Where Diversity Training Goes Wrong, Part III: Changing Schools & Organizations

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Social Justice Organizational Change Model Flow Chart

In Part I of this series, I posed 10 questions that organizations and schools should ask before engaging in diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice (DEISJ) training. In Part II, I delved more deeply into the need to align DEISJ training approaches with what science and experience tell us about how humans (especially adults) actually learn new things and put that new learning into practice. In both essays I emphasized the importance of willingness and choice because most people do not learn things they are forced to learn, and they certainly do not change their practice or their lives as a result of information that is imposed upon them.

If you’ve read the first two essays you might have wondered: but how do we change our schools and organizations if many people on our staff (maybe even the majority) are not currently invested in working for justice? You might even have a pithy statement in the back of your mind like, “This work is too important! We can’t move at the speed of comfort.” I understand this feeling! The work of justice is essential and urgent, and our commitment to creating a world that is better for us all should not be swayed by naysayers. And yet, the reality is, in fields in which people are core to the work, it’s actually impossible to move any faster than their ability, skill, and commitment (unless you have a secret stash of highly skilled justice-minded folks looking for jobs).

So how do you make change within your school or organization and what do you do about the folks dragging their feet? My recommendation is that all schools and organizations (1) Assess Organizational Readiness for Change; (2) Cultivate a Staff Committed to Justice; and (3) Take Action for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice.

STEP 1: Assess Organizational Readiness for Change

Every school and organization committing to DEISJ must honestly assess their readiness to do this work. Despite the importance and urgency of justice, the truth is it is almost impossible to do systemic DEISJ work in a toxic or non-functional organization in which people do not have their basic needs met and do not have relationships of trust, respect, and support. We sometimes joke at Justice Leaders Collaborative that if staff members cannot manage or talk about simple things like the copy paper, there is no way they are going to successfully talk about or take action around racism or other forms of oppression. If there were a “hierarchy of needs” when it comes to systems change in social justice work, having a functional organization and decent relationships among staff would be the foundation. Here’s the deal: making systems change for social justice will probably be harder, require more emotional labor, and be more likely to cause pushback than anything else you do. Given the emotional charge attached to justice issues in our society, DEISJ is at least intermediate, if not advanced level organizational change work. Having a stable foundation upon which to build these efforts will make success significantly more likely.

In some organizations the biggest barrier is that there simply are not systems in place that are functional. Staff don’t have consistent access to supplies. Policies are nonexistent or inconsistently followed. People develop elaborate workarounds for issues that require only a simple help request in similar organizations. And nobody is really sure who is responsible for what. If this is your organization, then the best place to start when it comes to the work of justice is to make sure basic things in your school or organization actually work (we recommend the resources available through The Management Center).

In other organizations, basic systems function but staff do not have relationships of support and trust. If the workplace culture is competitive, hostile, micromanaged, undermanaged, or gossipy; if people actively disdain each other; if people misuse their power; if there is a sense (or reality) that pay and compensation practices are biased, unfair or inequitable, there is probably not much your DEISJ initiative is going to be able to do. If this sounds like your organization we recommend starting your DEISJ efforts with relationship building, which is the focus of the second section of our Justice Assessment and Transformation Tools (JATTs). When we work with schools and organizations that need support in this area we start with helping them implement the “Relationships Initiative”–a process that engages staff in structured reflection, activities, and exercises specifically designed to help cultivate more trusting and supportive relationships.

There is no perfect organization and I am not suggesting you need to be flawless in order to commit to the essential work of justice. And of course there are parts of basic functions and relationships that are without question issues of justice and injustice (for example, it might be that relationships are toxic because of racism or sexism among staff members). But it is often the case that broader DEISJ work gets impeded by other major issues within a school or organization that a DEISJ commitment alone cannot fix. As I wrote in Part II, sometimes organizations need a ropes course before they can do an anti-racism self-assessment. adrienne maree brown talks about the importance of moving “at the speed of trust,” and this rate of change is definitely applicable when it comes to DEISJ. DEISJ initiatives can’t overcome a toxic work culture nor can they fix one. Be realistic and build a foundation of organizational trust and competence before asking employees to engage in justice initiatives.

