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How Organizations Can Get DEIB Right with Martine Kalaw, Elevation Strategist

Jenn DeWall:

Hi, everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall. And on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I sat down with Martine Kalaw to talk about how organizations can get DEIB right? Martine is a DEI top leader and learning and development expert who understands the challenges that human resources executives have in driving DE&I in the workplace. Her book, The ABCs of Diversity, A Manager’s Guide to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the New Workplace, makes DEI accessible to everyone in the workplace, including managers. Martine knows that H.R. and middle managers are the core groups that can drive DE&I since they influence an organization’s makeup. So join our conversation as Martine, and I talk about how you can do DEIB right!

Meet Martine Kalaw—Author, Speaker and Elevation Strategist

Jenn DeWall:

Hi, everyone! It’s Jenn DeWall, and on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I sat down with Martine Kalaw, and we are talking about, oh gosh, probably a conversation that I wish everyone could hear right now, how to do diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging- DEIB for short- right. Because so many organizations right now maybe are taking approaches that aren’t allowing people to see the importance of how and why we need to bring DEIB into the workplace. But before we get into our conversation, Martine, thank you so much for being here. Could you just go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself, how you came to be, how you came to be interested in this topic?

Martine Kalaw:

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Jenn. I’ll start off with. I was born in Zambia. My family is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo- formerly Zaire. I came to the U.S. when I was four years old. And I share that story because a few years later after my mother and stepfather died, I was orphaned, and I became undocumented and stateless. So I didn’t have a country to go back home to. In the process of, you know, figuring out and navigating that journey of pretty much not having a family, not having a country, not having a home. I was exposed to so many different communities. Whether it was, I put myself through boarding school, right? Found or had a benefactor who was able to pay my way through boarding school. So I went to a predominantly white Southern boarding school in Charlottesville, Virginia.

So that was one community that I was exposed to. And I learned to navigate that. And even within that boarding school, within that prep school, the day students were from Charlottesville, they were Southern, of course. And they were very affluent. The dorm students were predominantly South Korean. And so that was another subculture or community. I went in, in middle school, I went to a predominantly African American middle school and then went to college. So I was exposed to so many different communities, including the undocumented community and stateless community. And that really shaped this belief that you know, I could actually be the interpreter of different communities, and I have like this sort of privilege where I could widen my lens because I was exposed to so many different communities and understand their perspectives, the questions they had the lack of clarity they might have about a different community.

And so, for me, that just gave me an opportunity to be an interpreter. And in, in other words, a bridge-builder, right. And I also understood very early on that when you’re part of a marginalized community, it’s easy to feel a loss of dignity, right? Based on how others treat you and really what you want is not charity. What you want is for someone to invest in you to see the value that you can bring. And so this all sort of encapsulates into the whole conversation around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, because that’s really what it is. It’s about being an interpreter across different lines, different communities, different conversations, and being able to build those bridges. Right. And reminding anyone who has more opportunity, more access, more privilege that they get you right in the space of DEIB, they get to invest right in others. Right. So that way, they can build stronger communities. And I just apply that to the workforce.

Get DEIB Right – Know The Difference Between Belonging and Fitting In

Jenn DeWall:

I love that. I love that it’s giving voice, you know, too, and within a workplace, it could be the marginalized groups. It could be the voices that are never listened to. And I love what you’re doing in the work that you’re doing because we obviously need it more than ever. But, you know, one of the things that it, we were talking about at Crestcom last week was even to understand what it might be like. And I’m curious if you have any thoughts on this, and you may or may not, but we were talking about the difference between fitting in versus belonging. Like, and I think that you know, in the workplace, how we were looking at it, as people don’t even realize that so many workplaces are designed to expect you to fit in that’s right. Instead of creating a place and fitting in might be, you know, looking at a problem in a certain way, dressing the same way. It could be a variety of things, but I’m curious, like how do you kind of address that? Or how do you see the difference between belonging and fitting in?

