5 Powerful Ways to Take REAL Action on DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion)
Is your organization wondering where to start with DEI training? Learn 5 ways to infuse your leadership and culture with greater diversity, equity, and inclusion.
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Multiple studies have proven that diverse teams drive better business performance and organizations with greater diversity become more resilient and innovative. And inclusion is required for diverse groups to thrive. 
Yet there’s little point in considering how to recruit a more diverse workforce, nor how to ensure talented individuals from different backgrounds are fully included, if your organization has not yet considered what different people need to be successful. And to do that, you need to understand equity.
Equity is fair and contextually appropriate access to the resources required for an individual to attain their full potential.
To see real, sustainable change, and to leverage the full potential of all their talent, organizations must go beyond diversity and inclusion to focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace.
Leading with equity is about recognizing that different people have different needs and being committed to giving people what they need to succeed. When that happens, everyone wins.
Elevating equity is critical because even in organizations that are both diverse and inclusive, individuals who come from different backgrounds can still run into policies, practices, or assumptions that prevent them from being fully engaged, supported, and able to reach their potential.
That’s why rather than DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), at CCL, we refer to EDI — placing equity as the first consideration in EDI training, before diversity and inclusion, to emphasize its importance.
When it comes to EDI vs. DEI, without a focus on equity, well-intentioned diversity initiatives can appear disingenuous. Ensuring your organizational practices and policies are equitable is essential to the sustainability of your investments in diversity and inclusion — and your ability to retain top talent.
At CCL, our approach to equity, diversity, and inclusion is rooted in decades of pioneering work with leaders and organizations around the world — from our groundbreaking research into women’s leadership development, to our African-American Leadership development program, to our deep analysis of what different generations want from work.
Through it all, we’ve learned that when it comes to equity, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace, language, challenges, norms, and solutions shift based on context, culture, and climate. Above all, leaders must consider people’s different lived experiences to help their teams achieve their full potential.
We understand that EDI can be complex, and addressing systems of oppression is challenging. That’s why we created our evidence-based REAL™ framework to help shift mindsets, behaviors, and practices toward more equitable and inclusive leadership for individuals, teams, and organizations.
It focuses on helping leaders make the leap from raising awareness to taking meaningful action and driving sustainable culture change to support equity, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace.
No one single solution can create equity, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace, so we offer a variety of EDI training solutions and bring our decades of human-centered expertise and understanding of intergroup challenges (social identity, outgroups, discrimination, and privilege) to this work. We are ready to partner with you to craft custom EDI solutions for your organization’s specific needs, context, and culture. In addition, we also offer women’s leadership development solutions.
We can work with you to create a human-centered, research-based equity, diversity, and inclusion program that’s tailored to your needs. Partner with us to understand the dynamics of EDI in your particular organizational context and identify specific actions to take to drive real results.
Powered by decades of our global research and in-the-field experience, our world-class EDI solutions can help you build a stronger organizational culture and equip your leaders to work together more effectively.
Let us craft a custom initiative for your leaders at all levels for that builds greater equity, diversity, and inclusion in your workplace.
Whether you want your team to communicate more effectively across differences, align behaviors with beliefs, or address unconscious bias, this program can equip everyone at your organization — from the front desk to the corner office — to hold better conversations every day.
We can partner with you to strengthen coaching and conversation skills across your organization through a lens of building a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive culture.
We can help you move beyond unconscious and implicit bias by equipping your team to identify the unintentionally harmful beliefs and practices that undermine equity, diversity, and inclusion at your organization. Our answer to conventional bias training, Beyond Bias™ provides a realistic, research-based, and effective roadmap for recognizing and responding to the biases we all experience.
We also offer a variety of other world-class leadership topic modules you can use to upskill your team or package together into a custom solution. Offerings include our proven content on emotional intelligence, listening to understand, psychological safety, and more. We can deliver these world-class, research-based leadership topic modules — or you can. Either way, you’ll go beyond raising awareness to taking meaningful action on EDI.
