Jacqui Adams (left) and Bonita Stewart
Photo by Damani Moyd

Jacqui Adams (left) and Bonita Stewart
Photo by Damani Moyd

Dan: Hi, this is Dan Morrell, host of Skydeck.

Jacqui Adams (MBA 1978) is CEO of a communication strategy firm that she launched after more than two decades as an Emmy award-winning CBS news correspondent. Bonita Stewart (MBA 1983) is a VP at Google, overseeing the company's global partnerships with US publishers. Together, they're coauthors of A Blessing: Women of Color Teaming Up to Lead, Empower and Thrive. The book uses existing data, as well as the authors' own original research to offer what they call an optimistic playbook for progress.

And in this episode of Skydeck, Adams and Stewart speak with contributing host and fellow alum Chitra Nawbatt (GMP 6) about the transformational opportunity that business has to engage women of color.

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Chitra: Inclusive leadership has been something that we've all talked about, we've all hoped for, especially in corporate America for many, many years. What do you think it takes to actually achieve inclusive leadership? What should be different now?

Bonita: This was a moment I think for all leaders, there was so much that was going on last year in 2020. I know this from leading a large team. I mean, part of it is you have to put on your own oxygen mask first, but then you really do need to lead from the front. Last year, I think it was quite a differentiator for leaders. Because if you did not have compassion, you did not have empathy, how were you going to lead an entire virtual team? Everyone was remote.

I called it different boats, because all of my team members, we were all experiencing the same thing, but we were in different boats. I had some, the parents were in the whitewater rafting boat. I mean, it was so tumultuous in terms of trying to homeschool and do a number of different things. And then I had those that were in the kayak. These are my single employees, and they were by themselves trying to navigate. And then we had new employees that were coming in and I said that was the rowboat.

They were just trying to figure out how to navigate in a virtual environment and collaborate across the team. I do think that this notion of empathy and compassion is going to rise as a part of a new aspect of inclusive leadership, which will include cultural intelligence, the CQ. You will absolutely have to understand more about individuals, and what we're finding is that is an expectation. Inclusive leadership is also going to require agility, because you will need to have a better understanding.

And Gen Z and the millennials, their expectation is that you will have an understanding of them and create a sense of belonging in the workplace.

Chitra: Your thought leadership has come out at a critical moment in history. The first woman and the first woman of color has been elected vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris. And over the past year, there has been significant unrest around equality and rights, whether racial, gender, social. Given the research you conducted in your book, examining the experiences of more than 4,000 women across four races and generations, what did the data conclude around the way forward?

Jacqui: Our findings seem to anticipate many of the most positive developments in a year of great challenges and multiple pandemics. Women of color, especially Black women, are the most educated segment of the population, and that's according to the US Census. We control some one and a half trillion, with a T, trillion dollars in consumer spending.

Studies by American Express show that businesses started by Black women grew 164 percent between 2007 and 2018, and those numbers are continuing to grow. And our findings confirmed Nielsen's findings that our youngest black and brown female desk workers are extraordinarily innovative. They are the first to adopt new technologies.

Bonita: Within our findings, we highlighted a new phenomenon, which will challenge leadership as we know it today. We have coined the phrase generational diversity to distinguish the complexity that's surfacing right now in the workplace.

By 2027, people of color ages 18 to 29—and that's your gen Z and young millennials—will be in the majority, according to the census. This will be a critical tipping point that will shape the future of the US, as well as the global economy. Talent will become the new race and the way forward as companies seek innovation, new consumer segments, and embrace emerging technologies. Companies will need to not only find and hire these young people, but to retain them.

And to that end, we will need both inclusive leaders and deeper allyship across the races, genders, and generations. We all started with IQ, and then we went to EQ, emotional intelligence, and now we need to bring in CQ, cultural intelligence. And this will create a new “blue ocean” opportunity for companies eager to activate diversity as a competitive advantage.

Chitra: And when you talk about the opportunities and just going even another level deeper based on this tremendous research that you both have done, what do you think is the greatest actionable similarity and difference you found across two buckets, the four races that you researched of Black, Latinx, Asian, and Caucasian, and then on the generational side between the four generations of boomers, Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z.

