What is our DEI strategy achieving? Lily Zheng, DEI Strategist, Author and Consultant, Communicators need to be able to answer this question and Lily Zheng, DEI Strategist, Author and Consultant, tells all to Kim Clark on everything we need to consider when guiding leaders through effective DEI work that produces measurable outcomes. Lily is on a mission to help differentiate DEI activities and initiatives from real actionable long-term processes that aim to create accountability for those looking for genuine change. This episode is jam packed with gems from both Lily and Kim as they also take a deep dive into Lily’s book, DEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing it Right, which serves as a guide for refining the way to a new North Star in the world of DEI.
About The Guest:
LILY ZHENG (they/them) is a no-nonsense Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategist, consultant, and speaker who helps organizations and leaders achieve the DEI outcomes they aspire to. A dedicated practitioner and advocate named a Forbes D&I Trailblazer, 2021 DEI Influencer, and LinkedIn Top Voice on Racial Equity, Lily's work has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, New York Times, and NPR. They are the author of Gender Ambiguity in the Workplace (2017), The Ethical Sellout (2019), DEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing it Right (2022) and most recently, Reconstructing DEI: A Practitioner's Workbook (release fall of 2023). Lily holds an MA in Sociology and BA in Psychology from Stanford University. They live with their wife in the San Francisco Bay Area and can frequently be found putting together yet another all-black outfit and enjoying good Chinese food.
Find Lily Here:
About Kim:
Kim Clark (she/her) focuses her work on the communicator and content creator's role in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). She is the co-author of The Conscious Communicator: The fine art of not saying stupid sh*t, an Amazon #1 bestseller and the leading voice for DEI communications and social justice messaging for brands.
She speaks at conferences, writes custom workshops, writes inclusive communications guides, and consults with companies on all things related to diversity, equity, and inclusion communications. Kim is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, a cisgender woman, Native American (Muscogee Nation) and a mom of two kids with disabilities. These marginalized identities and the privileges that come with society seeing her as White motivate her daily for social change.
Communicate Like You Give A Damn Podcast
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Hello, and welcome back to communicate like a give
Kim Clark:a damn. I'm your host, Kim Clark. It's a pleasure to be
Kim Clark:here. It's an extra special guest that we have today. We
Kim Clark:have Lily Jiang, and Lily, we're going to talk about this. We're
Kim Clark:going to talk about their book. We're also going to talk about
Kim Clark:the article that they contributed in our book, The
Kim Clark:conscious communicator, the fine art, I'm not saying stupid shit.
Kim Clark:For some reason, Lilly, I named things with swear words in it. I
Kim Clark:really don't swear this much. But you know what, I'm
Kim Clark:passionate about this subject on mocking I apologize for it.
Kim Clark:Thank you for being with us. And I know you're super passionate
Kim Clark:about this as well. And we'll talk. That's what we're gonna
Kim Clark:get into. But please introduce yourself to folks. Yeah,
Lily Zheng:well, it's a huge pleasure to be here. My name is
Lily Zheng:Lily Zang, I use they them pronouns. I am a DI strategist,
Lily Zheng:consultant, and the author of dei deconstructed your no
Lily Zheng:nonsense guide to doing the work and doing it right. Just a fun
Lily Zheng:fact. For you, Kim, I was actually gunning hard to have a
Lily Zheng:swear word in my title. And it turned out my publishers talked
Lily Zheng:me down from it. You know, sometimes sometimes I wonder,
Lily Zheng:right? Like about the alternate reality where I did, in fact,
Lily Zheng:for this one. But, ya know, I am thrilled to have this
Lily Zheng:conversation with you today, lots to dive into, you know, not
Lily Zheng:just about the content that I contributed to your book, but
Lily Zheng:also about this broader conversation that we were just
Lily Zheng:talking about, before this conversation on dei and
Lily Zheng:communication, and you know, how leaders can navigate the current
Lily Zheng:landscape and communicate effectively without being part
Lily Zheng:of the problem. Yeah, and
Kim Clark:I found you on LinkedIn, I've read several of
Kim Clark:your Harvard Business Review articles. I've seen you do a
Kim Clark:book club for your own book, and do other talks as well. And
Kim Clark:oftentimes, you're kind of urging communicators and
Kim Clark:communications to get their act together. And when the I
Kim Clark:deliberately sought you out, I lost my place in here of where
Kim Clark:we're at, oh, here it is. It's towards the end of the book,
Kim Clark:what you contributed was something that you wrote on
Kim Clark:LinkedIn, as opposed. And it's called diversity, equity and
Kim Clark:inclusion are outcomes. That's a paradigm shift. For many people,
Kim Clark:especially communicators who put out diversity reports that list
Kim Clark:a whole bunch of activities like we're at camp. Yep. Right, like
Kim Clark:red summer camp. So let's share with us what you're trying to
Kim Clark:get across with diversity, equity inclusion outcomes. Yeah.
