Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg BusinessWeek with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Well, let's turn to a challenge that's facing every C
Speaker 2: suite executive, not to mention every policymaker, university, dean, teacher,
Speaker 2: you name it, who's trying to work at improving diversity
Speaker 2: and inclusion in their business school, etc. How do you
Speaker 2: try and bring people up who faced an equality and
Speaker 2: discrimination without simply focusing on the numbers, simply filling in
Speaker 2: the checkboxes. Michelle Lamont, a professor at sociology, a professor
Speaker 2: of sociology at Harvard, tried to answer this question, and
Speaker 2: she went out and interviewed over one hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: cultural leaders around the country. She wrote about her findings
Speaker 2: in the books Seeing Others, how recognition works and how
Speaker 2: it can heal a divided world. So, Michelle, you know,
Speaker 2: academic inequality.
Speaker 3: Is a key piece of the polarization, the cultural polarization
Speaker 3: that you describe in your book, But you think it's
Speaker 3: a pretty limited way of understanding why some people succeed
Speaker 3: why other people lag explain.
Speaker 4: Well, there's several aspects of this question. One of them
Speaker 4: is that when large organizations are putting in place a
Speaker 4: diversity program, they're not necessarily spending enough time thinking about
Speaker 4: the cultural change that are needed to make people feel
Speaker 4: that they belong and members of dominant groups white people
Speaker 4: meant tend to be very much at the center of
Speaker 4: the conversation and are often located more centrally in the space,
Speaker 4: for instance. So my book is very much about how
Speaker 4: to make more people feel worthy. And if we think
Speaker 4: of the role of organization well, for instance, putting together
Speaker 4: programs that reward people for being parents and make it
Speaker 4: possible for people to bring their older parents to the doctor.
Speaker 4: Giving some flexibility in work hours, for instance, are the
Speaker 4: kind of policies that can really make it.
Speaker 1: I love more well. I just want to jump in, Michelle,
Speaker 1: because we only we only have a few minutes with you,
Speaker 1: and I want to make sure we get to everything
Speaker 1: on our long list of questions here. But you bring
Speaker 1: up something that's so interesting in the wake of the
Speaker 1: way that the workplace has changed post pandemic, if we
Speaker 1: can call this post pandemic, I certainly feel like we
Speaker 1: are in a different world when it comes to flexibility.
Speaker 1: I feel totally comfortable going to doctor's appointments, bringing my
Speaker 1: kid to doctor's appointments, Approaching my managers about these things
Speaker 1: in a way that I didn't before the pandemic, because
Speaker 1: you know, not everybody comes into work five days a
Speaker 1: week these days. I mean, how do you do this
Speaker 1: in a way that in a way where we have
Speaker 1: a distributed workforce?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, those are positive changes. But what has come
Speaker 4: also with the pandemic is that some of the aspects
Speaker 4: of life that are released sustained by regular work is
Speaker 4: that we build relationship with our coworkers. We feel seen
Speaker 4: by them. And as more of us are spending more
Speaker 4: time stated on our computers and being evaluated by algorithms,
Speaker 4: interacting with data more than we are people, the sense
Speaker 4: of how we gain recognition from the workplace is really diminishing.
Speaker 4: And that's a real problem for gen zs who have
Speaker 4: such a desire to feel more social inclusion and to
Speaker 4: really value quality of life, not only working to make money,
Speaker 4: but working to have rich relationships that allows them to
Speaker 4: really be all they want to be in life.
Speaker 2: So those is this the argument for a return to
Speaker 2: office from a diversity and inclusion perspective.
Speaker 4: Not really. I think my focus is not necessarily no, sorry,
Speaker 4: The argument is really about how sorry. The argument is
Speaker 4: really about how to create a workplace that is more
Speaker 4: fulfilling for people because they feel more worthy, they feel
Speaker 4: more valued in the eyes of their co workers. So
Speaker 4: how to create structures that allow them to develop relationships
Speaker 4: that are deeper.
Speaker 1: So how do you do that in a world where
Speaker 1: remote workers are not the exception anymore?
Speaker 4: Well by creating opportunities for people to really you know,
Speaker 4: if you create an environment where there's more emphasis on
Speaker 4: allowing people to live authentically and to bring their best self.
Speaker 4: I taught during the pandemic, and I remember my undergraduates saying,
Speaker 4: you really need to in the classroom create a culture
Speaker 4: that allows us to bring our best self. And I
Speaker 4: was very puzzled. I asked them, what do you mean?
Speaker 4: They say, I don't want to feel like I have
Speaker 4: to be in this environment where I'm supposed to present
Speaker 4: a picture of who I am that is untrue, or
Speaker 4: I have to be exposed to ideas that are really
Speaker 4: contrary to what I value. So of course that's part
Speaker 4: of the educational system to learn about ideas that are
Speaker 4: not familiar or agreeable to you. But there's a focus
Speaker 4: put on attentics by young people that future employers really
Speaker 4: need to think about if they want to retain them.
