Yesterday, June 1, 2020, marked 99 years since the Tulsa Race Riots and America has yet to solve for racism. Change isn’t going to happen overnight but change does begin with you. You can choose what role(s) you will play to combat racism moving forward.
The Human Results’ Control Matrix, pictured below, is a framework that helps you choose healthy vs. unhealthy mindsets and ways to take action. Chances are we spend time in each of the four roles described in the matrix across various scenarios in our lives. We hope to inspire you to consciously move between the “Driver” and “Observer” roles when it comes to combating racism in your community and where you work. It’s natural to fall into the “Passenger” or “Worrier” roles, but staying in those roles won’t propel us forward if equality is the goal not only for our generation but also for future generations.
HEALTHY ROLE CHOICES
“Driver” - to take responsibility when it’s there for you to take, such as your mindset, decisions, and the words you choose and who you invest your time in. An example includes noticing that you have a preferences to socialize with people from your same ethnic group, but then consciously making a choice to socialize with those outside of your ethnic group. Or when you have the authority to assign a peer to assist you on a high profile project, you don’t choose a friend. Instead, you select someone from an underrepresented group who rarely gets access to these opportunities.
“Observer” - to allow others to take responsibility for themselves and/or to listen and notice so when you shift into the “Driver” role, you can be more strategic when you are able to take action. An example during these times is to avoid your desire to proactively reach out to every black person you ever worked with because that’s about your need. Instead, notice what they write, post, or vlog about on social media. See if they want to talk about things instead of making if about your agenda. Listen and follow their lead.
UNHEALTHY ROLE CHOICES
“Passenger” - failing to take responsibility when the opportunity exists, choosing not to take action. This is perhaps the most dangerous role to spend time in, especially when it comes to combatting racism. An example includes being in a C-Suite position at your company and having say into who gets promoted to manager level. Your vote carries at lot of weight but you know the organization has never promoted someone of color into a manager role. While you suspect there may be unconscious bias going on in the review process, you choose to stay silent and don’t speak up for the qualified person of color. You’ve failed to speak up when you had the responsibility to do so.
“Worrier” - attempting to take control over people or events that you don’t have jurisdiction over. This is a waste of both energy and time when you spend time in this role. An example would be trying to control the agenda of an upcoming meeting and having them speak about current race relations when you don’t own the agenda nor are you on the management team. Your attempt to influence and control others’ agendas causes you to lose many hours of sleep every night worrying about the injustices that you see.
Let’s walk through all the roles in one scenario and then have you practice in another scenario.
Scenario One: A team manager assigns direct reports to the two team leads. The Caucasian team lead is assigned four direct reports even though she is on an 80% schedule (meaning she is only in the office 3-4 days a week). The Black team lead is assigned two direct reports even though they are in the office 5 days a week. Both team leads have similar years of experience except the Caucasian team lead has more tenure at the organization and is close friends with the team manager for nearly a decade. The Black team lead technically has more years of management experience but is not close friends with the team manager nor does she have as much tenure at the company. Because the Black team lead is in the office all 5 days of the week, she has both the Caucasian team lead’s direct reports and her own direct reports coming to her for guidance and is indirectly managing a larger team than what appears to be true on paper.
How to be a “Driver”: As a teammate, you take on the “Driver” when you acknowledge the extra work and effort directly to the Black team lead, her White counterpart and their manager. You are controlling your controllables and sharing what you are noticing and providing credit where credit is due. Perhaps you even send a peer bonus or drop a note to the HR leader of the organization on your observations and how impressed you are with the impact the Black team lead has had on your overall team.
Catching yourself in the “Worrier” role: As a teammate you get worked up about the inequality you see and you start worrying about how this could happen without any consequences. You pull aside the Black team lead and ask her why she doesn’t have as many direct reports as her White teammate. Starting these unhealthy conversations usurps not only your finite resources, such as time and energy, but also that of the Black team lead who may not have even been concerned about things until you pointed them out.
How to be an "Observer": As a member of the team you can choose to notice how much the Black team lead is going above and beyond in developing not only her direct reports but also her teammate’s direct reports. Instead of raising any questions, you can observe if the direct reports provide credit to the Black team lead during larger team meetings, You can see if the team manager provides the Black team lead with other opportunities to advance their career. Finally, you can see how both team leads careers progress over time.
When and if you see inequalities, then it’s appropriate for you to step into the “Driver” role and discuss your observations with a neutral third party such as an HR leader who can conduct an investigation.
Catching yourself in the “Passenger” role: If you notice inequalities and still choose to do nothing then you are being a "Passenger." It means you have responsibility and you have the power to do or say something in your environment (speaking to the HR leader or to the manager directly) but for some reason or another you don't take the responsibility. History has taught us the unintended consequences of doing nothing. Please do not be a “Passenger” as you slow down progress for every underrepresented group in your organization.
Here’s another scenario: You are serving on an interview panel to hire an account coordinator onto your team so you have insight into the entire candidate pool, the interview questions each panelist asks, but you do not sit through calibration meetings so you don’t have full clarity on understanding how the finalist candidate is selected. You notice all three interview panelists are asking job related questions such as the candidate’s interest in media, how they would prioritize requests from multiple Account Executives, and how they would go about solving curating a list of media sites for a niche brand’s RFP at a very limited budget. However, one interview panelist is asking questions that are not relevant to the candidate’s job, such as “What’s your favorite TV reality show?” or “How do you like to celebrate with the team when we’ve accomplished a big goal?”
What could you do as a “Driver” and/or “Observer” to ensure you see a diverse pipeline of candidates and that the best candidate gets the job?