DEI Training is a Misnomer

I'm coming at you today with what might appear on the surface to be a challenge, but which is actually a deep-dive into questions as philosophical and fundamental as "what is learning?", and that is the following: what we call "DEI training" is actually a misnomer.

When we use the word "training", we imply that deep learning is taking place: that by the end of the training period, a learner will be able to do something complex that they weren't able to do before they engaged.

Let's take art class as an example. In an art class, you might explore any number of topics: how do you hold a brush? How does the pressure you apply change the lines you create? How do you use color? How do you look at the world around you and learn to translate what you see into a canvas, or a blank page?

In short, an art class (typically over a long period of time) focuses on practice: applying a complex set of skills (drawing shapes, using color, mastering tools and materials) to build a combination of muscle memory, or habits, and decision-making, or judgment. Once we combine strong artistic habit with good artistic judgment, our training is well underway -- we're well on our way to "being an artist".

I want you to read the above and be honest with me: can you imagine your last diversity, equity, and inclusion training as a process similar to the art class we just described?

If you said no, you have that in common with most folks who've ever completed a DEI "training".

What makes a training?

In contrast to the art class example above, most "diversity training" is much more reminiscent of a college lecture format, which is exactly what it sounds like: a lecture. 

"You sit down," says the diversity trainer, "and I'll tell you everything I know. You take notes -- that way you'll be able to look back later. You can ask questions along the way. Then, I'll leave, and you'll get a chance to try it for yourself."

You can see right away what the issue is, here: to learn something complex, we need to practice it, over and over. "Having a chance" to practice something as critical as DEIB is, even for the most dedicated learner, not going to be enough to effect long-term behavior change.

The fact of the matter -- and the reason DEIB is so complicated, and so difficult to get right for even the most committed organizations -- is that long-term behavior change takes time. Moreover, it takes resilience, on both the parts of the individual (who will have to practice a new skill, sometimes a great many times, and get it wrong often) and the organization (who will have to be patient as their team members undertake this practicing).

Again: imagine the art class, and imagine the last DEI training you engaged in. Which lent itself more closely to practicing new skills?

The PRISM toolkit

Of course, I wouldn't be sharing all this with you if I wasn't proud of how BE MORE with Anu has cracked the code -- found the "secret sauce", if you will, to embedding behavior change into DEIB trainings. Our proprietary PRISM toolkit is a set of five behavioral techniques that use mindfulness as a foundation to support new habit formation -- in short, it's what lets us go beyond simply sharing information, like the lecturer example above, and to really empower our learners to experiment with new ways of doing and even being. Just as the art students pick up paintbrushes and practice using them, over and over, to create something new, our BE MORE with Anu students pick up the PRISM toolkit.

If you're new to the PRISM toolkit, I hope you'll spend some time exploring it; it isn't an exaggeration to say that it is my life's work!

And, if course, if you're interested in understanding more about how we use the PRISM toolkit to bring long-lasting behavioral change to organizations and help them break bias, I hope you'll reach out to us; we'd love to share more with you.