How to Push for Policy Changes at Your Company | Women at Work | Podcast

28:13So let's get into the actual work of running this, you know, the well-thought-out, targeted initiative and thinking about the listener who's not in a leadership position but wants to make this change in their organization. Lily, what you talked in your new book, DEI Deconstructed, about, I think it's seven roles that people can play in a change initiative. Did I get that right? at seven? Yeah. Can you talk about how someone might figure out which role they're best suited for and how they can get involved? Yeah. So I'll sort of talk through, I guess, that chapter just because I think some context is useful.

28:50The setup for that chapter of the book is a lot of people pursue organizational change as this heroic effort that one person can take on their own. That's sort of how it appears in the zeitgeist. If you want to change your organization you need to be the hero advocate shouldering everything on yourself and and fighting the man and like tearing down the system but that's actually not how change efforts happen right i talked about the story in the very beginning with the onboarding program right there was no one hero there were like maybe 50 people at the end of the day with a quarter dozen um that were all driving this effort forward in different ways and they were doing different things One of the folks that really drove those efforts forward, sure, they were an advocate, which is one of the roles that I talk about.

29:39They were someone that was an activist type. They were really pushing for change, super vocal. But there were also folks involved who were educators, who maybe were operating a little less visibly, but spending time to do the work of educating their colleagues, of sharing information, of making sure everyone was on the same page with why this challenge was a challenge. And there were others. There were folks who were backers of the project who were like, I don't know, middle managers high up in the organization who couldn't give a damn about onboarding. They didn't care. But at the end of the day, they had access to resources and power and the rubber stamp of saying yes to a certain initiative.

30:17And they played a really powerful role as well. Funny thing is, if you ask them, they would say that they did nothing. But they did a large number of things because, you know, the movement succeeded in part because it identified that these are the folks who have access to the resources. And so at the very least, we need to make sure they're amenable to this effort. And then at the end of the day, the folks who were the ones building the new onboarding program, they also had an enormous amount of power as well, right? Like how terrible it would have been if we had created this huge movement and then at the end of the day, pass it off to people who didn't know how to build an onboarding program.

30:56Yeah. I actually see some movements die that way, right? Like they think the work is done when the policy has been announced and they don't stick around to see the implementation of it. No, like they're part of a movement too. So, you know, people need to understand that there are so many roles to play in a movement beyond just being that hyper vocal voice, which a lot of people don't want to be, right? You find that when you approach this idea of organizational change to people, they shy away. They say, I'm not the type to take the spotlight. Therefore, I can't play a role in the movement. And I think that's missing a lot of opportunity.

31:30You can educate people. You can share information. You can organize people, right? Someone has to buy the pizza. Someone has to get people together. Someone has to make the calendar invite, right? Like there's a role for everybody in these kinds of movements, but people just need to realize that and realize that these are powerful roles as well. Even if you're not at the front leading the charge, if you're in the back taking care of logistics, doing relationship building, talking to sponsors and advocates, the movement would not succeed without you. Those roles are so important. Yeah. I have to say, Lily, when I read that chapter, I kept saying, who's the one who makes the Google spreadsheet?

32:10Because that's the role I want to fill. And I found it. The builder could be that role. But I think what you're describing is that you have to understand what you are interested in, what motivates you, and what unique skills you have. Based on that, there's a role to play in the movement. Yep, absolutely. But how does it all come together, Lily? You've got these seven roles and the way you describe I've, you know, I had a similar response to Amy. I could see where I would fit in. But how does it all come together to produce an effective movement? Yeah, I mean, gosh, movement building, right? Like, that's a whole conversation.

32:48I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, actually. But, yeah, you know, organically, most of the time, and messily, most of the time, to be very honest, right? Like, I wish you could just put a pin on it and be like, all right, everyone, movement's starting tomorrow, right? Like, everybody get involved. The spreadsheet maker in me, Lily, really hates that. Like, I want to hold the clipboard and just make it all, like, go in sequential steps. But that's important too. Yeah. Right? Like, that's really important too. And you can't discount the importance of trying to start a movement on its own. What I usually find happen is that yes, a lot of people try to start movements on their own, they get some success.

33:31And then people will coalesce around one or two really high profile events. That's almost always what I see, right? A very young movement or a very immature movement, something happens. The company releases a new policy. There's something, you know, in the breaking news, a big life event happens. And then suddenly, right? Like people flock, they say like, my gosh, my eyes have become opened to the fact that this issue is an issue, right? Talk about like racial justice movements in 2020. No one could have prepared for that at all, but like, that did ignite a movement. And I think what we need to understand as people who want to create and build movements is that those windows of opportunity are both things that we can't control, but also, you know, things that we can make use of to continue growing our movements.