Martine Kalaw:

Oh, that’s such a great question because I think that it’s the distinction between assimilation and actually assimilation versus multiculturalism, right? So you can be part of an organization. I always contextualize it in the space of organizations, but you can be part of an organization where, you know, there are all these different regions that the organization you know has offices across the globe. So there fitting in, or a simulation looks like, Hey, let’s model, let’s have everyone acclimate to one type of region. Right. And oftentimes what I see with some organizations that are U.S. Based and have maybe a headquarter headquarters in us, somewhere in the U.S., and then they have offices somewhere, you know, in, in, in different locations in Europe, there’s this sort of expectation for everyone to sort of assimilating to the American culture. I don’t know that everyone realizes it, but that usually happens. Right. So that’s sort of like fitting in and belonging looks like multiculturalism. It looks like, Hey, okay, we’ve got offices in all these different locations. Let’s figure out a way to fuse. Right. And create one culture. And one culture looks like a mix of all these different subcultures together, coming together. And then we form our organization. So I think that it’s a lot harder to do that, right. To get to a place of true multiculturalism, where everyone feels that sense of belonging versus that assimilation and fitting in.

Why Don’t Organizations Get DEIB Right?

Jenn DeWall:

Yes. Thank you so much for answering that. I was just so curious. Because I think people don’t realize the difference and what that can look like sometimes in an organization, let’s dive into it. Our topic is all about how to get DEIB— diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging– right. How to get it right. So we have to start out if we’re gonna talk about how to do it right. Where do organizations get it wrong? Or where do organizations and leaders today get this wrong?

Martine Kalaw:

Yeah. Jenn, I mean, this is controversial because some people might you know, historically the way that organizations respond to DEIB is, Hey, we’ve gotta do this because it’s the right thing to do. Right. We’ve gotta, it’s the right thing to do. So we have to respond to it. And oftentimes, that can come across as performative, and then there’s only so much. And so when, when it’s the right thing to do, it’s sort of bucketed in the space of charity. Right. And let me ask you, we all, in our, in our own personal lives, we have various charities, you know, that we’re connected to. Right. But you know, when push comes to shove or when, right. But when we’re, when we’re under, when we have constraints, you know, where do, does our charity in terms of priority? Where does it fall? Right.

So we’ve gotta think about it within that context. So when organizations see it as the right thing to do, it seems like charity, right. It’s presented as a charity, and it’s not a high priority. So that’s where I believe organizations do it wrong. I believe that DEIB needs to be introduced into the organization, or even if it already was introduced as a charity, it needs to be reshaped framed as a business structure, just like anything else. Right. So when we think about it,  we think about security, right? Security initiatives in the workplace, data security, all of that, nobody says, oh, it’s the right thing to do. So we’ve gotta do it. No, the way that we frame things like security in our organization. Our company can’t function without security because… Right. And then, we start to create strategies around security. We look at the metrics. We look at all of that.

And so this is where I feel like one of the one, one way in which organizations do it wrong is they’re not looking at DEIB as a business function or a business imperative. Secondly, it’s usually sort of dumped on H.R. and on one person, right? And the thing is human resources historically. And generally, I’m generalizing here, but we’re always, and I’ve sat in an or human resources capacity for many years, you know, in my career. But we’re always struggling to secure a seat at the table already, just in terms of, you know, the function of human resources. So now this, this, this concept of the right thing to do this charity initiative is now dumped on human resources. And now they’ve gotta like add this to their workload. They’re not necessarily equipped to do this on their own. They don’t even necessarily have the expertise, and now they’ve gotta figure this out.

So it can feel very burdensome for human resources, right. And then they’re not given the resources to actually do, do anything because it’s seen as a charity. So there aren’t any, there aren’t any resources that are provided. So, you know what, it’s, they’re set up. We, as human resources professionals, are set up to kind of fail in this space of DEIB. So that’s the second thing that organizations do wrong. The third is when human resources, you know, owns, takes on, you know, ownership of DEIB. One of the things that we don’t necessarily we’re not equipped to do is identify what’s the return on investment. Why is this valuable? Quantify it just like we would for anything else, right. For security, if we’re building out security programs and the organization’s marketing sales, why is this, how is this going to affect the bottom line?

