A Deep Dive Into Our Guiding Principles: Action

This is the fourth and final installment of a four-part series about our organizational values: Interconnection, Curiosity, Joy & Rest, and Action.

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About our Values

If you’re here, you likely value building and retaining demographically diverse teams, treating people equitably, and having an inclusive workplace. Our work is about helping you bridge the gap between those values and your day-to-day actions, putting sustainable systems in place so that practicing what you preach is core to how you operate. 

We know that we’re not going to be very effective at helping you with this unless we’re well-practiced at doing it ourselves! With that in mind, here’s a deep dive into the fourth value we hold ourselves accountable to practicing in our work – with each other and with our clients: Action.

Action

We ground ourselves in knowing, “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”

What does this mean? 

There is no shortage of problems in our workplaces and the world!

When we get overwhelmed or feel frozen by the enormity of systemic oppression, we come back to this quote, which reminds us that none of us can solve everything, but that doesn’t excuse us from our responsibility to make change where we can. 

We believe that when each of us plays our unique part, our collective work will amount to great societal shifts. 

Excited about fostering action in your DEI work?

Try some of these ideas:

1: Work within your constraints.

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, nor room to make any of our workplaces fully just or liberatory within our existing legal frameworks (since they were built on oppressive foundations). And that can feel infuriating. 

But there is room to make our workplaces more equitable for those who work within them – so that’s what we’re focused on doing. (And in our personal free time, we work to change the constraints to make room for justice and liberation!)

3: Do the work you’re ready for, when you’re ready for it.

Rather than selling cookie-cutter solutions or suggesting that all of our clients follow one prescribed course of action, we gather data to design and deliver customized services that are responsive to each client’s unique needs. We meet you where you are, and go from there.

Part of this work is honoring that employee experiences are critical data, and the more we learn about them and find the underlying patterns that connect them, the stronger our interventions can be. Then we write strategic plans that allow us to tackle your goals step by step.

2: Focus on results.

We want to spend your time well, and that means seeing measurable change as a result of our work together.

So while as fellow human beings, we care deeply about what’s in your heart and mind, as DEI practitioners we’re not super concerned with that; nobody can read your mind or judge whether or not you’re a “good” person, so we’re not going to try. Instead, we’re mostly focused on your behaviors, which is what directly impacts your colleagues. 

Rather than emphasizing “eliminating bias” or “raising awareness,” our work focuses on helping organizations set up clear expectations of their staff so that people know how to engage in behaviors that align with their organizations’ DEI values.

Whose work has informed this value?

• Jewish text: The quote that this value is based on (You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it) comes from Jewish text (Pirkei Avot 2:21). My Jewish values fuel much of my action in the world.

• In her 1998 novel Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler wrote,

  "Belief will not save you. 

  Only actions

  Guided and shaped

  By belief and knowledge

  Will save you."

  Butler's science fiction has an enormous amount to teach us about many of these values, in this case reminding us that, when it comes to working for a better world, our learning and belief systems only matter as much as they impact our actions.

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