DEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right

by Lily Zheng

To actually make progress, senior leaders must react in the ways that the most skeptical stakeholders don’t expect: with genuine apologies, recognition of failure, and decisions that change the balance of power within the organization.

It’s up to all other roles to apply their expertise in the service of these movement goals for as long as needed until accountability groups and/or senior leaders gain enough trust for the organization to become a medium-trust environment.

what movements prioritize for themselves may not always immediately benefit the organization.

movements do not ask for these things because they’re effective for the organization. They ask for these things to regain enough trust to be working toward the benefit of the organization in the first place.

The vision that senior leaders of an organization have for DEI, as well as the extent to which that vision is embedded and integrated within the policies, processes, practices, structure, culture, and strategy of an organization, formalize an organization’s commitment to DEI and its approach to achieving

Integrating DEI throughout an organization requires knowing how to create change and build trust, and be intentional and strategic about the vision you’re trying to integrate.

Some questions to consider as you craft and integrate your DEI vision:

What do you want the DEI legacy of your organization to be?

What resources (time, money, expertise) are you willing to allocate across the organization to achieve DEI outcomes, and to what extent do your intended outcomes match your investment in them?

“Accountability” refers to informal and formal mechanisms by which the organization and its leadership are held to task to achieve what they commit

heavily reliant on formal power and informal and formal reward or coercive power.

“How can you align organizational incentives with achieving DEI goals?”

focus on key decision-makers.

Organizations can tie a predefined percentage of executive pay or bonus to an organization’s achievement of DEI-related goals, and make this relationship public...

Other approaches to DEI accountability use legitimacy or trust as the incentive.

Creating a DEI council that works with senior leaders in the organization to achieve change means that, to some extent, senior leaders must be accountable to that DEI council and what it represents to have their efforts taken seriously.

Some questions to consider as you design your DEI accountability:

How can you build an efficient pipeline connecting accountability-related behaviors to important outcomes so that those engaging in these behaviors can receive frequent feedback on their effectiveness?

How can you make the actions required to ensure accountability proactive, normal, and positive, rather than reactive, unusual, or punitive?

“Transparency” refers to the degree of information shared between different stakeholders inside and outside an organization.

Greater transparency can come from collecting and sharing additional data beyond demographics, including data on pay transparency, pay equity, engagement, inclusion, promotion rates, employee retention, and discrimination by demographic.

Transparency is always a risk: opacity, its opposite, allows senior leaders to mask inequity, lower conflict, and preserve the status quo; embracing transparency invites some degree of conflict and empowers change.

It’s not always optimal to pursue transparency in every situation, and too much transparency can undermine success if used for the wrong ends.

Some questions to consider as you design your DEI transparency:

What role do disclosure and transparency play in helping your stakeholders hold you accountable?

Under what circumstances might you choose to share more or less information than usual to each stakeholder group, and what purpose does doing so serve?

The structure of an organization’s DEI efforts in many ways codifies its commitments and priorities for DEI. A structure must effectively achieve an organization’s vision, integrate DEI, hold stakeholders accountable, and maintain transparency—and do so reliably and sustainably over time.

there are a few consistent elements inherent in a structure that works:

DEI expertise is present and influential within the executive / senior leadership team.

DEI outcomes on a given level are the remit of leaders with authority at that level.

Organizational functions and processes are influenced and ideally stewarded by employees with relevant DEI expertise.

Multiple accountability groups center on different levels of stakeholders.

Some questions to consider as you design your DEI-related structure and implementation:

How might DEI-related structures resemble or differ from other structures in your organization?

What are the formal and informal mechanisms by which DEI-related structures engage with other structures in the organization,

“Advancement” and “growth” describe the personal and career betterment of an individual over the course of their tenure in an organization.

To effectively achieve DEI in advancement, growth, and retention, organizations must address the often informal processes that prevent universal success and push some employees out of the organization faster than others.

Frame feedback and even conflict as constructive, not punitive.

By building an organizational culture that celebrates feedback as a source of learning, enables organizational trust, and normalizes authentic dialogue, organizations can improve individuals’ perspectives on feedback.

Resolve conflict and harm by balancing safety with accountability.

Employee Well-Being

Some of thisnis found in the Justice Shorter list of recommendafions that came out of the listening tour. That ballance of "needs" vs "wants".

employee well-being covers every other aspect of a healthy workplace that enables its employees to thrive.

To achieve DEI in these arenas, organizations must meet basic identity-related needs and empower employees to find the relationship between work and li...

Flexible options are undermined if only a narrow set of working arrangements is formally or informally valued by the organization—in many organizations, taking time off is permitted by policy but widely seen as an employee putting their career second.

Additionally, disincentivize overwork and burnout through policies that establish quiet hours or “unplugging” off hours, celebrate nonwork aspects of employees’ lives, openly discuss mental health needs, offer mental health benefits,

This one i think can be huge. I've been thinking about a way to put a cap on certain amount of meeting time maybe for certain types of mettings.

Model healthy boundary-and expectation-setting.

Some questions to consider as you design DEI-related well-being efforts:

What do employees say they “need” versus “want”? How might well-being initiatives and programs meet these needs outside of one-size-fits-all solutions?

How might you ensure that well-being initiatives are used by all who stand to benefit from them, without specific groups or individuals avoiding them out of stigma or the perception that using them is “unconducive to career ambition”?

An organization’s social impact refers to its influence on the societies it is embedded within and encompasses community relations, social justice, and politics.