STEP 2: Cultivate a Staff Committed to Justice

While you get to work developing relationships of trust and systems that allow people to do the basics of their jobs, the absolutely crucial next step is cultivating a staff committed to DEISJ. There are two ways to increase the capacity of your staff: (1) change the practice of the people who are already a part of your organization; or (2) change the people who work for your organization. Most effective transformation processes require both.

Within every organization there are three basic groups: those who are already open to DEISJ efforts; those who are not quite there yet but who are moveable with the right relationships and supports; and those who are uninterested and unwilling to commit to making the organization more diverse and just. While the percentage of people in each of these three groups varies, the approach organizations should take is the same.

We recommend that organization and school leaders do some intentional analysis to identify where their staff is (Hint: don’t make assumptions!):

• Who are the people already committed to doing DEISJ work? Who is bringing up issues of injustice during staff meetings? Who has already voluntarily put up more diverse images on their walls or already made an effort to diversify their lessons or messaging?

• Who are the people who are open and willing — or not quite willing but moveable? This may include well intentioned people who have volunteered to work on equity initiatives but are still lacking knowledge, skill, and self reflection to do so effectively, or perhaps people who have never given much thought to these issues but are not actively resistant.

• Who are the people actively resistant to DEISJ work? Who is asking why you keep talking about race? Or pushing back against the idea that DEISJ work is important? Who is frequently reported for committing microaggressions or engaging in biased behavior?

In addition to your own qualitative assessment, it can be very illuminating to simply ask staff how they are feeling about the organization or school pursuing DEISJ. Even if your initial assessment is not fully accurate, having some sense of the make-up of your staff will help clarify how to weigh your next steps. If you’re getting nervous, now is probably a good place to mention that you do not need 100% of staff to buy in to make systems change. Some theories about tipping points and organizational change suggest that having 25% of people committed to transformation is enough! And people who study social movements have noted that a few dedicated people often have the power to motivate others to join them!

Assess the DEISJ Knowledge & Skill of Leaders

The most successful DEISJ work happens when traditional organizational leaders are committed, supportive, and skilled. But this is not always the case. In fact, it’s often not. If you are an organizational or school leader it is important that you be honest about which of the three categories from the previous section you fall into and what more you need to learn, understand, and reflect on, and what kinds of relationships you need to build, to be able to lead DEISJ initiatives effectively. The knowledge and skills necessary are likely very different than other parts of your job. This means that traditional leaders or managers may not always be the best leaders of DEISJ efforts. Just as you would not ask the art teacher to lead the team revamping the math curriculum, it doesn’t make sense to have a person without expertise leading the DEISJ work–even if that person is the boss. Too often we observe DEISJ efforts be thwarted by leaders who are unwilling to share power, unwilling to support those really trying to put this work into practice, or easily swayed by pushback that seeks to undermine the effort. If it turns out that you are not quite ready to take on this effort, or perhaps simply do not have the time, having enough humility and commitment to empower another team to do so will be important.

If someone other than the organization’s traditional leaders will be spearheading the DEISJ initiatives it may be useful to think about hiring a DEISJ director, team, or consultant. While this is not required for change, it is important that there be a clear team responsible for taking on this essential work (This may be a DEISJ team led by current staff — see below). This team can do things like help with systems change visioning, lead training or help vet consultants and trainers, do data deep dives, help with audits and assessments, prioritize next steps, support action to achieve these steps, help leaders craft responses to pushback, provide personal coaching, and more. But just as doing a training is not an outcome, hiring a DEISJ director or consultant is not an outcome that inherently means the organization is practicing more justly.

Hiring a DEISJ leader does not eliminate the need for a larger team of people as outlined above. No one can do the work of justice alone! And just as it is best practice to have multiracial co-facilitation teams when it comes to DEISJ training, it is also best practice to have more than one person, ideally from different social identity groups, on a DEISJ team leading this work from within an organization. Too frequently we see organizations, often with majority White staff, hire one Black DEISJ Director to do all of the heavy lifting on their own, without a larger, more diverse team and with limited administrative support. This simply isn’t a model that leads to long-term sustained success for all the reasons outlined in Parts I & II of this essay series. In fact, organizations who pursue DEISJ work in this way often find that the Black DEISJ director resigns, or is pushed out, as a result of larger systemic problems.

