Laura Morgan Roberts discusses how Black women can balance self-care, pressures to lead DEI efforts
POISED (Positive Organizational Inclusion Scholarship for Equity and Diversity)
Research Spotlight
Laura Morgan Roberts
Center for Positive Organizations (CPO) faculty affiliate Laura Morgan Roberts participates in the Harvard Business Review video discussion “Black Women on the Challenges and Opportunities of the Past 18 Months.”
Roberts joins Ellen Bailey, Vice President for Diversity and Culture at Harvard Business Publishing, and career coach Octavia Goredema to discuss how Black women can balance self-care with the pressures of helping to find solutions for racial injustice and inequality at their organizations.
“Some of the most unsettling aspects of the past 18 months were that we were really thrown into a frenzied state whereby the stakes were so high,” Roberts says. “On the one hand, I’m looking at folks on Instagram, and other places, talking about all the bread that they’re baking and what kinds of quarantine projects they’re doing. I’m like, ‘What’s going on.’ I’m in a can’t stop, won’t stop phase here. People in organizations, CEOs, boards of directors now wanted to have conversations about race and racism and spinning those off into other conversations about exclusion, injustice, belongingness, equity.”
Roberts encourages leaders to alleviate the pressures on Black women by addressing the root cause of their exhaustion, setting them up for success with tangible resources, valuing their contributions more fairly, and rewarding their contributions in DEI roles.
Roberts is a Professor of Practice at the University of Virginia. Her book, Race, Work and Leadership: New Perspectives on the Black Experience, was published by the Harvard Business Review Press.
POISED
POISED — Positive Organizational Inclusion Scholarship for Equity and Diversity — is a new microcommunity that investigates diversity, equity, and inclusion through the lens of Positive Organizational Scholarship — paying special attention to positive states, qualities, relationships, and processes (such as dynamics that contribute to human strength, resilience, and flourishing) in organizations to surface new insights.
POISED is tackling vital questions such as how underrepresented minorities develop the capacity to thrive in the workplace rather than being derailed by discrimination, how leaders and allies partner in DEI efforts to help underrepresented minorities thrive, and how organizations that have stumbled in their efforts to support DEI can learn, grow, and flourish from their experiences. All are invited to learn more and join.
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Awkward race conversations have potential to strengthen relationships, CPO researchers write
POISED (Positive Organizational Inclusion Scholarship for Equity and Diversity)
Research Spotlight
Sandra Cha
Sandra Cha, Stephanie Creary, and Laura Morgan Roberts recently co-authored a paper titled “Fumbling in relationships across difference: The potential spiraling effects of a single racial identity reference at work” in Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion.
The paper explores the potential relationship impacts when a white employee makes a comment, question, or joke about a Black colleague’s race at work. These identity references, even when well-intentioned rather than malicious, can be upsetting for Black employees and have the potential to derail relationship building across difference. But, under certain conditions, they also have the potential to generate deeper understanding and connection, the researchers write.
The paper identifies structural closeness — defined as physical proximity with frequent and diverse interactions— as a common precursor to the occurrence of identify references. Co-workers who experience such structural closeness are more likely to feel familiar enough with each other to communicate openly about the subject of race, the researchers write.
When an identity reference is made, there are three factors that can influence how a Black person responds and, in turn, the co-workers’ relationship trajectory, according to the paper:
- Whether the Black employee has a history of experiencing hurt as a result of their race through negative stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination
- Whether the Black employee has experienced their race as a dominant identity in a different context, such as a Nigerian man who grew up in Nigeria and now works in the United States
- Whether the Black employee feels psychological closeness with their White colleague
Stephanie Creary
“We chose to center the experiences of Black workers during identity references. We do so because Black employees, who are most often the targets rather than initiators of identity references, can respond to a White colleague’s identity reference in very different ways, and the way in which they respond strongly impacts the relationship,” the researchers write.
“This observation goes against dominant framing in the public discourse of Black people as disempowered in the workplace. Our critical perspective emphasizes greater agency for Black people,” the researchers write. “At the same, we acknowledge that Black employees can face an arduous choice in deciding how to respond to a White colleague’s identity reference. Responding in a way that meets the needs of both relational partners is delicate and effortful, and it imposes a disproportionate ‘relational tax’ on Black employees.”
The paper suggests there are three ways Black workers can respond to an identity reference: disaffirming, going along or mindful correcting.
