The D.E.I. Backlash Hasn’t Changed Mel Gravely’s Story

hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman in 2021 Mel Gravely published a book Dear White friend that was aimed primarily at fellow business owners in the book Mel tried to make it easier for owners to have genuine conversations about race he suggested strategies for those perhaps motivated by the murders of Ahmad Arbury and George Floyd who might want to engage he acknowledged that emphasizing diversity can be hard work he acknowledged that some of his own efforts had failed but he also pointed out that he himself had been in his words an affirmative action baby and that that investment had paid off for his college his previous employers and the City of Cincinnati it's been less than four years since Mel published Dear White friend but of course that was a very different time this week he talks about the backlash that has ensued and the strategies he still believes can work for those who don't consider diversity a dirty word even in Good Times owning and running a business can be a lonely Pursuit a hope is that these weekly conversations will let owners know they are not alone in facing challenges in fact that's the whole idea behind the 21 hats Community engaging with other owners to get the kinds of insights only another entrepreneur can offer if you're interested in learning more step one is to sign up for the Morning Report newsletter which highlights the most important news of the day for business owners so you don't have to go looking for it step two is to get on our slack Channel where you can ask questions get vendor recommendations and tap the wisdom of a very impressive crowd just search for the 21 hats Morning Report to sign up for a free trial joining me this week on the podcast is Mel graveley chairman of triversity construction a construction firm based in Cincinnati the episode is titled the Dei backlash hasn't changed Mel gravely's story welcome Mel it's great to have you here one onone I want to start by asking you about something you said on one of our podcasts just a few weeks back we were talking about hiring and you said you occasionally hire someone who shows up for work and is kind of surprised to learn that you actually mean the stuff you tell job candidates about the way things work at triversity you told us that you have a very different culture and that sometimes takes people by surprise unfortunately we really didn't have time to get into it during that podcast so I'd like to start there what were you referring to what's different about your culture well appreciate you circling back to it um Lauren it starts with a purpose statement that is um a little different you know our purpose is to model the diverse and inclusive world we want to live in and as a construction company that is different than the purpose of many other kinds of companies especially construction companies and so so if that is our purpose then it would lead from there that our systems and our approaches and our expectations and our communication and our hiring and our promotion and our development a community of all of it would be leading us toward that purpose and I think people look at the job we're offering look at the work we do look at the customers we have and they make up in their minds what that means and they show up here and think it's like any other place but but we mean what we say when we are working every day working very hard at being a model for the diverse and inclusive world we want to live in so I think it takes them off guard that you know um we're serious about how we talk about gender um I don't think we are uh overly anything in that area but I think there's a certain respect that particularly in our industry that women don't often get and or too often don't get I should put it that way that we're serious about having we're we're serious about um our openness to race we're serious about our openness to religions religious practices and and expectations and you know having a special room for people to have midday prayer if that's what they need to do and I think it takes people off guard and um and when they're called to task because women aren't girls I'll just use that as a great example one that happens a lot when they're called to task and things like that it can bother and so that's what I meant because if we're going to be if we're going to live our purpose we've got to make sure we we've got it built into our system so that's what makes us different I think we all know it's it's hard enough to build a successful business if your only goal is to stay in business and make money but when you set as a purpose something that is is not directly reflective of your strategy for making money do you wind up in Conflict have you had to make choices where you feel as though the purpose that you've articulated is counter to the need to make money yeah I don't think so as you were you know setting up the question I I began to Think Through examples but I don't think so and here's why I believe that in the long run alignment with our purpose is how we make money the fact that we are U people who listen differently listen more intently connect more authentically with people because we're interested in them and who they are we are better with customers and when we're better with customers they stay with us longer just as an example um our stickiness of our employees is better so we have a lower turnover our um brand in the in the community is better therefore business comes to us in different ways and so it may appear in the short run that a high per performing construction professional who can't line up with our values and they they leave our organization they may seem in the short run that that's a loss I would say in the long run it's a gain because it allows us to continue to go down the street and be who we are and who we are helps us to compete I hope that made sense it does yeah but you've got to believe that right because if you believe that every battle is the war then then no you'll make those trade-offs because