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On the WorkWell Podcast, Jen Fisher — Human Sustainability Leader at Deloitte and Editor-at-Large, Human Sustainability at Thrive Global — sits down with inspiring individuals for wide-ranging conversations about how we can develop a way of living and working built on human sustainability, starting with ourselves.
Jen Fisher:
I'm really excited to share that my TEDx talk, The Future of Work, is out. It combines my personal story with practical ways we can all come together to create a better world of work by focusing on human sustainability. Just search for Jen Fisher TEDx on your preferred search engine to watch my talk, and please join me in the movement to make well being the future of work by sharing it with your networks. Thank you! Inclusion and belonging are basic human needs, but many feel that to be successful in the workplace, they need to hide certain aspects of their real selves. What can we do to shift our workplace culture to better support authenticity and create safe spaces for everyone to be who they really are? This is the WorkWell Podcast. Hi, I'm Jen Fisher, and I'm so pleased to be here with you today to talk about all things purpose, well-being, and human sustainability. I'm here with Joanne Stefane. She's a leading voice on how organizations can and should drive towards equity. She's also a consulting principal at Deloitte and the executive director of Deloitte's DEI Institute. I'm also joined by Kenji Yoshino. He's the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at NYU School of Law and the director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging. He's also a published author of four books, including his most recent, Say the Right Thing, How to Talk About Identity, Diversity, and Justice.
Jen Fisher:
Joanne and Kenji, welcome to the show.
Kenji Yoshino:
Thanks so much for having us.
Joanne Stephane:
Hi, Jen.
Jen Fisher:
I want to kind of understand a little bit about who you are and how you personally became passionate about the topic of equity and belonging and maybe Kenji, I'll start with you and then Joanne.
Kenji Yoshino:
Yes, I think that's often puzzles people because diversity and inclusion is mostly populated by social scientists rather than lawyers. But I actually view much more kind of continuity than rupture, right, and my career as a lawyer, my career as a D& I person. So, I think I've always cared about inclusion, it was just that law was a vehicle through which I thought I could achieve equity and inclusion. And the more time I spent in the law, the more I understood law's limitations. So, when I wrote, you know, my first book, which was covering in 2006, one of the claims that I made there was that Law is very good at dealing with kind of first generational issues of equity, like whether or not women should be allowed in the workplace at all, whether people of color should be allowed in the workplace at all. But once we came into the workplace, law was much less effective in making sure that an inclusive environment was built around those individuals, and I realized that law was an incomplete remedy, and that's when I shifted over 15 years or so ago to the D& I field, because I really view diversity and inclusion as the same project of advancing equity, but that needed to be built above the floor of the law, the minimal entitlements were granted by the law, but the law could never on its own do the work of creating a system of belonging around.
Jen Fisher:
Yeah, that's so fascinating. And perhaps we'll get into this a little bit later in the conversation, but I'd love to know from you. The progress that's been made or what you have seen as changed from when you kind of first made that shift 15 years ago to where we are today. But we can dig into that a little bit later. Joanne, I'd love to hear from you on, you know, kind of your story and how you came to this.
Joanne Stephane:
Well, it's interesting because for most of my career, I've generally avoided anything having to do with the DEI. Actually, that's part of my covering story, which is, you know, I didn't want to be associated with that because then I felt like that's all I would be right. That would be my persona that, you know, she's the woman that talks about, you know, black people or, you know, other uncomfortable topics. And so, I felt a need to absolutely prove myself. You know, in driving sales and delivery or, you know, really driving the, you know, the revenue and the sales and the marketing and the brand for whatever organization I was working for. But as I progressed in my career, I began to notice more, and I realized I couldn't just work really hard. And breakthrough and not have all of those, you know, things apply to me, and certainly I would say I've been actually pretty privileged in my career journey. And so, I see saw it even more starkly with other folks, right? And so as I advanced my career, I began to understand that, you know, with, you know, higher level roles and more responsibility, I also have a responsibility to, you know, use my platform. And so, you know, as a transformation consultant, you know, looking at root causes of issues and trying to you know, figure out what the problem is, really explore the problem to the extent that we could address those root causes. This was fascinating to me and so really thinking about, well, why don't we, and why can't we, and why haven't we, what's the real reason beneath it, and certainly I, you know, I was a psych background, so I do have a social science and behavioral science background, and really trying to understand what is the thinking, the beliefs, the, you know, the culture, the societal culture that brings us to this place. You know, where we are doing these things. So that's been fascinating to me and my ability to bring my gifts and talents to this problem specifically has been really interesting and exciting. And then to get to work with Kenji, it's really wonderful.
Jen Fisher:
I hear that a lot about Kenji.
Kenji Yoshino:
Right back at you.
