Inclusion Revolution

9Build Support Scaffolding

Success is not a solo sport. Everyone needs support along their career path. Without it, you're operating at a deficit. Too often, marginalized folks lack support, while their white peers seem to have an unlimited safety net and crew of champions and cheerleaders. In the 1970s, Pope Consulting conducted a study at a pharmaceutical company where Black engineers were falling behind in their progress and deliverables compared to white engineers (Pope Consulting 2020). Well ahead of the times, rather than push out underperforming engineers, the staff hired a consultant to study the issue. Turns out, the closed social networks prevented Black engineers from getting the mentorship, peer advice, and support they needed to succeed. White managers were uncomfortable mentoring (or befriending) Black staff. Perhaps these managers tended to hire and cultivate staff that reminded them of themselves—that's affinity bias. And white peers were uncomfortable extending friendship to Black staff.

This social unease, lack of support, and sense of inequality profoundly affected performance. When new white engineers had questions, they just asked other white engineers and got on track immediately. Yet Black new hires were afraid of revealing what they didn't know and so went to the library to study what to do—losing valuable time and dramatically slowing their onboarding process and productivity. “Black employees told us that they were fearful of asking too many questions ...