The “speed of business” has got us all f***ed up (Issue #4)
Business and equity work have a completely different relationship to time.
The Diversity Grinch is channeled by Bryan Nwafor and David Stoesz
1 … 2 …. 3 ….. Oh, sorry, didn’t see you there. I was just doing some conscious breathing. What, you think “wellness” is just for humans? While your Grinch might do aromatherapy a little differently (I prefer burnt plastic to lavender), I recognize the need to slow down.
Companies, on the other hand, love to move fast, and to “leverage” that speed to do all their important business things. Get there first! Move fast, break stuff, disrupt!
And that model isn’t great for equity work. “But Grinch!,” I hear you say, “I thought the problem was companies not feeling enough urgency?” Yeah, well, that’s also true. The problem is people rushing to do something without taking the time to understand the most basic facts about that thing. In this case, that thing is capitalism.
Business brains can’t process history
Most business leaders got into the equity game pretty recently. Since George Floyd was murdered by the Minneapolis Police Department, the hiring of Chief Diversity Officers has skyrocketed, driven by the need to appear responsive to the largest civil rights movement in American history. First, cheers to all those new CDOs. Grinch loves to see Black, Brown, and Green folks get paid! But most of the companies hiring them are ill-equipped to benefit from their insights.
It’s not in the corporate DNA to look backwards, only forward. Partly from a legitimate fear of death. Businesses that don’t adjust to change die—20% of them in their first two years, 65% in the first 10. They are, out of necessity, shark-like in their ceaseless forward motion. And it’s simply impossible to do equity work without appreciating historical context.
But outside of this, America is in general already violently averse to confronting basic facts about itself. Look at the diaper-filling tantrums in reaction to Nikole Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project. One of the many truths that Hannah-Jones reveals is how modern American capitalism arose from plantation slavery. Human beings are only valuable to the extent that they are productive—think about where this idea came from the next time you hear about “worker productivity.”
Companies don’t look back because this requires painful contemplation of the ways they’ve benefited from—and in fact, are built on a foundation of—systematic racism.
What this looks like at your company
Given all this, it’s not surprising if your own company’s equity work doesn’t exactly fit with its business practices. Some friction points you might have noticed:
Speed: Business is fast, but equity work is slow. Making sure everyone is heard and valued takes time. Putting our values into action always does.
Viewpoint: Looking only forward may be a competitive advantage, but this work requires understanding the brutal realities that got us here.
Data: As I was yakking about the other day, companies have a problematic relationship with data. And when it comes to equity work, that is compounded by a fixation on quantitative data alone. Your organization must also value qualitative data that reflects peoples’ lived experiences.
Your moment of Venn
So, yeah. Business and equity work seem to operate in completely different worlds, with different languages. In a better world, we could close this gap by appealing to CEOs’ humanity. In this world, we should look for areas of mutual interest. The circles labeled Justice and Business do have an overlap, even if it’s narrow. Let’s start there. One example: mitigating reputational damage that is created between a customer and a product, when it stems from oversight of their community. Turns out it’s actually good for business to engage with the full diversity of the communities you market to? And customers prefer that you’re not racist? Crazy.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The opportunity to get this right presents a fat, juicy “low hanging fruit” of the kind the business world loves so much. At least up to a point, business value and liberation can be mutually compatible. Executives: Find the overlap in the Venn diagram and you can be a leader in this space. The trophy is just sitting there waiting for someone to snatch it.
OK, that’s it for your Grinch this week. Time for me to get back to counting my breaths and not being even a little bit “productive.”
"I prefer burnt plastic to lavender" 😂