Rachel sits down with DEI strategist Lily Zheng for a candid conversation on the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. They explore why real progress depends on focusing less on performative programs and more on outcomes that drive lasting change.
Rachel sits down with DEI strategist Lily Zheng for a candid conversation on the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. They explore why real progress depends on focusing less on performative programs and more on outcomes that drive lasting change.
Modern Mentor is hosted by Rachel Cooke. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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RACHEL: So Lily Zheng, consultant, strategist, and author, all of the things around diversity, equity, and inclusion. It is such a pleasure to have you join me on the Modern Mentor podcast today. Thank you for being here.
LILY: Thank you so much for having me. I am really stoked to have this conversation. I think it's going to be lots of fun.
RACHEL: I have been looking forward to this for quite some time. Lily, before we dive in and there's so much ground I wanna cover with you, can you just give us the quick backstory around what brought you to the work that you do today?
LILY: Absolutely. So I think like many DEI practitioners and folks who end up in the DEI space, I was. Quite passionate about leveraging what I learned from school and my skills and my passion, to building better workplaces for everyone. I think unlike a lot of DEI practitioners, I got my start right out of college in, DEI teaching roles basically as an educator, as someone who delivered this content and taught folks within, higher ed.
On how to be a more inclusive leader on how to design more inclusive workplaces. And that at this point was about 10 years ago. And I would characterize my journey in those last 10 years, as a journey from very shallow, very surface level awareness, building towards deeper organizational change work.
And so while I got my start, just educating people on, for example, like what is gender? What is gender 1 0 1? What is race? What is race 1 0 1? Nowadays I'm doing things like how can we achieve, I. Actual equity and fairness and inclusion within organizations for everyone. How can we end discrimination?
How can we create a true meritocracy? How can we create healthy workplaces? And how can we use the tools of organizational design, organizational development, right? Effective leadership, change management to achieve these better outcomes for everyone.
RACHEL: That's amazing. It's quite a journey and congratulations to you on finding your place in this conversation. So tell me a little bit about, we are, we're in a moment. We're always in a moment. Right now we are in 2025 and, certainly here in the us. We've seen a lot of change regarding how, we're talking about DEI, the role that it's playing in society, in politics, education, healthcare, it's everywhere.
I would just love your kind of your 10,000 foot view. what's top of mind for you right now as you think about what's happening in the space?
LILY: Yeah. Yeah, I think, Since you, nudged the 10,000 feet in the air view, is really taking, a historical perspective on what's going on. And when I zoom out to that distance, I actually see this as the latest pendulum swing in a 60 year series of cycles. We've been in this place before.
And when I say this place, the obvious, which is DEI is under attack, DEI is under retreat, right? companies and organizations and, society at large is feeling this backswing of progress following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, which drove a, big frenzy and a big explosion of DEI support.
So yes, right now we are in a backswing, but when I zoom out, I see this as the latest cycle in what's been going on for more than half of a century of, progress being met with backlash, being met with progress, being met with backlash. And so what I've been focusing on during this time is not. I under attack, yes or no?
Yeah. The answer is yes. It's how can we make the most of this moment? To adapt and improve DEI or whatever we choose to call it, moving forward, if not DEI, so that the next forward swing of the pendulum can do more good and can be more resistant to a wave of backlash, like the one that we're experiencing.
That's the kind of work that I'm working with leaders. Of, major corporations on every day. I'm talking with them about how to future proof their work, how to protect their impact, how to improve their programs, rather than sit in this reactive space of. Oh, woe is me. DEI isn't popular anymore, but it was popular a couple years ago, so I guess we should just stop doing everything and wait for it to get popular again.
I feel like that kind of extremely reactive point of view, actually gets in the way of progress sometimes, and we need to take that bigger picture view to ask ourselves, how can we actually sustain impact so that in 10 years time we're in a better place than we are now?
