12 Critical Success Factors For DEI

It’s possible to make real progress in a surprisingly short time

Far too often, organization-wide efforts related to diversity and inclusion go on for years without leading to tangible progress or lasting change. Well-intended groups spin their wheels and don’t know where to begin, disagreements about priorities and strategies become commonplace, deeply held values are aroused, and feelings are hurt. Some give up and silently withdraw, while others stay engaged but settle for repeating familiar platitudes, hoping that somehow their time and effort might make a positive difference. 

If this is your experience, you’re not alone: in my 30 years doing DEI work with organizations of all shapes and sizes, almost all of them have spent at least some time going through the phases described above.
 

Fortunately, the intention to create a welcoming, inclusive climate in your organization is not as quixotic as might be believed. When the right steps are taken from the beginning, it’s possible to make real progress in a surprisingly short time. 

Below is an overview of the critical success factors for realizing a truly diverse, equitable and inclusive environment. 

Inclusivity issues are complex, multivariate subjects, maintained by deeply emotional and largely unconscious forces, as well as long-standing institutional and cultural practices. Therefore, senior leaders must understand that It is within the context of a lifelong journey that they will be launching and sustaining their initiative. 

While a lifelong commitment can be too much for some to contemplate, this notion need not be a barrier to success. Three years is more than enough time to launch an initiative; over time, the lifelong nature of the journey will become apparent to those who might’ve been imagining the initiative was just another program-of-the-month.

When one group has been historically and systematically treated as less-than by another group and subsequently deprived of society’s opportunities and resources, the memory of the injustice is passed down generation after generation. The most egregious and enduring of these histories of discrimination is what we refer to as the -isms, and recognizing all of them is critical to the success of your initiative.

When settling priorities, remember: there is no hierarchy of oppression. When an organization prioritizes one -ism as more important than another, it can result in a sense of betrayal amongst the other historically disadvantaged groups. 

The most successful initiatives are based on a single, comprehensive model of personal and organizational change that is capable of addressing the full range of issues in and around the organization. For your initiative to effect change at every level of the organization, you will want to consciously adopt and maintain a new common language for planning, training and evaluation purposes. A unified conceptual approach allows understanding and skill-building to grow exponentially because participants in the initiative develop a learning community in which they become capable of teaching and supporting each other rather than depending solely on outside expertise. 

The -isms were created — and have been maintained historically — through the interaction of activities at multiple levels of society: personal, interpersonal, group, cultural and institutional. Therefore, an initiative can only be successful when conscious planning and meaningful results occur at each level. 

Articulating desired outcomes with the breadth and precision of this five level analysis will be the key to planning your strategy and prioritizing your actions. 

Create or renew your Inclusive Diversity Council and position it to support your initiative. As a cross-functional working group that studies issues, advises senior leadership and leads selected activities in support of your initiative, the council will model the process of learning cultural competency — and taking action — to the rest of your organization. 

While this might seem obvious, we often see organizations underestimate what it takes to create the lasting culture change they desire. Defining adequate resources of time, staffing and funds will empower the Inclusive Diversity Council to fully engage in the critical work of the initiative

Under even the best circumstances, it takes at least a year to see a new set of cultural competencies become integrated into a group’s ongoing behavior. Therefore, the Council must model and inspire the learning process for the rest of the organization by becoming the learning laboratory; in other words, engaging in an ongoing process of self-discovery while developing the requisite cultural competency skills.

As mentioned previously, diversity working groups do not naturally agree about the priorities for action in either large or small organizations. It is the very nature of multicultural work that one group’s ideas about goals and process are different from those of other groups. 

It’s frightening how routinely Councils fail to fully support what its members are already doing to improve diversity and inclusivity, and I cannot stress enough the importance of this support. Take whatever time is necessary to recognize previous contributions Council members have been making and enlist group support for Council members who desire to follow their existing personal and professional missions as they contribute to the initiative. 

Once this platform of support is established, the group can move to the next step of considering a set of institutional outcomes. There may be some goals everyone agrees on, such as the need to draft a 3 year plan for an inclusive diversity initiative. Frequently, though, organizational goals may need to be arbitrary to avoid the familiar trap of spending inordinate amounts of time searching for a phantom priority. 

Our previous language and skill sets, even among well-intended groups, are not enough to get us where we want to go. The finest cast of actors and musicians, even with all their individual skill and experience, know that they must rehearse together extensively in order to ensure a successful performance. 

Common training provides a supportive vehicle for establishing new interpersonal and group relationships between senior management and the Council. In fact, one of the ways people say they know an initiative is truly succeeding is that they can point to newly formed one-to-one partnerships of advice and mutual support, e.g., between a Senior VP and a member of the Diversity Council’s Executive Committee. When members of both senior management and a Diversity Council are committed to learning the same new model of personal and organizational transformation and begin to share a common language for planning and measuring initiative activities they naturally find it easier to develop genuine and equitable relationships with each other. 

This is the single greatest predictor of the success of an inclusive diversity initiative. While it is symbolic and empowering for senior management to show up as invested in learning and leading by example, this success factor also includes other constituent groups who have leadership influence in the community. Modeling recognizable competent behavior is made possible by training in a consistent model that offers a distinct description of effective behaviors.

The acquisition of cultural competency skills throughout an organization depends on supervisors’ utilization of a clear, teachable, learnable Performance Development Review procedure. If your Performance Review system is not yet designed to account for a distinction between deliverable performance results and the competencies necessary to succeed in a given position, consider revising it. The ultimate, enduring success of your initiative will require specific policies and procedures in this regard. 

Remember that this topic and its history is deeply painful; it is not merely understandable, but expected and acceptable that some people bring experiences of anger, hurt and mistrust when they are invited into the possibility of authentic dialogue on this subject. There are other individuals who take it upon themselves to righteously catalog the failures of their own colleagues (but not themselves) in the misguided belief that shaming others is the best motivation for social change. To meet these challenges you must know exactly how you are going to protect and affirm everyone who participates in initiative activities.

Remember that your success will be made possible by your declared commitment to intentionally co-create a consistent learning environment in which particular cultural competency skills are taught and learned within a common framework of your choice. Each activity within your initiative is an opportunity to empower your colleagues and create immediate personal and organizational value. I wish you courage, strength and inspiration for the journey. 

Thomas Shelden Griggs, Ph.D., is Senior Consultant at VISIONS, Inc. Visit www.visions-inc.org/ Connect Thomas Shelden Griggs