Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Scarce DEI Budget Dollars?

The other day I was looking for an oven-baked salmon recipe. I put the question to Google and got 1.8 million results. Allrecipes.com alone has over 984 recipes for salmon. Tell me again, why do I need to buy and store bulky cookbooks? Likewise, feed a question about any diversity, equity, and inclusion practice or statistic into a computer, and you'll be met with an avalanche of results, including detailed, fully packaged reports. (I just asked Google "how to start an employee resource group," and got 558 million results). So, tell me why your company needs to spend between $15,000 to $20,000 a year or more to be a member of one of the many DEI practice/research organizations to get that information?

Here are six of the most common sales pitches you will hear from the sales representative for one of these practices and or research organizations, followed by questions for you to consider:

1.????You can passively learn about other DEI leaders' practices and get ideas to copy at your firm. Aren't there hundreds of magazine articles about some high-impact DEI practice in one company or another every single day? I share about a thousand or more of these a year with readers of my free DEI Leader Community Weekly Email. So why do you need to buy access for the equivalent of an online DEI practice encyclopedia when there are Wikipedia-like resources that do the job for free?

2.????To learn the best practices. "Best practices" is a questionable term at best that has become even less meaningful in our age of constant disruption. What exactly is a best practice? Why is it considered a best practice? What happens to yesterday's best practice when today's conditions are different? Are ERG best practices pre-COVID still best practices today? Will the best practice you learned last week still be a best practice when your company pivots this week to meet a new challenge? Were these practices ever even scientifically proven to be best practices? In a world that is constantly in flux, shouldn't we be continually looking for the next better practice that addresses the emerging challenge or opportunity instead of looking for an illusionary single magic solution that will address one of our DEI challenges forever?

3.????Meet with the DEI leaders running these practices to get more in-depth information about what they are doing. The articles I mentioned above almost always include the organization's name and the DEI leader driving these practices. Can't we connect directly with just about anyone of these DEI leaders via LinkedIn? And aren't DEI leaders generally generous sharers of their practices when you reach out to them directly? As a former DEI officer in a global conglomerate and a writer for several major magazines, I connected with hundreds of DEI leaders just by picking up the phone and later using LinkedIn.

4.????To find out what high-performing and or well-known and respected companies are doing. So how exactly does being high-performing or well-known and respected impact the success of DEI efforts? And how is it proven that the DEI success of high-performing companies results from their DEI practices that you want to copy and not some other elements in their operations? For example, these companies often have more money and overall sophisticated systems working in their favor. Bottom line, how valuable is it to know what these high-performing companies are doing in just DEI without all the elements of the larger picture? Also, is there a less expensive way to learn about these practices that won't put a gaping hole in your budget? (Hint. See the above suggestion for connecting directly with DEI leaders for free).

5.????To get access to the perspectives of HR leaders. Aren't most HR practices and leaders as easy to access as DEI practices leaders using the abovementioned methods?

6.????To gain access to the library of resources. Aren't these the same resources available for free in countless published academic papers and articles? What about recorded discussions with HR or DEI leaders? Aren't those freely available in interview articles and on YouTube? Practice reports? Aren't those also available in articles? The ability to reach out and ask subject matter experts questions? Can't we do that on LinkedIn?

In the end, for a fee, you mostly get a bunch of statistics and information that you can quickly get for free with just a little know-how and effort. And to add insult to injury, these "gems" often make business leaders yawn or look at you with skeptical doubt and say, "nice info, but that doesn't apply here." Or you also get recipes for practices that you can put together and launch in your spare time with your extra budget dollars (I'm, of course, being cute with the "spare time" and "extra budget dollars" comments). So, if this doesn't produce real unique value, why are there so many companies doing this?

