Our services follow our process for organizational change which typically includes four general phases of work, customized to the needs of each client: discovery, workshop facilitation, strategy & implementation.
While we can give you an estimate for the first three phases together, we typically prefer to first agree on Phase I and finalize the scope for each phase at the end of the previous one.
Depending on the needs of your organization and the DEI work you have already done, we customize our scope of work and services to meet your needs.
In some cases this includes compressing certain phases of work, or starting out working more strategically with DEI coaching to support specific leaders within the organization (eg CEO, President, Executive Director, or most senior HR or DEI executive). We have also worked successfully with leadership teams, ERGs, DEI workgroups or committees or with specific departments ahead of or without ever working with the entire organization.
Phase I: Discovery
Our approach to discovery is typically to identify patterns of behavior and their organizational as well as systemic root causes. We identify the impacts of these patterns, as well as the self-identified needs, listening to voices from across the group we are working with while centering on the needs of those more deeply experiencing impact.
We look for both celebrations as well as opportunities for growth with regards to current organizational policies, practices and culture. We use our assessment framework to guide our questions and information gathering. This allows us to organize and analyze the data we gather, while creating space to listen for issues and patterns they may not fall into a preset framework.
Our discovery phase might include:
Document review
Kick-off meetings with smaller groups (eg leadership, board, DEI workgroup) as well as all staff
Staff-wide DEI survey as part of our initial culture and readiness assessment
Interviews and/or focus groups to dive deeper into issues raised in the survey
Phase I report with our preliminary assessment of current organizational practices and culture to identify strengths and opportunities for DEIB growth
Debrief meetings with smaller groups as well as all staff
Phase II: Workshop Facilitation
We have found that one of the critical components for effective organizational impact is workshop facilitation. We develop workshops based on the quite significant understanding and analysis that we gain in Phase I of our work.
Our workshops are part education and training to provide DEI learning, capacity building, a shared language, understanding, frameworks and tools, part acknowledgement and truth telling as we share the information that we have gathered and uplift the voices of those most impacted, part facilitated brainstorming and co-creation of what a shift towards diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging looks like at your organization, and part continued qualitative data gathering on our part as we build towards the development of a DEI roadmap and strategic goals.
Through our workshops, we begin to address harm, needs and patterns of behavior to bring everyone along in an understanding of the change that we are working to create. We also provide tools that can be implemented right away as we have found that practice, reflection and iteration are key to success.
All our workshops, delivered online via zoom, include visually rich decks in PDF format that participants may keep, interactive discussions and activities utilizing digital platforms such as Padlet and Mentimeter for polling, digital whiteboarding and anonymous discussion. We also provide a feedback survey after each workshop.
Our workshop facilitation phase might include:
Preview and debrief meetings with smaller groups (usually a DEI workgroup or Inclusion team)
A series of three or four workshops, usually three-hours each (with a half hour break)
A feedback survey after each workshop
Phase II report with an update to our preliminary assessment of current organizational practices and culture to identify more specific strengths and opportunities for DEI growth, as brainstormed by staff during our workshops
Debrief meetings with smaller groups as well as all staff
Phase III: DEI Strategic Planning
During our DEI Strategic Planning process, we take the findings and recommendations from Phase I and II and facilitate discussion to help establish a clear DEI roadmap and strategic goals. Our DEI strategic plan will prioritize goals and areas of focus on a timeline and starts to assign resources as well as an accountability structure towards implementing the goals.
We facilitate the co-creation of agreed upon needs and values, as well as the shifts in behavior and culture and the projects or initiatives that will be required to operationalize these shifts in culture. We develop an accountability structure and rubric that measures impact and results (not just actions) against needs.
Phase IV: DEI strategic planning implementation and integration support
Activities in this phase will be finalized during Phase III but might include:
Private and/or group DEI coaching to continue the advancement of DEI learning, cultural and racial equity competencies
Additional workshop sessions on topics identified for further exploration
Ongoing strategic consulting and integration
Quarterly or semi-annual or annual check-ins
Restorative practices
Every phase of our work includes an allowance for restorative practices so we can be responsive to needs that may arise related to unresolved harm and can allocate time to further exploration if we determine this would be beneficial for the organization. We undertake this work at our discretion, confidentially if necessary, making disclosures where possible with the consent of participants, or where legally required. This might include allowing additional time in an interview to explore specific issues, setting up additional calls or meetings where needed, and making recommendations for deeper and more targeted restorative justice work.
