When workshops won’t work

Several years ago, after I had facilitated a lively workshop on unconscious bias at a financial services firm, the client walked me to the elevator. He was beaming. “It was fantastic!” he said, handing me the check. When the elevator doors opened, he turned to me and said, “I wish I could say, ‘Hope to see you again soon!’” I cocked my head. “Well, if I see you again soon, it means we’re in trouble!” I smiled as he shook my hand and worked hard not to respond, “I think you may already be in trouble.”

His comment reminded me of one of three warning signs that a DEI training will not have the impact that an organization hopes it will have. When I see any of these dynamics at play, my experience tells me that a workshop likely won’t be worth the investment of time and money for the client. For them, gathering staff for a few hours will check a box, but they should not expect to see any significant change in equity or inclusion.

You don’t want this to happen to you! Ask yourself: are any of these true at my organization? If so, you might want to go a different direction. Otherwise, you might have a great time and learn a few things, but you won’t be any closer to your DEI goals.

When do workshops not work?

1. When you only have one. This is the red flag I saw at the financial services firm. They called me in a panic after an “incident.” The leader believed that a single session on bias was like an inoculation. Now that we’ve done some exercises together, everyone knows how to spot a stereotype! So, like magic, all of us will be immune. If only this were true—we would live in a more just world. But, as in any adult learning, we don’t internalize knowledge or develop skills without repetition and practice. Learning has to be sustained to stick. And only when that learning is complemented with structural change, informed by assessment and guided by strategy, will an organization truly grow more inclusive and equitable.

2. When hot personal dynamics are bubbling over. I’ve heard more than one client say, “We tried a workshop last year, but it ended up making things worse. We had to do damage control.” I suspect in many of these cases, this second warning sign wasn’t heeded. Many leaders are facing demands from employees to address persistent issues of sexism, racism, and cultural norms that alienate the diversifying workforce. These can be among the most challenging situations they have faced in their careers. Offering a workshop can feel like a visible, positive step to get things started (and sometimes it is). But if any underlying interpersonal conflicts are not surfaced and addressed first, a workshop can cause bubbling tension to boil over. Negative interpersonal dynamics undermine the emotional safety that a group needs to learn together. If that safety isn’t secure, you may want to wait on a workshop.

3. When they are mandatory. Research is clear on this one. Yes, ultimately, you need everyone on board with the goals of equity and inclusion. But not everyone understands or supports the work of DEI at first, and a workshop alone won’t get them there. If you force people to go who are opposed to the process, they often resist. This looks like disengagement at best, and active trolling or hostility at worst. Supportive and neutral employees—and facilitators—are forced to respond to this behavior, taking away time and energy from the training itself. Best to start with those who are willing, curious, and eager, and build outward.

Okay, so let’s say you fit one of these three situations. If you are racing toward booking a workshop, hit pause. At least if that’s all you have planned. Workshops may still be useful as part of an overall package, alongside assessments and a strategic planning process. Trainings play an important role in cultural transformation: they help an organization develop a common language, provide an opportunity for participants to practice what might be difficult conversations across differences, get to know each other more personally, and generate excitement and enthusiasm about the work. A really effective workshop can turn someone from “interested” to “passionate” in just a few hours, building toward the critical mass of buy-in needed to affect real change.

As you consider your best move, check for the three warning signs. If you have only planned out as far as the end of the workshop, take time to determine what happens next. If people have been complaining about being treated badly on the basis of identity, tell any consultant you’re working with up front. They can be aware and ready to attend to anything that might surface in the workshop, and advise on other steps to take.

And while you should stay away from calling it mandatory, there are ways of going almost that far. One client sent an enthusiastic email from the leader indicating that they and the leadership team would be participating in the workshop themselves. They stressed how important it was for the organization, and showed that value with their own priorities. They offered lots of options to participate, in terms of scheduling, in-person vs. remote, etc. Finally, they used this clever formulation: “Everybody is expected to attend, but if you’re not able to make it for some reason, please send me an email explaining why.” If there were dissenters, that’s fine—let’s find out who they are and begin those conversations outside of the group.

If your workshop goes well, you can thank the facilitator, hand them their check, and say, “Looking forward to seeing you again soon!”

Independence Day’s real meaning

I like fireworks. I love getting together with family and friends to enjoy a summertime celebration. And a long weekend is always welcome. So on the whole, the July 4 holiday is okay with me.

As for Independence Day—the reason we take July 4th off of work—my feelings are mixed. On the one hand, I honor the epochal fight that the American colonists waged for freedom from colonial rule. Their victory signaled an era of Enlightenment ideals about human rights and democracy moving closer to reality.

And yet, those ideals have not become reality. Despite what many of us were taught in school, they weren’t even fully expressed by the men we credit for founding this country.

Yes, the Declaration of Independence that Thomas Jefferson wrote says that “all men are created equal.” But of course, he and the other property-owning white men in Philadelphia had a very different definition of “all” than we have today. One that would not have included me.

