At a recent social event, I had the rare and exciting experience of being invited into an impromptu conversion about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). Our host introduced me to a handful of people and we started traversing the classic low-stakes conversation topics like the weather, and of course, work, when a woman offered that her week was particularly dull because she had another mandatory DEI training. Then came the eye-roll. The eye-roll elicited knowing laughs from the group; the classic bonding strategy of finding connection over a chat about what’s terrible at work. It seemed to imply, “who can’t relate?”

I didn’t know these people, and in all fairness, they didn’t know me or what I do for a living. But when I asked this woman if she thought diversity in the workplace was important, she was quick to say “of course!” and then elaborated on her previous stance by claiming that the topic was essential, but the delivery was flawed. This might seem like an evasive move, but it’s actually not uncommon for folks who do in fact think people should be able to go to work and not experience exclusion, harassment or pay inequity (to name a few of the well-documented examples of workplace inequities experienced by people with marginalized identities) to be highly critical of their company’s DEI initiatives.

Usually, the folks I speak to about why they dread their DEI programs (both white people and people of color) they say it’s the how, not the what of the trainings that fails. They’ve shared that they are mandatory, rote, sometimes patronizing and impersonal. And more often than not, they lead absolutely nowhere. Research seems to support these complaints. While much research points to meaningful and lasting change in the field of DEI, there have been a series of studies in the last few years detailing the ways that DEI trainings can be unsuccessful, and the thesis is that too many produce little to no actual structural change.

However, in a recent article in Forbes, Janice Gassam Asare rightfully critiques this research claiming that in actuality, neither the trainings nor the studies conducted about them are designed to center the experiences of BIPOC employees. When we speak to our BIPOC clients about this it’s clear a commonly shared experience is present. Many of them have shared that DEI workshops can feel alienating because they’re clearly designed for white people and now, on top of the harm experienced at work, they have to witness the clumsy, harmful or even violent responses of their white colleagues to these efforts. And all for naught, because at the end of the day, nothing meaningful has changed.

At True North, we established that in order to counter this reality of so many DEI programs, we would have to design a set of values-based policies that guide all of our potential partnerships. Here are a few that have made a huge difference.

We orient towards joy in the work

One of our core values at TNEDI is Joyful Orientation. Nothing in our Joyful Orientation value is meant to deny or divert our eyes from the existence of the individual and collective pain that this work requires us to navigate. It does, however, serve as a critical reminder that we all have a right to joy, in all its complexity and richness, and that fundamentally, we believe it’s ok to pursue ease, joy, and levity while doing hard work. We advocate for DEI efforts that feel fresh, bespoke, and imaginative, and at True North we believe in creating spaces that balance the seriousness of what we’re trying to accomplish with the excitement of possibility.

Tip: We do challenging things all the time. Consider an area of your life where you learn enthusiastically and experience a combination of excitement, hard work and dedication. What are the necessary conditions for you to commit yourself to something challenging in a joyful way? Is it the outcomes you imagine that sustain you? Is it the relationships that make you feel supported? List out those qualities and conditions for yourself and consider how you might create those conditions for your efforts towards DEI. We advocate for a multi-tiered approach, and when possible, avoid “one-offs”

There’s no quick fix for this work, and we learned this the hard way. As with any fledgling start-up, TNEDI needed to get its name out there. So when potential clients asked for single-session trainings, we thought, “maybe we can do it better!”. We tried. But it became clear to us early on that organizations looking for one, all-staff, 90-minute anti-bias training were likely not invested in real, lasting change, nor were they invested in the actual experience of their employees. Our “no one-off” policy was quickly put in place. We offer partnership rather than a product, and at TNEDI, we’re invested in working with organizations to find creative approaches to complex problems.

Tip: Lasting change takes time. Consider a regular, consistent scenario in which you can embed an equity-centered practice and give yourself an accountability timeline (and maybe join or create a community to help support you) to check in on your progress. We design our scopes of work for each client and their specific industry - we don’t offer anything “off the shelf”

At TNEDI, we are committed to tailoring our partnerships to the needs of the organization. Our client intake process is designed to learn as much as we can about our potential partners, the landscape of their field and the opportunities that exist within that field for exciting, equity-centered initiatives. A philanthropic foundation needs a much different approach to the work of DEI than a for-profit company. Additionally, we never suggest a learning arc without knowing what inequities are operating within the organization--our work should be informed by needs. Sometimes this means we engage in an extensive discovery process that includes focus groups, surveys and town-halls. Sometimes, if it’s clear to us that the client needs a more robust equity audit due to size or structure, we recommend one of our partners in the DEI field that specializes in large-scale auditing and evaluation. The goal is to design the scope of partnership through the lens of discovery, learning and action.

