DEI, i.e., diversity, equity, and inclusion, has become a top priority for organizations of all sizes in the last few years. And rightfully so. Essentially, this acronym stands for all we can do to create a greater sense of belonging for everyone in our workplaces and the world as a whole. DEI allows you to foster a healthy company culture and your teams to develop greater empathy, bias awareness, and emotional intelligence (EQ).
To start building or strengthening your company DEI strategy, ponder this: What are you doing today to educate and inspire a more inclusive culture?
Addressing fairness and equity took precedence over all other priorities for business leaders in 2022. And there is great news of initial success: DEI initiatives now exist at all Fortune 100 companies. According to Gartner, the rate at which CEOs consider equity, fairness, and inclusion has grown a whopping 658% in the last five years. In fact, 80% of DEI roles were hired in just the past two years. This shows that the majority of companies are still beginning their change journeys.
To sum it up, DEI is of utmost importance and is here to stay until it has been fully embedded into the fabric of the business.
Defining Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
What Is Diversity?
Diversity, at its core, means the presence of differences. The definition might vary per person. In a professional environment, this means there is or should be a variety of demographics of people working together. That can include different types of people in the following groups: ethnicities, gender identities, marital statuses, national origins, physical abilities, political perspectives, races, sexual orientations, socioeconomic statuses, and veteran statuses.
What Is Equity?
Equity is ensuring all people are treated fairly on a level playing field. It also means squashing any disparities in your company to ensure equal opportunity, an equitable distribution of resources among all of your employees, and the potential for balanced results for your entire workforce, regardless of which demographic category they identify with.
What Is Inclusion?
Inclusion is ensuring that people of every demographic feel they are welcomed and treated equally within your organization. The goal is to ensure all employees can build on their core capabilities and express themselves how they prefer to. Underrepresented groups should feel just as included as all others. Inclusion doesn’t mean assimilation or forcing people to hide parts of their identity to fit in. It means ensuring everyone feels appreciated and heard as they are.
DEI Inspiration and Wisdom from Top Experts
Now you know why DEI is imperative to the success of any business and what the different aspects of DEI represent. Check out what some of the top experts in their fields say about the importance of DEI. They offer tips to foster a more inclusive workplace and build a strong company culture through belonging, trust, and empowerment.
1. Build your company to reflect your customer base.
Roz Brewer knows what it takes to transcend adversity as one of only two Black women to ever run a Fortune 500 company. She has navigated predominantly White, male-dominated industries by building a culture that values DEI.
“When you're building products for a marketplace, you need to think about, who are you
addressing. And the really interesting thing about that is, who's on the other side, making the
decisions for your customer base? And I always ask myself, is it reflective of what I want to project in the marketplace? And so I look at my organization and say, are we thinking about who's our
customer? Are we thinking on their behalf? And can we think like them? Because we have something in common. So building your organization to reflect the customer you want to address is one of the most obvious examples of why DE&I is critical.”
Learn more about Roz’s class here.
2. Celebrate and care for employees as the whole people that they are.
If anyone walks the talk about valuing employees and building a strong company culture, it's Sara Blakely, Founder of Spanx and the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire. Below, she stresses the importance of hiring for your weaknesses and empowering employees.
“You want to feel like you're working in an inspired environment and not an environment that people just have to show up for. You want fair or favorable compensation for everybody there. You want shared wins and be able to celebrate the wins, that they're happening. You've got to have great acknowledgment and appreciation happening inside of the company and letting people know and being thankful to them. And you need to be interested in the whole person.
“And what I mean by that is not just the person that's showing up for the position they're performing inside of the company, but if the company and the culture you're creating cares about them entirely, you'll get exponentially more out of them and the culture as a whole.”
Learn more about Sara’s Self-Made Entrepreneurship class and lesson on Building a Culture here.
3. Ask the right questions and do what’s right.
Here’s what Geno Auriemma, legendary basketball coach, shares on leading any kind of team, inspiring others to new heights, and building sustainable success.
“So for me, it's, as a man, I have to show some leadership in that world. If some little girl sees us play on TV and aspires to grow up to be one of my players, why should she be denied that opportunity, if my son can watch a men's game and have every opportunity to grow up to try to be that?
“Why? Why isn't it the same? That's all I want. I just want guys my age—younger, older, but mostly in that influencer age—to start asking themselves that question, why? Why don't they have the same opportunity? What plausible reason can you give me? There is none. There is none. You just got to do the right thing.”
Check out Geno’s Leading Winning Teams class and lesson on Leadership in Gender, Social & Cultural Issues here.
4. Value your team and delegate with trust.
Listen to what Shonda Rhimes, the award-winning television producer and screenwriter behind some of television's biggest hits, has to say about leadership and valuing your team:
“I think leadership is really about making sure that the people who work with you and for you, feel valued and feel like they are also getting opportunities. You know. And in a lot of ways, leadership is about making sure that you're not working in a, in a hero model, where everything depends on you, so that everyone's like, Oh, Shonda. That's not interesting and it's not interesting for them, and it's not interesting for me. Everything should be a team model. Like, everybody is valuable and everybody is necessary for Shondaland to succeed.”
Check out Shonda’s class on Writing for Television and lesson on Showrunning here.
5. Unify diverse voices with a common goal and create an unstoppable force.
Drawing from his political career, 42nd U.S. President Bill Clinton explains how to inspire diverse teams.
“When setting up a team, one of the most important rules to me is getting a diverse group of people committed to a common goal. It's valuable to have a diverse set of opinions if you have a diverse set of challenges. And if they are challenges without a known 100% reliable answer, then we know that diverse groups make better decisions. And the reason we know it is, there are mountains of research. This has been a subject, how do you build teams and how do they perform? It has been studied ad infinitum, and there are literally mountains of research that show that diverse teams make better decisions than homogeneous teams or lone geniuses.
“Once you're committed to the same goal, then diversity becomes a priceless asset, because it's a way of inventorying the widest variety of experiences, the widest varieties of perceptions, the widest varieties of preferences. And if you're putting all that together in pursuit of the same goal, it's an unstoppable force.”
Learn more about Bill’s Inclusive Leadership class and his Assembling Teams lesson here.
6. Uplift employees with motivational leadership.
World racing champion Lewis Hamilton recognizes that the performance of his team members begins and ends with him. This is what he has to offer to leaders on building trust and promoting teamwork.
“Messages for people that, I think, are leading. You have to be really conscious of your energy. What you're saying. The words you use. The things you say have to be motivating. You have to be uplifting and empowering. You wanna empower each and every individual to be the best they can be. 'Cause if they're the best they can be and you see their power, they're encouraging the person next to them. And it filters down.”
Read more on Lewis’ Winning Mindset and lesson on how to Build Trust and Promote Teamwork class here.