Discover the untapped potential of an inclusive economy as Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield, a leading voice on workplace equality, joins us to explore the deep-seated issues of racial and gender disparities in professional environments. Despite the influx of billions into diversity programs, the climb up the corporate ladder remains steep for black professionals. Dr. Wingfield shines a spotlight on the elusive "gray areas" of office culture—those implicit biases and unwritten rules that dictate more than our job descriptions ever could. We confront the hard truths about traditional diversity training, pondering its effectiveness and pondering if there's a more potent recipe for change.
As we discuss with Dr. Wingfield, the importance of diversity and inclusion extends far beyond a moral imperative; it's a catalyst for economic growth, with the potential to inject a staggering $2 trillion into the U.S. market. Learn how the historical conflation of race and labor continues to shape our modern-day workspaces and what we can all do to level the playing field. Through an examination of hiring practices and the nuances of organizational culture, we offer insights to become not just participants, but leaders in forging equitable workplaces. Tune in for practical advice on using your network to foster an environment where diversity is not an aspiration but an accomplished reality.
https://www.harpercollins.com/products/gray-areas-adia-harvey-wingfield?variant=41006208876578
https://sociology.wustl.edu/people/adia-harvey-wingfield
Go check out all of our episodes on our website: https://womeninthearena.net/
If you are ready to tell your story or want to refer someone, please email me at audra@womeninthearena.net
***Last thing- I'd love to interview the following women:
Maybe you can help me get there****
Thank you all for supporting this show and all of the Women in the Arena!!
Discover the untapped potential of an inclusive economy as Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield, a leading voice on workplace equality, joins us to explore the deep-seated issues of racial and gender disparities in professional environments. Despite the influx of billions into diversity programs, the climb up the corporate ladder remains steep for black professionals. Dr. Wingfield shines a spotlight on the elusive "gray areas" of office culture—those implicit biases and unwritten rules that dictate more than our job descriptions ever could. We confront the hard truths about traditional diversity training, pondering its effectiveness and pondering if there's a more potent recipe for change.
As we discuss with Dr. Wingfield, the importance of diversity and inclusion extends far beyond a moral imperative; it's a catalyst for economic growth, with the potential to inject a staggering $2 trillion into the U.S. market. Learn how the historical conflation of race and labor continues to shape our modern-day workspaces and what we can all do to level the playing field. Through an examination of hiring practices and the nuances of organizational culture, we offer insights to become not just participants, but leaders in forging equitable workplaces. Tune in for practical advice on using your network to foster an environment where diversity is not an aspiration but an accomplished reality.
https://www.harpercollins.com/products/gray-areas-adia-harvey-wingfield?variant=41006208876578
https://sociology.wustl.edu/people/adia-harvey-wingfield
Go check out all of our episodes on our website: https://womeninthearena.net/
If you are ready to tell your story or want to refer someone, please email me at audra@womeninthearena.net
***Last thing- I'd love to interview the following women:
Maybe you can help me get there****
Thank you all for supporting this show and all of the Women in the Arena!!
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for being with me again this week. This week I am with an incredible, brave and brilliant woman. I'm with Dr Adia Harvey Wingfield, and she is a leading sociologist and she is a celebrated author who concentrates her research on racial and gender inequality in professional settings. This is a big topic and she has done quite a bit of research. Her new book, gray, areas how the Way we Work Perpetuates Racism and what we Can Do to Fix it. It is focusing not just on the problem but on the solution. It is my pleasure and my honor to introduce to you Dr Adia Harvey Wingfield. Adia, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure.
Audra:First of all, what a big topic and what an important topic. What compelled you to tackle such a complex and charged topic, which is something that is necessary but, like I said in the beginning, is very brave to tackle?
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :Thank you. That's a great question. I mean, since I was a graduate student, I've been researching different aspects of black professionals at work. This book is really a continuation in a career where I've been focused on different aspects of this question over the past couple of decades.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :I guess what made me want to think about the work in this context and in terms of how I presented in the book really stems from thinking a lot about how we at this point in time have this multi-billion dollar diversity industry with a B. We spend a lot of money, there's a lot of time and attention that companies, leaders and often everyday people spend thinking about how work can be more diverse and diversity in the workplace in general and diversity and inclusion of at large, but at the same time, we know that we don't always necessarily see much progress. Black workers face substantial discrimination at the hiring level, they often stall out at middle levels of companies and they face their underrepresented leadership in most organizations. So I wanted to understand why both of those things are happening and I wanted to look at black workers who are living through these experiences in work to try to understand how we can have such a focus on diversity yet see so little of it actually accomplished in most of our companies today.
Audra:Why do you think that is? I mean, first of all, I did not understand that the spend was in the billions. That's pretty significant. So if we're spending so much money, why aren't we accomplishing so much? Is it we aren't doing it right? Or if it's, is it just marketing?
