The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery triggered an enormous pledging of support in organizations across many industries to support their Black and other underrepresented groups and to build more inclusive companies. And it’s been more than lip service—American businesses are now spending more than eight billion dollars per year to combat unconscious bias and expand diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in their workplaces.

The bad news, according to leadership consultancy ThinkHuman founder and CEO Meredith Haberfeld, is that many of these well-intentioned initiatives are not only ineffective, but can actually prove counterproductive.

“In a meta-analysis of more than 490 studies involving some 80,000 people, the psychologist Patrick Forscher, and his colleagues found that unconscious bias training did not change behavior,” said Haberfeld. “And other studies revealed that this type of training can even backfire.”

So how can businesses build an effective and efficient program that truly improves diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB)? Haberfeld shared insights during a thought leadership spotlight titled, “Do More With Less: Inclusive Leadership Development Strategies for People Leaders at Your Organization” at From Day One’s June virtual conference.

Pioneering Together

“As a starting point, let's acknowledge that we are all pioneering together, and we have a long way to go,” said Haberfeld. “And there are deep systemic issues, and no one has this all figured out. We are hopefully recognizing, and using the privileges that we have, to move the system forward and to center the needs and the voices of the underrepresented and oppressed as we do so. But none of us have this figured out.”

Haberfeld became fascinated by differences between organizations that have made measurable advances in inclusion and belonging—such as Salesforce, Southwest and REI—as opposed to others which were pouring efforts and financial resources into programs and training that were yielding little to no results. “We uncovered some interesting and ultimately actionable insights,” she said. “So not the whole puzzle, to be sure, but an important piece of the puzzle.

Culture Is Contagious

Leadership guru Peter Drucker famously said that culture eats strategy for breakfast, but Haberfeld takes that idea further. “Culture eats everything. We are always being shaped by the culture that we're in. And anything we want to get accomplished, the culture is defining what's going to happen. Human behavior isn't dictated by logic. As much as we'd like to believe otherwise, we are fundamentally social creatures, and we make social decisions. And as a result, we behave similar to those that we trust most.”

As beliefs shape behaviors, humans (and their organizations) are shaped by the beliefs and behaviors of their peers and leaders. “[Some DEIB trainings] are like showing a group a piano and saying ‘here's the piano, here's an explanation of how the piano works,’ and then hoping that this group somehow understands and learns how to play,” said Haberfeld. “That is essentially what many of these efforts are, because these things have varying degrees of impact, but they don't change the day-to-day behavior, and invisible expectations. Something else does that.”

Look for the Bright Spots

Haberfeld recounted the story of Jerry Sternin, a Save the Children director tasked with improving child nutrition in rural Vietnam. Sternin identified the mothers who, without additional resources, somehow managed to nourish their children. He then identified the actions that led to this outcome (offering food traditionally seen as unsuited for children) and amplified these “bright spots” to spread their knowledge. 

“Sternin focused on what he called the bright spots, in his case, the mothers, rather than these very important external factors, which in his case, were sanitation, poverty, and lack of education,” said Haberfeld. “We all have bright spots through every level of our organization. And the most obvious are our people leaders, because power dynamics, set social norms, and invisible expectations that are wired into us. What happens when those bright spots are focused on inclusivity and helping people thrive? You see a different kind of result.”

To that end, Haberfeld advocates for creating clear and inclusive expectations for leadership, and focusing on longer-term efforts instead of one-off training or pop-up diversity events. “Ultimately, the real battle is less external and more internal,” she said. “Getting the influencers to enrich their minds and grow as human beings, and then support others to do the same. I invite you to take a moment right now to pause and reflect and consider just one action you can take to move forward on building an inclusive culture. And if this speaks to you, go make your version of this real in the world.”

Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, ThinkHuman, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. 

Cynthia Barnes has written about everything from art to zebras from more than 30 countries. She currently calls Denver home.