As it happened, my grandpa only played one match for them before injury put paid to his rugby career. That was in 1921, but he wore this affiliation like a badge of honor right up until his death at the age of 99.  

The All Blacks were revered a hundred years ago, and they still are. This makes them a perfect case study for Professor Alex Hill, co-founder and director of the Centre for High Performance, a collaboration between Kingston University London, Duke University, London Business School, and the University of Oxford. 

Building Centennial Organizations

For more than a decade, he’s researched organizations that have outperformed their peers for over 100 years. In addition to the New Zealand All Blacks, he’s studied NASA, Eton College and the Royal Shakespeare Company, among other household names. 

Hill has identified 12 habits they share, looking at how they analyze success and failure, recruit great talent, and create new products and ideas. He lays these out in his new book, “Centennials,” and offers advice for others who aspire to such longevity today. 

In this clip from our Expert Interview, Hill reflects on how corporate behavior can embed itself from generation to generation. (You can stream the audio clip below or read a transcript here.)

The How and Why of Centennial Organizations

Hill acknowledges that not all organizations are in it for the long haul. Some don’t want to last 100 years, so for them, a focus on short-term returns is appropriate. 

“A lot of management thinking comes from business, and actually those principles and ideas are great if you want to burn bright, but then disappear,” he says. “But if you don’t want to do that and you want to build something that’s going to last, then you have to think in a very different way.” 

And this is a worthy goal, he believes, as “centennial” organizations deliver benefits for communities and society as a whole, as well as for themselves. 

“They help us solve bigger, more complex questions, things like climate change or poverty or health or education, where actually you’re building a collective knowledge in an institution that is growing over time. And you’re solving a problem which can’t just be solved quickly, where actually it might take many decades or many generations to actually work out how to fix it,” he explains. 

The 12 habits in Hill’s book provide a framework for organizations with such ambitions. The first six help to build a stable core, identifying a strong purpose for the work, developing stewardship, and fostering an open attitude toward the world. The last six focus on what he calls the “disruptive edge.” These habits encourage new ideas that propel organizations forward. 

The Power of Performing in Public

I was particularly struck by habit five, “perform in public,” about harnessing the power of strangers. Within an organization, it’s hard to see what you’re doing well – or not so well. Whereas, if you perform to a trusted stranger, you can learn a lot from their feedback, which may include fresh ideas from the outside, too. And of course, when we’re being watched, we almost always raise our game. 

“They’ve done lots of different studies around this, [and] they found that if you have a stranger present in a group, the group feels that they need to perform better,” says Hill. “So they will often be more rigorous in their discussion or their debates, they will explain things more clearly, they make [fewer] mistakes, and they often perform at a higher level because of that.”  

As a freelance producer, I’ve seen this firsthand. Often, I’m the stranger, going into organizations to record a podcast or interview employees. In these situations, I’ve noticed that people do tend to make an effort to act as professionally as they can. 

A few years ago, I produced a series of educational podcasts for a U.K.-based university. Each episode consisted of a roundtable discussion between academics teaching on a particular degree course. As soon as the microphones were set up, all the participants switched into “performance” mode. 

They listened attentively to one another, articulated their views with clarity and verve, and sometimes asked to redo something if they felt it could have been expressed better. If I hadn’t been there, the discussion may have been a bit more relaxed. But it might not have been as useful for the audience of students. 

Outside Observation Brings Centennial Results

Hill says he’s seen performance work in all sorts of situations. 

“You start to realize that every high-performing organization has a performance, and sometimes it happens very naturally, like an Olympic Games or a World Cup or a moon landing – this moment where they have to really perform,” he says.  

“But other organizations where it doesn’t happen naturally will artificially create it. So, like the Royal College of Art has open studios, where strangers can walk through, or they’ll get students to do shows where people can come.” 

It’s an effective way for organizations to practice the mindset they need to last for 100 years. 

The post The Centennial Mindset: My Expert Interview With Alex Hill appeared first on Mind Tools.

If you think racism is a U.S.-only issue, think again. If you believe solving racism is best left to governments, think again. If you're under the impression racial equity is just a new twist on racial equality, think again. And if you think racial equity is just another training program to roll out, then, yes – think again.

Every society has centers of influence, such as education, religion, healthcare, and government. The workplace is another of these centers. From the industrial revolution to the digital revolution, the workplace has been where we experience change in the making.

Business leaders around the globe are now leading another transformation: creating a workplace that reflects the multicultural world in which we live.

Business Leads Change

For several decades, the global communications firm, Edelman, has conducted an annual trust and credibility study. They call it The Edelman Trust Barometer. Last year's results (of 38,000 respondents from 28 countries) found that "business," once again, is the most trusted source. Sixty-one percent of respondents said they trust business, ahead of NGOs at 59 percent, government at 52 percent, and media at 50 percent. This puts business leaders in the best position to advance racial equity in the workplace, and in turn, society.

What Is Racial Equity?

Through our own exploration, we define equity as a measure of diversity and inclusion, which together make DEI (or EDI). Neither finite nor absolute, "E" measures how and to what extent "D" and "I" are embedded into an organization’s business strategy and every business policy and practice. An organization's "E" perpetually monitors and, as necessary, recalibrates "D" and "I" to stay ahead of potential relapse and continually advance toward an antiracist workplace.

When something is a little tricky to understand, sometimes it's helpful to describe what isn't. Racial equity is not a Black Lives Matter statement on your company's website; it's not an addendum to your company's values statement; it's not checking a box for Human Resources that confirms you sponsored or attended a workshop on unconscious bias; it's not writing a check to your favorite non-profit organization. It takes more than that to embed equity in your organization.