Lily Zheng:So this is, this is a very strong opinion I have and
Lily Zheng:it comes from, first of all, we need to understand the backdrop
Lily Zheng:of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts happening
Lily Zheng:right now, not just in America, but around the world, in the
Lily Zheng:sense that they are very performative. What that means is
Lily Zheng:we have a whole bunch of efforts that are predicated on action
Lily Zheng:and activity, but not necessarily accountability,
Lily Zheng:impact or outcomes. And so you see, organizations, leaders, and
Lily Zheng:so on, putting forward these initiatives, they might start
Lily Zheng:er, G's, employee resource groups, they might invite
Lily Zheng:speakers in for talks, they might have courageous
Lily Zheng:conversations. And that's all well and good. Sometimes I in
Lily Zheng:fact, recommend companies do these exact things. But many
Lily Zheng:leaders lose track of the fact that these are all
Lily Zheng:interventions, these are all things that we do in the hopes
Lily Zheng:of creating greater diversity, greater equity and greater
Lily Zheng:inclusion. And like all good social scientists, whenever I
Lily Zheng:see something like this, my first question is not do people
Lily Zheng:care? The answer is always yes. But does it work? Because we
Lily Zheng:can't just be you know, throwing things willy nilly at problems
Lily Zheng:and expecting that just because we're good people, we've solved
Lily Zheng:the problem. But it turns out when you dig into it, a lot of
Lily Zheng:these initiatives simply don't work. They don't increase
Lily Zheng:diversity. They don't make people feel a greater sense of
Lily Zheng:inclusion or belonging. They don't address inequity,
Lily Zheng:discrimination, injustice, all of these things. And so we have
Lily Zheng:an environment where there's a lot of talk. In fact, there's
Lily Zheng:sometimes a lot of action, but it's not effective action. And
Lily Zheng:in the face of all this employees, staff members, junior
Lily Zheng:employees, they're starting to wise up, they might not see the
Lily Zheng:hard data, but they feel like you know what, we've had this
Lily Zheng:conversation for the 10th time this year, and I'm still getting
Lily Zheng:discriminated against. We've had trainings for the fifth time
Lily Zheng:this year, and my managers still can't get anything right. Is
Lily Zheng:this dei work? Doing anything isn't working and in The context
Lily Zheng:of all this we have communicators, trumpeting and
Lily Zheng:celebrating all of these dei things happening and saying,
Lily Zheng:we've made so much progress, we're not going to quantify our
Lily Zheng:progress. We've done these 10 things. And last year, we only
Lily Zheng:did eight things. So that's an improvement of two more things
Lily Zheng:that we did this year, none of which actually work. But they
Lily Zheng:don't say that part. Right. And, and this, this is a, this is an
Lily Zheng:existential threat to the effectiveness of dei work, if we
Lily Zheng:just keep spinning our gears, and not achieving anything.
Lily Zheng:We're steadily draining the trust of the communities we're
Lily Zheng:working on behalf of, and contributing to this cynicism
Lily Zheng:that de I work is just hot air. Right. And so this is why I
Lily Zheng:contributed that post that section on dei as outcomes, we
Lily Zheng:need to center all of our work on this very simple question.
Lily Zheng:What is it achieving? What's changed? What has the initiative
Lily Zheng:that we proposed? Done? What is different? And if the answer is
Lily Zheng:we don't know, we can't tell or nothing, then it's on us to do
Lily Zheng:better, and to do different and to hold ourselves accountable
Lily Zheng:for designing initiatives that work, rather than simply
Lily Zheng:throwing the kitchen sink at a wall, not even seeing what
Lily Zheng:sticks and patting ourselves on the back for a job well done.
Lily Zheng:Right? Like that's not acceptable in this current
Lily Zheng:climate, we need to be doing effective dei work. And
Kim Clark:communications folks are contributing to this vague,
Kim Clark:ambiguous, nonspecific kind of goals. And some of that is
Kim Clark:because leaders aren't necessarily I have compassion
Kim Clark:for leaders to a certain extent, because they didn't get to where
Kim Clark:they are, because they're awesome at di, you know, and so,
Kim Clark:and then everyone looks at them, especially during at this, you
Kim Clark:know, they're getting the summer of 2020, saying do something, do
Kim Clark:something and they're in over their heads are used to having
Kim Clark:all the answers. So you don't have answers to this. But I
Kim Clark:would you work with a lot of CEOs and a lot of C suites, a
Kim Clark:lot of executives. And so what are some of the more problematic
Kim Clark:areas that you've seen with your clients and how they communicate
Kim Clark:DEI efforts, especially from an executive level?
