Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian: Taking a Stand on Racial Equity

ED BASTIAN: I’ll be honest, if I wasn’t a white male, would I be in the job I’m in today? I think it’s highly unlikely. Is that the only thing? No. There’s a lot of hard work. It’s 40 years of investment and sacrifice and commitment and some really difficult years. But yeah, it got me in the door.

PORTER BRASWELL: From HBR Presents, this is Race at Work – the show where we explore how race affects our careers and lives. I’m Porter Braswell. I left a Wall Street career to start a company called Jopwell because I wanted to help corporate America build a more diverse workforce. Each week, we talk to a different leader about their journey with race, equity, and inclusion. These are the conversations we don’t usually have at work. But this show is a safe place to share and learn from each other.

PORTER BRASWELL: In this episode, we discuss how CEOs and other senior leaders can address racial justice issues, and make real change in their companies. My guest today is Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta Air Lines. It’s rare for a CEO of a Fortune 500 company to speak out on issues that are politically sensitive. But Ed took a strong position on gun control after the Parkland school shooting. And early in his career, when he was an auditor at Price Waterhouse Coopers, he uncovered a $50 million fraud at a big ad agency. While other auditors noticed discrepancies in the numbers, Ed was the one who spoke up. To start our conversation, Ed tells us how his early experiences in life prepared him to be a vocal advocate for inclusion and equity.

ED BASTIAN: My background, I come from a small town in upstate New York, and it was a big family, one of nine. My mom was always the value culture keeper in our family and set the true north and the values. I was the oldest in the family. I think I was given probably an outsized dose of her counsel and wisdom. Growing up, I grew up in a society where I did not have, like many white male executives, the understanding, the privilege that we had, because it was pretty modest background, but just how the color of your skin. Entering the business world as a white male gives you a big, big step up. In the early years, I had no appreciation for that. But certainly in the last number of years, I’ve really begun to appreciate what we can do to make a difference. I think part of it, Porter, honestly, is living here in Atlanta, being the largest company in Atlanta, the largest employer in Atlanta, the birthplace for the Civil Rights movement in our country here in Atlanta, yet seeing still the disparity and the inequity that resides within the community. And honestly, transparently, within our own company, to make a difference. So I think it was a combination of things.

PORTER BRASWELL: You touched upon the privilege that comes with being a white male. Where has that understanding come from? How have you evolved the thinking to realize that the mere fact of being white in this country, that is a place of privilege?

ED BASTIAN: Yeah. Well, it didn’t come for a while. I think like many people, you’re in the workplace, you’re out, you’re competing, competing within your company to do best for your company and best for yourself, for your family to provide for opportunities. For myself, personally, I didn’t probably spend as much time thinking about that fact. I was born with a belief that everyone has an opportunity in this country of what makes this country great. But some of us have more opportunity than others. Until you get into a position of power and stop and talk to those that aren’t and understand the difference, it’s taken some time. This year has clearly been the culmination. But it’s been something I’ve been aware of for some period of time. Diversity and inclusion, for us here within our company, I think we have a pretty good track record, generally. It’s a large tent. It’s a big umbrella. It includes gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation. And we’ve done a lot in all those areas. But the one group that we haven’t done as much is with our Black colleagues and community. And maybe that’s because we’re from Atlanta and we’re a more integrated society than other cities, potentially. But when you disaggregate the data and you look at the opportunities that have not been afforded to our Black colleagues at the level of other people of color or other genders or white males, it’s stark.

PORTER BRASWELL: Why is that the case? How do you think it’s gotten to the place where there’s such a lack of Black representation, especially at the senior level?

