DEI is a journey, not a destination.

DEI can be measured and managed.

When I first met Steve, he and his organization were in a very difficult situation. Steve had been long criticized for his lack of leadership, particularly with women and people of color, while he maintained that his management style was an effective one. His team was dysfunctional and lacked cohesion and trust. Moreover, while Steve's team bore some diversity, he was a member of the organization's senior leadership team, which bore little to no diversity. In stark comparison, their employee base and the communities surrounding their office locations reflected the full range of societal diversity. Like many organizations, while they had good intentions to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), their efforts had largely failed due to a lack of acknowledgment and agreement about the issues they were facing, and the impact was severe. Employee engagement was low. They were losing people of color, particularly in middle management. They were under significant pressure from employees to diversify their senior ranks and create a more inclusive culture. Steve knew that he and his organization desperately needed help, and he lobbied to hire my firm, BCT Partners, to help his organization improve their DEI.

After engaging in several conversations with leaders about their mission and vision for DEI, our next step was to conduct several assessments: an implicit bias and cultural competence assessment for all leaders and managers, and a culture and climate assessment for the entire organization, including a survey, interviews, and focus groups. I vividly recall two pivotal moments in the early stages of this engagement.

The first pivotal moment was with Steve in a one‐on‐one coaching session where we discussed his implicit bias and cultural competence assessment results. He was stunned. Not only did the data clearly affirm his blind spots, particularly on matters relating to race/ethnicity and gender, but also his inability to navigate differences. The data catalyzed a personal epiphany. Thereafter, Steve was motivated to do the personal work of DEI, which is often the most challenging yet impactful, by undertaking a journey of personal learning, development, and growth. Today, he is seen as a more competent, credible, and capable colleague in the eyes of his peers (and a better person in the eyes of his friends and family) and has the tools, data, and metrics to know he is making progress.

The second pivotal moment was when my colleagues at BCT presented the results of the culture and climate assessment to the organization's senior leadership team. I could feel the tension in the room. We knew there was resistance to DEI in the senior ranks and, as a result, the assessment experienced significant delays. In fact, one of the reasons we administered the implicit bias and cultural competence assessments for leaders and managers was to meet people like Steve where they were in their DEI journey while opening a candid dialogue about their commitment to DEI (or lack thereof). This was a very data‐driven organization that prided itself on science, evidence, and facts. They grilled our data science team about their sampling techniques and statistical analyses. They challenged them on their assessment methods and analytical models. They prompted them to probe deeper into their facts and their findings. By the time the tense meeting was over, the senior leadership team was convinced that they had issues, and they committed to undergoing change. The data catalyzed an organizational commitment. They were invigorated to do the organizational work of DEI, which they acknowledged would be a marathon not a sprint. We proceeded to work with them to develop and execute a DEI strategic plan that led to several DEI initiatives along with the key performance indicators (KPIs) to gauge progress, measure results, and demonstrate impact. Today, they have proudly been recognized as one of the top companies for their corporate diversity practices and among the top employers for women, people of color, veterans, working families, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

My experience with Steve and his organization speak to a very valuable lesson: data matters to DEI.

To be clear, data is not the end‐all and be‐all to DEI. It is not a panacea, nor do I intend to frame it in this way. The point of this book is that data, while not the entire DEI puzzle, is a very important piece.

W. Edwards Deming is frequently and incorrectly quoted with the famous phrase “If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.” Ironically, Deming's full quote is, “It is wrong to suppose that if you can't measure it, you can't manage it.” According to the W. Edwards Deming Institute, “Dr. Deming did very much believe in the value of using data to help improve the management of the organization. But he also knew that just measuring things and looking at data wasn't close to enough. There are many things that cannot be measured and still must be managed.”¹ Fortunately, DEI is not one of those things, as you can measure it and manage it. There are several factors that contribute to a successful personal and organizational DEI journey, and data is one of them.