Lily Zheng:Well, the challenge is that most people aren't able
Lily Zheng:to quantify their progress, that they don't have good information
Lily Zheng:on what they achieved. And unfortunately, they also don't
Lily Zheng:have the perspective to realize that they don't have that
Lily Zheng:information. And so the biggest assumption I see leaders making
Lily Zheng:is that everything they try is inherently successful, simply
Lily Zheng:because they've tried it. And that that undergirds every sort
Lily Zheng:of communications faux PA, right? It's not that leaders
Lily Zheng:know purposefully that what they're doing doesn't work. And
Lily Zheng:they're lying. That's not the case. It's that leaders have no
Lily Zheng:idea that what they're doing works, and more importantly,
Lily Zheng:don't care. They don't realize it, they say, Well, of course,
Lily Zheng:starting an erg would help I have no way of knowing what's
Lily Zheng:changed or what's different. But I'm sure it's doing something.
Lily Zheng:I'm sure bringing in a speaker helps in some way. I have no
Lily Zheng:idea how but I'm sure it's working. And that naive
Lily Zheng:optimism, I'm sure it's working. I'm sure it's done something
Lily Zheng:actually gets leaders in a lot of trouble. Because it turns
Lily Zheng:out, the large majority of these naive interventions, these
Lily Zheng:poorly designed DEI efforts don't work. In fact, sometimes
Lily Zheng:they backfire and even cause more harm than good. And so
Lily Zheng:that's a huge misstep, right? Leaders don't understand that
Lily Zheng:the bar is actually pretty high. It's not that you can do any dei
Lily Zheng:thing. And at worst, it'll be ineffective, no, at worst that
Lily Zheng:actually harms marginalized communities and harms women,
Lily Zheng:people of color disabled folks clear and transpose folks,
Lily Zheng:right, like, so. That's mistake number one. I think mistake
Lily Zheng:number two is that leaders put a lot of their personal stock and
Lily Zheng:pride in these sorts of initiatives. They say, Well, if
Lily Zheng:I funded this initiative, then not not only does it have to
Lily Zheng:work, by definition, because I'm a good person, and of course it
Lily Zheng:works. But anyone who criticizes me, you must have it out for me.
Lily Zheng:And so there's this inability to take feedback or criticism, even
Lily Zheng:if it's like, you know, not malicious at all, even if it's,
Lily Zheng:Hey, you know, this initiative that you started, we collected
Lily Zheng:data on it. And it turns out, it's not actually moving the
Lily Zheng:needle. A lot of leaders take that personal, instead of
Lily Zheng:saying, Wow, I had no idea let's retool this initiative to make
Lily Zheng:sure it works. They say, Are you challenging my commitment to
Lily Zheng:Dei? Are you saying I'm a bad person? Are you saying I don't
Lily Zheng:care. And so they double down on their ineffective initiative,
Lily Zheng:they double down on their communication, and it turns into
Lily Zheng:a sort of PR Our exercise of you know, you versus the leader who
Lily Zheng:now has a personal stake in in this, this initiative that isn't
Lily Zheng:working, being seen as positive. And to bring it all back to
Lily Zheng:communicators, right? Because that's where we started this
Lily Zheng:conversation. I think, oftentimes communicators are
Lily Zheng:caught in the crossfire. They also don't have the data, which
Lily Zheng:we can talk about that being a problem. But as a result
Lily Zheng:communicators who are doing their jobs, which are, you know,
Lily Zheng:there's a message that they need to get out and they do a great
Lily Zheng:job communicating it can inadvertently become essentially
Lily Zheng:Dei, money launderers, right, taking the complete lack of
Lily Zheng:progress and laundering it into a nice, shiny set of
Lily Zheng:communications, which on its own, it's a brilliant, you know,
Lily Zheng:work of comms work, but in the broad scheme of things,
Lily Zheng:contributes to the problem and allows leaders to avoid
Lily Zheng:accountability. And in some ways, that even gaslights, the
Lily Zheng:marginalized communities that are continually not seeing
Lily Zheng:progress, because how might it feel like to be a junior
Lily Zheng:employee, a woman, person of color, a disabled person, a
Lily Zheng:queer trans person, continually getting discriminated against
Lily Zheng:week after week, month after month, see nothing change, only
Lily Zheng:to see your company put out this shiny report saying we've made a
Lily Zheng:strong stance against discrimination it discrimination
Lily Zheng:doesn't live here, diversity is woven into the fabric of our
Lily Zheng:DNA, and we add blink company are proud to be champions of dei
Lily Zheng:and will continue pushing our industry for like, oh my gosh,
Lily Zheng:like that. That just makes me feel awful. I mean, it makes me
Lily Zheng:feel like shit, right? Because I'm here having these awful
Lily Zheng:experiences. And meanwhile, the only thing my company says about
Lily Zheng:it, is this laundered PR sounding communications. Yeah,
Lily Zheng:right. And, and communicators don't want to be part of that
Lily Zheng:problem. But I don't think enough communicators realize
Lily Zheng:that, that's on them to speak up and to say, look, I'm not going
Lily Zheng:to write nice copy for you, unless you are absolutely
Lily Zheng:certain that the things you're telling me to make good, you
Lily Zheng:know, to make shiny, are actually real, and you have hard
Lily Zheng:data to back it up. Comms people need to be accountability
Lily Zheng:workers, right? Like they they need to be people who are able
Lily Zheng:to hold the leaders who are giving them things to buff and
Lily Zheng:make shiny. Yeah, there, they need to be able to hold those
Lily Zheng:leaders accountable.
