Today I speak with Jen Stark and Jarrid Green, Co-Directors, of the Center for Business and Social Justice. We candidly discuss how DEI and other topics became flashpoints and ideological hostages rather than sustained corporate efforts, and how companies can break this cycle. We explore the questions executives and boards are asking, how companies can respond to activist shareholders and continue to promote fairness and equity while also fulfilling their responsibility to ensure strong financial performance – and why we’re “beyond the business case” so we can adapt our narrative. Jen and Jarrid offer valuable advice on how everyone from the C-suite to DEIB and CSR professionals in the trenches can stay motivated and respond.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- You cannot be neutral anymore. Consumers want to know what their money will support and want to be value aligned.
- Be authentic with yourself – you need to understand why you are doing what you are doing.
- Lean into your smaller, individual communities. Mass media and social media information sharing is not enough.
“We’ve left the era of case-making. There are enough data points, surveys, and white papers that if it is was just rational thought governing business decisions, you’d be in a different place.” — Jen Stark
Episode References:
- Kerner Report: pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/bombshell-political-report
- The Center’s Social Justice Guidebook: bsr.org/en/focus/equity-inclusion-and-justice
- How to Survive a Plague by David France: penguinrandomhouse.com/books/209900/how-to-survive-a-plague-by-david-france
- Suffs: The Musical: suffsmusical.com
From Our Partner:
SparkEffect partners with organizations to unlock the full potential of their greatest asset: their people. Through their tailored assessments and expert coaching at every level, SparkEffect helps organizations manage change, sustain growth, and chart a path to a brighter future.
Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.
About Jen Stark and Jarrid Green, Co-Directors, Center or Business and Social Justice
Jen Stark is a strategy development and implementation expert at complex health and humanitarian organizations with 20+ years of experience. She launched BSR’s Center for Business and Social Justice in 2022 alongside Jarrid Green to illuminate a path for companies to shift from performative to transformational actions with a focus on public policy engagement and influence. She is frequently cited in business press on flashpoint topics and is an advisor to Gauge.ai and GoFundMe’s Compassion Leadership Network.
Jarrid Green co-designs and implements programmatic efforts alongside Jen Stark for the Center for Business and Social Justice, an initiative of BSR that seeks to mobilize companies to take systemic and intersectional approaches to their social impact efforts. Jarrid’s role includes developing research, thought leadership, frameworks, and capacity-building opportunities related to corporate social impact strategies. He also provides collaborative oversight and direction for the Center’s organizational and administrative functions, and acilitates the execution of the Center’s ongoing corporate, civil society stakeholder, and donor activities.
Connect with Jen and Jarrid:
Business for Social Responsibility: bsr.org/en/collaboration/groups/center-for-business-and-social-justice
Jen Stark LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jenstark
Jarrid Green LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jarridgreenmba
Connect with Maria:
Get Maria’s books on empathy: Red-Slice.com/books
Learn more about Maria’s work: Red-Slice.com
Hire Maria to speak: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy
LinkedIn: Maria Ross
Instagram: @redslicemaria
Facebook: Red Slice
Threads: @redslicemaria
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Maria Ross 00:04
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business, social justice work and dei are flashpoints at the moment. We all see this, and it boggles my mind, because the data so starkly proves how these initiatives boost performance, ensure better business decisions, mitigate risk and increase customer loyalty. So if these actions create more shareholder value, why the current backlash? Today, I speak with Jen Stark and Jarrid Green, co directors of the Center for Business and Social Justice. The Center advances social justice and equity by mobilizing and equipping companies to take a systemic and intersectional approach to social justice and equity initiatives. We candidly discuss how dei and other topics become flashpoints and ideological hostages rather than sustained corporate efforts, and how companies can break this cycle. We explore the questions executives and boards are asking how companies can respond to activist shareholders and continue to promote fairness and equity while also fulfilling their responsibility to ensure strong financial performance, and why we’re beyond the business case so we can adapt our narrative. Jen and Jarrid offer valuable advice on how everyone from the C suite to deib and CSR professionals in the trenches can stay motivated and respond. Here’s a little more about both of our guests. Jen Stark has 20 plus years of experience as a strategy, development and implementation expert at complex health and humanitarian organizations, and she launched bsrs Center for Business and Social Justice in 2022 alongside Jarrid Green to illuminate a path for companies to move forward, past performative actions into transformational impact, with a focus on public policy engagement and influence, Jarrid Green co designs and implements programmatic efforts alongside Jen and his role includes developing research thought leadership frameworks and capacity building opportunities related to corporate social impact strategies. He facilitates the center’s ongoing corporate civil society stakeholder and donor activities. This is the conversation we need to have right now. So take a listen. Welcome Jen Stark and Jarrid Green to the up at the edge podcast. We’re going to talk about dei and social responsibility and transformation and impact to success and all the things today. So I am delighted to have you both on the show. Thank you so much for having us, Maria, so this is going to be fun. So I want to hear first, you know, we heard about your bios. We heard about your organization, the Center for Business and Social Justice, but tell us how each of you individually came to this work. Tell us a little bit about your story. Jen, why don’t you start
