The wave of uprisings across the nation have made it clear that police brutality disproportionately impacting Black Americans is out of hand. Many businesses have sought to distance themselves from such violence with statements and pledges.

But the same racialized violence that many are waking up to as unfair, unjust, and unacceptable, is happening within the walls of our businesses. The key difference between “police brutality” and “corporate brutality” is the means. The former is relatively, although not exclusively, more physical. The latter is more systemic and covert. But in either case the result is the same: People are injured, abused, damaged, and/or destroyed.

To adequately respond to the current uprisings, leaders must reckon with the Black experience inside their workplaces.

We have spent the past week listening to Black employees within several different companies. A common theme that emerged from these conversations was the disconnect between a company’s statement or commitment of resources externally and the daily employee experience. This disconnect is not new, but the awareness of its depth is novel for some.

Several companies have publicly acknowledged this disconnect. Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock Inc, stated, “As a firm committed to racial equality, we must also consider where racial disparity exists in our own organizations and not tolerate our shortcomings.” Jason Kilar, the CEO of WarnerMedia, explicitly named racism as a problem in the company and committed to work towards change.

The current moment has the potential to be pivotal in addressing the disparity if corporate leaders have the wherewithal to identify the harm being done to Black employees and employees of color, to name company- and industry-specific actions they will take to remedy the harm, and to hold themselves accountable.

Identify the harm without being defensive.

Defensiveness is a common reaction when waking up to the realities that racism is operating on your watch. You might feel personally responsible for the harms that are outlined. You might be personally responsible in some cases. But disrupting the harmful patterns will require deep listening and learning, not defensiveness.

And it may be that you already have the information you need. One sentiment we consistently heard from Black employees was, “We’ve been here before.” “We’ve had focus group after focus group.” These responses suggest that in some companies identifying the harm is as simple as asking employees of color about their experiences or looking back at data already collected. The hard work for leaders is taking in the data and taking action as a result.

Get specific about internal and external actions.

Blanket and abstract statements that merely denounce police brutality sound more like a politician trying to get votes than an institution prepared to take action. It tells people what you are against without having to commit to being for anything. Perhaps now more than ever, talk is cheap, and you need to guard against this saying at your company: When all was said and done, there was a lot more said than done!

Employees are attuned to the differences between political statements and real commitments. Some notable examples of companies committing to specific action are Uber, which has announced no delivery fees when customers order from Black-owned businesses. Internally, they have tied senior executive pay to measurable progress on diversity goals. Activision has added additional resources and in-game reporting systems to identify and ban racist language in their online gaming environment. These are small steps that companies have made to mitigate harm in a matter of days.