you'll want to win a short-term battle but we've got a very long-term view as you know we we believe in everying principles and so you know our vision is that we're around for the next 100 years and what I love about that is every day starts another the clock starts over for 100 right so you never get there and so if you're thinking that long term then you're not worried about that short-term battle or that one employee who was a superstar but violated values in your organization you you don't count that as a loss what would we see if we showed up at your offices or one of your work sites how does that translate into what one would observe if they saw you in action first I hope you would visually see a more diverse Workforce than um you would see from other construction companies so I hope there's a visual representation there we have L more women in construction uh roles in our company than uh as a percentage in our company than any other company in our region for sure and we've got checked nationally it's not even close in our region you know what that percentage is yeah we're in the 31 32% range of constru I'm not talking about accountants and and HR professionals we've got them in it professionals but I'm talking about construction roles we've got more people of color um in those roles those professional construction roles than um any other company in our region so you'd see a different presentation when you walked into a job site but keep in mind you you could walk into a job site and every person there is a is a um a middle-aged white guy we've got a lot of those folks working here too nothing wrong with that inclus inclusion means everybody right but I hope you'd see something different for sure if you came to our all company meeting you'd see something different I hope though that you experience something different that you experience people who are collaborating listening to understand not to respond who are treating people in a manner that is respectful that is um that are honoring the fact that people are individual so I hope you'd experience something that is different we've got a lot of women and women of color who are our customers our industry has a reputation of being dismissive and condenscending I hope you would not experience that because we're interviewing for that when we interview we're developing that in a overt way in our training um because we know that we all have biases and we just don't want those biases to to come out in the workplace in ways that are offputting or negative so I hope you'd see something different but I hope more so that you'd experience something different because that experience of something different is is what customers appreciate and it's it's an intangible thing but it is the customer experience what drove you to create that kind of culture uh and and what gave you the the confidence that it would work well in some ways I we we make the job take longer that's for sure so I wish I could tell you that this was something that came out of a strategic vision of mine where I thought there was space in the marketpl for a company like this and I'm not sure that's true but I bought this company because I wanted to make a point and I wanted to make a point that a diverse High performing team could compete and win the very best in our industry so that was my personal purpose for buying the company my personal purpose for driving so hard to build a brand as the company evolved uh we needed to turn that personal purpose into something that the organization could Embrace what we discovered was what we had become was what I just described to you because of our intentionality because of our customer base because of our performance over the years we had become the company I described and so the purpose statement became one that we were manifesting it so why not state it out loud so so we did did and um it is different it gets a bit of a turn of the head I think some people wave it off as they're just being um maybe I can use this word they're being woke and for some they think that's what it where it stops that's okay with us too did you deliberately set out to uh tell the world about this um to to Market your brand as an employer or did you kind of just let it speak for itself yeah I started out letting it speak for itself and then I built this team of people who now when they want to go recruit they want to talk about it and I think it's I I think it's a good thing though I think it pushes away people who don't like that and it attracts people who want it so I do think it's effective in screening people particularly young people but yeah I I I just wanted to prove it Lauren it was personal for me at the time I just wanted to prove we could go out and kick some butt and be a diverse and inclusive team and um kind of show the world you know in our industry minority owned companies companies owned by black people or other people of color they're looked out upon they you know you don't go to those companies to have a great construction career and um that bothered me I'm a pretty smart guy and I bet I could figure this out so but that was my personal point we needed to make it a a company you know purpose do you feel as though it worked the way you hoped it would from the beginning or did you have to make adjustments along the way and learn some lessons the hard way yeah uh you know I wrote about it in my book to your white friend that we we you know we went too far sometimes and sent the wrong messages sometimes that people misunderstood what we meant and it at times it got conflated to to mean that we keep a person of color no matter whether they performed or not boy I surely didn't mean that U because performance is performance and there's only one standard for performance that's the customer standard exceeding that is our only you know only way to success so yeah we've made some mistakes along the way and had to evolve and we're still there the words I would say to you is that it's it's not it hasn't worked we're working on it so you mentioned your book and that is the