Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with krol Messer and
Speaker 1: Tim Stenebec on Bloomberg Radio, and I'm really excited for
Speaker 1: our next guests. Bertina Chiicarelli, chief executive officer of end Power.
Speaker 1: She's on the phone from Brooklyn, New York. She's here
Speaker 1: to discuss her new book, Innovation or excuse me, Innovating
Speaker 1: for Diversity. Lessons from top companies achieving business success through inclusivity. Now, Bertina,
Speaker 1: I know you've been on a mission to advance racial
Speaker 1: and gender equity in the tech industry and disrupt the
Speaker 1: status quo to build a more inclusive workplace. Tell us
Speaker 1: more about your new book. Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Justin Shott tonight to be back on the show. The book,
Speaker 1: which is co authored with Susayan Tadrick. We took a
Speaker 1: look at companies that are smart about applying principles of
Speaker 1: innovation to improving their efforts around diversity. We know what,
Speaker 1: it's well proven, more diverse teams help companies activate their
Speaker 1: innovation and achieve business performance. But what's left talked about
Speaker 1: is how you can flip that on its head and
Speaker 1: use innovation to think very differently in creatively about how
Speaker 1: to make DEI work within a company, and we profile
Speaker 1: great companies that are doing just that. Does diversity in
Speaker 1: the payoff for a company? Since we're so focused on
Speaker 1: the bottom line here, without doubt, it has been improven
Speaker 1: that companies who achieve diversity among their employee ranks, their leaders,
Speaker 1: their board outperform on a measure of financial performance rankings,
Speaker 1: as well as better improvement or better metrics around employee retention,
Speaker 1: all of which have a direct impact to the bottom line.
Speaker 1: But if not just the business case for diversity that's important.
Speaker 1: If we only focus on that, it becomes a very
Speaker 1: transactional conversation, and we think that there is both a
Speaker 1: social and moral imperative to EMBRACINGDEI as well. Britina, what
Speaker 1: are some of the biggest issues that you found in
Speaker 1: the tech industry specifically, So you know, one of the
Speaker 1: things that we've found in the tech industry, interestingly, which
Speaker 1: I think applies to a number of companies more broadly,
Speaker 1: is that the very tactics that they are applying towards
Speaker 1: innovation and their products and services are lacking when they
Speaker 1: think about their efforts to do something very important again
Speaker 1: for their business, which is creating inclusive and diverse cultures.
Speaker 1: And so what we find is that rather than truly
Speaker 1: innovating for that, we see off the shelf standard approaches
Speaker 1: the light include a lot of activities like employee resource
Speaker 1: groups or unconscious bias training. All of those activities alone
Speaker 1: are okay, but if they're not backed up by a
Speaker 1: real strategy to create change, then they're just that a
Speaker 1: series of disconnected activities without real innovation. It gets to
Speaker 1: the core problem a company is trying to solve. Do
Speaker 1: we get to this because it is the right thing
Speaker 1: to do, or do we need to be prompted by
Speaker 1: regulation and legislation. You know, my opinion is the smart
Speaker 1: companies are going to do this because it's good for
Speaker 1: their business. When we see a CEO with an unwavering
Speaker 1: commitment to creating diverse and inclusive cultures, that CEO, his
Speaker 1: or her leaders, the board has a better opportunity of
Speaker 1: tracting great talent. And especially when we think about this generation,
Speaker 1: Generation Z, which is the most diverse generation in the
Speaker 1: history of the country, as they wend their way into
Speaker 1: the workplace, having a jud start on what it means
Speaker 1: to have an inclusive culture is going to help those
Speaker 1: good companies in the war for talent, who's doing it right?
Speaker 1: You know some of the companies we profiles that I
Speaker 1: think are doing outstanding work, companies like City Bank, Gorporate Grumming,
Speaker 1: Accenture Tesco, even small companies like an outset out of
Speaker 1: New Orleans Online Optimism, which is a small advertising agency.
Speaker 1: It just demonstrates that really good d EI practices can
Speaker 1: be embraced by companies of all sizes. Why is it
Speaker 1: that some corporate programs from DI practices end up failing?
Speaker 1: So I think I think the answer to that question
Speaker 1: is for the same reason that their attempts at innovation fail.
