Driving Culture Change for Authentic DEIB through Strategic Hiring

So you want to drive culture change to authentically embrace DEIB for yourself and your team? The best accelerator happens when you hire the next person to the team.

In an era where buzzwords like Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) dominate corporate dialogues, it's high time we confront a hard truth: much of what is touted as commitment to these ideals is nothing more than surface-level posturing.

The fundamental principle may seem profound but it is straightforward if coupled with intent: don’t hire the right person just for the role, hire the right person for the team. Hiring is not just a process of filling a vacancy or meeting a quota; it's an opportunity to sculpt your team's culture.

Leaders are trained to say “diversity drives better performance” without explicitly connecting their why with their what. In the absence of that, they are not able to walk the talk when it matters, leaving their teams with an after-taste of cynicism. This can leave leaders and teams internalizing that DEIB is as simple as finding a diverse-looking candidate instead of being about the pursuit of diversity of thought which will inherently lead to diverse representation on the team. It’s not about fulfilling an unsaid quota, it’s about DEIB flowing through the unseen aorta of your team’s systemic decision making. The real litmus test for authentic cultural change in organizations lies not in eloquent speeches or flashy PR campaigns, but in the everyday decisions that reinforce what you really value - the most critical being how leaders and their teams collaborate to hire for culture add and bring new members on board.

5 Steps to Making It Happen

This transformative approach to hiring is broken down into five pragmatic steps designed to integrate DEIB into the very fabric of a team's hiring practices.

1. Defining Team Needs

The journey begins with a vision, where leaders and teams define the skills and culture needed for success, much like the start of a social movement. Leaders engage their teams in defining the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities that align with both business outcomes and the desired cultural dynamics. Begin by tapping into existing resources such as Competency & Performance Profiles (CPPs). This is coupled with a targeted team meeting and a subsequent follow-up survey, both of which are instrumental in forming a clear, shared vision of the team's requirements and aspirations. The survey helps avoid any group thinking during the meeting and caters to individual personalities as some may want to take time to reflect instead of sharing in the moment.

2. Developing a Hiring Rubric

Next, the development of a hiring rubric comes into play. This involves crafting a concise yet comprehensive template that captures the essential skills and cultural attributes desired in new team members. This tool is not just a checklist; it’s a manifesto of what the team stands for and the qualities they seek in new members. The aim is not to look for a cultural fit but for cultural add. Therefore, the rubric should include a buffer for catching any unique aspects about a candidate that were not captured by the team and would make the team stronger. Having this buffer also builds leadership skills for interviewers by allowing them to identify and advocate for new aspects of the team. It's a collaborative effort, where feedback is sought from the team via email to ensure the rubric truly reflects collective values and needs. However, collaboration doesn’t mean a final rubric by consensus. The Leader has to harness the feedback and make the final call on the rubric to ensure it aligns with what they are solving for.

Swipe through the gallery to see an example rubric:

3. Addressing Biases

While this all can sound great on paper, leaders must take a hard look at their teams and their own biases to take it from concept to reality. In this step, bias training is not optional but rather a prerequisite for those involved in interviewing, framing it as an opportunity for leadership development. Leaders must recognize and address their own biases and those within the team, similar to a movement confronting its internal challenges. Together, they must actively choose to be bold - to collectively recognize those silent saboteurs of diversity and inclusion – and ensure such biases don’t infiltrate the hiring process. Regular team meetings provide a platform for open discussions about biases, and leaders are encouraged to keep a personal diary to aid in continuous self-awareness and reflection.

4. Effective Interviews

The fourth step focuses on conducting efficient interviews. This involves strategically assigning interview roles that align with team members' strengths and availability. The Leader will assign each team member as an interviewer for a specific module based not only on their expertise but also the leader’s awareness of their biases. Multiple interviewers should be assigned to assess similar focus areas to accommodate for any biases and enable higher reliability. The use of structured interviews, behavioral assessments, and case studies ensures a comprehensive and holistic evaluation of candidates.

Work samples and structured interviews are proven to be the best predictors of on-the-job performance. However, structured interviews are easily disguised as unstructured interviews that are opposite in effect. Structured interviews are accompanied with documented guidelines for the interviewer on example of questions to ask, and what poor, good, and great looks like. If left at the discretion of the interviewer, it becomes an unstructured interview and opens up risk for bias if the interviewer isn’t a proven good assessor of talent. Post-interview, the leader’s role is to sift through feedback, separating genuine insights from biased perceptions.