Kim Clark:I agree with everything you said. And thank
Kim Clark:you for really, you know, just exposing the situation and, and
Kim Clark:putting the accountability in there. One of the things that I
Kim Clark:talk about is visibility drives accountability. And that's could
Kim Clark:be a secret, you know, like a super strength of communicators
Kim Clark:saying, I'm not going to put out this diversity report, because
Kim Clark:it's these activities, and there's not these outcomes. And
Kim Clark:the kind of language that we're using is not how we talk to
Kim Clark:another human being. It's not even conversational, but it's
Kim Clark:it's really, really missing depth, which is why my co author
Kim Clark:and I, you know, talk about the framework of depth, like we have
Kim Clark:to get below the surface. It's like I can understand if that
Kim Clark:was like step one years ago, but post George Floyd, unacceptable,
Kim Clark:not okay. And it also gives leaders this excuse to say CDI
Kim Clark:doesn't work. Yeah. And that's very frustrating. You know,
Kim Clark:because communicators. My thing with communicators is, hey, we
Kim Clark:don't ask communicators, and many of them look like me.
Kim Clark:Statistically, they look like me. So they don't have the lived
Kim Clark:experience. They don't have professional experience. They
Kim Clark:don't have the experience in general to really truly
Kim Clark:understand what diversity equity inclusion work actually is. So
Kim Clark:it's like a goodwill thing. That's how, you know some of us
Kim Clark:were introduced to it as this goodwill thing like for pride.
Kim Clark:We're recording this in May. It's, you know, how do you call
Kim Clark:this heritage month? What term do you use? Personally,
Lily Zheng:I call it Asian heritage month, but there are
Lily Zheng:lots of acceptable titles. Right now the the US official title is
Lily Zheng:Asian American. Oh, no. Okay, now I'm going to get myself in
Lily Zheng:trouble Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander
Lily Zheng:Heritage Month, I believe right now.
Kim Clark:And with pride coming up, we have these opportunities
Kim Clark:as communicators that are kind of these external factors to
Kim Clark:recognize when there's these three C's that I use, celebrate
Kim Clark:crisis and consistency. A lot of communicators just stick at the
Kim Clark:at the celebrate, right? They just stick with the rainbow
Kim Clark:washing and let's change our logo those kinds of things. But
Kim Clark:If we don't go any, any, any deeper than that we're missing
Kim Clark:the historical and social context of why we have these
Kim Clark:heritage months in the first place. What do you think about
Kim Clark:all that? What should people be doing differently?
Lily Zheng:I absolutely agree. And I think it's because a lot
Lily Zheng:of communicators that I interact with are really scared of
Lily Zheng:negativity in any form. They're scared to talk about things that
Lily Zheng:are bad or harm that's happened, whether it's in the past or the
Lily Zheng:present. There's this very antiquated notion that the only
Lily Zheng:acceptable way to talk about dei issues or racism or sexism is as
Lily Zheng:a celebration that we've solved all the problems. And that would
Lily Zheng:be all well and good if we had actually solved all the problems
Lily Zheng:that day. If we solve racism, like hell, yeah. And you know,
Lily Zheng:talk about how we solve that. The problem is, we haven't in
Lily Zheng:fact, a lot of challenges are getting worse. And so again, I
Lily Zheng:go back to this idea that communicators fear or discomfort
Lily Zheng:with talking about the hard stuff results in laundering
Lily Zheng:essentially, of real time harm into this, this very sanitized
Lily Zheng:story of, you know, progress and triumph and celebration and
Lily Zheng:stuff that looks great on social media, until your employees call
Lily Zheng:you out on Twitter for the umpteenth time. And then there's
Lily Zheng:another social media controversy and communicators are stuck
Lily Zheng:scratching their heads like, what went wrong, we did all the
Lily Zheng:right things we talked to only about the positive things.
Lily Zheng:Here's the truth. People don't just want to hear about that.
Lily Zheng:Now. In fact, more and more people are waking up to the fact
Lily Zheng:that things are not all sunshine, and rainbows and dei
Lily Zheng:land, like racism is not over sexism is not over. In fact,
Lily Zheng:there are increasing attacks on people of color and women's
Lily Zheng:reproductive rights. And LGBTQ plus folks, trans folks, Muslim
Lily Zheng:folks, like it's a rough time. And people who are who are very
Lily Zheng:aware of that reality are looking for organizations that
Lily Zheng:get it and realize that we're living in troubled times right
Lily Zheng:now. They're looking for communicators, who can, you
Lily Zheng:know, nonetheless, represent a brand but still be real
Lily Zheng:represent reality also. And that, I think, is a skill set
Lily Zheng:that a lot of communicators just haven't built? They've they've
Lily Zheng:been trained in this era where, you know, talking about good
Lily Zheng:news is is your job and making things that are rough look good,
Lily Zheng:is also your job. But now, now, there's a huge hunger for
Lily Zheng:realness, and honesty, and embedding that especially when
Lily Zheng:it comes to social issues, inequality, racism, sexism,
Lily Zheng:transphobia, you name it, is I think the the frontier of
Lily Zheng:effective dei Communications.
