The Real Work of DEI: Five Strategies for Meaningful Impact

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Companies with well-developed Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) initiatives…

• are more innovative and quicker to adapt to changing consumer patterns

• are 2x as likely to report beating their competitors to market

• are 75% more likely to report a pro-teamwork leadership culture

• are nearly 3x as likely to report their DEI investments as having a positive impact on their business’s competitive position

• are more likely to retain top talent

• report a 33% increase in managers and new hires from underrepresented groups

Sources: McKinsey & Company Diversity & Inclusion, A Mature Approach to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

As our global community becomes increasingly interconnected, DEI has reached a new level of significance and urgency. A value system based on equity, respect, and a sense of belonging are no longer “nice to haves”—they are table stakes to compete for diverse talent and key for success in any organization. They’re also human nature—inclusion, belonging, community—and DEI helps ensure we can deliver. 

There is no downside to ensuring DEI is an integrated part of your business strategy. 

Read that again. Not only is DEI good for our people and culture, it’s really smart business. It’s also much easier said than done. So how do we get there? For those of us that work in the DEI space every day, we understand that it’s so much more than surface-level activities. We can’t just put a new process or policy in place and expect a substantial outcome. DEI doesn’t work like that because we’re dealing with people—authentic, ever-evolving, deeply unique people.

So how does DEI work—and what is the real work of DEI?

Here’s five strategies I’ve learned to employ to achieve meaningful impact:

1. We must admit that there’s a problem … still.  

To move the needle, we must ALL recognize and acknowledge that we’re still dealing with unfair practices, discrimination, underrepresented minorities, and inequitable starts in life. When our world can fully understand that, then we have a real chance at making a difference.

2. Create a safe place to learn. 

To truly drive change, we need all people to come to the DEI space willing to challenge themselves to grow and be educated through their own and others’ experiences. To do this, we must make the learning journey a safe one and create a path to addressing hard issues by starting with common ground. Minimizing backlash, at least in the beginning, is really important so we can slowly work up to the uncomfortable conversations. Otherwise, we run the risk of losing people before we even get started. And we need the people to do the work within themselves.

At Kohler, we provide a unique upskilling program for all people leaders called Bold Leader Development Series. A critical element of the coursework is aimed at developing inclusive leadership capabilities necessary for creating an environment where all associates are inspired to do their best work.

3. Take the right steps at the right pace.

Before we dive in headfirst, we need to lay the right foundation to build up from. DEI is continuously evolving, so we must evolve our thinking and our behavior to guard against falling back on our promises. Doing too many things too fast or investing in areas that don’t have the ROI we’re looking for … those are recipes for frustration.

A big part of my role is helping Kohler align around a few critical strategies that will allow us to steadily gain ground, rather than trying to do it all at once. One of these strategies is establishing DEI strategy leads within each of our business units that will more deeply focus on opportunities for change or improvement. This enables us to position resources closest to the areas where they can make a meaningful difference.

4. Listen to your people.

A great way to gather meaningful feedback is through business/employee resource groups. Kohler has 11 of them, and each brings a different element to our overarching strategy of inclusion, helping us identify areas of opportunity and making sustained steps toward the culture we envision.

We’ve also recently begun inclusive conversations, led by our executive team, to deepen our dialogue with associates on what inclusion means to them and how we might enhance their sense of belonging at Kohler. And we’re committed to taking action together, to address the feedback and evolve our culture.

5. Focus on the inside first.

The final key to bring this all together is training. We must educate our leaders and employees to honor, respect, and be more inclusive in how we operate—and then hold them accountable. Part of this is something I call the “inside out” strategy. By focusing first on the inside of the organization, we can identify the practices, policies, and cultural norms that need to be adjusted, right fitted, or done away with to create the type of environment where everyone can flourish. When the inside is in a good place, that impact naturally flows outside—to the community partnerships we establish (e.g. our College Possible scholarship for underrepresented students) and the business opportunities we pursue (e.g. our investment in diverse suppliers).

A question I get often is “how do we know what progress or success looks like?” It will look different for each organization, but the point is to set a goal and start measuring it. At Kohler, for example, we have specific diversity-first hiring goals, employee retention and engagement targets, and a focus on DEI in product development, to name a few.

However, the numbers can’t tell the whole story. For me, it’s also about the connections we make and what inclusion “feels like.” Do your employees feel like they belong, like they matter? Do they feel empowered to do their best work on a team that values and respects their authentic selves. When strong relationships are built and trust is earned, that’s when teams make big things happen: they innovate together, they solve problems, they drive business success and integration, and they attract more top talent. To me, these are strong indicators of success. That may not be the ideal answer, but it’s the most real answer I can provide.

We will never be “done” with the work of DEI. It’s not a destination, it’s a way of being, something we must live out each day, even when it’s hard or uncomfortable. Kohler is committed to blazing our path and leading boldly to become more for our associates, consumers, and communities. This is work worth doing—to celebrate and embrace the richness of our differences.

Forging ahead on workplace equality.

Kohler Achieves Top Score of 100 on 2023-2024 Corporate Equality Index.

Bold Leader Development Series participants
Inclusive Leader Training, part of our Bold Leader Development Series
Just one great example of the real work being done at Kohler: our ALL INclusion Summit.
Our DEI team brought together leading voices from across Kohler, including CEO David Kohler, to share actionable insights, tools, and inspiration—and to participate in a “Inclusive by Design: Building Better Cultures” workshop led by Seramount, a leading partner in the DEI space.

Your Kohler story begins here.