I have worked for the wrong people in my career. That does not mean companies. I mean I worked for people that I fundamentally do not agree with how they conduct business or treat people including their customers. I have also worked with some of the absolute finest people in the industry. I smile as I write this and if you know me and are reading this, then likely you are why I smile.
The wrong people sometimes had great outcomes and fantastic deliverables. Nobody loved the journey. You worked with them in spite of who they were. The majority of the time the work product was trash. It, just like their attitude, was just good enough not to get fired.
I started to hear about DEI and how companies are reviewing their policies or straight out rolling them back. I share with you what I share with other people I chat with in the industry. It is theirs to break.
Maybe I am completely wrong. That phrase has kept me on my toes for a very long time, but until my training, experience and objectivity are provided evidence to the contrary I will stick on this path. So if just the thought of DEI pisses you off, there are other things you may want to read. My voice is only one. Your spent energy and my indifference to those who would chat me about this particular topic and where my guess your intentions would come from, let's just not. K?
This is not an overtly political post. It is however a position that I hold firmly. It comes from personality traits, even though for full disclosure I am a person of color, minority, or whichever phrase to say that I would not be described as "white".
I was told that I am an introvert but I consider myself a forced extrovert. There is a distinction if only in my mind. I never want people on my team or in my life sitting in a corner not being heard.
Why? They have things to say and they have value as humans. It is that simple.
The wrong people I worked for had one telltale sign, they only saw things their way. I will leave it at that. When I saw that, I left. Maybe not immediately but I ended up leaving and not having an issue with it.
The mechanism that is humanity processes for the masses but not for all. We build processes for the simplified understanding and to meet most requirements of the largest population. Up until the past 20 years, nobody saw an issue with it. I thought it was strange. I saw men making products for women without any input from a woman. Doesn't that seem fundamentally odd no matter what era you would be from?
In being responsible to humans as a whole, not just the median of the curve, we all collectively have to do some work. This is not just to those in power, but to all of us. Because we all have our "us vs. them" mentalities. I am not saying that they are wrong, in fact what I am saying is that there are differences, we just need to value and consider them. Not out of political correctness, but out of more than a few good and appropriate reasons. Consideration means market potential. Consideration means a better product. Consideration means recognition of the quality and thoughtfulness in the design.
As an engineer there is not one perfect product that caters to all. But why wouldn't we try? For those of you who are saying "cost", "speed to market", "political climate", you may be making my point. The triangle of Cost, Schedule, Quality and you get to pick 2 legs holds true here. And I keep saying out loud and proud my intentions in writing these posts are about Quality.
Quality teams and Quality Mindsets are my purpose. But in being honest we have to process through our "us vs. them" to see if we are doing ourselves a disservice, or are we positively recognizing differences objectively and in most cases as positively as the context allows. Let's hold on to the healthy and let's recognize the ones that create fear in us or others. Just a thought on how to treat people. Everything else I write about centers on empathy, so not a huge shock for anyone who knows me or has read my stuff.
By doing the healthy recognition we drive these perceptions to recognize value and YES limitations that we need to accommodate for in the population so that we can make everyone feel hear and considered. If consideration pisses you off, I assure you that products for left handed people are not a cabal to make anyone a socialist. I said "overtly political".
So in short, I do believe in a just, equitable society. Because, why not? If I don't believe it for everyone, then what audacity and hubris must I have to believe in justice and equity for myself. Rights are rights, not just for those who are able to fight for them. Otherwise we are talking about the weak versus the powerful. Guess what? I guarantee you the majority of you probably feel pretty powerless. We will gain that justice and equity by, as a society pushing for this across the board.
Remember at any point you can stop reading if you has "madz".
We need to drive the "wrong" perceptions out if we want to achieve what we say we as quality professionals want: a good quality product, process or system.
If it sounds like a lot of work then guess what, you do hard things every day. Life is hard work. Life is about bringing people up and not tearing them down.
If you are in the pharmaceutical and/or medical device industry DEI teams help us meet the intent of what we are supposed to do. We are supposed to make products that help the masses. We work on orphan drugs and custom devices with the same intensity and integrity that we work on novel drugs.
How do you do that without the perspective of a diverse team? How do you do that without making equity between those who have not had the same advantages, even if that only dis-advantage is not being in majority of the heard.
There is an expectation that the heard protects the entire heard. Those who fall outside of the margins are brought into the heard. If they are pushed out, there are reasons.
DEI is not about power, changing power structure from one group to another. What I am saying here is that we agree that voices are heard equally and your reaction to not being heard equally would be similar if you saw someone you care not get their cake at the party because someone made a choice that they did not deserve cake. Now I want cake.
