Whew! A HUGE topic - have you heard it? DEI? It's a subject permeating just about every organizations’ leadership or future planning discussion that we’ve been honored to be a part of - everyone’s talking about it. This movement is a “thing,” folks: a critically important, long overdue focus on what our organizations stand for, believe in, and espouse which we covered from a different angle a couple of weeks ago. This imperative discussion and focus is WAY late, frankly, but, at least we’re finally acknowledging, recognizing and emphasizing the gravity and significance of the topic. At least we’re talking about DEI.
Oi! But HOW? The “why” is obvious: this country is (overstating the obvious) diverse! So ought to be businesses. But why are the topics so hard to talk about? Why has it taken us so long to engage with each other about them in the workplace specifically? What gives?
There are reasons for everything. So, let’s dig in shall we?
As we talked about last week in our Boomers/Millennials piece, “different” is scary. Having discussions about topics outside of our comfort zone can be terrifying. We are a melting pot of disparate contributions to our respective organizations, each offering a unique lens of contrasting perceptions and considerations on race, culture, heritage, lifestyles and world views. DEI is clearly an imperative but what does it mean? Why is it important? Are we asking the crucial questions about why it matters? What are we trying to accomplish by implementing DEI initiatives? What are the goals, intentions and anticipated outcomes? Are we talking about the minutiae of the granular impacts of DEI? It is apparently an almost universal conversation - a phenomenal developing conversation - but, have we taken the time to think through how to do it? Ginormous questions indeed, and if we’re engaging in these questions, they are absolutely the correct discussions and it’s about time (in our humble opinion) that we focus on them. So why are the conversations scary?
Fear of the unknown is one reason: what might happen if we open a discussion and actually listen? What we might learn could be contrary to our previous assumptions or understanding. We might not like what we hear. We might be afraid of the emotions it conjures, the intensity of long-simmering grievances, the often unintended biases, the immensely complicated topic involving politics, racial inequity, historical scars, protests and marches...opening a can of worms too tangled to untangle…..Eeek! SO BIG…..of course it’s scary!
OK, so let’s step back and bring the topic from 50,000 feet down to 100…..What are our intentions? Do we want our organization to look like the communities it serves? We would think so. How do we professionally, collectively and individually identify and connect with other organizations that might help us meet, learn about, develop relationships and start a conversation with people who might not look like us? These institutions are out there, I promise, but it requires a little effort, courage and the objective and purpose to do so, not simply for the sake of identifying diverse candidates to recruit (“Oh my God, we’ve got to have more diversity in our employee populations!”), but to honestly gather and expand an understanding of what’s important to the “other,” whatever the ethnicity, country of origin, or gender designation may be: female, male, Non-Binary, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, LGBTQ. Everything begins with relationships, we’ve got to get to know “the other” before we can understand how they might be able to contribute to our organizations. We’ve got to understand where our blind spots are culturally and give them sight. And it doesn’t happen overnight.
The thing is, none of this is any different from what FIG talks about all the time: it’s about relationships, building them between humans professionally and personally: colleague to colleague, boss to subordinate, subordinate to boss, friend to friend, partner to partner, stranger to stranger so we’re not strangers anymore….Curiosity: an authentic and genuine interest in truly knowing a person, where they came from, what and who shaped their lives professionally and personally, what their beliefs are, what their motivators and drivers are, what’s important to them…..and opening a dialogue, an exchange, between humans as humans.
A colleague of mine, fellow board member and African American Denver County Court Judge retired over a year ago. Not done yet by any stretch of the imagination, he founded an initiative called Diversity on the Bench to highlight the gross imbalance of diverse judges on the Colorado court and then to do something about it. He and his team teased apart some of the reasons for the lack of diversity and why the judicial bench didn’t look at all like the population in our fair state. Why weren’t there more African American, Latino, LGBTQ, or Asian lawyers applying to law school and by extension, working in law firms? Why also, did those who are practicing attorneys, not apply to become judges? Was it outreach from law schools to universities to recruit diverse law school candidates contributing to the low numbers of enrollees? Was the Bench doing enough to promote the importance, professional fulfillment and gratification of judicial civil service (etc., his team posed many more questions than the sampling here, but you get the general idea…)? They then reached out to the many specialty Bar Associations who cater to and support minority lawyers, the Governor's, District Attorney’s, American and Colorado Bar Association’s offices, and the many judicial districts in the state, among other organizations, and started talking about these challenges, conducting studies, publishing them, getting air time on the news, etc. - promoting the importance of the bench looking like the community it serves. DotB has had some success in it’s short life: Governor Polis has appointed several Hispanic, Asian/Pacific, female and African American judges. Not nearly enough, but it’s a start. Through the group’s concerted efforts of raising awareness and by extension, relationships to help further the discussions, has seen action and some successes.
Look, we’re not going to solve this complicated dilemma overnight; It’s been around for so long, and it’ll take a long time to correct. The more we can be brave, get out of our comfort zones, start talking about it, not take a broad brush approach to the predicament we’ve created - even though it’s intimidating and scary in its scope - we believe the conversations can be had with authentic curiosity, interest and an intentional desire for a seismic and pervasive shift in how we grow, view and appreciate these things called diversity, equity and inclusion. Big scary topics can be big and scary - but not insurmountable one discussion at a time.
How, exactly, do we eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Until next time…...