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :So I think it's some of both, but a lot of what I focus on is what I talk about in the book, this idea of the gray areas of work, and what I mean by that is that when we think about work, often we think about just the core, basic aspects of our job. So I work as a college professor. My job is research, teaching, service sometimes a lot of service but ultimately those are supposed to be the core parts of my job. But that doesn't encompass a lot of the other Aspects of how we work. It doesn't encompass how I found out about the job that I have, or how I found out about jobs or the Connections that I have to make in order to get access to jobs in the first place.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :It doesn't include the organizational culture in my university and how that Organizational culture can have an impact on my ability to thrive or not thrive at work. And it doesn't take into consideration the processes by which people advance, which often aren't necessarily Exclusively connected to the work that they're doing. So those things the social, the cultural, the relational parts of work those are what I identify as the gray areas, and those are the areas that I think are where we're ripe for seeing racial inequality Perpetuated in our workplaces, because those areas are more ambiguous, they're a little bit more murky and they aren't really targeted by policy or organizational mandates in many cases.
Audra:Well, since you mentioned that you are a college professor and we're spending all this money In corporations, maybe we're not spending it all in the right place. Maybe it needs to start shifting Into the educational system to help teaching and guiding and mentoring Earlier in the first place. What do you, what is your response to that?
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :Yeah, I mean, I think that certainly helps.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :And when we talk about workplaces and where we can allocate resources, one of the things that we also know from research is that often resources are not Allocated into the areas that have shown the most success, right?
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :So I talk in the book about mandated diversity trainings, for example, and how Many companies rely on Mandating diversity trainings because they're so popular. It's a big part of this industry and it just seems like the thing to do, but we also know from extensive research that Mandating diversity training does not work. It does not improve the numbers of black workers and leadership and actually can depress the numbers of black workers and leadership, and it can contribute to backlash on a number of different fronts, but we don't necessarily see the inability to succeed and make changes reflected in how people Reflected in how many organizations rely on diversity training. So I think there's some truth to this idea that companies are not always allocating resources in the ways that are most efficacious, and that's something that I hope the book clarifies and highlights in terms of what the areas really are where black workers are facing these gray areas and sometimes struggling so in your perspective, why do you think diversity training isn't working or, and in a lot of cases, is having the opposite effect?
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :Yeah, so that's a great question. So what we know from research is that when diversity trainings are mandated, there's multiple ways that workers Balkan rebel. For white workers, mandated diversity trainings can make them feel blamed, they feel as if they are being Castigated for something that they may or may not be doing, and it causes them to feel resentful and to shut down and to be less open to learning more about issues of race and racial inequality at work. And Perhaps surprisingly for some listeners, my own research has also shown that for black workers, they often maybe paradoxically respond somewhat similarly to mandated diversity trainings, and the reasons for that are that for black workers, when companies mandate this work, often it feels more like an exercise in regulatory compliance and less like the company is genuinely motivated to try to understand the depths and the Nuance of the experiences and the challenges that they face in the workplace. So what we end up having are companies that are mandating these initiatives and, most in multiple sets of workers, not engaging and not responding in ways that actually lead to change.
Audra:That's a really interesting perspective. I hadn't thought of that, but what you're saying, if I'm, if I'm understanding it correctly, is that it feels very disingenuous and check in the box.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :What exactly? That phrase of checking the box is exactly what I have heard from many black workers who talk about why they often react so negatively to diversity training because it doesn't address some of the challenges that I talk about in gray areas in terms of the difficulties getting higher and the difficulties Managing organizational culture that can seem inhospitable, the challenges that are associated with forming the relationships that are necessary For advancement. Often those things are not covered in diversity training and so for black workers, they just feel like here we go again. I'm checking this box so that the organization can say that they care, but I know that they don't, because they're not addressing the things that really are impacting me so I'm a big believer in a rising tide floats.
