The Fundamental Conflict with Diversity Equity and Inclusion Efforts
Even with a vast majority of one cultural perspective presented within a company, its leaders may not believe an inclusion deficit exists in the organization. To the holder of this mindset, the risk to productivity, reputation, or marketplace stability is non-existent. This mindset views any DEI efforts as an interruption to business. This is what social scientists define as a “mono-cultural mindset.”
Leaders with a "monocultural” mindset do not believe inclusion is a primary objective.
The bottom line is this: key decision-makers are implementing DEI programs that they don’t even believe are necessary. But what about all of the data? McLean and Co. surveyed 800 global companies and found that 60% of respondents report DEI programs are focused on compliance only, 62% of respondents do not have a formal DEI strategy, and 58% of respondents do not have leadership buy-in.
Without leadership buy-in, any initiative they implement will result in a failure-to-last. This mindset is the fundamental conflict with DEI efforts.
The real question then becomes, how can people with a monocultural mindset be moved to embed DEI principles?