Ask Yourself Whether You Value Your Comfort Over Progress

Nothing that’s impactful is easy or comfortable. Significant change requires action, not just words. This is the case for individuals and organizations who profess to value diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging but stop short of showing up differently when it counts. 

You know what’s uncomfortable? When your leadership signs a public pledge to combat social injustice but you still see the same type of people repeatedly hired into the C-suite. Or when a self-proclaimed “ally” manager habitually redirects discussions about inclusion to everything BUT race because they can’t or don’t want to navigate that topic. Or when a client makes a derogatory comment in a meeting and your project manager just looks down and never mentions the incident again. 

If you think DEIB is an initiative, a program, or a topic for a strategy development exercise, you’re completely missing the point. As an organization and individuals, we CHOOSE whether to adopt this set of values or not. And if we do, we have to align our BEHAVIOR to reflect those values. If the discomfort of changing your behavior outweighs your willingness to take action, re-evaluate where you stand and make your position plain. All of the talk isn’t doing anyone any good.

But if you’re in, act as courageously as the people who choose to believe you.