments and you give them a time frame and it's these small groups of people that really are able to ideate and innovate together.

17:40James White:We view action learning as really a tool or a technology that I've seen used effectively across my own career. And the suggestion that we make is as you bring people from inside the company that typically don't get to work on the organization level problems, you know, like culture, like diversity, equity and inclusion, like building an approach for anti-racist leadership inside the company and the formation of composition. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks.

18:30James White:Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required compatibility and availability varies 18+. of that team should be cross-functional and should be representative of the diversity in the company. And you start to bring different voices into the company and have them focus on solving the critical challenges of the organization.

18:58Krista White:And so we've all seen this happen. You have a task force like that, an action learning team. They come up with a plan, they make recommendations, and then nothing happens. So how do you make sure that all of this work amounts to something? You know, it's one of these moments when people really are mobilizing around this issue of anti-racism. So how do we keep the momentum?

19:22James White:Yeah, so this wouldn't be work. This work is not delegated. This work would be elevated to the C-suite. And I've got several examples in the book. Snook Supermarkets would be One of the fantastic examples, the CEO, Todd Snook, there over the last two years has been personally involved on a weekly basis with his chief people officer, head of diversity, and a line leader. And then on a monthly basis, I actually joined the discussion with that group. And we've been doing that for almost two years. And that's the kind of leadership in this moment that I think we need to see. And you see really real progress everywhere in an organization like that one where the CEO is committed.