ED BASTIAN: Yeah. Well, I think it’s been the focus on diversity more inclusively. Inclusion’s a real important topic here too. But when you understand and look at the fact that within our company, the jobs that our Black colleagues, our Black employees do, haven’t had the same pathways to advancement as other avenues. We have little over 20 percent of our employees are Black and only seven percent of our senior leadership is Black. Fifteen percent of our overall leadership is Black. Those numbers actually stack up pretty well, relative to a lot of Fortune 500 companies, in terms of total leadership levels, but it’s not nearly good enough. It’s not nearly good enough for me, for a company. Technology, for example. We don’t have a lot of Black colleagues in the technology field. A lot of people of color, but not a lot of Black colleagues. We have a large part of the Atlanta airport is Black, the workers on the ground. But getting into the leadership ranks, the areas that probably require greater skill, education, training, and people willing to take a chance on people that don’t have maybe the classic background and skillset for a job. I think that’s very clear within our company, I think, within our pilot ranks. Pilots are probably the most homogeneous category of employees across our industry, not just within our company. Well over 90 percent of our pilots are white male. In the industry, why is that? Well, that’s a bigger question. It’s going to take longer to make change happen.

PORTER BRASWELL: Well, I applaud you for being able to call out specifically the Black population. Because what I find in the line of work that I operate within, a lot of times, senior leaders and executives and CEOs, they find comfort in saying the word diversity or being diverse because they don’t have to be very specific about what they’re referring to. Like any other pain point or challenge within a company, if you can identify what that pain point is and have a clear roadmap for how you’re going to find success and what success means, then you will be successful. So in August, you released a very widely read memo discussing how Delta was going to be an antiracist company and the actions that you would take to ensure it. First, for the listeners who haven’t had a chance to read it, I definitely encourage you all to read it. Why did you write that memo in August?

ED BASTIAN: You know, following the murder of George Floyd, who caused our society to pay attention at a level we’ve never paid attention to this issue around police brutality, but even more broadly about opportunity for all and creating a just society and a just workplace. I took it upon myself to speak to a lot of my peers within the Fortune 500 CEO realm, or a lot of people within our industry, a lot of people within our company, a lot of people within our community. And asked a lot of the questions that we are all asking, how did we get here? What do we have to do to really appreciate and understand that? Even then, I don’t think I, it’s just this last year my understanding is probably doubled, if not, tripled of the challenge. I think this is not something that our Black colleagues are particularly safe talking about and feel comfortable talking about. And as a white male, it’s an awkward conversation for many of us because we don’t consider ourselves racist. But the reality is, the companies we run have a systemic racism attached to it, whether it’s the hiring slates or just the unconscious bias that we all carry that we’re unaware of.

PORTER BRASWELL: If your board or other senior leaders had pushed back on that memo, what would you have done?

ED BASTIAN: Well, I’m known for this. I put that memo out and I didn’t even share it with my board. They read it after I’d already sent it out because I didn’t want, it was that important to me. I am proud to say that it was universally applauded by our board. As a CEO, you need to understand the culture of your company. You need to understand the values. You need to understand what you represent and who you are. There are some social topics, it just really doesn’t apply to what we do. People like to pull you in on a large range of social topics. If that’s all you’re going to talk about then you’re not going to be a very effective CEO. You’re going to lose your voice and your impact. But those that are important to you, those that get personal, such as, for me, representing and being an advocate for our Black community, diversity broadly as well. Those things are really important to our company’s success. Those are the things that I’ve latched onto and made a priority for myself. And the board knows that. I talked about that within the board. That’s why I made the commitment that we’re going to increase the diversity of our Black directors without talking to our board because it’s the right thing to do. If they had pushed back on me, I would have had, I’ve left this company before about 15 years ago. I walked out in this company because it didn’t represent who I thought we needed to be our values. If I was ever working in a company that pushed back on important topics of this nature, I couldn’t work here.

PORTER BRASWELL: As you prioritize what decisions get made, who is it in mind that takes the priority? Is it what you personally believe? Is it what you think your shareholders want? How do you prioritize when decisions get made? What compels you?

