Excerpts

Key Lesson 1

Ownership and engagement, not just buy-in, from leadership is essential. Ideally, the most senior leadership at an organization (those who have the power to set policies and hold staff accountable for progress) are a driving force behind transformation efforts. At the same time, all staff engagement and substantive input need to be planned with care and attention to power dynamics. Positional authority can distort decision-makers’ awareness of the impacts of their choices, no matter their race. At Demos, counsel from the Advisory Group was essential for vetting program decisions and raising important needs of staff outside of the leadership body.

Key Lesson 2

Clearly articulating, in writing, the rationale for racial equity has been absolutely critical to the success of this organizational transformation. Demos created a new take on its core story of the problems we seek to solve. Regularly referring back to the racial equity rationale was an important part of re-grounding staff in the work. Cascading the rationale by having each department articulate their own team-specific rationale was important to ensuring racial equity would be fully integrated throughout the organization.

Key Lesson 3

Developing new expectations on racial equity demonstrated that the skills and practices we wanted staff to build were not “nice to have” but “must have.” It made knowledge and skills on racial equity a mandatory qualification for working at Demos; the new competencies were incorporated into job descriptions and embedded in performance evaluations. This reinforced the foundational analysis that Demos cannot achieve its organizational goals without directly addressing the issue of racial inequity, and that staff could not be successful at Demos if they did not have a well-developed racial equity analysis and the interpersonal skills needed to work and lead across difference.

Key Lesson 4

Upon reflection, engaging Demos’ senior leaders in the curriculum prior to rolling it out to the rest of the staff would have been preferable. At the start of this effort, our staff, including senior staff, had varying levels of racial equity skills and practices. We needed our senior leaders to lead their teams through this learning, and asking them to lead while also learning themselves proved difficult. If possible, it’s best to have senior leaders complete an intensive learning curriculum before the rest of the staff so they can effectively lead their teams through the transformation. This is more expensive because you’re offering content twice, but it provides time and the opportunity for managers to grow into their leadership roles.

Key Lesson 5

In addition to workshops, the primary vehicle for learning during Demos’ intensive learning phase was reading and discussion. In retrospect, to account for workload and differences in learning approaches, the curriculum should have included more multi-media learning tools, such as videos, other forms of visual presentations, and speakers.

Key Lesson 6

The cultural norm around conflict aversion is not unique to Demos. Many see conflict aversion as a commonly shared human trait, others see it as a core trait of white-centric cultures. Regardless, Demos continues to struggle with conflict aversion and staff continue to fear directly engaging in difficult conversations. Demos can never do enough training and learning around this, and skills in this area always need to be refreshed. Senior leaders modeling skills in looking for and receiving feedback and productive difficult conversations is key, as is deep personal learning about identifying and managing triggers.

Key Lesson 7

The learning and growth experience differs for staff of color and white staff. Creating spaces for staff of color and white staff to meet separately can be a powerful part of a racial equity transformation effort. Carefully articulating the rationale for this and being thoughtful about the purpose and outcomes of these spaces is critical. It’s also imperative to identify the right facilitator for those kinds of engagements. Having staff facilitate can be problematic given the skill level needed. However, turning to an outside facilitator for each group meeting can get very costly very quickly.

Key Lesson 8

For some staff, the organizational and team-based learning and skill-building achieved the transformation we were seeking. In a few cases, it was not enough and individual coaching was needed. Having high-quality and trusted racial equity coaching available as a resource when needed is absolutely critical. Some people simply need more individualized attention, and a learning and skill-building plan more catered to the specific issues with which they’re struggling. This can be a considerable expense, and limiting this only to senior leaders may need to be considered.

Key Lesson 9

Equity and fairness in how staff are hired matters, a lot. An employee’s existence within an organization has to be grounded in a process that is consistent, transparent, and fair. Issues of equity are at their peak when assessing candidates for employment. Implicit and explicit bias can play out when determining whether someone is qualified to do a particular job, and unspoken organizational norms can influence and dictate hiring decisions. Accordingly, developing hiring practices that are focused on reducing bias is key. In addition, before the hiring process begins, robust recruitment is essential. People often rely on their networks to hire staff. With a majority white staff that had majority white networks, creating a systematic process to recruit qualified candidates of color was critical to Demos’ success in finding a wider range of talent.

Key Lesson 10

Demos’ new hiring practices do not require many more steps than hiring processes at other organizations or companies. However, given the historic underrepresentation of people of color in their field and in related educational institutions, building racially diverse pools can be time-consuming. Demos no longer allows “no qualified people of color applied” to serve as an excuse to end the recruitment process. We have been working to encourage staff to diversify their networks and to consider recruitment an ongoing responsibility, building relationships with future candidates of color and connectors to candidates of color. Staff who have racially diverse networks, and devote real time to tapping those networks, tend to build diverse pools very quickly; staff who don’t, struggle to meet this requirement. Finally, hiring staff does indeed take more time now, but that is time well spent. Our story bears that out. As work doesn’t wait for new hires to be made, we do bring on temps or consultants to fill capacity gaps.

Key Lesson 11

With Demos assessing for racial equity skills in our hiring process, new staff at Demos bring a higher level of knowledge and professional experience on racial equity. Given this, we are reviewing our foundational trainings and readings to meet the needs of these new staff. We aim to continue to provide the same learning content that created the foundation for our work on racial equity, while adapting our onboarding curricula based on the needs, knowledge, and experience of new staff.

