We All Need To Be DEI Literate

I attended the poetry workshop last week, and the prompt happened to be “fairy dust.”🧚‍♀️🦄

It came evident in our writing that “fairy” spoke as the trigger word for many of us, unselfconsciously.

For me, the discomfort with the word “fairy” developed over time, without me noticing, when people kept telling me how girls behave: “don’t act like a fairy, frilly dresses don’t suit your lean body (tell me, where is that slim body, I want it back now, like NOW)”; “focus on building your beauty with the brain,” my friends in the university advised; and friends in the mom gang suggested, “go to a yoga class; drink green juice and eat salad until you can’t have it anymore.”

While I thought that it was me, everyone shared similar stories when we discussed the poems’ impetus and expressions — stories of a recovering privilege, recovering religion, recovering caste, and many others. No matter how hard everyone tried, no one could put the inside conversations into neatly packaged compartments and abstractly gravitated to the vocabulary of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion).

Being a DEI advocate and the one who takes the implications of language seriously, I was deeply in the conversation.

Most of us have heard media broadly commenting on the diversity of the whole world and sometimes presenting personal opinions as to the rooted identity of any individual earlier. But DEI discussion in the poetry workshop spoke to me on my face. I see that the need to understand DEI in the right way is REAL.

My instinct wanted to warn that DEI if tackled at surface level, is nothing more than a dangerous fad, which like other leadership strategies, will be debunked. Thankfully, I paused and listened.

Here I offer my DEI learnings and experience for all who are too busy to read big fat books yet seek a speck of (actionable) fairy dust to create a world of harmony, self-reliance, and innovation for our future generations. DEI literacy from the walks of poetry!

DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) for the people in a hurry

I offer it hoping that it will provide understanding just what we all need to be fluent and ready for the conscious conversation with ourselves and others.

DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) literacy is no more good to have. It is a must-have.

DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) literacy is no more good to have. It is a must-have.

Still, its understanding swing between poetic narration like, “If I were a super fairy, I’d capture all scheming villains and sprinkle the speck of the dreams dust on them, so everyone stands to defend peace and livelihoods.” and scientific explanation like “the N170 method of observing a reliable voltage fluctuation in our brain which happens exactly 170 milliseconds after we see a face and how it acts as a key window into our perception and our response to others”.

Before we proceed further, I want you to think of a most important moment from your recent past. I can guarantee that it is not what you knew but what you thought and chose at that moment that makes it distinctive.

It is not what you know but how your brain is wired for thought that makes the real difference. — Jeffrey M. Stibel

Be skeptical, in a positive way

The skeptic does mean who rejects everything. A proper skeptic is the one who questions what they are unsure of and also recognizes to change their mind when valid evidence is presented.

As said by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, “As areas of knowledge grow, so too do the perimeters of ignorance.” Like a scientist, a DEI-aware person shall have no place for intellectual laziness.

Empower yourself to probe knowledge and information out there. Get curious, inquire about the other person’s perspective, and actively listen — to find the objective truth. You and another person shall always back their truth with the evidence, and “Hmm. I think” isn’t the evidence.

It is difficult to think outside the box because the thinking IS the box. — Michael Braun

Identity your roots of being, aka. cognitive bias

If there is anything other than the flesh, bones, and blood that we humans are made of, it is memories. And memories feed our cognition and cognitive bias. There are many kinds of cognition bias and confirmation bias, optimism bias, self-serving bias, the Dunning-Kruger effect being the common ones.

Want to feel special, be seen, soothed, and secure is human. Being human and having the need of being seen as special is not wrong altogether, but missing the objective truth is Cognitive Bias at play.

We shall catch our thoughts and have an inside conversation before addressing the outside discussion: Is my overconfidence or self-interest at play? What aspects might I have missed? Am I giving too much weight to specific parts? Am I ignoring relevant information because it doesn’t support my view?

Once we have answers to these questions, be doubly sure of how we speak. Ask again: Is it true?; is it necessary?; is it kind?

Know your reasons for becoming, as DEI measurement is a live thing

DEI is not a noun; it is a verb. It is a commitment to ongoing learning and taking courageous actions to create a more equitable & inclusive world. The number metrics like gender ratio, number of ERGs, or the percentage of URMs (underrepresented minority people) on leadership roles can provide the snapshot, like the tennis scoreboard; it can’t provide testimony to the whole journey.

Also, with the world evolving at a VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) ground and the human race getting more diverse — culturally and generationally — we all, especially people in positions of power like managers, leaders, and parents, need to be more empathetic and proactive in noticing where support and listening are required.

We need to ask hard-hitting questions: why am I doing this?; what personal ground do I stand for? Ultimately, finding why it matters to you personally is essential to keep you on this journey and help pick suitable quantitative and qualitative measures about the progress.

Develop your love for language

Clear thinking, genuine curiosity, and challenging our prejudices are essential, but it’s not everything. Being able to persuade and convince is equally crucial.

We have probably already noticed the DEI pendulum swinging between two extremes: one side is the woke activists who are intolerant to differing beliefs, and another side is people in the power position who feel blamed for having privileges even if it is hard-earned, and they choose to stay quiet when they shall speak. This dichotomy can make the life of DEI advocate even more difficult.

The dichotomy of DEI pendulum swinging between two extremes can make the life of DEI advocate even more difficult.

Being right can take us only this far. To create a real impact in people’s lives, we have to be effective and develop our love for language and storytelling.

People are rarely persuaded when we tell them they are wrong. We need to meet the other person or an organization where they are.

Finally, challenge the maxim that cooperation is better than the competition

I understand that competing over cooperate counters diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Still, I would challenge it because my attitude towards competition went through an evolution before I arrived at this point of view about competition.

Offering you the example from surfing, how the surfers compete against the waves they ride. How do they avoid the strength of the lock and exploit its weakness? The surfer is not competing with anyone, not trying to beat anyone, but striving to make it to the beach.

The surfer is not competing with anyone, not trying to beat anyone, but striving to make it to the beach.

People who think not competing with others and living contended is enough: We need to be present to our privileges and compete to create possibilities. Compete with the inferences of social media and loud voices and do not allow anyone to gaslight and displace our roots of being human, social, and explorers.

Our humanism, systemic thinking, and integration duties are more important than ever today to create an inclusive world.

By being DEI literate, I hope we will not settle until we all make it to the beach.

Thanks for reading 🌼 Who is this strange woman doing the talking? I am a Diversity equity and inclusion champion and a DIP, aka. Discoveries-in-Progress. I care for doing my part well in creating an inclusive world where we lift each other to endure our limitlessness. You can follow my work here.

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Previously Published on medium

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