Starting in the 2000s organizations widely adopted DEI programs that set hiring and promotion targets, mandated diversity training, and revised grievance systems. Subsequent research and reviews found that many such programs have reduced gender and racial diversity, lowered performance of targeted groups, and increased perceptions of workplace unfairness. Political backlash has joined empirical critiques, and many companies are now rapidly unwinding DEI initiatives. Herd behavior drove all-in or all-out adoption, risking loss of nuanced insight. A more productive approach distinguishes different kinds of diversity and focuses on specific practices that demonstrably enhance organizational decision-making and performance.
One of the prickliest issues in business over the past decade is encapsulated in a single word: diversity. Starting in the 2000s, the received wisdom from consultants and human-resource firms was that increasing some kinds of diversity-predominantly race and gender-would improve not only fairness but business outcomes as well. A boom in DEI programs occurred at organizations large and small. These programs institutionalized new hiring and promotion targets, mandated diversity training, and revised grievance systems.
As far back as 2016, Harvard Business Review published an article titled "Why Diversity Programs Fail," showing that, as generally practiced, DEI programs actually reduced gender and racial diversity in companies. Last year, psychologists reviewing the literature found that these policies also generally lowered the performance of the targeted groups and increased the perception of workplace unfairness. Many companies are now rapidly unwinding DEI programs.
Companies tend to run in a herd, which results in being either all in or all out for an innovation such as DEI. But if we allow the debate about DEI to fall into this binary trap, where diversity is just great or totally terrible, we risk losing some important insights. Instead, we should expand our understanding of the ways that diversity can truly enhance organizational success, and focus on those.
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