EVP, Corporate Class Inc. | Leadership+Diversity+Inclusion| 2x TEDx Speaker | Innovation & Strategy| Founder - Women Helping Empower Women!
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Does DEI work actually work? I would argue it takes more than lived experience to be an expert (though this too is valuable). It takes understanding organizational behavior, human psychology, leadership, navigating change and being able to share lived experience as well as real data on why DEI not only matters and is a must, but how they are going to shape the growth strategy of any organization in the short and long term.
We must focus on both the quantitative and qualitative data and synthesize both. We need to recognize that changing culture or attitudes that have been ingrained and entrenched is more than challenging assumptions and identifying biases, meaning changes will take time and recognition that we are all on a continuum of learning and growth. Different paces and different stages.
The return on investment for DEI training has been hard to measure when you place it in the context of “some $8 billion is spent on it per year in the United States alone.” We saw a significant focus on roles and DEI hires in organizations after George Floyd’s passing in May 2020. According to the Society for Human Resource Management's report in 2020, "job openings for diversity, equity and inclusion roles surged after the nationwide protests that followed the death of George Floyd," rising 55% that year. While there has been attrition in these roles and in particular in big organizations such as Amazon, Applebee's and Twitter, the need to keep belonging and inclusion top of mind has not changed, particularly if organizations want to maintain their competitive advantage.
DEI ballooned into a priority after May 2020 because organizations realized there was a need to address bias, discrimination and systemic behavior. Behavior, I might add, that had likely been ongoing and tolerated in organizations for years; however, after George Floyd’s death, the need to talk about racism, discrimination and other difficult conversations was now not only expected but required for organizations to address these important social equity issues.
The easiest solution was to bring on what was often a visible minority to be the Chief Diversity Officer with one person to help lead a broad mandate to impact change. Let’s be clear: thinking that a one-off training session is going to flip a switch and resolve years of socialization is simply unrealistic. Most companies I have worked with either didn’t know where to begin, what to measure, what made sense for them to measure or what responsibilities to assign leaders and members in organizations so they could move from intention to implementation to integration.
Does DEI training and planning work? It absolutely can if it is done well and right. This means having significant engagement in the training so individuals and teams have "aha moments" and walk away with learning they applied and can further apply—not just attend and tick off the box. It also requires trainers, consultants and leaders to acknowledge and better engage privileged groups, which means “finding ways for them to feel good and positive about this work rather than bad and negative,” Lily Zheng, a leading DEI strategist, told Chief. “We know that deploying blame and shame doesn’t work.”
This concept of blame and shame is highlighted by an issue currently in the Canadian courts about a principal who participated in compulsory anti-racism training and has been linked to his suicide. Why do I share this incident? It speaks to many aspects of DEI training and how it should be conducted. It needs to be a safe space where we recognize we are all at different places on the continuum; it needs to recognize the lived experience of others and the value that brings. It needs to challenge us to rethink what we know about ourselves, our behavior and the impact it has on others, as well as how we can shift that behavior to be better colleagues, allies and humans.
What can companies actually do to see change? Creating opportunities for people to expand their perspectives helps and aligning change and DEI priorities to measured individual performance is critical. Creating a strategic and implementation plan can be overwhelming, so I recommend working on what makes sense, what we can measure and then phase the work into building blocks.
Let me share with you what some of those building blocks can look like for your business:
• Review. Take a look at where you’ve been and where you are.
• Understand your current baseline and how you can build on it.
• Identify your intentions and goals. These are very different things as intentions are more immediate and goals are more process oriented.
• Ensure you identify and capture what matters to establish your key pillars. You can’t measure everything unless you have endless resources!
• Listen, incorporate, integrate. Synthesize narratives and data, measure qualitative and quantitative data, set goals and benchmarks and move beyond policies and goals to integration where everyone values DEI.
• Implement an accountability ladder—meaning that change must be embraced, emulated and led from the top of the organization, not just the front lines. Everyone is accountable.
• Operationalize your plan: Who will champion and lead what?
• Do regular reality checks. Revisit the goals and plan regularly to keep it a living, working document with transparency and accountability.
Identifying what matters to your organization and how you can build buy-in and momentum can result in change that is seen and felt as part of the organizational culture. Change is the only constant. Let’s work to create a space where we embrace it.
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