Should DEI Die?

Should DEI just die?  

Conceptually, no. Never!  We will always need to acknowledge differences and take measures for the outcomes we want. 

Differences will always exist.  Thank heavens! (Despite occasionally being tempted by the idea, I do know that nobody would be served by a world full of clones of myself.)

The old adage that two heads are better than one turns out to be evidence-based. However, there is an important caveat:  it's true when each head, or team member, is valued for their differences and feels included diverse teams outperform homogenous teams.*  

If we don’t have inclusion, we don’t get optimal results from teams whose members have different identities, thinking styles, life experiences, ways of being, etc. Which is pretty much any team or even pair of humans. 

But should we ix-nay the acronym-ay?   

 Honestly, for a few years I have felt that the shorthand was beginning to lose meaning and risked becoming a performative set of letters. I’ll bet most of our workplaces have their own alphabet soup of acronyms.  They are handy and most of the time they refer to concrete processes or manuals or departmental work teams.   Diversity, Equity and Inclusion practices and beliefs are incredibly multifaceted and encompass people, practices, feelings, outcomes and more. They are inherently complex and context dependent.  It is rather a disservice to relegate these principles that get to the core of our values and hearts as humans to an acronym. And then if teams fail to develop shared understanding on what the acronym means in practice, both the definitions of the words but also how they are conceptualized into practice, people fall into assumptions.  And sadly, some approaches have evoked shame rather than mutual learning and thus we are living a time when the acronym is being weaponized. 

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” William Shakespeare

 It doesn’t matter how we call it.  Our hearts still yearn to connect across differences.  And yowza what a set of differences we are dealing with right now!   

I’m still doing and will always be doing intercultural competence work because that is the core of any and every human interaction. 

So we lose the acronym. The work by any other name is just as powerful and needed.  I came to this work from international development, my own overseas experiences and a deep set of differences within my most intimate relationship that caused us a lot of pain. Thus, the intercultural competence approach has always resonated as the strongest way to achieve DEI outcomes.  

I do believe words matter. And in this case, words matter less than shared meaning. I will always stand for and support people to learn and develop mindsets and skillsets around diversity, equity and inclusion.  

Over the past two years I was called to consider my professional evolution and the umbrella  idea that emerged is connection.  And when I get down to it, that manifests as three forms of connection to and with:

• Self 

• Others 

• Spirit/Source/Creator 

The essence of intercultural competence is developing skills and awareness in three domains that can be shorthanded as Self-Other-Bridge.  (With gratitude to colleagues and mentors who have honed language through years of work and deep discussions working across differences.) This simply means helping people see their way of being, be curious (and have appropriate tools and resources to inquire and learn  about others), and strategies to reach across and build connections when there are differences that make a difference.  

What does this mean for Sparks of Change?

 I’m still here!! I am still coaching individuals and facilitating teams and groups.  We still feel the call for growth to be even better than we already are. I am booking teams for the fall who are ready to be even better than they already are, eager to not only raise their awareness but leverage and adapt to differences to get the results they want. (In ways that feel good to all.) 

Also, in coming weeks you’ll see I’m really building out my offerings as a healer and coach for any sphere of your life but most particularly for those relationships that are most dear- parent, child, partner. Finding ease and insights for our most cherished relationships helps everyone around us.  

 Given the landscape we are living, we all need to ensure we take care of ourselves so that we can be of service to the collective.