Organizations hiring a DEISJ director (or even better, co-directors!) should:

• Make sure the DEISJ leaders hired have real skill, knowledge, and competence. This means having an intersectional perspective and an understanding of how people and systems learn and change (see Parts I & II).

• Make sure the DEISJ leaders have real access and power. This means they should be part of the highest level leadership teams within the organization and compensated accordingly.

• Make sure there is long-term commitment to this work with realistic plans, expectations, and timelines for change.

Disrupting dominant power structures and hierarchies may be required for your DEISJ efforts. If traditional leaders are not the DEISJ leads, they should use their power and influence to support it in front of boards and other stakeholders and make sure not to undermine the work. If traditional leaders aren’t far enough along in their journey to do this, the organization is likely not in a place of readiness to tackle this work at an organizational level; instead, staff committed to justice should do an honest assessment of what is within their sphere of influence to change without seeking support from higher up.

Cultivate Committed Staff

There are a number of things you can do to cultivate a staff committed to DEISJ:

1. Engage in hiring practices that bring in new staff committed to DEISJ

One of the most strategic things leaders can do to build and sustain an organization or school committed to social justice is hire better. Leaders should be as intentional as possible in making sure that any new people brought on are adding to DEISJ efforts rather than pulling resources away from it. This means that job postings should be clear about the organization’s commitment to DEISJ and should spell out what the expectations of new hires will be related to this work. It means that interview committees should consist of people who have knowledge and skill around DEISJ so that they are more likely to be able to identify this in candidates. It means that interview questions should be specifically cultivated to ask people about their commitment to social justice and that the people on the interview committee have talked in advance about what good answers to these questions look like and what red flags there may be in how people answer these questions. And, because as discussed in Part II, knowing something isn’t the same as doing something, the interview process should seek examples of how candidates have actually done their jobs and lived their lives in ways aligned with justice. There are many people who can say the right thing in an interview but who have not proven themselves to be committed to justice in their actual practice. Interview processes should include practice scenarios, mock lessons, or examples of previous work. We cannot always hire the ideal candidate. For example, K-12 teacher shortages, especially in certain content areas and communities, may mean that the pool of available candidates simply doesn’t cultivate hires committed to DEISJ. But to every extent possible organizations and schools should be working to bring in new people willing and wanting to work toward justice.

2. Maintain clear expectations and accountability structures for DEISJ

While I advocate strongly in Part I & II for making actual DEISJ training optional, setting goals and taking action for justice should not be a choice. If you are committing to this work at a systems level, everyone in an organization or school should be held accountable for it. This means there should be a clear commitment to justice in your mission, vision, strategic goals, and other guiding documents. There should be clear DEISJ responsibilities and expectations in all job descriptions; and these expectations should be a part of the broader accountability and evaluative processes within your school or organization and should be negotiated with any unions that represent your staff.

While it makes logical sense to hold people accountable, figuring out how to implement socially just accountability is actually pretty difficult because so many current evaluation and accountability systems in schools and organizations are punitive and don’t actually support justice or change in practice. In the most ideal version, staff members would work collaboratively with trust and respect to observe each other regularly, give each other support and feedback, and engage in 360 evaluation processes. In short, organizations truly committed to DEISJ generally find they need to engage in deeper conversations about systemic change to all evaluation and accountability methods, not just those connected to “diversity work.”

In the short term however, there are ways to think about holding staff accountable for practicing in ways aligned with DEISJ. Once your school or organization has clear DEISJ goals and once there have been training opportunities for people to learn about these issues (see below), every individual staff member should identify for themselves what their own DEISJ goals are for each “evaluation” period. Perhaps this includes a personal learning goal–such as learning more about a specific population you serve through a workshop, book study, museum visit, or documentary viewing–and a practice goal such as changing a policy, designing a lesson plan, rethinking a holiday celebration, improving the interview process, or making specific changes to the written communications you’re responsible for.

At the beginning and end of each “evaluation” period those leading the accountability or evaluation process (in some places a traditional supervisor, in others an empowered DEISJ team or director) would then have one-on-one conversations with each staff person about what their goals are, whether or not they were achieved, and what further supports they need to achieve these goals. Support could include training and professional development responsive to specific staff needs, but might also include intentional relationship building, colleague observations and feedback, mentors, planning time, collaborative work arrangements, book studies, and more. Conversations about goals, progress, and needs related to DEISJ should also be happening frequently in other spaces such as staff and team meetings.

