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SHRM'S Shift from DEI to I&D with Johnny C. Taylor Jr.

September 16, 2024 • The HR Gazette • Season 1 • Episode 745

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Can workplace culture be the key to unlocking true diversity and inclusion? Join guest host Bob Goodwin as he sits down with Johnny C. Taylor Jr., CEO and President of SHRM, to uncover the rationale behind SHRM's much-talked-about shift from DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) to I&D (Inclusion and Diversity). Together, they delve into the heart of what it means to foster inclusion and embrace a broad definition of diversity, all while maintaining an unwavering commitment to equity. Johnny also introduces SHRM's "One Million Civil Conversations" initiative, designed to promote respectful dialogue in the workplace, tackling the societal challenge of assuming good intentions and the necessity of training for a more inclusive environment.

Explore the pivotal role of workplace culture in championing diversity with insights from our conversation on leadership, decision-making, and cultural alignment. Johnny shares how leaders can set the tone for an inclusive environment where diverse viewpoints are celebrated and respected, navigating the complexities that a diverse workforce presents. We discuss the principles of challenging, deciding, and committing to ideas, emphasizing the importance of unity and alignment, especially in a slowing job market. This episode is essential for anyone interested in the evolving dynamics of workplace civility and culture.


We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast and Iceni Media Inc.


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Bob Goodwin:

Hi everybody, this is Bob Goodwin, the president of Career Club, and welcome to a very special edition of HR hat. Thank you, ill Bannon, for allowing me to guest host, and it's an even more special occasion because I'm joined today by my friend, my colleague on our podcast, the Workwire, the CEO and president of SHRM, johnny C Taylor. Jr, johnny, welcome.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

Thank you, ob. It's so good to see you and, gosh, I think I last saw you in person somewhere in Virginia, but before that, at SHRM Annual Conference, it was great to see you, love the coverage and appreciate you as my friend.

Bob Goodwin:

No, likewise. Likewise, Any opportunity to see Johnny is a good day for me. So thank you. So we've only got, you know, 20, 25 minutes here, so I want to make sure we make great use of our time. So, as we record this, it's been about a month since SHRM made a very significant announcement, pivoting from DEI as the acronym to IND, focusing on inclusion and diversity. Anybody that's listening to this knows that that has sparked, let's say, a lot of conversation. Yes, so maybe just briefly kind of touch on that. And then what I really want to see if we can focus on is kind of the other huge SHRM initiative for this year, which is around 1 million civil conversations, because they think we have hit on an unbelievable use case to figure out how to have a civil conversation.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

Well, so again, thank you for tackling it. It's right, listen, it's a month ago or so, probably three weeks to be exact, but at the end of the day, we made a decision that, based upon all of the data that we're getting qualitative and quantitative data, not only from HR practitioners, practitioners and DE&I practitioners, but CEOs and politicians and political appointees, et cetera we took all of this information and decided we are really, really committed to the work. We're getting stuck in the words and the words of the label, the nomenclature. If the words get in the way of doing the work, then we need to do something about the words. And we made a conscious decision to say we are going to focus on I and D and then, in that order, inclusion first and diversity. That's going to be our focus, inclusion for all. And we want a very, very diverse workforce in the broadest definition of diversity neurodiversity, people with degrees, without degrees, et cetera. So we're going to really open up the world of work for all. That was very intentional. And so then we specifically said and words do matter that we have a long standing and steadfast commitment to equity.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

So, as opposed to the headlines being SHRM, doubled down, doubles down on inclusion and diversity when there are a ton of people who say all of this stuff should go away. The headlines were SHRM is no longer committed to diversity because it dropped the E of equity. So it's just all bizarre to me, although I have to be fair and say I understand it. I understand that people feel very, very passionately about this topic. They have a point of view and the irony is, if you're really committed to diversity, then you have to be committed to people who hold diverse perspectives and ways of seeing the world and approaches. So you know, how do you reconcile saying I'm committed to diversity? Well, what I really mean is I'm committed to diversity as long as I agree with it, like whatever that's a whole different conversation.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