At CCL, we measure success by lives touched and impact made. That’s why the organizations we work with and the leaders we transform consistently tell us the same thing: their experience with us is a game-changer. We’ve helped strengthen organizational cultures and build equity, diversity, and inclusion at literally thousands of organizations.
But don’t just take our word for it — take theirs.
“I love the networking experiences, practical tools, and the bonds I was able to build with my fellow participants. I was able to utilize some of the tools I have learned in my daily work. It’s been a great experience and by far the best training program I have attended.”
Program Participant
Major Pharmaceutical Company
Honing Leadership Skills for High-Potential Leaders of Color
Among hundreds of international applicants, 2 EDI-focused leadership programs that we developed for separate clients have both received awards from the research and analyst firm Brandon Hall Group, in their acclaimed annual Human Capital Management (HCM) Excellence Awards.
Our Work to Elevate Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Earns Acclaimed Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards
We know that a true commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace starts from within. At CCL, we’ve made a concerted effort to focus on EDI internally, and realize there is more work yet to be done. Learn more about our EDI journey and commitment to racial justice and equity.
Lynn Fick-Cooper
Chief Equity & Societal Impact Officer
Lynn leads diverse teams responsible for the design and delivery of leadership solutions for social sector organizations focused on K–12 and Higher Education, Nonprofits, and Population Health; social sector research and evaluation; fundraising; and program operations. She’s also Executive Sponsor of our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Practice, working to develop and deliver effective leadership solutions that help CCL and our clients create equitable, diverse, and inclusive organizational cultures.
Michael DePass
Vice President, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Practice
As leader of our global EDI practice, Michael combines his extensive professional experience and passion for social change with his gifts for strategic leadership, innovative thinking, and business development. Previously, he served as director of our K-12 education portfolio, designing and delivering transformative educational leadership development. Prior to joining CCL, he worked as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and at several international development organizations.
Abigail Dunne-Moses
Senior Faculty of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
Abigail is a trusted leadership advisor with 20+ years of experience in performance management training, leadership training, organizational development consulting, and nonprofit leadership development. As a business-minded change agent, she has advised many Fortune 500 companies on how to build and sustain equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives. Her passion for EDI consulting is borne out of her life and educational experiences on 3 continents — namely Africa, Europe, and America.Â
Lisa Bradley
Leadership Solutions Partner
With more than 30 years of experience in human resource development, Lisa is a veteran trainer, instructional designer, and coach. As a leadership solutions partner, she facilitates open enrollment programs, and designs and facilitates custom programs that support clients’ achievement of their EDI strategies. Before joining CCL, Lisa worked with a variety of organizations including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, The Mars Agency, Xerox Learning Services, AAA Auto Club Group, and MetLife.Â
Regina Eckert
Client Engagement Director, Europe
Gina is a consultant, facilitator and leadership development expert who has led projects in over 40 companies across the EMEA region in various industries, ranging from 60 to 1.6 million employees. She keeps a high focus on tangible behavioral and business impact and a deep care for the people who trust her for their development and the development of their companies. Initiatives around equity, diversity, and inclusion are an area of expertise and passion for her.
Kanya Govind
Manager, Client Engagement
With over 25 years of experience managing full-life-cycle learning and development, Kanya works with organizations to identify, understand, and implement specific and measurable learning needs — leading to tangible retention, diversity and performance results. Her experience spans across IT/IT-enabled services and consulting industries across various sectors and geographies. Initiatives around EDI and coaching are her passions.
Jayke Hamill
Faculty, Societal Advancement
Jayke is the Deputy Director of the Colorado Collective Leadership Initiative and a faculty member on CCL’s Societal Impact team. Working with nonprofits, foundations, and other social sector organizations, they are vested in growing the field of leadership development to be more accessible and inclusive of all leaders — including BIPOC leaders, individuals with disabilities, neurodiverse learners, LGBTQIA+ folks, first-generation college students, and beyond. Jayke also serves as a co-chair of CCL’s LGBTQ+ Global Employee Resource Group.