Committing to such a regular check-in and support process, even when resistant staff “call in sick” the day of their meeting or never achieve their stated goals (Hint: reschedule the meeting– don’t let folks get out of it!), can have significant impact even without other punitive measures. It signals to all staff that DEISJ is truly an organizational value and that they are going to be expected to engage in dialogue and action that supports the work of justice. The hope is that the staff willing to practice for DEISJ are being given more structure and support to actually take action aligned with the organization’s goals and those who are unwilling get worn down in ways that make clear that this place of work is no longer a fit for them.

This kind of practice will likely take a lot of emotional energy from leaders, may require a restructuring or rethinking of people’s understood job duties, and will likely take some innovative scheduling approaches (e.g. How can you structure job coverage to really allow staff to observe one another?), but these are the kinds of accountability measures that make it more likely for people to actually change their practice. Finally, it should be noted that some parts of the evaluation or accountability system should be non-negotiable and immediate. For example, staff simply cannot say racist, sexist, or heterosexist things to students, colleagues, clients, or stakeholders. These types of overtly biased incidents and interactions need more explicit consequences. And again, training will not “fix” these things if the people needing support are not interested in changing.

3. Have clear off-ramps for people who are not a fit

There need to be clear off-ramps for people who, after being given sufficient opportunities to opt in to learning, support, and mentorship, prove themselves to be unwilling or unable to do their jobs in ways aligned with equity and justice. Incorporating DEISJ expectations into job descriptions, accountability measures, and evaluative processes with support from your union makes this a much clearer and easier process. Some people simply cannot do their jobs effectively and are no longer a fit for the school or organization and there should be clear processes in place for them to transition out.

If your assessment finds that the overwhelming majority of your staff are unwilling or unable to commit to transforming for DEISJ it may not be possible to strategically roll out a broader effort. Continue hiring better, holding folks accountable, and inviting them to leave, while doing all you can to support and protect the few individuals within the organization who are ready by helping them find training and support, funding their on the clock attendance, and defending them when pushback arises.

4. Provide robust training and learning opportunities for willing staff

People often treat “Diversity Training’’ as the final step in their DEISJ initiatives when it should actually be thought of as one of the first. I can see how this happens. If you’re the leader of an organization or school, you’ve likely done a lot of work to provide training opportunities to your staff. But as we often say at JLC, “training is not an outcome.” In an ideal world every person in the country would have had a P-University educational experience that gave them the knowledge, skill, and relationships to work to create a more equitable and just world. But the reality is most of us did not get this. Training is the remedial coursework many of us need in order to make up for the learning, reflection, and relationships we are missing, but training is only important insofar as it leads to a change in how we do other essential parts of our job.

This means that even if the majority of your staff are committed to DEISJ you will still likely have to provide opportunities for deeper learning and growth because most of us simply haven’t had many opportunities to get this in our lives. Lots of well intentioned people do great harm in DEISJ work because they simply do not know enough, and don’t know what they don’t know.

Training is not a guarantee for transforming people nor is it the only way to get people to act for justice. There may be people on staff already working for justice without training because they are doing this deep work in their lives voluntarily. Similarly, there may be people on staff who go to all of the trainings but still act and work in ways that are biased and bigoted, because changing yourself and your practice is actually a pretty difficult thing to do, even when you want to. But we would still say that even for those who don’t necessarily “need” the training, doing it with colleagues helps create a shared foundation and helps build community for the organization’s effort. Training is a great opportunity for willing people to learn some new things, shift perspective, be reminded of things they already know, develop some shared language and theory, and start working together to change behavior. That said, training cannot take the place of robust policies, official expectations, and systemic accountability, nor does it inherently lead to other changes in how your organization or school functions. (For more on training and how people learn and change see Parts I & II of this essay series).