I liken data to the instrument panel on a plane. Long before there were instrument panels, people were able to fly planes. It was significantly harder without the instrument panel. Instrument panels have made the journey more efficient and effective at every step along the way. Similarly, improving DEI can be achieved without data, but it is significantly harder. Data makes the journey more efficient and effective at every step along the way.

It is also important to acknowledge that data has its own shortcomings and imperfections. It is not neutral. At different points throughout this book, I address the topics of “data bias” and “algorithmic bias”—those are how data carries and inherits its own assumptions and biases, as a reflection of human assumptions and biases. I will help you to recognize different kinds of data and algorithmic biases, and how to mitigate them leading to deeper understanding and greater impartiality along your Data‐Driven DEI journey.

Societal Trends and DEI

Three societal trends speak to the growing importance of DEI:

1. Diversity of People: Diversity is growing across our globe including with respect to race and ethnicity. It is predicted that the world's middle‐class population will see a major influx from Asia, Latin America, and Africa by 2030, increasing the population to 4.9 billion, up from 1.8 billion in 2009.² This translates into growing diversity of talent, customers, and stakeholders as well.
2. Diversity of Cultures: Because of increased migration, there is a growing diversity of religion and language. The percentage of the U.S. population speaking a language other than English at home was 21% in 2013, a slight increase over 2010.³ Moreover, the global population is estimated to grow by 32% by the year 2060 with Muslims expected to have grown by 70%, making it the fastest‐growing religious group. The Pew Research Center estimates that in the second half of the twenty‐first century, the number of Muslims will have surpassed the number of Christians.⁴
3. Diversity of Thought: Organizations increasingly recognize the value of diverse thinking and cognitive diversity as drivers for generating good ideas, building effective teams, mitigating blind spots, and fostering innovation. According to a study by the Boston Consulting Group, a 2014 survey of 1,500 executives, “breakthrough” innovators and leaders “cast a wide net for ideas.”⁵ The 2021 Readiness Gap survey of 1,500 companies showed that 75% of the companies considered innovation a top‐three priority. This is an increase of 10 percentage points from 2020.⁶ “In the race for new ideas, diversity of thinking is gaining prominence as a strategy to protect against groupthink and generate breakthrough insights,” says Deloitte.⁷

This growing diversity will only continue to increase as time progresses. It undeniably makes our world a more beautiful place as we all benefit from experiencing different people, cultures, and ways of thinking. However, greater diversity can also lead to greater challenges and especially when our differences are not harnessed or managed productively. This reality is reflected throughout our global community.

Sadly, as our communities, schools, organizations, and society are becoming more diverse, certain segments of our society are becoming less civil, noticeably divided, and more exclusionary. Our society is increasingly comprised of what Turkish novelist, activist, and academic Elif Shafak calls “communities of the like‐minded” who share the same values, beliefs, race/ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, political affiliation, and other identifiers. So many of us tend to surround ourselves and associate with people who are like us. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with being around people like you. This is a natural human phenomenon known by sociologists as homophily or an affinity bias. The challenge is that if we tend to be around people like us, we can become more prone to produce stereotypes and assumptions about those who are not like us, casting projections onto those outside of the communities of the like‐minded to which we belong. The irony is that as our globe continues to experience increased diversity of people, cultures, and thought, we all seem to be driving deeper into our communities of the like‐minded. This not only undermines the benefits of society's greatest asset—our cultural differences—but also further exacerbates society's greatest liability—our cultural ignorance. DEI represents a unique and unparalleled opportunity to break down the walls that can separate us in our personal lives, within our organizations, and throughout our society.