And that’s a hard question to pose. And I think that organizations haven’t been given permission to see DEIB, in that, you know, in that lens or in that respect, because some people feel like it cheapens it, right. Because DEIB it’s so personal to many of us, it takes on a stronger meaning, but at the end of the day, what I always, you know, my, my is okay, so I understand it’s the right thing to do. I understand that there’s a whole emotional component. And there are people that are, you know, individuals from marginalized communities who have struggled in the workplace because of, you know, the lack of DEIB, right. But this approach that we’re taking for it be to be the right thing to do, how is it working for us? Right? Because we’ve been, we’ve been doing this for the last couple of decades. How far have we gotten? We need a new approach, a different approach and an approach that will allow all stakeholders to actually be involved in the conversation. And so that common language within an organization is revenue. It’s the bottom line start there. And then we can work, work our way back backward and really, you know, discuss the soft skills and the emotional, you know, the E.Q. component of DEIB as well.

Looking at DEIB as a Continuum

Jenn DeWall:

And I think that’s a huge piece to touch on, is the emotional component, depending on where someone sits. And it’s, I’ve just heard, seen, you know, this resistance because people are afraid of it. They think they’re afraid of, in some ways like, and we talked about this in our pre-call like that blame and shame, or they feel like it’s been pushed as this check the box initiative, but yet they truly really don’t understand why this is so important. And so organizations, I think sometimes, you know, might be really forgetting to explain, like, what is this? Like, this is why it’s important. We’re working with human beings. Yeah. But yet people think that it’s coming as a response to one specific thing, and they’re missing out on all of the benefits. I’m just curious, like, as I know, I’ve seen it where it becomes this check, check the box, you’ve gotta do all these every single month, but we’re not even inviting them into the conversation.

And we’re probably just saying like, and you’ve been doing it wrong, so no big deal, here’s the way to do it. Right. Or I don’t know. There’s just a lot of different ways I’ve seen this done. There’s a lot of people I’ve seen even enter the arena of diversity inclusion belonging experts. And I do think that you have to be, it’s not just, it’s a mix of different things and to get everyone on that same conversation, like how do we do it? It can’t just be a push. It can’t because then there’s that resistance. And yeah. I’d love to hear your response.

Martine Kalaw:

Yeah, Jenn, I would say that there’s a space. This is a continuum; DEIB is a continuum. It’s a continuum for every individual, every organization. So, you know, individuals that focus on, you know, a specific area of DEIB, whether it’s, you know, race relations specifically whatever it is, there’s a space for all of us. And every approach, I believe for organizations, just depends on where the organization is at the moment and what they need. Right. So we’ve gotta really be audience-specific. What I would say is absolutely, you know, I, I hear time and time again, as I work with different clients, I hear people say predominantly white men in these organizations that will share with me, Hey Martine, I don’t feel like I can say anything. I don’t feel like I have the right to say anything.

I don’t wanna be shamed or blamed, and that’s a problem, right? Because we need everyone in the conversation. And when we look at organizations and the makeup of organizations and who’s sitting at the helm of the organization, it’s usually white men right now. So if they don’t feel comfortable or they that they can say anything in these conversations, then how are we gonna actually be able to move the needle and move things along. So we really wanna invite everyone in. And so, it really depends on the approach. Now, sometimes the approach looks like we’re gonna focus on, we’re gonna just do training. We’re gonna push training down your throats. We’re going to push unconscious bias, training down your throats. So it really becomes, you know, there there’s certain, there, there are elements of it’s, it’s gotta be a strategy, right? So that’s what I’m suggesting.

Training is not going to be sufficient, but there’s nothing wrong with training when it’s combined with strategy. Right. And it’s the way in which we present training. I don’t even believe in DEI training. I believe in learning. There’s a difference, right? There are conversations discussions that look different than training. Right. And I also believe when it’s infused, and it’s incorporated or presented within the framework of foundational skills that manager, or specifically you know, already learning. That’s when it’s a lot more palatable. It’s a lot easier to process and digest. So that’s, that’s really, it’s that it’s really, you know, the way in which, you know, we structure the process that really matters. So that’s why, you know, I wrote this book on the ABCs of DEI, and it’s really for managers, right. It’s designed for managers because I believe when we think about, you know, the two groups that, influence the makeup of an organization, it’s human resources and middle management, right.