So, along with the cookout, I spent some of this holiday weekend reflecting on all who were excluded from that declaration. Every woman on the continent. Every kidnapped and tortured African. Every human being living on the land before the Europeans arrived with disease and violence. According to the revolutionaries we celebrate on the 4th, none of these millions of people had inalienable rights endowed by their creator. I honor those whose independence went undeclared in 1776.

And I see that year as only part of the story of our country, a prelude to the Constitution these same men would write a decade later. This hallowed document wrote the rights of a majority of people out of existence—and set a trap that would block these rights for centuries. The framers constructed a process that could broaden the group included in the protections of the Constitution, yes. But it stacked the odds, requiring an Amendment to be approved by Congress and ratified by two thirds of the states.

The United States, granting its landmark freedoms to its ruling class, built a system that legally enslaved, oppressed, and excluded Black people, Indigenous Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx Americans, women, other gender minorities, the poor—everyone other than land-owning cisgender white men like its founders.

That is our nation’s original sin that continues to shame us today. Just this month, the Supreme Court claimed a Constitutional basis to deny women control of our bodies. A hard-fought battle for this freedom was won almost 50 years ago, and now five men and one woman have rolled it back.

We’ve seen this pattern before, recently with voting rights. It took a Civil War to ratify amendments preventing enslavement—with a brutal exception that has led to mass incarceration, and a social backlash that maintained white supremacy in every institution in society.

Conservatives and their Supreme Court judges say they want to return to the ideals on which this nation was founded. They are succeeding. We have a republic that preserves the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of the founding fathers and those like them. And it leaves the rest of us unprotected and unbelonging.

So, this Fourth of July, I enjoyed the fun and community. And, like the great American Frederick Douglass, I also mourned the cruelty and narrowness of the “independence” we settle for while remaining hopeful of our ability to create change and achieve the promise of an America for all of us.

Starting a DEI plan: it’s all in the team

Picture it: your organization, in a few years, when your DEI journey is underway. You’ve undergone an assessment, a strategic planning process, and thoughtful staff development. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are beginning to be embedded into your organization. How do you know?

Because the diversity of your people is an ongoing source of value, both for your business or mission and for the people themselves.

Can you picture that? If you can, hold on to that vision—it will serve you well as a leader.

But if it’s more abstract to you, that’s okay. So many of us really have no visceral sense of how DEI work will pay off or how to do it.

Before you begin to work on your plan there is a crucial step that will show you exactly how much of a difference diversity will make in your success. That step is assembling your strategic planning task force.

In a way, assembling and managing this group is one of the first tests of your DEI leadership, because the group has to be diverse itself. You need to be able to hear from a truly representative group of employees—all levels, all roles, all identities—in order for your plan to succeed.

People with different tenures, not just the company elders. A range of ages, from about-to-retire to first-job-out-of-college. Pull from every department—management, front-line workers, facilities, back office, all of it. And of course, find demographic diversity: folks who bring as wide a range of genders, orientations, ethnicities, and races with them. As a leader, you shouldn’t think that you know all the ways employees experience your organization. By bringing a diverse team together, they will bring the wisdom based on their experiences and help you create the best plan for the organization.

Now, this task force may look and feel different from other strategic planning groups you’ve been part of. And the make-up of the group isn’t the only thing that might feel like a departure. Often when people do strategic plans for their business, it’s top-down. Leadership sets the vision and priority areas, and the job of implementation cascades down the hierarchy.

This can be appropriate in some types of planning—but not for DEI. The mix of people providing input in this task force should truly be working together to set the goals. That special factor shapes the end result in ways you cannot produce with a homogenous team. When you adopt ideas from people you haven’t heard from before, you meet needs you weren’t aware of and make changes that solve broader issues.

It’s also the key to following through. Your chances of success are much higher when you engage in an inclusive process like this one than if you hire a DEI expert to create a plan for you. That’s because when people in the organization have a hand in the development of a plan, they are more bought in. When they carry it out, they recognize their institutional knowledge in the plan and build on it. Conversely, when they are asked to execute something they had no part in and which fails to acknowledge the experience (and experiences) they have had, they may feel unrecognized—as if the work they have already contributed isn’t acknowledged.

Aside from the make-up of the task force and the focus on their ideas and leadership, a DEI strategic planning process will be familiar. Team-building, benchmarking, visioning, small-group brainstorming, synthesis, committees—then polishing and releasing it to the whole organization so that people can integrate the work.

The process itself may not be that different for you. It’s the diverse, inclusive team that makes it special.

If you succeed, you’ll have a road map to follow and a high-priority starting point. You will also have an important proof point. The experience of making decisions informed by your people’s diversity will have brought new ideas and stronger follow-through. Remember that feeling—and get used to it. There will be a lot more of it as you increase your organization’s equity and inclusion!