Kim Clark:Thank you. Thank you, Lily, and thank you for this
Kim Clark:book. This book, I know has gone long and far, and people are
Kim Clark:loving it and using it and putting it to practice. Talk
Kim Clark:about why did you write the book? What problem are you
Kim Clark:solving with the book? And then you have in here the four levels
Kim Clark:of achieving di, what are those four levels?
Lily Zheng:Yeah. So di deconstructed, I talk about as
Lily Zheng:my tough love letter to the DEI industry, because the same
Lily Zheng:problems I'm pointing out here and talking specifically about
Lily Zheng:as they relate to communicators, actually relate to dei
Lily Zheng:practitioners as well. We've had the same long problem in our
Lily Zheng:industry, where we have practitioners who will go into
Lily Zheng:corporations and you know, will tell their story of being a
Lily Zheng:marginalized person and not being treated well in the
Lily Zheng:workplace. And sort of say, now, you know, this is why empathy is
Lily Zheng:so important, we all need to see each other, you know, let's all
Lily Zheng:agree that like racism is bad. And then you know, people will
Lily Zheng:applaud, they'll collect their paycheck, they'll leave. And the
Lily Zheng:challenge with these sorts of initiatives, again, isn't that
Lily Zheng:they're coming from a bad place, or that they're cynical, but
Lily Zheng:that they just don't work on their own. We have a lot of
Lily Zheng:research showing that these sorts of one off initiatives,
Lily Zheng:not only don't work, but sometimes can actually cause
Lily Zheng:more harm than good. But we as dei practitioners, and also, you
Lily Zheng:know, the leaders who sometimes work with us and bring us in,
Lily Zheng:don't have a good understanding of what outcomes it is we're
Lily Zheng:trying to create. I try to work with all my clients to identify,
Lily Zheng:you know, this is our point A, this is where we're at, this is
Lily Zheng:what we're doing well, this is what we're not. This is our
Lily Zheng:point B. This is who we want to be this is what we want to
Lily Zheng:achieve. This is how we know we've gotten there, and then to
Lily Zheng:dedicate all of our effort from getting to point A to B. Right,
Lily Zheng:that's that's effective dei work making your organization better,
Lily Zheng:more diverse, more equitable, more inclusive, measurably, so
Lily Zheng:trying to measurably Improve the experiences of not only
Lily Zheng:marginalized groups, but everyone. Now, this book is
Lily Zheng:essentially the How To Guide on one, how the industry sort of
Lily Zheng:lost its way and some of the challenges that we're facing,
Lily Zheng:and then to how we can really find our way how we can we can
Lily Zheng:find a new north star to guide our effective DEI efforts. It's
Lily Zheng:sort of the crystallization of everything I've learned from the
Lily Zheng:last seven or eight years doing dei work, and trying to hold not
Lily Zheng:only my clients, but also other practitioners accountable to
Lily Zheng:achieving real impact achieving real outcomes. And not just
Lily Zheng:coming in collecting a check. And not knowing whether we've
Lily Zheng:actually succeeded, it's actually a very parallel problem
Lily Zheng:to the one that communicators face. Right? Because I think
Lily Zheng:every communicator, wants to know that because of their
Lily Zheng:efforts, they have helped their client or their company talk
Lily Zheng:about something or an issue or a success, more positive, right?
Lily Zheng:Like they want to feel like they're doing good and effective
Lily Zheng:communicators who are able to be honest and center outcomes, do
Lily Zheng:you in fact, do a lot of good. It just takes a different skill
Lily Zheng:set than simply applying your communications degree without
Lily Zheng:any criticality and just laundering whatever comes in
Lily Zheng:front of you, right, dei is very similar. We can't just go in and
Lily Zheng:use a one size fits all approach and throw unconscious bias
Lily Zheng:training at everyone, or tell the same sob story to everyone.
Lily Zheng:And just assume, because we know in our heart of hearts, that
Lily Zheng:somehow we're making some difference that we can't
Lily Zheng:measure, right, we need to be much more accountable than that.
Lily Zheng:And the book is the roadmap for how personally I think more
Lily Zheng:practitioners can be acting and working to achieve that.
Kim Clark:Amazing, and there's, there's the four levels that you
Kim Clark:speak to here, right?
Lily Zheng:Oops, I forgot your question entirely. In just four
Lily Zheng:levels, if
Kim Clark:you don't mind tying in, like what the communicators?
Kim Clark:What's their role in these four letter levels?
