Have DEI investments actually made businesses better? 📊
I hear that question more and more, and I get it.
Four years ago, the business world responded to George Floyd’s murder with positions, programs and promises. It’s fair and right to ask whether those investments have paid off. Whether those positions and programs have helped companies keep their promises.
And in the intervening four years, Newton’s Third Law captures the spirit of our polarized times: for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. While a critical mass got behind DEI, an opposing force was building the case against. They are now asking for a reckoning.
Here’s my assumption: Some (maybe many) of the positions and programs haven’t had the desired impact and many of the promises haven’t been kept.
The efficacy of the efforts, though, has little do to with the size or scope of the investments. It’s not about the quality of unconscious bias training. It’s not about enforcement of a job posting policy. It’s not about the title of the diversity officer or who she reports to. It never has been.
It comes down to leadership.
More specifically, it’s about believing in your bones that inclusive leadership is… well… leadership. Believing that a leader’s job is to build an incredible team where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. EVERYONE. That the best teams foster inclusion and belonging, and the best leaders understand that cognitive diversity improves creativity and helps deliver outsized results. The best leaders put a premium on human flourishing.
When those conditions exist, I’d bet the investments have paid off tenfold.
Said another way, if company leadership views DEI as a set of programs to satisfy the masses, a handful of metrics to “optimize,” or boxes to tick on some ESG report, no amount of investment, no amount of training, no policy change will deliver a meaningful return. In any sense of the word.
If we want to question DEI’s value, we’d be well served to understand the underlying root cause of any shortfalls. And if we want to make a difference, we might not have to change out the programs. We might have to change out leadership.
As I said before, Inclusive Leadership is just another name for… well… Leadership.