Middle Managers Have to Get DEIB Right

Martine Kalaw:

Middle managers are involved with performance management compensation, you know, promotions. They’re also involved with hiring. They influence attrition, whether a person decides to say or not. So we all, most organizations offer some sort of manager development program. So DEI can be embedded right in that program. It’s just a different aspect of looking at each component of manager development when we’re looking at hiring. Right. And we, when we’re going through managers, are going through training on how to, you know, how to effectively interview behavioral-based interviews. Well, the only difference in presenting DEIB into that conversation is okay, managers, let’s talk about bias. Let’s talk about the tendencies that we all carry when we’re looking at resumes, right. When we look at a resume, we create a story about someone. We act, actually create a picture in our mind, I went to a liberal arts college. If I looked at a resume right now, one person who went to a liberal arts college and one who went to, you know, a law university, I would probably be more inclined to, you know, lean toward the person into a liberal arts college subconsciously. So managers, when we’re looking at resumes, let’s consider what those biases could be, and let’s try to figure out ways to mitigate it. Right? So that’s a different way of presenting DEI learning rather than, Hey, everyone, we’re gonna go through this training in here. You’re gonna go through this training. And yeah. And then you’re, you’re expected to like shift the way that you behave in the workplace. So that’s really what we get to do differently. And when we present it in this way, there’s less shame and blame, right. Because people start to digest this, and it becomes like a muscle, the more managers digest this, the more they actually start to behave differently. And then it permeates throughout the organization. Right. That’s a different approach.

What Are DEIB Efforts Trying to Accomplish?

Jenn DeWall:

Yes. I love that. I’ve just, it really has to be a part of your culture, and it’s got to be a part of your strategy. Yeah. And people have to be, have permission to join the conversation. Those are like three things that I’ve said, and it’s not just training. There has to be dialogue. So let’s, let’s level set again. Martine, what does diversity equity, inclusion and belonging DEIB intend to do? Cause I know we talked about like, this is such a, you can approach this in a variety of different ways, but for those that might be still resistant, like, what is this intended to do?

Martine Kalaw:

Yeah. That’s a great question. I mean, we first wanna break out what DEIB you know what it means, right. When we look at diversity, there are so many different components of diversity. I don’t think everyone is fully aware of that. Right. I mean, I break it out into like three segments, right? One segment being, you be, you know, the physical-biological. So when we think about gender and race, okay. That is part of that, you know, the first component, the second component is cultural, right? I mean, so it, it thing, such things like you know, your age, your marital status, right. That’s a component, and the third is really behavior-based behavior. So that can be, look that can look like whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert. And all of those three components are really critical and more thinking about creating more diverse workplaces.

Right. But I will, I will say, I do wanna make sure that I’m clear in saying that there are gonna be certain segments that are more important, more prominent. That should be more prominent within our organization or organizational initiatives. Right. You know, equity can look like a lot of things. We immediately think it’s solely about compensation. It is about compensation, but it’s also about, you know, creating a space where people have access, access to training, access, to leadership, access, to headquarters, access to mentors, things like that. Right. And then, you know, inclusion and longing are really about right. Creating a space where it’s not just about bringing someone in on the, bringing someone into the team, but it’s really making sure they understand how they contribute to the organization, how they contribute to your goals as a team. So that means connecting with them regularly, allowing them to share their ideas, making them feel involved.

Right. And it also involves a level of representation. People feel more involved. They feel like they belong when they see other people that look like them, right. That are, you know, that are, have advanced within the organization. So that’s what DEIB really represents. And so the goal of DEIB within the organization is really to create organizations that foster, that allow all of us to always have our antennas up to our antennas so that we are thinking about how we can grow our organizations through the myriad of people that are coming into the organization. Right. So how do we find the best, smartest talent that represents, you know, that, that, that represent the the the makeup of the, of U.S. Pretty much, right? Like we want the organization to kind of reflect how the demographics of our country, that that’s one, right. Yeah. As, as possible. But how do we do it in a way where everyone feels like it’s fair? There’s fairness in that process. Right. And when we bring people in, how do we ensure that everyone feels like there’s fairness in the process of growing throughout the organization? Right. So that’s really what DEIB is intended to do. And at the end of the day, it benefits the organization as a whole.

Jenn DeWall:

Yes, yes. The organization. And I mean, this is the piece where I just wish everyone looked at it that way because it creates a place. We spend so much time at work. And if we can feel like we have a place where we belong, that we’re supported, that we’re invited into the conversation. I feel like there are mental health, positive, mental health impacts that can come for an individual positive sense of like the ripple effect. That’s there. If we just create a place for people to thrive or representative of where you’re at, like that is the piece that I hate, that it’s become kind of this hot button topic of like some people resisting it because of how it’s done because really it’s about seeing the whole individual that comes in and then understanding your organization’s structures, your processes, and how, and what they could be either helping or hurting that individual. It’s caring!