Jen Stark 03:38
Sure? Maria, I came to this work. I was managing the disaster fundraising team at American Red Cross national headquarters, back just before Hurricane Katrina hit what was then one of the most you know, historic disasters of her time that since been you know, subsumed many times over and got to see firsthand the power of the private sector when it brought its talent resources and commitment to meeting urgent needs and long term recovery, and it really opened my eyes to again by whether it was the tech sector unleashing and again, this was in the early days of social media, you know, unleashing their power to create a safe and well website so folks in disaster shelters could check in and let their loved ones know where they are to ways. You know, other companies that you know, if they had nothing more than, you know, trailers on trucks to use to transport items to the Gulf Coast. You know, we’re signing up in all kinds of ways. And it was, you know, a time when everyone was leaning in and really empathy and action, yeah, ways, it was very inspiring. And now I say kind of half jokingly, I’ve experienced, you know, disasters all the way from, you know, natural. Man made that sort of brought me to this moment, and what I think the private sector is really capable of,
Maria Ross 05:04
I love that we are very much aligned on that, because I really believe that there is a power and an influence for good that so many of these powerful, well resourced organizations have, and that’s really what my work is about, is helping them be a catalyst for good and use their platforms for good. So I love it. Jarrid, how about you? How’d you get into this work? All right,
Jarrid Green 05:26
I’ll just lean into a little bit of curiosity. I think where I got to be a wonderful co director with Jen here is just being curious about what opportunities there are for business to actually achieve social impact, being really intentional about what they were trying to address when they talk about social impact. We’re the CO directors for the Center for Business and Social Justice. So that was, of course, at the forefront of our minds and our thinking around the center. And it, of course, was at the forefront in the minds of folks around the globe, right? Yeah, coming out of 2020 we saw some really unfortunate events with folks dying at the hands and public safety officers, and seeing some of the systemic connections that led to that, and the reparations throughout the globe for that in terms of inequality, wealth inequality, gender inequality, those kinds of things. And so I’ve been fortunate enough to have some experience in nonprofit advocacy, some working with think tanks prior to this, and working right just for this role, working in philanthropy and actually supporting groups on a number of issues, working foundations and their efforts to support across civic and social justice issues, groups that were on the ground trying to build communities, trying to address real, challenging problems like criminal justice reform, which crosses ideological lines in terms of support folks who are Trying to build wealth and really underserved under Resources, communities otherwise, and of course, in the throes of the pandemic, which really exacerbated and put on display some of the inequalities and inequities that we experience. And so the constellation of having seen try to intervene in some of these questions in terms of, how do we advance social justice? How do we create a better world that is more inclusive and has lots of opportunity for all folks. Was something I experienced about my career in different roles, in profit, advocacy, intermediary work or in philanthropy before I got to BSR, but I came to BSR because I was just so excited at the opportunity to see, especially given the momentum, where can business achieve impact, whether through internal operations or externally, how can they actually achieve impacts on social justice causes?
Maria Ross 07:23
So I want to get to that question. And I just want to talk about, what do the businesses or organizations that come to you, what are they requesting? And this is kind of a two part question, what do they believe social impact is? And I assume, like my work is all about, they must assume there’s an ROI to that as well. Like we can do good for ourselves and for others. So first, like, if you kind of break that apart, what are they coming to you? What challenges or questions do they have when they’re coming to you? And how did they define social impact? Jen, maybe start with
Jen Stark 07:56
you. Sure. I say this quite often, and I remember back in 2020 when there was a business, an academic Business Press article that talked about the new era of corporate social justice, back in 2020 and often I think back, and I look back at this headline, and I think, if only right, fast forward to where we are in 2025 so just by way, just a tiny bit of background. So BSR, where the Center for Business and Social Justice sits is comprised of a network of 300 plus of the world’s largest companies headquartered in the US or globally. Typically, you know, large companies, complex value chains, and, you know, all the corporate functions and bells and whistles across every industry. So I would say the questions that I’ve experienced since we’ve launched the center have really run the gamut from, you know, reacting to current flash points on issues which I know we’re going to talk quite a great deal about, dei and the cross hairs, what I think we’ve aspired to be is also a couple clicks ahead of where businesses are at the end of the day, corporate social responsibility, corporate social impact, only got us so far, and There’s a lot of unmet, chronic gaps that require larger systemic change that through some of the resources we’ve put out without kind of any pay wall or barrier to entry or social justice guide for business, and a lot of the other materials that we put out are trying to connect the dots for companies, because there is a growing ecosystem of folks of champions and executives across all kinds of businesses that are really seeking a more methodical approach on these issues, whereas often they devolve into, what does our General Counsel say we can or cannot do, or what is the PR play? Here, and there’s so much in the middle that just gets sort of kicked down the road from Flashpoint to flash point.
