A Note to Readers: While weâve tried to be incredibly thoughtful about the words chosen below, we donât have the experience or perspective necessary to know for sure that weâre contributing to this important conversation in the right way. Our biggest concern is that weâll do harm to the communities we actually want to align with and support. Our decision to publish was based on two things. First, we wholeheartedly believe in being vulnerable and brave, even when â especially when â weâre uncomfortable. Second, we believe discomfort leads to growth, and we know we need to grow. So, onward.
Do a simple Google search for âdiversity training.â How many of those organic page results feature an actual training option? Only 1 in 12.
The other 11 page results? Theyâre thought leaders and âexpertsâ talking generally about diversity training, much like Iâm doing right now. So why am I still writing? Because itâs time for the conversation around diversity and inclusion to shift from thought leadership to actual leadership. Itâs time for us to seek out and follow leaders from communities most harmed by a system that actively excludes them.
So why are we, an online learning company, taking a position on this? Because, to echo learnings from Reni Eddo-Lodge, ignorant, harmful actions and behaviors of the privileged community fuels hopelessness in marginalized communities. And hopelessness? It kills creativity. And weâre in the business of creativity.
CreativeLive championâs every creatorâs right to live their dreams, and we intend to be the champion of all creators, not just the ones that look and live like us. We invite you to join us as we try to figure out what that means and how each of us can take action toward more inclusion and diversity in our everyday lives. Â
Diversity and Inclusion in Life and at Work
If we want to do better and enact real change, we first have to wrap our heads around whatâs going on here. Letâs take race as one example. The decks are stacked against people of color (POC): white people so often fail at diversity and inclusivity because we were born with blinders on and we havenât worked hard enough to take them off. Thanks to social, political, and economic systems that simultaneously harm POC and help white people, weâve had unfettered privilege, power, and authority.
But our understanding deficit doesnât excuse us from the responsibility to fix a problem we contribute to every day. As Brittany Packnett says, âThe more you benefit from supremacy, the more responsibility you have to be dismantle it.â
This goes for corporate environments, too. Generally, corporate leadership utterly fails at including POC and women (about 72 percent is white and male). Catalyst reports that just 5 percent of S&P 500 CEOs are women, and worse, with Indra Nooyi recently stepping down as PepsiCo CEO, that figure includes zero women of color. Zero.
It would be so easy to point a finger to men in leadership and ask how much progress can be made, really, when diversity and inclusion efforts depend heavily on skills like empathy, vulnerability, listening, and activism â skills not widely associated with white male executives.
But focusing only on gender inequality in corporate leadership is problematic for two reasons. First, diversity and inclusion isnât just a corporate initiative â it needs to be a life initiative. And second, the finger should point at white women, too. We know how it feels to be targeted and marginalized. Weâre active champions of initiatives like executive leadership equality, equal pay, and sexual harassment prevention, but most of us are silent on diversity. We remove one piece from the social justice pie â the piece that affects us most â put it on a plate, and serve it up to the masses as if it was never part of the whole. As if we arenât culpable for ignoring a much larger community of people who are targeted and marginalized in ways we will never experience.
We must begin using our privilege at all levels, as entrepreneurs, entry-level employees, executive leaders, or expert homemakers to insist on more diversity and inclusion in our communities. Itâs our responsibility to be part of the change we want to see.
We Start With Personal Accountability
Itâs time for another truth: Although weâve made instructor diversity a priority lately, the majority of classes on CreativeLive are not taught by POC. And like most eLearning providers, we donât have any classes that cover topics like diversity and inclusion â for work or for life. We donât have a tidy answer for how culture can be more inclusive, and weâre clearly not a shining example of how to do it right. Change comes when weâre willing to sit down around a table, examine this messy middle part of our process, expose it to others, and say collectively, âThis cannot stand. We have to change.â And weâre late to the scene. Very late. Iâm just now starting to have these conversations at work and in life. Where have I been? Thankfully, Iâm now employed by a company thatâs supportive and willing to engage with me on the subject. I donât fear losing my job over going to bat for more action on diversity and inclusion. Thatâs privilege.Now Take Action
So where do we start? At CreativeLive, we talk a lot about the blurred lines between life and work, passion and acumen. If taking on diversity and inclusion feels too intangible, bring it closer in. There is so much we can do. Here are a few questions we can ask to help decide on actions we can take to bring more diversity and inclusion into our way of life:
Are your social feeds monochromatic and monotone?
Do our accounts only feature people who look and sound like we do? Change that today. The median American visits an average of three social media platforms several times a day. Thatâs a lot of collective looking. A quick audit of my preferred social platform (Instagram) shows that of the 526 accounts I follow, just 14 percent are managed by POC. I can do better, and Iâm betting you can, too.
Following are just a few accounts to get us started, ranging from activists, educators, writers, business leaders, musicians, and more. Rule number one? LISTEN. Donât comment. Listen, learn, sit in your discomfort, and pursue and pay for the additional resources so often gifted by these leaders.
Follow @rachel.cargle, @ijeomaoluo, @shaunking, @laylafsaad, @jstlbby, @mspackyetti, @glowmaven, @luvvie, @yrsadaleyward, @traceellisross, @queenteddy, @lizzobeeating, @nayyirah.waheed, and @ajabarber.
Are our bookshelves diversified?
A lot of people use books and stories as a means of making sense of the world. Who writes the words we read? Do they look and live just like us? Bring diversity and inclusion into your home by way of words.
Here are just a few books that tell the story of the profound role race plays in our society: âWhy Iâm No Longer Talking to White People About Race,â by Reni Eddo-Lodge; âIâm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual,â by Luvvie Ajayi; âYou Canât Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain,â by Phoebe Robinson; âBetween the World and Me,â by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Are we having the hard conversations in life and at work?
Learning is at the very core of what CreativeLive does. We produce classes on leadership, emotional intelligence, and design thinking â all worthy pursuits in the realm of personal and professional development. Hereâs the thing, though: We champion creativity and innovation across the board, but we havenât yet applied it to critical topics like diversity and inclusion. Weâre working through the question of how we â a company with few POC â begin to tackle these topics we know so little about.
Through hard, honest conversations, weâve arrived at an answer thatâs already aligned with what we do every day: Bring in the experts, pay them, and produce highly engaging learning content. This means weâll seek out POC who are willing to guide us through this process. Since making that decision, weâve committed to two approaches.
First, until we can better balance representation across our instructor community, our first priority is to produce new CreativeLive For Business classes taught by POC and women. Second, weâre working to activate partnerships with organizations that know how to address tough diversity, inclusion, and culture patterns head-on, while also pursuing the best and brightest voices to teach on topics like unconscious bias. Itâs not enough, and itâs where we start.