Council Post: Two Principles For Building More Inclusive Economies

Todd Khozein is the Founder and Co-CEO of impact and innovation company SecondMuse.

Since its founding, the U.S. has embraced an economic system designed to benefit some people over others. The local economies and industries that comprise our broader system have similarly prospered at the expense of groups they’ve historically excluded — from enslaved Africans whose labor enriched the country’s elite, to members of Black, Indigenous and people of color communities today, who face discriminatory barriers to the “American dream.” The long legacy of exclusion, often along racial and gender lines, has resulted in stark inequalities the country is reckoning with today.

Much of that reckoning focuses on the dual problems that arise when entire groups are virtually absent within the upper echelons of an industry. First, it hinders innovation by limiting access to a range of untapped ideas and perspectives. It also sidelines entire communities that tend to be conspicuously underrepresented in industries offering the strongest wages. For example, Black and Latino workers, who have historically been the backbone of U.S. manufacturing and other labor-intensive roles, are underrepresented in advanced, high-paying jobs that pay well and play an increasingly important role in our changing economy.

My colleagues had this in mind when they began working with the state of New York in 2014 to help build up its clean-technology economy. They were deliberate not only about supporting the state’s mission to help promising startups get their prototypes to market but also about supporting advanced manufacturing innovators whose backgrounds reflected the rich diversity of the state. In just six years, the effort launched hundreds of clean-tech manufacturing businesses in New York, 66% of which were founded by women or people of color. 

The experience validated our conviction that it doesn’t take a generation to build a more vibrant and inclusive economy. With calls now abounding for better representation of women and minorities across industries, leaders in every city and industry should reflect on the roles they can play in building more inclusive economies. This inclusion is critical not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because I personally believe that inclusive economies and sectors are smarter and more resilient than those that play according to the rules of “winners and losers.”

By adhering to two preliminary principles, all industry leaders can begin building more diverse and inclusive economies right away:

Be intentional.

From my perspective, the diversity problems facing economies today are the legacy of laws, cultural norms and systems that were designed to exclude women and people of color from the world of business, politics and power. Reversing centuries of deliberate exclusion requires the same level of intention that created the inequalities present in the country today. 

So, where to start? Begin with honest self-reflection. Consider whether you might inadvertently not be considering the impact of your actions, inactions and decisions on certain groups of people. Intentionality is about taking a more critical lens to everything you do and say. It is a shift in posture that should have you asking questions you haven’t asked before.

If you’re truly being honest, these self-interrogations should point you in the right direction. You won’t get it right all the time, but you’ll unquestionably improve. And when you’re not sure, ask. Allow women and people of color to steer the way. Those who are underrepresented in an industry are in a much stronger position to see its blind spots and shed light on barriers to inclusion. After identifying the barriers, be intentional about removing them.

Build an ecosystem of inclusivity.

Even the best efforts to foster diversity and inclusion will still face limitations in a larger system that does not also prioritize these values. Imagine a business that, internally, does everything right, but continues to recruit from universities that have their own diversity problems. Or consider a government agency that ticks all the diversity and inclusion boxes in-house, but continues to partner with (and bolster) other businesses and institutions that collectively perpetuate the problems the agency is trying to root out.

Diversity and inclusion must be part of a wider ecosystem of stakeholders, from universities to government entities and businesses that are collectively working to develop and nurture underrepresented talent. 

Ask yourselves: Which institutions in your network are similarly committed to inclusion? Reach out to them. Partner with them. Support them, and lean on them. This ecosystem approach will foster change more quickly and make any diversity strategy more sustainable. Recruiting from universities that seek out and nurture women and Black, Indigenous and Latino students, for example, will permanently strengthen an industry’s talent pipeline.

The ecosystem approach will also have multiplier effects. As your network grows, it will effectively change entire systems and communities that have historically blocked women and people of color from getting the education, training, mentorship and access to capital that leads to economic stability. It will change economies — quickly — and that work can begin today.

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