I have worked with a few clients over the years who hire me basically to give them a magic bullet that will help their organization become diverse and equitable once and for all time. Very often, they come to me with very specific incidents that they’re recovering from and want very tangible instructions on how to handle similar incidents in the future. They appreciate the theories of diversity and social justice, but what they really crave is methods that will guarantee them success in bringing about justice the next time.
The problem with the need for guaranteed methods is that we lead lives in the context of power. Specifically, power hierarchies. We all live in a web of social and professional relationships in which we have bosses and boards that have more power than we do and we are bosses and board members to someone else. In the context of power hierarchies, building diversity and equity in your organization is a lot like community organizing. It is not at all like taking a pill and thinking that you’ve been cured. Building equity takes months and years and happens one changed mind at a time.
The biggest obstacle I’ve heard from my clients is that they individually, even as a director, have limited powers and they anguish over it. They say, if only they had full power to implement changes, it would be so easy. Well, the trouble with that sentiment is that no one ever has all the power and changes are never easy. Waiting for the day that you have the power to create change only impedes your actually doing what you can today. The illusion of control is more often than not a person’s biggest barrier, not their bosses.
In my years as a community organizer working in environmental justice, LGBT, and community development organizations, I witnessed firsthand organizing as the practice of persistence. Organizing utilizes the power of voice and persistently deploys it to fight for justice at every opportunity with the faith that one day a significant change will come about from all of the years of hard work. Building equity in organizations is a lot like that. You raise your voice for diversity whenever and wherever your position allows – at board meetings, grant proposal reviews, staff meetings, public events, etc. If you expect to change an entire body of people overnight, you will only suffer from burnout. Instead, you can keep raising your voice at every opportunity knowing that one day, you will change one person’s mind, and then a second person, and then a third person until the message becomes a mainstay of your organization and on which your organization operates.
As a social justice trainer and organizational consultant, I give my clients the theories, concepts, and tools to start their efforts. But it is the clients themselves who will need to do most of the hard work day in and day out.
Living Organization 