We need leaders

We love collaborating with organizations that are enthusiastic about executive leadership participation, commitment and change. This isn’t always the case, and as consultants who have been doing this for a long time, we’ve become very savvy in the ways an organization’s leaders can find detours around the more difficult aspects of participating in the work. This implies any work designed for staff that doesn’t include leadership in any meaningful way. For example, it’s not uncommon for executive leadership to avoid attending sessions by saying they want employees to feel comfortable to “share honestly” and if they’re present, that won’t be possible. While we certainly advocate for understanding how identity and positionality intersect in the workplace, this often feels like hiding a bad motive under a good one. It simply doesn’t work for leaders to place themselves outside the parameters of DEI work because it implies that they are not a part of the problem or the solution. The fact is that leadership is essential for any DEI strategy to take hold, and most employees understand that when DEI efforts are happening and leaders are absent, the implication is that the work is superficial at best. Good DEI leadership logically requires the qualities of good leadership, and vision, enthusiasm, self-reflection, openness and dedication go a long way in terms of creating lasting change.

Tip: If you’re a leader in an organization about to embark on, or continue your DEI journey, consider engaging in an informal discovery process with representatives from all tiers of the organization. What initiatives have worked best for us in the past? When do we feel most engaged in our professional development? When do we feel most connected to initiatives and why? 

​I don’t consider my experience at the cocktail party to be a “gotcha” moment. I genuinely enjoy engaging people around what makes learning exciting for them, and how we can leverage what they care about most to create meaningful DEI engagements. We often say at True North that we’re here to help the inside match the outside, meaning the values we hold can and should align with our actions. And this is as true at a cocktail party as it is in a conference room. As always, we are here and ready to partner with you as you work to reimagine what is possible for you and your organization.

Always upward.

At a recent family event, I found myself in a typical (and harmless) back and forth with my father. We each offer our take on a hot topic societal issue and proceed to 10% listen and 90% dig our heels in trying to convince the other that our perspective is the right one. It’s a swell time. Sure, it gets heated now and then—especially since the last three years has been an endless barrage of firestorms—but we usually walk away closer than when we started. This last time, however, something different clicked for me. It was a moment that forced me to undig my heels and listen more deeply than I had in the past.

It’s difficult for me to imagine a time in the history of humankind where chasmic rifts didn’t exist between the multiple generations that occupy our planet at any given time. From all I’ve experienced, this dynamic seems to be both an expected and accepted part of what it means to be human. Even the most shallow of engagement in social media will expose this age-old tug of war in a bombardment of content poking fun at the absurdity of groups and individuals at every point along the generational spectrum—the youngest, the oldest, and all those in between. It’s often the source of pride as each of us wax poetic about the uniqueness and fortitude of the generation during which we came of age.

But during this last conversation with my father, I realized that despite how different my perspectives may be, my story doesn’t exist without his. I was working so hard to make him think differently, not realizing that the experiences that have led to my own “profoundness” only exist because of his life, experiences, choices, and values (even if, at times, in spite of those things). Regardless, it was a feeling of closeness that felt fresh and new, and it made me wonder if there were other areas of my life where this same understanding could be helpful.

As EDI practitioners, our vantage point offers us the unique opportunity to glean important lessons about how this dynamic can show up in professional communities engaged in equity-centered conversations and processes. As with any community, the ways in which we engage one another can lead to the building of bridges or ensure the creation of walls.

Over the past few years, we’ve found ourselves working directly with presidents, CEOs, directors, or other organizational leaders who, while authentically committed to creating more equitable outcomes for their professional communities, often identify those younger members of the community as the source of an existing tension. The word “entitlement“ certainly comes up a lot as these leaders share their feelings about a generation that doesn’t understand what it means to “work.” At best, these leaders attribute this to those individuals being new to the workforce. At worst, a true prejudice is slipping through the cracks and pointing to a generational flaw. The irony here is that the generational gaps aren’t always that wide. This can easily show up in an individual in their late 30s talking about someone in their late 20s. While age disparities aren’t meaningless, there is no single meaning that justifies sweeping generalizations that render individuals as one-dimensional.

