Here’s some article from Wharton about how middle managers should be the people driving equity discussions inside organizations. A good middle manager? Yes. An average middle manager? That’s a laughable concept. You want me to believe that a 47 year-old white guy, burdened at home and work, is suddenly going to get all woke and start “amplifying POC voices?” Absolutely not. He’s going to stick his nose so far up the posterior of the COO that it resembles a scene from Human Centipede. That’s just reality. Until you change the incentive structures of the middle, you don’t change much.
Within the article, though, you have this section:
“The last time I checked, just telling people bias exists doesn’t change behavior,” Creary said. “Those in organizations who implement DEI initiatives can get so caught up in the naming, the practice, and the branding of things that they lose the ability to step back and say, ‘What am I trying to accomplish?’”
This is, essentially, almost the entire problem. DEI initiatives often have no broader purpose except for flowery language around moral imperatives. Is a company’s true goal to be diverse, or make money and employ people so they can be rational consumers in the market? Does an executive think his/her goal is to be diverse, or return to stakeholders? Right. That’s the whole thing. We let a lot of the people running DEI become concerned with brands, messages, language, acronyms, roll-outs, podcasts about police reform and de-escalation, etc. Everything becomes about the practice. The big goal? It gets lost. Why exactly are we doing these things, except to let a certain contingent of the company feel heard and have stuff to work on? This is why a lot of these things feel like a giant carnival ride of nothingness.
Be less concerned with the naming and the speakers and the events and the flowery Instagram posts and the “we stand with” stuff, and be more concerned with the broader purpose of the plans. Keep digging. Keep asking why. “We want to be more diverse.” WHY? “Because we think it’s the right thing to do.” WHY? “Because we’ve seen that diverse companies perform better and have better tenure.” WHY? Keep asking WHY, instead of jumping right to “I know this amazing theory guy on Twitter. Maybe we can get him for a panel for the next all-hands meeting.”
The panel stuff is important, but without context, and without a bigger goal, all you do when you dive right into process and practice is alienate the true “business people” in an office, and when they’re alienated, the backlash keeps DEI plans running in HR “make me a deck” circles of hell for years.
Start with the big plan, then work the steps. Isn’t that all work?
