Is DEI Dead? Why Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Still Matter – Part 2

DEI has been all over the news, as political attacks affect organizations of various types. Host Michael Baran clarifies how the attacks are misleading people about DEI work, explains why the work of DEI isn’t going anywhere, and shares strategies for moving forward in this contentious time.

DEI has become the subject of the most heated debates about today’s workplaces. Is there any validity to the attacks against it? Is DEI really dispensable?

In this episode of The Culture Advantage, Michael Baran takes a hard look at the political attacks against diversity, equity, and inclusion. He breaks down how the attacks actually mislead people about the very meaning of DEI itself and the work it entails. Opponents of DEI suggest that DEI is all about quotas, that it is an “overcorrection,” or that it is “wokeness gone wild.” 

Michael unpacks these misleading claims about DEI and reveals how these narratives harm individuals and entire organizations. He explains why DEI work doesn’t lower standards or give unfair advantages, but rather removes barriers, works toward more fairness, and creates the kind of culture every team needs to thrive.

You’ll also hear some thoughts about moving forward with the work in today’s climate, including how recent EEOC guidelines still allow organizations to pursue meaningful DEI work, why spelling out “diversity, equity, and inclusion” may be more effective than using the acronym, and why this work is more essential than ever if you want to build trust, respect, and collaboration at every level of your organization.

Finally, Michael shares a practical follow-up activity you can do. Reach out to those involved with DEI efforts inside your own company, learn about the work that’s happening, and explore how you can play a role. Whether or not the acronym survives, the work itself is not optional but is the foundation for doing any job well.

If you’ve been wondering what’s really going on with the controversies over DEI, this episode will help you see the attacks with more clarity, and it will help you see why your organization can’t afford to ignore this work.

Transcript

Is DEI Dead? Why Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Still Matter – Part 2

Is your company struggling, navigating through high turnover, toxic leadership, or a culture that's holding your team back from reaching its full potential? Well, you're not alone. So here's your host and guide, Michael Baran.

Michael Baran: Hello everyone and welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, Michael Baran. Today we're gonna continue talking about DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Three things you cannot ignore if you wanna have a thriving culture at your organization. This episode is part two. If you haven't listened to part one, I would encourage you to go back and do that.

Part one lays the foundation for so much of what we're gonna talk about today and also in episodes moving forward. [00:01:00] And then this is actually gonna be a three parter. So in this part two, I'm gonna talk all about the political manipulations, the controversies, the term DEI, the way it's been in the news, and also some ways to move forward in this current moment.

And then in the next episode, I'll talk about some of the actual work that gets done under the umbrella of DEI. Now in that previous episode, at the end of it, I offered some journaling or contemplating exercises you can do, right? Those were remember considering the diversity of your spaces, noticing where equity and not equality might be important, and thinking about actions that can lead to feelings of inclusion or exclusion.

Now, if you actually did that. Amazing. Building up those muscles, those patterns of noticing is so important. I've gotten to a [00:02:00] place in my life now where this is almost second nature to me. Like if I go anywhere, you know, out to eat. Or something. I'm considering the diversity of people that are at the other tables.

Of course, remember what we talked about last week. I don't know for sure how they identify, but I'm just kind of getting a sense, and when a place doesn't seem to have a diverse group of people eating there. For example, it kind of puts me on edge or at least gets me thinking like, why not? Why do some people feel comfortable going there and not others?

Are there structural issues that are keeping some customers away? Is it an accessible place, for example, questions like that. Now, I'm not saying there's always an answer to those questions or even that I try to answer those questions. They just come to mind for me. Of course there are a lot of people that can't help but notice those things because of who they are or what they've experienced.[00:03:00] 

You know, where do they feel safe or not? So they notice those things because they have to. For me, it's now, it's both. It's part of my job and part of who I am, but it really wasn't always like that for me. Okay. As a kid, you know, in high school I grew up in a pretty homogenous town, a lot of sameness, and I didn't have those sensibilities at all.

They started developing much later in college when I met a more diverse group of people, a more diverse group of friends, also, coworkers. You know, I paid my college expenses by working as a line cook in various restaurants in the south, in Atlanta and Charleston, South Carolina. And I was one of the only white guys working in some of those kitchens.

And I learned a lot because I got pretty close to those guys, which you do when you work in an intense environment like that. So I guess what I'm saying is these are actually muscles we can develop [00:04:00] if we don't have them already. And the more we do it, the more they actually grow. And so that's what that exercise was all about.

