Diversity Training That Generates Real Change

Inclusive Approaches That Benefit Individuals, Business, and Society

James O Rodgers, Laura L Kangas

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781523001736
• eBook ISBN: 9781523001750
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

This complete guide to effective, transformative diversity training provides an answer to the superficial, check-the-box DEI efforts that are undermining the entire field.
DEI work is getting a bad reputation. But that's because it's not being done right, say veteran diversity consultants James O. Rodgers and Laura Kangas. Too many organizations are treating diversity training as a quick-hit, low-cost, check-the-box activity.
Effective diversity training involves behavioral change based on adult learning theory. It is rigorous, deeply personal, experience based, and, if done well, life changing. Rodgers and Kangas offer a complete guide, from design to implementation to results. They show how to
• determine what specific, tangible outcomes an organization wants before it starts
• link diversity training to overall organizational strategy
• help all participants forge an individual, emotional connection to the training
• identify what skills a facilitator needs—the right facilitator makes all the difference
• create memorable learning experiences, not simply educational programs
The authors' goal is nothing less than to spark a worldwide revolution of informed practitioners, employees, and business leaders who will demand diversity training be given the same time, resources, and attention as any other critical enterprise initiative.
Reading group discussion guide available in book.

Chapter 1

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

What’s Training Got to Do with It?

“Not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed that is not faced.”

—James Baldwin

Intellectual conversation around diversity and inclusion rarely, if ever, creates behavioral change. Articles, books, videos, e-learning modules, and other materials can be useful as tools to support diversity and inclusion work. Without making an emotional connection to the work and gaining a deep understanding and acknowledgement of the added value to one’s personal and work life success, the training remains merely an intellectual conversation, and nothing changes.

Tragically, this is the fate of too many well-intentioned DEI trainings that have been delivered over the past thirty years. It is a seductive process because it is easy to do, receives very little pushback from most participants (for various reasons), is relatively inexpensive, and can be pointed to as evidence that “we are an organization that values diversity.”

It doesn’t work because an emotional connection to diversity, equity, and inclusion has not been made, and the hard work of coming to grips with your personal “unconscious bias” and “blind spots” never happened. In some ways, diversity training gives people a “pass.” For example, if you complete the e-learning module, check the box, and fail to identify explicit value or accountability for diversity-related behaviors in the organization, you have produced effort without outcomes. Personal/emotional connection is essential. It also needs to be supported by a DEI organizational strategy; without clarity around the relevance and applicability of the learning to the organization’s success, diversity training is doomed to failure.

There Is a Difference

An inspired mechanical engineer once proclaimed that her company did diversity training. When questioned about what it involved, she explained it was an annual one-hour online program that defined the terms. When asked if it had impacted her behavior and/or changed anything in the organization, she responded, “No, but it is nice to be informed. And besides, we are very busy.” In our experience, this type of diversity, equity, and inclusion training doesn’t work. It lacks a human connection.

A very different example and outcome was shared by an assistant professor from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government who writes about an experience of delivering a diversity, equity, and inclusion training session to primarily White police officers. The assistant professor came very well prepared with DEI research findings, statistical data, and other written documentation, but rather quickly observed that it was creating very little response from the group.

He was mystified and disappointed at the lack of interest. There was no meaningful dialogue on how to make things better concerning DEI in the organization and no discussion about the challenges and problems that were clearly identified by the data. That is, until a Black police officer began to speak about the information. The Black officer simply stated with emotion and powerful authenticity, “This is my life, this is the life that I have been living.”

The assistant professor put down his notes and his training outline. He reported that when that human connection was made, the dynamics of the session changed. White officers began to listen with great intensity. The group began to have authentic and meaningful conversations about their own and others’ life experiences.

Having reached a greater level of trust, the group reached a new level of DEI awareness. That awareness motivated the group to authentically consider and publicly commit to what they could do better. They began to plan how to make the organization more effective and how to benefit the community. That day was a significant step in the DEI journey for the members of the police force. The training session significantly influenced how seriously the organization considered the DEI strategy that they later developed. That plan benefitted the individuals, the organization, and ultimately, society.

Why Training?