My point IS NOT that the minority are powerless. In fact the backlash against DEI is about the loss of overall agency (of fear of that loss). That is fear of power. Army ants.
Power is a relative structure in the grand scheme of the human process.
I digress
Perspective, training and experience can lead to a better process especially based on experiences that other team members would not have or could not have without that perspective and experience. We as leaders and members of society need to actively listen and hear just like we do with our reports. Value them. As leaders we do not have to ask permission. We all have that level of agency if you think about it.
Valuing all voices is the recognition that other communities in their experiences must be taken into account for the processes, products, or systems that they participate, use or are required to be part of. Not listening to these communicates is disenfranchisement. It always makes me wonder how capitalism and freedom do not already have a coalesced philosophy on this. Maybe there is a scale like I discussed earlier of "proto" capitalism where the cheapest and fastest to market was the first thought technology that capitalism built. Call it greed if you wish; I don't because the whole point of production is return. Capitalism is a good thing. It is how the world economy flows.
But here we are as quality professionals and if you put those "proto" words on one end of the scale and big "Q" quality on the other end of the scale that has all the words you would expect then you may have a continuity of a) cheap, b) value, c) quality, d) luxury. I don't love the word luxury on this system just for the same reason that I did not put greed as part of denoting cheap, because quite frankly the luxury items and the cheap items are likely motivated by greed, but just in different scaled of margin versus market product. Sips versus gulps. "Luxury" can be an illusion regarding quality as many luxury items are about prestige and not true quality, I use it here as a placeholder. If we are going to be honest, the difference between all the words not that continuum is each one of those is a judgement of quality of cheap having little quality (maybe utility), value having adequate quality for the expected lifespan, quality as having set expectations
That is the point of DEI, we all get a voice to objectively work on the products, processes, and systems in various points of the lifecycle. All humans that can participate in the economy or system have the ability to judge the spectrum. Every person, family, friend group, and yes, culture, have a perspective on what is on that spectrum of cheap through luxury. There are cultural brands. You can think of them.
DEI allows us to ENSURE that these voices are brought in earlier in the development of these products, processes, and systems. It is democracy, agency and freedom enabling.
DEI is important to cross functional team. If you think about scientific advisory committees, there is a push for patient advocacy to give the people being affected a voice. That makes all the sense in the world when you think about it from healthcare.
A team that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive have the ability to develop a better process because it is not just patient population but other perspectives that can help us better understand the human condition. It values the individual selves, all of the contributors, and allows us in our capacity to lead, to be better at what we do.
Different voices that are passionate about their advocacy and understand their mandate helps make the status quo process better.
Inclusiveness in teams is being honest about what your team does not have. Set up a framework for evaluating the overall team perspective and values; make sure they align with the company and yours (which yours should match the company, just saying).
The framework should further take stock as to what you have in terms of training and experience. When you have a gap, then you look for other potential team members. You can also be looking at external available subject matter expertise with a particular profile. There is not a team in the world that cannot become more well-rounded. We should be questioning the structure and DEI attributes of our current teams. Otherwise our messaging is that our current teams are "good enough. From a quality perspective that should not be the message from management. This is the human resource side of continuous improvement.
Leaders should be looking to hear the message of what resources are needed and not forget DEI.
Currently there is not a widespread push to think about teams in terms of needing to consider DEI as a criteria in resource recruitment. It scares some people because they think these new criteria will be the only criteria and that they will be excluded. We need communicate and to see as a society that it is an appropriate ancillary criteria to solving a difficult problem or by helping to find sensibilities that otherwise have not been available to the team before.
As leaders we need to have a serious level of reflection until we can normalize what should, in my opinion, be normal. It should seen as fundamentally taking care of your team needs. They don't always know what they need and you are unapologetic about getting them those resources; how is this different?
We are at a tipping point. Our problems are getting more complex. It is our job to recognize that the typical mindset, tool set, and thinking are no longer enough. So how do you change this in your role? I think we need to bring these issues up in terms of expectations of ourselves and our management. Be the differentiator in who you economically support in your life or in how you execute your team. It could start simply with actively seeking input from team members that otherwise may not have time to be on the team, but you are doing a check-in.
Recognize all success with management and highlight DEI traits that made a difference to the goal and the bottom line. Get management to understand through active communication that the collective teams values were the differentiator and brought the best possible solution given the resources and constraints. The structure of the team needs to be a common theme till DEI considerations becomes holistically and organically recognized as the mainstay of better results.
As a quality professional that is what we're trying to get to. Anything less than that should worry you as a professional or as a consumer.
I appreciate you getting this far. I wish you well.