Ted Audio Collective

After the racial reckoning in America during the summer of 2020, many employees, particularly

people of color and women, wanted to know what their organizations were doing to increase

diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.

They demanded change.

We received similar inquiries at Columbia Business School, and in response, we formed

a race, diversity, and inclusion task force.

The goal was to thoroughly understand the experiences of students, faculty, staff, and alumni, and

develop recommendations to ensure the educational environment we offered was inclusive and anti-racist.

My co-chair, this 32-person task force, which held listening sessions with different members

of the community.

And you know what the hardest part of these listening sessions was?

Listening, and not interrupting, or justifying, or correcting, or whatever, for instance.

People would say things like, the school needs to do x, y, z, and rather than saying,

we have a database that does just that, and we even made it user-friendly, so you can get

that information with one click.

We just sat and listened, which was the right response, because it's incredibly important

to honor the voices and experiences of those willing to share their thoughts.

Not to mention, if they weren't aware of the existing system in place, then clearly there

was some disconnect we needed to own.

So in situations like this, one question that emerges is, how do we engage people in the

right way without alienating them, appearing defensive, or being performative?

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