Maria Ross 10:09
And so kind of back to the original question, though, what kinds of things? If you can give us some examples of what are some of the issues you’re discussing and the things that companies are looking to make the business case for those that are still kind of committed, how did they define social impact?
Jen Stark 10:27
Jarrid, I know you’ve been tracking closely on a lot of the incoming questions,
Jarrid Green 10:31
yeah. Oh, I so many good question in terms of recent showing us here, I think I really want to say, you know, no secret that in the past few years that companies have been trying to respond to the fall of row and then the Dobbs decision in 2022 right? Yep. And so many different SCOTUS companies are like, Well, I just know that it was the year before the affirmative action decision in 2023 right? I don’t, I mean, I’m sure that we did have decisions last year, including, you know, administrative rule making all sorts of attacks, different sort of policies and sort of precedent in the country in terms of how we went about doing things for decades that built the economy that we know and that created the business operating landscape that we live in. And so I just mentioned too, right, major laws that saw dramatic change and shifts that businesses needed to respond to. And so since we launched the center in 2022 right, we of course, have been have been trying to provide businesses with guidance, advice and peer learning spaces where they can talk to other colleagues, whether in their industry or across industry, about what they’re doing, how to navigate this moment. I used to say a lot, and I should say still, right is that businesses are full of people. There are real people who work at companies. I think we typically in the media, it’s really easy to see the brand and associate business with a brand. And businesses are brands, right? They’ve got to protect their interests. And the discussion we’re having right is, how do companies actually be a business, a for profit enterprise, and at the same time take into account but the fact that their for profit enterprise is fueled by individuals and people from communities and different backgrounds. And so naturally, with the two decisions I just named and some of the other ones right that companies have had to navigate around reproductive care, abortion access, you know, diverse talent pools and workforces, inclusive works, places and environments that work for folks to help them mitigate the risk of litigation or, you know, blind spots when it comes to discrimination, that those are the things that folks are coming to us with questions around and how folks are navigating that internally, on their own organizations, what their strategy should be globally, even because what’s happening in United States is happening in the United States, it has influenced globally. But there’s actually global regulations and policies that are afoot as well. But
Maria Ross 12:39
when you say that, that’s a big thing. So what is it they actually are asking? Are they asking for what benefits do we need to offer? What does our public stance need to be about this? How do we need to structure the organization to better address it like, what are the things that they’re asking when they are faced with those decisions or those changes in policy? Is it all of the above. Yes,
Jen Stark 13:01
all of the above. How do we adapt or increase? How do we leverage what’s within our walls? What are the workplace policies, practices, benefits? How does inform or influence physically where we have footprint and that may or may not make us subject to local jurisdiction around data privacy or other kinds of things, yeah, especially, you know, focus on the US. Yeah, more fragmentation between states. This is just sort of more cost and chaos for business to try to navigate what might be, you know, right, in one state, on any number of issues, is criminal in another. This is, you know, a lot for companies to mitigate all the way to, what does it look like to stay the course in a public fashion, in a private fashion, and I think increasing, as we’ve seen in, you know, since, you know, in the last two weeks alone, companies sort of also self sorting into those that seek and secure federal contracts, and therefore are vulnerable to direct retaliatory action as it comes to their bottom line, and those that aren’t affected by that, and therefore, then how do their scenarios differ in terms of the past that they’ll pursue on a number of issues? So I think this is exactly from the inside out we’re seeing companies have to sort of put all the puzzle pieces on the table in a cross functional way, lean into some scenarios that, if we were to have offered them up to companies 12 months ago, we might have been seen as hysterical, but now is sort of a version of reality that companies need to sift through. Yeah. So I think we’re seeing a bit of everything. This, how this, how current events are hitting across all corporate
Maria Ross 14:45
functions, and I think we forget that. That’s why I wanted thank you so much for pointing out those specifics, because we hear the headlines, but we don’t really understand how it actually impacts businesses from an operational perspective. You know? I mean, I. Had guests on the show that talk about, you know, being able to do business travel on behalf of their companies. And I’ve had transgender folks say, I have to be careful where I travel, where my company sends me. So these are things we don’t think about when we think about the repercussions, the real life repercussions, of some of these policies that are, you know, in my opinion, very misguided, but I know other people have opinions about that. I’d love to get back to this human aspect you talked about. Obviously, we understand it’s people behind the company. And that’s, you know, the work I do is about empathy. Has a place in the workplace, because anywhere you have people having to collaborate with other people, you need empathy. So are you finding and maybe Jarrid, this is a question for you. Are you finding that, given what’s happening, are these individuals as humans conflicted with what they have to do in service of protecting their company and playing the game versus what they in their hearts would like to do to promote equity and opportunity. I assume they’re probably not coming to you if they’re not conflicted so. But can you share a little bit about their mindset right now and kind of where their hearts and minds are? I mean, I think