Lily Zheng:Yeah, so the four levels of the EI pertain to the
Lily Zheng:impact of the initiatives that you do. On the very, most basic
Lily Zheng:level, these are initiatives that anyone can start, they
Lily Zheng:require very little trust built up to do them. And so there are
Lily Zheng:great starting points for Dei, there are things like putting
Lily Zheng:out a dei statement, making a new dei mission starting a dei
Lily Zheng:Council. The thing about this very basic level of initiatives
Lily Zheng:is partially because they're so easy to start, they require very
Lily Zheng:little sort of resources banged up, they don't necessarily
Lily Zheng:achieve much on their own, they lay the groundwork in the
Lily Zheng:infrastructure for more impactful things down the line.
Lily Zheng:Right. If you don't have a dei statement or a dei mission,
Lily Zheng:it'll be harder to legitimize what happens in the future. So
Lily Zheng:of course, that mission, or that statement, is very powerful. But
Lily Zheng:if you stop there, what have you achieved by making a dei
Lily Zheng:statement? Zilch, nothing, nothing at all, right? That's
Lily Zheng:like putting a couple of bricks down and calling it a house,
Lily Zheng:that's not a house, you're you're laying part of a
Lily Zheng:foundation. If you leave out the bricks, you're not going to have
Lily Zheng:a good house. But don't mistake it for a house. The further up
Lily Zheng:you go in the level. So we're doing things like investing in
Lily Zheng:dei professionals resourcing dei work creating a DI strategy,
Lily Zheng:collecting data understanding what's what your workforce is
Lily Zheng:experiencing, looking into your policies and practices. And then
Lily Zheng:further up from that, drawing on demographic data, split by by
Lily Zheng:level and tenure, and all of that to make effective decisions
Lily Zheng:in your organization. holding yourself accountable to external
Lily Zheng:community members, boards of directors, labor unions, using
Lily Zheng:dei related information to make decisions. These are all far
Lily Zheng:harder initiatives that build on the foundation you've created,
Lily Zheng:but take a lot more gas in the tank, they take more resources
Lily Zheng:they take, having built up a foundation of trust to do right.
Lily Zheng:So the further up you go into levels I that's you know, that's
Lily Zheng:a quick cliff notes version of them. We can talk about that for
Lily Zheng:a while. But the further up you go, the harder the initiatives
Lily Zheng:get, but the more payoff, they they they get you. Now for
Lily Zheng:communicators. Why is this good to know? Because I see way too
Lily Zheng:many communicators pointing out the level one or level zero
Lily Zheng:activities and saying hazhar We've done it, our organization
Lily Zheng:is a huge success. You know, we started an erg group, we started
Lily Zheng:an employee resource group, we created a dei statement our
Lily Zheng:leader posted on Twitter. And again, that's the same as
Lily Zheng:pointing at a stack of bricks and going look at this beauty
Lily Zheng:The full three storey Victorian house, isn't that beautiful and
Lily Zheng:incredible, right. And at some point, at some point, someone
Lily Zheng:will point out that the emperor is wearing no clothes, some
Lily Zheng:people will point out that you're kind of talking out of
Lily Zheng:your ass. Because you haven't achieved anything, you're
Lily Zheng:pointing at these very initial foundational efforts and
Lily Zheng:mistaking that for real success, right? So what communicators
Lily Zheng:need to do is to get curious, like, you're, you're not just
Lily Zheng:passive communicators, you should really be more like
Lily Zheng:investigative journalists. Yeah, you should, you should look at a
Lily Zheng:situation and say, I'm not going to just take the sentence you
Lily Zheng:gave me and make it look good. Like, tell me more what's going
Lily Zheng:on, like, help me tell the story that is both accurate and
Lily Zheng:compelling. Right. And I don't have the information, I need to
Lily Zheng:tell that story. So give me information. I want information
Lily Zheng:on how this initiative started, who would impact what problem
Lily Zheng:it's solving for, what it's achieved, and how you know, it's
Lily Zheng:achieving that, once I have all that information, I can work my
Lily Zheng:magic as a storyteller, to help you get this really compelling
Lily Zheng:narrative of what's happened and why. But I'm not going to tell a
Lily Zheng:story with incomplete data. Or worse, I'm not going to
Lily Zheng:fabricate data to tell my story. And if you the client don't have
Lily Zheng:that data, or you're unwilling to provide that data, then it's
Lily Zheng:only natural that I as a principled communicator, am not
Lily Zheng:going to do your dirty work for you. And I'm going to sit here
Lily Zheng:and wait on you until you can give me what I need to do a good
Lily Zheng:job. Right? We need more principled stances like that
Lily Zheng:from communicators. Mm
Kim Clark:hmm. Oh, my gosh, thank you. Thank you for that.
