From Intention to Impact
A Practical Guide to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
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- 17,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
How business leaders can move their DEI efforts from intention to impact through strategy and culture change.
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, corporate America has doubled down on its public intentions to be more inclusive and equitable. Yet beyond the pledges it is difficult to see which system changes make a real difference. In From Intention to Impact, Malia Lazu draws on her background as a community organizer, her corporate career as a bank president, and now her experience as a leading DEI consultant to explain what has been holding organizations back and what they need to do better. First and foremost, she recognizes that truly moving from intention to impact means targeting and changing the traditions and culture that normalize whiteness.
From Intention to Impact shows what organizations, leaders, and people at all levels must do to create more inclusive environments that honor and value diversity. Lazu shares a seven-stage guide through this process as well as a 3L model of listening, learning, and loving that readers can use from the initial excitement of doing “something” to the frustration when the inevitable pushback comes, and finally to the determination to do the hard work despite the challenges—on corporate and political fronts. Most compelling, From Intention to Impact shows that, while commitment from the top is paramount, for DEI to be most effective, it needs to be decentralized—among managers, within teams, and across the organization.
A crucial read for anyone looking to future-proof their company, From Intention to Impact goes beyond the “feel good” PR-centric actions to showcase the real DEI work that must be done to create true and lasting systemic change.
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Businesses must back up their professed support for diversity with meaningful commitment to building a more equitable society, according to this direct program. Lazu, founder of the Lazu Group DEI consultancy, encourages companies to adopt a more inclusive way of doing business to better appeal to socially conscious customers and workers. She outlines seven stages business leaders can expect to pass through while implementing DEI strategies, suggesting that initiatives will likely meet resistance from white employees and will require doubling down. Case studies examine how racist corporate practices led to public faux pas and detail how readers can do better. For instance, she recounts how Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf came under fire in 2020 for blaming the low number of Black employees at the bank on a lack of worthy candidates. Such "pipeline" problems, Lazu contends, usually indicate the company is not an "attractive place to work for people of color." Lazu has a refreshing, suffer-no-fools style ("The key here is to recognize these reactions for what they are: pervasive racism"), and her recommendations to hire more employees of color, change company policies to better serve them, and contract with more vendors from marginalized groups offers a welcome alternative to the milquetoast guidance in other business manuals focused on corporate "culture" and posturing. This walks the walk.