Jen Fisher:
I want to dig in, you know, the Deloitte's DEI Institute and NYU's Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, Belonging. As you both well know recently collaborated on a new study for uncovering culture and you were both co-authors and so I want to get right into it. Like, I'm really interested in hearing about the findings, but also I think before we get into that, perhaps we need to talk about what covering is, you know, define that for people, demystify that a little bit for people and why it happens. Joanne, you mentioned it being an early part of your story. So, can we kind of get into that and Kenji, I'll, I'll toss this one to you given that you have an entire book on the topic.
Kenji Yoshino:
Absolutely. So, you know, very similar to what Joanne was saying, where you think like all your life you're above a phenomenon and you discover that you're actually deeply embedded in that phenomenon, right? So, for a long time I was like, I'm never going to talk about my identity like this is everything. Not an issue for me, but when I went to law school, I just realized that so much inequity still existed with regard to LGBTQ rights. As a gay man, I decided I was going to write and be an academic and an advocate for LGBTQ plus issues. I kind of was very, very fortunate in that I was writing for my passions at a time when people could hear what I had to say. So, I was given a tenure track job at Yale, right after my clerkship. So, a couple of years after law school. But no sooner did I arrive at Yale, and I was walking down the hallway feeling pretty great, you know, about the way my life had turned out, that a very well meaning, very kind, friendly colleague put his arm around me and said, Kenji, you'll have a lot smoother ride to tenure. If you are a homosexual professional rather than a professional homosexual. And I knew exactly what he meant. So, this is around 1998 or so. What he meant was, you'll do much better in this institution if you are kind of a mainstream constitutional law guy. And you just don't talk about gay stuff, don't write about gay stuff. Like just happen, if you need to have like a private life that's gay, like just have it on the side kind of thing, right? Whereas if you are the gay rights professor who writes on gay rights topics, who teaches gay rights issues, who works on gay rights cases, then your future here is going to be a lot less clear. And other people said that to me as well, in less kind of elegant terminology. And so, for a couple of years, I mean, tenure track is terrifying. So, you just don't know whether you have what it takes to make it, whether you're going to succeed. So for a couple of years, I tried to accede to this and I really just put myself on mute and all the things that I wrote about so passionately that got me the job in the first place, I shied away from. And then finally, I was like, this is absolutely ridiculous. I’m miserable, like there are things that are breaking around me because this is when the ice is finally breaking up on gay rights that I really want to opine on that I'm not writing about because of this advice that I've gotten. So finally, I said, you know, I would rather risk not getting tenure as somebody who I am. Rather than, you know, even get tenure as somebody who I'm not, right? So, I went back to doing all the things that I wanted to do. Everyone, really but that one colleague sort of rallied around me and said, where has this guy been? We were worried. He went quiet for a couple of years. Now you're finally back. So, the first thing I wanted to write about is like, What the heck just happened there, right? Because I didn't have a word for what that colleague was saying to me. Like, as a gay man, I'd experienced, like, demands to convert. Like, please be straight. You know, I experienced a demand to pass, like, please remain in the closet. But this idea of, like, be gay, be openly gay, those are totally fine things, but, like, downplay it, put it on mute, adjust it, edit it, so that we can all be more comfortable around you is something I didn't have a word for. So, I went looking, and I found my word in the sociologist Irving Goffman's work. He calls this phenomenon covering. And he says, many people who are quite willing to say that they belong to a particular group make an enormous effort to keep that identity from looming large in their interactions with others. And so, I just picked up this term and I ran with it. So, it's like, this is like the key, not just to my life, but to all the people in the communities around me. So, this is, you know, the black person who's told straighten your hair if you want to be taken seriously as a professional, or don't work on, you know black equity issues, as Joanne was just saying. This is a woman who's told, like, it's fine to be a woman, of course, but don't talk about your kids, or you'll just get kind of pigeonholed as a caregiver. This is a person with a disability who's told, like, oh, don't use that wheelchair if you can use a cane, right, even if that causes greater physical pain, because that makes all of us more comfortable around you, more uncomfortable when you wheel into the room, and so on and so on and so on, right, and so that's really where the covering project came about, and I will say, you know, without any kind of, you know, hedging or blowing smoke that this collaboration with Deloitte has been transformative. And, you know, Jen, I have to give you props because you and I sat at Deloitte University and you greenlit this project 10 years ago in 2013, right? So that was when this project really took off because you know, I'm a law professor. I crunch a lot of cases. I'm not an empiricist, right? And so, what you brought to the table was a kind of might of Deloitte and saying your people, analytics folks, you know, access to, other organizations in order to do an empirical survey of this. And so that's the 2013 paper called Uncovering Talent. This newest collaboration with Joanne, Uncovering Culture, is really like the 10th anniversary, kind of reboot, right, of that project. But there's a huge value add, I think, as we can talk about in this renewed paper, right, because I think we're much stronger on both the analytics side and on the solutions side, but I will say, you know, that every kind of contact I've had with Deloitte has been a pleasure, and these two papers in particular have been transformative for me.