34:23So we need to do both. We need to go around with clipboards, right? Like that sort of foundational movement building is absolutely how many movements start. But we can't be so inflexible as to not realize these huge moments when they happen and to use them as ways to dramatically raise the visibility of our movement, to bring new people in. We just have to be ready for that, right? And most racial justice movements in 2020 were not prepared for the enormous influx of new people who wanted to participate to great detriment right and and i don't blame movement builders um i don't blame organizations to some extent but it's really difficult to recognize when these movements have suddenly reached critical mass overnight and now we need to steer them to action i wish i wish in 2020 we could have seen all these movements that sprung up direct their companies towards taking more effective action.

35:19I wish we could have gotten, you know, more pay equity across the board, more leadership representation across the board, more DEI councils, ERGs. We did see some of this stuff, but it didn't happen nearly as quickly or with as much direction as it could have. I think largely because the movements weren't ready. I agree. And I think that it's not only seizing the moment, but it's also having leaders who have the vision of strategy. You have to have someone who can really center a movement and then have everyone move towards that same moment. Because otherwise, if you don't stay on message, if you divert the attention or the direction or the end game, whatever your end goal is, because too often people start with an issue, but they don't start with what they want the end game to be.

36:12What is your end game? What is it that you really want to realize? And if you ask someone and they don't know, and they're within that movement, that means you need more strategy. You need to really implement the educational components, like you said, Lily, and really have those people who specialize in that do it, right? Like the advocate doesn't need to necessarily do the educational training at all, right? But it's all those things, I think, that really create and cultivate a movement. But you have to have both of those. Yeah. I want to put ourselves in the shoes of a listener who has an idea for a way to change something in their organization that will not just benefit women, but benefit everyone else.

36:53You know, all of this sounds, even the word movement sounds so overwhelming. What do we give them in terms of advice to get started? Like, how do they actually move from this idea to actually beginning to do exactly the things you all are talking about? Yeah, so there's this concept I want to share called a theory of change. And a theory of change refers specifically to a set of steps to get from a point A, that's where you are, to a point B of where you want to be. And to Ashley's point earlier, you need to have that point B before you get started. it. You need to have the blueprints of a plane before you start building it.

37:34Otherwise, you're going to build a tractor. You're not going to get off the ground. But you need to be able, before you start a movement, to say, our organization needs to be more like this. It doesn't have to be in perfect fidelity, but you have to have some vision. You have to say, this is what we're trying to build. And then you need to, and this doesn't happen overnight, you need to reverse engineer why it isn't like that already. Why is it your organization hasn't gotten to that point yet? What's in the way? What's stopping you? What are the obstacles? What are the roadblocks? And then once you have that understanding of where you are now, where you need to be in all the things in your way, you can make a plan.

38:15You can make a strategy. You can say, first, we're going to tackle this. Then we're going to address that. We're going to work together with these groups. We're going to try to achieve this change. And is that intimidating? Absolutely. But now it's chunkable. Like now it's a plan that can be broken up. If you have no plan, how are you supposed to break anything up into anything that looks reasonable and bite-sized? Like that's the quickest way to intimidate people. If you say, well, we want racial justice and we've got none of it time to get started right like oh like that that stresses me out just saying it but instead if you say we want representation that looks like this maybe it's not racial justice but it's representation at the very least at this level that hasn't happened because of these policies these people these processes these broken things these things inside the company these things outside the company to address these things we We need movements that change these processes, that help turn these people into allies, that help activate new ways of working, that help us create more consistent relationships with our recruitment teams and the folks outside of our company who we're trying to hire, so on and so forth.

39:32Now we have five work streams. Let's chunk those. What does that look like? What's our two-year plan, one-month plan, right? All of these things. How many people do we need to get involved? It's really intimidating, but now it's intimidating in a tangible way rather than just fear of this infinitely big unknown, which I think is what stops a lot of people from getting involved. Yeah. So you identify an issue. You've done a little bit of this analysis. Do you build a coalition? I'm just trying to imagine wading into this fight, if you don't have the experience of having done it before, what are your next steps?

