When I’m feeling despondent about the current state of our country, I think back to 2015 when the Supreme Court decided the Obergefell v. Hodges case legalizing marriage across the country for gay and lesbian Americans. It was a joyous and proud day for the country, affirming the dignity of our LBGTQ friends, loved ones, and family members while advancing the broader cause of justice.
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Moments like that don’t just happen. They take years of activism, organizing, and legal work, underlined in this instance by the important role that many LGBTQ Americans played by having the courage to come out and share their identities, fueling the broader wave of acceptance that led to the consequential Supreme Court decision.
But a role that we don’t talk much about in advancing social justice in America is the one that the private sector has and should continue to play in the fight for a more equal society. At a time of deep distress for the nation, when we have a president actively working to undermine national cohesion and foment racial discord, that role becomes more urgent.
I’m a philanthropist, so you may think it’s easy for me to call on the private sector to do more, but I wrestled with these issues for decades when I was a leader at Microsoft. I am familiar with the argument that corporations should stick to their knitting, which is making products and profit. But I believe that corporations should not be neutral about issues of social justice, inclusion, and belonging. Companies exist in a climate where the way workers, customers, and the rule of law are treated are matters of self-interest, not just in terms of fairness but also for corporate health and viability in the marketplace.
Not all companies need to engage in the same way. There are multiple ways they can advance the cause of justice.
Corporate policies matter.
The Ford Foundation was among a handful of philanthropic organizations engaged in the early years of the fight for LGBTQ rights. Its president, Darren Walker, told me that “a lot of the building blocks for marriage equality were laid in corporate America.”
One of the most important was providing gay and lesbian couples benefits equal to those of straight, married couples. It was the right thing to do, and it gave companies a competitive edge in hiring, but their advocacy didn’t end there. Companies like Salesforce and Walmart spoke out powerfully against “religious freedom” laws that had started to crop up in states and were seen by many as a way to enshrine LBGTQ discrimination in a post-Obergefell world.
We need that kind of engagement from the private sector, particularly when it comes to issues of race and identity.
Listen to employees.
At Microsoft, many of the company’s efforts to combat inequity flow from the natural talents and desires of their team. Employees expressed concerns to company executives about the persistent racial inequities in the criminal-justice system, particularly the tragic, and ongoing, killing of unarmed men and boys of color by the police. So in 2016, the company identified ways it could contribute to advance the overhaul of the criminal-justice system.
It began working with partners in Washington State and around the country to develop tools providing transparency to sentencing; improve de-escalation training for the police; and ensure technologies like artificial intelligence and facial recognition do not further exacerbate bias.
Fred Humphries, who has worked in government affairs at Microsoft for close to 20 years, explained that they approach this work with humility — they are newcomers — because they want to help augment the work already being done by community organizations with decades of experience in the fight for a fairer justice system for people of color.
Encouragingly, Humphries said employee activism is the highest he’s ever seen. Beginning with the early days of the push toward marriage equality, he said, employees have helped the company evolve from a reactive stance on social-justice issues to one in which management solicits employee feedback and employees seek to engage in issues they care about.
Use your influence.
Sally Jewell, the former CEO of REI and former interior secretary under President Obama, told me that the role trade associations play in advancing or obstructing social progress is one that should not be overlooked.
She said that when she first came to REI, leaders from the Chamber of Commerce tried to persuade her to have REI join, but she declined. She told them that the chamber’s priority of cutting taxes on corporations to the exclusion of all other priorities failed to consider the broader context companies exist in. Companies want healthy communities with quality health care, good schools, and functioning transit systems. Employees want to live a life free from discrimination based on their race, sexual orientation, disability status, or gender identity.
Jewell wants to see a world in which corporate leaders use their considerable influence on trade associations to fight for priorities that make the country better, not just improve the bottom line for the next quarter.
“If businesses start pushing their trade associations to support the kind of laws that support equity and justice, then things start to move. Businesses hold a tremendous amount of power,” she said.
Wall Street plays a role.
Wall Street also plays an important role in shaping the incentive systems and measuring sticks for companies. Michael Porter, a professor at Harvard Business School, is among a growing group of leaders to call for corporations to move beyond “corporate social responsibility” and instead focus on the connections between societal and economic progress. Policies that simultaneously create economic and social value represent the future of business and a new definition of capitalism.
If Wall Street’s incentives were in line with a broader set of long-term outcomes, companies would focus on more than quarterly profits and measure success in a wide variety of ways while making strategic bets in the interest of both the business and the society it operates in.
Be introspective.
Starbucks has a long history of using its size and influence to bring about meaningful social changes.
With that history, both the company founder, Howard Schultz, and the CEO, Kevin Johnson, responded in an effective way when two African-American customers in one of their Philadelphia stores experienced racial bias. The company immediately took responsibility for its mistake, addressed the situation in a forthright way, and, most important, consulted with the communities most affected by bias and discrimination as it worked to formulate its longer-term response.
Since then, the company has taken a hard look at how to make Starbucks more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. For the company, this begins by looking internally to address the structural and systemic issues shared by many big companies and taking counsel from outside experts and its own employees on things like training and the diversification of board and company leaders.
Johnson has said that this work is setting the foundation for a longer-term anti-bias, diversity, equity, and inclusion effort. They are in this for the long haul.
Live your values.
Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, uses GM’s values as her guide.
“People want to work for a company they are proud of and can believe in,” she told me. In a consumer-oriented business like selling cars, wading into today’s divisive public debates can be fraught with challenges, but speaking to values isn’t.
One such value is “relationships matter.” That means building a culture in which real discussions can take place. “One of the things we are working hard on is creating an environment that ensures psychological safety for our employees so that they are free to be their full selves at work and express ideas in a constructive and fulfilling way. We want everyone to come to work being comfortable with who they are.”
Company values can’t just be a list hanging on some wall — they must have the power of policy and investment behind them.
Times have changed.
When I was part of the leadership team at Microsoft in the ’80s and ’90s, stepping into “politics” — assigning your company to one side or another in a debate — was considered foolish. The differences between the political parties weren’t as distinct as they are today. Our politics operated within mostly acceptable boundaries of civility and dignity.
But we are now living in a different time, a time when we should — and must — step forward and publicly state our values and collectively act to advance opportunity for all. We are a far more diverse nation today, and I would argue that standing up for the dignity of employees, partners, and customers isn’t a political act at all. It’s necessary and smart — and it’s needed now more than ever.
Jeff Raikes is co-founder of the Raikes Foundation and former CEO of the Gates Foundation and a top executive at Microsoft.
