More often than not, especially for small to mid-sized organizations, DEI is considered to be part of the HR function and initial DEI efforts are lead by HR.

In fact, it is often, although not always, HR that reach out to us about hiring us as DEI consultants, and we have worked successfully with many of our clients this way.

However, we are increasingly of the belief that DEI should not be conflated with HR and that it is beneficial to have DEI as a separate function from HR.

At Co-Creating Inclusion, we often talk about how we believe the process of creating inclusion should itself be inclusive - it’s in our name!

This is no less true even during the process of hiring a DEI consultant.

We have found that organizations often default to standard processes for “vendor procurement” that replicate existing power structures of “the client’s needs come first” and assumes a more transactional relationship where a client outlines a scope of work and then has vendors bid competitively on it.

No more.

A question that often comes up is - when should organization hire an internal DEI leader as a full-time employee? The answer to that question, as to most questions is… it depends. And there is no right answer.

However, at CCI we do have some recommendations.

I know we’re a few news cycles out from the Southwest Airlines debacle over the holidays, but this post from Southwest pilot Larry Lonero titled “What happened to Southwest Airlines?” hit home for me, and I believe it’s important to keep at the forefront of our minds as we move into 2023.

Oooof. I’m sure this situation rings to true to anyone who has ever had to deal with any kind of large and flailing system, whether it’s an airline, cell phone carrier, car rental company, hospital, health insurance company, public school system, bank, or pretty much any aspect of the government.

Something that people often find unexpected about DEI work is that sooooooo much of it is about feedback.

And one of the things we have come to say with quite a bit of frequency, thanks to Malaika, is that feedback is a gift, even if you don’t like the wrapping paper.

Summer vacation already seems like a far away dream, but having gone into August with the intention of vacationing differently, I wanted to make sure I reported back before it receded into the distance altogether.

A pattern that we often see with our client organizations is where those more proximate to institutional power seem to “personalize” feedback from those less proximate to power. This is a form of defensiveness where feedback from staff, usually given in good faith and not meant as an attack, although often not with frustration, pain and anger, is experienced by leadership as a personal attack.