Five norms causing your diversity efforts to fail
If you've been working towards increasing diversity and inclusion in your organization, but you're struggling to make real progress, recruiting diverse talent isn't the real problem you’re facing. Yes, it might be the presenting issue. But it’s not the real issue. It’s not the root of the matter. If you’re struggling to find, hire, and retain diverse talent, you’re likely dealing with a culture issue.
It's the culture. The values you embody, the stories you tell, the heroes you celebrate, and the behaviors you tolerate. Baked within these norms are perspectives and habits that can either propel your diversity and inclusion work forward or stall it completely.
This shift from a focus on diverse talent acquisition to the metaphorical soil of your organizational life can be a difficult one to make. But these are changes you can make today. And if you make them, you’ll save yourself countless hours, dollars, and emotional turmoil for years to come.
With this possibility in mind, let’s unpack five cultural values that might be causing your diversity and inclusion efforts to fail.
Secrecy
Behind the closed office doors of decision makers is where diversity and inclusion go to die. If your organization’s culture is marked by decisions made behind the scenes, without the input of those most impacted by those decisions, you’ll have a tough time building the trust required to shift your organizational culture. You dignify your team members and respect their personhood when you find ways to proactively involve them in decisions--not just those related to D+I but also those related to culture, marketing, compensation, and more. Reducing secrecy and increasing transparency not only empowers others but inspires their confidence in you as a leader. They know you take their best interests to heart and that you trust them to bring their best to your organization when given the chance to do so.
Suspicion
When you don’t trust your team, they know it. This goes for everyone, but it’s especially true for your BIPOC team members. Be it through micromanagement, overemphasizing FaceTime (in the office or virtually) or consistently undermining their leadership style, people know when you are suspicious of them. The suspicion we feel about other people is often informed by our past experiences with those specific individuals, or with individuals who share their characteristics. Either way, it’s up to you to find clarity about why you feel distrusting of those who work with you or for you. If you can’t build and sustain trust, you’ll be hard-pressed to create a culture where diversity of identities, perspectives, and workplace gifting can thrive.
Silence
You’ve probably heard it said, “Silence is violence.” When you remain silent about the broader cultural issues affecting people in your organization, it creates a void. People fill that void with their own stories based on their experiences. To minimize negative assumptions about your organization, speak up when things are happening in the world. Despite what you might think, it’s better to say something imperfectly than to say nothing at all. Silence about the issues affecting people and their communities leads to employee disengagement. It may seem like a tall order, but your team needs to know you see them and that you care about the realities affecting their lives beyond 9-5.
Silos
Diversity and inclusion aren’t sustainable in organizational silos. When the work is delegated to one department, or to an internal committee of passionate entry-level employees who don’t have tremendous decision-making power, the likelihood of organizational cultural change is dramatically reduced. What is needed is a thoughtful, long-term plan that is integrated with your organization’s core functions. This strategic plan will look different in every organization because your people, your places, and your spheres of influence are different. But by prioritizing this cross-functional, integrated effort, you’ll be able to make progress over the long haul.
Simplistic Thinking
While simplistic thinking feels good on the surface, truly good impact requires nuance and complexity. Y’all–if I could make this work easy, I would. If I could wave a magic wand and see centuries-old oppressive systems disappear, I would do it! But as we all know, it doesn’t work that way. If you find yourself getting burned out on the layers of nuance and complexity that true diversity and inclusion work require of us, then you’re on the right track. My dad has always said, “Many hands make light work.” The sorts of cultural changes we’re after are heavy, but the work is lightened when we do it together. Don’t shortchange yourself, or your organization, by settling for simplistic thinking. When you get overwhelmed, take a break, remember why this work matters, and link arms with others who are on the journey.
This is part one of a three-part series on organizational culture and diversity. Get more leadership and culture-shaping insights at www.thediversitygap.com via The Diversity Gap Book, The Diversity Gap Podcast, and The Diversity Gap Workshop coming this November.