Let's jump into the topic for today. Obviously the term DEI has been all over the news. Maybe some of you have taken in some of that messaging or you're confused about different meanings that are getting tossed around. Maybe you think it makes. Sense based on what you're hearing to scale back these DEI efforts I might do if I believed what was being said by, you know, our current president and his closest allies.

And to be really clear here, they are misleading you about what DEI really is, which you might sort of suspect that considering the definitions of the D and the E and the I that we talked about last week. Let's break it down how they are misleading. I'm gonna talk about three ways. First, they're making it seem like [00:05:00] a quota system exists where you have to hire a certain number of women or black people, or Hispanic people, or people with disabilities because you have to hire a certain number.

They're saying then you are basically forced. To compromise on quality and hire people that are not fully qualified. That's what the president is suggesting. You probably heard that when he blamed a plane crash on DEI, for example, remember that back in late January, there was a plane crash at National Airport in DC and the president suggested that DEI was to blame.

As if the people working in the control tower were not good enough at their job because they were hired just to hit a quota. Now, to be a hundred percent clear, DEI work does not do that. Hey, it's not doing that at all. DEI [00:06:00] work may open up the hiring process so that we get a wide diversity of qualified candidates, and when that happens, we might get a diversity of people working in an organization.

Because the barriers and the biases have been removed, but now think about the harm that this is causing, right? It means a lot of people are walking around thinking that people are only there because of who they are and not because of their qualifications and that. Really does happen. Just the other day, recent college graduate friend of the family was saying on her very first day of a new job, her boss sat her down and told her, something like, I want you to know that you're here because you're the best candidate and not be just because you're a woman.

Right. Literally said that to her recently on the first day. Are you kidding me? Here she is. She's eager to start this new [00:07:00] job. She just graduated a new life after college, and then her boss sits her down and makes her feel belittled. And while he is sort of explicitly saying that she's the best candidate, he's also putting it in her head that people might think she's there just because she's a woman.

It created a lot of exclusion, a lot of bad feelings, and a lack of trust, right on that first day. So to be clear, if you hear someone say something like a DEI hire, right? Remember, that's a manipulation and does not reflect what DEI work actually does. Now, the second way that they're misleading people about the term DEI is by making it seem like DEI work is unfair, like we're overcorrecting for the unfairness of the past.

And I hear this a lot. People say something like, hasn't the pendulum swung too far the other way? And what people mean by that [00:08:00] metaphor is exactly that, that now as a society or as an organization, we've gone too far in our attempts to make things fair. And I get where one might get that idea, right?

You might think, oh, well we've had a black president. What barriers are there still? Right? But here's the thing. All the research, right, all the social science research points to the unfortunate truth that things are still really unfair for minorities in the US and not even close, right? In terms of disparities and biases and exclusions.

Even though we've been talking about this for a long time. So the pendulum, you know, using that metaphor, it hasn't swung nearly enough to be even at the center right, let alone swung too much the other way. So DEI work. Intentional work to remove barriers and [00:09:00] biases. It's not unfair. It's trying to make things more fair, and we're still not there yet.

Now the third misleading idea is the idea that DEI work is silly or ridiculous. Or a wokeness gone wild or you can't say anything anymore. Right. I saw a movie that tried to make fun of DEI work, had this, you know, right wing provocateur, Matt Walsh. And he dressed up like what he thought a DEI professional would look like.

He put on a tweed jacket and put his hair in a man bun and he would go do ridiculous things and film it. One thing he did. He's, he walked into a biker bar dressed like that and he just kind of saddle up to someone next to them at the bar and say something like, so how are you Decentering whiteness, right?

And of course, that's ridiculous in that context. Or he'd pretend to be leading a workshop for white people and would [00:10:00] pass around a box with whips and things in it and tell people to self-flagellate. Right. Ridiculous. And look, it might be funny if it weren't part of something so serious. I don't even know if it needs saying, but obviously this is not what DEI work does in an organization, nothing like it.

So then why are the president and his allies doing this misleading. Of course, I don't really know. Maybe it's a strategy that's been shown to get votes to capitalize on people's fears and their biases, whether they're conscious or unconscious. Maybe it's a distraction. Maybe it's to hold onto power. I'm not sure, but unfortunately it makes it so a lot of people have the wrong idea about what this work does and why it matters.

How it makes things more nice and respectful for [00:11:00] all people. And again, I'm not just talking about race and class here, but people with different religions, different ages, you know, too young, too old, veterans, people with disabilities, new mothers, new fathers, right? It's about all those people. And so it's making things more valuing of everyone and trying to make things more fair.

