We write weekly on the issues that are top of mind for us as we do the work of driving equity, shifting culture and co-creating inclusion with our clients. To receive these posts via email, join our free weekly email series, Self-coaching for DEI advocates and leaders.
We talked a few weeks ago about people pleasing, and we’ve been talking on the CCI team about how this leads to folks trying to make friends and develop “personal relationships” in the workplace.
We want to work with people that we like, right?
And so it makes sense that we would hire people that we like, right?
Read MoreSomething that happens so often that we generally accept and take it for granted is the way that accountability rolls downwards.
What do we mean by that?
What we mean is that individuals in an organization are often held accountable for things they don’t actually have any ability or power to control and should really be the responsibility of those further up the organizational hierarchy.
Read MoreSomething that often happens when leaders, white leaders in particular, “recognize their privilege” is that they react by concluding that what they need to do instead is step back, be quiet, listen to others, and let other lead.
While well-intentioned, the impact of this approach can also be harmful. When those who align with systemic and institutional power fail to use it, it leaves those who are less aligned with that power to do the work, often while feeling tokenized, unsupported, and under-resourced.
Read MoreFor those of you following along at home, NYC public high school decisions came out this week (on Thursday after school). Miraculously and unexpectedly, decisions were released in a relatively thoughtful and orderly fashion although not without various mishaps - I’m just saying, it could have been a lot worse after going through what was for many a harrowing, complex and inequitable application process.
One discussion struck me today though and reminded me that I feel like what is often not taken into account is that some kids work hard and don’t get good grades, and some don’t work hard and do get good grades
Read MoreI never thought that so much of the work I would do as a DEI consultant would be about giving and receiving feedback - mostly about receiving it and, by extension, inviting it.
But it turns out that a big part of co-creating inclusion is about getting feedback from those who are impacted by decisions in order to make better decisions.
Read MoreLately, we have been diving into the impacts of people pleasing, and there is a lot to unravel, especially when you consider that we have all been socialized into people pleasing a little bit differently, depending on our various and intersecting identities.
We’ve been having conversations with each other on our team at CCI as well as with our clients about our identity stories through the lens of people pleasing asking questions like:
How has people pleasing shown up over the course of your life? To what extent are you or are you not a people pleaser? Have you been around people pleasers? How does this show up now in your role at work?
Read MoreA few weeks ago, we started what has turned into a four part blog post series on hiring an internal DEI leader and/or consultant.
Today, we are closing out the series by discussing the process of hiring an internal DEI leader, assuming your organization has considered some of the questions we’ve already raised about the stage of DEI organizational development you’re in, and whether it’s the right time to hire an internal DEI leader.
Read MoreImagine a system of violence that doesn’t just turn white people on Black people, but Black people on Black people, Asian people on Asian people, and white people on white people?
Read MoreMore often than not, especially for small to mid-sized organizations, DEI is considered to be part of the HR function and initial DEI efforts are lead by HR.
In fact, it is often, although not always, HR that reach out to us about hiring us as DEI consultants, and we have worked successfully with many of our clients this way.
However, we are increasingly of the belief that DEI should not be conflated with HR and that it is beneficial to have DEI as a separate function from HR.
Read MoreAt Co-Creating Inclusion, we often talk about how we believe the process of creating inclusion should itself be inclusive - it’s in our name!
This is no less true even during the process of hiring a DEI consultant.
We have found that organizations often default to standard processes for “vendor procurement” that replicate existing power structures of “the client’s needs come first” and assumes a more transactional relationship where a client outlines a scope of work and then has vendors bid competitively on it.
No more.
Read MoreA question that often comes up is - when should organization hire an internal DEI leader as a full-time employee? The answer to that question, as to most questions is… it depends. And there is no right answer.
However, at CCI we do have some recommendations.
Read MoreI know we’re a few news cycles out from the Southwest Airlines debacle over the holidays, but this post from Southwest pilot Larry Lonero titled “What happened to Southwest Airlines?” hit home for me, and I believe it’s important to keep at the forefront of our minds as we move into 2023.
Oooof. I’m sure this situation rings to true to anyone who has ever had to deal with any kind of large and flailing system, whether it’s an airline, cell phone carrier, car rental company, hospital, health insurance company, public school system, bank, or pretty much any aspect of the government.
Read MoreEarly in the pandemic, literally in the first month, a friend shared with me something that was really helping them during that time of global uncertainty, which was that “I don’t have to know what to do next.”
Somehow, over time, and through this pandemic, this has morphed in my mind into:
I don’t know what will happen next.
Read MoreSomething we encounter in our DEI work with client organizations is what we have started calling “willing but unable” - folks who really want to do the hard work of integrating DEI into everything they do but are unable to do so.
Of course, every time we say that, I find myself thinking, but are they really willing, though?
And if they are so willing, what is getting in the way?
Read MoreWe’re down to the wire in this dystopian process known as the NYC public high school admissions process.
It’s hard to explain exactly how complex and overwhelming this process is, from uncertainty as to whether we would be returning to the pre-covid schedule or the more delayed covid schedule (it’s the earlier pre-covid schedule - but this was only announced two weeks before applications opened!) to the undecipherable hexadecimal “lottery” number that each student is assigned that is a) very hard to find and b) once you find it, impossible to understand what it means based solely off information shared by the DOE.
And that is barely the tip of the iceberg of what is confusing about this process. In fact, I don’t think you could make the process more confusing or stressful if you tried.
Read MoreThere has been a post circulating about a certain CEO of a certain social media platform who seems to be rapidly running it into the ground, whether deliberately because of a hidden agenda or through sheer incompetence or both.
The post is by someone who was an intern at one of this CEO’s other companies, and they talk about how managing this person was a huge part of the company culture.
Read MoreSomething that people often find unexpected about DEI work is that sooooooo much of it is about feedback.
And one of the things we have come to say with quite a bit of frequency, thanks to Malaika, is that feedback is a gift, even if you don’t like the wrapping paper.
Read MoreI’ve been thinking a lot lately about how much there is that goes unspoken. It comes up a lot in our DEI work with client organizations. When things go unspoken, we rely on socialization for a common understanding. We also rely on a homogenous or dominant culture where everyone is socialized into the same norms. If you don’t understand or follow the unspoken norms, you’re excluded. A lot of the work of assimilation, that is, of fitting into a dominant culture, is figuring out the unspoken norms.
And when norms are unspoken, it is much easier for them to become invisible, unchallenged, and unchanging.
Read MoreNYC high school admissions season has begun. For those of you unfamiliar with this process, it’s a unique and “interesting” opportunity to get up close and personal with one of the most segregated school systems in the country - I’m talking about the public school system but of course, the way it interfaces with the private school system is part of what makes it so segregated.
Read MoreStaff, usually those least aligned with power and privilege whether because of their identity, position in the organization, or both, are often expected to carry a heavy workload without appropriate compensation or support, and they are expected to do so with little complaint or pushback either.
The assumption is that they will work miracles with little time, money or other resources. Those who raise concerns about unrealistic expectations or lack of resources risk being characterized as “not a team player” or “divisive” or a “troublemaker” or they are blamed for being poor performers. Meanwhile, those with more privilege, usually white men, are the first ones to get money and other resources thrown at them to fix crises that they are rarely held accountable for.
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