ED BASTIAN: You gotta be careful that you don’t put your own personal view and why I have talked about it being personal. Personal means about having ownership of it. I’m not here to push my personal views through the company. Again, that’s what I get criticized anytime I step out on a social topic, whether it’s environment or others. There’s always another side that’s coming at you that is offended. I spent a lot of time talking to my leadership team about it. I never go out on my own with any of these things. I’m always getting counsel from people that I trust. I have a great relationship with our lead director, our chairman, Frank Blake, the former CEO of the Home Depot Company. I talk to him several times a week. It’s a safe place for me. Because you need someplace where you can bounce your own ideas and somebody that can tell you when you’re starting to run afoul a little bit or going off the rails. We’ve had those conversations at times. I have a pretty good sense, good relationship as to where our boards head’s at, where his head’s at. The topics, the social activities and agenda becomes pretty self-evident as to where that’s going to lead you.

PORTER BRASWELL: So in your position, what do you do for other senior leaders, if they don’t have the same energy or passion or understanding about why we’re going to focus on the Black population? How do you bring people along that journey or remove them from the journey?

ED BASTIAN: Well, a lot of it is getting greater awareness of the issue, a better background, a better set of skills and knowledge. Because I don’t think there’s anything that I’ve learned this year that would be any different than any of our other leaders should be learning and seeing and understanding. We’ve done a lot here at Delta to enhance the awareness on that topic. Every month, starting in June, we’ve had a significant leader coming out of the Black community to come speak on an open town hall that I do regularly throughout the company several times a month, more broadly. We’ll have access to 75,000 people. And the conversations are vulnerable. The conversations are real. The conversations are about learning. And I’m learning in the conversation as much as any of our employees are. And so, it’s not something that we have to be ashamed about. There’s been a lot of understanding that this is not something new, that’s even in the last 50 years. This is a 400-year challenge and struggle when you go back to the history of it. And I can’t go back and unwind the 95 years history of Delta. But I can own the truth of the past and make good on the future and course correct. So every one of these conversations have had a real level of understanding and learning. And I’ve had so much feedback from our senior leadership, most of them are white male, to indicate that these are some of the most important hours they have spent in the entire career they’ve had at Delta, the learnings and the awareness. It’s opening their hearts. For me, it’s important to model that, model that vulnerability and the sensitivity to the topic. Going down the other end of the extreme, I’ve also spent an enormous amount of time with our frontline Black employees, flight attendants, airport workers, ramp agents, people that work every day within our company. We have a Black employee resource group, which we’ve had many years, called BOLD. I’d never spent a lot of time with them. I’ve spent a lot of time with them this year. I told them they’ve become my advisory council, and there’s about a dozen of them. They come from every walk of life within our company. The first couple meetings were a bit stiff. But we’ve met every several weeks since then. I probably had a dozen to 15 meetings with them over the course of the last year. They’re now one of the best meetings on my calendar because they come in, they’re proud, they’re energized, they’re taking back the messages that I provide to them that they’re learning from each other, and they’re bringing messages in. And I’m bringing leaders along with me on that journey.

PORTER BRASWELL: Yeah. Well so, since August, it sounds like there’s been a lot of amazing conversations bringing in a lot of influential speakers, having BOLD be more advisory in nature to you. What has actually tangibly changed beyond the messages and the conversations? Have you started to see actual results, or is it too soon?

ED BASTIAN: Absolutely. In disaggregating the data, I’ve gone on a big, detailed search as to where, within our company, we’re really falling behind, where do we have the greatest imbalance. In the number of our divisions in airports, we’ve already brought in new leaders, moved people around to give, that don’t reflect the diversity, the Black diversity, that we need in our operation. So we’re making changes there. I’ve been very clear on our board of directors, that the next board member, we have 12 directors within Delta, of which I’m one of. We have two Black directors. Historically, we’ve had more. Historically, we’ve had three to four. We’ve had some retirements in the last few years. The next director of Delta, we’ve told our search firm, unequivocally, will be Black. And we’re not going to apologize for that. That was one of the learnings I’ve had this year. You can say that without feeling like you’re apologizing for that or excluding somebody. So we’re making change. People are watching, which is one of the other reasons why I put the detail and put them and be very transparent about our goals. Because I know there’s a bull’s eye on us. I want that bull’s eye on us. Because that’s going to keep us moving and that’s going to keep us focused.