RACHEL: That's amazing. I love that you're able to take that step back and look at things a little bit more objectively and maybe without the heaviness of emotion that I think some people are carrying right now. Understandably. I'm curious, what are some of the, I, have to assume your, conversations with business leaders are gonna be very tailored to their organizations, to their situations, but broadly speaking, what are some of the pieces of advice you're offering around how we can, enhance maybe the efficacy or the impact of our programs or our efforts?
Where do we start?
LILY: Yeah. it's, it's funny that I say this. I'm having a very similar set of conversations. As the ones I had in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd. Whereas in 2020, employers were asking, what can we do to respond reactively to this moment? I refocused their questions to what can we do to achieve progress using this moment as a kicking off point. Right now, in 2025, leaders are all asking me, Lily, what can we do to respond to this moment? And I'm saying, no. What can we do to ensure that we sustain progress using this moment as a kicking off point? And so leaders everywhere are essentially asking, the basic questions like. Hey, can you audit our DEI program to make sure that it, is legal, right?
it's compliant with some of the new directives being put out or compliant with the law. and that's relatively simple work. It's not very difficult, right? you look at employee resource groups, and the law clearly says that they have to be open to everyone. And so if their ERGs are not open to everyone, you say, I think that's a risk.
You should make them open to everyone. And then they do that, and then that's it. Like that they, they are now legally compliant. Problem solved. The harder questions are. How can we actually, navigate this tightrope walk of not putting a target on our back, but also continuing our commitment to our employees, our stakeholders, our customers, our investors who want to see us making progress all while, holding up the values that we care about and our reputation.
that's the million, that's the billion dollar question. That's the hard thing for people to figure out, and I'm trying to steer people in that direction rather than this, this reactive, what would you tweak about this program to make it compliant? Which I find, you, you don't even really need too much expertise to do.
There's been so many great resources put out on the internet, on how, we can evolve our programs to be more compliant. I think it's this kind of forward thinking view of. What is the future of this industry? What are the demands on this work? How might it evolve? that's where I find the interesting stuff happening.
RACHEL: Yeah, it, is a really complex tension for. Senior leaders to be navigating right now. and at the end of the day, that's so much of what leadership is. There are always gonna be tensions and pulls and pushes and there's never quite a rule book or a guidebook. It is, towing a line.
I love how you are challenging them to really think about progress and momentum. one of the other things I've heard you talk about and I've seen you write about is really focusing on kind of outcomes and impact over. performative inputs. and I'll say, in, in my experience in the workplace, I do feel like so much of what I see is truly, well-meaning and well-intentioned, but ultimately more performative than impactful on outcomes or results.
And I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about that and, how you are approaching things a little bit differently.
LILY: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's really embodied in even how we talk about this work on a basic level. We don't talk about DEI outcomes. We don't talk about DEI results. We talk about DEI programs. I. Like every single conversation that I've been having about this is Lily, should we do more or less of DEI programs?
And I find that frame and I don't blame people for using it, practitioners use it. I've used it, leaders use it. It gives us an easy way to be thinking about this work. If you just look at your workplace and you say, this year we had five events, so next year if we're more committed, we'll have six events.
And if we're less committed, we'll have four events. I think it gives people a really easy way to visualize and to think about what this work might entail. I think the harder question that I push people to ask is, regardless of your number of events or what events you host, what do you achieve through them?
Because if you have six events that are just, a song and a dance and food flags and fun, which is how people, derogatorily define a lot of DEI work, and those six events achieve nothing. They don't improve belonging. They don't increase inclusion, they don't reduce discrimination.
Then I would say that there's no point to those six events on the other side. If you have one event or no events. Somehow you're able to increase inclusion, to increase belonging, to decrease discrimination, then I would say you're doing it right. Events be damned. And so I think this outcomes focused approach, which is basically asking ourselves, right?
