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Is your company’s DEI A-OK?

By Ed Goldman

Like many of you I’ve been thinking about inclusiveness these days. (See how I did that? I just included myself with “many of you.” Why doesn’t the MacArthur Fellowship have a “Genius Grant” category for this sort of thing?)

As you know, companies across the country are being compelled—gagging as they expressed their delight—to institute DEI programs into their hiring practices. DEI, if you’re just rejoining us after a lengthy sojourn, sabbatical or medically-induced coma, is the acronym for diversity, equity and, today’s ultimate topic, inclusion. 

It’s just one of many business jargon shortcuts. Consider these:

• MOM (for month-over-month financial comparisons); 
• COB (for a close-of-business time even if you routinely work nights and weekends); 
• EOW (end of week; see above); 
• IM (instant message; can be used both as a noun or as a call to action, as in the desperately self-affirming “IM me!”);
• KPI (key performance indicator); and everyone’s fave, 
• FAQs (which some think is a misspelling of “facts” but actually means frequently asked questions). 

In practice, this could mean that an executive memo expressing concern over dipping revenues could come out like this:

TO: Team Bryce

FROM: Bryce T. Hibachi, Jr., Team Leader, Team Bryce

RE: Concerns Over Dipping Revenues

I just looked at our KPI from an MOM standpoint and feel we need to discuss this by COB at EOW. Please IM me ASAP with your FAQs. 

Whenever I read stuff like this, I realize I’ve never felt so non-included in my life. And so glad of it. I could never join a Team Bryce in this or any lifetime. Nor a Team Tessa. Now, a Team Emiliano or a Team Mahalia, maybe. 

But let’s not press our luck here. I’m Team Me. I work for, cook for and occasionally even clean up after me. I’m the only one in the middle of my inner circle. I’m also the only member of my employee stock ownership plan, which is so under-funded I’ve taken to calling it my ESOP Fable.

When did being included in damn near everything become so important? Forcing an organization to diversify and include seems wrongheaded. (Same thing for forcing it to equitize, but since that actually means to divide up real estate, I thought I’d give it a pass.) People who get shoved into jobs (or even friendships) for which they may not be a proper fit is bad for the shover, shovee and those whom he or she gets shoved upon. Just as it works with cross-cultural relations, “tolerance” may happen but that’s still a long drive from “acceptance.” 

Sometimes it’s good to be left out. When I worked in local government as a public information officer, my boss deliberately excluded me from certain confidential meetings—not because he didn’t like me (I think) but just in case a reporter asked me later about what had been discussed. I didn’t have to obfuscate, spin or outright lie when I answered, “I really don’t know.” 

One reporter used to persist and ask me to “speculate” on what went on in a closed-door meeting at City Hall, throwing in some transparent flattery like, “I mean, you’re a smart guy, you know what goes on around here.” And he was right about one thing: I was smart enough to look both ways before I crossed a street, to strap on my seat belt before driving and to never “speculate” with a reporter when I truly didn’t have the foggiest idea of something. My boss had taught me the concept of “plausible deniability.”