Jen Fisher:
I think we feel exactly the same about you, Kenji, so thank you for all that you have brought to the table. And I want to, like, dig a little bit deeper into, that was super helpful about kind of the need to find a word and a definition for covering. And you went a little bit into kind of why it happens in terms of, you know, often things, things get said to us that then we internalize. But do we also internalize it even when things don't get said to us because of our perceptions of what we think the world, or a certain community or culture demands from us? Like, why? I guess let's dig in a little bit more as to why it happens, if that's okay.
Kenji Yoshino:
Yeah, absolutely. So, I think a lot of it happens. And, you know, I'm curious about, you know, Joanne's answer as well, but I think a lot of it happens for all the kind of obvious reasons. Like one is that covering is really about, you know, information, right? So, you worry that if you share that information and you uncover that you can't un-ring the bell. So, once you share, there isn't really a way in which you can like un-share. Right. It really feels like a one-way ratchet. And then the other point is that it's a one-way ratchet that touches on a really vulnerable aspect of your identity. We define covering as downplaying an outsider identity that you hold. And so just by definition, it's going to be a tender kind of vulnerable part of yourself that you're sharing. It's maybe something that people aren't used to so that they may, you know, react to it with, you know, why did you share that, you know, indifference or even hostility, right. You know, your career prospects are now going to be limited because you've revealed this aspect of yourself, right? Or alternatively, you know, sometimes in our survey, the most haunting thing was like, I'm more at risk. My physical safety is more at risk by identifying myself, you know, in these particular ways. So, you know, I think that it takes a mighty force to overcome those kinds of impediments. And one of the things that, you know, makes me really kind of, for lack of a better word, kind of awed, right, about, you know, this work. Is that people do have that, you know, there's something in us that wants to be authentic, right? So that no matter how much an institution says to us, like tamp that down, leave that at home, like don't talk about that, right? If it's something that is really part of the fabric of our being, like it will come out in one way or another, or we will just be thwarted and frustrated and angry for all of our careers. So, the organization that says, We're not going to force individuals to make that tragic choice between career advancement and authenticity, but we're actually going to build a culture around the person that allows them to both be their authentic selves and to, you know, convert that into professional success. You know, that's the organization that's going to be eating everybody else's breakfast, right? In our view, right? Because one of the things that endures with me is this notion of there is such a thing as an authentic self. We are not infinitely malleable or plastic, right? And that self like cries out to be heard, right? And if an organization can't supply that to the individual, then the individual is either going to go to another organization or it's going to remain at that organization and not realize their full potential.
Jen Fisher:
Yeah. Joanne, I don't know if you want to add onto that, but I also want to kind of talk about that impact of covering to a person's life and specifically something that you and I talk about regularly, you know, being your authentic self and not covering why it's so important, what came out in the research related to an individual's you know, personal health and wellbeing and the impact of covering and, or the positive impact of being able to be your authentic self.
Joanne Stephane:
So, when we talk about the impact of covering on the individual, what our respondents said was it had a cost or it negatively impacted their overall well-being and that they felt emotional drained. 60 percent of our respondents said that, that they felt like their activities were constantly being monitored. They were being watched. Negative impact on their sense of self, negative impact on opportunities that they felt were available to them, spent a lot of time pretending to be somebody else, and feeling like they had to mirror the behaviors of the majority or the mainstream in order to be perceived as more professional, whether that's how you look or the way that you speak or act. It also impacted their commitment to their organization and their ability to perform their jobs as well as they think they could. And so, you can see where there's the negative impact on the individual who is covering, but also negative impact to the organization with the lower commitment and, less ability to really show up. So, one of the things I appreciated about the first paper is, you know, if we're, if I'm spending time and energy covering, that is energy that I could be spending, you know, on innovative new ideas or products or services to my clients. And instead, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to fit into a box. So that I can survive this environment, right? Survive might sound like a strong word, but really it is about that. Because if I want to be successful, if I want to thrive, if I want to advance, then I can't be myself or I can't be my full self, right? And certainly, you know, Kenji provides the example of what do we mean by authentic self or full self? You know, when we talk about the, the covering and the impact of individuals, the reason people are covering right we got a good amount of responses on that. They as Kenji said they're covering so that others don't think less of them, right, to avoid judgment to avoid negative stereotypes, physical safety and so forth. And so, you know, the reason that they're covering is because there is a demand for covering right, there is something in the culture in the society in the organizational culture that is saying: You know, in order to do well or be accepted or you know, operate here, you need to be this way. Hardly ever explicit, you know, that we have plenty of examples of how explicit it was in years before, like actually literally do not talk about your kids. You know, if you don't show up on time and if you talk about your kids and that's why you're late yet again, you're going to get fired, you know, and all kinds of things. If you are black, you do need to straighten your hair. You know, those sorts of things were quite explicit. And Kenji actually has at the tip of his tongue, all of the, you know, all of the, the cases where, you know, that's actually been proven out in the law. And so today it's much more subtle, you know, it's less about, you know, we're going to tell you what to do, and more about, you know, well, you know, she could be more professional, she seems a little angry or, you know, she's too aggressive, right? We've all heard some version of all of those things, if not about ourselves, then about others. And so, you know, much more subtle today and, and more about, you know, what might be expected. And so, when we talk about impact and we talk about why we're covering, you know, that, that is the real reason there. I'm going to pause. Because I don't know if I answered your question.
