Published: July 29, 2024
By TD Smyers & Quinton "Q" Phillips, Long Game Consulting, LLC
Leaders don’t just lead individuals. Leaders lead teams.
Sure, teams are groups of individuals, but the team is much more than the sum of its individuals; it has an identity all its own. Harnessing a common identity to forge these individuals together … that is the art of leadership.
Sometimes team identity is rooted in mission; other times in achievement of a mutually beneficial goal. Often the root taps a shared passion.
After years of recognizing, celebrating, and including identity at the level of the individual through Diversity-Equity-Inclusion initiatives, many companies find themselves questioning its impact, particularly as the acronym DEI has become politically charged. Has our DEI effort led top-tier talent to the company? Has it made the company more profitable? Has it contributed to a higher level of social impact?
The basic principles of DEI are easy enough to understand.
A diverse team is one composed of individuals with different identities and lived experiences.
An equitable team is one in which everyone has true opportunity and access to respect and success.
An inclusive team is one in which each individual can bring authentic identity to the team setting, and that uniqueness is vital to success.
The concept of “Belonging” has entered the DEI lexicon, adding another letter to the acronym along with a deeper layer of meaning to the inclusion of individuals.
From our standpoint, this is a positive addition, and yet, it still ignores the very real fact that leaders rarely lead just individuals; they lead teams. DEIB is still missing a letter – arguably, the most important letter. The letter “U” for unity.
The “B” is important, but mainly because belonging is how individuals experience team unity.
Leaders who fail to optimize their team’s performance aren’t usually falling short because they don’t understand the concepts of diversity, equity, or inclusion. Leaders and organizations are failing because they have been singularly-focused on the work climate experienced by the individual while slighting, or even ignoring, the trait ideally experienced by the team – unity.
In fact, unity is the culmination of the process – the goal. It’s the completion of the thought. In unity, all the hopes and dreams of DEIB come together and happen in real life.
With the best intentions, we seek to intentionally diversify our teams, but then what?
We attempt to ensure our people are treated equitably, experience equality and are included in the organization’s authority, responsibility, and accountability processes; but how do we forge unity of effort so the team can succeed?
We were incredibly diverse and deeply inclusive. Our ranks and supervisory positions included people with very different lived experiences – different races, religions, sexes, ages and nationalities – which made us capable; but what made us successful was coming together. The patch we wore on our sleeves – our squadron emblem – we unified behind that. Our squadron motto was ‘Allegiance, Integrity, Mission.’ We committed to each other, then to things larger than ourselves. – TD Smyers
Making something a program is the best way to marginalize it. Ask any company executive what DEI is and you’ll get very little depth beyond recitation of the words reflected in the acronym. That’s because most companies don’t know how to implement the concepts so they’re executable and sustainable. Organizations marginalize the effort by establishing a DEI office or hiring a Chief Diversity Officer – creating a structure, but not infusing the principles into the day-to-day operations of the company across ALL departments.
The best way to keep DEIB from succeeding with fidelity is to add it to the long list of programs the company talks about but never works into its organizational culture.
The authors of a recent NY Times piece on the subject — Elkins, Frei and Morriss — doubled down on this individual identity-based focus. They drew conclusions about what drives success with perspectives such as “Everyone must be better off for inclusion initiatives to work,” “desire for a fair chance to compete,” and “Inclusion is an end goal …”
While the authors get close with phrases like “group belonging”, they fall short of capturing the bottom line. The word “unity” never appears in this piece.
Diversity and Inclusion set each team player up for success. If the leader can achieve unity, the team achieves optimum performance, and every member of that team gets to experience the joy of belonging to something greater than themselves.
TD Smyers is Long Game’s Executive Coach and Leadership Consultant. TD holds a Physics degree from the US Naval Academy and a Master’s in Resource Strategy from the National Defense University’s Eisenhower School. He’s led diverse, high performing teams as Commanding Officer of a US Navy aviation squadron and a joint military air base, as well as major market offices of two global nonprofit organizations and a SaaS company. The Fort Worth Business Press named TD the city’s “Top Nonprofit CEO” in 2019.
Quinton “Q” Phillips is Long Game’s Cultural Competency Consultant. With degrees in Social Work, Psychology, and Theological Studies, as well as several industry-leading certifications and 15 years as a juvenile probations officer, Q brings an exceptional blend of advocacy, education, and hands-on experience to the fields of self-awareness and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB). Q was elected to the Fort Worth ISD Board of Trustees in 2019.
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