3 Survival Questions From My Therapist To Ask Your Business

Written by Rajiv Fernandez, Co-founder, Historicons

There’s always been an unspoken rule in business: Keep your mouth shut. More specifically, your personal views on religion, politics and identity should be kept out of the workplace. Identity was once something that was kept private, but in the digital age those traits are revealed through outlets like social media and big data collecting user habits.

At the core of every healthy and sustainable relationship (per my therapist) is honest, open communication. So when it comes to corporations, it’s not just relatable for them to be open about identity, it’s good for business. Here are three questions every business should lay down and ask itself if it wants to succeed.

Who Are You?

Small businesses have always been the rebels to the goliaths of business. When their strategies that challenged the status quo resulted in profits, big business adapted and stole their ideas. Most notably we see this in the identity of how businesses brand themselves: Minority-owned, Woman-owned, LGBTQ+ owned, Disability-owned, etc. Like attracts like. People have a natural tendency to support their own. It’s now an asset for large corporations to flex a diverse leadership team that is authentically living out their values through their company’s mission. Don’t ask don’t tell is out. Live proudly and be free is in.

Where Do You Stand?

Staying silent on an issue is a statement in and of itself. In 2020, we saw COVID-19’s effect on not just every industry but every individual, but even more so for racially and ethnically marginalized communities who were hardest hit. And as the United States confronted racism in the wake of inequities and hate crimes of 2020, it became imperative for companies to take a stance on social issues, or risk silence making the statement for them about their company values.

The bottom line for profit-driven companies is to make money, and with that transaction with customers comes responsibility. In 2020, people wanted to make sure their money supported the issues they cared about, and savvy leaders realized that. According to LinkedIn, 94% of 136 CEOs of Fortune 500 companies posted about the coronavirus or racial injustice. Seventy percent of them posted about both. What resulted was an increase in engagement with users and the brands they patronize. When companies value their most vulnerable audience, they in turn value them back.

Beyond serving their customers, companies have a responsibility to take positions on social and political issues to support their own employees. According to the Harvard Business Review, silence on identity topics has a high psychological price on individuals’ eliciting feelings of humiliation, anger, and resentment, which in turn inhibits creativity and productivity. An inclusive workplace is good for business.

How Do You Open Up?

Transparency has become a highly valuable trait of many corporations. We’ve seen it in their architecture, like how banks that were once monoliths of stone to infer security have evolved into present-day glass buildings that let you see the inner workings of day-to-day business. Intrinsic trust secures relationships. We see this trust being built with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives growing at a higher rate than pre-2020.

As of July 2022, all Fortune 100 companies had a public commitment to DEI outlined on their websites. These plans require companies to be held accountable in creating inclusive work environments, have leadership representative of the population, invest in marginalized communities that support them and use their platforms as a power for good.

At Historicons, our personal identities are the core of our business. Being a queer-minority and disabled woman–owned business is a source of pride for us. The representation we wished we saw as kids is reflected not just in our products, but in our operations, giving a voice and decision-making power to historically overlooked groups. It allows us to connect with audiences that share our values in increasing diversity in the toys, games and education spaces, especially at a time when LGBTQ+, race and ethnocentric perspectives are being silenced by government mandates.

We’re not here to just listen, we’re here to make some good noise. Wow! It feels really good to get that out.