Friday Notes, May 27, 2022
Dear Friends —
Understanding what’s underneath and ahead of the letters, D, E, I, and B is one of the most challenging responsibilities of contemporary leadership. And one of the most rewarding. It is stretching me in the right ways.
Diversity. Equity. Inclusion. Belonging. Collapsed into the aspirational acronym for all modern organizations: DEIB.
These concepts are intimately connected to the experiences of individual team members going about their everyday work. Each employee has unique answers to questions like: As I think about the identities that have shaped my life — race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, and others — am I one of few or one of many in this space? Do I feel isolated or connected? Treated fairly or not? Respected for my authentic self or compelled to hide important parts of my identity?
Individuals have these experiences within two systems. The most obvious one is the organization. Each organization has practices of recruitment and pay, performance reviews and power-holding, listening and learning. Measures of D, E, I, and B sit at the organizational level, and include demographics, salary structure, and formal and informal decision making structures. This is what leaders think about the most, and have the most influence over. It’s the reason for the boom in diversity officers, DEI consultants, and the (definitely not proven to work) DEI trainings.
The thing is, though, that organizational practices are affected by structural injustice cemented in place over millennia. Five thousand years of gender inequality, a thousand years of slavery, five hundred years of colonialism. That’s a long time for some people to have more opportunities because some people have less, and a long time for those with more opportunities to create institutions and belief systems that keep them (us) in power.
The fact that people and organizations sit within a larger system isn’t an excuse for inaction. It is, surely, about damn time to make faster progress. But as I’ve worked on aspects of DEIB, it’s been useful to keep in mind the historical (and present-day) context.
That context primes individuals for their experience within the workplace. If most of the men in positions of authority that you’ve encountered in your life have failed to listen to you — or have even threatened your psychological and physical safety — then you are very unlikely to speak your mind in the presence of a male supervisor. This is true even if that male supervisor is the nicest, most generous, most feminist guy in the world. If most of the White people you’ve been around have used their privilege to set the terms of engagement, then you’re going to assume a White-led organization is going to perpetuate asymmetrical power. This all means that leaders who want to make real progress around the dimensions of D,E, I, and B need to recognize that we’re starting from a deficit of trust, and we can earn our way to a surplus not only with words but with deeds. Every single day.
The context also means that building a diverse workforce takes intentional, resource-intensive efforts because you’re fighting a well entrenched system of exclusion. The easy thing to do is to hire people who are from precisely the same backgrounds as the people who are already present and succeeding in the organization. By definition, those are the type of people who find and are attracted by your job postings; they’re the kind of people who ace your interviews; they’re the kind of people who find your salaries and benefits to be aligned with what they’re looking for. For many organizations, very much including my own, commitment to diversity means moving beyond the easy into the hard. We need to reach new networks and adjust recruiting, compensation, and management.
The contextual realities also mean that deep and complicated work has to be done to separate out the aspects of our work and organizational culture that are fundamental to achieving our mission from those that are just there to hold in place asymmetrical power. Take writing, for example. I have always worked in places where there have been unquestioned norms about what “good writing” is and what “bad writing” is. I’ve internalized and amplified these standards, applying a red pen with fervor. But now I find myself wondering whether writing is more like arithmetic, with a clear line between correct and incorrect; or more like music, which is far more a matter of taste. These are the sorts of healthy and challenging questions that arise when you’re trying to be careful about applying standards that may have been borne of an exclusionary system.
Like a lot of other people, I’m at a learning edge around all the levels of DEIB — learning from colleagues, from peers in other organizations, and from successes and failures. It is a good place to be.
I spend very little time in religious observance. The annual rituals, yes. The Friday evening services, sometimes. The food, always. But the daily practices of prayer and supplication, no.
These past couple of weeks, though, hearing the news of terror and tragedy, I have found solace in the Hashkiveinu.
Grant, O God, that we lie down in peace, and raise us up, our Guardian, to life renewed. Spread over us the shelter of Your peace. Guide us with Your good counsel; for Your Name’s sake, be our help. Shield and shelter us beneath the shadow of Your wings. Defend us against enemies, illness, war, famine and sorrow. Distance us from wrongdoing. For You, God, watch over us and deliver us. For You, God, are gracious and merciful. Guard our going and coming, to life and to peace evermore.
It is even more beautiful as a lullaby.
Take time this weekend for yourself. And, if you have 8 minutes and a few square feet of floorspace, try the Joy Workout.
- Ruth