Laura Morgan Roberts
“Of the three potential responses, we propose that mindful correcting is the most likely to spiral into increased relational closeness over time,” the authors write. “This article offers insight into how identity references, which may initially be experienced negatively by Black workers as a type of microaggression, can ultimately lead to generative experiences and promote higher levels of positivity in relationships across difference when viewed as a well-intended relational fumble. Mindful correcting can help to strengthen relationships through the deeper learning that occurs for both parties,” the researchers write.
The paper also offers practical tips for how white employees and organizational leaders can develop high-quality relationships across difference, a key skill as the U.S. workforce becomes more diverse.
Cha is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Brandeis International Business School. She also serves on the steering committee of POISED: Positive Organizational Inclusion Scholarship for Equity and Diversity.
Creary is a Center for Positive Organizations Research Advisory Board member and an Assistant Professor of Management at the University of Pennsylvania.
Roberts is a Center for Positive Organizations faculty affiliate and Professor of Practice at the University of Virginia.
POISED
POISED — Positive Organizational Inclusion Scholarship for Equity and Diversity — is a new microcommunity that investigates diversity, equity, and inclusion through the lens of Positive Organizational Scholarship — paying special attention to positive states, qualities, relationships, and processes (such as dynamics that contribute to human strength, resilience, and flourishing) in organizations to surface new insights.
POISED is tackling vital questions such as how underrepresented minorities develop the capacity to thrive in the workplace rather than being derailed by discrimination, how leaders and allies partner in DEI efforts to help underrepresented minorities thrive, and how organizations that have stumbled in their efforts to support DEI can learn, grow, and flourish from their experiences. All are invited to learn more and join.
Diversity, equity, inclusion scholars reflect on progress, peril of 2020
Editor’s note: This article was written as a reflection on the “Race, Justice, and Equity in the Workplace and Beyond: A Call to Action” panel event held in June. Interviews were conducted with presenters in late 2020, before a predominately white mob stormed the United States Capitol during the presidential election certification vote. The rioters were lightly policed, in contrast to Black Lives Matter protesters over the summer. President Donald Trump subsequently was impeached for the second time on a charge of inciting insurrection for his role in the incident. The deadly attack came as Georgia made history, electing its first Black and Jewish representatives, in a hotly contested Senate runoff election. The dueling events underscore the push-pull nature of progress that the presenters highlight below.
As a new year — with a new presidential administration — begins, we have a collective opportunity to capitalize on the lessons of 2020 and make a fresh start on issues of racial equity. The question is: Will we?
The brutal, public killing of George Floyd at the hands of police in May stunned observers and touched off a summer of protests, while the COVID-19 pandemic exposed health disparities between whites and people of color. The life-and-death consequences of systemic racism became impossible to ignore and inspired many white people to confront their ignorance and shame around race for the first time.
Suddenly, diversity, equity, and inclusion experts — many of whom had struggled for years to find support for their research on the policies and practices that could help dismantle systemic racism — were in high demand.
In response to these events, Center for Positive Organizations Research Advisory Board members Stephanie Creary and Brianna Caza, in collaboration with the Managerial and Organizational Cognition (MOC) Division of the Academy of Management, convened a panel discussion in June called “Race, Justice, and Equity in the Workplace and Beyond: A Call to Action.”
Just two weeks after Floyd’s killing, the normally objective presenters struggled to separate their personal pain from their academic insights. Along with the science, they expressed grief, rage, frustration, sadness, and a wary hope that the events of 2020 could spark change for individuals, businesses, governments, and academic institutions.
“[W]e’ve been here before, many, many, many times. And the solutions that people are suggesting aren’t really that novel. The difference is that people were moved emotionally. More people and different people were moved emotionally in a way they had never been moved before.” — Stephanie Creary
“Yes, we’ve been here before, many, many, many times. And the solutions that people are suggesting aren’t really that novel,” panel co-curator Stephanie Creary, an assistant professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania, said during her reflection interview. “The difference is that people were moved emotionally. More people and different people were moved emotionally in a way they had never been moved before. So, it begs the question: If we really think about our own vulnerabilities and our own emotional experiences around witnessing other people’s pain and suffering, and we act in a way that is compassionate — even when it’s not about ourselves or we don’t see ourselves as being the person at the point of suffering — how much can we actually change?”
Here, we look back at how the experts addressed that question during the panel and gather their thoughts looking into the new year.
A moment or a movement?
The first of three dialogs during the June panel was titled “Why (Not) Now? Understanding the Urgency of the Moment.” Participants discussed whether the current attention to issues of race, justice, and equity is different and how to harness it to create lasting change.
