Effecting Real Progress in Executive Diversity and Inclusion

Well-run companies expect good returns on their spending, and leaders who continue to support initiatives that don’t produce results usually find themselves demoted or fired. So why have the billions of dollars that many organizations have spent on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts produced so little substantive progress toward greater diversity?

Numerous reports indicate that the percentage of Black people in the leadership ranks of large U.S. companies hovers at just above 3%.1 This percentage remains persistently low despite large investments in diversity and inclusion training, the creation of offices of diversity and inclusion, and other companywide initiatives.2 Studies now indicate that DEI training rarely improves an organization’s record of hiring or promoting Black people.3 Companies that bemoan a dearth of qualified Black candidates for leadership roles rarely consider that the hiring process itself may disqualify potential applicants of color.4

How Dynamic Conservatism Leads to Diversity Dodges

Aware of the ways in which organizations defend themselves against change that threatens their social structures, philosopher and social theorist Donald Schön noted that organizations will “fight like mad to stay the same.”5 Schön introduced the concept of dynamic conservatism to explain seemingly irrational responses by organizations to change and uncertainty, noting that great ideas that can reshape an industry or organization are almost always resisted because they upset the social hierarchy within the system. Systems thinker Russell Ackoff, a friend and colleague of Schön’s, was fond of saying that managers in organizations were rewarded for maintaining the status quo.

Schön further hypothesized that organizations resist change in proportion to its magnitude. Thus, it can be predicted that an organization that undertakes a major change, like hiring many more Black executives, will energetically resist those efforts with multiple defenses. Schön’s concept of dynamic conservatism argues that organizations make token changes in order to ward off substantive ones. This argument is especially relevant today — and the basis of the dodges that we delineate below. Here we seek to show how dynamic conservatism manifests by examining four ways that organizations avoid making substantive improvements or commitments to executive diversity — the recruitment, retention, mentoring, career development, pay equity, and promotion of Black people in senior positions.

Four Diversity Dodges

Dodge No. 1: Training that changes little. Despite the billions spent on diversity and inclusion workshops and training, these sessions rarely produce substantial changes in discrimination, prejudice, or roles and relationships within the organization, nor do they increase promotion rates of Black people into senior positions.6 Why do companies persist in spending huge sums on something that is ineffective? In some organizations, it’s window dressing: Companies can claim that they have made earnest, good-faith efforts to bring about change. Employees may even report beneficial experiences — such as increased awareness of bias and prejudice, and a more open and welcoming work environment — after participating in voluntary training sessions. But if training fails to translate into concrete changes in executive diversity, then it is by definition dodging the overarching goal of meeting an organizationwide commitment to DEI and overcoming the status quo (other good outcomes notwithstanding).

Dodge No. 2: Diversity officers bearing responsibility without power or authority. Many large companies have units specifically dedicated to DEI; over 50% of Fortune 500 companies employ a head of diversity.7 These offices have sweeping responsibilities and are usually accountable for the entirety of diversity-related activities across the organization. Yet they are often stymied in their efforts to bring about change.8

Rather than having the freedom, authority, or resources to spearhead a systemwide effort to promote diversity, these offices can spend a significant amount of time handling one-off issues that arise within the organizational culture, such as an interpersonal conflict between two colleagues. While these cases can be important and even urgent, focusing on individual issues to the exclusion of systemic problems does not create a lasting impact. Diversity officers often have many unrelated responsibilities as well, which can limit their effectiveness on their core efforts; one study found this to be the case for 53% of chief diversity officers.9

Compounding the situation, these diversity and inclusion departments frequently absorb the blame for the lack of systemwide results, even though their scope of action has been effectively limited.10 The individuals who head and staff diversity functions typically put in a tremendous amount of compassionate effort and hard work, often with few visible results. Their success depends on their being granted the power and authority to hold other areas of the organization accountable, as well as to enact and enforce changes to company policies, rules, and regulations.11

Dodge No. 3: Limited organizationwide commitment. Significant organizational change requires coordinated effort and commitment beyond the bounds of the designated diversity unit. Real change will come only by ensuring that wholehearted efforts to boost executive diversity manifest across all aspects of the organization, as opposed to remaining the responsibility of just one siloed office or a few executive positions. Without the active participation, support, and commitment of the C-suite in particular, efforts from an office of diversity and inclusion will be constrained, not sustained, cross-company.

