“Shouldn't we just hire the most qualified person?”

Picture this: You and your team are having a meeting to discuss DE&I at your company or within your department. Everyone is mapping out next steps and action items. The topic of the meeting is how to effectively identify and recruit diverse talent for your team. The group is brainstorming on ways they can do outreach within diverse communities and how to “get the word out” that you have jobs and are looking for diverse applicants. And then someone on the team says, “Shouldn't we just hire the most qualified person?” The room falls completely silent. All eyes are on you. What do you say?

Before you respond, know that this question is a strong signal that the person asking doesn't fully understand why you're doing this. This is an opportunity to educate and reinforce with everyone that your DE&I efforts are not about “hiring minorities or people of color now,” but rather strengthening and diversifying the team that serves your clients and customers. Your efforts are aimed at improving the organization as a whole with new perspectives and innovation.

A client of mine, Angie, faced this very situation recently. In a meeting to discuss outreach and recruiting, one of her employees, Samantha asked, “Shouldn't we be recruiting and hiring the most qualified person?” Angie responded in this way: “Samantha, thank you for asking that question. Let me be clear about our approach: we need to broaden and breathe some fresh air into our strategy. There are opportunities to serve our current customers better and grow our business with new customers if we understand what they want and expect. New perspectives can bring new ideas and approaches to our business that make us more competitive and innovative. We are not currently representative of our diverse community, and we need to address that, for both our short- and long-term future. Our goal is to be as smart, successful, and customer-focused as we can possibly be. We are going to hire the best people to help us accomplish this, and they may not look like you.” It was a great response to Samantha's question, but what Angie said next was important, insightful, and effective.

Angie then said: “Race and diversity are difficult and controversial topics, and we respect the fact that some employees may not agree with every aspect of the company's new approach. We respect your freedom of thought and conscience. You are free to disagree with the company's approach, or the concept of White privilege, or structural racism, or equity. However, even if you disagree with elements of the company's approach, or some of the language and concepts we're using, we expect you to support the larger goal of increasing diversity here so we can better serve our diverse customers, employees, and prospects. This means we are asking for—and expecting—your support for our diversity efforts, even if you disagree.”

Angie nailed it. She kept the door open for everyone's questions and restated the business rationale for DE&I—again. But she also acknowledged that this is new and difficult territory for many people, and she tapped into what Samantha may truly have been wrestling with: fundamental disagreement with diversity concepts. She didn't say Samantha was wrong or bad. In fact, she expressed that Samantha had the right to disagree. But Angie also made it clear that “the company has set a course and goals, and we expect your help and support as we move in this direction.”

DE&I efforts must be treated like any other business goals and strategies. You wouldn't allow an employee to disrespectfully push back on sales goals, production goals, marketing direction, or branding. When a business strategy is set, employees are expected to support that strategy. If they don't, they are free to find opportunities that suit them better. As a leader, you have every right to stand firm on the way you run your company, department, or team if you've covered the business case for what needs to be done. Your job is to get it done.

“All this talk about race! We're all one race—the human race.”

The problem with this statement is that it's very dismissive. Rather than recognizing that racial inequality is a real issue for many businesses and employees, it attempts to sweep it away altogether. It “pooh-poohs” the factual, proven inequity that exists in most businesses today and suggests that the experiences that minorities have are no different than they are for someone who is White. A good response would be something like this:

Phil, the majority of people in this country—and certainly the majority of people at this company—do not experience racism or know what it's like to be discriminated against. Nor do they know what it's like to be treated as an “other” or outsider, because they are the majority. While you, personally, may not have ever experienced racism or discrimination, it doesn't mean others haven't, and we are working hard to change that. Our goal here is to create a fair and inclusive workplace for everyone. That means we are focusing attention on areas like recruiting, hiring, professional development, and promotions. These areas are critical to our company's success, and just because we haven't prioritized them in the past doesn't mean that's the right strategy for where we are now.

“I came from nothing and pulled myself up by my bootstraps. No one helped me. Why do we need to do something special for minorities?”

This is a very common question asked about DE&I efforts. People who have “made it” on their own and started with little or nothing in the way of finances and education will often ask this. And they are almost always White men. They wonder aloud why companies are doing so much now to help people of color and other minority groups “get ahead.”

A client of mine, Jack, works in the construction industry. He is White. He came from nothing: his father wasn't in the picture growing up. His mom supported the family as best she could as a waitress, but she didn't make much money. They were poor. They wore hand-me-down clothing from Goodwill, never had nice or new things, and utilized food stamps for groceries (food stamps was the term used when Jack was a child for the program that is now called SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). They ate a lot of beans and rice. He expressed to me that this poverty left a deep and lasting impression on him. Jack got a job out of high school working for a construction company, and because he was bright and ambitious, his boss encouraged him to go to college. Furthermore, that boss made it possible for him to go to college: The boss found a way to have the company help out with tuition on a modest basis and gave Jack time off from work to attend classes. Make no mistake, Jack worked his butt off and it took him seven years to get his college degree because he could only take one class at a time. He doesn't understand it when people talk about White privilege. He says, “I sure as heck wasn't privileged in any way. I had nothing.”

Jack dismisses that he has White privilege because he equates “privilege” with “money.” He believes that he was not privileged because life was not “easy” for him. But that's not what White privilege means. It doesn't mean that your life hasn't been hard. It means that your race isn't one of the things that made it hard.

It's not quite so simple for people of color and other minority groups. Jack got a job out of high school. For many minorities and people of color, that first job does not happen. They may not even be considered for the job because their name is Jamal, or José, or Samir. They may not even know about an open position at a construction company because they don't know anyone in that industry or they don't have internet access at home. Or they don't know how to write a résumé. Or they can't make it to the interview because they work long hours at a restaurant and can't afford to take time off. Or they don't have a car and there is no bus route that will take them near that company's location.

After Jack got that first job, he was also privileged that his boss helped him get ahead. Now, make no mistake, his boss sounds like a terrific person. But Jack would not have gotten his college degree without the help of his boss. Yes, Jack worked hard and it took him years to get that degree. But he was “privileged” because he got some help that not everyone else gets, including that first step of “getting a job” right out of high school.

Not everyone has the same options. Not everyone is “connected” to people who can open doors for them when it comes to jobs and other opportunities. Not everyone has a name that's easy to pronounce like Jack Winter. Not everyone gets a fair shake.

For many minority groups, no one in their family has ever gone to college, or even graduated high school, because they had to start earning right away to help support their families. So they have no experience with taking the SATs and filling out applications, while other students take college prep classes and their parents hire tutors or college coaches to help them with the application exams and processes. Or perhaps the high school they went to is looked down upon because it isn't in as nice of a neighborhood as another high school. How is someone supposed to overcome that?

You don't have to feel guilty for what you have and what you've worked for. You don't have to feel “bad” for someone who hasn't had the same opportunities as you've had. But you do have to recognize that if you're White, in our society, you had a strong prognosis for being successful and that many people don't even have access to what you have. That's what “equity” means when people talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Equity is not the same as equality. While both words are rooted in creating fairness, equality means everyone gets the same treatment and level of support, in the same way. Equity means that fairness is achieved by giving people what they need to achieve an equal outcome.

If the question, “Why can't they pull themselves up by their bootstraps like I did?” comes up in a meeting or a conversation, frame the response in a way that opens people's eyes to the importance of equity. Companies today are focused on not only making their teams more diverse and inclusive, but also making the opportunities to succeed more equitable and achievable for all.