Hire, Wire, Inspire
The 2020 MLK Jr Day Weekend Expedition convened a CEO panel of three Black female executives: Amber Guild, Maggie Cadet MD, and Crystal Howard. (Also pictured: my co-facilitator and long-time collaborator, Clyde Cole.)
For the second week in a row, our typical “Future of Learning Top Reads” post has been pushed to Sunday. Right now, we need to pay attention to something more important…
***
The global pandemic was bad enough. But it was a problem from the outside.
The recent murder of George Floyd, the murders of many other Black people who preceded him, and the resulting civil unrest are not a problem from the outside. They are the proverbial “call coming from inside the house.”
Blacked out squares on social media were an important symbolic gesture. Institutional statements on social media that “Black Lives Matter” were also important symbolic gestures.
But how do we move beyond symbolism?
A different social media trend last week may point the way: “Hire or Wire.”
Hire: It’s great to post your black square or declare that Black Lives Matter. Yet if your organization continues to identify, recruit, hire, and promote an overwhelmingly white cohort of employees, you are reinforcing the status quo that brought us to this moment. I often hear, “But there aren’t enough qualified Black candidates for the role.” This simply isn’t true. There are more qualified Black candidates than you could ever hire in a lifetime. Look harder. Diversify your network. Since its founding in 2017, Basecamp has made good on its commitment to hiring at least 50% POC. [1] Similarly, Expeditionaries includes over 50% POC as co-facilitators, as students, and as CEO panelists. One of my proudest moments was convening a January 2020 CEO panel that consisted of three Black female executives. The students’ learning was enriched by feedback and perspectives they rarely (if ever) hear at their schools.
Wire: What if you’re not hiring? You can “wire” money to—that is, invest in—Black talent. If you have done the work to diversify your network, then you will be connected to Black folks doing important work. If you’re not an investment firm, one way to “wire” is to create a Fellowship, Scholar in Residence, or other distinctive role for a Black founder. Your community will be enriched by relationships and perspectives they may rarely experience.
For the white people reading this blog, I would add a third move: Inspire your community by making a public commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice in your mission and core values. Your Board of Trustees are fiduciaries of your organization’s mission. If your Trustees embrace a fiduciary obligation to advocate for and invest in DEIJ, it will inspire your community to sustain your journey to becoming antiracist. At Basecamp, one of our core values is Pluralism, which explains why we shape the “enrollment” of our commitment as described in #1 above.
America’s civil unrest won’t disappear overnight. Nor should it. We have a lot of work to do.
Are you ready to Hire, Wire, and Inspire?
***
[1] POC (people of color) obviously includes more than Black people. To be clear, this post is about how we must support Black people.
***
Thank you for reading this post from Basecamp's blog, Ed:Future. Do you know someone who would find the Ed:Future blog worthwhile reading? Please let them know that they can subscribe here.