LESSONS LEARNED
A DEI Leader must understand an organization before they can effectively convey DEI concepts that will evolve the organization. This requires organizational intelligence
Every organization has a unique history. Assessing its DEI frame of reference reveals the organization’s views about diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as why it is where it is in terms of incorporating the principles of DEI into its operations.
Change without understanding is unsustainable. To be willing to move forward with initiatives, an organization needs to know why they are being recommended and how they will help it accomplish its existing mission, vision, and purpose.
Understanding the Level of Receptiveness is the Foundation for DEI Systemic Change
Evolving an organization to weave DEI into its DNA is a step-by-step process. This is achieved by leveraging organizational intelligence to meet an organization where it is on the DEI systemic change journey and using the organization’s own words to accomplish the mission, vision, and purpose it has already adopted.
Prior to starting the journey, a DEI Leader must first determine the organization’s level of commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Is it “verbal” only, or is it verbal plus “demonstrated behaviors?” The answer assists the DEI Leader in understanding the current leadership messaging and what has or has not previously been done within the dimensions of diversity. This knowledge allows the DEI Leader to think about the organization’s culture and communication style, thus determining the correct collaborative approach to move the journey forward.
The DEI systemic change journey begins by identifying an organization’s current place on that passage – meeting them where they are. A DEI Leader must assess the organization’s existing frame of reference and level of receptiveness before they can effectively convey DEI concepts that will evolve the organization.
This approach to leadership is not exclusive to DEI. “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” is one of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®️, the perennial best seller and a must-read for DEI Leaders. Covey, S. R. (2004). The 7 habits of highly effective people: Restoring the character ethic. New York: Free Press. A DEI Leader “seek[s] first to understand” by meeting their organization where it is.
A key to successfully implementing the DEI strategic visioning framework necessary for the organization’s successful evolution is to translate each aspect of the framework into concepts it can understand. The framework must be carefully tailored to begin where the organization is to effectively chart its own unique path toward a culture of belonging.
Change without understanding is unsustainable. An organization needs to know why initiatives are being recommended to have the willingness to move those initiatives forward.
Each organization has its own history. Assessing its DEI frame of reference reveals the organization’s views about diversity, equity, and inclusion. An examination of how those views have influenced, and continue to influence, its conduct explains why it is where it is in terms of incorporating the principles of DEI into how it functions. A DEI Leader learns the history and language of the organization by meeting it where it is. This, in turn, informs the steps that need to be taken to evolve the organization to a sustainable culture of belonging.
One cannot and should not force an organization to evolve without its active participation. Individuals with the power to modify policies and practices need to be informed how the recommended DEI strategic initiatives are aligned to the vision, mission, core values, and strategic goals. With this knowledge an environment of receptiveness is established, enabling collaborative engagement with those in power, leading them to become supportive of the initiatives.
How and why an organization has reached a particular place on the DEI journey reveals much about its embrace of inclusiveness, or lack thereof, as demonstrated by its policies, practices, and behaviors. Wherever it may be on the journey, to move forward the evolutionary framework must start by relating to the organization’s present – where it is. By appreciating the perspective of the organization’s decision-makers and influencers, a DEI Leader can devise the best solutions for evolving its DEI practices to ensure an inclusive environment that enables moving forward to a sustainable culture of belonging.
Being Right Doesn’t Change Others
Some DEI professionals become restive when we advocate the importance of meeting organizations where they are to bring them along the DEI journey. They feel that the case for diversity, greater equity, and creating an inclusive environment is so compelling and self-evident that an organization should realize that it needs to evolve to ensure long term success.
“It’s the twenty-first century! I shouldn’t have to explain why they created the position of DEI Director.” “They need to own DEI and educate themselves.” “I’m exhausted trying to make them see the value of DEI.” Comments like these from frustrated DEI professionals are commonplace. And with good reason.
Organizations have long had the opportunity to create an environment of belonging. Few have done so. It is folly to expect that they will now evolve on their own because they should.
Addressing the inequities in U.S. society resulting from a history of systemically enforced discrimination and separation is not the sole responsibility of DEI professionals. It is the responsibility of all U.S. citizens. But the fact remains that America’s aspirational promise of equality, liberty, and justice for all has yet to be realized.