But what I saw, bob, and that's what we came to talk about today was a couple of observations. One people don't assume good intention anymore. Yeah, that's number one. Anytime you move my cheese, there's a bad reason for you moving it. That's number one. Two when we disagree, you can't just conclude that we disagree. You actually have to be wrong. The other side has to be. The other side isn't just wrong, they have to be bad and therefore I can attack them, I can attack their families, I can attack.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

Everything runs and collides directly into SHRM's commitment to civility in the workplace. Frankly, the civility in all of society is what motivated SHRM to do this work. So you mentioned it Now. Earlier this year we announced a campaign and it was the One Million Civil Conversations, and the goal was not only to remind people that we've become incredibly uncivil in our interactions with our colleagues, but then to teach them how to do it, to teach people, managers, how to help their employees regain civility in the workplace. So we're going along our way in the beginning of the year, kind of talking about civility, and people are check, check, check, check, check. Yep, that's right, we need to become more civil. Make sure that we keep the temperature down and then we experience it ourselves because we roll out a new campaign, one that does not say DEI is bad or IED is bad or whatever you want to call it, like we really don't care what you call it.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

What we said is what we're going to lead with, which is inclusion and diversity, and I saw some of the most uncivil behavior that I've ever seen. I mean very personal attacks and not assuming good intent, like you start the conversation with. I can't believe you did this and you're bad and you're this, and they were like wait a minute, you've not even asked me what did we mean? In fact, you didn't read it, you didn't care, and so we saw incivility on full display, and thus you and I are talking about it. So thank you for the opportunity.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

Again, the debate is and that's part of the problem with civility in the workplace is everyone wants to debate, which means I want to prove that you're wrong, I want to win the argument, and we often say you and I on our show, the Work Wire, say often you've got to listen, not to respond or to win, but listen to try to understand. You have a great question that you've asked me. You've said you pose to people when you come into these situations and it's like tell me more, some advice you give people. When you run into people who are not listening to have a conversation, they're listening to respond.

Bob Goodwin:

Yeah, no, it's so true.

Speaker 1:

All right, so we're all over there's a million ways I want to go with this.

Bob Goodwin:

But you started off saying that SHRM listened, shrm did data. You went to stakeholders, policymakers, academics, kind of the full spectrum of people to inform and and that's kind of first base in. I think first first base is assume good intent, right. So that's got to be the groundwork. But but in my notes, kind of preparing for this, you know, one of the things that I was wanting to talk about is this this notion of listening ideological thing that we just sort of like decided this is what we want to believe and so we're going to go with it. It's like, no, we stopped. This didn't just happen on July 9th, right, that Johnny woke up and thought I think I'll write a LinkedIn post today and see if I can set the world on fire. But can you just talk a little bit more about the listening that y'all did in advance and how you continue to listen?

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

Well. So, at the risk of like going into a full out conversation around everything that we did, I appreciate that the framework was. We started with listening yes, and listening as you and I talk about critical listening. Like intensely, what are people saying? What are they not saying like intensely, what are people saying? What are they not saying? What words? When we use them to describe something, what sort of emotive response do we get? Because if you can say whatever you want, I have some friends who are pretty pedantic types, so they say these big words, but if no one understands what you're saying or there's no common agreement about what you said, then you didn't communicate, you didn't convey anything, because the person at the other end has no idea. You feel good because you got, you know your great SAT score, but no one knows what you just said.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

So we listened a lot and we had focus groups, like in-person focus groups. We had all sorts of polling done over multiple years and in fact funny that you asked this in 2017, we changed the name of our SHRM Inclusion Conference from the Diversity Conference to the Inclusion Conference, because even then, people were saying we really want you to focus on inclusion. We understand that to have an inclusive environment, want you to focus on inclusion. We understand that to have an inclusive environment, you have to have the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, access, belonging, but ultimately, we want you to lead with inclusion. So we renamed our conference, then we moved from the diversity conference to the inclusion conference and that was okay.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

So we've been on a journey, and it's a listening journey, which ultimately means at some point I've heard and now I've got to act. And you know me well enough that I have a big bias for action. In fact, people have to slow me down sometimes because I just want to go do it. This is a case where we didn't do that. We actually have been listening for it since 2017, beginning of 18. And then George Floyd I was going to say this predates all of the social.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