The Organizational Case for DEI

Arguments for the value of DEI to organizations have been made very clear. Some refer to this as “the business case” or “the organizational case” for DEI. The benefits from an organizational perspective are myriad and have to do with:

• Winning the competition for talent. Organizations that have a strong commitment to DEI are better positioned to recruit and retain skilled workers in today's marketplace.⁸
• Strengthening customer orientation. “[Customers] pay attention to how companies are speaking to them. As they spend more, they want more for themselves and from the brands they support,” says Cheryl Grace, Nielsen's senior vice president of Community Alliances and Consumer Engagement and co‐creator of Nielsen's 2019 Diverse Intelligence Series (DIS) Report.⁹
• Increasing employee trust, retention, engagement, satisfaction, and performance. There is strong evidence that diverse teams increase employee satisfaction and reduce conflicts between groups, improving collaboration and loyalty.^10,11,12
• Improving decision making and fostering innovation. Research shows that while diverse teams take longer to achieve cohesiveness and make decisions, they make better decisions up to 87% of the time, as reported in Forbes, and “Diversity fosters innovation and creativity through a greater variety of problem‐solving approaches, perspectives, and ideas.”^13,14
• Enhancing the organization's image. Incorporating a strong DEI agenda will improve your organization's image to employees as well as customers.^15,16
• Improving the financial bottom line. Several studies by McKinsey have found that corporations that embrace gender and ethnic diversity on their leadership teams outperform their competition financially by as much as 25% and 36%, respectively.^17,18

The Personal Case for DEI

By comparison to the organizational value for DEI, arguments pertaining to the personal case for DEI have not been as prominent or widely recognized. Moreover, at the end of the day, organizations do not change; people change. Or in the words of the Nigerian author, activist, and presenter of the TED Talk “The Danger of a Single Story,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “Culture does not make people. People make culture.”¹⁹ In order for any organization to experience transformation, its people will have to undergo their own transformation. This explains why this book is centered first and foremost on you. When you change for the better, it benefits you, and the added benefit is that it also changes your organization for the better.

On a personal level, DEI can lead to a number of personal and professional benefits:

• Enhanced personal growth. A “growth mindset” believes you can always grow your skills and abilities through effort, application, and experience. Diverse relationships with people from different backgrounds and perspectives positively challenge you to move beyond your comfort zone into your growth zone and become a better person today than yesterday. They also lead to a richer human experience by exploring diverse cultures including music, art, food, religion, language, clothing, history, and more. If experience is the best teacher, diversity creates the best classroom!
• Greater diversity of thought (cognitive diversity). DEI enables you to tap into the diverse thinking of others to make better decisions, generate better ideas, improve problem solving, and foster greater innovation. “It's making sure you have little risk of being blindsided by something that a diverse team would have known about and would have identified as an opportunity or a risk. I think it brings far greater confidence to the decision making when you know you are being supported by people who have far more diverse points of view,” says François Hudon of the Bank of Montreal.²⁰
• Improved health and wellness. Research has found that “maintaining diverse relationships is just as important, if not more, than having a large number of relationships” and that “individuals with more diverse relationships had a lower risk of mortality and experienced less cognitive and physical decline.”²¹ This is a compelling personal argument alone.
• Enriched learning and performance at school and work. According to research at Princeton University, “Diversity of all kinds is generally associated with positive learning and performance outcomes. Not only do experiences with diversity improve one's cognitive skills and performance, it also improves attitudes about one's own intellectual self‐confidence, attitudes toward the college experience, and shapes performance in the workplace.”²²
• Mitigate biases and negative stereotypes. The same Princeton study also found that “exposure to diversity can ameliorate negative stereotypes and biases people may have about people from different backgrounds and perspectives. In addition, increasing diversity in high‐power positions can buffer underrepresented and stigmatized groups by providing in‐group members as understanding and supportive role models.”
• Expanded network of relationships. Researchers at Ohio State University and the University of Akron found that “workers with more diverse personal relationships were, not surprisingly, better at building a racially diverse network on the job. These individuals utilized this broader network to pursue extra tasks beyond their basic responsibilities and appeared to be more trusting of their supervisors… .”²³
• Increased range of opportunities. “Diverse work teams are known to be better at assessing risks and gathering accurate facts, and companies with greater diversity in their leadership report higher innovation rates. It's a no‐brainer that having a larger and more diverse professional network will lead to higher‐performing teams and present a wider spectrum of opportunities, but if it all starts with increasing the diversity of your personal relationships this has to happen on your own time.”²⁴
• More positive evaluations, earlier promotions, and higher compensation. Research has found that individuals with relationships that are rich with opportunities to connect people that would otherwise be disconnected, “receive more positive evaluations, earlier promotions, and higher compensation.”^25,26
• Expanded civic engagement and positive outcomes for others. Lastly, the Princeton study, entitled, “Do Differences Make a Difference?” also found that, “increased exposure to diversity is positively associated with civic engagement” and that “individuals are more likely to perform activities and services in order to improve outcomes for others, and in doing so, they are making a difference in their homes, neighborhoods, workplaces, churches, and communities.”

