Strategies For Sustaining Diversity Training Efforts

13 actionable steps we can take to keep DEl going, from individual to collective efforts: 1. Learn from the lived experiences of other identity groups and unlearn the lies and biases we are socialized to believe to be true. 2. Don't reach out to marginalized folks only for "diversity stuff" or use them as diversity mascots. Tokenism perpetuates performative representation. 3. Be specific when discussing issues confronting specific identity groups. 4. Trust and support your colleagues when they provide feedback about something they believe is identity-based or racially motivated. Yes to compassion, no to gaslighting. 5. Amplify the voices of colleagues whose opinions are frequently ignored or minimized. Actively seek feedback from individuals who might not naturally have a platform in the organization. 6. Give marginalized colleagues public and proper credit for their work. 7. Speak up against exclusionary, harmful behaviors and unfair practices. 8. Stop seeking marginalized people to shield, endorse, perpetuate, or put forward inequitable and harmful policies and practices. 9. Avoid double standards and placing unreasonable expectations on marginalized groups. 10. Keep in mind the well-being of marginalized employees every day, not just during identity months or when tragic events make headlines. 11. Improve access to information, opportunities, and resources, centering the most marginalized. 12. Review policies and practices regularly to identify and address biases as they appear (e.g., compensation, performance review, development, and promotion.) 13. Promote people with marginalized identities to management and leadership positions, and give them formal power and authority to influence change. —— [Alt text embedded in the image.]

To redefine DEI as “inclusive leadership from every employee, then scale,” consider these 12 strategies: 1. Shift DEI from an HR program to a leadership approach that activates company values through every employee. 2. Shift from perceived intrusions on personal values to showing how inclusive leadership boosts careers and honors individual beliefs. 3. Expand DEI from identity-specific disadvantage to helping every employee navigate their own mix of advantage and disadvantage. 4. Replace perceived unfair preferences in hiring and promotion with data-driven, transparent equity and equality practices. 5. Move from cultural awareness alone to building skills that foster trust and accountability across differences. 6. Reframe DEI from a cost center to a business strategy that delivers Engagement, Opportunity, and Brand value. 7. Equip not just managers, but every employee to lead inclusively—in teams, projects, business, and customer interactions. 8. Modernize DEI from static curriculum to AI-driven learning and knowledge-sharing across colleagues. 9. Move from inconsistent responses to social issues to a unified inclusion narrative grounded in company values and operations. 10. Shift from mandated training to voluntary participation that prepares people to choose inclusive leadership. 11. Evolve Employee Resource Groups to include allies and align them with strategies that build shared leadership. 12. Strengthen DEI from conflict-avoidance to proactive conflict resolution through robust skills, processes, and storytelling. When DEI is redefined this way, we: - Address real DEI challenges with clear responses - Learn with employees as they grow into inclusive leaders - Acknowledge and improve upon past DEI missteps - Build on 40 years of DEI momentum with renewed purpose Disruptive times like these manufacture doors. Inclusive leaders get to open them. Robert Baker, Subha Barry, Dr. Rebecca Baumgartner, ACC, CDE, Josh Bersin, Jennifer Brown, Tracy Burns (she/her), Lara Caimi, Gena Cox, PhD, Tami Erwin, Nick Fennell, Effenus Henderson, Natalie H., Philip Jacobs, PMP, Elise James-DeCruise, Brad Johnson PhD, Asim Khan, Aswin Krishnan, April Lough, Mitch Shepard, Mita Mallick, Keiyania Mann, Elizabeth Nieto, Charles Reader, Cory Schneider, LMFT, SPHR, CDE 🏳️🌈, Nsombi B. Ricketts, Leah Smiley, CDE®, IDC-GGE™, Sheri Crosby Wheeler, Rachel Ann Williams

It's true that organizational inclusion efforts are adapting to meet the demands of the evolving legal, political, and social landscape. But it's not true that all change is bad. Here are three positive trends I'm seeing: FROM: General diversity training 👎 TO: Skills-based learning 👍 We've known for years that general diversity training - ie, we bring everyone into a room and talk about why diversity = good and unconscious bias = bad - isn't particularly effective. Still, a lot of organizations have wanted to host these types of programs, even recently. What we're seeing now is a significant shift towards skill-based learning. The most popular content in our learning platform falls into 2 categories: (1) Skill-building for managers. We're seeing a lot of use of microlearnings on themes like leading effective meetings, giving performance feedback, managing 1:1s, and more. Companies are increasingly focused on equipping managers with skills for fostering healthy, high-performance, and inclusive cultures. (2) Learning that helps people work better together. We're seeing an uptick in the use of microlearnings that help people understand the range of different identities, perspectives, and working styles their colleagues may have. This includes themes like neurodiversity, social mobility, working across generations, and mental health at work. FROM: Performative, check-the box efforts to earn badges for a website 👎 TO: Improving talent practices to promote more consistent, objective, meritocratic, and fair outcomes 👍 Our clients are telling us that they're actually relieved to no longer feel obligated to spend time applying for various badges and external markers of inclusivity, and that they're instead shifting that time to focusing on actually creating an inclusive culture internally. One area that's getting some much-needed attention? Talent practices. Many of our clients are focused on partnering with people teams to audit and improve talent processes to promote more objective decision-making. This isn't just more inclusive, it's also going to produce more merit-based outcomes. FROM: Representation goals (meh) TO: Goals to achieve consistent outcomes at every stage of the talent lifecycle ( 😍 ) Over the last decade, representation goals have been one of the most common ways organizations have held themselves accountable. It's how they've answered the question "are we fair and inclusive?" But representation is a lagging indicator - the result of many things that can go right or wrong in an organization. I don't hate these goals (and certainly think they should be legal), but don't love them. Instead, I'm seeing some organizations shift to a focus on leading indicators - considering whether outcomes are consistent for different groups at each stage of the talent lifecycle. This is better way to hold yourself accountable *and* to communicate that what you care about is fairness, not hitting arbitrary numbers.