Jen Fisher:
No, I think you definitely did. I mean, I think we can dig deeper you know, into kind of the health and well-being aspect. I mean, honestly, listening to you cite all of the negative impacts. In the moment. I mean, it just stressed me out. Right. And so, imagine living that every single day waking up and kind of going, oh, gosh, here I go again. Right. And so, in my mind, there's probably Nothing that impacts your health and well-being more negatively than feeling like you can't be who you truly are and showing up in that way day in and day out. I mean, that's just yeah.
Joanne Stephane:
Absolutely. And outside of like physical danger. This would be it. And so I do want to talk about who's covering.
Jen Fisher:
Yeah, absolutely. That was where I was going to go next. Like, are there certain individuals that are covering more than others? Because I think that's also kind of a, I don't know if it's warning to leaders, but certainly, you know, there are different groups of people, that perhaps, you know, need different levels of support, to show up in a different way or to show up and be comfortable with who they are in the workplace.
Joanne Stephane:
Yeah, for sure. And so, you know, in our findings, the first thing I want to say is covering is universal. I'll just go out there and say, in our findings, what our respondents said was 60 percent of our respondents covered in some way in the last 12 months. And so, part of what we wanted to do with the paper is broaden our definition and the types of identities that we were researching for, because we wanted to get a fuller picture of what covering looks like in everyday lives and for a broader set of people. And so not all identities necessarily come up while all identities cover. Not everyone necessarily meets the same kinds of pressures to cover so people from non-dominant groups covered more than people from dominant groups. You know, a majority groups, let's say you know, what we saw is that if you have more marginal identities, your incidence of covering increase so for example, you know, Asian women covered at 86 percent as compared to Asian men. Black LGBTQ people covered at actually at a hundred percent. All of them said that they covered, as opposed to cisgendered women who are only at 80% black, cisgendered black women, and cisgendered black men, which are at 53%. And so, you know have more of those marginal identities, there are more areas to cover. We also looked at more identities, as I said, and wanted to also cover some, let's say, less visible identity. So, we looked at people who were with disabilities. We looked at people who are caregivers. Or military status or you know, other types of identities that, you know, we didn't include originally in the paper 10 years ago. So, 93 percent of black workers with a disability report covering. And one interesting finding also is that when we look at white cisgender men. They're covering at 54%, based on, you know, the responses that we got. And so, regardless of who we are and how we're showing up at work. It is very possible that the person to your left and the person to your right is covering for something and however closely you work with them, there's something that you don't know about them that they don't want you to know about them, right? Because they think that will lower their status in your eyes or in the eyes of the broader organization.
Jen Fisher:
Yeah, that's really fascinating. So, Kenji, are all acts of covering negative? I mean, certainly there's a lot of negative aspects of covering, but are there any situations where covering can actually be beneficial to an individual?