These are compelling arguments for DEI both personally and professionally. This suggests that while you do not have to have the most diverse, equitable, and inclusive relationships, you can significantly benefit from having diversity, equity, and inclusivity in your relationships. It also suggests that while you do not have to understand all cultures, you can significantly benefit from seeking understanding of different cultures. It all starts with improving your DEI, and that has to be something for which you are willing to commit time. Data‐Driven DEI offers the blueprint.

What Is DEI?

Diversity is simply defined as the range of human differences. It is a fact, an attribute. Diversity is about representation. The inaugural work within the field was focused on the “D”—increasing diverse relationships and representation of people within organizations at all levels.

Very quickly it became clear that diversity alone was necessary but not sufficient to improve outcomes, and “D&I” arrived on the scene, adding inclusion to the paradigm. Inclusion is simply defined as involvement and empowerment. It is an action. As stated by Korn Ferry's Global Diversity and Inclusion Strategist Andrés Tapia, “Diversity is the mix, and inclusion is making the mix work.” Similarly, I think of diversity as a fancy car, and inclusion as the car's engine. Just like the fancy car looks good, so does diversity. And just like the fancy car will get you nowhere without the engine, diversity will get you nowhere without inclusion. In fact, the importance of inclusion to improving outcomes became so widely acknowledged and understood that “I&D” began to take hold as an acronym of choice.

More recently, equity has not only entered the picture but also gained prominence. Equity is simply defined as fairness and equality in outcomes. It is a choice. Equity is also distinguished in its ability to play out very differently once it is applied to a specific industry, sector, or field. For example, the pursuit of health equity can be very different from the pursuit of equity in housing, education, financial services, or philanthropy. The field has generally and widely become recognized as “DEI” or “DE&I” or, more progressively, as “EDI,” “ED&I,” “EID,” and “EI&D,” to reflect the paramount importance of equity and inclusion more prominently to this work.

Two related terms have also emerged—justice and accessibility. Justice is defined as “dismantling barriers to resources and opportunities in society so that all individuals and communities can live a full and dignified life.”²⁷ These barriers are essentially the “isms” in society: racism, classism, sexism, ageism, and so on. Justice, as well as the acronym “JEDI,” has gained traction particularly among community, philanthropic, and civic organizations. Accessibility is defined as “the design, construction, development, and maintenance of facilities, information and communication technology, programs, and services so that all people, including people with disabilities, can fully and independently use them.”²⁸ Accessibility has gained traction in various circles, thus spreading the acronyms “DEIA” and “IDEA.” For example, in the United States, President Biden's Executive Order 14035 calls on the federal government to become “a model for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, where all employees are treated with dignity and respect.”

For purposes of this book, I use DEI as a placeholder to refer to the entire field. This is not to indicate the relative importance of equity, inclusion, or diversity, and it is not to ignore the aspirations of justice or accessibility. The journey of Data‐Driven DEI outlined in this book can be equally applied to all terms referenced above.

Arguably, the ultimate result of DEI is belonging (see Figure I.1). Belonging is simply defined as “feeling valued, heard, and accepted.” It is an outcome. So many of us desire to feel a part of something greater than ourselves—to belong—and DEI provides a pathway to make that feeling a reality (“DEIB” and “DEI&B”).

What Is Data?