Martin N. Davidson — who serves as senior associate dean and global chief diversity officer and the Johnson and Higgins Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia — kicked off the conversation.
He acknowledged two key differences about the summer of 2020. Technology allowed more people to witness incidents of police brutality and the pandemic removed distractions that normally would allow them to move on without taking action. But Davidson expressed skepticism people would stay engaged beyond the moment, noting that flare-ups of racial unrest are cyclical in the United States, happening almost every decade for the at least the past 100 years.
Looking toward 2021, Davidson said he was “actually on an upswing of hopefulness.” He cited President-elect Joe Biden’s staffing of leadership roles with women and people of color, and his own observations of corporations spurred by the moment into doing long-term work around equity issues as reasons to be encouraged.
“I think it’ll be incremental work, incremental change. I’m just happy that more is happening now.” — Martin Davidson
“But it’s not going to solve the fundamental dynamics that created not only the tragic reality for people that’s happening on the streets, and that’s happening for people in organizations — the microaggressions, the institutional bias, things like that,” Davidson said. “This one moment isn’t going to wipe all that away. I think it’ll be incremental work, incremental change. I’m just happy that more is happening now.”
Robin J. Ely — the Diane Doerge Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard University — echoed Davidson’s sentiments.
“I think things are going to be better than they were in the last few years,” she said. “But is this moment of last summer really going to spur significant change in our culture and in organizations? The jury is still out on that. I’m a little worried that the news cycle is over and companies are not feeling the pressure.”
Ely said the events of 2020 provided the pain point many organizations needed to shift from talk to action. But lasting progress on race and gender issues won’t be achieved unless leaders continue to question themselves, have difficult conversations, be emotionally vulnerable, and create a psychologically safe environment where employees can do the same.
“I think we need to figure out how to make this discussable. If we cannot talk about it, we cannot change it.” — Robin Ely
“I think we need to figure out how to make this discussable,” Ely said. “If we cannot talk about it, we cannot change it.”
During the panel, Laura Morgan Roberts — professor of practice at the University of Virginia — provided historical context for the events of 2020. She said the moment exposed the roots of a system formed hundreds of years ago to protect property ownership, at a time when Black bodies were viewed as property that could be used to create more capital. To this day, the same system continues to pit those in power against those in subservient roles.
“[O]ne of the things that we saw when we began to define essential workers [during the COVID pandemic] was this system [rooted in the ownership of Black bodies as property to create more capital] and the way that it disproportionately exposed poor people of color, especially Black people.” — Laura Morgan Roberts
“Within the context of COVID …, one of the things that we saw when we began to define essential workers was this system and the way that it disproportionately exposed poor people of color, especially Black people,” Roberts said. “The choices that administrators made about whose lives should be protected and the lengths we should go to protect people’s lives also called into question how invested people are in maintaining this system.”
Colorblindness equals silence
The second dialog, “The Upsides and Downsides of Seeing Race,” tackled the impacts of colorblindness within the racist system and how it prevents uncomfortable conversations that could stimulate change.
“Colorblindness is an incredibly convenient, particularly for white people, way to sidestep the issue of race altogether.” — Evan Apfelbaum
“Colorblindness is an incredibly convenient, particularly for white people, way to sidestep the issue of race altogether,” Evan Apfelbaum, an associate professor of management and organizations and research director of the HR Policy Institute at Boston University, said during the panel. “We’re talking about a generation of parents who have shushed their kids when they innocuously point out someone’s skin color in public, adults claiming that they don’t see race or don’t think about race.”
Sonia Kang — the Canada Research Chair in Identity, Diversity, and Inclusion and associate professor in organizational behavior and human resource management at the University of Toronto — said colorblindness communicates that racial differences are something to be ashamed of, rather than celebrated. In the workplace, this can prompt employees to hide their authentic racial identities to fit into the historically white system.
Apfelbaum and Kang suggested that a more constructive approach, in the workforce and for parents, is to be honest with yourself, listen to others, and have uncomfortable conversations about race.
“Thinking about all of the things that we talked about on the panel, it’s really disheartening,” Kang said. “Sometimes you feel like, it’s hard to believe. You feel kind of helpless, like what can really be done? At the same time, I do remain hopeful that we’re paying attention to these things right now and it’s really becoming part of day-to-day conversations of people who maybe had not thought about these issues before.”
Kang said she was encouraged that President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris used their victory speeches to reignite the conversation around inequality.