And nearly all Americans agree with that. Kindness, fairness. Now, it's not always perfect, right? Of course there's room for improving on the field. Maybe adding more standards and measurements, establishing some sort of system, so people know who does the work well. Sharing best practices to really make even more of an impact.

But the attacks happening now are not good faith efforts at improvement. They're designed to undermine and mislead. Now let's talk about doing this work now, this particular moment and in the future, you might [00:12:00] be wondering because there have been these attacks and not just verbal attacks, but actual executive orders against DEI do.

We have to stop doing DEI in our organizations. If you are in a federal government agency, then you have already been forced to stop the official DEI work. I'm sure, some private companies have stepped back, at least for now. They've stepped back in their official DEI work, but they don't have to legally do that.

More about that in a moment, but first I wanna be clear. About something really important. If you want to do your job well, if you want your organization to thrive, you have to be doing this work to do your job well. You have to be trying to reduce the barriers for people and make sure decisions aren't biased.

If you're a manager, you have to work at creating a culture of respect for your team. [00:13:00] So that everyone feels valued, your collaboration depends on it. Your ability to perform at the highest level depends on it. You have to be giving everyone the supports they need so they can do their job well. It's not an extra thing, right?

It's not separate from the work. It is the work. It's just doing your job well, no matter what you call it. So anyone who thinks that, this work is going away. Right. A lot of, I've heard that from a lot of people, oh, DEI work is done. It's gone. Those folks need to really better understand what the work really is and how it benefits people, teams, and organizations.

It is in an organization's best interest to do it and to do it well. And if you still employ people, you can't not do it and do your job well. And the work can be done following the new EEOC guidelines, right? [00:14:00] EEOC, equal Employment Opportunity Commission. I have read through these guidelines. They put out documents recently.

They're from this administration, and I'll tell you as far as what the work is, the DEI work, there isn't that much that's changed in terms of what falls under these guidelines. One of the guidelines is about. How you can't discriminate against people based on race or gender or any other protected class, not in hiring, firing promotions, compensation.

That's the way it's always been. Another guideline is about not segregating groups at work, so. Maybe your organization has ERGs or BRGs, right? Employee resource groups or business resource groups, affinity groups. Maybe there's one for black employees. Maybe there's one for remote employees. Maybe there's one for L-G-B-T-Q employees.

Maybe there's one for employees [00:15:00] with disabilities, right? Lots of different affinity groups. Now the guideline says that they should be open for all people to join. Like you can join as an ally if you don't fit in that particular demographic. And they usually are open to allies like this. They're usually open for anyone to join.

But that guideline about knots. Segregating groups. It would also apply to making sure trainings aren't just for one particular group, internships, mentorships, anything that we're not special, giving special treatment to any one of these particular groups. A third guideline in there is saying you can't create a hostile environment in trainings.

Right now, we don't do that. I would hope that it's not a hostile environment anyway, so again, not much changing there. So there's still a lot of work that can done and fall completely within this administration's EEOC [00:16:00] guidelines. Now, what about that term? DEI? Okay. The very term itself, moving forward, what we've done at my company, Iris Inclusion, which I think can be a reasonable model for other organizations to, is we've just stopped using.

That acronym. It's just, it's too polarizing, it's too misunderstood. Those attacks, those redefining, of DEI that's been done, they were too successful. People have the wrong idea of what that work is, and so we just stop using the acronym and instead we just spell out what we're doing using the words.

Not the letters. So we say diversity, equity, and inclusion. Again, not only is there a wide agreement on this work when you don't use the letters, but it's absolutely essential for your organization to keep in mind in everything you do, to protect [00:17:00] people, to support them, to build the culture that's gonna enable you to fly.

So we just spell out the words. If you, if anyone is going to tell me they're against diversity, equity, or inclusion, then they have to admit that what they're for, right? Homogeneity, inequity, and exclusion. I don't think any organization wants that and I think they know they won't thrive. If they do that.

Okay, there's a lot more to say on this. I probably will say more on this in future episodes. I'm gonna leave it there for now. Now, if you want something specific to do this week, I would encourage you to go find out what your organization is actually doing. When it comes to all that work that I talked about, the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion, reach out to people who work in that area in your organization.

Ask if you can grab a coffee together. Ask 'em what's happening [00:18:00] if you don't already know. A lot of times there's a lot of work going on and people at the organization even don't even really know. And if you're so inspired, you could even see how you could get involved. Okay. That's all for now. Thank you for being here.

As always, if you have a thought or question, you can email me directly and I will answerMichael@cultureadvantagepodcast.com. Again, michael@cultureadvantagepodcast.com. I'll see you soon.

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