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are a set of principles designed to help an organization perform better by equipping the people with an awareness and a skillset to promote stronger, more productive, more comfortable relationships. For many organizations with large numbers of employees and customers, DEI involves a retooling of fundamental skills, attitudes, and knowledge. It is a strategy and a capability that sets people up for success and competitive advantage. Doing it right involves a large-scale change initiative that includes everyone in the organization.

From an organizational development (OD) standpoint, change initiatives involve several steps and touchpoints to define the change, prepare for the change, install the change, and monitor how well the change is sticking. Of all the steps in a change effort, training is the most important. Leaders set the strategy, project managers manage the process, and external advisors help provide objective guidance, but managers and regular people make it happen.

Training is the linchpin of a large-scale change initiative regarding DEI for three reasons.

• First, it is the most visible of all the project components. When people see and hear about executives, managers, and all their fellow employees having a shared experience, it signals to them that something important is up.

• Second, it is the most personal. It is a shared experience, but everyone has their own personal learning journey in the process.

• Finally, it produces the most profound change at the individual and team level. As seasoned facilitators, we have been blessed to bear witness to thousands of cathartic events, moments of awakening, and life-changing epiphanies during DEI sessions. It is designed as a business event, but has implications for every aspect of a person’s life.

Which Diversity Training?

Most commentators speak of diversity-related training as though it were a singular event or standard course. In our experience there are many different versions of diversity-related training designed for different reasons and with different outcomes. Here are some:

Executive education is designed to help enterprise leaders consider if and how a DEI effort (including training) is right for them at this time. The focus is on definitions, strategy, possibilities, and examples of successful outcomes. This is mostly a guided discussion session with a commitment question at the end.

Management training with a DEI focus is designed to give frontline managers a chance to consider how their role in managing the frontline “value creators” is critical to success with DEI. The focus is on promoting knowledge of the broad range of perspectives available to them for doing the important work of the enterprise. It also promotes the idea that it is management more than leadership that leads to success with DEI.

Marketing and sales events with a DEI focus are designed to help customer-facing employees understand how they may be leaving money on the table by not managing their diversity response. These sessions have changed marketing foci and sales tactics and expanded the success patterns for many enterprises.

HR and compliance training sessions are designed to help human capital professionals learn how they can be supportive of frontline managers and employees as they try to work more productively with an increasingly diverse employee base.

Deliberate diversity training is a targeted learning experience designed to guide managers through an experimentation process to discover if and how a more diverse team can deliver better results than a more homogeneous team.

Foundational training is designed to equip all employees with the basic understanding of the natural human response to increasing diversity. It is presented often as sensitivity and awareness training, but is increasingly presented as a strategy and competency (skills) learning experience. This is the level of training that is most often being referred to as diversity training. We will focus most of our comments on this level of the process.

The Building Blocks

There is a logical methodical process for delivering foundational diversity training that generates change. This book is laid out to address each step of that process. Each building block supports and is supported by the other steps. They are not as much steps as they are touchpoints. Successful DEI projects always include these touchpoints as part of their strategy and execution plan. These Six Building Blocks help to create successful diversity learning experiences in support of an effective DEI change effort.

Building Block 1 (Chapter 2)	Know Your Why
Building Block 2 (Chapter 3)	Know Your Strategy
Building Block 3 (Chapter 4)	Know Your Audience (Adults)
Building Block 4 (Chapter 5)	Know How to Deliver (Facilitation)
Building Block 5 (Chapter 6)	Know the Learning Model
Building Block 6 (Chapter 7)	Know Your Execution Plan

A plan that includes all these touchpoints will have a greater prospect for creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable and productive in support of organizational objectives.

Does It Promote Relationships?

Diversity management is a relationship discipline. All humans see some differences in other humans, yet too often we let these differences distract us and become a barrier to effective relationships instead of a source for learning, perspective, and enhanced understanding. Conversely, all humans can find things in common with all other humans, and those similarities can be the catalyst for more comfortable and productive relationships.

The development of any discipline begins with clearly defining the problem. In the case of diversity management, the problem is how to manage the distractions caused by differences. It takes intention and skills to overcome that natural human tendency. Good DEI training should equip people to “seek similarities” with others so that their differences matter less. Productive relationships are the desired outcome.

