If you’ve been consuming media in any form recently, then you know that DEI is under attack. Or is it? DEI is, of course, an acronym. It represents three widely applicable and broadly definable words: diversity, equity and inclusion. By contrast, the recent debate is quite narrow. With few exceptions, the battle boils down to a single question: to have a formal DEI program, or not to have one. It’s a question that misses the point. Unchanged, it risks causing many organizations trying to navigate these deeply uncertain times to miss the boat to the success they seek.
It’s time to ask better questions.
Why do DEI programs even exist?
It’s important to examine why DEI initiatives grew so greatly in number and scope across the country during the last half decade. No doubt, there’s a web of supporting reasons. Yet the most critical was that many organizations independently concluded that the three elements that make up the now much maligned acronym were important.
In many ways, it’s that simple.
Headlines might lead you to believe otherwise, but no organization was forced to prioritize diversity, equity or inclusion. Each organization chose to do so in the context of a business operating environment. The logical follow-on question is why.
When it comes to diversity, the answer is clear. Right now, and, indeed, for the past two decades, every organization and its leadership face a deeply uncertain operating environment. The very real and amply supported fact is that diverse thinking, experiences and backgrounds raise an organization’s odds of resilience, increase its abilities to adapt and innovate, and in general give it a leg up in this new abnormal in which we work and live. In other words, in uncertain times, diversity is the seed of advantage. It’s a fact, not conjecture.
What, then, about inclusion and equity? Again, let’s be succinct and direct: If you fail to include the full range of unique talents and backgrounds across your diverse workforce, you simply have a dormant store of untapped potential. Absent inclusion, you will never achieve the diverse intelligence, creativity and collaboration you need, at least not in any lasting way. Period. The value to be had comes from the collective. The staying power of that value comes from making diversity and inclusion cultural.
Which leads to a self-evident next question …
Why wouldn’t you equitably enable, empower and reward everyone to bring their utmost to the value equation?
If, as the leader, you chose not to, just how much do you think you could really count on realizing that hoped-for value? When you think of it like that, it isn’t hard to see why these three things are so often linked.
Enter DEI programs. About five years ago, a tipping point occurred. Leaders had known for a long time that they could benefit from greater diversity, equity and inclusion. Broader societal and cultural desires simply added reason and weight. DEI programs literally formed overnight.
Unfortunately, the three desired assets that make up DEI tend not to form in the same way, at the same speed and with the instant perfection much of the fanfare around these programs implied might come. Scant few organizations took the time to sort all this out. Far too few anticipated and allowed for the growing pains that come from anything that involves culture change. No doubt it’s easier to see in hindsight, but the need to “cultivate” is right there in the name.
In an unfortunate twist of irony, many organizations seem to be making the very same mistakes as they seek to dismiss DEI programs that they made when creating them.
In all of this, it turns out to be shockingly easy to forget the very sound reasons that initially started all of this. Let’s recenter.
If it’s not about programs, what is it about?
For a moment, forget DEI programs. The fact is, diversity, equity and inclusion are first and foremost closely linked values. Or they’re not. Deciding one way or the other is the real point of decision-making for any organization. Programs of any kind (not to mention structures, systems, measures of success, roles, responsibilities and similar) only ever support.
We don’t often think about it, but, ultimately, every organization is values-based. Even when you don’t consciously identify and pursue your organizational values, you have them and embody them, for better or worse. Defaults to unconscious values are as strong as and often more powerful than those consciously chosen — with one exception. That exception happens when an organization clearly identifies its values and, then, collectively and perpetually, seeks to live them in everything they do.
When can we call it done?
Clarifying values in that way is a conscious act. More accurately, it’s an ongoing set of actions, and an imperfect one. It’s a never-done undertaking that no single program can ever fulfill perfectly or completely.
Values are critical to understand, explore and constantly recalibrate. More, the values any group of people shares rarely boil down to just three. People are simply too diverse (whether you want them to be or not). What that means is that values like diversity, equity and inclusion are just part of the puzzle. If chosen as values of importance, inevitably they must blend with other values.
The balancing thereafter is naturally ever-changing. The organization changes as it expands and contracts. The people in it change and bring their own interpretations, even when they share the same values. No doubt, the uncertain world around us further impacts how our values play in.
It’s precisely why every leader hoping to help their organization succeed shouldn’t just be narrowly deciding whether a program ultimately aimed at a few values ought to exist or be undone. They should be enabling and empowering an exchange around what the values of their organization in fact are and how to better live them out.
DEI programs are neither the problem nor the solution. They are only a possible tool in a vast toolkit that simply supports better pursuing your values.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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