other reason I've been looking forward to this conversation in fact we met because of your book you spoke about Dear White friend uh at a tugboat Institute event in 2021 where uh you got a standing ovation from a group of mostly conservative business owners uh and you and I subsequently had a conversation that I published here at 21 hats that was 2021 a lot has happened since then I just like to go back some things we we actually talked about in that last conversation one is it a daring thing to to take on Race the way you did I'm guessing there were some people in your life whose judgment you trusted who who told you you were out of your mind uh why did you write the book to be honest you know I had it was covid time so I didn't have anything else to do no that's not true I'm sure that was an elmood right yeah yeah I had time to do it but you know there was this there was so much going on at that time and no one was able to talk to each other and it Disturbed me that my white friends were shocked amazed um looking for answers um ignoring the topic they were all over the place but they were what was Central to my reason for writing was these were my friends and U when I looked in the landscape there was no other business person writing on this topic that I could find and so I decided there was a lane there you know and Lauren I'm not sure I ever thought about the implications I surely didn't have a plan for support the book when it came out it was just something that I wanted to get done and get out publisher took it polished it up and next thing I knew book showed up on my front door and and it was on right and they said well you got to speak and so there was no plan Lauren I guess is what I'm saying to you and I so I never had the time to get nervous about it or be concerned I I did think a little while about I don't want this to spill on my company I don't want people to to take this the wrong way and have it spill on my company so even if you read the book now my bio doesn't name the company oh you know I never noticed that yeah my bio doesn't in inside the book I do mention the the company name but most people who are going to be negative aren't going to read the book so I wasn't too worried about you know if you mention a name on page 28 no they're not going to get to page 28 so I I don't I don't feel particularly Brave or whatever because I I don't remember thinking man this could go horribly wrong well it it was a different time you wrote this of course in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder and at the time there seemed to be kind of a collective sense among many that we can and should do more that seems a long time ago there was you know a lot of talk about diversity and I I think one of the things that struck me and that I liked about the book you encouraged business owners to believe that they have more power and influence than they may realize and that if they're serious about trying to help and if they're intentional and how they use that influence and power they can they can really have an impact I thought it was a really important message at the time well yeah you know it's funny you bring the time up you know by the time George Floyd happened this book was almost done so you know Amad Aubrey was the I was writing before him but when that happened to to him um is when it in my mind I got pissed off enough to say it's got to become a book and but by the time George Floyd was killed um the book was was done virtually done and about ready to come out um and I was getting a lot of questions from people about that and you know Lauren here's the thing this is not the first time this this cycle of we care about this topic to to where it tapers off to okay back to back to normal back to business now this is not the first time this nation has done that or worse in the form of a backlash absolutely and and I think we're seeing some of that too but that's not even the first time so you know for for people who are frustrated or dismayed just simply have to go back to your history to to see that we've done this a number of times and um so when my friends were up in arms I knew it wouldn't last I knew for sure it wouldn't last because it never has and um that's why I don't think that writing wave like that is the answer to really making long-term systemic change so you you your point is that you you were less focused on what had been happening in the news uh at that time than I realized and addressing an issue that had just been present for your whole working life yeah um and I think I got to an age in a in a position in the community I live in in Cincinnati where I thought I had the combination of ability to influence that people would read this book and take it seriously and there was less they could do to harm me personally and so if you have that kind of position then you should use it and so I did and um you know you mentioned tugbo for those who don't know about it you should should Google tugbo Institute but in my mind that group CEOs launched this book I didn't plan it that way I didn't think about it that way but they were the group I was writing to passionate compassionate people first CEOs privately held companies from every all over the nation they were who I was writing to and to have them make room for me to make the presentation just the first step I thought was daring um but to to support it to lean in to then invite me to their cities to speak to their uh local business groups to their companies um we launched that book together and uh we could I guess talk more about that but that's how you make progress is you block and tackle every day you wi over heart and mind you talk about strategy approaches with people you try things that work and some of don't you try more things I want to ask if you've if you've changed how you think about any of this and in light of the backlash but but I I want to emphasize a couple of things that I took from the book one is that you were very open in acknowledging that uh you yourself benefited from some folks who are intentional about