Kim Clark:And I couldn't agree more. You know, it's something I've been
Kim Clark:doing a lot of coaching on with my communication clients is,
Kim Clark:well, my leader is very hesitant. They're telling me
Kim Clark:they don't want to do too much too soon. And I'm like, so did
Kim Clark:you take that as a decision as like, you know, you put your
Kim Clark:tail between your legs and you walk out of the room? She's
Kim Clark:like, Well, yeah, you know, and I've heard this in a very
Kim Clark:variety of instances across clients. And I said, Well, why
Kim Clark:is that the end of the conversation when it should be
Kim Clark:the beginning? Right, so what is too much? What is too soon?
Kim Clark:Let's play this out. Like let's let's engage in that
Kim Clark:conversation, like you're mentioning the investigative
Kim Clark:reporter like that, the sources and the questions, and, and the
Kim Clark:quality of the questions and being able to get to a place
Kim Clark:where you we can learn more, and to be able to your point be
Kim Clark:principles and saying, I can't go out there and say that look
Kim Clark:at all the rivers that we cleaned up and all of the, you
Kim Clark:know, in all the communities that we wrote checks to and all
Kim Clark:this without any kind of shift or change, you know, that we do
Kim Clark:have to push back. And we have to have that kind of
Kim Clark:conversation. Right? Thank you for saying that. And I And
Kim Clark:another thing that that is something I want folks to take
Kim Clark:away is that Lily is coming from as a DI strategist, I'm coming
Kim Clark:from a DI communications strategist, you know, we're both
Kim Clark:about implementation, we're both about outcomes. In our
Kim Clark:organizations, we need to have this kind of partnership and
Kim Clark:collaboration between the office of the DEI as well as
Kim Clark:communications, there has to be this collaboration in this in
Kim Clark:this partnership, this, this transparency, and have these
Kim Clark:hard conversations and then come up with a plan together to go
Kim Clark:and work with the rest of the stakeholders to bring them along
Kim Clark:in the work so that we have, we're achieving our dei goals.
Kim Clark:And the communications part of it is is part of that momentum.
Kim Clark:Right?
Lily Zheng:Something I I was thinking about as you were
Lily Zheng:sharing that is that I also do some di comms myself, mostly
Lily Zheng:from the viewpoint of someone who does a lot of di survey
Lily Zheng:assessment, I end up assessing companies and writing reports on
Lily Zheng:what I find, and sending that to usually the senior leadership
Lily Zheng:team, the executive team, whatever. And I always, always,
Lily Zheng:always get pushback on the language I use on my reports,
Lily Zheng:because in my reports, I'll find very, very solid things like, I
Lily Zheng:don't know men in this workplace have 90%, belonging, and women
Lily Zheng:will only have 30%, belonging. And so there's a 60% belonging
Lily Zheng:gap that's largely driven by an old boys club, for example,
Lily Zheng:which I've assessed qualitative data to identify. And leaders
Lily Zheng:will say, Keynote call it that, like, can you not use that kind
Lily Zheng:of language? Because I always push my clients, I send these
Lily Zheng:reports to the entire company. Like it's not just to the eyes
Lily Zheng:of the senior team. I'm like, No, this is what I'm finding.
Lily Zheng:This is my investigation. This is what I found. And this is
Lily Zheng:what to call it. And leaders will always say I feel like
Lily Zheng:that's just a little forceful that's that's a little
Lily Zheng:controversial language. What else would you call it? Can you
Lily Zheng:please use nicer language or something different? And I push
Lily Zheng:back I say, then what is it? Like? Help me find better
Lily Zheng:wording to describe a systemic pattern where men are excluding
Lily Zheng:women because they are supporting other men. And they
Lily Zheng:have a fraternal community of boys. That is predicated on
Lily Zheng:pushing women out helped me find another word for that. That
Lily Zheng:isn't old boys club, right? Like, frat, you want me to call
Lily Zheng:it a frat party? Like, would you rather use that language? And
Lily Zheng:they're like, Well, no, but like, and it turns out their
Lily Zheng:quibble is with the facts, not with the communication, right?
Lily Zheng:Like they're, they're so scared at the facts getting out there,
Lily Zheng:that they're asking me as the communicator to try to muddle or
Lily Zheng:change the facts, it was never a comms issue. Right? It's not
Lily Zheng:about whether I call it a frat house, or an old boys club, or
Lily Zheng:exclusionary behavior from them. They don't even care about me
Lily Zheng:playing with the words they want me to not say. Like, they just
Lily Zheng:don't want me to talk about the facts. Right? Yeah. And this is
Lily Zheng:where I think principles communicators need to really be
Lily Zheng:thinking about ethics, because you're not just wordsmith, like
Lily Zheng:you are folks who are trying to understand the truth and portray
Lily Zheng:it, and in a compelling, powerful way. And if you're
Lily Zheng:being asked to portray it powerfully, but to hide the
Lily Zheng:truth, then it's on you to say I'm not going to do that, again,
Lily Zheng:I go back to this investigative journalist metaphor, right? If
Lily Zheng:you're not willing to do that, then you will be used to launder
Lily Zheng:hard truths into nice sounding things. And then I hate to say
Lily Zheng:it, you will be complicit in workplaces continuing to cause
Lily Zheng:more harm. I know, communicators don't want that. Right. It just
Lily Zheng:requires that you stand up and push back against these sorts of
Lily Zheng:requests. It's, it's hard, right? And it's certainly not
Lily Zheng:what a lot of people were taught to do as communicators.
