Eight Steps to DEI Culture Change: Proven Methods for Public Media
Think about the last big change your organization made. Did they hire a new CEO? Implement Salesforce? Acquire another organization?
Now think about how it went. How did staff feel about the change? Did the change stick?
Chances are, implementing the change wasn’t as smooth as leaders had hoped it would be. Being a leader means you must be equipped to handle the unexpected. The capacity to manage change effectively is one of the most underrated leadership skills, yet so few people are actually trained on how to do it.
Change doesn’t just take time, energy and resources, it takes skills and expertise. Effective organization change requires your organization to have skilled change management practitioners leading the way. Unfortunately, few organizations understand the value of change management — intentional methods to manage how people react and respond to change.
Culture change requires change management -- intentional methods to manage how people react and respond to change.
Changing your organization’s culture is similar to implementing new technology. But, at a time where diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is more charged than ever, culture change generates big feelings, especially from those in power.
Change can be scary. Uncertainty and fear of the unknown can bring frustration, sadness, and grief. But with change also comes opportunity, joy, and hope.
As a DEI strategist, I’ve helped dozens of organizations launch, scale, and sustain large-scale culture change efforts. Regardless of industry or size, all my clients experience the same barrier to making culture change stick: their leaders and staff lack the internal capacity and skills to manage change.
Motivated by a desire to help my clients make culture change less painful and more effective, I created a new framework that weaves DEI into proven change management strategies. I merged research from change management giants John Kotter and Prosci with my decade of industry experience as a DEI Strategist who achieves measurable outcomes.
Whether you’re a DEI council leader, an employee resource group (ERG) member, or a manager trying to lead more inclusively, these principles will save you valuable time and resources. You can even make culture change (gasp!) joyful.
- Define the problem: It may seem 101, but passionate change agents are known for taking on too much and burning themselves out. Getting crystal clear on what specifically you’re trying to solve saves you and your organization valuable time and resources.
- Prioritize what’s in your control: When things are uncertain, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Successful change agents focus their attention and energy on the things they can control or influence, and let go of the things out of their reach.
- Identify stakeholders and name power dynamics: Disrupting the status quo requires the support from a dedicated and influential change coalition. Change agents tailor their approach to the level of buy-in and the amount of power each stakeholder holds.
- Make the invisible visible: Culture change requires an understanding of systems change, a nonlinear theory of change for solving complex problems. Seeing the system helps you see the bigger picture and puts you in choice in how you move forward.
- Uncover the root cause: Change agents slow down to diagnose the real problem, not the symptoms. Don’t skip over the hard work of identifying the underlying, fundamental reasons an issue exists.
- Define what success looks like: Once you understand where you are, you need to figure out where you want to go before you start brainstorming how to get there. It’s easy to talk about what you want to tear down. Clarifying what you want to build is hard work that requires creativity and imagination.
- Build a roadmap: Change agents know the importance of a clear, concise, well-documented plan. A roadmap with specific goals, tactics and success metrics is the key to keeping any change effort on track and holding people accountable.
- Plan for continuous improvement: Planning for organizational change is the most important step of the process, but that’s just the beginning. Successful change agents leverage project management and internal communications best practices to proactively anticipate, and mitigate barriers.
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