A Missed Opportunity

There needs to be an acknowledgement that a lot of this is systemic. And since a lot of the racism and the inequality are systemic, what do you think leaders need to do to more effectively address that in the workplace?

Yeah, it's a great question and I think it's a question we need to talk about more often. It is pretty straightforward. There have been study after study that says diverse teams are smarter, that you get somebody from a different ethnic background, who has a completely different experience, and so there comes a problem in a way that, you know, someone else might not come up. If you don't have that person at the table, then you're not going to get that perspective, but that's one thing.

And not only smarter but also better for the bottom line, the studies have shown.

That's right, that was my next point. My next point was that now when you've got that person at the table, you're going to have that conversation that's going to be much more productive, which will produce better outcomes. But at the same time, you're going to be able to pursue those communities that are underrepresented because you have people at the table on the executive team that have knowledge about those markets. The biggest loss to me, I think, in venture capital and entrepreneurial world, is that a lot of the businesses aren't targeting underrepresented communities--African-American, Native American, Hispanic-American, and other ethnic, diverse communities. And so they're missing out on developing products that are uniquely made for that audience because you're just -- if you're not a woman, you're not going to get woman's products.

Yes.

You're just not going to get to that community, there's a culture, there's a language, there's an experience that is just unique to that culture. And to the degree that you add people, you can access those markets. If you're not willing to add people from those groups, then you're not going to be very good at it. And so you're missing an opportunity to expand the pie. I think that the pie gets bigger if you have representation across different gender groups and ethnic groups, because now you can go after those markets aggressively and itÕs not just the majority market that you're pursuing. So there's all kinds of costs for not doing it, the answers are pretty straightforward. It's not a pipeline problem, it's an access to capital problem. If you're a startup and you're one of those underrepresented groups, it's a lack of systems and structure to facilitate making those choices. If there's no cost to me as an executive for not recruiting diverse people on my team, then I'm not going to do it. But you can create a cost, right?

Yeah.

You don't get the bonus, you donÕt get the promotion, you don't get to hire person X, you get a smaller budget. If you create consequence for not doing the right thing, that, I can guarantee you'll get the behaviors that you want. So we know what to do but we oftentimes don't do it because the status quo is more comfortable.