Inclusion, dumbassery, and HR's "seat at the table"

As an HR professional, I have had the privilege of working with some really wonderful, insightful, thoughtful clients and employers who were willing to listen to what I had to say and make intentional choices that benefited their organization. Like most HR professionals, I have also worked with some clients and employers who seemed hell-bent on making some truly remarkable dumbass decisions, regardless of the downstream consequences for themselves, their employees/coworkers, or their organization.

I obviously can’t say for sure what happened at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields and their now-infamous job posting which said that they were seeking a Director who could maintain the museum’s “traditional, core, white art audience.” (Insert facepalm emoji here). I am honestly amazed at this point that anyone who has read, let’s say, five news articles in the last year from any source could be unaware that our society is currently in the middle of a major (and very necessary) conversation about race, inclusion, equity and change. I am, therefore, also amazed that the job posting in question could have seen the light of day without someone saying “hey, wait a minute; let’s talk about this because this doesn’t sound okay to me.” But I think that goes back to a critical question for a lot of HR people around our “seat at the table,” and what power we have to push back when people above us or around us are intent on making a decision we know is wrong, bad or damaging.

I am not writing this to drag the HR folks at the museum. I don’t know them and I have no idea what their day-to-day responsibilities, pressures or tensions are like. We don’t know their process for writing or publishing that job posting, or who was involved in that decision chain. So let me speak generally, from my own experience with situations where you are watching leaders point their 1966 Ford Thunderbird at the cliff edge and hit the gas: it can be difficult, in those moments, to speak up and say “this is wrong.” I acknowledge that. But it is necessary, and not just because of downstream negative results like: ending up in the New York Times for all the wrong reasons; getting dragged on social media; becoming infamous instead of famous, having people contact your sponsors and ask them to drop you like a hot potato, etc. Some things are wrong because they’re wrong; because they make other people feel excluded and less-than. Wrong words and wrong actions have negative consequences. If people are not acutely aware of that because of the conversations on race that evolved after the murder of George Floyd, they need to become aware of it quickly. Someone at the Newfields Museum needed to be aware that saying a key activity of their director was maintaining their “core white audience” would make anyone who was not white feel excluded and less-than, and that the museum did not value the contributions or opinions of nonwhite audiences. I don’t know whether the issue is a persistent internal culture that tolerates (or even encourages) racism (the museum lost a curator last year who said that was the case), or if there was one employee or board member who insisted that language be included and they couldn’t be dissuaded, or what. I do know that someone in HR should have read that line, said “nope” and refused to publicize the posting unless that language was removed. Because that language is exclusionary and discriminatory; the sentiment behind it is wrong; including the language was a patently stupid thing to do; and sometimes our role as HR people is to be the person who shoves the driver over and slams our foot on the brakes before the Thunderbird goes over the cliff.

And thus we come around to the conversation about HR’s “seat at the table” that has been happening for decades. How are we supposed to advise on best practice or legality of action when executive leaders make decisions behind closed doors and don’t even invite us to the meeting? How do we tell a leader who is convinced they are right about something that they’re wrong?

I don’t have a universal answer to that. One thing that helped me immensely was reading a book called The Trusted Advisor, which talks about how to create trust relationships with clients and executives so that getting invited to that critical meeting doesn’t become an oversight or an afterthought. It was not written for HR professionals, but in my opinion, it should be required reading for anyone in HR. Because it doesn’t matter how smart we are; how much we know about employment law; how many certifications or certificates or degrees we have: if we can’t speak up and be heard when it counts, our professional expertise and wise counsel benefits no one.

I would love to say “I’m sure the Newfields Museum and other organizations have learned a valuable lesson from this incident” but I am not sure we are learning the lessons we need to learn from these incidents, because they keep happening. I acknowledge the road to true diversity, inclusion and equity in our workplaces and our society is going to be a long one, but it seems like we’re still packing the van for the trip and have yet to even make it to the interstate on-ramp. It’s been said so much that it’s a trope at this point, but I’m going to say it again: we have to do better. We have to BE better. And I will narrow that down to say: as HR professionals, we HAVE to do AND be better than this. We have to speak up when we see exclusion, injustice, or straight-up dumbass decisions. If we don’t do that, we aren’t doing our jobs.