reaching out to you uh in fact at that Tugboat event if I remember correctly I think you refer to yourself as an affirmative action baby which kind of has a different ring to it today given the way people talk about affirmative action now has anything changed about the way you think about that given the backlash no um not at all um and let me just clarify why I say I'm an affirmative action baby there there were two or three at a minimum situations or times in my life where it was obvious that I was there because someone was intentional about providing me because of my race a particular opportunity and without that access I would not have gotten that opportunity it happened with the college I chose to go to they were starting a new co-op program for minority it professionals I got that opportunity and I did very well there it happened again at IBM when I joined IBM in in the late 80s so my point is is that um that intentionality in the book I call them actions of intentionality not affirmative action because apparently that branding has gotten so negative but actions of intention ality providing opportunity for people and if if you look at the balance of at least my life the investment of the ation of intentionality has produced returns whether it be for IBM uh for the college I attended for you know the city I live in now um and so if we look at it from an investment SL return standpoint I I don't know why the brandings gotten so off but you're right affirmative action is is definitely something that has become negative and people say well don't you don't you worry about that diminishing who you are no deal with me and you'll find out there's no diminishing of who I am because of how I got to the opportunity to sit in front of you um deal with me on a business transaction or on a board or in the community or leading my company and you'll find out that no there's no diminishing of me because of how I got the opportunity so um you know maybe things are a little different now I I I don't know but but no my thoughts have not changed and I think time I think history will tell will teach us that it was effective then and going to miss some opportunities if we're not cheerful as you point out I mean clearly the ROI is there for the people who reached out to you one of the other things I liked about the book though is that you acknowledge it's it's not foolproof it it doesn't always work and in fact you I think you have uh a section where you refer to the way you run your business at one point I think you had a division that you required to meet a quota of 20% African-American was it um and that didn't work out uh which you acknowledged what why didn't work out and what did you learn from that well it didn't work out because I gave the Mandate without Clarity I'll take complete responsibility I gave the Mandate because I thought I was doing the right thing because this division was struggling to hire people of color and I was like I want you to be serious about this Let's Get Serious let's put a number on it let's get really serious about it and they translated that to me no matter what that person did I wasn't letting them go because they wanted to get to their 20% and so you had Performance challenges we had attendance challenges you know all these things are going on unbeknownst to me but they were keeping their 20% if that is what I said it's not what I meant and so uh you know we went in and Revisited that we still struggle in that division for sure to hire African-Americans well we've got a different way of going about it now and and um catching folks a little younger training them a little differently pairing them up and partnering them with men so we're trying new approaches but I can't just give that number mandate and think that it's not going to get get uh a little twisted up and it did it's great that you acknowledg that even you could struggle with it I know a lot of well-intentioned people who have sought to create more diversity uh within their companies and and and struggled with it they didn't come at it the way you did because it wasn't part of their purpose um so they didn't have the same need the same commitment to it do you have any advice for people who are trying to do that and struggling with it yeah well advice would be strong but I I always invite people to think about what's your posture on this you know is this interesting to you this whole idea of diversity is it important to you or is it imperative to you interesting says you know what if it comes to you you'll take it you're not against it you're willing to talk about it important means you've got some plan but you don't want to go too fast or go too far imperative is where I sit and where I hope 85% of the time my company sits and that means we have to win in that space because it is a part of our purpose and it's part of our value proposition and so it pushes us to try Innovative things you know we've redesigned some job description so that we'd have a broader pool of candidates across different college majors we've done that because there's so few people of color coming out of construction um management degrees and civil engineering schools that um at least in our area so we've we've started taking people out of operations people with operations management degrees and cross trining them in ways that we believe can be successful so we're trying some of that but when it's imperative you're willing to experiment you're willing to try things you're willing to fail you're willing to admit your failure try something else but it can't stop so I just invite people to decide if it's interesting to you then be there if it's important to you then you're a little bit more invested you got some some strategy around it and if it's imperative then um and I realize that'll be a rare camp but for us we can't lose the battle for for diversity and inclusion because we cease to be who we are and then we'll just be any construction company and I don't think the world needs another one another thing um that I found eye openening and I I've relayed this