In sum, leaders should approach cultivating a staff committed to DEISJ just like any good organizing or movement building: eliminate those who are disrupting the work. Identify and empower those who are superstars and will inspire others. Build a representative body around those who are most committed so that as many people as possible can see someone like themselves–from their hallway, team, race, gender, friend group–as a part of the effort. Then continually invite those in the wishy-washy middle to join in. As the culture of the organization or school moves toward justice it will be easier for those who are less certain to make the commitment as well. As this critical mass forms, your responsibility is to roll out next steps of your DEISJ plan in a strategic and focused way that builds on this momentum as much as possible.

STEP 3: Take Strategic Action for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice

The third piece of making systems change is to strategically identify what exactly you should do to transform your practice for justice and the order in which you should do it.

1. Create a DEISJ Team of those with the Skill and Capacity to Take Action

From within the group of willing participants who have completed at least some initial training together, ask for a second group of willing volunteers to be a part of the DEISJ team. In a school district or large organization this may mean a team for every building, with representatives that report to the broader team, rather than just a district or organization-wide team. Again, anyone on the DEISJ team needs to have done the basic training, but doing training does not mean you are automatically on the DEISJ team. Choice is required for both. Sometimes it is in the training that people realize this work is not a fit or passion for them. We cannot assume that willingness to sign up for a learning opportunity means willingness to lead DEISJ action.

This means that people should not be “voluntold” to be on a DEISJ team nor should they be automatically put on the team as a result of their role in the organization or their specific race, gender, or other identity if they haven’t actually made the choice for themselves. You might be reading this and thinking that not having the lead supervisor or principal on an DEISJ team would be a problem. I would say if you have a lead supervisor or principal who is not committed enough to these efforts to choose to participate in robust training and choose to be a part of the ongoing DEISJ initiatives then you have a bigger staffing issue that needs to be addressed (see Step 2).

This also means you cannot form a DEISJ team out of volunteers who have not had some kind of shared learning and training. Many times DEISJ teams include anyone who wants to be on them regardless of prior knowledge or experience. The team must then spend significant time trying to get everyone on the same page or trying to interrupt problematic team members who have joined who have not done enough of their own work to lead for justice. In these instances I would say you have a “learning team” rather than an “action team” — a team of people who have agreed to build knowledge and skill together but who do not yet have capacity to make decisions for equity and justice. (If you find yourself in this situation, it can make sense to split into two different teams–one that’s still in the earlier learning stages and one that’s responsible for taking action).

Other key things to consider in DEISJ teams include: how to balance power and have decision-making processes that are equitable and socially just, how to include and incorporate stakeholders such as clients and students, how to ensure there isn’t only one person of color on the team, and how to compensate DEISJ team members and make their duties official responsibilities which are performed on the clock.

The goal is to build a diverse team of people who have a personal and professional commitment to DEISJ, who have done shared learning, have shared understanding of what they are trying to tackle, who have some actual skill, and who are eager and willing to work together — in ways that may be challenging and uncomfortable — to take action for justice.

2. Empower the DEISJ Team

Knowledgeable, skilled, DEISJ teams should have actual power. In some schools and organizations the DEISJ team will be the same as the school improvement or other leadership team (note, even in these cases everything above applies). For others it will be a separate team or subcommittee. Whatever the case, the team needs the power to make change–for their ideas and recommendations to be taken seriously and acted upon. This could look like having the actual power to make policy and practice changes or having a direct report to the ultimate decision-makers. Whatever form their power takes, the fact remains that there is no point in having a DEISJ team if they aren’t going to have any real power to make change or if that change will be undermined by those higher up in the school or organization who have not done enough of their own work to take action for justice.

Ensuring the DEISJ team has real power may be especially challenging if the team does not include people in traditional leadership roles. Organizations and schools with the most potential to succeed in changing for justice will likely have leaders, managers, and board members who have done enough of their own work to truly move the organization toward living into these values.

