A Day in My (Your) Life

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A Day in the Life of a DEI Practitioner

Hi everyone, and welcome to another week of my thoughts and experiences in the DEI space. As we celebrate Black History Month, my attention keeps going back to one of my favorite novels, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. This epic tells the story of an unnamed Black narrator trying to navigate his way through a surreal landscape where everyone treats him like he’s, you guessed it, invisible. 

As I’m rereading this book for what might be the 327th time, I find myself thinking about it more and more through a DEI lens, wondering how we can all work together to do a better job of recognizing those who are overlooked. Every night as I read through the pages of this book, I can’t help but ask, “During Black History Month 2022, what advice would the invisible narrator give us?”

Here are some possible answers.

1. Change Structures

Throughout the novel, the narrator enters places where characters assume inequity is a problem with individuals. From his sharecropper grandfather to the president of an all-Black college, many suggest the solution to social problems lies inside ourselves. They teach him to focus on personal development and blame injustice on internal psychological factors. The only program they offer for overcoming segregation is pushing the narrator to become superhumanly disciplined, educated, and patient. 

The narrator adopts their program of personal change but realizes there are social forces that align against him regardless of how humble, restrained, and respectable he is. Through many painful lessons, he learns that the improvement of individuals also requires the improvement of organizations. Whether facing the de jure segregation of the south or the de facto segregation of the north, the narrator learns that personal evolution also requires structural growth.

Because of these themes, the first DEI lesson Invisible Man might teach us is to address structures. It’s important to confront our biases. It’s valuable to learn more about other cultures. It’s important to create opportunities to provide training in areas like self-advocacy and networking for people from underrepresented groups. But the journey of inclusivity can’t end with self-improvement. The marginalized can learn all the strategies for asserting their way to the center, but if the procedures that decide who gets promoted are still inequitable, all their individual development won’t lead to the promotions that can change an organization’s leadership. Conversely, leaders can challenge their cultural assumptions enough to make personal connections with people from minority communities, but if their peers, supervisors, and other elements of leadership don’t do the same, that one-on-one connection won’t translate to change. 

Again, personal development is important, but the narrator of Invisible Man would remind us that if those personal changes are going to go beyond creating good feelings and nice moments to actually create change, we must also look at the building structures like ....

🧱promotion processes

🧱advancement opportunities

🧱performance reviews procedures

2. Challenge the Self

While the novel contains many portions from microaggressive plant supervisors to city leaders who scapegoat the narrator for the problems of society and suggest he alone can change his world, there are also others who focus so much on changing structures that they ignore the personal growth they should do. In the later portions of the book, the invisible man teams up with the Brotherhood. The leaders of this political movement insist they are allies of underrepresented people, but that self-proclamation keeps them from examining themselves. They get so convinced they’re champions for Black people that they never take time to actually listen to Black people.

These kinds of characters also appear in the work of inclusivity. There are DEI opponents who blame individuals for not working hard enough, but there are also DEI proponents who absolve themselves of all wrongdoing. In our justified focus on structures, we must remember to also examine themselves. 

Given these issues, the second DEI lesson Invisible Man might be to challenge the self. There are enormous virtues in making structures more equitable. Those who look at systems do important work as they try to get to the root of exclusion, but the issue is that exclusion never has one root. It has many. And they tangle so much that they intertwine structures and the self. You can change the procedures that decide who gets promoted, but if you don’t develop the personal relationships that allow decision makers to recognize the contributions of those they assess, that change won’t come. You can head a task force on racial inclusion, but that doesn’t mean you’re absolved from challenging the racial biases, stereotypes, and assumptions that plague all human cognition. The problem with changing structures alone is that it can let us off the hook, thinking that making operations more inclusive will automatically make people more inclusive. We must find ways to challenge our own thinking. Ultimately, these portions of Invisible Man remind us that while we change the world we must also change ourselves. 

To achieve this, you can…

🗣 become a mentor to someone from a different social group

🗣 become the protégé of someone from a different social group

🗣 get individual coaching that will challenge your social identity assumptions

🗣 ensure all of your great structural plans also create systems of accountability that challenge and contradict you. 

3. Work with Others

The characters I’ve already discussed stand out the most in this novel. These severe figures harm the narrator, but there are some that try to help him. These few try to help this invisible man be seen and see himself. For example, Mary cares for and encourages the narrator. But he has been so hurt by his quest that he rejects her care. 

If we’re honest, we often do the same. Focusing on changing structures or changing ourselves, we assume we have to do all that changing on our own. We forget to seek help on this journey. Even worse, we focus so much on goals and outcomes, we often forget to help others along the way. Hurt by opposition, we fail to let others help. Disappointed by others, we focus so much on our large DEI objectives that we can forget our need for personal relationships. We can fall into the trap of wearing our exhaustion like a badge of honor and our loneliness as proof that our motives are righteous.

Invisible Man shows the problems that arise when people thrust all the weight of social change on individual shoulders and when others concentrate so much on challenging society they forget to challenge themselves. At the same time, the novel begins and ends with the problems that arise when, between the gulf of the self and structures, we neglect to develop and become a part of communities that sustain us. Sometimes, part of the visibility that sustains us requires being seen by our peers and seeking their help. For this, find those with whom you can…

👥Share your struggles

👥Admit your shortcomings

👥Confess knowledge gaps

👥Receive honest, constructive feedback and support

So as I close my copy of Invisible Man for the night, I think of the wisdom it still contains all these years later, pressing us to change structures, challenge ourselves, and work with others so those who are so often overlooked can become more visible. 

The process of changing structures, challenging the self, and working with others has to be intentional and many times strategized and practiced for actual success using. One thing we do at the Uplifting Impact helps you learn more about yourself and the people around you in order to do just that. Get hands-on practice and true conversation at the How To Be An Ally Virtual Summit! Three days of learning and growing all from your very own home. 

Check it out on LinkedIn!

Register Here!

A Keynote Nod: Actions Speak Louder

The more that I do this work, the more teams I speak with, the more c-suites I sit with and I realize so much of us want to do the work, we just have no idea how to.

I recently did a keynote around my new forthcoming book title Actions Speak Louder, about just that, how to put your diversity and inclusion thoughts into real action, as an individual but also as a team. A few things we covered were:

✍🏾What are your values?

✍🏾What obstacles stand in your way?

✍🏾Let's create a strategy to overcome and build.

Some immediate ways Uplifting Impact is overhauling workplace culture:

• Professional DEI Certification Program
• Uplifting Impact Podcast
• “How to Be an Ally” Virtual Summit

Being an #ALLY is ongoing work. Any uplifting impact we make now, no matter how big or small, will build a better world for future leaders and generations to come. So, let’s keep working together to affect change. Subscribe to continue these Uplifting Conversations!