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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Lily Zheng
Read between
March 5 - September 29, 2023
in organizations with diversity policies, members of advantaged groups are far less likely to perceive discrimination against disadvantaged groups, regardless of the actual level of discrimination.4 When these policies are deployed in isolation as uncomplicated “fix-alls” with no additional accountability mechanisms, especially if they are perceived as passive HR policies rather than commitments that require active effort from leadership to achieve, they have the potential to simply obscure the inequity of the status quo rather than improve it.
The promise of DEI surveying is that armed with good data, organizations can direct their efforts toward programs and interventions that are most likely to succeed.
If data transparency is lacking or company leadership is unwilling to act on all the findings from the data, this can substantially erode trust and demoralize a workforce.
But when scope-crept DEI volunteerism is used as a replacement for well-resourced DEI work undertaken by trained professionals, it can become a way to exploit passionate employees for their labor, avoid accountability, and perpetuate a glacial pace of change.
As societies and as a world, we are far from where we need to be, and our efforts to do good may result in unpredictable consequences—and harm—we are unprepared to handle.
Our organizations, and certainly our world, continue to be unacceptably inequitable, exclusive, and homogenous.
I’d say that far from a fledgling industry figuring itself out, DEI was a well-oiled machine that brought profits to the people driving it without being accountable for the lofty goals it preaches.
“intentions do not equal impact.”
A pragmatic approach to DEI is centered on achieving outcomes.
Equity is the measured experience of individual, interpersonal, and organizational success and well-being across all stakeholder populations and the absence of discrimination, mistreatment, or abuse for all. Equity is achieved by eliminating structural barriers resulting from historical and present-day inequities and meeting individuals’, groups’, and organizations’ unique needs.
Any dimension that can be used to differentiate groups and people from one another.3
Zora Neale Hurston, “skinfolk ain’t kinfolk”
Diversity is the workforce composition that all stakeholders, especially underserved and marginalized populations, trust to be representative and accountable. Diversity is achieved through actions that explicitly counter present-day and historical inequities and meet the unique needs of all populations.
‘What communities am I able to build trust with that are important for the success of my start-up? Which of these communities am I less able to reach, and what kind of person might reach them?’
Diversity is the workforce composition that all stakeholders, especially underserved and marginalized populations, trust to be representative and accountable. Diversity is achieved through actions that explicitly counter present-day and historical inequities and meet the unique needs of all populations.
Inclusion is the achievement of an environment that all stakeholders, especially underserved and marginalized populations, trust to be respectful and accountable. Inclusion is achieved through actions that explicitly counter present-day and historical inequities and meet the unique needs of all populations.
Equity is the achievement of structural success, well-being, and enablement for stakeholder populations, including employees, customers, institutional investors, leaders, and local communities. Diversity is the achievement of a workforce composition that stakeholder populations trust and feel represented by on all levels. Inclusion is the achievement of a felt environment that stakeholder populations trust as respectful and accountable.
If some people believe that the role of leaders is to sit back and let grassroots movements take the lead and others believe that leaders should be at the forefront of the work, that conflict can undermine efforts entirely.
DEI definitions should be centered on outcomes, not intentions.
DEI, defined in terms of outcomes, refers to an organization’s demographic composition, structural success, and built environment.
All DEI concepts can be contextualized in relation to these core definitions.
Knowing what not to do is key.
Five questions encompass many of the common failure modes that impede effective DEI work.
As H. R. Day notes, “in the field, with less well-trained instructors and with considerably less time to work through any hostilities generated, the approach bordered on disaster.”14
In other words, involving leadership increased participation, but greater participation didn’t result in greater program effectiveness. Trainer burnout was common. And at the end of the day, the watering-down of the program due to backlash completely negated any positive impact the program could have had.
More than forty years later, the percentage of college-age Black and Latine Americans represented in top colleges and universities is lower than it was in 1980.
Accountability is achieved only by centering outcomes.
People are strongly motivated to protect a positive self-image.
Seductively simple solutions rarely succeed.
Want Trust? Get Accountability
The act of filing is also intensely dangerous for workers, 40% of whom experience retaliation after doing so—with 63% of this group eventually losing their jobs.
And people are surprised to hear that staff is fearful of retaliations
so, when you say “we will make an effort soon,” or “we commit to,” or “in 202X, we plan to,” all people will hear is blah, blah, blah.
As the Iron Curtain rose post–Cold War, the Friedman Doctrine found new influence in the policies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and thus reached as far as monetary policy in Asia and Latin America.25
LGBTQ+ people were more likely to have been laid off and similarly experienced declines in their mental health.65
the original news cycle might have passed, but people are absolutely not settling down.
Talking about DEI but moving “too slowly” on putting commitments into action is increasingly a fast track to scathing critiques of “performative DEI.”
Consumers, employees, and even institutional investors and other stakeholders want real change. Not talk, but real change. Not commitments, but real change. Not good intentions, but real change. Not naive interventions, but real change.
The critique at the core of “performative” anything is that when people or organizations say they are addressing an issue by taking action, those commitments or behaviors don’t translate into a measurable impact on the issue.
the experiences of White, nondisabled LGBTQ+ men tend, on average, to be far more positive than the experiences of non-White, disabled LGBTQ+ women or nonbinary people.
There are no hard and fast guidelines for efforts or behaviors that are “performative.”
Stakeholders’ trust in organizations and institutions has eroded due to a lack of accountability.
To create “real change,” organizations need to prioritize the same outcomes that their stakeholders do.
It took knowledge and awareness of power and power dynamics to begin changing
They want to be told what to do in unambiguous, exacting detail and be reassured that they’ll meet the expectations that others are piling on them by following the right instructions.
referent power is, in my opinion, the greatest force multiplier. Power without charisma is brute force. Charisma is what turns crude power into influence.
DEI outcomes are intended to create change across the entirety of an organization, and that takes different forms depending on the organization’s complexity. The more complex an organization, the more complex an intervention must be to reach all corners of it successfully.
