The importance of DEI programs: Why institutional support matters for different ways of being
There are so many different ways to be as humans, and there is no one right way to be. Creating cultures that support diversity require institutional support.
Recently Meta announced it was shutting down its DEI program, the latest in a line of corporations pulling support for initiatives that promote fair and equal treatment of people regardless of their social group affiliation.
As someone who used to work at Meta and thrived in the open and diversity-supportive culture it cultivated at the time, I’m disappointed.
As an Asian American woman behavioral scientist who spent nearly a decade researching how people are shaped by the cultural systems they participate in, I’m disappointed.
As a data scientist professional who has seen the power of bringing together diverse perspectives to create business outcomes that are beyond any individual contribution, I’m disappointed.
Support for diversity, equality, and inclusion isn’t important because it’s “politically correct” or attracts good candidates. It’s important because it’s core to being human. There are so many different ways to be as humans, and there is no one right way to be. When DEI programs support this premise, they create fertile ground for people to share their superpowers with each other and create something bigger and better (and good for the bottom line) than they could have created alone.
It’s not easy to manage the many different ways to be human, especially for corporate organizations. Without intentional attention, cultures will slide toward the predominant ways of being that are already explicitly and implicitly established. In these situations, ways of being that are different from the predominant way of being are ignored at best and deliberately made to be less than at worst.
Example: Differences in self-promotion
Let’s consider different ways that men vs. women self-promote. It’s simple - men tend to self-promote; women don’t. Strangely enough, the assumption in most corporate cultures is that self-promotion is good (after all, people who advocate for themselves are confident and make for great leaders, right?) and lack of self-promotion is bad (the squeaky wheel gets the grease, not the quiet one that works and does its job without complaining).
In a company that doesn’t invest in DEI, the assumption that self-promotion equals good often goes unchecked. One consequence is that men are more likely to be promoted; and women are not.
Why does this happen?
Men are socialized to be vocal and assert themselves. The culture surrounding them supports this behavior by rewarding people who stand up for themselves, especially if that person is a man. Because the culture was also largely built by men, their ways of being became the norm for what is good, right and true for how to be a human, and the system became self-reinforcing.
Women, however, are socialized to be relational and self-critical. This isn’t all bad! There are positive associations with women being warm and kind, so when they act that way, they are rewarded in society. The kicker is those rewards are highly situation-dependent. When acting in corporate settings, women are seen as weak and emotional because being warm and kind are not behaviors that are valued when it comes to being a man. Yet, even when women adopt male-coded behaviors like being more assertive, they still incur a penalty of being seen as aggressive or a bitch because the culture isn’t used to seeing women behave that way.1
In a company that invests in DEI, these different patterns in behavior for men and women are likely to be recognized and understood. Neither way is good or bad in and of themselves. They’re just different, and it depends on the situation whether one way of being may be beneficial vs. the other at that time. But whether one gets promoted or not shouldn’t depend on culturally-influenced different ways of being.
(I wrote more on this topic in a previous post. Check it out here.)
Working in cultures that support DEI vs. not
What I described in the previous section is related to how institutions and interpersonal interactions contribute to building cultures that promote particular values. Now, I’m going to turn to what individual experiences can look like when working in cultures that don’t explicitly support the expression of different ways of being compared to when they do.
Have you been in a situation where no matter what you do, it feels like you’re doing everything wrong? No matter what you say, people seem to stare at you with blank looks. Or worse, immediately refute what you say and point out how what you’re saying is wrong. Maybe every day you go to work with a knot in your stomach, and every night you have tears in your eyes. You work long hours trying to do everything you can to be successful, and yet it seems like you’re barely moving forward in your career. You constantly feel off step and you don’t know why.
Contrast that with a situation where you feel like everything is going for you. When you’re in meetings, people look to you for advice. When you’re working with colleagues, solving problems together just flows. You share your ideas, and they share theirs. Oftentimes their ideas surprise you, or they find what you say unexpected. Instead of pushing each other’s ideas down, you laugh, make new connections (relational and neural!), and create a deliverable that is beautiful as much as it is effective and impactful.
That second situation is so much more likely to happen when there are DEI initiatives in place.
Creating strong cultures requires institutional support
Cultures are interconnected webs of many layers. Institutional practices, like DEI initiatives, are crucial in supporting, giving form to, and creating a culture of creativity, innovation, and impact.
When those desired values don’t exist by default, they need more institutional support. If those values are already implicitly embedded in the culture, direct institutional support may be less needed because other layers in the cultural system - like how we interact with each other - can keep those values alive.
For example, if a culture has internalized DEI values, maintaining explicit programs that promote DEI may be less necessary. If those programs are removed and outcomes for folks from different background like who gets hired, promoted, or morale don’t change, that’s a good sign that DEI values are strong in the culture and reinforced throughout other levels of the culture cycle.
If, however, outcomes for folks from different backgrounds start to slide when DEI programs are removed, that’s a sign that those values are not embedded in the culture. Explicit and deliberate practices, like DEI programs, are needed to create a culture that is strong enough to support ideas that can uplift everyone in that culture.2
(If you’re interested in learning more about how cultural systems work, check out this post I wrote here.)
And that, my friends, is what flowed through my head and heart when I saw this news about the DEI shutdowns.
It feels scary to write about DEI topics. As much as they are near and dear to my heart, there are many opinions and feelings and reactions that reach out in every direction on what DEI means and how it should be used. But I suppose that’s the whole point of this article! And I hope by writing about these topics, we can learn from each other.
How have you experienced the impact of DEI initiatives in your workplace? What do you think about companies scaling back their support for these programs?
I am grateful to have this forum to be able to share these ideas with you, and I would love to hear your thoughts and stories. Let’s continue this conversation together!
For more info, here are some articles in this area, here, here, and here; and this book called Likeable Badass
I didn’t come up with these ideas on my own. Much of what I say is rooted in research by the incredible Hazel Markus, Shinobu Kitayama, and Alana Conner.