Like what's the point? I. Who benefits what's actually happening from all of this is a must have in this work. arguably we should have been doing this 20 years ago, and I think it's a travesty that we haven't been doing it until basically now, right? Like now I feel like there's some silver lining of all this backlash where, I'm actually seeing companies look at, look at their programs and ask themselves like, which one of which ones of these programs are actually working? They're bringing me in to say Lily, help us figure out which ones of these programs are working. And on the one hand I'm saying like, that's great. I'm happy to help. And on the other hand, I'm like, you didn't have this figured out. You didn't know which of these programs worked. You've never done this analysis.
You've had these programs for 10 years. And they're like, yeah, but they were popular. So we didn't have to figure out whether they worked. That's the core. That's one of the biggest fatal flaws of a lot of mainstream work, which is we do what's popular. We don't care if it works or not. Right now, it's not popular.
I. Or at the very least, even if it is popular, it's under attack. And so companies are really looking closely at it and asking what works. And while I wish it was under different circumstances, that is the right question. The more they ask what works, the more they'll be able to understand which of their programs, which of their interventions are actually delivering value in which ones are just window dressing.
I don't mind if companies roll back a hundred percent of their window dressing, if that means that they refocus their efforts on things that are actually driving real progress, real impact, real material benefit for everyone.
RACHEL: it's a, it's a. Beautiful assessment of what's going on and it's making me think a lot about the work that I do in organizations. Part of what I do is I do a fair amount of leadership development. I do programming, I do workshops. I see this trend happening. I'm certainly not the only one, a company sees a problem.
They bring in somebody like myself to deliver a program or a training. things don't change, and their conclusion is, the programs don't work, or, leadership development doesn't work, or This type of intervention doesn't work when at the end of the day. It might not have been the right intervention for the problem you're trying to solve.
Sometimes the problem you're trying to solve, if, for example, let's say you are trying to infuse more innovation into your organization, so you bring in a facilitator to run a workshop and people still aren't innovating. Maybe it was a bad program, but also maybe your organization is obstructing innovation structurally, and you've really gotta take a hard look at the inside.
And I think sometimes. I don't know. I don't wanna put words in your mouth, Lily, but I feel like sometimes organizations. They don't want to look inwards. So they bring in a program and then they can blame the program when things don't change. and it's hard because the real work they need to do is to hold up a mirror and say, where are we creating experiences that leave people feeling excluded?
Or where are we inhibiting belonging? Where are we not inviting voices from, faces that don't look a certain way? And it's, tricky and it's challenging and it's a, tough line to toe.
LILY: Yeah. Yeah. I very much resonate with that. I remember I was having a tongue in cheek conversation back in like 2017 with a client that was really dead set on bringing me in for a workshop. To help their small startup, address a big DEI challenge. And, oh, I forget what the budget was, it was like 10, 10 k or something.
And their company was like, 50 people. And I basically told them like I. you have evidence? Do you have a very strong belief that spending this 10 K on me is going to produce the outcomes that you're looking for more so than, I don't know, splitting it by 50 and giving everyone a raise.
Because if you can't demonstrate that, I think you should just give your employees a bonus, right? Because I know that'll make them happier, and I know that's going to do some more good for your workplace. And I think it speaks to this challenge, right? That you're also talking about, which is that oftentimes companies find solutions and then look for problems to fit them with.
Instead of truly understanding their problem so that they can find the right solution, and the sexiest solution to a company is a 60 minute or 90 minute workshop that solves all of their problems. This isn't to rip workshop facilitators, right? But I could be the best facilitator in the entire world, and I could deliver a workshop that produces no value because it's not actually solving a real problem.
And so I think there were both, supply side and demand side challenges behind this, this, hole we're in, which is that yes, like maybe we need to talk to facilitators and DEI practitioners and, workshop, practitioners and say you need to be doing better.
You're not actually delivering good practices. We also need to be talking to the clients, the folks who you know. Are driving the demand for these services and tell them like, please stop throwing 60 minute workshops at problems that require a two year change management effort. It's just not going to work, right?
