Note: This page will be continually updated as new episodes of Inc.‘s Book Smart podcast are released.
Diverse workforces have a powerful advantage: If you assemble people with differing professional and personal backgrounds, they’ll emerge with new ideas and strategies–more than likely something that you’d never brainstorm on your own.
That means it’s your job as a leader to recognize when your colleagues have different experiences than yours–and to value their perspectives, even when you don’t necessarily understand them. This concept has weighed heavily on Eric Schurenberg–CEO of Mansueto Ventures, the company that publishes Inc. and Fast Company–all summer, especially after listening to the audiobook of Real American: A Memoir, by bestselling author and former Stanford dean Julie Lythcott-Haims.
On Tuesday, Schurenberg joined me for his second appearance on Inc.‘s Book Smart podcast, where we explore the books beloved by prominent entrepreneurs, founders, and notable figures across the spectrum of industry. Real American tells the story of Lythcott-Haims’s upbringing as a biracial child in a middle-class, mostly White region of Wisconsin. Through narrative prose and poetry, the author conveys her ostracization from both White and Black culture growing up–leaving her searching, even as an adult, for her identity and place in American life.
Schurenberg says the book has affected nearly every conversation he’s held over the past month, and heavily informed the way he’s now approaching race-related conversations and policies in the workplace. Those conversations have grown in number and volume since the May killing of George Floyd by White police officers in Minneapolis, the nationwide protests that followed, and Schurenberg’s own realization that his own workplace wasn’t as diverse as it should have been.
“You need to be aware of the varying experiences of the people in your workforce, and know where they’re coming from–and not unintentionally foster an atmosphere in which unconscious biases are allowed to prevail,” he says. “It’s really important for you to understand reality, and the way things really work. As a leader, you’re not always given the true facts.”
Listen in the player below, or wherever you get your podcasts–and check out our archive of previous episodes, including our June episode with Schurenberg and Between the World and Me, by author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates. If you like what you hear, subscribe to Book Smart and leave us a review.