Kenji Yoshino:
I'm so glad you asked that because I have given this talk on covering often enough that I know that when somebody says, as all three of us did, like, it's important to bring your authentic self to work, it's so primal and important. There's some people kind of internally roll their eyes and say, you know, well, wait a minute, like, you know, what if I bring some horrible, authentic aspect of myself to the workplace, right? And the flip side of, you know, every cohort covers, which I totally agree with, obviously, is that, well, if we all have to do it, then shouldn't we all just pay the tax, right, to become professionals, right? So, these are thorny questions, and the way I like to approach them is to say, really, for starters, your question of, like, are all forms of covering bad, and my answer to that is a really categorical no, right. Some forms of covering are neutral or even beneficial to the smooth functioning of an organization. So, Joanne knows that I love the example of saying, but if I came to work as your colleague at Deloitte tomorrow, and I was like, rapidly obnoxious to everybody. And you both came to me and sort of sat me down and said, you know, Kenji, you got to knock it off. You're driving everyone to distraction. And I said, well, wait a minute, you told me to bring my authentic self to work. And I just happened to be an incredibly obnoxious person. So, you know, you have to embrace this in the name of uncovering culture, uncovering talent. So, I would offer that a world in which I win that conversation is a world in which none of us want to be, like, none of us want to be in that world. So that means that some forms of covering are completely appropriate to impose on people. But then that just drives us to the harder question of like, all right, Kenji, if you're saying that some forms of covering are good and some forms are bad, then how on earth are we supposed to tell the difference between the two? Like, what is the touchstone that would allow us to determine what's good and what's bad? I think that we have come up with a very good answer to that, which is organizational values. Right? So many individuals said I have to cover my personality like an obnoxious person or I have to cover my political affiliation and we're kind of like, well, no harm, no foul, because none of the organizations that we studied have as one of their core, you know, organizational values of inclusion, like you have to accommodate people who are obnoxious, or you have to let people talk about politics at work, or what have you, right? Whereas the forms of covering that do trouble us are when the organization has a value of inclusion, but that is being directly contradicted by the covering demands that are being imposed within that organization. So, every organization that we serve in said we believe in the inclusion of women, we believe in the inclusion of people of color, we believe in the inclusion of the LGBTQ plus community. But every single one of those organizations also had people reporting out of it saying all the things that we've been saying. Like, I as a woman, have to downplay my child care responsibilities. You know, I as a black person feel like I have to straighten my hair to be taken seriously as a professional. I as a gay person feel like I can't bring my same sex partner to work or feel like I shouldn't advocate on same sex LGBTQ plus issues. And so there's like a disconnect in between the stated ideal and the kind of walk of the organization, the talk and the walk, so to speak. Right. And in those instances we would say the organizations like living under a set of values rather than living up to them. And the delta, right, is really this covering demand. Like, one of the ways in which the delta is revealed is in this covering demand. So, to go back to your question, I would say there are absolutely right forms of covering that are good, as well as forms of covering that are bad. We train our sites on just the forms of covering that are bad. How do we identify those? We identify them by saying, here are all the values of inclusion that you have as an organization. And yet here are all the ways in which the individuals that you're ostensibly including under those policies are nonetheless being asked to cover. And their inclusion in the organization is done only at sufferance and only at the cost of them doing the work of covering. And that's really what we want to retire.
Jen Fisher:
Yeah, thank you for that. That's super helpful to me. I want to ask both of you about the research specifically and what were, for each of you, kind of the most interesting or perhaps surprising findings in the research? And maybe, you know, Kenji, for you, like, especially from the study 10 years ago to where we are today, you know, what really stuck out or changed.
Kenji Yoshino:
The thing that surprised me the most, although it probably shouldn't have surprised me, honestly, given what we are reading in the papers and the zeitgeist these days, was the increased incidence of qualitative reports of covering from straight white men, right? So many individuals who belong to the ostensibly dominant group reported covering even in the 2013 survey. So, one of the kind of marquee findings of the original survey was like 45%, you know, of straight white men reported covering. And when we looked into the ways in which they covered, it was things like socioeconomic status, or age, or veteran status, or religion, or, mental or physical illness or disability, right? That number actually jumped up into the 50s in the 2023 study. And then if you looked at the qualitative data, there were a couple things that were really interesting. Like one is that, straight white men said that they had to cover on all of the axes that I previously stated, but at a higher incidence, that there were just more reports of that. And then the other one was that, you know, straight white men reported having to cover their dominant status. And that was new to me, right? That, straight white men said, like, I can't talk about forms of privilege that I have, because I'll just be written off, or I'll be attacked, or, or what have you. And so people were covering, like, advantaged rather than disadvantaged, you know, aspects of their own identity. So that was really an important finding. I will say that one of the things that I love about the study, and that particular focus on the dominant groups, is that it really changes this from a project of, you know, us versus them, or haves versus have nots, to like a universal project of human flourishing. Because once you say, like, we see you, right, straight white man, like you too have to give up things that you wish you didn't have to give up in the workplace, and that is a harm and a privation, and we're not assuming that simply because you hold certain, you know, very narrow set of demographic characteristics that all lights have turned green for you all the way down the highway of life, which I think many D & I professionals often erroneously assume. But as you were saying earlier, and this is where our words collide, you know, Jen, of like, wellness and DEI are so intricated with each other, and that if you just go back to Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, like if you look at that pyramid, at the very base are like the obvious things like food, shelter, and water, and then the next one is like physical safety, but the one after that, which is pretty close to the base of the pyramid, is belonging. So, all of us as human beings have this deep, deep, deep and primal need to belong. And I think that's really what we're seeing in the survey of saying, you know, straight white men are saying, yes, I acknowledge I have certain advantages in the workplace, but I too need to belong in this workplace. And I too kind of shape at the fact that that belong is being conditioned right on things that I think have no reference to or no basis in an organizational value and any kind of value that the organization holds at a higher level of generality. Right. So, we really want to make this a project about universal human flourishing. Obviously, a rising tide will lift some boats more than others because boats, you know, start at different starting positions. But the beauty of this authenticity work is that it really is a rising tide that will lift every single boat.
