Dei Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right

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The current DEI approach within companies has been ineffective. A shift in structure is essential for achieving the purpose of DEI and creating tangible results. A must-read guide for how to advocate for change at work and in the broader world. Lily Zheng’s insights on the various roles that changemakers take on, combined with their deep analysis of the history of the field, will make DEI Deconstructeda critical desk reference for all of us seeking to build the better world we imagine." DEI policies aren’t inherently bad. Neither are trainings, surveys, talks, or volunteer efforts. But they aren’t inherently effective just by virtue of existing, and this is where many well-intentioned practitioners and advocates trip up. Every practitioner I know has a heartfelt story about a workshop participant whose mind was changed on an important issue or who tearfully shared a reflection about how they had never realized their own privilege or committed publicly to be a better ally. But we don’t just evaluate salespeople on how compelling their stories about eager customers are. We don’t just assess web designers on how inspired we feel hearing them talk about coding. I particularly appreciated Zheng’s focus on trust as the key ingredient for organizational change, laying out different paths for high-trust, medium-trust and low-trust environments.

Achieving Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the workplace is time-consuming and requires careful planning. If rushed, it can cause more harm than good. When I first read this article, it felt like the floor had fallen from under me. I offered diversity training—and had up until that point been a big advocate for making them mandatory. I was similarly an advocate for mandating job tests, grievance systems, scrubbing identifying information from resumes, and other DEI interventions that seemed uncontroversial and widely popular “best practices.”

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Summary: Ladau’s book acts as an actionable, thoughtful guide that can help you become an ally for people with disabilities. “Demystifying Disability” outlines actionable steps for what to say and do to create inclusion.

Women of color deserve truly equitable workplaces where our success and well-being is centered. Lily Zheng's DEI Deconstructed is a compelling must-read for leaders who want to stay accountable, make change, and create better workplaces for us all."Each time I retell this story, I get the same eager questions. Was there a happy ending? Did companies finally recognize the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion work and enable the many experts, practitioners, educators, and consultants to work their magic? Did a new cohort of companies triumphantly emerge from 2020, having turned over a new leaf, as a new vanguard of the diverse, equitable, and inclusion organizations of the future? DEI deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right ONE Intentions Aren’t Enough

Using their signature decisive and direct voice, Lily Zheng delivers an accountability-centered and immediately actionable road map to building a more equitable and inclusive modern workplace.” But Lily, our company has a racial justice commitment”—racial justice outcomes are more important than statements of commitment. But to inspire everyone to take action Zheng says it is important we frame DEI initiatives are framed in the right way. I found a lot of “DEI” to take a middle of the road approach to said topic. I understand that we shouldn’t try to further entrench DEI skeptics in their beliefs, but it’s 2022, and talent has a plethora of options outside of companies that don’t see the value of DEI. Our job isn’t to educate DEI naysayers, it’s to push them out (IF a firm is truly sincere in its DEI efforts). Endless articles on terms and definitions. Think pieces, webinars, and infographics galore. Then, the sponsored ads—for consulting firms, executive coaching, online courses, training and workshops, and every other DEI service under the sun. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that far from a fledgling industry figuring itself out, DEI was a well-oiled machine that brought profits to the people driving it without being accountable for the lofty goals it preaches.

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DEI surveys are only as good as the practitioner or expert administering them and the organizational leaders following up (or not) on their findings. Ineffective deployments of DEI surveys can result in unintended consequences, including retaliation, decreased employee trust in leadership, and unhelpful interventions informed by inaccurate survey conclusions. DEI Talks DEI Industrial Complex: Zheng introduces readers to the concept of the DEI Industrial Complex and defines it as “the informal relationship between DEI and organizations that perpetuate an inequitable status quo (p.7) In high-trust environments, where stakeholders trust leaders to recognize problems and follow through on commitments, change is relatively linear: “Assess the Present”, “Tell a Story”, “Experiment Carefully”, and “Iterate, Celebrate (successful outcomes) and Reiterate”.

Despite my best efforts, I bet you’ll find something wrong in this book. Perhaps I’ll have a perspective that ages poorly, that ends up in the context of when you read this to be a bad take. More likely than not, I’ll overlook something important. An idea of mine might not be fully inclusive for every marginalized social group, or I’ve decided to use language that history decides isn’t right. When (and not if) this happens, I invite you to be critical and extend grace and understanding that this work is messy, ever-changing, and imperfect. Proceed thoughtfully with that in mind—and when you can, use my mistakes to expand and build upon your nuanced understanding of this work. That’s how we grow. A Brief Note about Language You are someone who wants to do DEI right. Maybe you’re a full-time practitioner looking for a solid companion guide to inform the messy work you do as part of your day-to-day. Maybe you’re an internal employee advocate or volunteer looking to beef up your passion and interest in this topic with a crash course of know-how and actionable advice. Maybe you’re a mid-level manager or leader who wants a more comprehensive understanding of what DEI looks like as a real organizational commitment in action rather than a collection of inspirational speeches. Maybe you’re an HR leader, chief diversity officer, or another executive tasked to lead on DEI and want to know what that actually means. Well, no. Unfortunately, none of that happened. What happened is that an industry whose sole job it was to make a difference, that had fought for years for a seat at the table, was catapulted into the spotlight more suddenly than anyone could have predicted. After a year of our efforts, what we have to show for it is . . . inconclusive, at best. Systemic inequity is still alive and well. Organizations worldwide still struggle with representation on multiple dimensions, from race and gender to age, class, sexuality, religion, and more. As societies, we still face the same enormous challenges we faced in 2019 and have faced for decades and centuries.But still, they’re expected to take on extensive projects and initiatives, often without a team, budget, or necessary tools to perform their tasks well.