Jarrid Green 16:13
you hit the nail on the head. I think we work with individuals, right? People who have roles in government affairs, dei leads, sustainability, professionals, corporate social respect, responsibility, professional supply chain folks. You know, we’ve seen, we put out materials covering a range of topics and social justice, of course, more broadly. And we’ve seen engagement from folks who are working in different functions across business organizations and at different levels too. So yes, exclamation point on the fact that we’re working with people here, and it’s important to that again, business is not some sort of figurative thing that exists in the world without people behind them, and that diversity, equity, inclusion and practice professional within one company is going to want to maybe talk about what their practice is, what the best practices are, what their lessons learned with folks from a different company, right? It’s not, yeah, the walls, just like with any other sector, there are individuals and roles that want to know what the best way of doing things is, and then want to think about how to tail that with to their company. And so I talked with an individual today at a major consumer brands company, and they talked about this sort of personal to professional conflict. They, of course, you know, in this we were talking about in the context of gender equity and what is right for company to do on gender equality and how they, at the same time, have to navigate their the private sector landscape and even the legal landscape with the scrutiny that’s afoot. And think about, how do I ensure this work surprise continues? I could dig my feet in the ground and say that I think this work should look like this, and these are my values and that kind of thing. But the same time, if I do that, then I’m stuck with that, right? I need to also try to evolve, because at the end of the day, as Jen and I stress a lot, it’s about the outcomes. Like, we don’t want to be a tooth and we don’t want to water down things, there’s a risk to trying to escape talking about something plainly and trying to clear outcomes, right, especially given the history of this country and the history of the globe. But we also want to endure moments, and we also want our best ideas, our best outcomes, to come up. But I just want to quickly, sort of touch back on the loop this to something you named earlier, right? We are working with people. There is a human aspect. People are conflicted. When people come to us, it’s important to remember we’re not legal, right? And so they have their own legal teams who which are also people, right, who have their own practice and experience and profession, and they’re going to look at things with their point of view to try to, you know, protect their own jobs and roles, and also, it’s the organization they’re seeking to protect. And so what we do is try to offer a point of view, and we can offer that point of view through research and data that we put out, we can offer guidance on how folks should talk to their CEOs. So we talk about empathy. How do we persuade? How do we give the data anecdotal talking points that are going to convince the CEO pick up for their internal operations or external operations otherwise? And then also connections, of course, I mentioned peer learning, but how they talk to their other peers in their field, and then how to do this work. So it’s a very personal effort, but yeah, I know it from the way that
Maria Ross 19:05
I know it’s hard. A lot of my, like I mentioned earlier, a lot of my work is about making the business case for a lot of this and but I also a brand strategist and a marketer from my background, so I also understand that data alone doesn’t persuade we’ve got to have stories. We have to have human to human connection. We have to have an understanding of how this actually impacts real lives. But then, when I do exercise that left brain, analytical part of myself that is not as strong as other people, I’m like, but the data like, it’s good, you know, if we’re talking about just shareholder value, these are the right things to do to enable the company to thrive and be sustainable and make better business decisions. And this is what I love about the younger generations coming into the workforce, is they actually link diversity of thought with business outcomes. It’s not just it’s yes for them, it is the right thing to do. But. But it also is something that leads to a better decision, because you are able to see more risk. You’re able to uncover more opportunities when you have diverse voices and perspectives at the table. It just makes business sense. So how is it not crazy making to you as you do this work? And Jen, maybe this one’s to you when you know that this impact directly leads to bottom line results. If we’re being really crass about it 100%
Jen Stark 20:28
and I think I often use that term, yes, I’m about to be really crass about Well, I think we’ve left the era of case making. Yeah, there is enough data points and surveys and white papers that if it was just rational thought governing business decisions, you would be in a different place so much when it comes to equity, around tax policy and common sense regulation ensure the dignity of workers and their health, all kinds of things right? The fact that you know policies around protecting workers from extreme heat don’t pass because of outsized influence. I mean, there’s so many examples, so yeah, with that
Maria Ross 21:07
little flash, I guess that’s like, why is this exactly?
