Your Leadership is Needed

2021 is the year to turn listening, learning and reflection into action.  Move towards becoming an anti-racist, multicultural organization.  Rewrite (or discontinue) policies that reinforce disparities in recruitment and hiring, employee development and retention, and promotion and pay. Provide employees the tools and shared language to have difficult conversations about difference.  Listen to employees who identify bias in systems and outcomes– then make changes.  Examine how your organization and its services show up in the communities where you do business.  The disparities cited by Citibank’s study did not happen in a vacuum.  Even organizations with “color-blind” policies and strong non-discrimination statements play a role.  It’s time to stop just talking and start working together to dismantle barriers of oppression and racism.  

The best way to remember Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy is to stop just posting his quotes in a yearly company statement– without taking strategic and tangible steps to bring his dream to life. Then each year in preparation for his birthday, review progress, make adjustments and strategic investments. Demonstrate accountability by sharing progress. Keep going. This work is a marathon and not a sprint… and I invite you on this journey.