Martine Kalaw:

The thing that I will say is that it’s definitely not. I hear some people say it’s, you know, the goal of DEIB is to create this colorblind space. Right. And where everyone, every, you know, we don’t see color. And I actually disagree with that. I think that, you know, the challenge or the issue with, you know, this colorblind theory is it’s, it just dismisses people. Right. It it’s very dismissive of people because some of us, we, we want to it’s, it’s okay to see color it’s okay to see and acknowledge people for who they are and how they define themselves. That is okay, because we wanna appreciate that. Right. So that’s really, you know, it’s, it’s not about getting to a place where we’re color blind. It’s getting to a place where we allow people to define themselves and we’re accepting of that. And we don’t place meaning whether it be positive or negative, we don’t place meaning on people based on what we see, what we hear, but we place meaning on their actions. Right. That’s really where we wanna get to. That’s the goal of DEIB

Jenn DeWall:

Yes. I love that. I, I want it there. I want it now, Mar like, I want it to be this place for, that’s what we’re focusing on. We’re not getting maybe more confused, or I guess, like, I would say, even just excluding or disengaging from it, we’re getting to a place where we can understand what that looks like for someone. And I think the differentiation that you made, like assigning label is good or bad. Like, you still have to understand who that individual is like and what, like their pride is, who they are, how they see that it’s not going to be the same for every single one of us, even though you might notice similar things. And I put in air quotes, things like we’re still completely different people.

How Do We Get DEIB Right?

Jenn DeWall:

Okay. So we’re gonna get into doing it right because we talked about, you know, some of those problems, I loved so many of the insights that you shared, Martine. How do we get DEIB right? Where do you start?

Martine Kalaw:

We start by first not using the, you know, academic-speak in the workplace because that just doesn’t, it, it, academia is a completely different space and structure. And when we do that, that’s when DEIB becomes really intimidating. Right? Human resources, professionals, individuals within organizations feel like, well, I don’t, I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’m equipped to lead these kinds of conversations. I don’t feel like, you know, we’re gonna get to that place, you know, where we’re actually doing DEIB right because we’re using academia as a framework. Right. So what we get to do is create our own common language around DEIB within our organization. Right. So that’s one way to do it. Right. But another thing that we get to, there’s

Jenn DeWall:

A quick question. And when you say like that, you’re just saying to like, modify, like, instead of calling it diversity, equity and inclusion and belonging find what is going to be the most productive to like, support those conversations in your workplace, that we don’t have to call it that because you know, it can be okay. Perfect. I love that. Just wanted to clarify that.

Martine Kalaw:

Yeah. We don’t have to call it that we don’t have to worry about. Okay. You know, do I understand, will I know when something is a microaggression, a microaggression is pretty much when someone, if someone comes to you and says, they’re offended by something you did or said, potentially that’s a microaggression. So it’s less about being able to define it and being able to figure out whether or not it’s a microaggression or not. And it’s really about just being conscientious of other people, right. And their emotions, their feelings, and not being, not feeling like you get to be the judge of how other people feel that’s a different way to frame or reframe all these concepts that are coming at us. So that’s really what I’m saying is people get so stuck in the minutia of the concept. People go, you know, I hear people say, well, you know, Martine, I really don’t understand, you know, what LGBTQIA+ is.

And I feel like I need to understand all the different sub-components so I can actually engage in conversation. And you know, it, it doesn’t have to be that overwhelming. We make it a little bit too overwhelming. Let’s just start by asking questions. Let’s start with just acknowledging that we can enter space, like you said earlier, a space of dialogue where we get to learn from each other. That’s it. Right. So that’s, that’s a different approach. So that’s the first thing, another way of doing, doing DEIB right in organizations, is looking at the metrics and what I’m, what I’m suggesting is not just the metrics looking at like one layer of metrics. Cause that’s what a lot of organizations do. Right. They, you know, they’ll, they’ll say, okay, we’re gonna look across the board. We’re gonna look at gender. We’re gonna look at ethnicity across the board. All right. Yeah. The numbers look okay. So we’re fine.