Jen Fisher:
Yeah. I love that. I love that sentiment. Joanne, what about you?
Joanne Stephane:
So I think I mentioned it earlier, but surprising 100 percent every single respondent who identified as black and as LGBTQ said they covered over the last 12 months. All of them. And so, you know, there's, there's a message there, about how safe people might feel being black and queer at the same time in public. And so, I'll leave that there as, as a way to think about that. I happen to be black and queer as well and a woman. And so, you know, just trying to navigate certain spaces, holding all of those identities. And sort of figuring out, well, what parts of myself are safe to show what parts of myself are not safe to show, you know, that, that's a lot of work. The couple of others that were surprising from, you know, we also collected information on age. And so younger people tended to cover more than older people. You know, depending on the situation that you're in, but also surprising while you know, the numbers for people covering sort of start high and go down as they go up in the organization, actually, by the time they get to senior executive, senior manager, C suite, they're covering at 67%, right, which is higher than any other level, you know, as they go up. That's an interesting finding. But when we think about what organizations can do, you know, we put it on leaders. To create the environment, to create the psychological safety, to, you know, address the culture that demands covering, and Kenji can talk more about, you know what our proposal is for what organizations can do, and it really does start with leaders, it is incumbent upon leaders to do the things to create that environment, but if they're covering even more, and they feel that there's a higher demand for them to cover, you know, that you can see how it can be challenging.
Jen Fisher:
I think we choose to not engage or not say something or show up awkwardly or in a way that is often perceived as not supportive, even when we don't mean that. And so how do we overcome that fear of saying the wrong thing or, you know, needing to ask somebody, how can I support you without also putting the burden on them, I guess.
Kenji Yoshino:
Yes, you are the perfect interviewer, because I literally just written a book called Say the Right Thing that came out in February. It's a different line of work.
Jen Fisher:
I may have known that. Maybe.
Kenji Yoshino:
But, we basically have sort of seven strategies for trying to overcome exactly the fear factor that you've just described. And those are just identifying first what the conversational traps are, thinking about resilience and curiosity, and building up both of those, thinking about how to disagree respectfully and apologize authentically, and then being generous to the source of non-inclusive behavior, the person who's spoken out and if you're coming in as an ally, but also, you know, helping the other person as they would wish to be helped, rather than as you would deem fit to help them. So, if you have those seven principles, what we really intend, right, and it was kind of funny when I was pitching this book, because even relative to covering, like, this is like a very nuts and bolts kind of how-to kind of book. So, I kept having to say to the book editors that we were pitching to, like, if you've read any of my prior work, please don't anchor on that, because this is not like a high concept book. This is like a screwdriver. It's a multitool. It's meant to be like a friend, you know, a security blanket for you when you go into these conversations. So that's really what the most recent work is about.
Jen Fisher:
Awesome. Well, we'll dig more into that. So, Joanne, for you, I want to specifically talk about kind of current efforts in DEI initiatives and programs that many, you know, companies are employing to address covering, you know, there's a lot of conversation in the open market in society about whether they're good, they're bad. Are they working? Are they the right thing? So, can you, can you give us a little bit of information and perspective on that?
Joanne Stephane:
Yeah. I would say that something that we talked about yesterday, Kenji, which is that whatever DEI programs or initiatives or training that we're doing, If we continue to perpetuate a covering culture. We have undermined everything. If I cannot show up as my authentic self or as authentic as I want to be and choose to be, and feel safe doing that, then everything else that's coming from the top, everything else, the organization is saying, I don't believe you. You know, organizations continue to be committed to this and continue to find different ways, I would say, to be effective. And so, we've got all these new programs, but they haven't worked because we still have problems is naive at best. And so, you know, coupling, you know, interventions at root causes of inequities within the systems, right? Because the systems, the way that they're built. Have inequitable outcomes and therefore are inequitable. That coupled with, so that's equity, right? That coupled with increasing diversity and inclusion and addressing those inequitable areas, and helping people feel that they can show up as their authentic selves. That results in belonging, and you need both equity and belonging, right? To be aiming for those two goals in order to, to be successful. And so, you know, when we talked to our respondents, they said that, they advanced, we talked about advancement earlier, they, you know, the need to cover the demand to cover felt the same or increased. They do believe that their leaders want them to be their authentic selves. 61 percent believe that the leader wants to see them and 50 percent believe that their leaders do create that psychological safety. So, there's, there's room for improvement. I'll say, but it is happening. And so, we can be successful if we're addressing the full problem or as much of the problem as within an organization's purview. So, addressing the cultural issues, addressing, you know, the things that take away from us feeling, the feeling of belonging, as well as addressing the very concrete outcomes that we're looking for from an equity perspective, where everybody has everything that they need to be able to thrive. They have the same power and influence and doesn't, don't have to have it conferred upon them from those who have that power and influence already. That's when, you know, we'll see. The ability to get to equity and belonging, which, you know, certainly reducing the demand for covering will support and will help drive.
