In this episode, Jamey discusses the distinction between focusing on beliefs and behaviors within the context of DEI initiatives in the workplace. He talks about why DEI can be a polarizing topic, with some detractors questioning its value. Instead of getting bogged down by changing beliefs, Jamey argues for a focus on observable behaviors that can drive meaningful change. He outlines the various pitfalls of focusing on beliefs, such as inefficient use of time, allowing resistance to dictate the environment, centering the wrong aspect of workplace dynamics, and contradicting the inclusive goals of DEI.

Jamey emphasizes the practical benefits of focusing on behaviors, using pronoun usage as a real-world example to illustrate his points. He asserts that clear expectations for behaviors can integrate DEI into daily organizational operations, facilitating a more inclusive and effective work environment. By setting and maintaining these behavioral expectations, organizations can demonstrate the value of DEI initiatives and potentially influence resistant employees through the positive outcomes they witness firsthand.

Key Topics Discussed:

• The Belief that DEI is Good for Business
• Pitfalls of Focusing on Beliefs in the Workplace
• Operational Inefficiency of Changing Beliefs
• How Belief-Focus Allows DEI Resistance to Persist
• Centering Actions Over Beliefs
• Contradictions of Belief-Focus with DEI Goals
• Benefits of Focusing on Behaviors Over Beliefs
• Practical Example: Pronoun Usage in the Workplace
• How Behavioral Expectations Can Drive Effective DEI Integration

I'm Jamey Applegate, senior director of DEI at Equity at Work. And this is your DEI minute. Your go to podcast for leaders looking to navigate the ever evolving landscape of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Whether you're just starting out with DEI or looking to sustain your long term successes, each episode will provide you with the actions you can take to move DEI forward at your organization. All in 15 minutes or less. Join us every other week as we break through the noise and help you do DEI right. Let's get to it. I wanna start this episode by talking about what we at Equity at Work believe.

DEI is good for business. I want to start off by sharing what we believe because it's often what we get asked about by clients or prospective clients. It's important to our partners that we believe in the work we're doing, and we do. We are true believers in the power of DEI to transform workplaces for the better, both for people and for the business. But not everyone believes what we do. Some people, in fact, believe the opposite. They believe that DEI is bad for people, that it makes the workplace worse for everyone, and they believe that DEI harms business outcomes, that it's not good for business. The purpose of this episode is not to talk about the robust business case for DEI.

You can actually listen to a previous episode hosted by Michelle to hear that. The purpose of this episode is to discuss that focusing on beliefs is a missed opportunity for impact. Instead, we encourage you to focus on behaviors in the workplace to really drive change. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. I'm gonna talk about the pitfalls of focusing on beliefs and the benefits of focusing on behaviors. So let's dive in. We're gonna start with focusing on beliefs. Before we discuss the pitfalls of this path, I wanna talk about why we do this.

So why do we focus on beliefs or why do we often focus on beliefs? We focus on beliefs because we have them. We think those beliefs are correct. We all have a narrative of our own lives where we're the hero and we're on our own path. Our beliefs shape that narrative, and they help us determine how to continue forward. I won't get too deep into why we have the beliefs we do. It's all about how we're raised and what we're exposed to and what media we consume and what experiences we've had along the way, but we believe what we believe, and it shapes how we see the world. Beliefs help us make sense of what we experience and fit those experiences into the narrative we have for our life. And we talk about our beliefs because we wanna make connections.

Which sports team do you like the best? What religion do you practice, or do you not practice religion? Who'd you vote for? What are our organization's values? Our beliefs enable us to connect with each other, to find people that we wanna establish relationships with and begin to build those foundations. Our beliefs tell us who to trust, but focusing on beliefs in the workplace is a missed opportunity to drive impact especially around DEI. Focusing on beliefs, it has a ton of pitfalls. The first pitfall is operational. It's not a good use of time. Have you ever tried to convince someone to not be a fan of their favorite sports team or to change their religion or to vote for a candidate of a party that they're not a part of politically or to update their values? That is an unbelievably long process that has significant chance of failure. For DEI in the workplace, it's the same thing. Why spend time trying to convince people of the value of DEI when we could be spending time designing the strategies and the policies, procedures, practices, programs, initiatives, and activities that are going to drive change and show them the power of DEI.

What's the best use of our time? The second pitfall is strategic, so it allows those resistant to DEI to dictate the environment. There's a significant strain of resistance to DEI that can be summarized as the quote can't we just come to work and do our jobs group. Focusing on beliefs and trying to change people's hearts and minds makes DEI a distinct thing, separate from work, separate from what the organization does and not related to what the company does day to day. It creates a distance between DEI and the company's purpose as opposed to linking them together. The third pitfall is also strategic. It centers the wrong thing. While beliefs do shape how we go about our day to day life in the workplace, we actually judge people by their actions and their behaviors. If someone comes up to you and yells at you for turning a project in late, does it really matter why they did it or more that they did it? Does any reasoning make it okay that they yelled? Probably not.

So centering beliefs means we're not centering something else. The 4th pitfall is philosophical, that focusing on beliefs is actually counterproductive to the concepts of DEI. DEI is about ensuring people can show up as who they are, be given the tools they need to succeed in their work, and be given a fair shot at opportunity. And people who show up as who they are might include people who are resistant to change and people who are resistant to DEI. We need to bring people to the table. We need to include people who are not true believers in the process and not try to enforce ideological purity. I wanna pause for a quick note. While we think that focusing on beliefs is a mistake when working on DEI, it does not mean that we shouldn't take people's beliefs into consideration when we're designing strategies or action plans.