Identify Your DEIB Opportunities

Martine Kalaw:

That is not enough. Right. What I’m suggesting is that there are tools and systems out there that allow you to actually measure and look at the sub and the cross-section of different fields, different metrics. So you can look at gender and race, and age. Right. You can look at those three layers, right? The cross-section of all those three by the department by region tells a completely different story. Right. And that’s where you’re able to identify where there’s opportunity. Right. And a lot of organizations don’t like doing that because it’s, it’s frightening. They’re frightened of what they might see, but I wanna remind all of us that we’re all starting, you know, from an, a place of opportunity. So those numbers may not look like what you want them to look like, but that’s okay.

Create a DEIB Strategy

Martine Kalaw:

Start from, you know, we’re all starting from, from, from home base. Right. So look at the numbers and remember that you don’t have to, the goal is not to try to grow them, like change the numbers over or night. It takes time. Right. So that’s a second thing that we can do differently or better in terms of DEIB really look at the cross-section of metrics and use systems, not H.R. systems, but there are other tools and platforms that are specific to DEIB that will support to in, you know, pulling those Infor that information in metrics. The third thing that I would say that we need to do, or we could do is identify immediately. And I mentioned this earlier, what’s the value, what’s the metric? What’s the benefit of DEIB in our organization.?

Right. Because that is going to be the thing that draws everyone in, right. That’s going to be the equalizer of D I B. Right. So, and usually what I recommend is that it be quantifiable, right? So if you’re a B2B business or B2C business is there opportunity to grow your market, share, increase your market, share, right. Start there. If your B2B business, you know, is there opportunity to you know, generate more partnerships and who are your partners, look, you know, who do they work with? Who are they their customers? Right. so that’s how we start to actually make DEIB a business imperative. So those are three things right off the bat that we can start doing differently. Fourth, I’ll say is don’t run to start creating programs, cuz that’s very exciting. Like programs are lovely. Start to create programs, have a strategy.

Why are you creating the programs? Right? Because if you create programs and no strategy, how do you scale it? Right. Where does the money come from to maintain these programs? So have a strategy. And I will say the last thing is make the distinction between EEOC. And this kind of goes back to the other point that we made earlier, Jenn , about, you know, people feeling, being fearful of engaging in DEI because they equate DEI sometimes with, you know, equal employment, you know, opportunities of equal employment, what is EEOC, equal employment opportunity. I forget what that last C stands for, but that’s more, you know, that’s more, it’s legal, right? It’s statutory, right. And DEI is more policy driven. So when we don’t address DEI, right. And let’s say someone, you know, we don’t have initiatives within our organization that support individuals to mitigate bias.

DEIB is Not the Same as Equal Employment Opportunity Statutes

Martine Kalaw:

Right. And you know, and, and, and microaggressions, if someone con consistently experiences this, right. They might eventually feel like they wanna take legal action. Then it becomes an EEOC situation or issue. But EEOC is more statutory. Right. And DEI is more policy-based and policy driven. Right. So, I think it’s important that organizations make that distinction, you know, of course, E E O C is, is, is much more of it’s mandated. Right? We, we’ve gotta make sure that these, you know, the, these actions are taken and DEIB is, you know, it’s optional. But I think that this, you know, when we address DEIB and organizations and we focus on it first, we actually mitigate and minimize the, the op you know, the chances of us having more EEOC issues in our organization. Right. So that’s another, I think I listed four things that we can do, right in organizations to drive DEIB.

Jenn DeWall:

Who do you think are the individuals? I know that you talked about what earlier, so you’ve gotta have the strategy. Cause I think right now some people’s strategies are in introduce DEIB training into the work workforce, but that’s not necessarily like, what is the goal? The goal can’t be just to have the training. Like, what do you wanna see as a result of it? And I like that distinction that I think you’re making is like. It’s not just checking the box with that. Like, what are you actually wanting from that? And now, how do you build the strategy? It’s not just, just say, Hey, I got this.