Sliding toward the other end of the spectrum, we’ve engaged with individuals who might be newer to the workforce and/or are closer to having completed a secondary education and identify those who have been part of an organization longer as being complacent, conflict-avoidant, risk-averse, and committed—be it consciously or unconsciously—to professional norms that are dehumanizing. Depending on the nature of the organization, these younger individuals often deem the “gatekeepers” as eager to please donors, politicians, or consumers rather than prioritize the human needs of those who work within the organization.

There are many ways to look and interpret this dynamic. But our job as consultants is to take what we’ve seen and learned and help our clients avoid the pitfalls we’ve seen happen in this work. This isn’t because pitfalls can’t teach us, but because they can cause harm to the overall goals of an organization’s equity work, and to the people who are committing themselves to that work.

If we think that the work of EDI is about finding the right or best way, we’re missing the point. Our society is ever evolving. What “works” today may not work tomorrow; what works for the organization in New York City might cause real harm to the company in El Paso. The only constant is the need for skills for professional communities to work together through conflict (using an equity lens), and toward what feels possible, bold, and inspiring.

EDI is interesting because it takes many of the principles we’ve inherited from civil rights movements and practitioners and puts them through an organizational context. But the generational experiences that inform theories of change remain present and can cause tension. Consider the civil rights movements over the past 70 years and what generational narratives were at play, and how those narratives shifted as the children of those who protested on the front line became the parents of children protesting on the front line, and so on, and so on. The script of each group stays eerily the same while the actors shift and evolve.

“You have no idea what it’s like to be in my shoes.” “When I was your age we did/didn’t…” “Change takes time.” “Change won’t come if we don’t take bold action.” ”You don’t listen.” “You won’t listen.”

To be clear: this tension is not a bad thing, nor does it need to be avoided. It does, however, require models for what it looks like to move through it and find a way forward together. Of course, our work in EDI asks us to examine and think critically about which bodies and identities are granted the decision-making ability that informs what the future looks like, and which are historically denied? So, what might a paradigm shift look like? Below, we share some imperfect offerings gleaned from our experiences in the field:

• Generational wisdom is a gift, and it exists across the entire spectrum. Wisdom and experience may be correlated, but we all have experiences that are worth sharing and worth being heard. Despite what values we may have inherited that tell us to respect our elders, we believe that the wisdom of lineage flows from all directions, and that respect for that wisdom can be abundant. Imagine how conversations might change if space for this value was created and made visible. Imagine who we each could be as listeners and co-conspirators in diverse and complex communities. At True North EDI, our aim is never to negate or make small of the values we inherit, but rather to offer the opportunity for individuals to examine what values continue to serve them, and which no longer serve them in the context of equity work.
• In their resource entitled, “White Supremacy Culture” Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun describe ‘either/or’ thinking as “things are either/or, good/bad, right/wrong, with us/against us,” and that there is, “no sense that things can be both/and.” Yes, within organizations there can be a wide spectrum of beliefs about what creates real change, but if we slip into an either/or paradigm, a desire for change can become secondary to the desire to win. In our experience, there is no single right way. There is always a tapestry we help our clients create that includes threads from the multitude of experience, values, and drive that exists with professional communities.
• ​Organizations can make choices for how to move forward in equity work without having to label or justify which direction is right and which is wrong. Having done this work as long and in as many contexts as we have, we know that the landscape on which we overlay maps for change is constantly shifting. When we dig our heels in believing that we know the best way, we lose our ability to step back and assess the needs of the moment. Our humanity ensures not that we will always make the right choice, but that we are equipped with the capacity to adapt, iterate, and learn. Our ability to do so is made stronger and more formidable when a diversity of perspectives and experiences are included in the process, and when those who have been most marginalized are centered and honored for their deeper understanding of the ways in which systems have caused harm and can potentially create healing.
• It’s easy to disguise power as “experience.” Every one of us, if we are lucky, will grow older and accumulate meaningful experiences that accompany the aging process. But that experience and wisdom do not negate the existence of power and the role it plays within organizations. Eliminating power dynamics isn’t an option, but being honest about when those dynamics are present and in operation is very much within our ability and one of the principles of equity work. Making those dynamics visible also allows us an entry point into creating systems and structures that mitigate or eliminate the abuse of power. Many things can be true at the same time, but we can practice the skill of parsing out and making visible what is present and how what is present is aligning with who we say we want to be.