PORTER BRASWELL: When you think about your role, and again, how visible you are to the industry more broadly, how do you prioritize having a conversation about race versus having a conversation about just the industry more broadly and what’s going on with the airline industry? How do you prioritize your day?

ED BASTIAN: This is a really important topic. There’s a lot of important topics that we, we have an operation where we put 6,000 planes in the sky every day. We need to land them safely every day. And safety is always the top priority –

PORTER BRASWELL: Glad to hear that.

ED BASTIAN: And so, we’ve got a big technical orientation to what we do, but the topic increasingly, on my calendar, it’s more than just the external discussions like you and I are having. The internal conversations I have every single week. And the one thing I know about our company is that if the person at the top is paying attention to it, stuff’s going to get done. This is not something that you can delegate. This is the one that you own. One of our pilots, a Black pilot, wrote me in July. And he was related to one of – I won’t give the name because I don’t want to reveal who he is – [he] was a close relative to one of the, a number years ago, one of the Black men that were killed that received national attention around police brutality. And he hasn’t felt safe talking about it. There’s very few people within the company that even know. Yet this was his cousin, his first cousin, somebody he was very close to. And by me talking more publicly about our commitment about it, he felt safe coming to me. You, and his message to me, Porter, is he’s a Black pilot. He puts on his pilot uniform and comes to work, but when he goes home, his skin color doesn’t come off. We can take our suits off and we can kind of release some of the burdens and the challenges of our workday. Many of our Black colleagues don’t have that same opportunity. And just hearing him and understanding at a deeper level what that really means, what it means to you personally, Porter, what it means for our Black colleagues, it’s impactful.

PORTER BRASWELL: Ed, I appreciate that we are specifically talking about this topic because the culture of American history is one rooted in the fact that Black men have always been viewed as threats. And there’s a lot to that and there’s too much to unpack in this conversation. But as a result of that, when I experience the world as a Black person, specifically as a Black man, it’s tiring. In that, I’m always thinking and I’m always aware that people may view me as threatening. It doesn’t matter about what school I went to or where I started my career or what I do professionally. The world views me as a threat, and I’m constantly reminded of that. And it doesn’t shut off, being outside. It comes into the workplace as well. And so I think it’s important that we’re acknowledging this and openly speaking about it. I’m curious, Ed, looking back now and knowing what you know, how do you think being a white male has affected your professional success? Do you have a story that illustrates that?

ED BASTIAN: I’ll be honest, if I wasn’t a white male, would I be in the job I’m in today? I think it’s highly unlikely, highly unlikely. But just like you, I can’t take my white skin off. That’s all I know. That’s what I was born in. And I’ve never seen that, until recent years, as being a contributor to my success Is that the only thing? No. There’s a lot of hard work. It’s 40 years of investment and sacrifice and commitment and some really difficult years. But yeah, it got me in the door. It got me the opportunity. And I think that’s what’s important in this topic is that we’ve got to create, to get people in the door and give them the opportunity that don’t look like me, that may not have the training, the background, the education. That’s why getting these hiring slates cleansed of any bias and looking at places where people haven’t had the traditional opportunities for a four-year college education, for example, and finding ways to bring them up and take them off our frontline of our company and put them into management roles and being an active sponsor and an advocate unapologetically. It’s not quotas. It’s about raising the bar for everybody. We need to give people the benefit of the doubt. Not the presumption that they can’t, and giving them that opportunity and realizing people don’t come from traditional backgrounds. We all come from different places. But if we’re going to get to a place where we are making an impact and a difference in our community, in our society, and creating a better company, these are things you do. You get outside your comfort zone.