Audra:All boats, and they're already. Organizations are already spending the money. Why not take that money and spend it in a more thoughtful way? Because now it no longer becomes just about a diversity spend but an investment spend. That means that it brings opportunity for everybody and maybe not seem so isolating or deliberate or whatever. The interpretations are that those people that are receiving this training are feeling. So, if you're research, how would you recommend they spend their money wisely? How do they reallocate it? So then it actually makes impact, rather than oh, here we go again.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :Yeah, that's a great question. One of the things that I like about that question is that there's actually a pretty decent amount of data and research that does document things that companies can do differently and do successfully. So just as a couple of examples, we know that when companies establish mentoring programs and open those mentoring programs to everybody, rather than making them invitation only or just letting mentoring happen organically, then we actually are more likely to see black workers sign up for those programs and we're actually more likely to see them move into leadership positions. The reason for that again is that when everybody's allowed access to a mentoring program, mentors may connect with mentees that they otherwise would not work with, but then they also become more familiar with and more aware of the wealth of talent across the organization.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :Humans are creatures who are self-invested in many ways. People want to see their mentees do well. That reflects well on you if your mentee is successful. But when these programs are left to invitation only or when they are only allowed to form organically, it's a lot more easy for black workers to be overlooked than if the programs are open to all. So mentoring for all is recommended by the research and documented to show positive effects in the literature.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :Another suggestion that can actually replace mandated diversity trainings is for companies to institute diversity task forces instead, particularly when those task forces draw from people at multiple levels of the organization and pull together people to identify and create solutions. The creating solutions part is really important for that, because you'll remember that I said a minute ago, with mandated diversity trainings, workers, particularly white workers, often feel as if they are being blamed. But when people throughout the organization are coming together and they're being told, okay, let's identify what the problems are and let's fix those problems, that gives everybody a stake in being part of a solution, and people respond better to being part of the solution than they do, than just being feeling as if they are being blamed for a problem.
Audra:Do you have any real life examples of task force that have been put into place in organizations that you have consulted with, or maybe even in your own university?
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :So not so much in terms of organizations that I've consulted with, but in the book I do talk about different kind of real world examples, so which have to be fair, met with varying degrees of success. So in the conclusion I cite examples from Google, from Coca-Cola and from GV, a venture capital firm, and I talk about the ways that those companies in the real world have tried to address some of these issues related to hiring, to organizational culture and to advancement, again with varying degrees of success, with their outcomes. But it's important to highlight the ways that companies are grappling with this Because, again, the data do show that there are certain steps that companies can't take that are going to be a lot more successful and more likely to yield results than going back over the things that may seem popular and commonplace but aren't necessarily creating the change that companies say they want to see.
Audra:Well, having degrees of varying degrees of success is not a failure in my opinion. It's a trial, which means that this is something completely different, so you're not gonna do it great right out of the gate. It's gonna be something that you have to try over and over again until you get it right, mm-hm. But knowing that Is it still worth the investment?
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :Yes, I mean, I think, when we're talking about this question of diversity and inclusion in companies, to me at this point, this isn't can we or should we, it's a we have to. This is an imperative right, and the reason that I say that again is that we have a society that's increasingly becoming more and more multiracial and more and more diverse. We do not currently, for the most part, have companies that reflect that diversity. So it's hard for me to see how companies prepare to be competitive in a global 21st century economy excuse me, global 21st century economy that's increasingly multiracial, if they are not prepared to meet the needs of an increasingly multiracial workforce and consumer base. And to me it just seems that, in order to do that, companies have to be prepared to acknowledge and reflect the fact that the world is more racially diverse, the workforce is more racially diverse, and companies have to be prepared to think about what that means and how they want to change, to be prepared to deal with that reality.
Audra:I know that it's a difficult message to get across because we have inherited a tradition. I mean we just have, I mean I can't, I can't even sugarcoat it. That's what's happened and it's difficult to convince them of otherwise, that when you start to embrace other people's ideas that may be different from yours, that that's better for everybody, it doesn't necessarily mean that you lose something. It may mean that your, your something may change, but it isn't necessarily any worse. It's just looks different. In a lot of cases it looks better. But how do we get that message across? Because it is fighting a traditional system that no longer works. We all identify that it no longer works and the the the difficulty is in the message and then the the actual implementation.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :Right.
Audra:How do we do that?
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :Right. So one of the things that I talked about early in the book is how historically, we have had this really intimate connection between race and labor, where work has often been kind of this dividing line. It's been a way of separating different racial groups and it's been a way of establishing who belongs in certain jobs and who doesn't belong in certain jobs, and it's been a way of excluding black workers from jobs that were the most secure, the most high paying, the most high status and likely to establish long-term economic security. And I think one of the consequences of that is that we've come to see access to work and work itself as kind of the zero sum game in the way that you're describing Right. So if other people are being allowed in, then somehow I'm losing, and that's a mindset that we've had about work for a long time. That's one mindset, right.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :But another way that we can think about work is how enormously wasteful it actually is to have a society where there is significant, ongoing, extensive racial and gender discrimination.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :So I'll give you a statistic.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :I read a citation from a study from the San Francisco Federal Reserve Board from about two years ago that noted that eliminating racial and gender inequality in the workplace would boost the US economy by over $2 trillion Right Trillion, not million, not billion over $2 trillion.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :But I think numbers like those are staggering for a couple of reasons. They highlight just how rampant, systemic and wide-ranging these issues are, but they also highlight just how much waste is part of a system that does include racial and gender discrimination and inequality, and that wastes is economic, as evidenced in the numbers, but it's also waste on the level of human capital, because we have so many people who could be poised to contribute better to our society, to our institutions, to our companies and to our organizations who are being denied opportunities because of the way that we have structured work. And so my hope is that, with gray areas and having people think more about how these gray areas perpetuate some of these inequalities, that this gets us to different ways of thinking about work and how we could all be contributing in better and different ways.
