As part of the pandemic-season rule changes a few years ago, MLB introduced its new, and somewhat
controversial, extra-innings format. During the regular season, all extra innings began with a runner on second base and no outs.
As I think back over my long career, 38 years or so, five companies, I can count on no hands the number of people of color who have been in leadership positions in those companies, and I can count on one hand the number of women who have been in leadership positions in those companies. The only place that did have some diversity was Goodwill Industries of Dayton, but that was a significant anomaly in my career (but such a blessing!).
My favorite story to tell, although it’s really painful and doesn’t reflect well on me, was from my first job experience at Deloitte. I started off with Touche Ross, and about five years in or so, we merged with Deloitte, Haskins and Sells, and become Deloitte and Touche, eventually, just Deloitte. I know, so complicated….
When we merged, I was a Manager at the time, and on the Touche Ross side, we were all a bunch of white males. On the Deloitte side, they had some female managers, and even had a female Partner, Laura Pannier. We sat down the one day trying to figure out how in the world they had females in management, and the idea was struck, maybe one of us should have lunch with Laura and ask her how they do it. I volunteered, I thought this would be a great way to bridge the gap, cross over, get to bond with my new colleagues. Wow, I hope you all can see at this point, what a horrible idea this was.
I called Laura up, and asked her if I could go to lunch with her. We met, and I introduced the question, “how do you have women in management in your office?” She didn’t even come close to hiding her anger, her disdain, for the question or concept. Why would you even ask this question? Why would they send you to ask this question? Why would you be dumb enough (she didn’t say it that way, but it was pretty apparent) to be the sacrificial lamb to ask this question? It was so painful I can only remember a few points such as encouragement, inclusion, and respect. Needless to say, it wasn’t a very pleasant lunch. She did pay for it though, so I guess it wasn’t a complete loss.
A few years went by, and I remember sitting in my office minding my own business at Barco Graphics, when Karen Martenia paced outside in the accounting office upset about something. Karen always seemed to be upset about something. She then said the words that sent me to a whole new level of anger and rage:
“When I come back in my next life, I want to be a white man, so I don’t have to do anything.”
There was no doubt, that comment was directed at me. And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. I had always been nice to Karen, I couldn’t think of any reason she would direct that comment at me.
Didn’t she know how hard I worked? I usually got in about 7 in the morning and worked until 6 or 7 at night. I was there every Saturday morning, working, in most cases, all by myself. In many cases, I came in on Sunday nights, I brought the kids to work, so that Laurel wouldn’t get mad at me, we would make that drive over to work, and I’d put in a few more hours to try to catch up.
I worked my ass off! I worked my ass off my entire career. How could she ever make a comment like that about me? I sat there and boiled, I never said anything, for fear, I would get into trouble for insulting a minority. Karen checked most of the boxes, she was black, female and Hispanic. I bit my tongue, gritted my teeth, and kept right on working.
As I’m nearing the final years of my long career, I think about that moment, and so many more, and I think about those words. Hadn’t I worked my ass off my whole career, for that matter, my whole life? Well, no……
• Like some or many teens, I was a tad bit lazy growing up. I was relatively smart, but I put in as little work as possible to get by in high school. I had pretty good test scores, average grades, and I could have gotten into many schools, but I even debated whether to go to college or not.
• My parents would have none of that. My Dad quit school in the 9th grade, drove a truck and worked his way up to managing a truck terminal. I was going to college.
• I had my share of “issues” as a youth, minor offenses, alcohol, OK, we should leave it right there in case I run for political office.
• I took the easy route, I went to college in my hometown, I went with friends, I spent my freshman year playing pool. I got pretty good at pool, but my grades seemed to run counter to my pool-playing abilities.
• I finally “woke up” somewhere around my sophomore year, and I did start to work, and I worked pretty hard from that point forward. But I had a head start. I was able to flounder along for roughly 20 years, while someone like Karen, I have my doubts she shared that luxury.
If I wouldn’t have been pushed by my parents, I would have never gone to college. If I wouldn’t have grown up in a very, very white community, where “boys will be boys”, my transgressions may not have been forgiven so easily. If I wouldn’t have had many people looking out for me, I may have never gotten into college or survived my desire to play pool rather than go to class. I was given many chances to recover from my lack of initiative.
How would my life have turned out differently if I wouldn’t have had so many opportunities to get on the right path? Again, do those of us who don’t look like me share that same luxury? I could be wrong, but I have my doubts.
Let’s take it a step further. While Karen may have checked several boxes when it comes to breaking the diversity barrier, I would still say, no matter what box you check, it’s not so easy. And sadly, we are losing many gifts and opportunities from not having more diverse leadership and different styles, personalities and backgrounds to allow us to make the best decisions for our organizations.
I find it interesting as white males we don’t see the disparity, the huge gap, the head start we have in our careers. From the beginning, I had people looking out for me, people watching over me. That’s not the case for many in our society. From the beginning, I entered into a fraternity where everyone looked like me. I started out with a bunch of white guys, some young, some old, to a bunch of old white guys over time, sitting around, making decisions for the companies I worked for. We all talk the same, we all look the same. Sure, we have different personalities, but it’s a homogeneous environment. How does a person of color, how does a woman, break into this exclusive club? Why would they want to?
How do we break this cycle? That’s a great question. I went to a seminar a few years ago, and one of the sessions was on women in management. One of the speakers talked about how women applied to the organization she worked at because there were so many women and women of color in management there. They saw the opportunity, and wanted to be associated with an organization that valued women. I would anticipate that this would hold true for anyone in the workforce, people want to be somewhere where they view that they can hold an equal seat at the table. If we continue to maintain leadership models where it is all white males, with maybe a sprinkling of one female or one person of color, I just don’t see us making the necessary shift in our culture. And again, we will sadly miss the opportunity to grow and advance our organizations to much greater levels.
Going back to Karen Martenia, why the comment, why did she lash out at me? Ah, I was an easy target. I was a young, white guy holding a management position in a company where Karen had zero chance of ever moving up. I had started off at second base, I was the beneficiary of the unwritten rules that we’ve implemented in our society that benefit white males like me. Karen? No idea what her history was, but I’m envisioning, she walked up to the plate with an 0-2 count and Nolan Ryan on the mound. She really didn’t stand much of a chance.
