Gena Cox, Ph.D., Author of hashtag#LeadingInclusion, and I recap the latest 5 Things (good vibes in DEI) in just 15 minutes. This week our conversation is about the first black female on a Ben & Jerry's pint, Doctors Without Borders taking responsibility for the white saviorism marketing, and more!
I had a conversation this week with a very kind senior DEI leader who wanted to help me help the company. They gave me some words to say that they thought might help get buy-in from the boss. This person encouraged me to pitch our Inclusive 360 Assessment as an “organizational improvement methodology”, not DEI. Our future work together as “change management”, not DEI.
All of this is true because our assessment examines the systems for gaps in equity and inclusion. What it delivers is a roadmap for meaningful systemic change and organizational improvement.
Not DEI. I’ve found that a lot of the organizations I speak to aren’t quite invested enough for “organizational improvement”, beyond changing the way they hire. We deliver a lot of workshops and keynotes to help establish that readiness, but those workshops are mostly about behavior change. About people. While that’s great, I know that will only move the needle so far.
Lily Zheng recently wrote about this in HBR – To Avoid DEI Backlash, Focus on Changing Systems — Not People. Organizational improvement, change management, systemic change, whatever you want to call it. We’re here for it.
Have you found that you've had to change your messaging around DEI to get buy-in?
Here are the good vibes I found this week:\
Read the full blog here: www.theequalityinstitute.com/equality-insights-blog/5-things-not-dei
To learn more about Gena Cox, please visit https://genacox.com/about/