Understand the ROI of DEIB

Martine Kalaw:

And that’s why when you quantify it, right. When you identify what’s that return, what’s the value of doing this, right? You identify that first. And secondly, where are we now? Right. We look at the metrics. Where are we now? Then we get to create the strategy on where, you know, how do we get from where we are to where we wanna go. Right. So that, you know, where we are is our baseline, where we want to go is gonna help us reach our, you know, our, that ROI. And then we create strategies around that. We create processes, we create procedures and programs is part of, is a component of strategy, but it’s not the only strategy. Right? So like I said, you know, it’s one thing to say, we’re just gonna, we’re gonna have the training, but it’s another thing to say, we’re going to provide we’re gonna provide you know, managers with DEI training and it’s gonna be part of their manager development program.

Right. We’re gonna do that. And we’re also going to now, you know, we’re gonna have a scorecard that actually that’s part of that. So we’re able to assess whether or not we’re actually moving the needle on DEI or going forward with performance, you know, performance evaluations. What we’re gonna do is we’re going to check for potential biases in the recaps that managers share, or we’re going to after performance evaluations and after promotions or in the process of promotions, we’re going to look at, you know, what’s the rate of promotion by gender, by race, by whatever. And how does that, you know, what’s that correlation to who’s leaving the organization, right? So that’s what I mean, when I say strategy. Or we’re going to, in terms of strategy, we’re going to look at our pipeline. We’re gonna look at who are we bringing in?

Are we widening our pool of individuals who are coming in entry-level? Our internship program. What’s the, what’s the conversion of our interns? Where are we pulling our interns from? And then once we figure out, okay, this is part of the strategy we’re going to, you know, we want to you know, increase our pipeline and we wanna strengthen it. Or we want to, you know, create a different position entry level position so that we can widen our pool of candidates. Right. Because a lot of organizations, or I won’t say a lot, but some organizations will say, look, we only allow for candidates who have this particular degree, right. Come into our organization. And my follow up is, well, is there an opportunity to create another entry level position, right? That where a person can actually graduate from that position into, you know, this other, you know, position that you’re, you require a particular degree for. Right. So that they can grow and they can, you know, you can maybe sponsor them getting that degree. So that’s part of strategy development. And when you develop that strategy, what comes with it is, okay, well then what kind of learning do we need to, to also implement, right. And how do we support our managers? How do we support leadership in understanding why we’re doing this? Why this matters well, that it involves learning. That just involves discussions. Right? That’s how strategy can and should work more effectively.

Embed DEIB in the Organization

Jenn DeWall:

Yeah. I’m happy that you even brought up just thinking about it’s rethinking different ways. I know that I worked for an organization that heavily recruited at big 10 universities. And then just thinking about all the places that they missed seeing talent, because they only went there and you know, it’s not just, I I’m so happy that you said that because we aren’t aware of our bias or even the, that affinity bias of how we naturally gravitate towards people that are most like ourselves, every person does it, it’s an unconscious bias. Like we’re not judging, we’re not throwing out judgment. We are throwing out the place to understand and reflect and think and be curious. And so how do you embed that strategy into the organization? How would you advise people to approach to that? Well thinking about like, cause I know that we had talked about how do we get, like what, how do people actually reinforce like the efforts of the organization? Does that lie specifically within H.R. to take that through? Or what do we need to do with leaders to help them embed strategy into the efforts?

Martine Kalaw:

So it starts with human resources cuz usually they’re the ones who are charged with that responsibility. So it starts there, but it can’t just end there. Right. What we know is that anyone even, you know, Chief Diversity Officers, the likely, you know, the, you know, the time span, they usually stay within an organization and their position on average three years. Because if they’re the only ones charged with that responsibility, it’s heavy, it’s a burden, and not one person can change, you know, DEI for an entire organization. So everyone has to be involved. So the way that I see it and the way that I recommend it recommended is yes, you’ve got human resources. If they’re charged with owning DEI they’re responsible, you know, they get to, you know, be responsible for identifying what that ROI is identifying, you know, what that strategy can look like.

And we are building it out and presenting to their stakeholders, one being leadership. So leadership has to be held accountable as well. So when we’re talking about, you know, widening our pool of candidates, widening our networks, right. We get to hold leadership responsible. They get to, we get to hold them. We can hold them responsible in scorecards. Right. We can also look at usually, you know, in organizations, leadership, you know, they own different regions of the market or, you know, in that way. So let, why not have some sort of metrics around that? Now I wanna be clear that we’re not talking about quotas, right. So I know that that is a real fear for a lot of fear for people in organizations, right? That DEI means we’re going to have quotas, and it means we’re going to bring in individuals that are less qualified than, you know, than others.