5. The Grand Finale

The final step is perhaps the most revealing: akin to a pivotal moment in a movement, the leader facilitates a critical team debrief where biases are laid bare, challenged, or validated. This moment is about unveiling insights, challenging biases, and leading the team to an 'aha' moment, solidifying the commitment to the new culture. This isn’t just about selecting a candidate; it’s a moment of truth where the team’s commitment to DEIB is put to the test, curated by the Leader. The magic sauce of this approach happens at this stage, made possible by the discipline and thoughtfulness of prior steps. After interviews are completed, the Leader facilitates a debrief session with all interviewers using the rubric as a guide to structure the discussion. In preparation for this discussion, the Leader identifies any biased opinions on specific candidates as well as any areas that were not fully assessed and accordingly drafts questions to dive deeper. The Leader defines a sequence of discussing candidates and what areas to dive deeper with whom.

For instance, if Interviewer Alex has a strong opinion on candidate Nancy’s lack of assertiveness. The Leader must take note of whether this could be a bias coming from Alex. The Leader creates a question to ask for thoughts on Nancy’s assertiveness but asks Alex to speak at the end after other interviewers have shared their thoughts. By the time Alex’s turn comes, they either realize their bias based on what others noticed or further validate it. The Leader repeats this for all final candidates and adjusts the scoring as needed.

The Leader has to facilitate this by creating an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing their views. The Leader challenges biases when they appear and guides the team to focus on the established criteria. Based on the debrief, the Leader makes the final hiring decision. They do not need to decide in that meeting - this lets the team know they are thinking about everyone’s input. Where and when they make the decision, they have to ensure that they convey the ‘why’ to the team for transparency on how this decision aligns with both the skill needs and cultural aspirations of the team.

Why It’s a Game-Changer

This approach revolutionizes hiring by making it a team-centric strategy and practice, not just a leader’s mandate. It dismantles the notion that diversity is about tokenism or optics. Instead, it centers on what the team collectively values and needs to thrive. This approach to hiring not only reinforces the importance of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) in practical terms but also actively involves the entire team in a transformative journey. It shifts the narrative from diversity as a superficial goal to an essential component of team success and culture.

With this approach, leaders become more than decision-makers - they emerge as culture curators. By explicitly linking team values to hiring decisions, they set a precedent that resonates throughout the organization. This approach provides leaders with a tangible opportunity to demonstrate what they value in team members. It also subtly indicates how these values might reflect in individual evaluations, effectively using the hiring process as a tool for cultural change, going beyond what can be achieved through traditional corporate training or verbal directives. The smart ones will take it beyond hiring and reflect in their regular work behaviors.

This process isn't just theoretical. It’s a practical, experiential journey leveraging logical and emotional levers that foster a growth mindset, encourage self-reflection, and build psychological safety. The process serves as an experiential learning opportunity, fostered through deep, meaningful dialogues within the team. Under the guidance of the leader or hiring manager, it creates a psychologically safe environment for more honest discussions. This aspect not only aids in better hiring decisions but also contributes to the personal and professional development of team members, as they learn to navigate complex conversations about diversity, biases, and team dynamics. This engagement is crucial in making team members aware of their unconscious biases and how these biases might influence their choices, promoting more inclusive and fair decision-making process.

Engaging the team in identifying what is missing in terms of diversity of thought will allow clarification on how this diversity can help achieve the team's goals. It fosters a collective understanding and agreement on the value of diverse perspectives in driving desired outcomes, ensuring that diversity of thought is purposefully linked to the team's success. The process helps the team understand that diversity isn't just about meeting representation goals for the sake of appearances or PR. It shifts the focus from diversity as a target to diversity as a means of enriching the team's perspective and effectiveness. This level-setting avoids the pitfall of treating diverse representation as a mere checkbox and instead emphasizes its integral role in enhancing team dynamics and outcomes. One of the major benefits of this is that the team will have a bench composed of future leaders, already invested and prepared to infuse the right DEIB practices into everything they do.

Each of these steps, when executed thoughtfully, transforms hiring from a routine organizational task into a strategic tool for cultivating a truly diverse, equitable, inclusive, and belonging workplace.

It's time to move beyond lip service in DEIB and embrace a more authentic, participatory approach to hiring. This playbook isn’t just a hiring strategy for transactional measures; it’s a catalyst for genuine cultural transformation. For boards, senior leaders, people managers, and HR leaders, the message is clear: real change starts with the choices you make at the hiring table. Let’s move beyond the fakeness and build teams that truly reflect the values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

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