Organizations have long had the opportunity to create an environment of belonging, but few have done so. It is folly to expect that they will now evolve on their own simply because they should.
Telling an organization what it must do to embrace DEI without showing the value and the dividend is more likely to engender resentment and resistance than progress. Failing to meet an organization or individual where they are causes them to become uncomfortable and remain behind a wall of non-receptiveness. Keep in mind we human beings do not like to be taken out of our comfort zones. Only by understanding each organization’s views and showing it how DEI principles based upon a broader worldview are not only aligned with its objectives but also benefits systemic change.
Legal Compliance and DEI are not the same. DEI is about humanity.
Organizations are part of U.S. society and are born out of its existing norms. From the country’s inception, those norms included laws prohibiting Persons of Color and women from enjoying the same rights as the rest of society, resulting in a culture of separatism.
It wasn’t until 1954, more than 300 years after the first human beings were kidnapped, enslaved, and taken to the American colonies, that the U.S. Supreme Court found the practice of forcing groups of citizens to live separately to be unconstitutional. It took another decade for the remaining Jim Crow laws, in place for 100 years, that treated Persons of Color as “less than” their white fellow citizens to be rejected by the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Laws alone do not create a culture of belonging. Laws merely create an expectation of compliance.
While laws prescribing various discriminatory practices have existed for most of the country’s history, it has only been since the latter half of the twentieth century that U.S. law has affirmatively proscribed certain acts of discrimination (e.g., 1963 Equal Pay Act (gender); 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act (age); Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (disability). These laws have been selective in providing safeguards; not all dimensions of humanity (diversity) have received protection leading to equal rights.
For example, less than 10 years ago, in 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a marriage between two people of the same gender is a right protected by the U.S. Constitution. Nevertheless, Congress has yet to pass a law prohibiting discrimination based on an individual’s sex assigned at birth, sexual orientation, transgender identity, gender transition, gender identity, or gender expression. Nor has the Supreme Court provided protections.
Why this brief review of U.S. history as seen through the DEI Lens? Because despite the periodic modifications of the nation’s laws, inequality and discriminatory treatment persist. While some anti-discrimination laws have been enacted, laws alone do not create a culture of belonging. Laws merely create an expectation of compliance.
Our government, our systems, and our norms were created by a group that was not inclusive, and many aspects of society were deliberately designed to exclude certain groups. It has only been within the country’s relatively recent history that persons other than White men have been able to occupy positions of power.
An organization’s perception of history plays a significant role in its attitudes about what should and should not be part of its policies and practices.
Many organizations were and are influenced by millions of people with a worldview that has been significantly shaped by the perceived norms during their formative years. These include the teachings of their parents and other family members who developed their perspective of humankind during the twentieth century, when many of U.S. society’s norms were rife with discriminatory practices.
An organization’s perception of history plays a significant role in its attitudes about what should and should not be part of its policies and practices. Individuals with the power to help the organization evolve, as well as other employees, have views that have been shaped by their perspective of history—one that is often neither complete nor accurate. Nevertheless, it is their worldview perspective based upon their lived experiences. It is where they are.
DEI systemic change will not be achieved with policy changes or individual initiatives alone. Each organization must identify and adopt behaviors and practices that go beyond merely prohibiting discrimination, which takes us back to why it is essential to understand where the organization is to successfully bring it forward.
Why, Then How
To become part of its DNA an organization must understand why policymodifications or initiatives are being implemented. Change without understanding is unsustainable. Following specific mandates is isolated change, not systemic; it does not translate into evolving an organization’s culture toward one of Belonging. Weaving DEI into the fabric of the organization results from educating it how to connect its value systems, behaviors, and practices to reflect the principles of DEI.
A DEI Leader seeks first to understand an organization’s current receptiveness before identifying the best solutions for evolving the organization’s DEI practices and culture. They recognize that they must have that insight to bring the organization along a path that fosters receptiveness and encourages members of the organization to ask clarifying questions, digest new information, and understand their collaborative role and workplace expectations.
DEI Leaders understand that you can have the best policies and procedures in place, but culture will eat your policies for lunch!