to to more business owners than I can remember is you know at the time the conversation about diversity was largely about hiring but as you stressed in the book there are other ways to to go about this and one really important one is in the vendors that you choose and that if you give somebody a chance you can really make a difference a lot hang out with a lot of CEOs so I think we talk about it equally at least in my experiences and they say the same things that are frustrating they say things like well you know our supply chain is very competitive that's the same thing they say about their hiring process and I say uhhuh okay but other people in your competitive supply chain process and see if they can win that's all I'm asking don't change the bar but include some people that you know you had been including before and again since it's imperative to us we have large projects we do we have small projects we do sometimes some of the subcontractors are pretty small that's okay but we've got small projects so I may not invite them to participate and compete for a big one but why can't I invite them to participate in a small one or if I'm creating some new line why can't I invite them to be a part of that where everyone's going to be new to the process because it's often hard to beat an incumbent so if I'm starting something new that may be another opportunity to inclusive diverse suppliers so we when you when it becomes important to you you'll think about ways to make it happen so what do you make of the the backlash in that light has has it changed your life the way you go about business at all I haven't changed a bit about how we go go to market um I haven't changed a bit how I think about this I have changed my advice in counsel I'll give you an example I sit on the board and the company is talking about stepping up their e e and I that's a dirty word these days M that's what I said I said hey you know there's a way to step up your interest in that space without branding it and um I invite you to be thoughtful about how you approach it because I don't care how you Brandon I care how you do it and those who really care about this who really care about a real opportunity for everyone um they're going to continue to build processes that allow that to happen so I am I am advising a little different around The Branding I would have been as sensitive to that I don't think before I mean he forbid we say the word equity for some reason that is a true cuss word and I want to wash my own mouth out so but um but here's the thing when we say we only hire the best or we only do business with the best I don't know how you know that if you're not searching broad enough if your pool looks so homogeneous how do you know you only hire the best and no one can answer that question they say those words but they go to the same places and they look at the same people and they call that the best and I would argue that if all your best looks the same it can't possibly be the best by defin because diversity is better diversity of thought age experience background is better proven to be and so when I hear that I I I challenge the thinking because it just doesn't ring true it's an excuse to keep doing what I'm doing and if I happen to find someone in the pool I'm fishing in that looks like a fish that I can handle I'll take it and that's uh that's not what I'm talking about that's not creating an America that I that I'm trying to to Aspire for I've worked at some big companies who have professed an interest in becoming more diverse and have implemented programs that generally haven't worked as well as they hoped and it has led people saying well you know we tried we don't pay enough uh smart people who might come work here can make more money elsewhere it's easy to to give up Rather then finding different ways to find the people you're looking for let's go back to where we started this is a longterm March and um in my presentations when I was speaking more on the book I would just say I'm going to do my 2% it's not because I'm giving 2% effort but I'm probably going to get 2% results because it's not easy if you do your 2% and the person next to you does their two we're going to see progress made but it's going to take us multiple generations of working at this thing together to build a nation that codifies the the inherit promise and and the founding documents of of the country so I just feel that way there's some people that disagree they they you know I mean founding document suggested it was white men who own land and I don't think that's what they were trying to get at long term but but maybe they were I'm curious what your experience has been maybe on boards or in conversations with the Dei programs of other businesses I've had some experience companies I've worked for friends who worked at other companies and describe what they've been through the programs have sounded terrible um from what I've seen and even if you believe in the the basic cause it's like they're set up to fail I think because they're so bureaucratic they don't do a good job of explaining why why this is a worthy cause it just becomes another bureaucratic hoop that you have to jump through that becomes a pain in the ass to people who are trying to get their work done before they go home at the end of the day and I think everybody just comes to hate it I've seen a lot of that have you seen that and do you have a suggestion for dealing with that yeah I try to stay out of that lane to be honest with you I would say this though I don't know if everybody comes to hate so I I I think we look at companies first at whether they're signal their interests and secondly whether they're then living their interests and you know because they're bureaucratic and because they can be big their systems are bureaucratic whether it's about safety or about new product development or if it's about diversity they just tend to be covers some organizations and so the fact that their diversity efforts might be cumbersome I don't know I don't know what to say about that I uh so that's