Stop Creating DEI Initiatives. It's Time to Get a Real Strategy
DEI Is Failing Organizations because most organizations have DEI initiatives. Let’s talk about DEI strategies.
If asked: “Does your organization have a strategy for DEI, or a set of loosely connected initiatives tied together through employee engagement goals?” could you answer that question in the affirmative?
A strategy is a plan to connect the various parts of an organization’s operational, financial, people, service/product, marketing communications, and external impact to repair past harms to minoritized populations, empower them within and outside the organization, and ensure their core business is not negatively impacting the earth and its various populations (often while leaving nonprofits and government to support impacted persons or fix negative impacts, despite increasing corporate calls for smaller government).
An initiative is a dutiful activity that happens within one area of an organization, but is not connected to the rest of the institution’s work and does not fix the issues that created the need for the initiative in the first place.
A plan is not the same as an activity. And a comprehensive plan is not the same as a well intentioned or well attended activity.
To quote Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. on his thoughts about the philanthropic sector: “Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.” The very day before his assassination, he gave a stirring speech about the importance of worker protections and wage equity, while calling out several multinational companies that are still in existence today.
It’s not new, and we’ve heard the statements before demonstrating a commitment to DEI...
“We’ve invited a speaker to address our staff on the topic of LGBTQIA+ inclusion, and are inviting all staff to join us on our sponsored float in the city’s Pride Parade this month.”
“In honor of Black History Month, we are hosting a soul food luncheon, and bringing in Professor xyz to talk about the importance of racial equity and how our company is advancing this work.”
“To ensure that our work to support women’s rights is a goal for all of our team members, our Women at Work Employee Resource Group is hosting a townhall to discuss new hiring goals and ways to support inclusion for women at our philanthropic foundation.”
But how do these initiatives truly change the social norms that create the need for DEI? At its core, DEI has been an apparatus of (mostly) corporate America to ensure compliance to government requirements, create a sense of employee happiness, and to cultivate a welcoming work environment for the people they want to hire, need to keep, and don’t want to upset. The people in this group are usually those found as protected members of the US Civil Rights Act, and for whom membership in most large companies has been statistically and culturally lacking. There are certainly good intentions behind this work, but it is consistently called out for not addressing the root causes of inequity that built many American companies, and which leads to fields like finance, legal services, medicine, and other high paying fields to have a steady stream of mostly White men leading their senior teams.
Let me be clear: exclusion is profitable (none of the FAANG stock companies has more than 10% Black or Latine staff, and most are now trillion dollar businesses). Leaders can build a pleasant, economically robust, racially and gender homogenous work environment without focusing much on DEI (as is seen in most large teams of legal partners to this day). And many don’t see the modus operandi for the last century or so of American business and philanthropic models as rooted in exclusion, they see it as a system of merit and market-driven, nearly unavoidable hiring and corporate impact outcomes.
In the wake of the murder of George Floyd in May, 2020, America’s 50 largest publicly-traded companies and their charitable foundations committed at least $49.5 billion to “address racial equity,” and according to a 2020 Society for Human Resource Management report, there was a 55% increase in DEI-related staffing roles added to the ranks of companies across the US. At the same time, institutions of all types began hastily propping up departments, leadership roles, and public statements about the importance of racial equity--and from this, a deeper investment in many parts of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) was catalyzed than had been seen from longtime supporters of institutional social change efforts. From all angles, organizations from nonprofits to Fortune 500 corporations to higher education institutions to philanthropic foundations threw money, time, energy, and resources at a smorgasbord of DEI initiatives.
“Exclusion is profitable (none of the FAANG stock companies has more than 10% Black or Latine staff, and most are now trillion dollar businesses). Leaders can build a pleasant, economically robust, racially and gender homogenous work environment without focusing much on DEI (as is seen in most large teams of legal partners to this day).”
Over three years have passed since the U.S. underwent this mass racial reckoning, and hypothetically, there should be a lot to show for it. Marginalized and minoritized employees and external stakeholders should feel safe, respected, and valued by the organizations they work at and interact with. Funds should be flowing from corporate entities into the hands of community organizations and nonprofits with missions to empower and support historically oppressed communities. But in June 2023, over three years after Floyd’s murder and a planet saying “enough is enough with the deliberate or indeliberate racism,” not only have so many of those 2020 promises proven lackluster at best and downright harmful at worst, but general trust in the effectiveness of DEI has plummeted. Lawsuits have piled up against companies (including Wells Fargo and Delta Air Lines) who failed to meet their original 2020 DEI pledges. According to research by Glassdoor, after a rapid surge of access to DEI programs in 2020 and 2021, that number is now dropping. Staff, particularly those who hold marginalized and minoritized identities, are quickly losing trust in their organizations’ ability to commit to DEI in a way that is non-performative.