Well, as one CDO from a life sciences company, who wished to remain anonymous, pointed out to me, "given the lack of resources and time in some DEI departments, having these organizations do the groundwork/research and prepare slides, currently does provide some value to some DEI leaders." In other words, these CDOs and their offices of DEI don't need to learn where to get this information for free or spend any time refining it for presentation in their firms. They can get it, albeit steeply overpriced, from these information collection and packaging vendors. This CDO went on to agree that "Much of what these organizations offer are indeed things we can garner from public domains; however, some DEI leaders may still need to have it found and put into a synthesized and packaged form."?So, the value these old companies provide for these CDOs is finding packaged readily available public information that these overworked Office of DEI teams may not know how to get otherwise.

But how long will that need last? And what happens as more CDOs become aware of people like me who give this stuff away? What happens as AI technologies that currently enable you to scour the internet for information for under $100 per year become better known to those CDOs? And what happens as these CDOs become increasingly aware of survey and copywriting tools that enable you to synthesize that information into usable final forms that can easily be used to spit out a few PowerPoint slides for less than $500? Heck, you won’t even need me to give it to you at that point.

The fact is that all of these technology tools and information are actually available now. And they are getting easier to use every day. So here are some questions to consider:

• What advantages do CDOs and Offices of DEI that know how to get these resources for free, or how to use new technologies to build them more cheaply, have over organizations who have large chunks of their budgets tied to what these old providers are selling them? (This is similar to the differences between two families where one pays $2400 plus for cable TV, while the other pays less than $400 to enjoy the same programs because they know how to use streaming services).
• Will you spot the opportunity to maximize your dollars to address your current and future needs as these tools and resources become more accessible, or will you continue to be financially saddled by dated approaches? Well, doesn't that depend on who is advising you and their core business model? Is it to help you continue to progress, address evolving needs, maximizing your budget dollars, or is it to keep selling you their suite of legacy products and services?

A few years ago, I concluded that selling these old products and services was not a good long-term investment for my company or DEI leaders. That's why when I started the CDO PowerCircle, I rejected that approach of packaging and or privatizing public domain data and selling it to DEI leaders. We instead focused on giving DEI leaders resources that we see as filling evolving needs. For example, here are just three of the many needs we fill right now:

1.????We offer targeted training and development programs that normally come with a $5000 to $10,000 plus price tag for the DEI Chief, Office of DEI staff, resource group executive sponsors, and resource group leaders. Along with tools, you can immediately roll out so learners can start using their new skills right away.

2.????We provide targeted inclusive employer branding with an award-winning podcast that's listened to by underrepresented people and has a reach of over 300 million listeners. Not branding messages in DEI magazines or special reports that are often read by only a handful of practice peers and not your targeted job candidates.

3.????We offer vision-inspiring future-facing scenarios to enable DEI leaders to get ahead of the curve and lead their DEI efforts versus just reacting with old practices, which is at best managing and not truly leading.

Oh yeah, and we don't put such a huge gaping hole in your DEI budget either. Another goal is to ensure that our members get more than an 1800 percent return in value for every dollar they invest in the CDO PowerCircle. In other words, if you were to go out to acquire individually all the resources we bring you, it would cost you more than 18 times your annual membership in the CDO PowerCircle. That's how we use our leverage to free up dollars in the DEI budget so you can tackle all those other challenges. So, as the name implies, the purpose of the CDO PowerCircle is to give power to the CDO and their office of DEI.

So, the final question I would like to leave you with is this: In the age of disruption and change, what organization do you think can best serve your needs? One that offers you static legacy solutions, or one that in the lyrics from the famous Fleetwood Mac song believes that you Don't stop thinking about tomorrow?

To learn more about the CDO PowerCircle, drop me a note at [email protected] . However, if you are looking for a steady diet of statistics and practices, others are using, subscribe to our free weekly letter. As I noted above, the stuff is free! So, we compile it and give it away without the $15,000 to $20,000 price tag as a public service to the DEI community. So, again, drop me a quick note and say I would like to get the FREE weekly letter. Either way, I look forward to hearing from you.