6 ways to empower underrepresented groups in the workplace

Why are underrepresented groups still facing barriers in the workplace?

When organizations are diverse and inclusive, they outperform their peers. Time and again, they beat the results of their less diverse peers when it comes to making better decisions, capturing new markets, creating new products and beating their industry’s average financial returns.

So why is it that so few underrepresented groups hold senior leadership roles? Why don’t more people of color and women rise to the top?

Because they still face daunting barriers in the workplace. They may have to confront conflicting gender or cultural norms, a lack of advocates, role models and sponsors, stereotyping and issues surrounding work-life integration, to name a few.

While organizations themselves have much work to do on a structural and behavioral level to address the practices, processes and cultures that hold underrepresented groups back, people from underrepresented groups can take steps themselves to raise their chances of overcoming barriers in their organization. Here’s how you can help empower them, so they can increase their contribution and advance their careers. We call it the Power of Choice.

What is the Power of Choice?

Underrepresented groups often internalize others’ negative expectations. As they do, their confidence plummets, and they may lessen their effort at work. They simply accept what is without realizing that they have the power to effect change.

Individuals have power over how their career progresses. They can make active choices to do what we call “living by design,” which simply means that they choose how they react to the barriers they face, both inside and outside of work. Our Power of Choice program, which we first developed in the 1960s, has empowered individuals from underrepresented groups by giving them the insights, strategies and tools they need to advance their careers.

We recently interviewed people who participated in our Power of Choice program over the years. We wanted to learn how the program had affected their careers and test whether the program’s concepts still held true. Our study found that the Power of Choice program accelerated career advancement. Forty percent of respondents reported being promoted. Nearly half said the program helped them transition into a higher or more desirable position.

And more than three-quarters said they had become more effective at problem-solving, pushing through challenges and being resilient after failure. For these individuals from underrepresented groups, realizing that they had the power of choice and learning how to exercise those choices had a tangible impact on their career trajectory.

How to empower underrepresented groups in the workplace

Based on our research, we also strengthened and streamlined our approach for today. Our new and improved approach focuses on six choices. Let’s review what these choices mean and consider how employees from underrepresented groups can start applying them today.

1. The awareness choice

Individuals from underrepresented groups must become more self-aware on two fronts: what they need to do to become more successful and what strategies or behaviors may help or hinder them as they work to achieve their goals.

To improve self-awareness, individuals may need to undergo a process of deep, guided reflection. They should consider how their life experiences influence their behavior, both in and out of work. For instance, they should think about how these experiences affect their decisions and beliefs about their capabilities. They must also examine their coping strategies and consider how they may be self-limiting. With this understanding, individuals can adopt a more effective, proactive approach to achieving their goals.

Steps for individuals to take:

• Assess the key points in their life, both personal and professional, that led them to where they are today. Identify what has worked well for them and what has gotten in the way.
• Clarify the path they want to follow by asking questions. What do they really want? Why do they want it? What are they willing to do to get it?
• Learn or develop the behaviors and strategies they need to achieve their identified career goals.
• Consider other people’s worldviews and ways of operating and the politics and unspoken rules of the organization, then devise ways to work around them.

2. The development choice

Some individuals from underrepresented groups feel unsupported by formal and informal career development channels. Others may even blame those channels for holding them back. As a result, they may not realize that they can take control of their self-development.

The development choice enables individuals to think strategically about their development. Rather than waiting for their manager to set the course for them, individuals look for opportunities to confront obstacles to their development with commitment and courage and think of ways that they can control their own development.

Steps for individuals to take:

• Adopt a capacity-building mindset and forget the old adage that “you either have it or you don’t.” If they choose to believe that they can develop the skills and behaviors necessary to allow them to achieve at a high level, they will. Our research confirms that when people believe they can manage their life and career outcomes, they’ll build the confidence they need to succeed.
• Broaden how they think about confidence and work to strengthen their confidence in different areas. Confidence is about more than knowing their stuff — that’s how people prove themselves and build their career in the early stages. To progress, they need confidence in their ability to navigate politics and build relationships.

