hear who was ahead.
I was seated between the VP of Business Development and my boss, a woman I looked up to and had learned from. She was one of few female leaders in the industry. Glancing around the table, I felt a brief sense of pride. The women from our affinity group seated with the executive team made this the most gender-balanced financial dinner I had attended.
I had gotten to know one woman at the table a little better during the conference. I'll call her Irene. She had confided to me that she had waited for decades to launch her own career in finance because she felt that, as a woman, she wouldn't have been taken seriously until a few years ago. I had assured her that she was in the right place, that our affinity networks were created with her in mind.
As the night went on, I lost track of how long we had been there. I excused myself to use the restroom. As I pushed open the heavy door to reenter the main restaurant, I saw there were no guests left. Tables had been wiped and chairs were stacked against the walls. I cringed. The waitstaff were patiently standing by the walls, hands folded over their aprons, waiting for us. We were already an hour over our time. We were the customers I had dreaded in a previous life. I apologized and said I'd try to get our group to wrap it up.
The kitchen radio blasted the game. They were headed into extra innings.
When I returned to our room, I told the group that we were the only ones keeping the place open and suggested we take the party back to the hotel bar. But the conversations carried on. After another 20 minutes, one of the Black waiters slipped in gingerly and asked if everyone was happy with their evening before they wrapped up for the night. He was ignored. He tried again. “I'm so sorry to put an end to what looks like such a fun night, but we are going to have to be closing up soon.”
Irene cut him off. “Oh, honey, we pay your bills, so we'll be leaving when we're leaving.”
Our server nodded and retreated. As the door was slowly closing, but still partially open, Irene exclaimed loudly, to the whole room, as if sharing a joke she needed everyone to hear the setup for, “You know what I miss? Back in my day, I could have called him ‘boy’ and no one would have had a problem with it. Back in my day, I could have had him fired for speaking to a white woman that way.”
A moment later I found myself standing. I was on my feet, an involuntary reaction, irrepressible. I was not weighing questions of correctness; it was far more basic. Somehow I thought I could not be the only one, but around the table my colleagues were only staring, staying seated, saying nothing.
“Oh honey, sit down, don't get upset,” Irene urged.
Nervous laughter rattled through the room.
My hands went cold. How could I be the only one? They all said they cared. They made public statements. What are they doing? Why is nobody saying anything?
A roar was audible from the kitchen. The Cubs had gone ahead.
When my voice came, it was shaking. “Back in your day,” I reminded Irene, “you wouldn't be sitting at this table. Back in your day, you wouldn't have been taken seriously as a woman in this profession. We're all here tonight because we don't want to go back to that time.”
An exec nervously pushed around chunks of his surf and turf. I picked up my purse and coat, gave the castle doors one last shove, and left.
I rushed past the servers waiting to clear our table, out of the restaurant, and into a lone taxi waiting like a lifeboat.
On the way back to the hotel, triumphal horns blared throughout the city. I wanted to rejoice with my euphoric driver, but I was stunned.
I was not a victim in this situation. Nor was I a hero—I was simply mistaken. I thought that because our company had invested in these inclusion initiatives, our culture had actually changed. I thought the executives sitting at that table who had stated their commitment to diversity and attended trainings would have stood with me. I didn't think I was going to be alone.
We had checked all the right boxes, but the unspoken code of conduct hadn't changed. We had had our moment of truth, and nobody stood up.
And by running the programs that let us think we were the good guys, I was complicit.
How had this happened?
≈
The following Monday, I got the call from HR: My position no longer existed in the organization. I was terminated, effective immediately. The reason given was a recent merger. I knew about that merger. I had helped coordinate the resulting reorg, and I knew that all staffing decisions had been made months ago, so I found this difficult to believe. Either way, we were happy to part ways.
A few months later, I attended a CEO panel at the top of Seattle's World Trade Center. The topic: What Does It Mean to Be an Effective Leader?
The year was 2017, and the #MeToo hashtag had turned into a rallying cry for millions. Social activist Tarana Burke had coined the phrase in 2006 to build solidarity among survivors of abuse. More than a decade later, Alyssa Milano retweeted the phrase one night, and by morning, a movement was born. Around the world, women were taking the secrets they had kept inside whisper networks out into the international spotlight. Hollywood's leading ladies founded Time's Up to cover legal costs for victims seeking justice. Everywhere I went, I heard “Me Too.”
Tarana Burke held the movement accountable, continuing to speak out for women who weren't going to be protected and still had to show up to hostile workplaces every day. For the movement's legacy to have meaning, she argued, employers would need to take meaningful action. It was up to business leaders to take the next steps.
In the audience at the Trade Center, I was waiting to see which CEO was going to take that next step. The panelists spoke about managing growth in a quickly scaling business, retaining customers in the face of increasing competition, and the impact of artificial intelligence on their industries. For all these topics, they had best practices, data, evidence, key performance indicators, and actionable takeaways.
Then the moderator asked the question I had been waiting for: “What is your approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion?”
A silent pause. Chairs creaked as the panelists' postures changed, their legs uncrossed and recrossed, they leaned backward slightly, getting a little distance from the microphone. Women in the audience made eye contact with each other. I realized many of us were holding our breath.
Finally, one of the panelists took the mic. It was the first time I had heard hesitation in any of their voices. The brave volunteer paused after each word, as if looking for approval that he was on track. Like a spelling bee contestant, he was waiting for each syllable he spoke to be the one that would disqualify him:
“Honestly…my…my approach to DEI…Well, I…I lead with love.”
The others followed:
“Everyone at our company knows that we care about diversity. We don't have an [air quotes] approach [end air quotes] as much as it's just in our DNA.”
“Every day, I come in being my most authentic self, and I think that lets everyone else know they can be their authentic self, no matter their background or gender.”
Polite applause.
These answers cited no data. No best practices. No