40:13Do you get in touch with someone who may have more formal power than you? What do you do? Actually, I'd love to hear your thoughts on coalition building. I'm sure you have all. I do. I think first I would suggest to people, because I do it all the time, bring in those who aren't the same as you when you are creating the idea in and of itself. Because I think too often we're not bringing intersectionality into the ideation phase. For example, I want to say, yes, we need paid leave. We need one of the other things that I would really love to see is a childcare stipend. But I have to go talk to someone who's at the bargaining table, who actually handles the bargaining, because equally I need to understand the process there, right?

41:01Then I have someone in research who might be able to give me insight on what is the economic cost of this and how do we present it in a way that leadership will actually support and rally around it. And so I think often, and it's not something that people really realize, we have to get out of our own silos. Even if you're a person of color, even if you're a woman and it's a woman's issue. You have to get out of your silo and talk to those who really touch that issue in a variety of ways, because that helps you create a process to actually drive resolution. Because as you were stating, what do you do once you come up with this idea?

41:39The next thing is, well, who is the appropriate person to actually drive forth that change? And I know for me, it comes down from the leadership will identify and say, okay, you get in contact with this person in this department and this person and that person, and that helps drive forth the change. And too often, I always tell people this, observe even before you get to ideation, observe how things are changed and realized within an organization. Because once you have that process, then you can not only push forward through maybe informal dialogue and having people reach out to leaders, but equally you work through the actual process to drive change.

42:24Man, we're on the same page today. That's wild. Because I literally give the same advice. So Amy, one thing, just one short thing that I'll add is the question you asked is like, say you have the idea, what do you do next? Do you build a coalition? Here's the secret. you can't have come to the idea without a coalition to begin with. And this is what I'm hearing from Ashley. You can't just make up this idea by yourself and expect that like this coalition will materialize. The point of a participatory collective process is the coalition building happens even in the very beginning when you're coming up with what idea to solve, what challenge to address, right?

43:06Like how to implement it. It's all happening in the collective. And so if you're really looking for a first step and you're truly an individual, my first recommendation would be find the collective, like find other people to organize with. You don't have to have an idea yet, but like we mentioned earlier, you know, find people who can share those stories with you, build an understanding of what ideas you want to be putting forward, what challenges you want to be solving. And then to Ashley's point, you want to be explicitly bringing people who are as different from you as possible into your coalition, not only just for the sake of them being different, but because these people will have perspectives and ideas and access and power that you can't even dream of, right?

43:52Like you can only see one side of the elephant. You need to bring in someone who has another perspective to be able to say, this is how it's shaped on the other end, because that will allow you to craft an initiative, a movement, whatever, that actually works. If you don't have that perspective in, which I've seen by the way, movements start without the people that they need in them. And they create this very well thought out ask that completely is impossible because they fundamentally misunderstood how the organization works. It's tragic, right? It takes months and then they decide to ask for something which doesn't exist or which can't happen.

44:29And if there's something that demoralizes movements faster, it's that, right? And I've seen it happen a couple of times. Well, thinking about your example, Ashley, of the child care stipend, for example. Like if that was something in my organization I wanted to push forward, I would think, oh, let me get some other working moms who also want that, right? But what you're saying makes me think, well, it's not just the working moms, right? It's also the senior leader who maybe made a change to get a stipend for health care subsidies. And even to talk to like the 25-year-old who doesn't yet have a kid or maybe never is interested in having a kid and saying, hey, I'm thinking we need child care subsidies.

45:06Do you have any thoughts on that? And who knows, right? Who knows what information, what perspective, right? Like, oh, in my last organization, I saw people do that, actually. This is how they did it. Right. I'm sort of imagining it's this, like, what do you call it? Like a road show where you go to, like, different people who have different perspectives and just say, this is what I'm thinking. What do you have to say? And don't forget the managers whose teams are hurt by the policies that hurt their team members, right? Yes, right. Right, right, right. What about getting people aligned? You talked a moment ago, Lily, about movements dissolving or stalling out.

45:44And I imagine the lack of alignment, the lack of strategy that Ashley was referring to earlier is a problem. Do you have any exercises that you find are especially effective to get alignment on the issue? And I think, Ashley, you had some thoughts on that. Yeah. So I'll share some brief thoughts. And again, I'm really curious to hear Ashley's as well, given that I think you have slightly more experience with it. But when I work with movements, a few things. One, no movement is going to stay perfectly aligned forever, given how inherently messy they are. And it's totally okay to have a movement that comes together for one victory and then falls apart slightly to come together again for the next big thing.