Speaker 2: But to some degree, everyone puts on some sort of
Speaker 2: persona when they go to the office, right, whether it's
Speaker 2: you know, doing your hair more nicely than you would
Speaker 2: on the weekend or putting on nicer clothes.
Speaker 4: I mean, yes, is it too much you variation in
Speaker 4: the extent to which this is people can disclose their
Speaker 4: real selves thing. For instance, of people who've had miscarriages
Speaker 4: at work, I mean, how much do they talk about this?
Speaker 4: How much? How free do they feel that they can
Speaker 4: reveal this drama to their supervisor. There's some environment in
Speaker 4: which we're all expected to present, you know, who we
Speaker 4: are in a very formal way, and there's others that
Speaker 4: are much more open to experiencing people, you know, through
Speaker 4: their authentic selfs. So these are some of the consideration
Speaker 4: that the book is talking about in terms of inclusion
Speaker 4: and also promoting diversity is not only about numbers. It's also,
Speaker 4: as you said earlier, it's very much about signaling that
Speaker 4: everyone belongs by for instance, the way that the offices
Speaker 4: are distributed. Who are going to be receiving the offices
Speaker 4: that are in the corner, far away from everyone, and
Speaker 4: who's going to be more at the center of the networks.
Speaker 4: Those are among the questions that employers may want to consider.
Speaker 1: Michelle, I think one challenge that I think about when
Speaker 1: you talk about authenticity is what we see in Washington
Speaker 1: today and what we see from our politicians here in
Speaker 1: the United States. Authenticity is not a word I would
Speaker 1: use to describe the interactions the relationships that take place there.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering how we do this in a world
Speaker 1: where the behavior for you know, what's modeled for us
Speaker 1: is sort of the polar opposite.
Speaker 4: No, absolutely, And when we think about the very large
Speaker 4: percentage of the American population that doesn't vote, it's in
Speaker 4: particular because they perceive people in d C as extremely fake.
Speaker 4: And I think as the working class is really being
Speaker 4: courted by the Democratic Party and the Republican Party as well,
Speaker 4: there's a real need to have discussion within each party
Speaker 4: about how are they able to better appeal to the
Speaker 4: working class, in part by signaling that the value authenticity
Speaker 4: and people being people and people being more real if
Speaker 4: you want so. There's such a class divide in the
Speaker 4: political culture and in between the elite, college educated professionals
Speaker 4: who dominate the workplace and who dominate d C that
Speaker 4: I think if we want more people to take democracy
Speaker 4: seriously and to be invested in our society, there's really
Speaker 4: a need to think and to discuss the place of
Speaker 4: sincerity and authenticity as we interact with each other at
Speaker 4: work and also in the political world.
Speaker 2: Weigh in a little bit on the impact of the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court's decision to really narrow affirmative action, to essentially
Speaker 2: remove this from being a strong criteria that you know,
Speaker 2: universities can use. And there is some speculation that this
Speaker 2: or some form of this rule may get applied to
Speaker 2: the workplace as well. I mean, talk to me about
Speaker 2: how business leaders can get past us.
Speaker 4: I don't think it will be very easy. If you
Speaker 4: think of the rulings as it applies to higher education,
Speaker 4: there's this class that says students can write as says.
Speaker 4: So it's true that there's certainly a possibility for universities
Speaker 4: to slightly get around this, But in a Supreme Court
Speaker 4: that is dominated by six Supreme Court judges who are
Speaker 4: fundamentally conservative, it's absolutely predictable that they will go after
Speaker 4: affirmative action at many different level, and yet I think
Speaker 4: our workplaces are already extremely diverse. So we can think
Speaker 4: of many context in which those who do the evaluation will,
Speaker 4: you know, find ways create the kind of workplace that
Speaker 4: is reflexive of what the future of American society is
Speaker 4: in terms of diversity, but also in terms of the
Speaker 4: population that they are serving. As the number of non
Speaker 4: whites is increasing rapidly in the US, all organizations that
Speaker 4: provide services will want also to have a staff that
Speaker 4: with whom the clients can relate. So I think that
Speaker 4: bureaucratic processes are not functioning in isolation from real life.
Speaker 4: And at that level, I'm somewhat optimistic about the opportunity
Speaker 4: to go around the rules.
Speaker 1: If you will, Michelle, we really appreciate you joining us
Speaker 1: this afternoon on Bloomberg Business Week. Michell Laman as professor
Speaker 1: of sociology at Harvard her new book, Seeing Others, How
Speaker 1: Recognition Works and How it can heal a divided world.
Speaker 1: It's out now.