3. The contribution choice

Here, individuals consider how much they contribute to their organizations and how that affects their development. They work to identify the barriers that may prevent them from increasing their contribution and look for ways to strengthen their impact.

To get started, individuals must assess where they are in the Four Stages of Contribution Model:

• Stage 1: Contributing dependently where they learn about their role, build their credibility and serve as a helper to others.
• Stage 2: Contributing independently where they establish and apply their expertise and become more of a specialist.
• Stage 3: Contributing through others where they guide, coordinate and develop others, serving as a coach, mentor, idea leader, internal consultant or project leader.
• Stage 4: Contributing strategically to shape the organizational direction and serving as a sponsor, innovator and business leader.

Over time, the goal is to move through the stages, sometimes moving back and forth as they take on new opportunities. Understanding where they are, and where their manager perceives them to be, can foster more productive discussions about development.

Steps for individuals to take:

• Understand which stage they’re in and set goals appropriate to that stage.
• Assess their performance against expectations based on their stage and situation. Review their successes and failures in a way that leaves their confidence intact.
• Choose effective behaviors to address any barriers and enable their optimal contribution.

4. The self-determination choice

External messages from others have a powerful impact on our beliefs about ourselves and our capabilities. All too often, people from underrepresented groups, particularly women, suffer from imposter syndrome, where they doubt their accomplishments and feel that they’re going to be exposed as a fraud.

The key is to maintain a powerful internal voice that can drown out the naysayers. While we can’t control what others say to us, we can control how we receive and frame those messages and what we say to ourselves.

Steps for individuals to take:

• Understand the impact societal or external messages have on the choices they make as individuals.
• Assess and, if necessary, reframe the messages they have received from their family, community, culture or religion about who they are and what is appropriate for them.
• Make definitive choices based on these insights, for example by deciding to undertake a stretch assignment that will challenge them.

5. The relationship choice

Networking often isn’t a priority for professionals, even those who realize how much relationships matter. It may seem overwhelming or inauthentic. People from underrepresented groups may also lack the skills or confidence to network effectively. All of these reasons mean that too many people from underrepresented groups spend too little time building connections that could help them.

But relationship building is a learnable skill and one that develops and advances careers. To build relationships, individuals need to recognize and appreciate cultural differences and understand that people with different perspectives won’t always want to form trusting relationships in the same way. Individuals must reframe their thinking: they must approach networking as a way to authentically get to know others and create mutually rewarding relationships.

Steps for individuals to take:

• They must understand how relationships can influence their personal and professional goals.
• Consider their network and the relationships they already have. How are those relationships supporting their career? What gaps do they need to fill to achieve their goals? And, on the other hand, what are they contributing to each critical relationship? Can they do more?
• Leverage the additional support that professional relationships can provide, such as in the form of sponsorship, mentorship or advocacy.

6. The influence choice

As individuals progress in their careers, it becomes increasingly important to be able to influence others — both with and without direct authority. To become an effective influencer, individuals first need to establish credibility and build their professional brand. Then they need to understand influencing strategies and know when to use them.

But it’s especially hard for individuals from underrepresented groups to accomplish these goals. They often have to deal with conflicting values and have to take the extra step of reconciling the barriers they face with others’ personal values.

Steps for individuals to take:

• Recognize that influence is an important skill that they can learn.
• Gather ongoing feedback from a variety of sources, so they can proactively manage their personal and professional brand.
• Learn how to be flexible and effective at using appropriate influencing strategies for different situations.

How to build more opportunities for underrepresented groups

To develop a competitive advantage, your organization needs to optimize your talent’s ability to make a contribution. That means you need a culture that embraces diversity and inclusion and that ensures that everyone has the capability to grow and develop.

To achieve these goals, you must address the structural and behavioral issues that may be perpetuating barriers and preventing underrepresented groups from achieving their full potential in the workplace. And you also need differentiated development for underrepresented groups.

To learn more about how the Power of Choice can help your employees take ownership of their own careers and give them the insights, strategies and tools they need to drive their development, get in touch.