The organisation gets religion about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). The senior management team, led by the President, decide this is a key path for moving forward. The upside in achieving greater innovation and creativity by embracing a more inclusive workplace is seen as the Holy Grail. The Middle Managers are told to get behind the push on DEI. Brilliant that getting change in Japan is so easy. Japanese staff love change. They want their boss to change, their subordinates to change, their colleagues to change, their clients to change, but they want to stay precisely the same. DEI in Japan is mainly about gender issues, rather than race, religion or national identity. The male Middle Managers themselves are part of the cohort of not wanting to change, regardless of what senior management may be saying. No one will openly oppose the pronouncements from the top, but that doesn’t mean there is any real enthusiasm for change.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss-American psychiatrist wrote a book called “On Death and Dying” which identified five stages of grief, which can be extrapolated to assist our understanding about how humans deal with DEI change.
1. Shock
The initial reaction to hearing that the organization is going to embrace change around DEI, can be very confronting for male Middle Managers and the males in their teams. Usually, the communication in organisations around change is minimal. Basically, senior management has made this decision, this is why and get on with it. The lack of what is considered satisfactory explanation sets off rumours, mis-information and confusion in the ranks. This is why companies must do a thorough job of selling DEI to the team, in depth and continuously.
2. Denial
After the initial shock of the announcement a sense of disbelief can spread and hopes that this will be a “light” intervention which won’t really affect the status quo. Japan defers to age and stage in companies and what will DEI mean for the current hierarchy? Will there be a lessening of opportunities for males to advance, in order to meet some arbitrary ratio of female managers? Why do we need to change at all, when this is how it has always been done? Senior management needs to recognise these fears and directly address them. Information vacuums will get filled with gossip, inuendo and false flags unless there is a big sales effort on the positives of change.
3. Anger
Isn’t this a stupid idea from senior management? Won’t this weaken the strength of the organisation, relative to our rivals and won’t clients have trouble accepting the change and therefore we will lose business? Pronouncements are clearly not going to be enough. When DEI first popped up on the radar in Japan, companies would ask us to train the women. I always questioned that assumption. The kacho or section head is the key person who needs educating. Usually a he, the kacho determines who gets coached, given delegated tasks for personal development and who gets promoted. Unless the kacho gets it, there will be an underlying resistance to DEI which will never be vocalized, but which will continue regardless.
4. Bargaining
“DEI is okay in theory, but our case is different. We have special circumstances here and so some adjustments have to be made”. This is typically how Middle Management whittles away at changes they don’t like. They are ninja at finding all the problems and can come up with tons of justifications to dilute the change effort, while all the while embracing the headline statements as gospel. Naturally, there will be some flexibility needed to role out DEI programmes however senior management have to be very vigilant about how the processes are worked though.
5. Dejection
When male Middle Managers realise that this DEI change is here to stay, they can become demotivated. They fear their years of loyal service has been devalued and their future promotion prospects have been impinged, all for a fad. They need to be told they are valued, they have a role here and that the form needs their contribution to arm it with the creativity and innovation needed to best the competition.
6. Letting Go
People believe what they see. When the benefits of greater inclusion become a reality, it is easier to get behind the idea, which is no longer seen as just some ivory tower theory. Also, the consistent support for DEI from the senior leadership group underlines this isn’t going away and is becoming a permanent fixture of how the organisation functions.
7. Exploration
Diversity of opinion and inclusion of different angles around decision-making is what makes the adoption of DEI an advantage inside the organisation. If the decisions are better and if the outcomes are better, than what could have been achieved before, then this initiates a different set of responses and changes thinking about what is possible.
8. Acceptance
Gradually, it becomes clear that the worst fears were not realized. Even unexpected benefits appeared. The doomsayers were proven wrong, the system settles down to a new reality and everyone moves forward.
Planning for these stages would be a clever move by senior management, in addition to their various pronouncements from on high. The DEI process is a process and as such, it has to be supported all the way through these seven stages, if it is going to stick. That requires consistent work over many years, until DEI becomes part of the culture of the organisation. Best to plan for that from the beginning.