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Patrick Sweet, PhD
Co-Director, Geneva Leadership Alliance
As Co-Director of the Geneva Leadership Alliance, a joint initiative of CCL and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, Patrick designs and delivers leadership and organizational development initiatives for the international community. With more than 30 years of experience in organizational and leadership assessment, he has participated in and led sub-teams in regional economic transformation programs in the U.S., and as part of R&D public/private innovation drives in Sweden and Europe as part of EU innovation streams.Â
Charlene Tan
Leadership Solutions Facilitator
Charlene delivers custom programs designed to engage and empower leaders in the Asia-Pacific region, working cross-functionally with teams in EMEA and the Americas. An advocate for EDI and women’s leadership, she brings more than 10 years of experience with a strong focus on developing leaders, teams, and individuals through a human-centric approach of analyzing, diagnosing, and creating customized solutions across different industries and countries.
Marcia Alesan Dawkins, PhD
Senior Research Scientist
Marcia is a senior research scientist and co-leads our Latinx-Hispanic ERG. Her current research focuses on promoting equitable and inclusive organizational cultures through strategic communication. Her thought leadership and award-winning books and articles have been featured in media outlets such as BBC World, NPR, AOL Originals, ABC News, and HuffPo Live, along with several podcasts.
Valerie Futch Ehrlich, PhD
Manager, Societal Advancement Insights & Impact
Valerie manages the Societal Advancement Insights & Impact group, overseeing evaluation and applied research projects in the nonprofit, K-12, higher education, and population health sectors. Her research background is in social identity and human learning and development. She’s committed to data utilization and visualization and effectively leveraging research in service of EDI.
Stephanie Wormington, PhD
Director, Global Strategic Research
Stephanie is the Director of Global Strategic Research, with a background in developmental and educational psychology. Her current work focuses primarily on promoting equitable and inclusive organizational cultures, exploring collective leadership through teams and networks, and enhancing motivation and empowerment for leaders across their professional journeys.
Our experts are here to help. Get in touch with us about your organization’s equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives and needs. We’d love to partner with you!
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Is your organization wondering where to start with DEI training? Learn 5 ways to infuse your leadership and culture with greater diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Are the pledges and promises made by your organization cosmetic platitudes, or authentic commitments to sustainable action? Learn best practices for an EDI statement and approach based on our research findings.
Sustainable workplace culture change towards greater equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) requires a serious commitment across all levels of an organization. Learn how to take a systemic approach to EDI.
Conversations about race can be complex, but are essential for creating an inclusive culture. Lay the groundwork by watching this webinar on how to talk about race, both in the workplace and beyond.
What is social identity, and how does it relate to effective leadership? Learn about this important but overlooked aspect of diversity awareness, and how to use your understanding of it to elevate equity.
Learn strategies to tackle diversity and inclusion challenges and avoid the most common mistakes in your organization’s DEI efforts.
EDI is an acronym that stands for equity, diversity, and inclusion. In the workplace, EDI relates to actions taken in order to shift mindsets, behaviors, and practices toward more equitable and inclusive leadership for individuals, teams, and organizations.Â
You may hear references to both the terms DEI and EDI when discussing diversity initiatives. While both of these acronyms describe the concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion, at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)®, we prefer to use the term EDI because it places equity before diversity and inclusion. We believe that without equity, efforts to promote diversity and inclusion are not sustainable. So when it comes to DEI vs. EDI training, we recommend that organizations re-orient their DEI training efforts as EDI initiatives, to emphasize the importance of pursuing greater diversity and inclusion only after investing in a culture of equity as the foundation.
At CCL, we believe that without equity, efforts to promote diversity and inclusion are well-intentioned, but unsustainable. We emphasize the importance of starting with equity to support diversity and inclusion, and we use our evidence-based REAL™ framework to help organizations understand the dynamics of diversity, equity, and inclusion within their unique context.Â
Equity, diversity, and inclusion training, or EDI training, is an organizational change initiative designed to move participants from building awareness to taking actions that shift mindsets, behaviors, and practices toward a more equitable and inclusive leadership culture for individuals, teams, and organizations. At CCL, we believe that sustainable and lasting workplace culture change for EDI requires a systemic approach.Â
More questions? Our experts are here to help. Let’s have a conversation!
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