DEI practices are still stuck on race and gender
DEI practices are still stuck on race and gender
What's going on?
Here are two ideas from my book, Reconstructing Inclusion: Making DEI Accessible, Actionable, and Sustainable and other texts I leaned on in writing it. In addition, I’ve included one quote, a book recommendation, and a video or article that has inspired or influenced me and hopefully will resonate with you, too. (That’s ✌🏿+ 💡📚➕).
Page 65
The Father of Diversity Management
"Often referred to as the “father of diversity management,” the late Dr. Roosevelt Thomas defined diversity in a broad [and comprehensive fashion]. His emphasis was on successfully and sustainably managing diversity. He defined diversity as “any collective mixture characterized by differences, similarities, and related tensions and complexities.”
In his book Beyond Race and Gender, Thomas stated, “Managing diversity means approaching diversity at three levels simultaneously: individual, interpersonal, and organizational. The traditional focus has been on individual and interpersonal aspects alone. What is new is seeing diversity as an issue for the entire organization, involving the very way organizations are structured.”
Thomas wrote about this “new” approach in 1991. Yet, thirty years later, our DEI practices are still stuck on race and gender. In the words of the great Marvin Gaye, “What’s Going On?"
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
Page 67
"My optimism and belief that most people are well meaning leads me to conclude that most people who entered the DEI space in 2020 did so with a passion to make change. And while the financial incentives that go along with such entry are evident, I will hold that as a secondary or tertiary motivation. Nonetheless, the willingness and passion to lead people toward creating sustainable shifts in an organizational culture is insufficient. A single-minded focus on race can lead to people thinking of this single attribute as a monolithic notion.
DEI practitioners have done this for a long time, even prior to George Floyd. If their focus is on empowering women, their lens is on increasing agency for women. The LGBTQA+ community focuses on its own self-advocacy and policy. Latinos, Asians (without distinction), Native Americans, those with disabilities, and others present their respective needs to the organizations they belong to. This has been the way for such a long time that we think it is the only way we can move things forward for these respective groups and the organizations where they make their contributions. The problem is that there is little to no evidence that reducing people to single attributes of their identities leads organizations to creating the conditions for everyone to thrive.
In fact, the problem might be that we spend a great deal of time focusing on people’s identities as problems.
The reality is DEI, if practiced in a more expansive and less reductionist manner, can create unlimited space and possibilities for cultural transformation."
💡A Quote
“My experience in having now many times created a vision and then actually brought it in some form into being, my experience is that I never know at the beginning, how to get there, but as I articulate the vision, put it out, share it with people and it gets more polished and more real, the path reveals itself. And it would never reveal itself if I were not putting out the vision of what I really want and finding that other people really want it to. Holding onto the vision reveals the path, and there’s no need to judge the vision by whether the path is apparent.”
📚A Book
Photo Credit: Amazon.com
The Limits to Growth, Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L Meadows, et. al.
➕A Video
"Down To Earth" at the International Society for Ecological Economics conference held during October 1994
A snippet:
“In my vision of the end of hunger, every child is born into the world wanted, treasured, and lovingly cared for. Because of that, many fewer children are born and not one of them is wasted. Every person can become all that she or he is capable of becoming, in a world that is beautiful, where cultures are diverse and tolerant, where information flows freely, untainted by cynicism.”
I hope this was helpful. . . Make it a great day! ✌🏿