Jen Stark 21:10
So, you know, but I do think I heard melody Hobson say this on CNBC the other day, where she talked about she used this phrase where she said, math doesn’t discriminate and talent is evenly distributed. And I just thought that was such a great bumper sticker in that we can oftentimes, again, kind of get in our own way, again, with, you know, the academic papers and the survey data and the research, but when you don’t have the kind of workplace that values the diversity of thought and idea and experiences. There’s not only the near term impact, but all of these sort of unknown, long term costs. And the fact that this, you know, we’ll talk about dei in particular, like other functions was evolving in, you know, all kinds of ways with more orientation around, you know, impact and outcome. And at the same time, you had this sort of rising tide of a very politically driven, sort of, you know, online, you know, driven opposition. It just became this real cauldron that has us sometimes asking the wrong questions about, How do we improve? Sort of, what’s behind a lot of these practices that you know lead to a lot of cost benefit for business, and not do so in a way where we say, well, the whole theory of change and you know, how workplaces were, you know, evolving again in important ways to be more effective and productive, that somehow we need to roll that back. So I think we’re kind of taking too broad a brush, and unfortunately, there’s a lot of fuel for that fire right now. Yeah. So
Maria Ross 22:55
how are you now talking to people, if we’re sort of like, beyond the business case, maybe not the people working with you, but you know the public at large trying to continue to make sure that these efforts continue, that the progress continues. How have you changed your approach, if at all, given the current climate? And Jarrid, yeah, go ahead.
Jarrid Green 23:19
We have done and I think we knew this when we launched the center and put out our social justice guy, that we kind of moved past the need to make the business case right for business investment and societal programs or building inclusive, diverse and equitable workplaces. We’d move past it, because right, I think, in my hunch,
Maria Ross 23:38
but into what did you move to? Yeah, oh yeah,
Jarrid Green 23:41
I would say we moved past that because practitioners knew that, and business leaders knew it. It was obvious, plain as day. Is why we wanted to do it for the reasons you name, right, stronger organizations, more profitable
Maria Ross 23:51
enterprises, more engagement, better loyalty, all the things, yeah, where we
Jarrid Green 23:55
were was trying to actually bring folks together, to actually elevate best practices on certain topics, and while also navigating flash points right? And what we’d seen was folks engaging on a flash point while they’re trying to advance best practice work, and the flashpoints were so loud and so disruptive to the good work without being, in some cases, good faith in their effort to actually improve the work right we see, I say, Bad Faith Efforts right to advance and in progress that folks have made to create a society where we all can go to work, do our jobs in a safe and welcoming environment, and go home and feed our families and live in an affordable home and seek out opportunity. Otherwise, that’s maybe the core bread and butter what we all maybe want to do with our lives, without getting into the nuances of each particular constituency right and have our civil rights upheld, but tragically, given the media, the data, all the resources available to us and everything that I mean to point fingers, but just given our environment, you know, we as a culture are susceptible to whatever the loudest word. Voice in the room can be despite, right? Not that voice could should be tempered, given the facts and the reality, right? I see you have a question. Yeah,
Maria Ross 25:07
I was going to say, so does that make your focus more on we’re not going to try to do any more convincing of the skeptics. We’re going to try to bolster the people that believe. Is that fun?
Jarrid Green 25:19
Yeah, but what’s shifted is the reality that we, yes, there are constituency of companies and leaders who we can continue to try to input some ambition into. Let’s look 10. I love that.
Maria Ross 25:32
Input some ambition. That’s right. Support their
Jarrid Green 25:34
ambition. Let’s, let’s also recommend some future forward facing things. But the reality today’s world, right, as we see it unfolding rapidly, and I mean literally unfolding. The number one guidance I have for companies right now is talk to your legal team and talk to them about and bring your company’s values and the work that you all have been doing to the conversation, so that you’re not just getting a strictly legal opinion and point of view, but bring in the realities of the entire conversation into that conversation, because it’s important for your legal team. As you have this conversation, as you convince your other stakeholders to know what the global context is, to know how things differ between geographies, to understand how your industry is working, that kind of thing. So
Maria Ross 26:11
can you give me an example? And Jen, I see you wanting to jump in here. Can you give me an example, like a scenario, of that? But Jen, also add your point, please. Yeah. I was
Jen Stark 26:18
just going to say and to make you know of the couple sort of recommendations that we have for business right now, in this moment, it’s about engaging with legal counsel, but in a way that that becomes the floor and not the ceiling. That’s not the ambition for the work right? That’s to ensure that you know what you’re doing is, in fact, consistent with the law, and pulling apart, what’s the law and versus what is meant to have a chilling effect, but is not, in fact, the law or legal. So that’s sort of step one, really tracking trends as far as how this is showing up in your workforce, as they might have questions related to, you know, dei benefits, policies and programs where, again, dei has shown up, perhaps not in name, but in practice, we often forget to think about things like access to paid sick days or paid family medical leave, right? I mean, dei isn’t just sort of one thing. Yeah, exactly so it’s really important to think about how many all workers can benefit from dei Programs and Practices before again, if we give too much oxygen to often, you know, detractors and folks that want to do this rollback. And then we have a couple other steps we recommend too. But it does get very tactical in terms of, you know, finding ways to ensure that company leadership and the board have a really, really understand the why, so that they can be re they can help reinforce, again, what’s legally required the company’s performance standings, and I think, as Jarrid often aptly says, will sort of outlast the current landscape and points of the moment. We also talk about how companies need to be mindful of having a diversity of stakeholders that they’re talking to within the company and outside of it again, so they’re not giving too much weight on the scale to any one single shareholder that’s, you know, aiming an arrow at the company. Well, that’s,
Maria Ross 28:24
I was going to actually bring that up the activist shareholders, and how some companies recently have folded, and how others, like Costco, have said, No, we’re doubling down. Yeah. What can companies do to withstand what I imagine is just a very vocal minority, but yet they’re caving in. What advice do you have? First of all, how do you see that? And also, what advice do you have about what we can learn from what Costco is doing on how to stand firm?
