There have been recent predictions that we’ve hit the bottom of the global economic downturn. It is hoped that companies on the Dow will begin posting more regular gains and that the U.S. is leading the recovery. These predictions however don’t describe the impact of the recession on the workforce or on the delicate racial balance within management ranks.
Many corporations and professional services firms have worked vigorously over the past 20 years to bring more Blacks/African Americans into their doors, to sensitize their environments to diversity and cultural differences, to “level the playing field” for promotion and advancement, and to leverage those differences for the benefit of their customers. Given this portfolio of activity, one is left then with the question: Why have blacks seemed to have fared worse in layoffs in the past 6 months?
A handful of observers from a variety of professions have noted that the primary determinant for workforce reduction is performance, and that African Americans appear to have been over-represented in the pool of poor performers.
The main determinant of performance is the performance review, which under the best circumstances is moderately objective, and in the worst circumstance pointedly subjective. Of all organizational systems and structures in the workplace, the performance review has the greatest opportunity of perpetuating bias, with the greatest impact on individual careers, and perceptions of group success.
Performance reviews too often look something like this:
Sasha was a rising second year, African American associate, and the only African American in her practice. She came to the firm with two years of internship in public accounting. She is a member of NABA and was in the top 10% of her class. She has passed 2 segments of the CPA exam. Sasha worked on 2 engagements in her first year. Her senior, Jonathan, felt challenged by Sasha on her first engagement because she didn’t spend social time with the team after hours. Jonathan thought she was “stand-offish.” He wasn’t comfortable with her seeming isolation, and lack of social interaction with the team. Technically she did fine, although she didn’t ask a lot of clarifying questions for her assignments. At the end of the engagement, Jonathan told his manager: “She did ok, got the procedures right and worked hard, but wasn’t easy to get along with, certainly not compared to the others.
Jonathan’s manager, Christopher, took that under advisement, and when his colleague Nancy asked for a recommendation for an associate, Jonathan noted that Sasha was currently underutilized after the first engagement, that she was available, but “a little difficult to work with.” Nancy assigned Sasha to the job, and told her senior that she’d heard that Sasha was good technically and needed some support “fitting in to the team.” This is the lens through which Nancy’s senior made job assignments for Sasha’s second engagement, and became the brand by which she is known.
Sasha’s performance manager, Carolyn, collected feedback from the managers on all the engagements on which Sasha had worked, and includes a few passing comments from the practice partners as she prepared the review. The firm has a variety of standards on teamwork and professionalism, both of which are considered along with technical execution. Sasha came out of her first review with a low 3, rather than a 3 or even a 4. Hers was the lowest review score in the practice.
When it came to identifying candidates for reduction in force, Sasha rose to the top. This clearly could have been prevented by greater awareness, sensitivity and cultural competency on behalf of her senior. This is an individual case, but unfortunately not a unique one. When looked at in the aggregate, there are a seemingly disproportionate number of African Americans at all levels tagged as poor performers, and being let go because of the economic downturn.
Bias is pervasive, regardless of race, gender, age, sexual orientation, or national origin. It is a survival mechanism on the most basic level. It is part of the human experience. For many of us it is largely unconscious. We don’t even recognize our own biases. Ironically this can be especially true among people who have participated in targeted diversity and inclusion training because we come to believe that “only bad people have bias.” According to this classic way of thinking, good people get it, aren’t biased, and are supportive, and bad people are biased, say stupid things, and are working “against the cause.” Bias is particularly difficult to recognize among individuals who feel that they are “good,” supportive of equity and inclusion, and believe in the value that diversity brings to a profession. Many people in our profession feel that they’ve already “gotten it.”
The first opportunity to avoid promoting our own discomforts with each other as performance-based truths is in recognizing that we all have biases that are expressed in our day-to-day world. This recognition allows us to explore the genesis of these discomforts. If we determine that indeed we have a racial bias, they most often exist because of our historical experiences. Many of us were raised in homogeneous environments and are influenced by the media; this patterning is hard to undo.
If we can recognize our biases, then we have more opportunity to pause, ask clarifying questions, and discern which workplace behaviors describe performance and potential. Recognizing our biases also allows us to realize that the more someone is like the evaluator, the greater the chance for symmetry and comfort, and the less reliable our “gut” reactions are. Identifying observable behaviors with a breadth of allowance for cultural difference will have the effect of examining performance from a more equitable set of standards. Finally, establishing structures that require multiple formal, diverse opinions for performance reviews recognizes the potential for bias in the process, and builds in a more balanced perspective.
Our economy cannot afford any unnecessary loss of Blacks/African Americans. Their representation in many professions is too thin. The need to have a highly regarded diverse professional core is too great to lose talented minorities just because their expression, their socialization, their style, and their communication may be different in some way that is uncomfortable for others.
I remember in 1999, an interesting phenomena became apparent to me when we were hired to assist the Atlanta Braves after their pitcher John Rocker was quoted making racist and homophobic comments in Sports Illustrated. Extreme statements, like Rocker's, tend to create interesting reactions in all directions.
A few weeks ago, General Peter Pace created some controversy when he was quoted as saying that homosexuality was immoral. Comments like General Pace's or Rocker's have an interesting impact because they accentuate the dialogue in both directions.
On the other hand, people who agree with the General's point of view might be emboldened to speak it out loud, as in the case of the story reported this week about an army recruiter's blatantly homophobic e-mails.
It is important, as leaders, for us to realize that our words may have power beyond just ourselves.