46:26Like movements are living, they're organic, they change, and they always take different shapes. So first of all, it's okay if your movement's not always aligned. The problem is if you fall apart before you're able to achieve your first goal, which is what I'm assuming you're asking about. So if you want to prevent that, I have people just really focus on what that goal is and to use that goal as a reminder of like what it is we organized around. Let's say it's it's a child care subsidy, right? Let's say it's a parental leave policy. Then making sure at the end of the day that whatever our messaging is around that, that we continue to push that forward, linking it to one clear ask, one clear demand, and keeping that message as consistent as possible.

47:11And there may be some objection from within the movement. There may be some people who say, we want 10 things more. There may be some people who say, we want 10 things less. But trying to stay fixated on that one message, our movement is going to achieve this first, is what I find gets people aligned, not perfectly, but enough to make that first effort succeed. And this is, I think, another challenge of movements. They try to achieve everything all at once when that's not necessarily how things work, right? Making sure that you can go from victory to victory one at a time is infinitely more sustainable than trying to get the kitchen sink all at once and falling apart because you can't align a movement of dozens or hundreds of people around 20 discrete asks.

47:58It's okay to start multiple movements. And what does that look like? So if you're trying to get people to coalesce around one victory or one ask, do you vote? How do you decide which is the one to focus on? Well, actually, yeah, go for it. And I'll use a tangible example. I've been going all across the United States and one of the biggest things that we've been talking about is Roe v. Wade. And a lot of people don't see it as a labor issue, but it absolutely is primarily because women typically are discriminated in the workplace because of their ability to reproduce. And so once we start marginalizing one community, then others start to get marginalized.

48:41And I know that by highlighting the fact that we all are dealing with something, some level of discrimination as a result of who we are, it creates a commonality in a community. And I will also say that it's not just about collective bargaining. It's also about community benefits. And one of the things that I think is a big misconception with unions is they think that we just work for our members. But we actually work towards a cohesive whole. So, for example, you know, a lot of the nursing rooms that women have in the workplace, those were pushed for by unions. It became a part of the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

49:21And it may seem small, but it's really an example of the reality of it is, is that we're all are in need of a space. So we have to make sure that in addition to the fact of creating benefits for our members, we're also including the community because that's another coalition building. And if you don't include the community, then you are excluding those who really are more impacted even than the worker by the implications of a corporation coming into a community. There's a term for some of what you're talking about in the DEI space called the curb cut effect. And it refers specifically to the curb cuts at the end of curbs that were implemented for accessibility reasons after the ADA.

50:06but the thing about the curb cut effect is it describes how if you design for the most marginalized you create these cascading benefits that can benefit people who you might not have even thought about right look at curbs uh who benefits from those people parents with strollers joggers delivery workers bikers all sorts of folks and i can guarantee that like the ada wasn't passed out of consideration for parents, bikers, joggers, and delivery people, right? But when you design for the most marginalized, you create these benefits that can help so many people. And I think this is one way in which you also build alignment within movements, right?

50:46You help people understand that this isn't just a niche issue you're helping out with out of the goodness of your heart. That's important too. But find ways, you know, think of ways in which this might help you. Find ways in which you can make your own relationship to this issue we're talking about and ways in which it's going to change the reality for you and your working situation, for your team members, for your colleagues. Self-interest is not a terrible way to appeal to people, right? Like everyone wants to learn how something they participate in can help them. And we don't have to look far to find ways in which DEI efforts or equity efforts or unionizing efforts, you know, really benefit way more people than just a small population.

51:31So how does that conversation go? I mean, is it as simple as getting your group together and saying, how does this benefit we're seeking for this particular group over here affect other groups? So I think it's backwards. Instead of selecting a benefit and asking people how it helps them, remember what I said about assuming the solution, right? Go back to the beginning, say, what would help you? And find commonalities between everyone's challenges that lets you create a solution that they're already bought into. And I can't tell you what that is at the end of the day, because I don't know what movement we're designing.

52:08But if you have a good coalition of lots of different people, you understand their needs. By the time you've selected your solution, ideally, it already is something that has some degree of buying from multiple people because they've already had a part in the process. You're not coming to them as an afterthought after you've decided your solution. That doesn't work as well. Well, you know, we've been giving examples of solutions, but what you're saying in a way is that we should be forming our coalition around the problem. So I'm having trouble affording child care, right? Not I need a child care stipend, but I'm having trouble affording child care.

52:44Who else would be affected by this issue? Once we understand our needs, what are different ways we can meet that need? Then you coalesce around and ask to how to meet that problem that's affecting many people. Yeah. Jazz hands, organizing.