That’s not true, right? I mean, that’s not the goal of DEI, and that doesn’t happen. That shouldn’t happen because we’re gonna bring in, the goal is to widen the pool of candidates. And when you widen the pool of candidates, qualified, eligible candidates, you increase the likelihood of bringing in somebody, right. Who may not look like some, the majority of the people in your organization, but has just as much experience if not more and can contribute more. So what we get to do, though, is we get to hold each leader accountable to making sure that this stuff is actually happening in their area, in their region. They get to, you know, they’re holding their managers accountable, right? So our managers, so our human resources is driving the strategy, right? Leadership is being held accountable for this strategy. And the managers are in the middle, right?

The managers are actually reinforcing all of this through the, the people, right? Because the managers are the ones who are actually doing the hiring. They’re the ones who are, are actually doing the promotions. They’re the ones who are actually, you know, determining compensation. So they’re kind of like in the middle, you know, actually implementing it, but their leaders are being held accountable for making sure that it’s happening. So that is how this relationship can work. And it is symbiotic way to really drive DEI strategy. Right? I mean, I think of it like a, you know, you think of a scorecard it’s not a scorecard, excuse me a playbook, right? I think you can, you can create and have a, a DEI playbook just like you would have a sales playbook. This is what, who, you know, this person’s gonna, you know, their responsibility is X, Y, Z.

This person’s responsibility is X, Y, Z. And this is how we’re gonna actually see that it’s working. Right. And it’s not enough to say, we’re just gonna look at the makeup of the organization to see if it’s changed. We don’t want that. Right. Because that suggests creating, establishing, you know, quotas. That’s not what we want. What we’re looking at is how are we widening our pool of candidates? Who are we actually, you know, who are we looking at when we’re looking at resumes? What resumes are we looking at? And in conjunction with that, right? Are we helping our managers mitigate their biases? Cause we all have biases. Like you said, right. Do managers understand how those biases happen? And in that interview process, what are the different ways that we can mitigate biases? Yes. Managers can understand how to mitigate their own biases. But what if we had an ERG, you know, someone from our ERG also engage in the interview process of a candidate. So not only is the manager interviewing that candidate, but now there’s another pool of people who, you know, who have, who might potentially be unbiased, who can also interview that candidate. Right. That’s what it can look like. These are the type of conversations that can happen to actually make the change. You know, that we’re looking for,

How to Learn More with Martine Kalaw’s DEIB Masterclass

Jenn DeWall:

Oh my gosh, Martine, I’ve loved our conversation. And just as a reminder, it starts with your strategy and how are you getting people into the strategy, but also educating them on what it is and what it’s not, because I think you’re right. There’s a lot of noise in terms of people coming to conclusions or jumping, maybe assuming what it is. And that’s not like quotas, like it’s not what it’s designed and to do. It’s designed to expand. So you can have access to a broader pool of talent. Martine I’ve loved our conversation. I know I want to send our audience to your site. How do they get in touch with you? I know that you’re promoting a masterclass. Give us all the details on how we can connect with you.

Martine Kalaw:

Yeah, Jenn . So my next masterclass is April 27th from 12 to 1 Eastern Time. It’s just an opportunity for H.R. professionals, human resource professionals to join me. So we can talk about the five things that you can do implement in the next 90 days to really move di forward. Right? So we’re gonna really dig in and, and, you know, figure that out together and you can go directly to my website, https://martinekalaw.com/masterclass/. And you can go ahead and sign up and I’d love to have you there.

Jenn DeWall:

All right. Perfect Martine, thank you so much for sharing your time, your expertise, your passion, and also helping us understand how we can do it the right way to actually get the intended impact of what we want. I’m just so grateful for this conversation. Thank you for bringing a different way to look at DEIB. Check out her masterclass until next time, Martine.

Martine Kalaw:

Thank you so much.

Jenn DeWall:

Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode, The Leadership Habit podcast. I love my conversation with Martine Kalaw and as she shared, if you are an H.R. professional and you are interested in attending for live masterclass on April 27th, from 12 to one Easter, you can sign up at MartineKalaw.com/masterclass, or you can find the link in our show notes. And if you know that you could benefit from hearing this conversation, please share the episode and don’t leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service.