Demos Foundational Analysis Statement

Progressives are increasingly coming to terms with a political analysis that sees race as the organizing principle of American politics—not just historically, but also in the Obama era, and most likely prospectively, as our country grows even more diverse. It’s particularly important for us as progressives to understand how racial anxieties and divisions undercut our political and economic goals. Call it the Sweden problem: it’s a lot easier for progressives to win a strong social contract in a homogenous state. In the U.S., progressive policies must face up to the fear that a strong social contract will lift up non-white people at the expense of whites. Addressing and de-legitimizing that fear must be a priority for Demos to meet our strategic goals.

1. We Suffer Together. A deeper understanding of racism doesn’t just equip Demos to focus on communities of color; it helps Demos better understand what we have already identified as America’s two central problems—inequality in our democracy and in our economy.
2. Progressive Class Politics Fall Apart on Race. Class consciousness has always been formulated racially in America. Landless European immigrants and their descendants in the early days of the multicultural colony were given a new identity that undermined allegiance with black slaves by offering the promise of mobility to the aristocracy based on skin color, not heredity. Throughout American history, populist movements have been destroyed because the illusion of racial difference and hierarchy have overridden class solidarity. The golden postwar era of shared prosperity was built as a social contract among white men, and when the contract expanded in the 1970s to include everybody else, white men overwhelmingly left the progressive coalition and the contract was torn.
3. More Than a Black-White Story. America’s racial past and present have always been more pluralistic than our dominant historical narrative suggests. The learning process at Demos will include readings and discussions on the history and current political context for Native Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Pacific Islanders (categories that are already overbroad).
4. Intersections Between Race and Other Group Identities. Demos believes that it’s important to understand how power dynamics of dominance and subordination function with group identities that both relate to and are distinct from race and ethnicity, such as gender, sexuality and religion. Demos chose to focus on race first, but Demos learning will include readings and discussions on other identity groups after the foundational understanding of racial hierarchy and racism has been set.

Racial Equity Competencies

• Equity Analysis. Clearly and consistently articulate a sophisticated understanding of racial equity and structural racism, and the centrality of this analysis to the work we do and how we operate at Demos. Integrate that knowledge into work projects and interactions by addressing structural implications and disproportionate impacts of policies, activities, and decisions on race, class and other group identities within the context of job responsibilities and projects.
• Self-Awareness. Demonstrate awareness of multiple group identities and their attendant dynamics, and consistently bring a high level of self-awareness, empathy, and social skills to work and interpersonal interactions.
• Direct Communication. Communicate clearly and directly with colleagues, working to match intent and impact in interactions, and be proactive to resolve conflicts and misunderstandings, especially across difference. Consistently give both positive and developmental feedback to support learning, excellence, and personal growth.
• Authentic Relationships. Proactively build and sustain robust, authentic, productive working relationships with colleagues across race and other group identities, including Demos staff and external partners.

My Notes

“Think-and-Do Tank”

• We must address and de-legitimize the fear that a strong social contract will lift up non-white people at the expense of whites.
• We need skills to lead on race and work effectively across difference in order to fulfill our mission. This is a must have, not a ‘nice to have’.

4 Step Approach for Organizations

Foundational Analysis – Articulate and Ensure everyone understands why this is central to the work you are doing.
Organizational Assessment – Start by collecting baseline data on what staff and board understand about racial equity concepts, how its integrated into the work, interactions with others/partners, and feelings about workplace culture.
Learning – Develop a robust and multi-channel learning program, utilizing outside experts and facilitators.
Implementation

Specific Practices in Hiring & Ongoing Operations

• Standardized Interview Process. Employing the same interview process—i.e., ensuring uniformity in screening procedures, interviews, exercises and questions—for every job candidate is a key way to ensure equity and fairness throughout all hiring processes.
• Screening for Racial Equity Competencies. Incorporate racial equity competencies into the job description. Expectations around fulfilling these competencies should be calibrated according to the level of staff.
• Standardized Interview Questions. Research shows that asking candidates the same interview questions at each stage of the hiring process limits implicit bias.
• Hiring Committees. Hiring by committee is an important way to ensure staff with different backgrounds and perspectives provide input into hiring decisions. Aim for hiring committees to include between 2-4 staff members with gender and racial diversity as a priority.
• Racially Diverse Interview Pools. Many kinds of racism—structural, interpersonal, etc.—have enacted barriers to employment for candidates of color. Importantly, many forms of preferential treatment also privilege white candidates. To combat this racism and preferential treatment, and recognizing that a more diverse staff is a stronger staff, require all pools of candidates coming in for first-round interviews to be comprised of 50 percent candidates of color. Demos has a detailed policy around how the racial diversity of this pool is assessed, as well as a rarely-used exception to this policy (allowing for a lower than 50-percent pool, though never an all-white pool) when a hiring manager can show they have exhausted all recruitment efforts.
• Onboarding. How staff enter the organization is crucial to their sense of belonging, inclusion, and efficacy. Create and share a set of foundational racial equity documents with all new staff. This could include the organizations rationale statement, an overview of DEI/RET to date. Plus add a racial equity orientation session as well as a meeting with senior leadership to discuss.
• Dedicated Division/Committee. Establish a group that is a cross-section of multi-racial staff members who partner with leadership to continue to shape and move racial equity learning and growth