I'm not a silver bullet. I can't fix that kind of thing. And, so yeah, like I, I think this is far larger than just a DEI related problem. I think it happens with any and all, learning and development organizational change related problems. but it certainly happens as well in DEI.
RACHEL: Yeah, absolutely. And I do believe that, and I wonder if you agree with this. Sometimes a, workshop or a program may not be the solution, but it can be a nice. Opening to a conversation, right? It can start to give an organization maybe shared language around a certain topic, and then maybe it can help lubricate a deeper look at what's really going on.
LILY: Okay. I do disagree with
RACHEL: awesome. Let's do it.
LILY: so, the reason why I disagree with that is because I think this is one of the things that workshop facilitators, including myself, tell ourselves to justify doing these kinds of low impact interventions. And I think. Individually in individual cases, you might be right, but I think this belief is one of the things that keeps this whole machine running because every single workshop facilitator I know who tells themselves this will say yes to an engagement that they know will have next to no impact because they tell themselves that maybe it'll open the door for something in the future.
Maybe it'll support something happening in the future. And what I tell my clients is that. The workshop itself is the least important aspect of the intervention. The most important aspects are what happens before the workshop and what happens after. And I think you would say this as much as anyone else, right?
A workshop that is not followed up on is just not a work. it's just not a workshop. But the challenge, as a practitioner is that we don't have that visibility into what happens after. And we can inadvertently become part of this problem where even if we suspect that we're being used as window dressing by employers that are trying to deploy us to avoid talking about their challenges in the short term, it can feel like, a little good is better than doing nothing at all.
And I find this to be a very dangerous belief, right? Because it, can make us part of the problem. I, have a very specific story. I. From, actually my very first corporate gig, back in the mid 2010s, that I actually got fired from, which was not very, not very inspiring, but what basically happened is an employer brought me in and said, Lily, we want to deliver really good allyship training.
And I said, great. I do allyship training. I'm good at that. And then I said, but I don't know your workplace very well, and you're telling me that you don't really have any, surveys or reports or anything about what your employees need. I'm just gonna do a little bit of a needs assessment to help me design the best allyship training that I can.
And this company hemmed in hot and they're like, okay, fine. You can talk to some people. So I went into their head headquarters. They were based in San Francisco. So I went up to San Francisco. And I talked to about 20 people. It was a long day, and pretty much 15 of those 20 people said, what? Allyship training?
No one's asking for allyship training. Not a single one of us want allyship training. Like we have been trying to, organize and advocate to our leadership to change these practices forever. Like we know exactly what we want and it's not a damn allyship training. what are you talking about?
Like, why are you even here? So I go back, I, dutifully make a nice little report. I send it to the client and I'm like, I don't think an allyship training will solve your problem. I think you should listen to your employees. And what they say is, these are some big barriers that I found out in just one day of talking to these people very consistently, across all departments, across almost all demographics.
They want your managers to be better. So if anything, you should be training your managers. And they want some certain policies changed, so you should look into changing those policies, and they basically fired me on the spot for not sticking to contract and delivering an allyship training. This was one of the very first lessons that I learned.
wild, right? My first client, this was a big lesson that I learned that oftentimes just delivering what people want does not mean solving a real problem or delivering what they need, and from that engagement onwards, right? I've been very, careful to scrutinize whether I am part of the problem or whether I'm helping my clients actually solve the real problem.
RACHEL: Wow, that is a hard story to process.
LILY: I know.
RACHEL: I can, but I can. I can see that. I can see it playing out. I absolutely, I hear you. I hear your pushback on my initial assertion and I think it makes perfect sense. I think what I was thinking about when I made the initial comment, and I would love to get your thoughts on this, I.