In the early months of 2023, a variety of media outlets published a flurry of articles with headlines like “DEI Isn’t As Important As It Once Was,” “Why So Many DEI Programs Are Failing,” and “DEI Training Isn’t Working.” Plus, emerging legislation in states like Florida, Texas, and Arizona makes merely speaking about DEI, let alone funding it, a financial, legal, and political risk in itself for many state-funded organizations.
DEI as it exists now is crumbling as it faces blows from all sides. But the central reason for this current disdain toward DEI is not necessarily malintent. Many organizations, leaders, and employees genuinely want to see positive change in their workplaces and surrounding communities. Rather, the reason for this disdain is that right now, organizations are not doing DEI right.
Contrary to the way most organizations currently approach the matter, DEI is not something that you can see, do, learn, or can teach in an hour-long learning session. DEI is a lens through which you see your entire organization’s operations, talent strategies, and external impact. For any type or size of organization, this means that DEI cannot be a string of initiatives. DEI has to be a strategy.
“Contrary to the way most organizations currently approach the matter, DEI is not something that you can see, do, learn, or can teach in an hour-long learning session. DEI is a lens through which you see your entire organization’s operations, talent strategies, and external impact. For any type or size of organization, this means that DEI cannot be a string of initiatives. DEI has to be a strategy. ”
Currently, organizations mostly measure DEI progress through activity. To many, the mere presence of a new employee resource group, the addition of quarterly anti-bias trainings, and a celebratory Pride Month email are credited as concrete examples of strides in DEI. These are meaningful, but that does not mean they constitute a strategy. It’s like Michael Jordan insisting he was a great basketball player because he practiced dribbling every day, but never taking a shot, learning to protect himself when driving to the net, or even managing his contract with the Chicago Bulls. There is a difference between playing basketball how you think it should be played, versus being a comprehensive and legendary LEADER in basketball (or anything). True DEI progress is not represented through activity, but rather, through impact–and true impact only comes about as the result of strategy and consistent implementation, iteration, and upgrades to the strategy. Strategy will alert you to where actual problems are originating and prevent you from sticking bandages all over the organization without first stopping to understand where the wound is bleeding from, how the cut got so deep in the first place, and how, or even if, the patient would like to address this hurt, anyway.
“Much of the slow pace of DEI can be attributed to three things: organizations and people operating without a clear strategy, limited resources and time allocated to a scaled strategy while expecting dynamic change, and fear of detractors to DEI driving the implementation pace of the strategy. ”
Understanding an organization's peoples’ needs, ambitions, and desires in terms of their organization’s DEI journey is one of the most fundamental–and most often overlooked–aspects of true DEI work. Much of the slow pace of DEI can be attributed to three things: organizations and people operating without a clear strategy, limited resources and time allocated to a scaled strategy while expecting dynamic change, and fear of detractors to DEI driving the implementation pace of the strategy. To start this work, one must conduct a rigorous assessment of the attitudes and competencies about DEI, practices and policies of the organization, and the values of accountability to minoritized populations that are embedded in the culture and practices of the organization. That’s why Justice Informed, in all of its consulting and advisory and learning and development DEI work, is committed to a robust discovery process that allows insight into staff sentiments prior to delivering a given service.
DEI is not just a matter of values. It is a science. It blends organizational models, people strategies, business development and sales, operational and compliance regulations, marketing and communications awareness, and psychosocial leadership navigation. So many organizations miss the value of this ‘scientific approach’ to DEI. At the crux of the problem with how organizations conceptualize DEI today is that it is not viewed as a science, but rather, as a value. To limit DEI to a matter of what people value, it implies that if staff merely believe that DEI is worthwhile, the work itself is getting done. The term ‘science,’ on the other hand, means that something must undergo a certain degree of rigor and testing to be accepted as truth or a worthwhile endeavor, and that concrete skills and a high level of competency are required to conduct the work effectively.
It is with this philosophy in mind that Justice Informed teaches the three C’s necessary to engage in meaningful DEI work: confidence, capacity, and competency. In other words, a true DEI champion needs the confidence to engage in DEI-related conversations, the capacity to commit to the work, and the competency to speak meaningfully about DEI (beyond the basic definitions of terms like ‘bias’ and ‘privilege’). This competency piece is especially important to master when building a robust DEI strategy that is more than a loosely connected string of initiatives.
However, the work of achieving DEI ‘competency’ is just the first step in establishing a DEI strategy. Specifically, Justice Informed breaks down the work of DEI into three, interconnected areas of work:
Understanding
Rooting
Accountability
We call this the “DEI Process Architecture” for organizations. These areas of work are to happen sequentially, and one must show proof of sufficient completion of the former step before moving to the next. The work of competency and consensus-building is largely contained within this first area of work (Understanding); this is the work of gathering the tools, learnings, culture, and skills necessary to engage with the work of DEI with colleagues, leadership, and even on a personal level. To create a real organizational strategy, however, such understanding needs to be paired with the work of Rooting, which details the way in which the knowledge gathered through the understanding sphere can be institutionalized at the organization through policies, practices, and structures. Finally, Accountability is essential to ensure that the way employees at an organization experience DEI and their working culture generally is on par with the knowledge gathered through understanding and the policies implemented through rooting, and that the investments made in the first two areas are made secure through the relaunching and scaling of a new operational, people, and cultural model.