Jen Stark 28:54
I’ll just say quickly, to always consider the source, to examine that carefully before making an over correction. And the shareholder space has become what historically has been a very sophisticated mechanism that only a few activists have been able to find a pathway in has now become sort of this new lever for across the political spectrum, where folks are seeking action from business when government can’t or won’t lead. So it is this new battlefield that companies need to be wholly prepared for, and those that are will have cohesive responses, and those that don’t will engage in a kind of verbal jujitsu, if you will, or a kind of backsliding that damages the issues they pretended to support. Sorry, I’ll get
Maria Ross 29:54
a note box. No, no, I love it. I actually, for the first time ever, I have a me. Working soon with someone at the fund company that you know manages three quarters, two thirds of a trillion dollars. They’re making time to talk to me because I asked my financial planner, how can I have a voice on these proxy votes? I’ve never asked that in my life. I’m 52 years old. I’ve been investing in my 401 ks and mutual funds and all that since I was 21 and we need to do more of that. We need to make sure that there’s other voices being represented at that conversation. And there’s ways, you know, we can’t. We don’t have to just put our hands in the air and say, like, oh, well, my portfolio’s got a ton of things. So I don’t, actually, I’m not a direct shareholder. I don’t vote. You can make your voice heard, to your funded, to the advisors, to the managers of those funds. So I was just curious how you if you had any I love that advice of like checking the source. And what other advice would you have for C suite teams, for boards that are dealing with that pressure right now?
Jarrid Green 30:58
Jarrid, it’s actually not too far from checking the source right. The last two weeks, it’s checked the source and really read the What’s actually happening. Right? We can see companies and leaders thinking that it might be necessary to over correct, because a source that has historically an institution, has had some credibility, puts out a new directive or an executive order, for instance, and it’s all an example, a lot of verbiage, for instance, that is a lot of smoke, doom and gloom, and seems real consequential. But again, I go back to check with the legal because here’s the thing number one, if you read things closely and they talk about what might be unlawful activity, right? Diversity, equity, inclusion programs are actually lawful. And in fact, they have a fact, they have a long history of being lawful under constitution. And so the thing about companies may be moving too quickly because of flash point moments or because or optics or PR despite what actually is legal activity and legal programs, it may not feel like, oh, we can run the risk of moving so swiftly because we’d rather attract the attention of certain individuals or stakeholders and try to nip this in the bud. But the reality then, for what what was to what end is your enterprise doing efforts and programs to ensure that your organization, your company, is actually trying to achieve the goals and targets it’s been trying to achieve. To what end did you hire individuals to come into your company and think about ways to prevent and avoid harassment and discrimination and improve your workforce and have positive friends in the communities that actually are buying your products and supporting your entire business supply chain. To what end Are you up ending all of that because of a rush to not actually see it all through
Maria Ross 32:41
or a fear of retaliation. I think that’s very real for a lot of these companies. Of all of a sudden there’s going to be, you know, federal agency investigations or Justice Department investigations on our company if we don’t toe the line, right? I think that’s a very real and that’s to your point earlier of bringing in the legal team of, what are we really and also, you know, risk mitigation, what is our actual risk of exposure here if we continue to stay the course and stay true to our values,
Jen Stark 33:09
you know, building off of that too, though, what companies would be and practitioners and executive champions among your listeners would be remiss to Think about this as is that there’s some middle ground here that’s safe, like the sidelines are not the middle ground, even some fairly benign kinds of norms and practices that might exist within workforce that have large majority support, you know, are starting could come under closer and closer scrutiny. Is the kind of practices that say somebody, and, you know, an office holder or others, don’t want companies to hold. What will those red lines be for companies? I think, is an exercise that they’re having to figure out in real time. What that bridge too far is, I mean, going back to what we were talking about before, workforces and employees and sort of the tension that a lot of folks that have been really committed have been sort of part of this ecosystem and pipeline that’s growing within businesses. You know, they see their CEOs in different public settings, you know, towing various lines or doing what they feel like they need to do to keep the business going, and again, it this. 2025 is a different moment than 2020 than you know is 2017 just stating the obvious, and these tensions are just going to continue to unfold. There’s not going to be clear answers. Things are just going to be complicated. So all the more companies really need to apply a rigor that they have right, whether it’s, you know, a rigor that they have from how they’ve, you know, thought about, you know, human rights, if they operate, you know, across the globe and in various regions, if you know other different kind of competencies and expertise that they’ve had to develop, they have to bring to this to really identify. What are the decision points and what are the costs? Because, you know, I talked about how it’s no longer the era of case making. I think it’s also no longer the era of sort of like the double triple win right now. It’s decisions and costs, yeah, and
Maria Ross 35:12
