What next for D.E.I in the UK? A way forward for performance-focused leaders.

This article was written to give UK leaders an articulation on how DEI (Diversity, Equity/Equality and Inclusion might evolve within a UK context, and how to potentially navigate that change to one better aligned with a performance agenda.

Even prior to Trump’s recent high-profile anti-DEI executive orders, UK PLC’s commitment to DEI had been waning for at least 24 months.?

It’s incredibly hard to get the tone and messaging of DEI right for everyone as the passions and emotions attached to DEI are so intense and personal. But as the UK market and economic conditions become ever more challenging and complex, the DEI commitments of organisations that aren’t performing will almost certainly come under even further scrutiny.

With some American leaders wanting to align themselves with the Trump administration, or merely using this moment to refocus their business priorities, we may be witnessing the final act of what has been one of THE most significant corporate agendas over the last decade.??

Many US businesses are publicly rolling back their DEI commitments and programmes, including American Airlines, Boeing, Ford, Harley-Davidson, John Deere, Lowe's, McDonald's, Meta, Nissan and Walmart. I was recently asked to contribute to a CBSNews article entitled Meta ends diversity programs and this article builds on my commentary for CBS.?

In the US, DEI has almost come to mean Democratic = Pro-DEI, and Republican = Anti-DEI. The UK’s corporate DEI agenda isn’t understood to run along such obvious political divides - yet - but it might if we aren’t careful.?

How we got here?

DEI initiatives were forged in 1960s America as a reaction to long-standing barriers to advancement for people of colour and women. Its foundations lay in the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, a law passed under President Lyndon Johnson amid the fight over civil rights.

In the UK, DEI evolved from environmental issues and representation, with a particular focus on gender, with an aspiration to increase the number and seniority of women in the workplace. In one way or another, and under different labels, the push to make organisations more representative has continued to the present day. From an ethnic diversity standpoint, the movement gained momentum for all leading businesses in the UK circa 2014 with a seminal McKinsey report on Why Diversity Matters, and then super-accelerated with COVID lockdowns and the murder of George Floyd.?

A Brave New World

At the heart of the business case for DEI was a profound idea: diverse teams and organisations made up of different people, with different cultural and life experiences and perspectives would drive greater performance outcomes.?

Businesses that became ethnically diverse looked and felt more modern, global, and future-looking. They better represented new markets, customers, and audiences.?

In the UK, Tony Blair’s ‘Education, Education, Education’ social mobility policy resulted in a wave of diverse graduates who were tech-enabled and entrepreneurial. These millennial graduates came of age and entered the UK job market. Leaders saw a new talent pool, Employee Resource Groups formed, and forward-looking businesses changed their promotion and hiring practices, visual identity, websites, and language and behaviour. Organisations invested huge sums into DEI training, hires, marketing, etc.

It was a brave and exciting new world and I saw it in the eyes of many talented young diverse people we supported through our social impact programmes. They believed. They agitated. They demanded change.?

Too much, too young

But because DEI became so important, it also became a ‘land grab’ and at times, a frenzy. It was the first time some people were empowered and had a voice. Some people became dizzy with their newfound influence, and mission creep crept in. In some cases, those involved in DEI moved their focus away from talent, performance and market representation, to wider societal issues. Some people resented that DEI was simplified to a commercial business or profit narrative.

Seeing its importance, most leaders made it a priority and started to build focus on DEI programmes. Awards were created and handed out. Even E-learning businesses took off on the back of it.

But after a while, when clear performance and commercial results didn’t follow as hoped, executive interest and business resources started to wane.?

It became too distracting and consuming for leaders, many of whom were told they were THE problem. As soon as a leader focused on one agenda, other interest groups cried ‘foul!’. Impossible targets were committed to. People who ‘misspoke’ could be cancelled, creating internal business dynamics based on individual interests and agendas; often the loudest voices ‘won’, to the detriment of others. Focus, logic and performance alignment went missing in action.?

Leaders who wanted to be ‘Inclusive’ were told they needed to be vulnerable, courageous, and involve everyone. There was also often a subtext that leaders were responsible for how their employees felt. Some were even told that they were not being sufficiently inclusive when they were often just trying to get the organisation’s focus back on performance.

Even those leaders who were advocates and aligned with the DEI agenda expressed fatigue about the constant and never-ending demands it brought, whilst also leading growth businesses through challenging times. DEI became increasingly political, monopolistic and narrow. It even felt at times as though different ethnic groups could be put into a hierarchy of importance. Ultimately, it became too hot and difficult for businesses and leaders to handle.?

R.I.P D.E.I

Now that the opportunity has presented itself for some leaders to step back from DEI, many will take it. But what about those leaders who lead diverse (gender, age, ethnicity, skills, etc.) UK and global workforces, who want to attract and retain great talent?

Long live DEI.

Over the last 20 years, organisations and their cultures have developed to fill the void that families, communities, religion, and even the local pub had previously filled. In short, people need meaning, purpose and a sense of value from work. That demand for meaning will ensure that DEI will continue to exist, albeit in a different form. Even though current commitments to DEI are changing, people still need or want their work to give them a sense of purpose. If we are to meet the huge changes and workplace disruption that AI and other forces will bring, organisations need to be full of talented people who can perform day in and day out.

Huge social movements like DEI are imperfect. Did they deliver on everyone's hopes and aspirations? Did they fix everything? Were they well designed and delivered in every business? No. But has it made UK society and organisations better places for it? Time will tell. However, the world of work looks, feels and acts like a different place from the one I walked into in 1997.?

There are always pendulum swings in societies and we are now witnessing organisations swing back to performance focus, a basic requirement for business survival.

Some of the ideas of the last ten years will remain. They will?be grafted onto new ideas evolving to meet?a demanding, dynamic, fast-moving, meritocratic, AI-influenced, efficiency-driven, performance-only period to which organisations must respond.?

Daniel Snell, co-founder, Arrival