Mission Protocol

"We make sandwiches, taking a side on segregation is beyond the scope of our mission".

Which sounds fine, but Woolworth's chose not to serve Black Americans. This was legal[0]. With the benefit of hindsight, we can claim that refusing to serve Black people was indeed "taking a side", but there were places where supporting the pro-integration people was breaking the law. And refusing to serve Black people, until they staged sit ins, didn't appear to be taking a side, because it wasn't uncommon. It was the way most places worked.

Even the mission to "serve everyone a sandwich" doesn't require addressing segregation, you can have separate lunch counters and serve everyone. Perhaps that's fine, people at the time certainly thought it was.

[0]: https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/the-greensboro-...

> Pointing out or "whistle blow" legal or ethical wrongdoings by a single person has nothing to do with a group coming together and agreeing on not participating in political topics that aren't essential to the groups mission.

Whether e.g. my colleagues that happen to be minorities feel comfortable in the working environment is super important for me as an employee, and should be important to the company too. Even as a purely profit-driven incentive, but hopefully also because empathy is a thing that exists.

My colleagues without citizenship, gender-minorities, and ethnic minorities in general are, for example impacted disproportionately by the policies of the current administration. If one of these colleagues talks about "politics" that aren't directly relevant to the mission, but impact them deeply as humans and emotional beings, they shouldn't be shut down. For them, it might instill a degree of confidence in the organization if the company, instead of ignoring their plight, chose to actively support them.

Since the mission is only achieved as a function of the work performed by employees, the problems facing large groups of employees is surely in the interest of the employer. If 10% of your employees feel affected by e.g. a death by police hands, and the subsequent protests, then you _will_ notice that on your bottom line. Not to mention all of the non-black people that naturally are also affected by such events.

To take it out of racial lines, imagine how scared a member of the LGBT community must feel as the supreme court justice hearings, which could result in the reversal of crucial protections for that group, are playing out. My point here is that caring about the well-being of your colleagues and/or your employees should necessarily include the singular issues which negatively affect them to the degree that current events seem to have. Or, at least has for the people that I have spoken to.

I want to make it clear that the above argument isn't that "a group should speak out because they have a voice", even if I think such an argument could be made quite strongly. Rather, it's an argument focusing solely on context of keeping employees and/or colleagues somewhat happier, and less affected by events like we've seen. It's also a way to foster loyalty. If someone thinks their employer has their back, they're more likely to have the back of their employer too.

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On the topic of "at work" problems relating to political issues. Recently there has been a some high-profile but, in my view, quite meaningless changes proposed. Like GitHub changing the default branch name. It's a trivial change, doesn't do anything meaningful about the real problems faced by minorities, and primarily is a way to score a few feel-good brownie points. However, it still had an effect on the people I've talked to about this. Because when 30% of your colleagues care so strongly about _not_ changing the default branch name - something that, again, is utterly trivial and well-supported - it makes them feel less welcome. A change so small and trivial, suggested by some in a well intentioned effort to be nice, turns into exclusionary act by the employee that so strongly feel making that change is preposterous.

You might say that the change shouldn't have been suggested in the first place, and thus the whole thing would be avoided. But the conversation about that change was happening everywhere online in every technology-related sphere. You'd be hard-pressed to follow any news in our industry and miss the conversation. Which brings us back to the crux. It's such a small change that doesn't really matter to most people, but to some it _is_ important. Why not?

Work doesn't happen in a bubble with no connection to the outside world. The work affects the real world, and the real world effects the work. It's a two-way street that you can't ignore.

Right, but that's sort of the point of this protocol statement, no?

If a founder of a lunch restaurant starts out by saying "hello everyone, I'm here to make the best lunches possible but only for southern white people" I suspect, given my experience with lunches on three continents and in 37 states in the US, that he is going to have a hard time finding people who would actually be able to make good lunches.

Which is the point.

This does two things: it focuses people on what the actual mission of their company is or should be, and it can expose the kinds of missions that are nuts, or counter-productive, or just plain bad.

Their mission used to be "make the world more open and connected". They changed it because it because they've mostly achieved it and being open and connected has a different set of negative externalities.