The simple definition of data is facts, figures, or information. The technical definition is a set of quantitative (information about frequency, likelihood, ratings, and more) or qualitative (contextual information and reasoning behind an answer) variables about one or more people. The types of data for DEI vary depending on personal and organizational cases.

Some personal examples are:

• Personal preference data: Data that characterizes your biases, temperament, personality, and behavior, and your unique style for thinking, communicating, resolving conflict, making decisions, and more. Understanding your preferences can help reveal your blind spots, foster greater self‐awareness and awareness of others, and offer deeper insight into how your style can most effectively integrate with the styles of others.
• Personal competence data: Data that describes your knowledge, skills, attitudes, and attributes in specific areas such as cultural competence, inclusive leadership, conflict management, emotional intelligence, and beyond. Knowing your level of competence establishes a baseline upon which you can take steps to build your competence.

Some organizational examples are:

• Personal behaviors and experiences data: Data that captures the perceptions and perspectives of people throughout your organization. By understanding their lived experiences, you can create environments that enable everyone to be more engaged, feel more included, and sense more belonging.
• Organizational policies and practices data: Data that evaluates the practices and behaviors of your management and your organizational expectations, procedures, and regulations. By understanding how you fare against best practices and industry benchmarks, you can create fairer and more equitable policies and practices that lead to equal outcomes for all.

What Is Data‐Driven DEI?

Data‐Driven DEI is using data to measure, analyze, and improve diversity, equity, and inclusion. It is for you if:

• You want to improve your “personal DEI”; that is, if you want to establish more diverse relationships with others, produce more equitable outcomes for others, and exhibit more inclusive behaviors toward others. This can be independent of, or in concert with, your organization undertaking a DEI initiative.
• You are a manager, supervisor, leader, DEI champion, DEI council member, chief DEI officer, or other stakeholder who bears some responsibility for improving “organizational DEI”; that is, you want to expand your organization's diversity (representation), empower your organization's people, and increase their feelings of inclusion and belonging, strengthen your organization's culture and climate, and enhance your organization's policies and practices to be more equitable.

This book offers a data‐driven approach to improving personal DEI and organizational DEI that can achieve measurable results.

A Data‐Driven DEI initiative must meet the following five criteria:

1. Use data to perform an assessment that establishes a profile and baseline
2. Establish objectives with clearly defined goals
3. Leverage promising and proven practices based on research, science, and/or the experience of expert practitioners
4. Develop strategies with clearly defined measures
5. Use data to gauge progress, evaluate results, demonstrate impact and engender accountability

When these criteria are met, people and organizations alike can derive tremendous value from Data‐Driven DEI:

• Hindsight: Data‐Driven DEI helps you understand where you've been (descriptive data) and where you are (diagnostic data)—your “as is”—as you begin your DEI journey.
• Foresight: Data‐Driven DEI illuminates what is possible for your future DEI journey—your “to be”—by identifying “what works” (evaluative data): promising practices and proven practices that have produced results for others.
• Insight: Data‐Driven DEI clarifies the most efficient, effective, and optimal strategies for your DEI journey. It offers recommendations (prescriptive data) and predictions (predictive data) that can inform your DEI journey and help close the gap between your current reality (your “as is”) and your desired future (your “to be”).
• Oversight: Data‐Driven DEI enables you to establish clear objectives, goals, strategies, and measures, with metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs), to manage performance (performance data) and properly oversee your DEI journey.
• Highlights: Data‐Driven DEI allows you to gauge progress (outputs data), evaluate results (outcomes data), and demonstrate impact. This captures and highlights your accomplishments, challenges, opportunities, and areas for improvement, and fosters continuous learning at every step along your DEI journey.

