What Jeff Lawson’s Views on DEI Missed

Today's topic: Keeping the E in DEI

As many of you know, I’m a big fan of Kara Swisher. I love both of her podcasts and listen to them religiously. As I was listening to the latest episode of “On with Kara Swisher”, I couldn’t believe my ears.

Kara’s guest, Jeff Lawson, current owner of The Onion and former CEO at Twilio, was talking all about why he bought The Onion and how it felt to be fired from the company he founded (Twilio). He sounded like a nice enough guy.

Then he started talking about DEI. This is where my ears understandably perked up because I identify as a Latina, a woman of color, a DEI advocate, and ERG advisor.

First, he talked about how the pursuit of equity has caused some people who were otherwise supportive of Diversity and Inclusion to become disengaged and unsupportive. Because, according to Jeff, some of the practices rooted in equity unfairly advantage underrepresented people. Sorry, not sorry, but I’m going to need to push back on this. Show me when and how underrepresented people have ever had an advantage in the workplace. I’ll wait.

If equity is “the thing that has triggered a lot of folks” then I don’t know if they are really interested in an equal playing field for all employees. Diversity just brings underrepresented people to your company. Inclusion is an effort to make us feel a part of the bigger organization. Equity ensures we have the same access and opportunities as everyone else. This won't happen on its own without well-thought-out and executed interventions. PERIOD.

Let me give you an example from my own career.

I worked in financial services and tech for most of my career. As a Latina, I almost never got paid what my white male peers were earning (not so fun fact: Latinas get paid about 52-54 cents for every dollar a white male makes for the SAME JOB). I was promoted at a slower pace and initially topped out at the senior manager or VP level, while those around me continued advancing to Director roles.

One year, I was pretty intent on getting promoted to Director so I joined a mentorship program for underrepresented employees. I was matched with a Black female leader who worked in my organization. She was a great performer and very well-respected throughout the company. I asked her point blank what skills I still needed to develop to get to the next level. She told me I was 100% ready for promotion in that moment and then proceeded to help me get my “promotion package” together in time for the next cycle. We spent months getting everything ready so that I could basically hand it to my manager at promotion time.

That was the first time in my life no one had questions or concerns or any objections about my advancement. What changed? Not me. I was still the same high-performer. The difference was having someone who shared my lived experience help me prepare. And I don’t know that I would have gotten that help without the formal mentorship program. So, did the mentoring program give me an “unfair advantage”? I don’t think so. It simply helped level the playing field, giving me an equal chance to be recognized for my contributions.

So, back to Jeff. He went on to describe equity as “crossing the line”, for some, when “someone else gets something I don’t.” That’s laughable. Because, really, what exactly are non-underrepresented people being denied access to? Please, tell me.

Then he proceeded to use the Tesla web page as an example of how DEI is being implemented by companies. “They have Diversity. They have Inclusion. They just don’t have Equity.”

FIRST OF ALL. THAT’S A RED FLAG BECAUSE JUST WORKING AT A COMPANY AND BEING INCLUDED MEANS NOTHING IF I DON’T GET PROMOTED OR RECEIVE THE SAME REWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS AS MY PEERS.

SECOND OF ALL, WHY ON EARTH WOULD WE USE TESLA’S WEB SITE AS AN EXAMPLE FOR DEI?

“Diversity and Inclusion is something the vast majority of people can get behind", Jeff says. “It’s when you introduce equity that you start to lose people.”

Because talking about equity makes people uncomfortable. Because it calls attention to the reality that the systems in place are not created equal and favor certain groups of people. Because it forces people to recognize that the status quo benefits some while marginalizing others, making it hard to ignore the need for change.

He goes on to admit that “Equity is an incredibly hard concept for society to get right”. But just because it’s hard or complicated doesn’t mean we stop trying. There’s a whole lot of us out here counting on society to keep pushing forward because equity at work is just the beginning.

Just because everyone is “not along for the ride” doesn’t mean we give up.

He concluded this part of the conversation by sharing that he stopped a discussion on white privilege during an all-hands call at Twilio, believing it would be uncomfortable for many in the audience. He felt that bringing up white privilege in that moment would send the wrong message to a predominantly white audience, as they would hear “you're the problem.”

Let’s talk about what white privilege means. White privilege refers to the societal advantages that white people experience simply because of their race. White privilege doesn't mean that white individuals don't face challenges, but it acknowledges that, on a systemic level, they are less likely to encounter obstacles based on their race compared to people of color.

As a DEI practitioner, I know difficult conversations are necessary for things to change. We must acknowledge things like white privilege, microaggressions, and bias if we want folks to truly understand how harmful systems and behaviors can impact others.

I’ll get off my soapbox now but end by saying that this was an incredibly tough conversation for me to listen to. I think it caught me off guard because Jeff is technically a supporter of D&I, and in my mind, I always believed that meant supporting all aspects of the work, not just the feel-good parts.

In the end, this conversation only reinforced the importance of continuing to push for real change.

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Here’s the good news. I’m writing a book for women like me where I talk all about the bias and microaggressions I’ve personally experienced in the workplace and the powerful lessons I learned along the way. My hope is to empower other women like me to not feel powerless or helpless when facing setbacks caused by broken systems, but instead to feel confident in using their voices to advocate for themselves and others.

My book is coming out this fall. Stay tuned and follow along for more book updates.