Equity Versus Equality

We are often asked, "So what's the difference between equity and equality?" We believe that the Annie E. Casey Foundation describes it best:

"Equi­ty involves try­ing to under­stand and give peo­ple what they need to enjoy full, healthy lives. Equal­i­ty, in con­trast, aims to ensure that every­one gets the same things in order to enjoy full, healthy lives. Like equi­ty, equal­i­ty aims to pro­mote fair­ness and jus­tice, but it can only work if every­one starts from the same place and needs the same things."

The Racial Equity Continuum

Before you can embed racial equity into your business strategy, you must define what racial equity means for your organization specifically. Equity is a relative newcomer to the diversity and inclusion space. Many DEI professionals and business leaders alike are still wrestling with what it means and how to implement it.

Two internal DEI professionals, from two different global companies (one tech, one research), recently shared with us how their organizations define equity:

1. When there are no systemic biases that impact the employee lifecycle.
2. When race is no longer a predictor of our outcomes.

Notice how the first definition does not mention race, while the second one does.

By not specifically mentioning race in its definition, it may signal that this organization is “race tentative,” to use the term the Annie E. Casey Foundation uses in its learning continuum for race-focused work (see figure below). The continuum shows the stages an organization goes on in its journey toward embedding equity.

After decades of work, some organizations have moved from "color-blind" (avoids or shuts down conversations about race, believing it will only create unmanageable discord), to "diversity-only" (proposes universal strategies that are presumed to work for all employees), to "race-tentative" (employees or management has gone through antiracism or unconscious bias training, but the organization is still unclear about what to do next), and now to "equity-focused"(measures are in place for management accountability). This transformation doesn’t happen overnight. It requires intention, commitment and resources.

Conversation Is Key

Another DEI professional we interviewed for our book, The Business of Race, was Nereida Perez, from the global spice company McCormick. Perez believes that understanding workplace racial equity surfaces from cross-functional conversations about how your company will measure progress, like you do for any other strategic business priority. "What I've seen in the industry is the term 'equity’ being introduced, but these deeper conversations are not happening," Perez told us.

We agree. Your definition of racial equity will only surface through deep conversations – and not solely with your most senior team. One of the resounding themes from the more than two dozen business leaders we interviewed was that you cannot do this work in a vacuum: you must engage your employees and other key collaborators.

Racial Equity in Action

Once you commit to having deeper conversations on what racial equity means for your organization, you can then begin to examine your policies and practices to see how racially equitable they are. But don't try to tackle every policy and practice at once.

Instead, pick one. Then create a diverse, cross-functional team to examine the current state, define the desired state, set specific goals with clear accountabilities, identify measures, and then report on progress – just like you do for other strategic priorities.

Want to take it a step further? Tie a percentage of executive compensation to the achievement of your racial equity goals, like Starbucks, Prudential Financial, and other companies have done.

Closing the Wage Gap

Let's take a closer look at one thing that we can all relate to, regardless of where we sit in an organization: compensation.

A September 2020 report by the global banking and financial services company, Citigroup, found a plethora of inequities between Black and White communities in the U.S. Specific to the workplace, the economists found income levels peak for Black men sooner and lower (ages 45–49, $43,849) than for White men (ages 50–54, $66,250).

Pay inequities related to race are not unique to the U.S. According to the Resolution Foundation, Black male university graduates are paid 17 percent less than White male university graduates in the U.K. – the equivalent of £3.90 an hour, or £7,000 over a year. And Black female university graduates are paid 9 percent less than White female university graduates, or £3,000 less over a year.

Fixing Pay Inequity

To combat this trend, we recommend organizations conduct a pay equity analysis, that includes a focus on race, to establish a baseline. Be transparent in your reporting of where you are today and identify steps with clear accountabilities to close the gaps. Repeat the process annually to measure progress, just like you would for any other strategic priority.

What will you gain by ensuring your pay is racially equitable? A competitive advantage. You'll be more likely to attract and retain talent when they know there is fair compensation.

A growing number of U.S. federal states and local municipalities have passed laws requiring employers of a minimum number of employees (some as few as one) to disclose salary ranges or minimum/maximum wages for open positions and in some cases, current positions. Some innovative companies, like software development firm Truss, implemented pay transparency long before it was mandated. Why? Because they knew it would attract and retain more diverse talent.

If the state or city you do business in has not enacted pay transparency laws, get ahead of the curve and begin this work now. Competition for talent continues to be at or near the top of the greatest business challenges list of nearly every executive we work with.

The Journey to Equity

Embedding racial equity into your business strategy is a journey. A journey that will be both exciting and daunting. One that is fraught with missteps and filled with surprising giant steps. A journey that is both self-reflective and other-focused. What's one actionable step you can take to advance a more racially equitable workplace?

About the Authors

Margaret H. Greenberg and Gina Greenlee are executive coaches, organizational development (OD) consultants, and the coauthors of "The Business of Race: How to Create and Sustain an Antiracist Workplace and Why It's Actually Good for Business" (McGraw-Hill, 2021).

They recently added two more cohorts of their 6-part, live series, Embedding Racial Equity into Your Business Strategy. One cohort kicks off January 19th 4:00-5:30 pm EST (UTC -5) and the other on January 23th 7:00-8:30 am (UTC -5). See their website to learn more and reserve your virtual seat.

The post Embedding Racial Equity in Your Business Strategy appeared first on Mind Tools.