As a Black man who worked at the highest levels of corporate America, James White says it’s time to take more direct action in the fight for social justice. Throughout White’s thirty-plus years of experience as an operating executive, the former CEO and Chairman of Jamba Juice has made diversity, equity and inclusion the driving force of his leadership vision.
In the book Anti-Racist Leadership: How to Transform Corporate Culture in a Race-Conscious World, White argues there are deep-rooted reasons behind corporate America’s failure to be fully inclusive. He co-wrote the book with his daughter Krista White during the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.
“One of the big topics of discussion over the last couple of years is the issue around structural and systemic racism,” White says. “The way to combat that, to build better companies is to take a hard look at the systems that operate inside a company. What are the structures and what are the key processes? And where might those systems, structures and processes have places that are biased against someone or specific groups inside our companies and work to reverse those?”
What is an Inclusive Workplace Culture?
An inclusive workplace culture is one where people of different backgrounds and perspectives are valued. White says inclusive leadership has to be built into a company’s DNA. He says inclusive leadership begins with middle management.
“You need to deliver to that group the right set of tools, training and incentives to make sure that you can embed and build more sustainable activities around the work of anti-racist leadership and inclusive leadership inside the company,” he says.
White adds that empathy is a key part of the journey.
“We looked at my career and the career of some of the others that we interviewed,” he says. “The common through-line was, the capacity to try to understand the other person’s point of view and translate that into some actions. The capability around empathy is going to be a critical one for leaders in the future.”
White says while every leader may not be empathetic, empathy is something that can be learned.
“One of the ways to do that is to think about our own stories, to listen to other people’s stories, and try to synthesize those in ways that allow you to build a more cohesive culture inside of companies,” he says.
CEO-Driven Change
White says CEOs need to do more than say they support diversity, they have to live it. One of the first things he did as head of Jamba Juice was audit the company’s culture to see what changes needed to be made. White says feedback from all of the key stakeholders is important, but it’s ultimately the leader’s job to determine the company’s direction and stay true to the plan.
“The CEO has to oversee this work, she can’t delegate the work to someone else,” he says. “The anti-racist leadership work is connected to culture and you’d never delegated the culture of your company. Therefore you have to be involved.”
White says the CEO is responsible for setting the company’s agenda and communicating how this relates to its strategy and values. But he says that doesn’t eliminate the need for a Chief Diversity Officer.
“When there is a Chief Diversity Officer in place, that Chief Diversity Officer reports to the CEO,” he says. “That’s one of the things I think is critically important and even if it’s not a direct report to the CEO. That role needs to have appropriate scope and responsibility and be fully integrated into the work of the company across functions.”
Research shows that diverse companies perform better. When White started at Jamba Juice, he notes that 80% of the company’s management was white men. By the end of his first year, half of Jamba Juice’s management was made of women and people of color. Within three years, Jamba Juice’s market cap jumped 500%.
How to Begin
Don’t expect to see changes overnight. Transforming to an inclusive culture may require several years of effort. White says the transformation begins with seven steps:
- Actively listen and learn: Set up roundtable discussions or town halls to take the pulse of your organization. Successful meetings will focus more on listening rather than talking. Allow employees to ask questions.
- Enlist and align across the senior leadership team: Get commitment from people at various levels of the organization, especially top management. Alignment typically starts with making the business case for DEI.
- Audit the culture: Conduct internal or external surveys managed by third-party auditors to determine if your corporate culture is working for stakeholders. With the data, determine if there are systemic ways in which some people are being held back.
- Document what you are doing now: Assess what programs and practices are working and what needs to improve. Don’t try to interpret the findings of the audit – compile and present the facts like how many LGBTQ people you have in your organization or how many white people are in your management ranks.
- Establish benchmarks: Measure progress quarterly and annually against your goals and how they compare with industry competitors. Set specific goals like how many women or people of color you want in senior management and by when.
- Build action-learning teams or task forces: Create small groups to work on problems in the organization and come up with solutions. The teams should work closely with the CEO and other leaders to support the effort.
- Develop an action plan: Factor in everything you’ve learned and draw up a blueprint with how the changes will be incorporated over the next few years. Examples of goals can include increasing supplier diversity, creating a comprehensive DEI training program or forming employee resource groups for underrepresented employees.
“The great place to start is to examine where you are and get clear around that,” White says. “Then the second big step is to determine what your ambition is with this work and how it fits into your strategy and values in your company. Then get started and take action.”