In terms of, can we use a workshop just to open up a conversation where my head was going was, and I've heard you talk about this before, Lily, this thing that's happening in, some pockets where, there are a lot of. Things challenging broad support for DEI right now. And one of those things in some pockets is people who are maybe not necessarily part of a minority, feeling like they are suddenly being labeled the bad guys or the bad gals.
And, if you look a certain way. bluntly, being white, maybe cis male, you owe everybody an apology, right? And, DEI is really about pulling you down so that minorities can, find their space. And I just, I wonder if, for organizations where a dynamic like that could be a play.
Explicitly or implicitly, if there's an opportunity for a workshop to just start to open the minds of people who are maybe feeling like for diversity to have air, I need to be smaller. I need to take a step back and using a workshop as a conversation to say, this is for everybody to participate in.
This is not about apologies. This is about how do we all come together and stand shoulder to shoulder and I'm just curious what you think about that and if you could just address, agree or disagree with my assertion and just address what you are seeing and hearing.
LILY: yeah. So I think there, there were like two or three parts of this and they're related, but they're not all the same thing. So one part of this is, it true that members of, let's say historically advantaged or majority groups like cisgender, heterosexual Christians, straight white men, right? Are feeling, demonized by mainstream DEI efforts? yes. The answer is yes. There, there was a research study done, gosh, at this 0.4 or five years ago that found that 70% of white male leaders feel like they do not have a space and are not wanted within DEI work. And that is one of the major factors that drives their disengagement.
despite them wanting to engage. There's lots of research on this. and we can talk about the root of that problem, how it exists, why, why it exists, how we can change it. That's one thing. I think it does exist. The next thing that, that I heard you talk about is it possible that a workshop can start this conversation and sort of change this perception?
I think it's possible, but on the other hand, why does it have to be a workshop is the thing, right? Because what I see when I go into companies is, yes, I do see this dynamic happening pretty often. And these days, maybe I'm biased because I don't deliver many one-off workshops because I personally don't think that they are particularly effective.
I spend time working with companies over months and months to get at the root of those beliefs. Like I talk to, members of marginalized communities. I talk to chief DEI officers, I talk to HR leaders. We spend quite a long time asking ourselves like, how is it that we've created this perception that DEI doesn't need or doesn't want, or is actively demonizing, cisgender, heterosexual white men?
I. And to fix those problems usually requires interventions that last far more than 60 minutes, right? Like we need to talk about communication strategies. We need to talk about coalition building. We need to talk about, ways we can design this work so that they take feedback from everyone. We need more participatory decision making processes like each one of these interventions takes weeks or months to create.
Can workshops be a part of those timelines? Yeah, sure. Totally. But I have, I'm trying, to, think if this is true. I don't believe I have ever delivered a 60 minute workshop that has claimed to even start a conversation about changing the conversation about cisgender heterosexual white men.
The reason being is that I know that the factors creating that dynamic are far more entrenched than what I can change in 60 minutes, and Will people get a kick outta that workshop? Will some, cisgender, heterosexual white men feel validated if they show up? Yeah, certainly. And what will happen if they feel validated, they feel good, and then the organization goes right back to the status quo as soon as I leave, I think that will actually be worse.
Like I think that have to create more harm. If I set them up to fail, if, I say no, everyone, like we can, totally change the way we're thinking about this. We can totally use new language. Like we can make everyone feel, included and involved. And then I leave, I collect my paycheck. People tell me how much they like the workshop.
Like what if a week after they don't change anything? And then the white men who showed up to that workshop and are expecting that things will change, get extra pissed off that things haven't changed. I think there's a risk of greater backlash, but I'm not there to see it. And so I would ask myself, I agree that's a challenge that needs to be solved, but why a workshop?
Like why are we so invested in this bite-sized 60 minute intervention? there's so many other things we can do, right? so many other, like at the very least, like two workshops, three workshops, right? Sell something that's not just right, this like sexy one-time thing because I know that's where the demand lies.
But I, would argue, I would challenge that if we are actually committed to impact, we need to take responsibility for what happens after we leave. I.