“I think people have this idea that you can’t say that inequality exists without also saying that I’m a bad person for being a part of this system that created inequality. I feel like what we need is to be able to say, look: Two things are true … inequality can exist and you can still be a good person working to fight it.” — Sonia Kang
“That kind of signal around the norms and expectations for society hopefully will bring people back to this message of understanding that inequality exists,” Kang said. “I think people have this idea that you can’t say that inequality exists without also saying that I’m a bad person for being a part of this system that created inequality. I feel like what we need is to be able to say, look: Two things are true … inequality can exist and you can still be a good person working to fight it.”
Race, gender in the workplace
The third dialog — “Sisters or Stepsisters? Relationships Between White Women and Women of Color, Including Black Women” — explored the complicated racial and gender dynamics of workplace advancement.
Tina Opie, an associate professor of management at Babson College, and Shannon Schuyler, chief purpose and inclusion officer at PwC US, crushed the notion that gender is an all-encompassing identity that puts Black and white women on a level playing field. They examined how women of all backgrounds can acknowledge their differences and unite to promote collective advancement in the workplace.
During the panel, Schuyler cautioned that, without introspection and self-correction, white women who have broken the glass ceiling run the risk of mirroring the unconsciously biased behaviors of white men, who often promote people who look like themselves and unintentionally exclude others who don’t.
The key to changing the narrative begins with soul searching, Opie said. White women must learn about their own racial identification, reflect on their attitudes toward people with different heritages, and confront their shame and ignorance around race so they can have honest conversations about it. Opie developed the Shared Sisterhood framework to help women work through this introspection and learn to connect across racioethnic and other differences.
“I’m not Casper, I am not invisible. I’m right here. I’m a proud Black woman. I’m proud of my heritage. So, what I need you to do is not affix value or not denigrate the fact that I’m Black, but to consider my full humanity.” — Tina Opie
“This often works with white women: I say, let’s not talk about gender. [What] if a man came up to you and just said, ‘I don’t see you as a woman. I just see you as a human.’ That’s how it feels to me when somebody says, ‘I don’t see race,’” Opie said. “I’m not Casper, I am not invisible. I’m right here. I’m a proud Black woman. I’m proud of my heritage. So, what I need you to do is not affix value or not denigrate the fact that I’m Black, but to consider my full humanity.”
Before systemic change can occur, Opie and Schuyler said CEOs must model this self-analysis and create a safe environment for employees to do the same, knowing they have permission to try and fail before they get conversations around race and gender right.
“I think this is going to be incredibly challenging. A lot of wounds have opened over the past eight months. You don’t just have somebody win and get past those. A lot of healing needs to happen, and that will have to occur before any progress is made.” — Shannon Schuyler
“Even with that tremendous outpouring and certainly a reckoning that we had (over the summer) around social and racial injustice, we’re a very divided country,” Schuyler later reflected. “I think this is going to be incredibly challenging. A lot of wounds have opened over the past eight months. You don’t just have somebody win and get past those. A lot of healing needs to happen, and that will have to occur before any progress is made.”
Do we have the courage?
Empathy. Honesty. Vulnerability. Introspection. Difficult conversations. Change.
Many solutions to racial inequality in business organizations and communities at large already exist. Many of these require quiet, personal, painful work, rather than splashy public gestures. Others call for systemic change that can empower organizations with new perspectives.
The presenters say such steps are crucial to creating lasting change on issues of race. Leaders must model the behavior they want to see in others, promote people of color into leadership roles, create safe spaces for honest conversations, and pay employees appropriately for their diversity, equity, and inclusion work.
But the scholars cautioned that individuals, businesses, governments, and even academic institutions like the Center for Positive Organizations have a long way to go before equity is achieved.
“Hearing that honest and raw set of dialogues [during the event] uncovered an important and pervasive set of issues that had previously been overlooked, buried, and, in some cases, completely integrated into the way we led our organizational lives.” — Brianna Caza
“I think (the panel) has had an impact on the way we have conversations and develop practices in many places, including the Center for Positive Organizations,” said Brianna Caza, a panel co-curator and an associate professor of management at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. “Hearing that honest and raw set of dialogues uncovered an important and pervasive set of issues that had previously been overlooked, buried, and, in some cases, completely integrated into the way we led our organizational lives.”
The fact is, we all exist in a racist system created hundreds of years ago to empower white men. The question for us now is: Do we have the courage to confront our roles in this system and have the honest, empathetic conversations that can help us take action to change it?
