My last post sparked so many interesting conversations about tackling microaggressions in the workplace, but the one thing we haven’t discussed is the role organizations should play in curtailing them. Microaggressions are rooted in harmful biases (whether unconscious or conscious) and can become part of the fabric of an organization’s culture if its’ leaders are not intentional in their efforts to correct them. This is part of the critical INCLUSION piece of DEI that so many organizations overlook when patting themselves on the back for getting their diverse hiring numbers up a few points. If your company culture isn’t inclusive, the hiring numbers won’t matter because diverse employees won’t stay.
As a Chief Compliance Officer, I spend a lot of time thinking about company culture and how it drives employee behavior. Over time I’ve come to realize that organizational culture is a lot like your lawn. Everyone wants a gorgeous lawn, but few realize the work it takes to make it so. If you want your lawn to be lush, green, and healthy then you have to WORK at that. You have to feed, water, nurture and cultivate it into exactly what you want it to be and it is not a one and done effort. Once your lawn is thriving you have to keep up your efforts to maintain it, otherwise it will regress. Thoughtfuless and consistency are the keys. If you don’t make the effort, you still have a lawn, you just have to take what you get. You may get lucky in some spots (i.e. some offices or teams) where beautiful wild flowers sprout on their own, but you will almost surely also have some patches of dandelions, stinkweeds and other spots that are just plain brown and dead. That is exactly what the culture can look and feel like in an organization that isn’t doing the work.