If DEI Programs Aren’t Effective, What Is?

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Welcome to the HBR Idea Cast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Alison Beard. In the United States and other parts of the world, there's a big debate happening right now over how public and private organizations should operate. For a long time, many employers were trying to make their workplaces more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, arguing that there was both a moral and a business case for initiatives like anti-biased training or gender quotas. Recently, though, there's been a rising chorus of people saying that DEI programs and policies run counter to the idea of a meritocracy. Where the best get ahead, the rest fall behind.

and the operation as a whole succeeds. So who's right? Our guests today think we all need to look at these issues through a different lens. They want leaders to focus on making work fair for everyone across levels and teams because their research shows that such efforts lead to organizations being both meritocratic and diverse, equitable, and inclusive. In short, it's about doing everything smarter and better, not as part of any special program, but as an everyday practice.

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