The Goal

The goal of diversity-related training is to help people see other people as equal in value and humanity, and as sacred spirits with varying competencies, life experiences, creative and spiritual gifts. That translates into people with brown skin seeing people with white skin as equals, not as superior, not as more biased, not as an “up.” Likewise, a person with white skin should learn to see a person with brown skin as equal, not as inferior, not as poor, disadvantaged, under-represented, marginalized—not as a “down.” In his landmark book, The Nature of Prejudice, Gordon Allport, talked about prejudice as “being down on what you are not up on.”

On their face, the goals outlined above seem simple, logical, and common sense. The one thing that complicates the execution of those goals is the human condition. The human condition is the result of human conditioning—socialization and self-protection instincts, which if left unchecked, would cause humans to remain as savage and unsophisticated as any other animal on the planet. We all have acquired bias, learned prejudice, a collection of stereotypes, and a natural reaction to differences. For the goals to be achieved, however, we must find a way to address the impact of our human conditioning. We must make better decisions about people. We must learn to think before we react.

The Context

The Short and Quick Approach (Doesn’t Work)

Intellectual conversations about DEI rarely, if ever, create behavioral change. Articles, books, videos, e-learning modules, guest speakers and other materials can be useful as tools to support and inform people about diversity, equity, and inclusion work, but they rarely generate long-lasting and deeply rooted behavioral and organizational change. The Harvard Business Review reports that the term “diversity fatigue” has been coined to describe diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts that are empty words without follow-up actions that “are simply for face value.” At best these efforts inform people, but rarely, if ever, transform individuals, businesses, or society.

In addition, many of these so-called DEI training efforts are essentially DEI support materials, which are often focused on a specific dimension of diversity sometimes referred to as “the flavor of the month.” That approach often leaves others feeling excluded, invisible, and not valued. It can also generate resentment in other peoples’ minds, with questions like: “What about me and my group?” These approaches lack the inclusive focus that genuine DEI programs need to have as their foundation. Again, informational, but rarely transformational.

The Emotional Connection

DEI training that gives participants an opportunity to talk and hear each other’s stories can create a human connection. The human connection leads to an emotional awareness that generates action and change. Without an emotional connection, DEI training remains at the intellectual level. Rarely does anything even slightly change. It is a seductive process because informational training is easy to do, it receives very little negative pushback from participants, it is relatively inexpensive, and it can be misused as evidence to publicly proclaim that the organization values diversity.

(Laura) In an exercise where participants discussed and listed stereotypes about different dimensions of diversity, we acknowledged the stark reality that different places in the world contain different stereotypes depending on history, events, etc. The participants then stood in front of the list that gave them a “charge.” A charge is defined as an emotional response to the list. It may be positive or negative. They were then asked to share with the group why they selected that particular list.

The plant manager was the last to go and was clearly hesitating on selecting a list. The room grew silent. The manager was known to be a powerful, wealthy, privileged White male with an Ivy League degree. People wondered aloud, “What type of diversity challenges could he possibly have?” Slowly the plant manager walked over to the chart that listed the stereotypes about Vietnam veterans. A profound silence came over the room as he turned to the group with a look of sadness on his face and tears in his eyes, and said, “I am a Vietnam veteran and I have never told that to anyone in this company because I know the stereotypes that are out there about Vietnam vets”.

“People think we are crazy, baby killers, mentally ill, and suffer from PTSD. I know that I would have been looked at differently if people knew that I was a Vietnam vet. I have kept it hidden until this moment. I decided to say it now because I just realized that there are people in this room, this company, and in the world that suffer every day because they get judged, stereotyped, and labeled for elements of diversity that they can’t hide. I could hide mine, and have done so, because I knew the potential consequences. I never looked at it this way before and I am deeply sorry.”

The plant manager later told us that without the DEI training experience, he never would have become the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Marshall Goldsmith
• Introduction: What Generates Real Change
• Chapter 1: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: What’s Training Got to Do with It?
• Chapter 2: Begin with the End—Know Your Why
• Chapter 3: Connect DEI Training to All Aspects of Business Strategy
• Chapter 4: Adult Learning: People Hate Being Told How to Think
• Chapter 5: Creating Safe Space
• Chapter 6: Engaging Your Audience
• Chapter 7: Experiment–Expect–Examine. Confirm That It Works
• Chapter 8: It Could Happen to Any of Us
• Conclusion: Start, Restart, or Recover: But Get on Track!
• Discussion Guide
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• About the Authors