My Personal and Professional Passion for Data‐Driven DEI

I have spent the past three decades as a DEI speaker, author, trainer, facilitator, strategist, and media commentator. I have worked with countless people and organizations across the globe on how to become more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. I am an Intrinsic Inclusion™ certified facilitator, Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument^® (HBDI^®) certified practitioner, Intercultural Development Inventory^® (IDI^®) qualified administrator, High Performance Learning Journey^® (HPLJ) champion, and an official reference for the Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Benchmarks (GDEIB). My formal education includes a BS in electrical engineering from Rutgers University as an Academic All‐America^® Hall of Fame scholar‐athlete, an MSc in computer science from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, an MS in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) School of Engineering and MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management as a participant in the MIT Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) dual‐degree program, and a PhD in media arts and sciences from the Epistemology and Learning Group at the MIT Media Laboratory. My doctoral dissertation focused on bridging the “digital divide” and asset‐based approaches to using technology and data for the benefit of disconnected, disadvantaged, and diverse communities. I see communities through the lens of their assets and strengths and not their liabilities and deficiencies. My expertise therefore lies at the intersection of DEI, technology, data, learning, and communities.

My company, BCT Partners (www.bctpartners.com), which I co‐founded with my Rutgers classmates including our president, Lawrence Hibbert, and Dr. Jeffrey Robinson and Dallas Grundy, is a global, multi‐disciplinary firm that delivers a full range of research, training, consulting, technology, and data analytics services and solutions. Our mission is to harness the power of diversity, insights, and innovation to transform lives, accelerate equity, and create lasting change. DEI is who we are and what we do:

• We help our clients compete in a diverse world by unlocking the power of DEI in the workforce, workplace, marketplace, and community.
• We are a leader in helping organizations make better decisions, improve outcomes, and amplify their impact toward a more equitable society.
• We possess a team of diverse DEI consultants, trainers, facilitators, coaches, and subject matter experts who offer thought leadership in areas such as unconscious bias, cultural humility, human resource development, change management, organizational development, cultural transformation, and beyond.
• We are a full‐service DEI consultancy that combines best‐in‐class services such as assessment, strategy, training, coaching, facilitation, and performance management with cutting‐edge research, neuroscience, behavioral science, social science, technology and data science including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and virtual reality (VR).
• We offer a growing suite of innovative solutions including Equitable Analytics™ with Precision Modeling and the Equitable Impact Platform™ (EquIP™), that leverage predictive, prescriptive, and evaluative models to determine what causes a desired outcome for each segment of a population, equitably; Through My Eyes™ VR, which is a series of immersions that foster human understanding and empathy; Intrinsic Inclusion™, which is grounded in diversity, neuroscience, and bias, to help individuals and teams disrupt unconscious biases and unlock improved decision making, communication, collaboration, innovation, and inclusivity; The Inclusion Habit™, a mobile‐friendly behavior change platform replete with a library of Microcommitments that lead to specific inclusive behaviors and create inclusive habits; and Rali, a comprehensive Change Experience Platform (CxP) built on a human‐centered approach to behavior change—a comprehensive suite of communications, structured journeys, and interactive media capabilities that shape culture for initiatives that matter.

We have been recognized by Forbes as one of America's Best Management Consulting Firms, Ernst & Young as EY Entrepreneur of the Year, Manage HR Magazine as a Top 10 Firm for Diversity & Inclusion, the Black Enterprise BE100s list of America's largest Black‐owned businesses, and the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest‐growing private companies in America. We are also a proud platinum‐level sponsor of the Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Benchmarks (GDEIB).

What distinguishes me and BCT is how we fully integrate research, science, technology, and data to accelerate DEI. This book brings together my personal experiences and that of my colleagues at BCT to describe how you and your organization can do the same.

The Journey Ahead: The Five‐Step Cycle of Data‐Driven DEI

The five‐step cycle of Data‐Driven DEI is shown in Figure I.2. Throughout this book, I will refer very often to your “Data‐Driven DEI journey” or, more simply, your “DEI journey.” I am specifically referring to these steps of Data‐Driven DEI. They equally apply to people and organizations with nuances that will be highlighted along the way.