The five areas of an institution which must be evaluated to create a full DEI strategy are as follows:
Team and Culture
Leadership Team and Governance Model
Finance and Operations
Marketing and Communications
Primary Services/Product Model
The central reason why a rapid flurry of DEI initiatives are unproductive is because they tend to exclusively be clustered in the ‘Understanding’ area of DEI work: trainings about bias and privilege, emails to staff during Black History Month or LGBTQ+ Pride Month, ERG activities, and more may create awareness, but they have no ability whatsoever to measurably change behavior or the underlying practices in society (or the institution) that create the need for these initiatives. Growing an Understanding is an important, fundamental part of DEI work. However, to stop at Understanding without progressing to Rooting and Accountability is equivalent to preparing the operating room without actually performing the surgery. The ability for an employee to define privilege, or even to understand the value of DEI for an organization, does not automatically translate into the policies, practices, and structures put forth through the work of rooting and accountability.
That’s why, when Justice Informed conducts organizational DEI Assessments and Roadmaps, a service that provides clients with a holistic understanding of their organization’s ambitions for DEI and a plan for future DEI progress, we score organizations based off a scorecard that measures metrics related to the spheres of understanding, rooting, and accountability. We perform deep listening with all levels of leadership and teams of an organization, review dozens or hundreds of pages of internal policies and practices, and do the work of negotiating with leaders how to reorganize the organization to make it see DEI as a lens and strategy rather than a value and intention. Some of the metrics we rely upon are as follows:
Understanding (what level of consensus about the definition and value of DEI exists within the organization’s people and teams?)
Evidence of past DEI training within 2 years
Confidence in leadership as effective DEI champions
Confidence in managers as effective DEI champions
Confidence in general staff as effective DEI champions
Organizational consensus on the vision of DEI
Organization consensus on the value of DEI
DEI-related competencies
Rooting (what is written on paper, and constrained through legal, financial, and operational regulations?)
Understanding of who owns DEI and individual roles
Employee awareness of how to elevate DEI-related conflicts and grievances
Stakeholder ability to dedicate time to DEI
Employee satisfaction with existing DEI policies and structures
Existence of a DEI Committee
Existence of a publicly-accessible DEI statement
Existence of an overall DEI strategy
Existence of measurable DEI goals and metrics
Accountability (how does the organization codify the investments made in Understanding and Rooting, while centering minoritized employees and stakeholders?)
Culture welcomes and engages readily in conversations surrounding DEI and associated topics
#% of instances of bias in promotions, pay, or treatment
#% of instances of discrimination, microaggressions, etc. reported
Staff reported cultural challenges relating to dominant privileges and systemic inequities (e.g., white supremacy, ableism, sexism, assimilation, etc.)
General inclusion scores
Staff name organization as accountable to feedback
Organization centers marginalized and minoritized individuals in DEI communications and strategies
Participation in or membership to problematic organizations or policies (includes investments)
It is with this information about staff consensus, trust in leadership, desire/ability to dedicate time to DEI, reported microaggressions, and more that organizations can begin to construct strategies that reflect the actual desires and ambitions of their staff, not just a thread of initiatives that look good in a press release.
And it is clear that these threads of initiatives, which touch on maybe one or two of the above presented metrics–not every single one–are rampant among organizations across size, sector, and mission. Just this year, a previous Justice Informed client (a large philanthropic social impact organization) approached us with the task of reviewing a prior Assessment conducted by another social impact consulting firm. Justice Informed soon discovered that the client organization’s racial equity strategy was only being informed by a handful of factors that were analyzed by the prior consultants–the initial Assessment focused exclusively on supplier diversity and organizational giving to Black and Brown communities. There was no mention of internal staff sentiments, let alone analysis of who owned DEI and was accountable to the results of such work. Even though this prior client technically had a strategy, they didn’t have the information to build a comprehensive strategy until they were able to better understand their organization and its impacts from a myriad of perspectives.
“And it is clear that these threads of initiatives, which touch on maybe one or two of the above presented metrics–not every single one–are rampant among organizations across size, sector, and mission. ”
So yes, DEI, as it stands now, is not working, especially for the marginalized and minoritized folks who it was originally intended to most positively impact. But that doesn’t mean it can’t work. Instead of striving for a high quantity of DEI initiatives, take a breath, speak to your employees, and start working toward a high quality DEI strategy for your organization.
If you’re looking to create a DEI strategy, and/or believe your organization could benefit from a Justice Informed organizational DEI Assessment and Roadmap, please visit justiceinformed.com or email info@justiceinformed.com for more information.
