DEI Work Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

(Photo by iStock/huasui)

I’ve been a runner for the past 10 years. As every runner knows, keeping a good pace and finding a nice, steady rhythm is key to maintaining progress and ultimately reaching the next mile marker. Every runner also knows that you’re going to face some obstacles along the way—a steep hill, a strong wind, or that voice in your head telling you to cut it short for the day. That’s the moment when you need to find a way to push through, to focus on the little things—your breathing, your stride, or simply the next step.

I think about this idea of momentum a lot when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work. In 2020, many private sector companies started running the DEI marathon, or picked up the pace. They are working diligently to transform their workplaces, so everyone has an equitable chance to get hired or promoted; feel like they belong; and are paid and treated fairly for the work they do and the contributions they make. In short, these organizations want to be places of opportunity, respect, and fairness, which benefits everyone, not just a select few. This is the goal, and the corresponding work it takes to push forward takes time and perseverance, especially in the face of resistance. Luckily, like in running, there are some specific things that organizations can do to push through these challenges.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action in higher education is the latest major hurdle to DEI work. It will make it more difficult to address the barriers students of color face on the path to college, and it will potentially create additional challenges for the building of diverse talent pipelines that companies need to grow their businesses. An increasing number of campaigns and lawsuits are now relying on this ruling to challenge DEI initiatives in the private sector that were intended to tackle barriers to equal opportunity for diverse applicants, workers, and suppliers. This is also part of a broader cultural backlash that is pressuring organizations to de-prioritize equity work.

At the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), we’ve been working on DEI initiatives for several decades, but it has not been without obstacles and evolution. What keeps us going is our belief in its importance for the generations of children and families we serve, the business case for racial equity, and the dividends it pays for all of us—employers and workers. While the term “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” and the acronym “DEI” may be facing renewed criticism, it’s essential to remember what the work really means: opportunity, fairness, and respect. This is why we embarked on the journey from the outset.

None of us are on the DEI journey alone. In 2019, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation established the Expanding Equity program, building from our own internal transformation experience, to help support companies who wanted to design or advance their DEI strategies and journey. We have worked with more than 100 companies from more than 10 industries that all have unique circumstances and needs but share the same commitment to making their workplaces more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. Of the participating companies in the Expanding Equity network that provided data and information, more than 90 percent have made measurable progress on their DEI strategies. And we know from recent surveys and conversations after the Supreme Court decision this past summer that these companies intend to stay the course because they know this work is good for business and good for workers.

It's in that spirit that WKKF created a Sustaining Momentum “how-to” guide to help more organizations leverage this moment to re-engage their leadership, update their strategies, and recommit to the DEI goals they set out to achieve.

The guide outlines five steps for sustaining your organization’s DEI momentum:

1. Get up to speed: Prepare yourself for the journey ahead by building a working understanding of the potential impact of recent events such as legal rulings, new legislation, lawsuits, and pressure from stakeholders. Media coverage of the SCOTUS ruling has ebbed and flowed since the summer, but there are a number of DEI experts out there tracking developments closely and offering concrete ideas for what organizations can do that are worth following as you chart a path forward.
2. Know who you’re running with: Get to know who is on the journey with you by understanding your core stakeholders (both internal and external) and how they truly feel about your DEI efforts. Two important stakeholder groups to understand, especially given their role in the success of DEI initiatives, are people leaders and frontline workers. As crucial as it is for DEI professionals to keep collaborating with their legal teams at this time, these two groups are key to sustaining DEI efforts because they’re responsible for modeling it and leading it day-to-day.
3. Go over your strategy: Build the best game plan by inventorying your organization’s portfolio of DEI efforts across two dimensions—positive impacts and negative reactions—to tighten your strategy and reinforce it with a risk mitigation plan when necessary. A holistic and honest view of your organization’s DEI strategy will enable you to determine how you can apply stakeholder insights to your portfolio of initiatives in order to further your overall DEI aspirations.
4. Stay on pace: Keep moving and reaching your mile markers by investing in communicating and socializing your path forward with key decision-makers. Training can be a valuable tool in this moment to keep people leaders and frontline workers engaged in this work and to ensure that the DEI-related actions that are taken by the organization are legally sound and ultimately effective.
5. Pay attention to the road ahead: Anticipate what obstacles and opportunities might be coming by continuously keeping a pulse on changes in the DEI landscape (both internally and externally) that may alter your perspective and shift your approach. Strengthening your working knowledge of ever-evolving legal and political actions and your leaders’ and workers’ responses to them will be key to staying on track.

These steps are not meant to be “one and done,” but rather “rinse and repeat.” Or a training program for the long and ongoing journey in front of all of us. In running, there are moments that you need to check your pacing, focus on your stride, or return to the reason you decided to start running in the first place. In DEI work, we must do the same.

One of the best parts of being a runner is that I know I’m part of a larger running community. It gives me the extra push to keep running and run a little faster, and to encourage fellow runners along the way. Expanding Equity creates that same type of community of professionals who are on the DEI journey together—some are further down the road, and some have just begun, but we all come together to support each other in this work.

Oftentimes when faced with heightened scrutiny, criticism, and opposition to anything worthwhile that we’re doing, the tendency can be to slow down, change course, or just quit. That’s easier, and less stressful and painful. But this is one of the most important moments on the DEI journey, which will determine whether you fall back or break through. It’s extremely important in these moments to lean more heavily on the team around you, to revisit and strengthen your strategy, to reassert your leadership, and as runners do after a replenishing water stop, to continue forward with the additional stamina gained from these purposeful pauses. The work we’re doing together as leaders, as organizations, and as communities is not finished, and we’re all pulling for you and counting on you to keep running.

Read more stories by Jonathan Njus.