This book walks you through each step according to two tracks: a personal DEI track that outlines how you can measure, analyze, and improve your DEI, and an organizational DEI track that outlines how you can help your organization to do the same. Anyone seeking personal improvements to DEI, from individual contributors to executives, can benefit from the personal DEI track. Managers, supervisors, executives, and DEI champions and leaders responsible for improving DEI for themselves and their organization can benefit from both tracks. This book is organized into the following steps, whereas each step encompasses both tracks (with the exception of Step 1, which is broken up into separate parts for each track):

• Step 0: DEI Incentives—The journey begins with a foundational Step 0: DEI Incentives. In this foundational step you must get honest with yourself for the personal DEI journey, and honest about your organization's true aims for its DEI journey. This step will require self‐reflection and introspection to identify intrinsic factors driving your pursuit of DEI. You will ask yourself the deeper questions such as “why do I even care?” or “why should I spend my time trying to improve DEI?” You must also examine the extrinsic factors that are driving the pursuit of DEI, such as improved performance evaluations and increased compensation for people and improved employee engagement or increased profitability for organizations. Ultimately you will develop a DEI mission and vision in this step. You will only need to perform Step 0 once to embark upon a Data‐Driven DEI journey. The next five steps represent a never‐ending, continuous cycle as you grow in your DEI journey.

  

• Step 1: DEI Inventory for People—In this step you will compile the data necessary to establish a profile and baseline of your personal DEI preferences and competences. You will gather diagnostic data to help clearly define your current position or your “as is.”
• Step 1: DEI Inventory for Organizations—As a part of this step you will compile the data necessary to establish a profile and baseline of your organization's people, policies, practices, and performance (“the 4 P's”). You will gather diagnostic data to help clearly define your organization's current position or its “as is.” Step 1 for people and organizations calls for deeper understanding because it will help define potential priorities.
• Step 2: DEI Imperatives—At this juncture, you will determine priorities that are reflected by clearly defined objectives with associated and measurable goals or metrics. The range of objectives may vary dramatically from appreciating differences personally to managing conflict organizationally and far beyond. Establishing these imperatives—or your “to be”—will identify areas for deeper insights.
• Step 3: DEI Insights—During this step you will identify “what works”—such as promising and proven practices based on research, science, and the experience of expert practitioners—to avoid reinventing the wheel and optimizing the journey. These insights will lead to decisive actions.
• Step 4: DEI Initiatives—Here you will determine which DEI strategies, that is, activities and actions, are best for you to take. You will also determine which quantifiable measures are best for you and/or your organization to gauge progress. These actions will lead to desired outcomes.
• Step 5: DEI Impact—Finally, you will evaluate your results including outputs to gauge progress and outcomes to measure impact. Your outcomes will determine opportunities for greater understanding. By the time you arrive at Step 5, you will have the necessary ingredients to produce a dynamic and comprehensive personal DEI strategic plan for you and/or an organizational DEI strategic plan that is driven by data, defined via measures, metrics, and key performance indicators (KPIs), and designed to meet your needs. It will be replete with objectives, goals, strategies, and measures to gauge progress, evaluate results, demonstrate impact and engender accountability. You will then rinse and repeat the five‐step cycle of Data‐Driven DEI over and over again from Step 5 back to Step 1 by reassessing your baseline and reestablishing a new profile, because DEI is a journey and not a destination.
• Conclusion—A vision for the future of Data‐Driven DEI.

Prepare yourself for the journey that lies ahead to move beyond your comfort zone into your growth zone. The work of DEI is not about seeking places of comfort, but rather about getting comfortable in places of discomfort. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Also know that discomfort and growth must coexist. You cannot have one without the other. I think of strengthening DEI like strengthening a muscle. For a muscle to get stronger, it must experience discomfort. Data‐Driven DEI is about strengthening your DEI muscle while leveraging data to achieve faster and better outcomes. Much as data has dramatically improved how athletes improve their outcomes on the playing field, data can dramatically improve how you improve your personal and organizational outcomes in life and at work. So, if you find yourself experiencing any discomfort along your journey, I encourage you to lean into the discomfort because that means you are strengthening your DEI muscle and growing into a better person today than yesterday. I firmly believe that is time very well spent, and I trust you will agree.