It predates that. We've been in this work for a while, but then George Floyd gave us a really interesting opportunity to look at all of the activity, the interventions, the narratives, everything that happened starting in May of 2020 forward, and we've been studying the arc, like what parts of this worked, what didn't, what messages, what affiliations worked. I mean, there was a moment when BLM was everywhere. Then there was a moment when people wouldn't didn't want to be associated with it. Like we've been watching all of this and I want to make sure that anyone listening knows we don't see diversity just in terms of race or gender or national origin.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

Those are the civil rights categories and they're legitimately important ones, but we look very broadly at diversity, including diversity of perspective. So here we are coming into an election cycle where people's perspective is different and we are, at times, not listening to people who we don't agree with right, and they're not listening to people they don't agree with, and so all of this has been collected since 2020. We've been again starting in 18, but really 2020 gave us an opportunity to kind of conduct a longitudinal study to see the cycle of this, and we concluded certain things words matter and that we're going to focus on the work, not necessarily the words, although we understand the implications of the words. So listening, yes, big part of any conversation, and ability to work with people.

Bob Goodwin:

So one of the other points that you brought up that I think relates to this is I'm trying to come up with an expression on the fly here, but you're great at that, so I'm here, I'm waiting for it but but the the kind of you're talking about basically ideologues, like they have to be a purist and if you're not just like a full-roated, like all the way this way or all the way that way, you're not a true believer, right, and so you know, what we've lost is the ability to have a conversation, right, and so we've replaced I think where I'm trying to go with this is we've basically replaced viewpoints with volume, like I'm just gonna be louder, I'm gonna over-talk you, like we see that in debates and stuff like that, I'm just gonna talk over you, we'll do. Okay, here's your pedantic SAT, we'll do ad hominem, right?

Bob Goodwin:

I just going to talk to you as a human being right Not discuss the actual principles and legitimate talking points about what we're discussing. But there's something in society right now and I want to really get some wisdom from you, johnny, on how do we effectively deal with people, and you're, you're on the receiving end of this right now. How do we effectively deal with people who just come in attack, because if you're not for, you're against, which means you're evil, by the way, and so therefore there are, there's no morality in play now, because you're a bad person. So all things are open. How do we simply deal with somebody who's just coming at us with their nuclear arsenal? And we're trying to defuse the situation, to have a civil conversation.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

It's hard. It's really really, really hard. Now, how do you do it in your personal life versus how you do it in the workplace, and what role HR practitioners and other business leaders play? I'm going to break it down In my personal life. I'll be very honest. I don't spend time with people who believe that they have to win any debate, any argument, or even that they want to engage in debate. I'm just not interested in that because I don't have to. There are seven, eight billion people on the planet and I choose the hundred I want to spend time with in my personal life and that's it.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

So it's not that I only hang around people who agree with me, because I actually like pushback and challenge in my personal life, but the how is what matters. So if there's someone who I know you either with me or against me I stay away from those people because at some point today, tomorrow, next week, next year we're going to I'm not going to be with you on a topic, and if that's going to be the deal breaker, then we might as well not invest in this relationship right now, because it's just not if it's when I love my mother to death. But that doesn't mean we agree on everything, and if the standard is because my mother doesn't agree with me on one particular topic that I hold passionately, she's against me, not just against the topic of the moment, but she's against me. You can't build meaningful relationships that way. It's just, they're not sustainable. Because, again, it's when, not if. So that's number one in my personal life bringing this, this into work, and that's where this becomes really interesting and the responsibility of leaders.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

Leaders have to be really clear in their culture, that word that you and I love, that historically was deemed a soft word Culture here is really important. Leaders have to be clear. We value diversity of all sorts, including perspective, and if you come to my workplace and you will only feel engaged, feel like you're a part of it, as long as you are living in your echo chamber of people who agree with you on everything, you can't work here. We literally have to set the tone as leaders. That says you know we want to be challenged by people who are different by race, by gender, but also by perspective, by how they learn. If they learn all of that good stuff and if you aren't comfortable with that, this isn't the right culture for you and then walk away from talent or, at a minimum, if there are people who are in the bubble, then teach them how to perceive and receive input that is different than theirs.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

Does that make sense to you, I mean? And that's scary, especially now. Listen, the job market is slowing down now. So maybe at the height of and I think this is part of the problem something just came to me, I think when we were busy, when there were, you know, 10 jobs for every one person who was looking, we were under a little pressure. We didn't really focus on culture. Can you do the job? We'll bring you in and we'll tolerate it. Different part of the cycle where we as HR leaders, we as people leaders, if you're on the call and not practicing HR, you could really. You have the luxury now to focus more on cultural alignment. Well, people can't be aligned with your culture if you're not clear about your culture, so articulating upfront we value our differences, we work toward our commonalities and if you can't operate in an environment, you shouldn't work here see.