Every level and function of the organization needs to commit to making demonstrable progress in DEI-related efforts — and to being held accountable for their efforts. When major cultural changes are left in the hands of a few or a small group of people, other colleagues can downplay their own roles, telling themselves, “It’s not my job” or “Other people are handling that.” But unless the majority of employees believe in making a change and take responsibility for it, little lasting change will happen.

Dodge No. 4: We can’t find qualified Black executives. You’ve probably heard this one from leaders: “We want to hire and promote more Black people, but there aren’t enough qualified, experienced Black candidates to hire or promote.” This dodge is especially pernicious: inaccurate, but widely believed to be true. Research indicates that many Black people with advanced credentials in technology remain unemployed or underemployed; many Black people qualified for senior positions do not get hired or promoted, and white people fill those jobs and ranks instead.12

Take Stock, Then Take Radical Steps Forward

Organizations would be well served to perform a yearly audit of how much money they spend on dynamically conservative behavior that undermines diversity initiatives. In most organizations, tough questions about diversity efforts are long overdue: How does our company benefit by spending significant funding on DEI efforts with so few results? What reasons do we use to justify the lack of Black employees in the ranks of our senior leadership? Having failed to move the needle on significant diversity in our organization, are we now willing to take dramatic steps toward hiring and promoting more Black people? Or do we plan to continue to avoid confronting the systemic racism in our organization and its associated hiring practices? Companies need to keep track of all the dodges or rationalizations they use to undermine diversity efforts in order to underscore their commitments to substantive change and to keep from engaging in dynamic conservatism.

Unless organizations set radical targets for hiring and promoting Black people, the same conversation will be recycled through the halls of corporate America, time and time again. Far worse, Black people will continue to be ignored and passed over within a demeaning and psychologically brutalizing system of oppression. Organizations that are already doing this work should do more to share their successful strategies and best practices with other companies to help inspire and lead a large-scale effort.

To put aside dodges and take more intentional steps in the essential work of combating discrimination and racism, leaders should do the following:

Set radical hiring targets. For example, commit to filling a significant percentage (say, 20%) of senior leadership roles with Black employees within a year. This may mean that every new hire in the first year would be a Black person — a change that might seem drastic before considering the number of white people who fill the ranks, a phenomenon that has been unremarked upon year after year. The organization’s leadership team and the board of directors need to make this commitment and announce it to all employees. Only by making this public commitment will organizations stick with pursuing this profound change.

Promote diversity hiring as a strategy to strengthen the organization. Research and practice indicate that a diverse workforce not only widens the talent pool but can give the organization a competitive advantage. Employers now have the opportunity to work with search firms that dedicate the majority of their efforts to finding Black employees who will enhance their senior leadership groups. (During a pandemic, when many people are losing their jobs, is a great time to be hiring.) When looking for qualified Black senior executives, refine selection criteria to better assess what constitutes “quality candidates” in a way that does not imply “sameness.” Even if a Black applicant does not precisely meet a job description, employers should consider mentoring and training promising candidates, just as they would (and often do) mentor and train promising white candidates.

Consider retention to be as critical as hiring. Focus on helping newly hired Black employees succeed; looking for ways to criticize them instead can allow an organization to convince itself that its previous stance (Dodge No. 4) was justified. Put together a comprehensive plan to onboard, support, and mentor these new executives to ensure their success in the company. Set milestones to track and assess the hiring of Black senior executives and, once they are hired, to ascertain whether they are succeeding in their jobs. If a new hire isn’t meeting expectations, don’t immediately assume that it is the hire’s fault; look first to determine whether they were set up to fail.

Actualizing executive diversity change can be a bumpy road. Drastically modifying hiring targets can trigger a roller-coaster ride of reverse-discrimination complaints (or even lawsuits). But facing the realities of systemic racism in the workplace is a necessary precursor to addressing them. While some people may actively resist cultural change, others will take a historical view and consider their personal and organizational legacies, and commit to changing the status quo and fighting racism.

A late-1980s quotation from James Baldwin emphasizes the need for more radical progress: “You always told me it takes time. It has taken my father’s time, my mother’s time, my uncle’s time, my brothers’ and my sisters’ time. … How much time do you want for your ‘progress’?” At this time, we are encouraged and strengthened to face and combat the organizational dodges of dynamic conservatism. If we don’t confront the avoidance and denial of racism, we cannot make steps toward authentic and sustained progress.