Kim Clark:Really, that was exactly what communicators
Kim Clark:needed to hear. Tough Love. Right? And I want to respect
Kim Clark:your schedule and your time. So I'm gonna wrap up with this one
Kim Clark:last question. What does communicating like you give a
Kim Clark:damn. What does that look like? What does that sound like? What
Kim Clark:do you want to see different? What do you want to see happen?
Kim Clark:I
Lily Zheng:want to see communicators recognize that
Lily Zheng:everything they communicate, by by definition will have an
Lily Zheng:agenda. It has an impact, right? There's no values, neutral
Lily Zheng:communication, everything you do, and the way you say it will
Lily Zheng:always affect the outcome. You can communicate to shed light on
Lily Zheng:injustice, you can communicate to cover up injustice, you can
Lily Zheng:communicate to change systems, you can communicate to uphold
Lily Zheng:systems, right? Everything you do as a communicator, embeds
Lily Zheng:your intent, or if not your intent, someone else's intent.
Lily Zheng:So don't be scared to have an opinion. Right? Don't be scared
Lily Zheng:to try to uncover the truth and find out what's actually
Lily Zheng:happening. Because unless you absolutely make sure that your
Lily Zheng:communications reflects the truth, the actual truth, your
Lily Zheng:communications will always be used as a tool to advance
Lily Zheng:someone else's agenda, if not your own. And you want to be
Lily Zheng:sure that the agenda you are advancing is one that you are
Lily Zheng:comfortable with. And that feels ethical to you. To me, that
Lily Zheng:means making sure you are always accountable to the truth. First
Lily Zheng:and foremost, not just what your boss tells you to do.
Kim Clark:Yes, yes. Okay, rewind, hit the little 15.
Kim Clark:Second thing, listen to all that again, listen to that, until it
Kim Clark:really sinks in, take a deep breath. And just know that
Kim Clark:you're not alone in this work. There's a lot of communicators
Kim Clark:going through this work. There's a lot of di practitioners that
Kim Clark:need you to do this work, Lily, your book is incredible. And I
Kim Clark:encourage all communicators to pick it up because you need to
Kim Clark:know what the work actually is what actually is dei so you can
Kim Clark:write about it more accurately. So you get it. So you know what
Kim Clark:you're talking about, and you can understand you right, then
Kim Clark:you read our book, and learn more about like, Oh, that's
Kim Clark:pretty performative. That's what Kim and Lily were talking about
Kim Clark:that podcast. Lily, it was such a pleasure to hang out with you
Kim Clark:and have this conversation and I hope it's first of many to come
Kim Clark:any last parting thoughts and how can people stay in contact
Kim Clark:with you?
Lily Zheng:Yeah, I'll just say The pleasure was all mine. I
Lily Zheng:think this is a really critical conversation. I want to add to
Lily Zheng:that. It's not just that communicators can learn more
Lily Zheng:about dei so that they can write about it. It's that writing
Lily Zheng:effectively about this work is Dei, like you are dei
Lily Zheng:practitioners, you are dei communicators if you're able to
Lily Zheng:understand this content, and to write about the truth, what's
Lily Zheng:happening or what isn't happening, right. So, so I
Lily Zheng:encourage you not to see yourself as as fundamentally
Lily Zheng:separate from dei work like this is dei work, you are doing it
Lily Zheng:every single time you hold yourself and your employers
Lily Zheng:accountable. And it's, it's, it's hard, but it's not as hard
Lily Zheng:as you might think. Right? It just requires a different way of
Lily Zheng:going about this work and holding yourself accountable. So
Lily Zheng:myself in my work, I think the two places you can learn most
Lily Zheng:about me are LinkedIn, you can find me at Lilly Zang, on
Lily Zheng:LinkedIn, or my website, www dot Lilly zang.co. You can learn
Lily Zheng:more about me and my work and my books. Yeah, and and I just want
Lily Zheng:to thank you, Kim, for inviting me to have this conversation
Lily Zheng:with you. And I want to thank all the listeners who have tuned
Lily Zheng:in up until this point. I truly believe that all of us who are
Lily Zheng:having this conversation and listening can become more
Lily Zheng:effective communicators and can make sure that we hold ourselves
Lily Zheng:and our clients accountable to the future we deserve right
Lily Zheng:instead of upholding and a problematic past or present,
Lily Zheng:right like we can do so much better.
Kim Clark:That serve someone else. Thank you. Thank you so
Kim Clark:much, Lily. It was a pleasure. It was an honor.
Lily Zheng:Thank you for having me.