no one can, and this has been happening for a while, just from the lens of my brand strategy and brand messaging work is you can’t be neutral anymore. This is not what consumers want. Everything is too transparent. They want to know we’re talking about customers. They want to know what their money is going to support, and they want to be value aligned consumers. And so you can’t just avoid what’s happening. You have to take a stand about what you as a company believe is right, what is our purpose, what is our mission, what our values? And not just those pretty bullet points on the wall, but how do those actually help us make decisions like this, like you’re pointing to, what’s the rigor around how we decide how we’re going to move forward, or not? We have to have that based in something it has to be based in. Do we have a set of beliefs? Do we have a culture here? Do we have a mission and a purpose here? If so, we have to start making decisions based on what is in pursuit of that purpose and mission, and those values, or what detracts from it, and those elements, those the mission, the values, those are not only the things that attract your top talent and your employees, but they attract your customers as well. And so they can’t be wishy washy, they can’t be vague anymore. So to your point, I think you said, you know, there’s sort of no would you say there’s no safe middle ground anymore? I think that’s spot on. I want to take this down a level, because I know I have, we have a lot of listeners who are in the trenches. They might be a employee experience professional or a dei professional. Do you have any advice for how they weather this storm? Do you have any advice for how they can adapt the work they’re doing, not to, like hide it, but just to, you know, to be able to still continue to do the work and have the impact that they want to have, and also just even your advice or guidance on how to stay motivated in this kind of environment, I think would be really beneficial. You
Jarrid Green 37:17
know, I want to be in my response. I’m gonna challenge myself to take my own responses advice, which is to be authentic, okay, right? And I think we talked a little bit here about hiding, and that being, you know, caught in the middle, or figure out what the middle ground or not being on the sidelines. And I think, you know, I started this conversation off. You asked me what my background was, and I mentioned, sort of my background and nonprofit advocacy work, helping folks think about how to increase opportunity for folks, whether through community wealth building activities, or through ending and dismantling structural racial inequity and public policy and actually working with federal, state and local lawmakers to do so because challenges like disproportionate access to wealth, housing, energy, transportation, healthcare, any you name it, and we’re going to find our disproportionate impacts, and we’re going To find our inequities, right? And so when we talk about social impact and we talk about businesses and their ability to hire inclusive workforces, we’re actually talking about how our society operates to actually ensure benefits and the welfare for all people, writ large. And when we talk about companies actually not being on the sidelines or figuring out where they’re going to be, we need to be thinking about how companies are doing that authentically, before even 2023 The question was whether or not co corporate commitments to the $350 billion with the commitments that companies had made to end racial injustice because of the so called racial the global reckoning with racial systemic racial inequity, right was actually doing anything, was actually getting put out there to actually affect that change internal to the organizations or externally. So my advice to the professionals, yeah,
Maria Ross 38:45
the ones in the trenches don’t feel like they have the power, yeah, 100% and
Jarrid Green 38:50
so my advice is to be authentic with yourself. Understand where you work, be authentic with yourself and understanding why you’re doing the work you’re doing in the context in which you’re doing it. Because it might be that you’re doing work in a context where your company is being quite authentic, it cares about it, yeah, you know who they are. That’s not going to do it, right? And some others are going to say, actually, these are our values, and they’re worth fighting for, right? And that’s, this is the kind of company we want to be, this kind of world we want to live in. And those are the companies that I would advise some of these dei professionals and your listeners to think about, how do I get in touch with those companies? How do I support more companies like this? How do I get my company to be like that company, and investigate the work that I need to investigate internally from the vantage point that I have to get there, but I just want to hide the ball because I don’t want to. I think a lot of times in these conversations, we can assume that business should just go about and everyone’s working in this space where we can convince and persuade our leaders to do XYZ. Well, if the folks who have leveraged all of our data to create billion dollar companies by way of advertising revenue by leveraging our private lives that we share and give to them on the interwebs, then go on and celebrate the support folks who are throwing up hit. Signs at their inaugural parties and clearly dismantling the fabric that actually brings people of color, women and other folks along into an economy, into the 21st century. If we see folks like that and companies actually shifting their movements to actually support that agenda, they’re telling you who they are. Mm, hmm. So dei professionals and other professionals in different roles, I think. One, just be authentic and be real with yourself about the environment that you work in and what you’re trying to achieve. And, number two, be agile. You’re not in that role because you just magically appeared as a professional into a company. You actually probably went to school, got a bachelor’s degree. Yeah, actually, Dan’s in 1520, years of experience, probably more experience probably more experience than some of your peers who don’t deserve the roles that they earn themselves to be, and they actually leaders of the company, right? I want to real talk here a little bit. Yeah, who are actually in the don’t discredit your own experience, your history, because the mic, the folks who have the microphone have historically had the microphone and are doing their best work to make you feel inadequate.