Jen Fisher:
Yeah, thank you for that. So, I want to, you know, I like to leave the podcast with actionable things that individuals can do. We've talked a lot about leaders and organizations and leaders are certainly also individuals. But, when we talked about the impact of covering to our health and well-being and what we know from our research is that the people that impact our well-being the most on a day in day out basis are our team members, you know, those people that we engage with the most in the workplace throughout our days and throughout our week. So when I think about that on an individual level, what can I do or what are 2 or 3 things that any professional can do regardless of level and an organization to help create this culture of safety and inclusion and belonging in the workplace because we all, regardless of our roles, we all have a sphere of influence. We all have people that we impact. So what are kind of two or three things that, that every individual can think about doing? And Kenji, I'll start with you.
Kenji Yoshino:
Yeah, this is the signal advance of the 2023 paper over the 2013 paper, because we really challenged ourselves to say, what three things do we want people to do? So our three things are, diagnose, be an active ally and finally share your story. So let me take those in order. So, the first thing that we want you to do is to diagnose how you yourself, and then possibly collectively as a team, you could go through this together are engaged in covering behaviors. And it's not just so that we do have like a, I think a very cool kind of chart at the end. That's a kind of fillable PDF of here are the four axes of covering, you know, and here are examples. And so, it, you know, write out like how you might be covering. It's a wonderful exercise to do on your own or with your team to figure out how you might be covering, but just above, and beyond that, we want people to say just because you're covering doesn't necessarily mean it hurts, right? For all we know, we use the example of Margaret Thatcher. For all we know, when she was pushed into voice coaching to scrub her working-class accent and to lower the timbre of her voice, so that she could stand for prime minister, she just regarded that as executive coaching. Like, she didn't view that to be a privation in any way. She never reported it as, you know, a harm and then the rest is history. So, you know, even if you're doing it, it might not hurt you. And so, if you're doing it, but it doesn't hurt, then no further action required. You know, congratulations, right? But if you're doing it and it hurts, even that's not the end of the inquiry, because you have to ask yourself in fairness to the organization, like, does the organization have any value that it is enforcing with the covering demand? So that's my obnoxious person example. Like, let's say. I have to cover the fact that I'm obnoxious, you know, that harms me, but I fall down, right, on the third step, which is the organization does have a legitimate interest, right, in asking me to downplay that identity, whereas another organization that said, don't work on gay stuff if you want to get tenure, would not have that defense. Once I get to the bottom of that kind of flow chart of, yes, I cover, yes, it hurts, no, the organization doesn't have a kind of organizational value that it can defend the covering demand with, then it really is like challenge the organization to do better, like identify this as a pain point for you and tell the organization to do better. And you were mentioning kind of individuals, like I think individuals often feel like, oh, I have no power and that's like, unless I'm a leader, I can't change the culture. But you know, one thing, and I don't want to minimize that, but one thing I do want to say is by the time you've made it to the bottom of the flow chart, usually there is a value that you can advert to and say like you have committed yourself to inclusion on the basis of sexual orientation. I view a gap between you saying that you believe in that and you telling me that I can't write about gay issues if I want to get tenure. Help me understand like why those two are reconcilable. So, you're not asking the organization to produce a new value, you're just asking the organization to live up to a value rather than simply under it. The second is be an active ally. So, we've all written and thought a lot about allyship in the DEI space. I think it is the most promising development in diversity and inclusion as a solution set, not just for covering. It's a broad spectrum antibiotic. It works, you know, for a lot of different D&I issues. The reason that I think it's promising is that study after study has shown that allies are more effective at intervening and quashing bias than affected people themselves, right? And we can all do this for each other, right? So that if you speak out about, you know, gender bias as a woman, Joanne, like you're going to take a hit for that. Whereas if I, as a man, speak up for you, I'm much more likely to be heard, much less likely to suffer a penalty. Right, if a straight individual speaks up for me, right they're much less likely to take the penalty and they're much more likely to be heard than I would be speaking out on an issue of sexual orientation myself as somebody who's implicated, right, in that, on the subordinated side of that, of that distinction. So, allyship is critical, uh, we give some sort of additional, You know, points about how to be an ally in the covering context, which is not just like, obviously, be an ally and step in and don't remain silent, but also kind of what you were implying earlier, you know, and so, you know, again, I really appreciate the