Jacqui: We found the greatest similarity among the four races when we asked about sisterhood. 92 percent of Black women, 90 percent of Latinx women felt that sisterhood would be important to them at work. And the percentages were about 10 points smaller for the other two groups: 84 percent of white women and 83 percent of Asian women. But again, those numbers are still rather large. Our message is don’t take a solo journey. Do what Bonita and I did, and really what we're doing with you today, Chitra, team up. And once we team up, we are an unstoppable force.

Bonita: Well, Jacqui shared the similarity. The greatest difference occurred when we asked about being the only person of your race in a professional situation, and it was a bit sobering. 47 percent of Black women, and that's almost half, say they are frequently or always the only person of color in a professional situation. By contrast, 73 percent of white women told us they are rarely the only person of their race in a professional setting. And this “onlyness,” as we know, has its costs. Black women are twice as likely as white to say that their work is viewed skeptically.

23 percent of Latinx and 17 percent of Asian women also held this view. 31 percent of Black women said their race and gender led to their job applications being viewed more skeptically. By contrast, only 17 percent of our white respondents felt that way. And the extra scrutiny can cause serious stress. Consider the confluence of the coronavirus pandemic, the lingering racial and economic divide, the “shecession” that occurred throughout 2020, and then just the recent events, quite disturbing, of January 6th. Leaders must think about how all of these phenomena truly felt as an only.

These findings are why we say to inclusive leaders that they should hire us and hire us in multiples. We believe the error of tokenism, of one and done is over, but look for potential, not perfection. And we ask inclusive leaders to be humble, courageous, and curious. Seek those who are not like you. Talent will be the differentiator in 2021 and beyond. Imagine the ROI for companies who approach this talent pool with a business model that creates a better sense of belonging and well-being for underrepresented talent.

Chitra: On the generational side, in terms of the similarity and difference that you found across the four generations?

Jacqui: We've referenced the difference earlier, and we've coined this new phrase to describe it, generational diversity. The boomers and Gen X women are in fact very different from the millennials and Gen Z women. We found that Black and Latinx women, especially again in these two younger cohorts, are much more innovative. As I said earlier, they're much more likely to be the first adopters of new technology. Our younger Black and Brown respondents said their work contributes to the social good to a far greater degree than the white or Asian women said.

And overall, these women are confident that they will control their careers. They're confident that they can find new jobs easily if or when they want them. In terms of similarities between the generations, when we asked our 4,005 respondents for advice for women of color in the workplace, the universal answer was never give up. With this level of ambition, we recommend action in a concept we call 40 allies and a stretch assignment. It's a takeoff on the attempt after the Civil War. Freed slaves were promised 40 acres and a mule.

They, as a rule, didn't receive that promise, but we can and we should embrace this concept again and stretch assignments can open incredible doors to productivity for the individual women and for the corporations and the economy as a whole.

Chitra:Your research revealed a consistent theme of women of color never giving up and having grit and the ability to trigger optimism in times of doubt and disappointment. Give an example from your own journeys and your playbook on how to marshal one's self to that place of actionable optimism.

Bonita: Sadly, my father passed away when I was a freshman in college, so you can imagine just the notion of never giving up and having grit. But it was through divine intervention. In my mid-career, I found a speech he wrote called “The Trail to Success.” I uncovered it in my visit to South Carolina, found it in my grandmother's house when she had passed. And this speech, the “Trail to Success,” included the four C's, character, concentration, culture, and courage. And I use this framework.

I use it now for everything, including major career pivots. It was courage that took me to Google in 2006, and that was over 15 years ago.

Chitra: And courage took you to Google because ... ? Or your reluctance was?

Bonita: Sometimes when you're making a career pivot, you're making a difficult decision. Sometimes you just have to put yourself out there. I had to nudge myself. I didn't have the parents nudging, but I had to just go deep within myself and say, "This is where I should be."

Skydeck is produced by the External Relations department at Harvard Business School and edited by Craig McDonald. It is available at iTunes and wherever you get your favorite podcasts. For more information or to find archived episodes, visit alumni.hbs.edu/skydeck.

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