Speaker 1: For example, we know that successful new ideas are rarely
Speaker 1: the purview of a chief innovation officer, So how can
Speaker 1: you expect a chief diversity officer alone to sometimes and
Speaker 1: do decades of fixed practices. But we just got to
Speaker 1: have the support of the CEO and piers HR and
Speaker 1: middle managers. Second, we rarely expect innovative through products to
Speaker 1: just brought up overnight. They require research and market intelligence,
Speaker 1: planning commitment. Similarly, any new DI approaches the benefit of
Speaker 1: input from those underrepresentative employees requires piloting, iteration, and support
Speaker 1: if where real change can happen. Yeah, as we sit
Speaker 1: here in the studio, it's funny we watched the tour
Speaker 1: groups go by a lot of young kids, especially here
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg. So I'm going to do a shout out
Speaker 1: for my own company. How much of this mentoring that
Speaker 1: sort of thing is How does that figure into this?
Speaker 1: How important is that? So we find that any one
Speaker 1: of these strategies like mentoring or creative employment practices like
Speaker 1: apprenticeships can be really powerful ideas, particularly when they're thought
Speaker 1: about in a way that specifically addresses a core problem
Speaker 1: a company is looking to to address. So, for example,
Speaker 1: City was looking to bring in more veteran talent, those
Speaker 1: who had served our country in the military, and they
Speaker 1: found that by launching a very different kind of an
Speaker 1: apprenticeship program that really targeted veterans who had some baseline
Speaker 1: technology skills where they could spend six months to a
Speaker 1: year at the company, really refining and learning that particular
Speaker 1: tech stack at City that they found over a ninety
Speaker 1: percent conversion rate and opened up a whole new opportunity
Speaker 1: for talent growth and again a very hot market where
Speaker 1: they were seeking to bring people in outside of Dallas.
Speaker 1: What about Target, because you were writing about how it
Speaker 1: did succeed in retaining more diverse talent as well. Target
Speaker 1: is such a good example of a company that's really
Speaker 1: embraced mentorship and you know, not just as an idea
Speaker 1: to connect people to have conversations, but really to do
Speaker 1: it in a sustained way and really creating the kind
Speaker 1: of environment and culture that allowed for authentic interactions to
Speaker 1: happen and to help particularly underrepresented individuals within the company
Speaker 1: learn what it would take to advance in their career.
Speaker 1: So it was mentoring with a real purpose to help
Speaker 1: advance talent up the rights the companies I think you
Speaker 1: do actually mention a small company. I'm sorry I've forgot
Speaker 1: the name. But is this just a big company or
Speaker 1: can small companies? I mean, is it important for them
Speaker 1: this diversity push? Can they do it? Do they have
Speaker 1: the resources? Well, we know that over ninety percent of
Speaker 1: Americans work for small businesses, and so we think our
Speaker 1: point of view is it small businesses are missing the
Speaker 1: boat if they early on in their founding think about
Speaker 1: how to create inclusive cultures. And I think that's exactly
Speaker 1: what Online Optimism to small advertising agency who we spoke
Speaker 1: to their founder recognized early on that to be responsive
Speaker 1: to the needs of their advertising clients, it would benefit
Speaker 1: them to be able to drop from a broad mix
Speaker 1: of ideas, backgrounds, experiences to bring all that goodness to
Speaker 1: bear on the campaigns for their clients acrost the nation
Speaker 1: and they've been profoundly successful. Do you have the resources
Speaker 1: of it? I mean, can they contact you for you know,
Speaker 1: because there's so few resources available I feel for a
Speaker 1: lot of small businesses absolutely. In fact, Innovating for Diversity
Speaker 1: dot com is a website where you can contact myself,
Speaker 1: my co author Suzanne Tadrick would certainly be happy to
Speaker 1: discuss this issue if anybody interested in improving their TOYEI
Speaker 1: practicers and creating a better role for everybody. And what's
Speaker 1: your finals big takeaway from your book? I would say
Speaker 1: the unwavering support of the CEO is necessary, but not sufficient.
Speaker 1: Now we've heard in the past couple of years a
Speaker 1: lot of big claims for how companies are going to
Speaker 1: make dramatic progress in diversifying their workforce, and without the
Speaker 1: commitment of HR and all the way through middle managers,
Speaker 1: those kind of proclamations fall flat. So really operationalizing all
Speaker 1: the tools and systems require to bring the EI deep
Speaker 1: into an organization and making it a part of the
Speaker 1: everyday culture is what works. Bertina, that was a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it. Very interesting. Bertina Chicarelli, the chief executive officer
Speaker 1: and power joining us from good old Brooklyn.