​Finally, there is nothing wrong with being committed to a specific model for organizational change. This work relies on the energy and conviction of committed and inspired people. Individuals who find that the values through which they operate are misaligned with the direction of the equity work happening at their organization or even in their field overall deserve spaces that represent a better fit. But we are complex human beings and our commitments aren’t immune to bias and harmful behaviors that can reinforce the very systems we are trying to undo. From moment to moment, the diagnostic is for each of us to run on ourselves in an effort to assess which values are informing how we are showing up and which are driving our decisions. If there’s nothing else I’ve learned, it’s that no one can be expected to hear, learn, or grow when they are being related to as inherently wrong or one-dimensional. In the case of my father, I learned that seeing myself as part of his story and him a part of mine was vital to our ability to move forward in a healthy and meaningful way.

If we want to design complex and whole solutions that lead to more equitable and just outcomes, we must treat each other as complex and whole.

As always, we are here and ready to partner with you as you work to reimagine what is possible for your organization.

Always upward.

Pain does not live at the center of our work.
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Last year, we were asked to participate in a conference that required us to write a description of a workshop we would be facilitating. After submitting a description, the program manager asked that we revise the language by outlining some of the “pain points” we would be addressing. We spent a good amount of time trying to brainstorm additional language that centered these so-called pain points and found ourselves struggling. It wasn’t an outlandish request, but the approach was misaligned with our own.

For a long time, be it intentional or not, our field has centered the pain of BIPOC as the catalyst for white understanding. This approach would show up in our opening questions about experiences and in the videos, articles, and diatribes we would share. The umbrella of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and all the work that falls within it is truly expansive, and while we do not want to shame anyone’s approach or strategies, we’ve learned that like anyone or anything else, we can cause harm if we aren’t careful about who and what we center.

Pain helps us learn by creating fear, but fear can cause paralysis. Paralysis, in this context, is the antithesis of growth. For those who have experienced more than enough pain as the result of oppressive systems, why would those individuals want to sit through a three-hour workshop that is placing that pain at the center of the experience? In 2022, we shared this perspective with many clients as we co-created engagements and scopes of work. Because of this sharing, we found ourselves in more meaningful and healthy conversations that prompted us to reimagine what this work might look like in truly diverse professional spaces. More than ever we relied on our values-centered and organizational health model that aims to allow each individual—regardless of their background—to step in from where they are and walk away with the same opportunities for learning and growth as everyone else.
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Nothing in our Joyful Orientation value is meant to deny or divert our eyes from the existence of the individual and collective pain that this work requires us to navigate. It does, however, serve as a critical reminder that we all have a right to joy, in all its complexity and richness.

We’ve learned that grace and perfectionism are unhappy bedfellows. Grace can mean a lot of things. It can mean forgiveness, compassion, and for many, evoke a sense of something greater than one’s self. 

For True North EDI, we think of grace as most akin to the concept of ‘space.’ Within that space, all of the above and more can be deposited, and it is up to individuals and collectives to decide what that space looks like. Regardless of what that is, we’ve learned that growth through and toward equity requires the movement and possibilities that only grace can allow for.

The space created by so-called perfectionism, on the other hand, is not human-sized; it is cramped, binding, and forces us into a paradigm of winning and losing. While our TNEDI workshops and learning programs call out the risk of allowing perfectionism to be an underlying operating value, it has proven to be easier said than done. In 2022, we saw many of our clients and their respective professional communities arrive at the crossroad where their commitment to equity and an operating value of perfectionism intersect. When grace was present during those moments, we witnessed restorative practices that allowed for the transformation of conflict and spaces created for sharing and authentic listening. We saw commitments to prioritize impact over intent whilst still acknowledging the humanity of intent. The presence of grace allowed these organizations to proceed clumsily but forward toward whatever ‘true north’ they set for themselves.

Like everything else, we put the concept of grace through an equity lens. To whom is grace historically extended and to whom is it denied? When is grace being used as a reason to wait for change that is long overdue? When do we extend grace at the cost of our personhood and dignity? These are questions we continue to grapple with.Whether you are in a position of leadership or another member of a professional community, it’s important to remember we are creating a world none of us have ever seen. There is no agreed upon standard or model, no manual for us to refer to. We have lessons learned and meaningful data, but those have never been in short supply. 

What we need more than ever is the space to imagine and iterate, to stumble and stand, and permission to find our way as a collective of whole and complex human beings.
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In the months to come, we hope to share our official values language that outlines what each truly means for us at True North EDI as well as public opportunities to engage with us. In the meantime, we wish you a year of peace and prosperity that comes with the pursuit of collective liberation. We hope for more opportunities to partner, co-conspire, and continue sharing our passion and expertise.

Sincerely,

​Your friends at True North EDI