first but the bigger idea is I am looking for companies to to signal and then show that they're their interest is real but I'm not a consultant I I run a business I wouldn't know how to consult to help them fix it to be honest with you Lauren but I would just say to you that you know as they people dismantle their diversity departments and their supply diversity departments and this that and the other um people are watching that and everybody's not happy about it all this stuff has been so much in the air of late a lot of it has to do with politics and the election this year in the past that you travel what has changed because of the backlash do the people you deal with the people who supported you when you wrote the book do you think they still have the same interest that they did before or are they too affected by this backlash that seems to have you know taken over the conversation yeah I I would probably say mixed um I don't know who is not affected by the rhetoric by the demonization of the idea of even speaking of diversity we're all affected by it and I think it all it makes my white friends pause and say h that sounds reasonable what they're saying because they do make it sound well sometimes doesn't sound reasonable well many times what they say sounds reasonable so I get it so I I do think that people are being affected by it but I as I went around this country talking about this book I I didn't meet anyone that when you got down to the oneon-one level didn't have empathy interests and a real desire to close the gap between races both relationally and economically and educationally I didn't meet anyone there's a there's a small majority of people at least my experience in this country that either deny that our history exists in this nation or they deny it still has an impact on today there's but it's a small group most people acknowledge that we've got a history around race in a country that has created a situation that we are dealing with right now where they differ is what do we do about it where they struggle is how do I fix it how do I make an impact there are very few people that don't realize that the way we built this country has created this structural system that has you know blacks on the bottom and whites on the top and everybody else in between most people don't like to hear me say it that way but they acknowledge that yeah I get it but that didn't happen question is what do we do going forward so I don't think about the people who want to deny our history I don't talk with them very often because I don't argue about this topic ever ever I'm not trying to convert anyone I'm not an evangelist for diversity um I'm a business leader but if you want to talk about how we do it then I'll meet you in the middle of that conversation we can talk about that I think I've seen the same thing where there's such a difference between the conversation you have with someone one-on-one and what you hear out there in The Ether and I think we get I think we can get distracted dismayed disillusioned and all those other things by listening to that and so I mean my advice to my friends leading up to to the election and for sure after the election if you're bothered turn the dang TV off stop watching CNN or fox or whatever the heck you're watching most of it's not news anyway it's commentary and they get paid to make you watch and get angry till you watch some more I don't want to live my life angry and pissed off I refuse I don't hate anyone and I don't want to hear about hate I want to talk to people who want to really work on problems and when you get to the micro level of this we can make a difference I assume you're still glad you wrote the book I am glad I wrote the book Lauren but for the reasons that you may not expect um there are probably three fundamental reasons why I I'm glad is the wrong word proud that I wrote the book number one is I think that for my moment in time and books don't last that long for my moment in time it made people pause and think and if that led him to action man I I made my 2% difference second reason is because I got to meet and connect with people like you and um and I've got relationships all around this country now with people that uh I would have never known if I hadn't WR written this book and we've had conversations that are rich and deep and meaningful and um I wouldn't trade that for anything so I'm proud of it for that and then the last thing I probably mentioned this before my parents from mother passed the two months after the book came out uh my father's still living uh but my parents were proud of me and my dad said it's the most important thing you've done in your life done some great things and he's proud of me so for him to say that I mean the hell else do you want in life my thanks to Mel Gravely once again Mel I really appreciate your your willingness to talk about this I personally happen to think you've done more than your 2% and uh I appreciate having had the opportunity to play a small role in that so thank [Music] you one thing before you go everything we do at 21 hats is created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs to help us all learn together if you get something out of listening to these podcast episodes consider joining the conversation you can do that by joining the 21 hats sounding board a slack Channel where you can tap the wisdom of a very smart crowd or by becoming a founding member and joining our monthly Zoom Forum where you can be part of conversations much like the ones we have on the podcast you can sign up for both by subscribing to the morning report if you have any questions you can email me at Lauren 21h hats.com and if you get something out of this podcast or out of the morning report please tell a friend tell an enemy tell every business owner you know your word of mouth owner to owner will always be the most effective way to build this community for all of us thank you it means a lot this episode was produced by another entrepreneur Jess steron founder of blank word Productions thanks for listening everyone