My interest is in achieving outcomes and frankly we don’t have the knowledge on which methods are most realistic and effective. I can’t make a hard decision about something without that.
My issue isn’t with trying varying methods. My issue is with labeling very different methods with the same name (DEI), which results in confusion and not constructive discussions, since everyone is working with different definition of the word.
The resulting vagueness then makes the issue far more divisive then it needs to be as proponents pick best policies to defend and detractors pick the worst examples to criticize.
DEI is not a singular method. It’s a larger framework in short concerned with certain outcomes. A number of different methods may be part of DEI at a particular place. I think you are driving at a salient point in that the grammar used with it can give that impression. It’s easier to speak about in a way that isn’t repetitive by using shorthands, and there’s definitely danger there that uncurious people not willing to have good faith discussions like we are will make assumptions.
Conquering that is going to be difficult because it’s a larger linguistic issue common to many unproductive politicized topics. I hate that a lot of discussion time is taken up by essentially semantic arguments rather than substantive ones. I’m not sure how to solve for that because language almost always creates more generic categorizations to lump similar but distinct ideas to save time. To your point, by its nature that introduces vagueness.
For me, the lesson needs to be to seek depth where something seems disagreeable but has vagueness, especially ideological labeling. I wish that was a realistic ask for all people. It has made me change my opinions a lot over the years as I’ve learned more—not necessarily dramatically, but it has tempered them with nuance.
For me, the lesson needs to be to seek depth where something seems disagreeable but has vagueness, especially ideological labeling. I wish that was a realistic ask for all people. It has made me change my opinions a lot over the years as I’ve learned more—not necessarily dramatically, but it has tempered them with nuance.
This indeed is a really good takeaway, but I think we also need to at least try and make messaging clearer for those that are not going to. For example, many companies have statements of commitment to DEI on their webpages, but rarely what it does and more importantly doesn’t include.
As far as company material, at least public facing, you’re entirely correct. It’s almost exclusively corporate speak rather than anything useful. That’s not unique to DEI, though, and convincing corporations to make their public HR content more exact when they’re not quoting the law is unfortunately pissing up a rope.
My issue isn’t with trying varying methods. My issue is with labeling very different methods with the same name (DEI), which results in confusion and not constructive discussions, since everyone is working with different definition of the word.
The resulting vagueness then makes the issue far more divisive then it needs to be as proponents pick best policies to defend and detractors pick the worst examples to criticize.
DEI is not a singular method. It’s a larger framework in short concerned with certain outcomes. A number of different methods may be part of DEI at a particular place. I think you are driving at a salient point in that the grammar used with it can give that impression. It’s easier to speak about in a way that isn’t repetitive by using shorthands, and there’s definitely danger there that uncurious people not willing to have good faith discussions like we are will make assumptions.
Conquering that is going to be difficult because it’s a larger linguistic issue common to many unproductive politicized topics. I hate that a lot of discussion time is taken up by essentially semantic arguments rather than substantive ones. I’m not sure how to solve for that because language almost always creates more generic categorizations to lump similar but distinct ideas to save time. To your point, by its nature that introduces vagueness.
For me, the lesson needs to be to seek depth where something seems disagreeable but has vagueness, especially ideological labeling. I wish that was a realistic ask for all people. It has made me change my opinions a lot over the years as I’ve learned more—not necessarily dramatically, but it has tempered them with nuance.
This indeed is a really good takeaway, but I think we also need to at least try and make messaging clearer for those that are not going to. For example, many companies have statements of commitment to DEI on their webpages, but rarely what it does and more importantly doesn’t include.
As far as company material, at least public facing, you’re entirely correct. It’s almost exclusively corporate speak rather than anything useful. That’s not unique to DEI, though, and convincing corporations to make their public HR content more exact when they’re not quoting the law is unfortunately pissing up a rope.
Yeah, this