Maria Ross 41:02
That’s not the case. Okay, I love that mindset shift, mindset kick in the pants. And I’m wondering, if I’m curious, if there are any tactical things that you’re advising folks on at that level that you’re seeing are being done. Jen, I kind of want to punt this to you. What are some things that folks maybe can take away from this conversation? Obviously, we’re not gonna be able to give them all of it in the next, you know, five minutes we have left. But can you give them some places to start? Obviously, we will put, you know, all your links in the show notes so they can check out those resources. But can you share one or two gems of Yeah, so
Jen Stark 41:39
well. And actually, I was going to exactly, I think our social justice Guide is a great starting place again for providing methodical approach for how companies can think about the the real impact within their walls and the systemic changes that have yet to happen. And I appreciate there’ll be many other resources that the center provides, and we provide updates and sort of other things that we put out in the public domain. What to fuel people’s individual fires too? Though, I think that is such a beautiful question. I just wanted to go back to it for half a second. I’ve made a list of what I would say, sort of our three bits of, sort of reading homework I would ask folks, because I think so often we forget, or we skip over the history, right? We find ourselves in a role with only maybe an inch of depth, where we’ve developed an expertise in one particular area, but without regard for hundreds of years or decades that have brought us to this point. So there’s sort of three things that I sort of often turn back to. One. There’s this book called How to Survive a plague. It’s not about COVID it’s about the HIV AIDS epidemic, and how committed group of activists brought HIV testing, treatment and linkages to care from the periphery into the mainstream over a few decades, and the role of industry both positive and negative. This is sort of a sleeper, but it’s really important one, what’s known as the Kerner Commission report issued under President Johnson in the late 60s. It was an 11 member panel, mostly white men, that asked themselves in the wake of a summer of riots driven by racial injustice. Again, I’m talking about the late 1960s late 1960s not 2022 ask themselves, what could be done to prevent this from happening again and again. And it’s all the same things we are talking about in 2020 and 2022 and I think it had a moment too, as kind of a best seller. They nearly didn’t release it. They thought it would be so incendiary. There’s that. And then, unfortunately, I think it’s had its run now on Broadway, but the musical suffs, I think it might be coming out other domains, yeah, beautiful and inspiring. And essentially in it was one of these moments when, you know, American democracy and franchised a group of people, which has only happened a couple times. And in the instance of SUS, they talked about women getting the right to vote in the US, and how democracy transformed instantly, but it was by no means a foregone conclusion. So all of these things, I think, in these very confusing, chaotic moments, I think it’s important to maybe take a step out of the present and yeah, just in the larger spectrum
Maria Ross 44:23
well. And I think I’m going to share all those links in the show notes, by the way, I love it. And I think also just knowing that there are some playbooks out there, and there’s also people you can talk to, and I know a lot of activists that I know are actually reaching back out to the black community, the Brown community, about the playbooks from the Civil Rights Movement, and what is the advice? What is the ability to mobilize to your point, the facts in the business case were beyond that now, and being able to share that with people and to know that you’re not doing this in a vacuum. So if you are you know a dei be professional, and you’re listening and you’re disheartened and you don’t know where to go from here. I love this advice about reading some of these things, consuming some of this information, and finding support with organizations like yours. Jen and Jarrid of there’s other people out there that can share best practices, can talk about what they’re doing within their companies. One of my big themes for this year is collaboration, but kind of, you know, asterisk community, because we have to lean into our smaller communities, the mass media community, the social media community, is not going to do it for us. We’ve got to lean into these individual communities. I’m even hearing people at local levels putting together little political action book clubs and discussion groups, just to say, how can we share information, how can we share best practices, and how can we make an impact? Whether we’re six people or we’re 50 people, or we’re 1000 and I think that’s, you know, now I’m on my soapbox, but I think that’s going to be the way forward for all of us. So I know we have to wrap. Jen Jarrid, thank you so much for all of these insights. There’s so much more we could have talked about, and I will definitely be putting links to the center and to where people can find those resources. But in terms of connecting with you both, what’s the best place not giving your email, but what’s the best place to have people connect with you? Jen under
Jen Stark 46:24
Social justice.bsr.org, folks can Subscribe to See and hear more what we’re about, and also, you know, certainly can follow us on LinkedIn, more in the moment, updates and hot takes on what’s going
Maria Ross 46:36
on. Awesome. And Jarrid, would that be a ditto? That’s a ditto for me. Yeah. Okay, great. And my public service announcement always is if you reach out on LinkedIn, tell them that you heard them on the podcast so they don’t think you’re trying to sell them something. Thank you both so much for your time and insights today. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you Maria, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate review and share with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care, be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice. Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place and.