53:02Yes. So you have gathered this coalition, you've sort of agreed on goals. People commit. And how do you hold everyone accountable? How do you make sure they carry through on their commitments? Well, and especially because for many people, this won't be the core part of their job. Right. This is voluntary. This is in addition to the work they do, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, talk about movement roles, right? Like that's an entire movement role, making sure people follow up, right? Holding folks accountable. Organizers are great for that. I think the important thing is for the majority of movements, you're not going to have everyone in the movement doing the exact same thing or building up to the exact same decision point.

53:49And so it's not as easy as just saying, everybody get here, sign your name here, you're done. Instead, you need to help people design their role in the movement. You need to help people build a sense of personal responsibility. For that, I refer to something called the IKEA effect, which is the idea that if you build your own IKEA furniture, you're suddenly really attached to it and you love it, versus if someone builds it for you. It refers to this social-psychological principle, also called the Hawthorne effect, where if people develop an idea themselves, they get really attached to it. they have a sense of personal responsibility.

54:26So don't just tell people what to do in movements, help them figure out what role is best for them, help them come up with it themselves, and then work with them to hold them accountable. If someone's really excited about saying like, hey, I figured out my role in the movement, I'm gonna send out these emails to my colleagues, right? Like, I'm so excited. All you need to do to check in is like, hey, I remember you were really excited about this thing. You know, like, how's it going? Versus like, all right, Steve, your job's to send out emails to these five people. And every Friday, I'll check in on you.

55:00Like, who wants to do that? Like, who would want to participate in a movement where it's just some weird hierarchical top down thing, like a corporation, like, uh, like movements are collective organizing, there's collective responsibility. And if you can help people feel that responsibility individually, then, you know, not to say they're always self-sustaining, but it's not as hard as you might think. So tap into what inspired them into it in the first place, right? Yeah. So thinking about these movements, these groups who are pushing for change, in your experience, do people sort of stick it out too long once it's clear it's not going to work, or do they give up too soon?

55:40So I've seen a lot of movements lie dormant and then something happens and suddenly they're given new life. But when movements lose their leaders, when, you know, the moment passes, the effort that the movement's pushing for isn't trendy anymore. Yeah. Sometimes they die out. Sometimes folks try to stick on longer than necessary, you know, and it's clear that things won't work. But given our conversation on movements not being these linear things, just because a movement has gone dormant doesn't mean that it's never going to come back up once again later. And sticking it out and being able to realize that even if the movement isn't going to happen now or in the next few months, that doesn't mean that it can never happen again.

56:27You just have to wait for that right moment and have the infrastructure, have the support, have the logistics just lying on the back burner for when there's interest. So then suddenly you can restart things back up. Like that's, I think, one of the biggest strengths of having grassroots movements like these. The infrastructure you build never goes away if you remember to keep it alive. Right. Ashley, what do you think? Yeah, I don't really think that movements die per se. I think that what happens is, is that they transform. And so it's not something that ever really dies. And just like Lily is saying, the infrastructure constantly has to remain and be the same, but now you have to readjust and assess, okay, what is it that we need to address?

57:13And to me, movement is movement is movement. It's not necessarily issue, issue, issue. It just transforms based upon the actual need. Ashley, Lily, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a lot of fun. Thanks for having us. Yes, thank you for this space and this conversation.

57:35That's our show. I'm Amy Gallo. And I'm Amy Bernstein. Making organizational change is a huge topic. And even after the conversation with Lily and Ashley, I feel like we only scratched the surface. A good next resource is Lily's book, DEI Deconstructed, your no-nonsense guide to doing the work and doing it right. Another resource we can recommend is Shared Sisterhood, How to Take Collective Action for Racial and Gender Equity at Work. It's by Tina Opie and Beth Livingston, both of whom we've had on the show before. Shared Sisterhood is their philosophy around collective action, where people from historically power-dominant and marginalized groups work together.

58:19HBR has more podcasts to help you manage yourself, your team, and your organization. Find them at hbr.org slash podcasts, or search HBR in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Women at Work's editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoke, Tina Tobey-Mack, Rob Eckhart, Erica Truxler, Ian Fox, and Hannah Bates. Robin Moore composed this theme music. We'll be back in your feed on December 5th with a special episode. It's a Women at Work host reunion with Sarah, Nicole, and Emily. They'll join us to reflect on the topics we've covered this past season. I can't wait for that.

59:01Thanks for listening. Our inbox is always open. Women at Work at hbr.org.

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