Introduction
The 2025 political climate in the USA has stimulated some DEI practitioners and researchers to reimagine that sector.
Can we do it differently and better? A key example is Make Work Fair by Iris Bohnet and Siri Chilazi, published on 28 January this year. Bohnet and Chilazi argue that most efforts at DEI are ineffectual and should be replaced by a fairness-based approach that is measured and accountable.
One major failing they noted was that DEI was an add-on, an extra, rather than embedded as part of core business. In this sense it is seen mostly as compliance cost to be minimized rather than an investment to be optimized.
Another key problem with DEI is that it has political roots that can lead to polarization. It is, in a sense, a legacy which should be honoured rather than perpetuated. This is nowhere more apparent than when contemporary research adds further evidence that the legacy methods and beliefs do not meet contemporary expectations of evidenced based practice.
No matter what our sentiments are our efforts at causing change in behaviour will not be effective if they do not conform to established ways to change behaviour. This observation is resisted because moral sentiments require less effort than informed and learned change methods.
We humans like to save energy – or at least imagine we do. Ineffectual efforts at changing behaviour do not save energy in the long run because the adverse consequences of unfairness and unkindness will play out.
So, let’s re-imagine DEI.
The power of words
Bohnet and Chilazi say that ‘fairness’ is not only not political, it is a universal value that all psychologically healthy people honour. Others, like the Future of Work Institute at Curtin University, say that ‘kindness’ has a similar quality.
Being fair and kind is a deceptively simple idea that lacks the head-oriented sophistication of words like justice, dignity and respect. These words inhabit a more abstract place in our culture and let us climb out of our hearts and into our heads where we can avoid personal confrontation and accountability for being directly involved in changing behaviour.
We are not good at the heart stuff as a rule, and yet it is where the secret to behavioural change lies.
Fairness and kindness are simple ideas anchored in heart responses. But surely DEI is more than this? Is being kind and fair all that is necessary? If neither are practiced intentionally, then, no. No behavioural change is going to be effective without intentional practice. However, it is easier to practice being kind and fair than being inclusive of particular needs, responsive to diversity and sensitivity to equity needs. You need to respond to 2 words only rather than a DEI manual.
This isn’t to say that being fair and kind is easy. It does mean needing to be mindful of biases and stereotypes that you operate with and setting them aside intentionally [and maybe with effort] when the situation requires it – i.e. you are at work.
What you do in your private life is your own affair, but it is a reasonable bet that being fair and being kind are requirements for groups you belong to – even if expressed in robust manners. You can select which group you belong to, and these may be groups which intentionally exclude some groups of people. A chess club may exclude people who play darts but not chess for example.
An obligation to be fair and kind can’t be universal, as much as that being a desirable thing for many. As a rule, you are expected to be fair and kind to members of a group you are affiliated with. It’s often a condition of ongoing membership.
As an employee you are a member of a group of fellow staff members. What distinguishes this group from most others is that you don’t get to choose who you interact with, or how. There’s a fundamental difference between, say, a sporting team’s club where you get to choose who to interact with more closely, and a workforce.
The requirement to be fair and kind applies in any case, but in the latter, it is a universal requirement without exceptions when you are at work. This applies not only to fellow staff members but to your organization’s customers or service users, suppliers and partners or collaborators. In fact, anybody you engage with as a representative of your organization is covered by the obligation to be fair and kind.
If I had tried to say the same using the language of DEI it would have taken many more pages. So yes, words matter. The fewer there are the simpler and more potent the message.
Driving behaviour change through accountability
Organizations which don’t see that fairness and kindness are core business requirements won’t be able to benefit from efforts employed to drive behavioural change. Not only will the implicit requirements to comply with DEI related legislation and policies nor be met, but neither will wider staff wellbeing obligations and expectations of customer/service user engagement standards be met.
I don’t think it is possible to guarantee that all present DEI obligations will be met by a focus on fairness and kindness, but it seems certain that many issues will go away.
Bohnet and Chilazi reminded me of the 20-60-20 rule which broadly asserts that in any given matter 20% of a workforce will adopt desired changes to behaviour readily, 60% will be persuadable, and 20% will resist. This suggests that accountability demands, and follow up, can be targeted. How that might happen is another matter.
The key point is that there’s no point in threatening accountability and then not following up or taking a scatter gun approach. Change resistance isn’t a novel thing. Neither is deceptive non-compliant behaviour.
No organization benefits from ineffectual efforts at accountability. In public sector agencies this is more of an issue because there is no well-defined ‘bottom line’. Its easy to avoid creating transparent accountability measures for a public sector agency and hence making accountability on key behavioural change concerns much more problematic.
The good news is that fairness and kindness have such broad positive potential and are such simple ideas that an effective and transparent accountability process would be simple to create and implement – if there is a will to do so.
Conclusion
Rethinking DEI has the potential to reduce ineffective efforts at changing behaviour undertaken under the standard thinking about DEI and simplify and broaden efforts taken and the positive consequences generated.
I am reminded of one of the principles of Inclusive Design – solve for one, extend to many. As noted above I can’t guarantee that focusing on kindness and fairness will be a panacea. But I do imagine it will expose any residual failings in a climate of greater willingness to effectively address them.
Greater fairness and kindness have the potential to establish a baseline cultural attribute that will, like a rising tide, lift all boats. It will likely make the more egregious failings stand out more starkly and those ill-disposed to be fairer and kinder also be more obvious.
Nothing to do with driving desired behavioural change is easy, and little will change without intentional and accountable effort. Nothing to do with driving desired behavioural change is easy, and little will change without intentional and accountable effort. By trying to create greater kindness and fairness all we are doing is making the task that much simpler..
Footnote: It is worth pausing a moment to contemplate the greatest efforts at behavioural change in our culture – Christianity.
We can have passionate debates about its efficacy (I am not a follower) but the psychology of yet further simplifying the ask to a single theme is compelling. It reduces fairness and kindness to love.
Mark 12:31 says “Love your neighbour as yourself” This is also a version of the more universal golden rule – Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
The point of mentioning Christianity here is to remind the reader that kindness and fairness are not innovative notions other than in the context of DEI’s elaborate conceptual structure. A single principle is confronting because there is nowhere to hide – which is probably why elaboration is so attractive. It is also worth remembering this is an ancient struggle. We are making progress slowly. Hence, we need to pause at times, reflect on how we are going and jettison the intellectual baggage we have accumulated. We need to keep it simple.