Abstract
The research is clear. Diverse and inclusive companies are more successful in attracting and retaining talents, improving their customer relations, employee satisfaction, and decision making, all of which leads to a virtuous cycle of increasing returns and sustainability. However, people’s old mindsets, hidden biases, microaggressions, and structural inequality continue to hold companies back. Most organizations and leaders operate from a colorblind approach (Jansen, Vos, Otten, Podsiadlowski, & van der Zee, 2016) and lack a framework for leveraging diverse talents. Even in companies that are invested in making changes, people often feel ill-equipped to engage in honest dialogues or make changes.
Adams delves into a few contemporary, yet historically rooted, issues pertaining to the lack of diversity and/or inclusion in organizations. Although Adams’s book isn’t a companion text for a psychology class, her concrete strategies for diversity and inclusion practices could help Psychology of Women Quarterly readers implement changes right away. She offers clear and concise information on science underpinning human behaviors, actionable strategies, accessible measurement tools, and a road map for implementing changes. There are takeaways and actionable steps at the end of each chapter.
Adams begins her book by addressing underrepresentation and unconscious bias in organizations. She argues that cultural change comes from change in the mindset and behaviors of people within the organization. In effort to help people move away from a good/bad binary, she reminds readers that “you can be a nice person and be prejudiced” (p. 21). She continues to show readers how associating some groups with good things and other groups with bad things is a socially learned behavior that needs to be challenged. Adams’ emphasis on the detrimental impact of positive biases on building diversity and inclusion reminds readers that individuals’ unexamined preferences, such as elitism, can also lead to discrimination, marginalization, and inequality.
In a series of chapters, Adams describes inclusive leaders who frequently reflect on their values, assumptions, unconscious biases, and how their mindsets impact every aspect of the organization. She also discusses ways to intervene the myth of meritocracy—often used to justify the lack of diversity—and gives readers tools to build accountability in shifting their mindset and behaviors. Furthermore, Adams offers a variety of practical strategies and tools: from assessing leaders and organizations’ readiness for building diversity and inclusion to measuring the results after implementing change. Her concrete suggestions for recruitment, hiring, and engagement are clear and helpful.
Despite the useful, practical suggestions throughout the book, there are several challenges. First, although Adams sets off explaining implicit biases, she does not offer an in-depth discussion on how biases manifest and impact relationships and team dynamics at work. Readers could benefit from learning how to intervene and repair the rupture in relationships. Second, although Adams offers a framework of thinking difference (p. 61) and talks about how “societal norms enable some people to move through life with ease and require others to work much harder to move forward” (p. 60), she misses the opportunity to address common defenses associated with privileged identity exploration such as denial, deflection, or minimalization. Readers could benefit from understanding what typically happens when assumptions and behaviors stemming from privileged identities are challenged and from considering what can be done to mitigate defensiveness to allow for more open, productive, and inclusive responses. Adams accomplished the goal of creating a road map for building diversity and inclusion at work. People who are looking for actionable strategies or feminists seeking to improve diversity and inclusion in their communities or workplace may find the book especially helpful.