RACHEL: Okay, you got it. You win.
LILY: look, I'm not trying to win. I just have a strong opinion about this, and I think if we are in the business of providing 60 minute workshops, because look, some people can't change their business model. I know lots of people that do 60 minute workshops, at the very least, have higher standards for when you say yes to a client.
Something that I used to do when I delivered 60 minute workshops was to say, give me a plan. For what you're going to do in the three months following the workshop. And if they could not give me a plan, I didn't do the workshop. Like even doing something like that, like even doing a small thing like that to provide accountability is better than what we have now.
So there's lots of opportunities for everybody to be improving this work. I'm not telling everyone doing workshop that you gotta pick a different line of work.
RACHEL: No, I think it's really fair for me, it's analogous to companies running engagement surveys and not actioning against them. And I tell them it is more damaging to ask and not respond than to.
LILY: You just shouldn't run a survey if you're not, committed to changing things. It's exactly the same logic, right? Sometimes doing a little bit of something is worse than doing nothing.
RACHEL: No, I think, that's fair. So we're talking about impact. We're talking about the importance of actually changing outcomes and experiences rather than just performing. what are some things in your experience, whether personally for yourself and or as you see client organizations, when we talk about shifting the experience of inclusion and belonging, I.
I find that not everybody even knows what that means. Not everybody even knows how to answer the question. Do you experience a sense of inclusion and belonging? I, sometimes will get people saying, I, I don't know. what, what does that even exactly mean? And so as we think about, so I think what you and I are talking about is the importance of impact and outcomes.
But in order for organizations or people to be able to assess impact, they have to understand what we're even asking in the
LILY: Which outcomes, right? What impact?
RACHEL: how do you, help people understand or characterize their own experiences of inclusion and belonging? How do you describe those?
LILY: Yeah. this goes back to, I think DEI has a bit of a jargon problem in the sense that, Since, gosh, right since the nineties, we've been defining and redefining these words every single day and still no one knows how to define them. inclusion, for example, when I was writing my third book, actually the one right behind me, DEID, deconstructed, I was looking up definitions of inclusion because I was curious what I found and.
No, no joke. It's, in the book I find a definition that says inclusion is the presence of belonging. And I was like, oh, yeah, really nice. And then I looked at belonging. It said, belonging is the presence of inclusion. And I, I, I literally remember like sitting and just laughing for two minutes, right?
I was like, this, is like absolutely impart. Like, no one can parse this, right? not even the people writing about it know what it is. I did a deep dive, looking into social science research because, there's no way that like a social scientist could get away with saying anything like that.
And it turns out there's lots of better definitions. for example, for inclusion, one of the ones that I really liked is breaking down inclusion into a set of three smaller outcomes, which is feeling respected, feeling valued, and feeling safe. And so if people felt a sense of respect, if people felt like they were valued and people felt like they were safe, they felt included.
Each of those things are measurable. You can ask people about their perceptions of respect, and people are pretty accurate about that, right? If you feel disrespected, you're gonna say you feel disrespected. you can ask about their perception of value. People are going to compare themselves to their coworkers and how they see that their contributions, or their words or their performance is valued.
You can ask about safety, both physical safety and psychological safety. Those are very well defined in the research literature. And so for me, I don't, concern myself if with asking, if inclusion is belonging or belonging is inclusion, I just say, look, how do you measure these things? And there's lots of good research that actually tells us how to measure these things.
So sometimes with one, one client, they were just like, then why do we need to call an inclusion? And I'm like, yeah, good point. You don't have to, if you don't want to say that you value helping people feel respected, valued, and safe. And then done. If you get high respect, high value and high safety for everyone, congrats.
You've basically achieved inclusion. You don't even have to call it that, right? like oftentimes we can get so wrapped up in the words that we don't achieve the outcomes that these words are trying to steer us towards. And, I've written extensively about this. I've talked about how we measure these things.
