Make space to discuss people’s lived experience

In my upcoming book, Design for Identity, I feature tips to Boost Your Culture Quotient, the combination of cultural awareness and cultural competence that enables us to live the values of DEIB. One of those tips focuses on lived experience.

Lived experience is defined as first-hand experience living as a member of a historically excluded group. It is a broad term that encapsulates the inequities, challenges, microaggressions, and other nuances people in marginalized groups experience in various contexts and settings.

I’m hearing the term ‘lived experience’ used in more and more contexts, which is encouraging because there’s power in putting a name to it. However, in many ways, it’s still misunderstood.

In some spaces, I’m seeing lived experience equated with DEIB expertise, which is inaccurate because DEIB work requires specific skills – emotional intelligence, communication skills, and empathy, for example – that don’t necessarily correlate directly with identity.

In other instances, I hear white males say that since they don’t have lived experience, they don’t have a place in the DEIB dialogue, which is not true because there’s no such thing as a one-sided dialogue and their participation is needed to bring about meaningful outcomes for historically excluded people.

Take some time in the next week to really understand the value of lived experience and identify one way you can create space to explore and incorporate it on a project, team, or task you’re involved in. Are you planning a Women’s History Month program without input from women of various ages, religious backgrounds, or sexual orientations? Could you seek personal perspectives from the women involved in the planning? Or can you dedicate time during the event itself to ask the audience for perspectives from their individual lived experience?

There’s a lot to be learned by explicitly inquiring about people’s lived experience. And that information could be game-changing if you truly desire to be inclusive and you aspire to be an ally.