In particular, we have found it beneficial to organizations at any point during the DEI process for their BIPOC staff to have the opportunity to speak candidly and confidentially with us as third party facilitators about their experiences before deciding on next steps.
While this can feel nerve-wracking, especially for white leaders who may feel afraid of “opening up Pandora’s box,” being proactive about creating space for these issues to be explored actually mitigates risk and is in the organization’s best interest as well as the best interests of its staff. We work in consultation with our own employment lawyers, HR consultants and licensed therapists to make sure we are mitigating risk and further harm.
Restorative justice
Restorative justice practices tell us that if someone in the community experiences hurt, the entire community is hurt. And if someone in the community causes harm, the entire community has a responsibility for harm.
The term “harm” as we are using it may at times but does not necessarily indicate a violation of employment laws, and more generally refers to actions that have a negative impact on ourselves or others because they are not in alignment with needs.
The process of restorative justice in the workplace therefore is not just an HR responsibility or concern, but a community responsibility and concern.
We also take the stance that an institution or organization is a community, and, rather than pitting individual staff interests against the interest of the institution as conventional practices often do, we believe that protecting the interests of the community is one of the best ways of protecting the interests of the institution.
Restorative justice is a constant practice of restoring needs, and thereby creating an equitable and inclusive culture of belonging. Our process starts with facilitating self-reflection for those involved so that needs might be identified, and then goes on to create space for those needs to be named and discussed at the interpersonal level if needed, as well as at the community level. Harm is put right through a participatory, inclusive and collaborative process that identifies actions as well as shifts in behavior and culture that addresses the occurrence of harm in question as well as reduces or prevents the harm from occurring again.
Quite often, it is not possible to “undo” the harm, especially when some of those involved may not even be present in the organization anymore. However, these harms, when left unresolved, continue to impact a person’s day-to-day experience - the impact lives on, which is why we refer to “unresolved harms” rather than “past harms.” Resolution might involve truth telling, acknowledgement, and steps to prevent re-occurrence.
As noted above, we work in consultation with our own employment lawyers, HR consultants and licensed therapists to make sure we are mitigating risk and further harm. We also coordinate with an organization’s HR and legal counsel.
DEI coaching
We have found individual and group DEI coaching and advisory to be one of the most effective ways to drive change at an organization level, either as a lead in or supplement to discovery, workshop facilitation and DEI strategic planning, or as part of implementation.
For DEI advocates and leaders who may be exhausted from trying to drive change and carrying the burden and responsibility largely alone, we can provide immediate relief, support and strategies that we have found to be effective in our work with other clients.
For leaders and those who are earlier on in their DEI journey, we create space to unpack specific questions, concerns, confusion or resistance that they might not feel comfortable raising in a larger group.
DEI coaching for teams works best when we work with everyone on the team individually as well as in a group, alternating between individual and group coaching on a bi-weekly or monthly basis.
In group coaching, we can draw on what we know about where each individual in the team is at, the strengths they bring and the challenges they face, as well as the trust we've built with each of them. We facilitate conversations and design interactive exercises to strengthen the DEI capacity and competencies of the team. We do team and culture building with leadership, DEI and HR teams as well as with ERG leaders, DEI facilitators and workgroups.
The good news is that by creating community agreements and articulating and modeling and reinforcing inclusive behaviors, team culture can be often be shifted more quickly than organizational culture, while in itself accelerating shifts in organizational culture.
DEI advisory and ongoing assessment of progress
We view ourselves as DEI facilitators and collaborators, but as an organization builds internal DEI capacity, usually after an implementation period, we shift to a DEI advisory role - this is the goal of our work. As an internal DEI advocates and leaders are increasingly collaborating with, coaching and supporting each other, as well as taking the lead on continued iteration of DEI strategy and alignment, and as DEI becomes increasingly operationalized into every aspect of the organization, we remain available as external advisory on targeted issues and situations that the organization identifies.
We can also be available to administer annual DEI staff feedback surveys to measure progress against goals and provide some measure of external accountability. We generally recommend that ongoing pulse surveys are supplemented by an externally administered in depth employee feedback survey that we can conduct every 2-3 years.
Organizations might want to plan for an annual investment in DEI consulting that remains consistent for 2-3 years or more before being reduced.