And I think a common takeaway is that Lily, then why do we, spend so much time talking about the words to begin with? When we can just make things better and achieve some of these outcomes? And I say like this is the light bulb moment. Like, why are we talking so much about the words and doing nothing to change people's actual experiences that needs to change?
RACHEL: That's incredible. And that's that is so much more clear, those three things that you just described. But not only that, they almost separate the experience from the whole diversity label in the first place because. Presumably everybody, no matter what they look like, what groups they belong to, deserve to feel valued, safe, and respected.
that's a, I feel like we've just touched on that very quickly, but that to me feels like a bit of a watershed moment for me. It just, it shifts everything out of this realm of oh my gosh, I'm so tired of talking about the minorities. And it's no, let's. Let's talk about humanity. I feel like that's the direction that you're heading in and when we all feel those things in equal measures, what groups we identify with matters less almost.
It's just, do we all feel this experience and presumably there may be certain groups that feel it less, and that's. where the, energy needs to go, but you've almost stripped some of the, I don't know, some of what I feel like makes people feel prickly about these conversations. You've stripped it out.
LILY: Yeah, so this is, not my idea, but there's some really brilliant work coming out of the, the Berkeley School of Othering and Belonging, and a particular leader, John Johnny, a Powell from that school who came up with this concept called targeted universalism. And targeted universalism is really powerful.
It relates a lot to what we're talking about, because instead of asking which group deserves. Support which group is worthy, which group deserves DEI work it instead said it instead says, all of us deserve these outcomes, but we can learn from individual groups', experiences to design better for everyone.
Because I think DEI has been caught between these two opposing conversations, which I believe aren't helpful. One is I don't see race. I don't see identity. Identity doesn't matter. We're all one race. The human race, I think that's not helpful because it obscures the real differences in experience that exist in our society.
But then on the other side, we have Identities are everything, and there's this hierarchy of which identities are more versus less oppressed. So we're gonna play oppression Olympics and count how many marginalized identities you have. If you have enough, then you're allowed to talk. If you don't have enough, then you need to shut up.
I think that's just so backwards, so harmful. And it also keeps us from actually achieving any change because we're all busy arguing with each other about who's more oppressed. I think this perspective. Of, we need to recognize that identity is valid and powerful so that we can improve things for everyone, is how we bridge these two ineffective approaches.
And I think talking about outcomes, right? Talking about, let's say safety, respect, value, these universal things, but also being open to identifying identity related barriers, right? this is, that's what DEI work should have been from the start. And so when people say, Lily, I think, this inclusion work is, focusing too much on certain groups.
You can just go right back to them and go okay, is there anything we can do to help you feel more, valued, respected, and safe? And I guarantee it'll throw people for a loop. They're like, what? Like me? But I'm a cis white man. I thought it doesn't matter as much that I feel, safe, respected, and valued.
And I'm like, what are you talking about? everyone deserves to feel safe, respected, and valued. And if you're having a really good time, I. already feel those things, then help me understand why you feel those things so that I can apply that to everyone else. And if you're not having a really good time, maybe you don't feel safe, maybe you don't feel valued, what would help?
And then we go around to every single, marginalized group also to say Hey, what are the barriers? And we learn from those experiences. Say, Hey, everyone. Maybe for example, no one in this entire workplace feels valued because of this one thing that we can change over here. Or maybe some people feel safe, but other people don't feel safe because this policy isn't being applied equally.
I. Gosh, we gotta fix that, right? this takes this entire conversation away from oppression Olympics towards actual problem solving that makes everyone feel like they have something to benefit from. And that's, that's what this work should have been from the start, right? I'm not saying anything controversial, it's just I think some DEI work has drifted from this vision.
that's what it should have been.