sophistication Jen, of saying, like, it's not enough to just go barreling in uninformed, right? You want to do it in a way that doesn't burden the affected person. You want to do it in a way that's actually generous to the source, right? To say, like, we all make good faith mistakes, so let's make sure that the source of the appropriate comment or the covering demand is given a chance to learn and grow past their mistake rather than engaging in a kind of cancel culture towards them. So, we're big advocates of moving from cancel culture to something we call coaching culture, right, which is to say we all make mistakes. The point of making mistakes is not to ostracize or shun people who make them because otherwise it's a circular firing squad. We would all get excluded over time because we all make those mistakes. But rather to say that wasn't great, Kenji, but I'm here for you. How are we going to grow past this together, right? That kind of attitude is what we need by a coaching culture and, and the allyship content. And then finally, share your story. This is actually my favorite one. I know Deloitte had a huge share story initiative before I, you know, even arrived on the scene in 2013. But, you know, we've gone back to that and said, like, share your story is so incredibly powerful in part because to your point, like anyone can do it, right? So, I can be an individual contributor and I can vastly improve my sphere of influence and the people that I touch. by being more willing to share my story. The more senior I am, the more I think it's incumbent on me to like share something. And I don't need to say something that makes me acutely uncomfortable or anything like that. It just needs to color outside the bounds of a traditional resume, right? So, if I had shown up here and I said, you know, we did, or Joanne had shown up here and we had said like, here's the empirical research that we've done, study, study, study, and just adopted a very kind of narrow buttoned up kind of demeanor. I think your listeners would have had a very different experience of this conversation. In which we said, Look, you know, Kenji came into this work because he had this experience when he was a young professor and Joanne had a very similar experience along a different cohort when she was a young professional. That just, you know, doesn't take anything away from hopefully our authority or credibility. I think it enhances our authority, our credibility, right? And I think we have to, like, take a leaf out of the Harvard Business School Professor Robin Ely's work, where she talks about mature vulnerability, where, like, if everyone associates vulnerability with infantile vulnerability, right, of like the vulnerability that you have when you're a kid, and we all want to grow past that, right, as adults. But what she talks about with mature vulnerability is like precisely because you have power, you can actually embrace more of yourself and bring more of yourself to the work that you do. So even when I say like, you know, I'm married to a man in New York and we have two kids and a great day, right, that just gives people a lot more to work with, of like, who is this guy and where is he coming from? Then you know, my academic credentials or my publications or the like. And then the final thing I'll say about share your story is that it doesn't necessarily need to be a set piece of it. It doesn't need to be like, I'm on a stage and I'm delivering a keynote and I'm at the podium and here's my story. It can also be like a grace note, right? And a normal everyday conversation of I'm leaving to go pick up my kids or to watch a play or take my daughter to a soccer game. I can say all those things. Right. And that is a dramatically different way of carrying myself in the workplace and saying, I'm not going to tell you where I'm going or lying and saying, I'm going to a client meeting, and not sort of offering up people the space to tell their own stories. Because by saying, I'm going to my daughter's soccer game, that teaches everybody on the team that that's important to me, and they're allowed to have things that are important to them. That permit them to leave work early as well.
Jen Fisher:
Well, Joanne, Kenji, we could go on. I encourage all of the listeners to dive deep into the research that the two of you have done with your teams. It's incredible research. It's really meaningful. It's filled with lots of actions that we can all take and learnings that we can all take. And so, I appreciate the two of you and the work that you do to continue to advocate for, for what we all need in the workplace. So, thank you for being on the show today.
Joanne Stephane:
Thank you so much.
Kenji Yoshino:
Thank you so much.
Jen Fisher:
I'm so grateful. Joanne and Kenji could be with us today to talk about purpose, wellbeing, and human sustainability. Thank you to our producers, Rivet360 and our listeners. You can find the Work Well podcast series on Deloitte. com or you can visit various podcatchers using the keyword, workwell, all one word. To hear more. And if you like the show, don't forget to subscribe so you get all of our future episodes. If you have a topic you'd like to hear on the Work Well podcast series, or maybe a story you would like to share, please reach out to me on LinkedIn. My profile is under the name Jen Fisher or on Twitter at Jen Fish 23. We're always open to your recommendations and feedback. And of course, if you like what you hear, please share, post, and like this podcast. Thank you and be well. The information, opinions, and recommendations expressed by guests on this Deloitte podcast series are for general information and should not be considered as specific advice or services.