Bob Goodwin:

So you just brought up a really what I believe is an important point, which is this if think about it within the context of sherm, like, like, we are all we have in the same functional area of companies that have, you know, elevating hr, and and yet we're not focused on what we have in common. We're going to the mat. And again, I'm not even making a value judgment, johnny, on whether I agree with the I and D, D, E, I.

Bob Goodwin:

One doesn't have to Right, it's just like fundamentally, why are we now working across purposes with each other?

Bob Goodwin:

So there's a couple places I want to go. You just hinted at one. Hi everybody, this is Bob Goodwin, president at Career Club. Imagine with me for a minute a workplace where leaders and employees are energized, engaged and operating at their very best. At Career Club, we work with both individuals and organizations to help combat stress and burnout that lead to attrition, disengagement and higher health care costs. We can help your organization and your workforce thrive, boosting both productivity and morale across the board.

Bob Goodwin:

To learn more about how we might help you and your company, visit us at careerclub, which is, as leaders, we should expect and encourage disagreement. Right, that's how the best, like, I think it's a very weak leader that just wants to be validated, that's right. Right, so we need to be challenged. That is to your earlier point. That is, the definition of diversity and inclusion, right. Otherwise, what do we have? Either we're doing diversity bingo, right, and do I have enough to fill in all the spots? Or or I've got them, but they're not included, like, I actually don't listen to alternative points of view.

Bob Goodwin:

So, so that's that's one thing, that that's how ideas get refined and make better. That's where learning happens. We thought this, we learned that. So I think that, as leaders, we have to encourage. So I would challenge again, not even necessarily on this topic, but if you are confronted with something that's not something that you think is true, at least take it in as a data point and, as you continue, say, assume the good intent of the other person. The other thing that I wanted to say there and get your point of view on is at some point we have to make a decision, yes, and we have to move forward, and I could be on your team. And we have to move forward, and I could be on your team, and, for whatever reason, whatever decision you're making like not really sure I think that's the exact right thing. How do we reconcile moving forward even if I'm not 100 percent in alignment or agreement with the decision?

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

decision. First of all, you acknowledge that, by definition, if you bring a group of diverse people together in a work environment, you're not going to have 100% consensus at any time. Like that is the that's. If there's a cost to diversity, it is that it can be less efficient because people are going to come in with different points of view, and then you have to spend time bringing those people along with you. You know something as simple I spent time in the media industry. You get people in a room and we're debating the color palette of something, a movie, or the products that we generate, or whatever the design, and everyone has their own opinion. No one's right, no one's wrong. But once we make the decision, you've got to get on board with it. This is what we're going to do. So, to that point, culture and you're going to hear me go back to culture One of the things we did at SHRM was we introduced a cultural guiding principle, and it is that, in our environment, you challenge you're encouraged to challenge.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

That's why we get the most of your diversity. Then you must decide and then finally commit period. It's just that we say challenge, decide, commit. So an idea comes to the table, name it not limited to diversity, it could be anything. I'm going to challenge that, johnny. It not limited to diversity, it could be anything. I'm going to challenge that, johnny. And I encourage the team, from the lowest ranked employee in an organization to my office, to challenge it.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

We have debate, we create a culture where people can talk about these things, and then a decision must be made, because if we sent here, what is it? Paralysis, analysis, we consider and debate this forever. At some point a decision must be made and after the decision's made, the individual must decide if they're committed to it or not. And it's such an amazing it has changed our culture because you just drop it to them Challenge. We want you to feel free, we want the benefit of all of your diversity. Then a decision will be made by the organization and then the individual has to decide if they're going to commit. That's a rubric that has worked and I think more organizations should think about that as a way of describing their culture. This is the way how things work here, but tell someone that you're always going to agree with every decision, by definition, you're not going to do it.