Audra:So as an individual, because making corporations start thinking differently about their own work, their operations, is going to take a little bit longer, but you cannot argue with. Did you say $3 trillion Over $2 trillion?
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :So about $2 trillion One or $2 trillion yeah $2 trillion.
Audra:You cannot argue with that, because corporations, if nothing else, they're about the bottom line Right Over $2 trillion. That says something, but it also will take a while. But I'm also a firm believer that if you want to change the world, then it has to start with you. Okay, so how do we as individuals and because my audience is predominantly women and let's face it, if the world's going to change, it's going to start with us. Period, that's just going to happen how do we start to make that change in our organizations? Small, big, medium doesn't matter. How do we do it?
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :That's a great question too, and I think there are three things that I recommend to kind of everyday people who might be listeners, who are working and thinking, like you said, what could I do to make my workplace differently? And these things correlate to the sections that I have in the book. So in the book I talk about hiring, organizational culture and advancement. When it comes to hiring, I think it's really critical to be a reference and to be a resource. We know that, like I said, there's substantial hiring discrimination that still occurs, and a big part of how we see that persists is that most people today find jobs through their connections and their existing social networks. But we also know that networks are pretty racially homogenous. Most people don't have very racially integrated networks and that becomes a way that racial inequalities persist through the hiring process. But that doesn't have to be the case. So the first thing I would suggest is that people diversify their networks and then actively make it a point to recruit black workers excuse me to reference and suggest black workers for certain jobs.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :The second thing that I would suggest has to do with organizational culture, and I would advocate there for people to be an ally and to speak up, and that can include speaking up in support of a company's efforts to diversify, but, equally important, it can also include speaking up when people are faced with negative statements and downplaying of the organization's efforts to diversify, and that is something that my respondents talk about and that I try to document in gray areas. Everyone's not on board with this question of more diversity. Sometimes people will say openly that they're not on board, and that type of statement and that type of public feedback can have a real chilling and dampening effect on black workers and people who are in favor. So I'd say just being an ally and speaking up in support of diversity and speaking out when people are denigrating it. And then the third point that I would suggest is related to advancement, and there I would say that it's really critical to be a sponsor.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :We know that black workers are less likely to report having close relationships with, or being on the radar of, their managers and supervisors. This is a thing that people can do in the workplace. You can make it a point to be a sponsor, to be a mentor, to work closely with potential up-and-coming workers in the organization and to really actively try to support the next generation of black leadership. And these are things that anybody can do. These aren't necessarily larger things that have to be organizational policy, but these are things that everyday workers can try to do to address the gray areas that I talk about.
Audra:I believe one person can change the world, and I know you do too, which is why you wrote the book. Yes, so we are. As always, I promise your producers and your editors that I will run on time. So, before we run out of time, I'd like to give you the opportunity to let the audience know where they can reach you and where they can find your book.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :Sure, so the book is available anywhere. Books are sold. It is officially out today, which is really exciting. Congratulations.
Audra:Thank you.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :Anywhere you buy books, you can find gray areas, how the way we work perpetuates racism and what we can do to fix it. For people interested in finding me, I'm on Facebook at Adea Wingfield and I am on X as Adea H Wingfield, so you can find me at either of those social media sites.
Audra:I will make sure that all of those links are in the show notes and so everybody can access you, ask you questions and get to know a little bit more about what is going on, about what we can do as individuals to contribute to society to make everybody's lives better.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :Absolutely.
Audra:Including our own.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :Absolutely.
Audra:So this is my favorite part of the show, where I step back from the mic and I give you an opportunity to have an intimate moment directly with the audience without me interrupting. So the mic is yours.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :Okay, so I would just first thank everybody for listening and say that I hope that people are able to have a chance to take a look at the book and hopefully it speaks to and reflects your own experiences and also hopefully inspires people to think about how we can restructure workplaces and make organizations different and more functional for everybody.
Audra:Thank you, and first of all, thank you again for writing this book. It was very brave, thank you. It was needed and it'll help change the world. So thank you for that and thank you for being here. I really enjoyed our conversation and I hope to continue to have more conversations like this, broader conversations like this, so we can really deep dive and pull back some of these layers, of these things that we've inherited that no longer fit us.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :Absolutely.
Audra:So thank you for being here very much. Thanks a lot for having me.
Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield :I appreciate it.
Audra:And I want to thank all of you for listening and we'll see you again next time.