3. Identify Areas of Inequity and Injustice to Target

Once you have a DEISJ team that has moved beyond the learning stage, the next step is to assess where action is needed. Some schools and organizations engage in “equity audits’’ to come up with action items. At Justice Leaders Collaborative we use our JATTs (Justice Assessment and Transformation Tools) to identify where action is needed and to help schools and organizations make concrete change. The various JATTs (OJATT for organizations, EJATT for P-12 schools, and HEJATT for higher education) include the following areas of practice (with many subcategories under each):

• Knowledge, Biases, and Beliefs

• Relationships and Climate (which includes relationships among staff as well as with stakeholders, students, constituents, and boards)

• Teaching and Learning (which is about Standards, Curriculum, Pedagogy, Assessment, & Grading in P-University settings)

• Images, Celebrations, and Events

• Behavior and Discipline or Safety and Conduct

• Training and Professional Development Design & Offerings; and

• Policies and Procedures (which includes such things as Mission & Vision, Hiring & Retention, and Communications & Messaging)

Regardless of what tools or approach you use, the goal is to have some process of systematically identifying where your organization could improve when it comes to DEISJ and having a clear process for taking action to make change in the areas identified. Again it should be noted that DEISJ efforts are only relevant insofar as they actually lead to change in your organization and practice. If nothing about how the organization or school functions changes as a result of this work beyond people getting trained, or doing audits, or writing reports, then it is essentially a failure — even if every individual in the organization or school volunteered to participate.

4. Take Action.

After potential areas of improvement have been identified, the next step is to take action to improve. We recommend sorting the areas of improvement into categories — What is doable now without buy-in beyond the DEISJ team? What are stretch goals that will require more buy-in beyond the team? What is beyond your current sphere of influence that not currently attainable?

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice Action Categories. Row 1: Doable Now. Row 2: Stretch Goals. Row 3: Beyond our Sphere of Influence.

The point is, not everything is immediately doable with the skills, power, and spheres of influence available. Organizing next steps to account for this helps reduce feelings of immobilization. Once it’s clear what is doable, pick something and do it! We always suggest you start with the most doable thing that brings you the most energy and excitement to tackle.

5. Communicate Your Progress and Next Steps

After you’ve done something let people know you did it! Many organizations and schools are committing significant time and resources to DEISJ work but failing to communicate it to the people who matter. So from the outside it looks like nothing is happening. This can be especially true in schools where parents are advocating for more just practices and they aren’t kept abreast of what the school is doing to achieve this. But beware of sounding too braggadocious. Be transparent about what has been accomplished while laying out next steps to continue moving toward justice. Be sure to thank people who have been leaders and supported just practice.

And then, start again! Offer more training for individual staff who are committed to change and want to join the work. In our experience as people begin witnessing changes among their colleagues and within the organization some of those who were previously reluctant to participate become more eager to join. Continue to provide ongoing learning opportunities for the DEISJ team. Identify the next area of injustice to take action in. Take action. Communicate successes and next steps.

Some organizations and schools get so successful in their DEISJ practice that many staff are part of the DEISJ team and work. This is great! It allows you to better delegate tasks and to have broader impact. If you get to this point the goal is to have robust enough relationships, committees, and commitments to sustain this work for the duration. In an ideal world you get to the point where you no longer need a specific team or person focused on DEISJ but instead it becomes a core part of everything you do and all the ways you do it!

The Slow Work of Justice

Transforming an organization or school for justice is a slow, never ending process that requires deep commitment; knowledgeable, reflective, skilled people willing to continually stretch themselves; and clarity about what needs to be done with enough bravery, conviction, opportunity, and power to do it! In general we find that people leading DEISJ efforts within their organization tend to underestimate the amount of work it will take, make decisions without a larger plan or framework, and have unrealistic expectations of what the possible outcomes are and how quickly they can be achieved. If it hasn’t already been made clear, we’re talking years, not months. If there were a quick and easy way to make an organization or school diverse, inclusive, equitable, and socially just overnight it would be front page news! But there is no high speed train to repair the harm of centuries of oppression and inequity–there is only unwavering commitment combined with deep learning and reflection, and concrete strategic steps that take you just a bit closer to justice everyday. Good luck!

Shayla Reese Griffin is the co-founder of Justice Leaders Collaborative and the author of the forthcoming children’s book An Introduction to Race for Kids Who Want to Change the World (and Grownups Too!) illustrated by Christina O.; two adult books, Those Kids, Our Schools: Race and Reform in an American High School and Race Dialogues: A Facilitator’s Guide to Tackling the Elephant in the Classroom; three Justice Assessment & Transformation Tools for k-12 schools (the EJATT, now available for purchase), organizations (the OJATT), and institutions of higher education (the HEJATT); and lots of medium essays. She is a mother of 3 and coincidentally tends to get her best ideas around 3am.