Why Understanding Equity Requires Organizational Development
Imagine you are invited to a party.
You receive the invitation and feel excited. Excitement quickly changes to hesitation. The person who invited you is friends with your friend group and you realize the invitation is out of courtesy. You are invited because you are friends with the right people.
You visualize yourself walking into the party. While you know it’s ok to be there, you can’t help but feel no one genuinely cares if you came or not, if you stay, or when you leave.
Imagine you were invited to another party.
You receive the invitation and feel excited. Excitement becomes appreciation when the invitation asks if you have any dietary restrictions and music requests.
You imagine yourself walking into the party with ease because you don’t have to worry if there will be food for you to eat, and grateful you will get to enjoy some of the songs played. You are content knowing your presence matters, people are excited to see you, and you know they will be sad to see you go. You were considered. It feels good to go where you are wanted, right?
Diversity and inclusion are crucial elements of a party.
Diversity is being invited to the party.
Inclusion is creating a sense of belonging for the guests. Inclusion is the host that asks if you have any dietary restrictions, music preferences, or need anything to make your visit more comfortable.
Diverse spaces don’t equal inclusive ones.
I’ve received invitations to both of these parties.
I always laugh that I was friends with the right people along the way. I was always invited to the party, but often I knew that people didn’t care if I came or not. In contrast, I have been invited to parties where I knew I was wanted. I knew I was missed when I left and everyone wanted me to stay longer.
That feels different.
The host is excited to see you. They consciously invested their budget to include you and designed the party structure with you in mind to ensure you feel welcome. You feel so comfortable and enjoy attending because you know and deeply feel you were considered.
How beautiful. In theory, how simple?
This is precisely why organizational change and equity need each other.
Because it isn’t a simple theory, and organizations aren’t thinking beyond their invite list.
If we are recruiting diverse talents, we have an obligation to ensure we have resources for them when they arrive. An invitation list does not ensure the guests are taken care of. Similarly, you don’t go from diverse environments to inclusive ones.
You need equitable practices to create inclusion. To get from diverse spaces to inclusive ones, we need equity. Equity helps us honor our differences instead of assuming we all want the same thing.
Equity asks you, “What do you need?” and when you answer, it gives it to you.
Equity makes each person feel seen.
Imagine once more that the party is an organization.
Ideally, you want to intentionally invite people and retain them purposefully, right?
It can ( and should ) feel awkward when your guests stand around looking at each other because they can’t eat any food at your party. Are you worried no one is having a good time?
The problem seems to creep in with organizations that are simply striving to “increase their diversity numbers.”
The Great Resignation isn’t happening because people don’t want to go to parties anymore.
The reality is, they are tired of going to parties where they don’t feel considered. It isn’t enough to get the invite anymore. People want to feel included and considered.
The mindset needs to shift from “we need to help that one minoritized person in our group,” to “how can we design an organization that considers all the identities of our community?”
Everyone benefits when we center the most marginalized identities in our spaces.
Have you ever noticed when there are multiple food options at a party, they tend to disappear faster? This is called the Margins to Center approach.
This Margins to Center approach is critical, not just for equity, but for transformational organizational change. Learn more about it and how to implement new practices to change the identities your organization is centering.