RACHEL: I'm feeling a little speechless, Lily, which is not an experience that is common for me. So thank you. I am, I don't always listen to my own interviews, but I know I will be listening to this one. So thank you so much for all of this incredible insight. I have one more question for you before we start to close.
there's so many rich ideas in this conversation, but for anybody who's listening right now, sitting anywhere on an org chart, anywhere in an organization who's, having an experience of, I don't feel all of those things. I don't always feel safe or respected or valued. I feel marginalized for whatever reasons.
What, do you encourage people who maybe are feeling a little bit helpless and a little bit hungry for something? where can we start if we don't feel like we necessarily have a lot of formal authority or power in our workplace?
LILY: Yeah. organize, I think, a lot of mainstream DEI has been self-help, so the advice that. We tend to hear is here are five things you can do as an individual to feel more safe, respected, and valued. There's lots of advice like that on the internet. I can tell you to power pose more before your meetings, right?
Maybe that'll make you feel better. Look. That advice has been talked to death. I think what we haven't talked enough about is the power that comes from the collective. And I would say if you don't feel safe, respected, or valued, you are not alone. You have other colleagues who likely don't feel safe, respected, or valued.
And so one of the most powerful things you can do is to ask yourself and to ask others why, like why? Is the question of the effective DEI practitioner. that's what I do. I go into companies and I ask why. But you can do that without me. You can do that yourself. You can say what's going on here?
Why do I feel unsafe? is it just me? Who else is feeling unsafe? Why are we all feeling unsafe? Why are we all feeling unvalued? What's wrong with this workplace? Which things are not working as intended? Or if they're working as intended, how do we shift what's actually happening here? And that's how we start to build movements.
That's how we build coalitions. And it turns out right, especially if we get away from this oppression Olympics nonsense, right? That the number of people, the, groups of people who have something to benefit or who have something to gain from changing the status quo was probably more people than you think.
I'm sure there are lots of people who feel unsafe, lots of people who feel undervalued, disrespected. And so if you can understand why and you can find other colleagues who share those experiences, you can organize. And I'm talking you can do so formally, right? You can. You can form a labor union.
You can do so informally. You can join A DEI council, participate in ERG. You can lobby your, leaders, you can have a conversation. You can start a dialogue, right? You can post on social media, right? But like by coming together in the collective and to turn your experience, your singular experience of feeling excluded into a collective experience of creating change, like everyone can do that today.
You can do that now, right? You just have to recognize that. Going at it alone is not going to change anything. Self-help is not the answer to these big systemic inequities. It's organizing, it's collective action, and your colleagues have more in common. I. With you right then they are all different. that's I think one of the biggest takeaways, which is that like we are all different.
We all have different identities and we share so much in common, right? If we recognize that we can organize, we can make a difference, we can make change, and that's how this work needs to happen.
RACHEL: That's amazing. Lily, before we close, is there anything that I haven't asked you that feels important that you wanna leave listeners with today?
LILY: everyone always asks that, and it's one of those things where we could talk for another hour, but I think I left it at a pretty good point. I'll make one part of that 0.1 more time, which is that you have power. I. Like anyone, you have power. You don't need to be a manager, you don't have to be an executive.
You have power, you have a voice, you have insight. And collectively, if you organize and you understand the why and you talk to your colleagues across difference, right? Even if it's uncomfortable, like we can do big things together and that's what we're going to have to do if we wanna get through this moment and stop eating each other.
And actually create real progress for everyone instead of getting swept up in these culture wars, which I think are a waste of everyone's time and no one likes them.
RACHEL: Oof. Lily, I cannot thank you enough for your time and your thoughtfulness and your insight today. I have enjoyed this so much. Thank you so much for joining me today.
LILY: Thank you so much for having me. I hope this gives lots of value to the folks tuning in, and I hope folks, have many ideas for what to apply in your own work and your own lives.
RACHEL: Day. Absolutely no doubt. And there will be more information that we'll share in the show notes for anybody who wants to learn more about Lily. But thanks again. Have a good one, Lily.
LILY: Bye.