10 Things I Learned From Lily Zheng's 'DEI Deconstructed'

To succeed at DEI, you have to understand it better.

 

"DEI Deconstructed," published in 2023, is a groundbreaking work by Lily Zheng, a renowned diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) expert. Zheng's deep insights and refreshing approach to unraveling the complexities of DEI initiatives are what piqued my interest in diving into this enlightening read. Keep reading to see what my main takeaways from the book were:

1. Diversity, equity and inclusion must be defined in an outcome-oriented manner.

2. Diversity refers to "the workforce demographic composition in an organisational body that all stakeholder populations trust as representative and accountable".

3. Equity refers to "the measured experience of an individual, inter-personal and organisational success and well-being across all stakeholder populations".

4. Inclusion refers to "the felt and perceived environment in an organisational body that all stakeholder populations trust as respectful and accountable".

5. An organisation's structure, culture and strategy intersect to determine how effective and smoothly executed DEI efforts will be.

6. Structure refers to the degree of centralisation, formalisation and complexity in an organisation.

7. Culture is reflected in the level of power distance, interdependence, uncertainty avoidance and failure avoidance present in the organisation.

8. Strategy is "a bet. A bet that, given your understanding of your organization and the challenges and opportunities it faces, you can achieve the outcomes you're looking for through a unique configuration of time, energy, and resources".

9. Apart from formal power, employees in an organisation can use other forms of power such as reward power, coercive power, expert power, informational power and referent power (charisma).

10. A coalition of stakeholders (within the organisation and external ones) have to come together to advocate for and advance DEI efforts. The coalition should necessarily consist of people playing different roles such as educator, advocate, organiser, strategist, backer, builder and reformer, for DEI efforts to be successful.

Text by Prithvi Vatsalya. Image taken from LinkedIn/Lily Zheng.