When Diversity Goes Beyond Company Videos and Brochures
The benefit of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Sense of belonging (DEIS) has been well supported by research for years, long before Mr. George Floyd took his unfortunate last breath at the knees and the complacency of his killers. Unfortunately, the failed policing policies that brought about his death are paralleled by failed institutional playbooks that foster half-hearted policies to address DEIS, such as employee cultivation and hiring practices that lead to parading a few underrepresented tokens in company brochures and videos. To call this practice outdated is to pay it a huge compliment. It is an outgrowth of bargaining with short-term convenience and institutionalized white fragility. Similarly ineffective and disingenuous is the strategy of issuing a statement of support with pleasing platitudes along with forming committees and task forces after traumatic national or internal events.
The reality remains that in order to solve fundamental issues of racism companies need to move beyond tokenism and reaction. Like all bold endeavors, multicultural transformation requires courage, planning, and decisive undertaking to address systematic inequities. DEIS is ONLY an aspirational pipedream without intrepid organizational strategy and development supported by tactical achievements that are a catalyst for cultural change that significantly moves the needle. If diversity goals and plans are not intrinsically linked to organizational development, they will continue to not be worth the paper they are written on. Further, quick fixes don’t work. Long-term transformation takes years and might be in conflict with the bottom line for a season. But the moral and educational imperative for diversity, which has been at stake for hundreds of years, continues to more closely align with economic imperatives as our nation becomes more pluralistic. Get in the game or get left behind.
Getting in the game requires the inclusion of all company stakeholders at all levels of the organization, both internal and external. Diversity contributors must have agency that cannot be drowned out or dismissed by entrenched power groups. Tragic systems of oppression must be displaced by collective organizational buy-in. When those who aspire to this culture reach a critical mass, those who don’t will self-select out.
Finally, if there is no accountability at the highest level of the organization, failure is all but pre-determined. In my 20-plus-year career, I have often shared with CEOs and leadership teams that chief diversity officers and those charged with executing diversity initiatives cannot be the only card-carrying members in the organization when comes to DEIS. I have also maintained that DEIS success must be measurable and that all persons in leadership need to be evaluated on DEIS progress regularly like any other business imperative. DEIS only works if we treat it as a bottom-line concern.
In my upcoming blogs I will provide detailed strategies on how to achieve this aspirational culture, which will lead to moving beyond reliance on brochure and video tokenism. Stay tuned. Until next time.