Making a commitment to prioritizing DEI as an organization and advancing DEI initiatives in today’s political and cultural climate is no easy feat. Like any other organizational priority, DEI efforts require effective strategy, substantive resources, strong leadership, and staff buy-in to see progress and success. Successful DEI initiatives also require trust. Trust plays an essential role in meaningful, ongoing DEI efforts in any organization.
DEI work requires individuals to think about new ways of operating, to question the status quo, to consider the needs of a larger pool of people than we are often accustomed to. It asks us to speak openly and honestly about our own experiences and needs and be willing to actively, deeply listen to the experiences and needs of others. It involves discussing topics we may not be practiced in discussing (especially at work) and admitting when we don’t know or don’t have a solution. It demands that we interrogate how identity and power influence every interaction, discussion, and decision. It charges us with asking questions such as: Who makes decisions? How are decisions made? Who has voice in decisions and when and why specific decisions are reached?
What DEI work asks of us is challenging and nuanced by its very nature. It becomes even more complicated and hard to navigate without trust, which is why it is extremely important for organizations to spend time exploring trust before and throughout creating goals and taking action to advance DEI efforts.
Trust can often feel difficult to measure, intangible, and more about personal preference than concrete facts. And yet, trust plays a major role in organizational culture. Harvard professor Frances Frei offers valuable insight about how to build (and rebuild) trust. Frei explains that our experience of trust is based upon three key elements: authenticity, logic, and empathy.
In order for impactful, sustainable DEI work to flourish in the workplace, there needs to be a high level of trust between
• Those doing the “heavy lifting” of the work surrounding DEI initiatives and the rest of the organization.
• Those in positions of power, with formal leadership titles, and other staff.
As one-half of a multiracial DEI consulting team, I have had the privilege to support many organizations throughout the country in their journeys of committing to DEI and taking meaningful action aligned to that commitment. My consulting partner and I intentionally build time and space to explore trust early in our client engagements and revisit trust throughout our work with our clients because we know the topic of trust will come up. Just as we build time to explore trust into our engagements, the first step for organizations seeking to drive impactful organizational change is to set aside time to hear from employees about current organizational trust levels.
Building and rebuilding trust is a process that takes time, intentionality, and ongoing reflection. This is not a quick “to do” that simply gets checked off the long list of tasks an organization needs to do to make progress towards DEI goals.
Organizations need a clear, simple plan for how to repeatedly reserve time to hear about the level of trust that employees are feeling at work at any given time and consider opportunities to deepen trust levels in the future. Trust levels can vary between departments, from one manager to another, and between different levels of institutional power within an organization. Trust levels change constantly, and the more accurate understanding an organization has about its current trust levels, success spots, and pain points, the more successful it can be — with DEI goals and beyond.
Some first steps to making time to explore trust at various levels of your organization are:
• Determine what “level” or “type” of trust discussions will allow for the most honest reflections. Some examples include: one-on-ones with managers, via department, a mix of both options, etc.
• Define trust and explain why you are asking employees to talk about trust.
• Create space to talk about employees’ experiences with trust at work within the last six to 12 months.
• Identify ways that trust can be strengthened and ways trust becomes broken.
• Set goals to improve trust within the next year.
• Check in quarterly for at least one year to hear and progress-monitor feedback about recent experiences with trust.
• After one year of quarterly check ins, build an organizational habit to place trust as a “standing agenda item” to reflect on and talk openly about moving forward, at least biannually.
Finding time to talk about trust is a major step forward. And, talking about trust at work also takes:
1. Talented facilitators to create a safe space where people share open and honestly.
2. Effective and people-centered methods to gather the feedback shared about current trust levels.
3. Intentional reflection from leaders about current trust levels and follow up to staff about what has been learned, strengths, areas for improvement and future plans to deepen trust.
These additional elements focus more on the quality of discussions rather than the necessary planning required to have such discussions. These elements are just as vital to the success of discussions about trust, but I encourage leaders to create a clear plan for exploring trust as an organization first.
When trust is strong — or even when trust is in a stage of repair that has been clearly named and is being actively worked on — DEI goals and actions can have their greatest impact and future DEI efforts are more likely to be sustained.
Let’s go back to Frei’s trust triangle for a moment. Trust is based on authenticity, logic, and empathy. All three of these components of trust are essential to effective, long-lasting, and transformative DEI efforts. DEI efforts without authenticity often feel performative instead of meaningful. DEI efforts without logic often feel scattered and random instead of impactful. DEI efforts without empathy often feel empty and shallow because DEI work is systems and heart work. It is no surprise that the elements of trust are also necessary for DEI work.
Imagine the leaders of an organization are introducing the next DEI goal to employees in an all-staff meeting. When trust is strong between leaders and staff — or efforts to strengthen trust are being displayed daily — employees will feel safer sharing their feedback about the new goal, asking questions about how the goal will be reached, making suggestions to enhance the outcomes and even offering their time and resources. When trust is present in the workplace, employees can speak their truths and offer their expertise and experiences to ideas to strengthen them.
The soil is fertile for DEI efforts to root, grow and thrive in organizations where trust is discussed and continually strengthened. Every moment spent on understanding and strengthening organizational trust will pay off in the long run, both for DEI efforts and the overall cultural health of an organization.