Knowing what people believe can help us determine where to start with our work. Do we need to reground ourselves in some foundational culture principles, or can we work more on operationalizing DEI? And it can help us determine pacing and scope. How quickly can we implement new initiatives? How ready is our group for change? Can we work on recruitment efforts now or should we really focus on current employee engagement for a bit? Focusing on beliefs is natural, but for DEI work, it's often a misstep. People have the right to believe what they believe. I might vehemently disagree with what someone believes, and I am more than happy to tell someone how much I disagree with them. But I also firmly respect their right to hold those beliefs. Part of DEI is that I, that inclusion, and I'm firmly committed to creating spaces for voices that are different from my own, including those who hold opposing beliefs. So if we don't focus on beliefs, what do we focus on? And we recommend focusing on behaviors.

We focus on behaviors. We focus on creating clear expectations for technical and interpersonal behaviors to guide people towards our larger organizational goals. This might seem like we're trying to pull a fast one, but I promise we're not. As I just said a minute ago, everyone has a right to believe what they want to believe. That is 100% true. If someone wants to act on their beliefs outside the workplace, I might disagree with those actions. But as long as what they're doing is legal, I do respect their right to behave in that way. But that's not true in the workplace.

No one has the right to behave however they'd like in the workplace. They must behave according to the expectations set out for them. Focusing on behaviors is valuable for the exact reason that focusing on beliefs is not. And as we walk through this, we'll use a real world example, and that's the use of pronouns. Let's take the first pitfall. Focusing on beliefs is not a good use of time. So focusing on behaviors is a good use of time because it's right to the point. Here's how we're going to act in the workplace.

We should always be sure to share the reasoning behind the expectations we're setting, but the primary point is setting a clear expectation. So in our example with pronouns, it's stating, in an effort to create an inclusive workplace, we expect all employees to use each person's stated pronouns. Right to the point, very clear. No one gets a choice. You have to say the pronouns that someone identifies themselves with. Now the second pitfall, that focusing on beliefs allows those resistant to DEI to dictate the environment. Focusing on behaviors establishes that DEI is a part of this organization's day to day operations. It's not something separate or distinct, but a critical component of how we achieve success.

In our pronouns example, it's our goal is to set each employee up for success, and calling people by their stated pronouns ensures everyone is treated with respect and dignity and can collaborate with their peers successfully. We're giving a clear reason why we're setting an expectation, but we're getting to the point of what the expectation is. The 3rd pitfall is that focusing on belief centers the wrong thing. Focusing on behaviors allows us to accurately evaluate people, both on their technical work and in their interpersonal interactions. From a practical standpoint, we can't truly know what someone believes. Someone could just tell us that they believe something and that's not true, but we can definitely see how they behave. We can evaluate actions much better than we can evaluate beliefs. So why not focus on that? So with the pronoun example, it's impossible to know how someone feels about pronouns or about what pronouns tend to represent, which is acceptance of or belief in LGBTQ plus topics and issues and concerns.

But we can absolutely evaluate if someone uses people's stated pronouns. If someone refuses to do it, we know that they're not living up to expectations. The 4th and final pitfall was that focusing on beliefs is actually counterproductive to the concept of DEI, and so focusing on behaviors allows us to live out the goals of inclusion by inviting everyone, including people who are resistant to DEI. We are not judging people for their beliefs. We are simply setting expectations. Everyone is still allowed to believe whatever they believe, but in this environment together, in the workplace, in the community we've built, we are setting expectations for behaviors, and we're living out the goals of equity. By setting clear expectations, we know how we are being evaluated and what success actually looks like. In our pronouns example, it's saying we understand that people might have differing opinions on the use of pronouns, but in this organization, we expect everyone to use their teammates' stated pronouns.

This is about treating each other with respect and facilitating successful interpersonal interactions, and those interactions are critical to the success of this organization. Pretty straightforward, pretty to the point, and it's really all about centering DEI as a core component of our work. It's all about setting DEI as a core component of our work and a driver of our success. So that's why we focus on behaviors and not beliefs. Focusing on beliefs is not a good use of time, it posits that DEI is separate from our work, it centers the wrong thing, and it's actually counterproductive to the goals of DEI. Focusing on behaviors is the opposite. It's an effective use of time. It establishes DEI as a core component of how we operate.

It centers the impact our actions have on each other, and it allows us to truly embody DEI at our organization. As I said earlier in the episode, everyone has the right to believe what they wanna believe. You can't tell people what they should believe or what beliefs they should hold and think that it's gonna work. But in a workplace, you can set clear and consistent expectations for how people behave, how they do their work, both technical tasks and interpersonal interactions. And the big win is that by setting clear behavioral expectations, you can demonstrate the value of DEI, especially those people that are resistant to it, that are holding on to beliefs that maybe don't align with the values of DEI. You're not telling anyone what to believe or trying to argue your case or working to convince people why what you believe is right. You're just leading effectively and showing everyone the positive impacts of DEI in practice. And that's a wrap.

I'm Jamie Applegate and that's your DEI Minute for today. Thanks for listening. That's a wrap. I'm Jamie Applegate and that's your DEI Minute for today. Thank you for listening. Please be sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts and don't forget to leave us a review. If you ever have questions, please visit our website or send us an email. You can also sign up for our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram.

Links to everything can be found in the episode notes. This episode was edited and produced by Podgrove with podcast art by me, Jamie Upkenny.