Tie Feedback to Business Outcomes, and Other Actions for Allies
Each week, Karen Catlin shares five simple actions to create a more inclusive workplace and be a better ally.
1. Tie feedback to business outcomes
When Kathy Caprino interviewed me for an article for Forbes, I had a lot to say in response to one of her questions: How can improving performance feedback lead to more diverse and inclusive workplaces? I identified five mistakes we make when providing feedback, informed from my work coaching hundreds of equity-seeking individuals combined with research from Boston University, LeanIn, McKinsey, and Stanford.
Here’s just one of the mistakes: Not tying feedback to business outcomes.
My coaching clients have shared all too many examples of vague feedback they receive. For example, “Improve your executive presence,” or “Become more influential,” or “Be more strategic.” This kind of feedback is often not actionable or helpful.
What can we do instead? When giving feedback, discuss how an individual could have a more significant impact on the business. For example, instead of just “Become a more strategic leader,” you could say, “Become a more strategic leader by better understanding our competition and making recommendations to gain market share.”
To learn more about giving more effective and equitable feedback to your employees and coworkers, check out the full interview: 5 Errors Managers Make When Providing Feedback To Employees.
2. Value difference
In her new book How to Be an Ally: Actions You Can Take for a Stronger, Happier Workplace, Melinda Briana Epler covers a wealth of topics, including a summary of oppression through the ages that led us to where we are today and the most comprehensive list of microaggressions I’ve ever read. I could write an entire newsletter (or more) filled with her suggestions, but I’ll share just one that got me thinking:
“Removing someone’s name and experience in the hiring process … strips away someone’s identity, where we want our teams to recognize their colleagues’ unique identities and work to ensure people with those identities belong. Biases play a role in many workplace decisions beyond looking at résumés: interviews, job offers, performance reviews, promotions, project assignments, and so on. We want to change behaviors, where people correct their own biases, and value and seek out diversity as a culture add.
The problem is that we do not value people with some names the same as others. It’s time to fix that by teaching ourselves to value difference.”
Read that last sentence one more time: “It’s time to fix that by teaching ourselves to value difference.”
To put this into practice, I recommend reflecting on a recent work-related project and identifying how differences helped you meet your goals. If you run retrospective meetings, add a question about it to your template. Or, if you write an internal newsletter or coordinate all-employee meetings, surface success stories of when a difference made, well, a difference.
3. Alphabetize survey choices
A recent edition of the Feminuity newsletter provided recommendations for designing more inclusive surveys, including:
“List item responses alphabetically as to not represent a hierarchy. Too often, dominant or powerful groups are listed first.”
Allies, if you design surveys or intake forms that collect demographic data, consider alphabetizing the choices. E.g., “Asian” and “Black” before “White.”
4. Add pronouns to your name tag
Do you wear a name tag at work? Susan Price, the Deputy Director of Health, Wellbeing & Inclusion at University Hospitals Birmingham, recently tweeted a photo of her name tag, which includes her pronouns in large, bold print.
If you are cis-gendered (meaning your sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with your birth sex), clarifying your pronouns is a simple but powerful act of allyship. Whether you do this in an email signature, on your social media bios, as part of your video conference profile, or on a name tag, you are helping to normalize the practice of sharing pronouns. This is helpful to genderfluid, transgender, and nonbinary people, who get loads of pushback on the pronoun issue overall.
And if you wear a name tag at work that doesn’t yet include your pronouns, consider forwarding this newsletter to your office or facilities manager and asking if they can issue new name tags.
5. Know when to walk away
On the journey to be better allies, it’s essential to know when we will walk away from business deals because of creepy behavior or end partnerships because their values don’t align with ours.
Recently, the non-profit Girls Who Code ended a multi-year relationship with Activision Blizzard. As they explained,
“Girls Who Code has partnered with Activision Blizzard on our Summer Immersion Program since 2018. However, following recent revelations about allegations of assault, harassment, and a toxic work environment throughout the company, we have decided to end our partnership.”
How we treat colleagues from underrepresented groups in the workplace must stretch beyond sharing pronouns and improving meeting protocols and toward activities that impact the bottom line. After all, allyship becomes meaningless if it’s abandoned in the face of lucrative business deals or strategic partnerships.
Allies, let’s reflect on our values and be sure to live them out.
That’s all for this week. I wish you strength and safety as we all move forward.
— Karen Catlin (she/her), Author of Better Allies®
Copyright © 2021 Karen Catlin. All rights reserved.
I wrote this article in what is now called Burlingame, California. It is on Ohlone territory.
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