PORTER BRASWELL: How would you encourage other CEOs to get that type of perspective if they don’t personally have friends or relationships that come from underrepresented communities? You were fortunate that you had that pilot come to you and share that story – that came to you. How can a CEO experience that level of power of understanding, if they’re not surrounded by folks that are from the Black community?

ED BASTIAN: Well, first and foremost, I can’t overstate how important it is to make this personal. If those individuals are not coming to you, you need to go find them because they exist within your organizations. And you need to make it safe. It takes time. It takes courage. By the way, courage is a sign of strength. It’s not a sign of weakness to be vulnerable. It’s a sign of strength to be vulnerable, particularly on this topic. And you don’t have the answers, by definition, because you’re born of privilege and you don’t understand and appreciate that. So coming at it from a humble heart in really seeking to learn and understand is so powerful. There’s no company out there of any size that doesn’t have these stories within its four walls. And it’s a journey. I’m still learning. I’m beginning to appreciate and I feel empowered to be their advocate and their ally. But I still need to understand what that means because I want to be a great advocate for them. You need to keep those conversations moving. You need to give people the permission to tell you when your ideas aren’t good or you’re not being responsive or as aware as you need. And I’ve given all of our, particularly our Black employees, that permission.

PORTER BRASWELL: How do you draw that line? Where is the line between too personal and work?

ED BASTIAN: You know, it’s good business. It’s not just the right thing to do, it’s good business to be a diverse employer, to have people around you that look differently that have different ideas. And it’s proven that companies that have more diverse leadership and a more integrated view and a more holistic view of society perform better. But that’s not enough. I really do believe there’s a moral imperative for us to, you know, we’re in a position in our community, in our society, in the world today, that business leaders probably have never been. Business leaders, historically, have been taught to keep their heads down, to not take on social topics, to focus on their job. Society today is looking for business given the lack of leadership across, it’s not just our country, around our world. Businesses have a larger voice and a larger impact. By the way, we employ a lot of people. We have a lot of responsibilities, not just to the people we employ, it’s the contractors we engage. It’s the multiplier effect of the impact of our decisions across a community that have real power. And I think it’s a moral imperative that we pick up that mantle and have the courage and speak. I think there is a line you can’t cross. We wouldn’t want to come across as pontificating or thinking that we have the answers, but showing leadership. And I think also today’s consumers are increasingly paying attention to give their business to companies that reflect the values that they share for themselves.

PORTER BRASWELL: Absolutely. And I think that last part is so important, especially for the millennial population too. We want to buy from companies that stand for something, and they’re not bashful about that and they take a stance. Clearly, again, from your seat, to be able to speak about these topics and to be vulnerable about your own understanding and journey of it, it’s really important for consumers to hear that. One question that I like to ask all of our guests is, should race be discussed at work – and why, if you think so?

ED BASTIAN: I think it should, but I think there are some boundaries. But to think that we just come to work and we go home and we only talk about this when we’re at different place, I think, would be wrong. For most of us, we spend more of our time here with each other in our workplace than we do with our families or we do in our community or do with friends. Our friends are here. We do life with these people. And this is a really, really important topic. So yes, I think it’s really important. But you do have to create the safe spots, where to have the conversations and where not to.

PORTER BRASWELL: I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your willingness to engage in this conversation. Because ultimately, nothing will change unless people who look like you, in your position, determine things are going to change. Our community has been calling for this for a long time and will continue to call for it, but nothing will ever change unless the white leaders of corporate America decide that it’s going to change. So I appreciate you taking the time to chat with us. Thank you.

ED BASTIAN: Thank you, Porter.

PORTER BRASWELL: That’s Ed Bastian, Chief Executive Officer at Delta Air Lines. And that’s it for Season One of Race at Work. I want to thank my producer, Amy Chyan and the team at HBR for all their hard work to launch this show. Thanks for listening to Race at Work. I’m Porter Braswell, and we’ll be back soon with a new season.