Bob Goodwin:

I think one word that we haven't said, that kind of underscores a lot of this, is respect. Right, you and I. I don't want to turn this into a workwire episode, but we've talked about followership before and there has to be a respect, and it's mutual respect. It's not just upward respect, but it's mutual respect. It's not just you know upward respect, but it's respect. It's like you know what, johnny, I've heard you out I feel like you've heard me, you've decided to go left.

Bob Goodwin:

I thought we should go. Right. Okay, I respect you. Right, I'm committed to the team, I'm committed to the mission and there's enough respect, equity in place that, okay, I respect you and I'm committed, let's go. But it's hard. It's really hard because you know, I've met your team. You've got a lot of smart people, the people listening to this, there's a lot of really smart people who will be listening to this episode and you can be, you know, logically convinced of your point of view on something. It's not always going to break your way, and I do think that respect is a huge element of a successful organization.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

And to that point, bob, it just dawned on me. Incivility is on its peak high now because we're fewer than 100 days away from election. This happens every four years. Worse than in past, it consistently gets hotter in this last 100 days when we vote for election. But it is interesting If you think about this concept of there's a challenge.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

There are two people who are running for president. They're challenging each other for that top job. America will decide when it votes, and then every American, whether you're a candidate one or didn't and it's going to be close because it always is the other half has to commit, because you're committing to something greater than your candidate or your party. Once the decision has been made that night or the next day or whatever, whenever it's decided then each of us has to commit back to the concept and the principle of America. That's a really interesting way to think about it and I think I hadn't thought about it that way. But that's really it. The challenge is good.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

But let me go back to this conversation we've been having around civility, how we challenge. So, since we're talking about the elections right now, we start calling each other when our leaders and I have a question. I don't know that all politicians are leaders. We can plate the term but put that aside. But when our elected officials attack each other in very uncivil ways, they, I think, have given the nod to the rest of the broader society to say this is okay behavior. And I think at the root of all of this incivility is there was a time when politicians could disagree, and we expected that disagreement because they were coming at it from different philosophical angles. But they never just did this ugly name calling and attacking and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Yeah, there were always people who went around and looked for you know, dirt in your past. But guess what? If you had dirt in the past, you should probably just put it out because someone's going to find it. That's what it is. That's a different conversation. But the way that we go now is we just constantly hold contempt for people who see the world differently.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

And I think we've got to follow this. We're in the challenge phase right now. November 6th or 7th, whatever date it is, we're going to have the decision and then we all have got to commit and we've got to do this in a very civil way. And, yes, these things are emotional and passionate. So, taking this out of the diversity concept. Look at where we're going to end up. The first week of November, half of the population is not going to be happy with the decision. The question is, how will we operate toward each other going forward? And civility is the key.

Bob Goodwin:

All right, awesome. Well, I think you just put an amazing bow on that, johnny. Is there anything else that you would want to share with listeners before I let you go?

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

Yeah, yeah, it's this we're all talking. The only person who can do something about civility is you. Who can do something about civility is you. It's the only person I cannot control how Bob comes at me that's Bob. But how I respond to Bob, if I respond to Bob is the only thing I control, so anyone who's listening. At the end of the day, the only person who can do anything about civility is you, and if you do that, we commit to doing it 335 million times. Then the country becomes more civil, just by definition. Right, and I'm not naive or Pollyanna, I don't believe that everyone's going to agree to do it, but we've got to get to a point where our culture big C culture, our society, values civility. I'm worried that we're heading in the wrong direction.

Bob Goodwin:

Well, I like how you just said that, basically, civility starts with me. That's right.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

Well, better said than I did in short.

Bob Goodwin:

Civility starts with me, and that's one person in this whole little thing I've got control over, so I'm going to do my best. So civility service, johnny, I have so much respect for you. I appreciate your time and everything that you do to make the HR profession elevated and for the impact that HR is able to have, both in its companies and communities and the lives of individuals. So it's always great to see you. Thank you again, and for the HR chat audience, it's such a pleasure for both of us to be here with you today. We thank you for investing a few minutes of your time. Bill Bannn, thank you so much. And with that, johnny, I will let you get back to running the world's largest HR organization.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr:

How about it? Thank you, my friend. You well, okay, and to everyone else out there hey, thank you.

Speaker 1:

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