DEI Books - HonestCulture Staff Recommendations
There have been studies time and again about how DEI is good for the bottom line. However, beyond the business case, the reason DEI work is important is because it is the right thing to do.
Wherever your organization is in its DEI journey, there is a book for you in our recommended list to help you on your path onward. Check out our staff picks of books centered around how to make impactful and meaningful change in the workplace and the world.
Tip: Click on the arrow next to the book title to read a synopsis of the book.
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Most of us believe inclusion is both the right thing to do and good for business. Then why are we so terrible at it? If we believe in the morality and the profitability of including people of diverse and underestimated backgrounds, why don't we do it? Because inclusion takes awareness, intention and regular practice. Inclusion doesn't just happen; we have to work at it. Read this book to learn cutting-edge inclusion best practices. It's for all leaders and organizations to meaningfully promote inclusion, diversity and equity.
Inclusion on Purpose centers the workplace experience of women of color! Let's banish the idea of the “level playing field” and learn how to use your privilege for good by identifying and exposing bias. "Leaning in” doesn't work but dismantling structural bias does. To make progress toward inclusion and diversity—start now.
Purchasing info, synopsis & image credit: www.rtulshyan.com/inclusion-on-purpose
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Closing the Gap Between Good Intentions and Real Change
As we become more aware of various social injustices in the world, many of us want to be part of the movement toward positive change. But sometimes even our best intentions cause unintended harm, and we fumble despite our earnest efforts. We might feel afraid to say the wrong thing and feel guilt for not doing or knowing enough. Sometimes we might engage in performative allyship rather than thoughtful solidarity, leaving those already marginalized further burdened and exhausted.
The feelings of fear, insecurity, inadequacy are all too common among a wide spectrum of changemakers, and they put many at a crossroads between feeling stuck and giving up, or staying grounded to keep going. Every one of us has an important role to play in shaping our society and finding our way together has never been more urgent. So how can we go beyond performative allyship to creating real change in ourselves and in the world, together?
In The Wake Up, Michelle MiJung Kim shares foundational principles often missing in today’s mainstream conversations around “diversity and inclusion” and urges readers to go beyond performative allyship to enacting real transformation within ourselves and in the world. The Wake Up invites readers to deep dive into the challenging and nuanced work of pursuing equity and justice, while exploring various complexities, contradictions, and conflicts inherent in our imperfect world.
Michelle MiJung Kim is known for her ability to bring clarity to complex topics without losing nuance, while balancing compassion and criticality. With a mix of in-the-trenches narrative and accessible unpacking of hot button issues--from inclusive language to representation to "cancel culture"--she offers sustainable frameworks that guide us how to think, approach, and be in the journey as thoughtfully and powerfully as possible.
The Wake Up is divided into four key parts:
• Grounding: begin by moving beyond good intentions to interrogating our deeper “why” for committing to social justice and uncovering our "hidden stories."
• Orienting: establish a shared understanding around our historical and current context and issues we are trying to solve, starting with dismantling white supremacy.
• Showing Up: learn critical principles to approach any situation with clarity and build our capacity to work through complexity, nuance, conflict, and imperfections.
• Moving Together: remember the core of this work is about human lives, and commit to prioritizing humanity, healing, and community.
Purchasing info, synopsis & image credit: www.michellemijungkim.com/wakeup
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Effective dialogue across different dimensions of diversity, such as race, gender, age, religion, or sexual orientation, fosters a sense of belonging and inclusion, which in turn leads to greater productivity, performance, and innovation. Whether in the workplace, faith communities, or educational settings, our differences can tear us apart rather than bring us together if we do not know how to communicate.
Recognizing our collective responsibility to earnestly address our differences and increase understanding and empathy will not only enhance organizational goals but will also lead to a healthier, kinder, and more compassionate world.
Award-winning diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant Mary-Frances Winters has been leading workshops on what she calls Bold, Inclusive Conversations® for years. In this book she offers specific dialogue strategies to foster greater understanding on the following topics:
Recognizing the importance of creating equity and sharing power
Dealing with the “fragility” of dominant groups—their discomfort in engaging with historically subordinated groups
Addressing the exhaustion historically marginalized groups feel from constantly explaining their different lived experience
Exploring how to build trust and create psychologically safe spaces for dialogue
This guide is comprehensive for anyone who wants to break down the barriers that separate us and facilitate discussions on potentially polarizing topics.
Purchasing info, synopsis & image credit: www.wintersgroup.com/inclusive-conversations-is-available-now/
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Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right
The definitive comprehensive and foundational text for critically analyzing and applying actionable DEI techniques and strategies.
DEI Deconstructed analyzes how current methods and “best practices” leave marginalized people feeling frustrated and unconvinced of their leaders’ sincerity, and offers a roadmap that bridges the neatness of theory with the messiness of practice. Through embracing a pragmatic DEI approach drawing from cutting-edge research on organizational change, evidence-based practices, and incisive insights from a DEI strategist with experience working from the top-down and bottom-up alike, stakeholders at every level of an organization can become effective DEI changemakers.
By utilizing an outcome-oriented understanding of DEI, along with a comprehensive foundation of actionable techniques, this no-nonsense guide will lay out the path for anyone with any background to becoming a more effective DEI practitioner, ally, and leader.
Purchasing info, synopsis & image credit: lilyzheng.co/home/books
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This compelling and inspiring call to action for leaders at every level helps them find their role and voice in affecting societal and workplace change.
The need for inclusive leadership has never been more urgent. In the United States, the wealth gap is the greatest it has ever been, with women, people of color, and other marginalized communities being the most impacted by economic and societal inequities. In the workplace, representation is still sorely lacking across every industry. Pay disparities, low wages, and lack of benefits continue to characterize many jobs in the nation’s labor force. These realities have an impact on generations, communities, and our society overall. To build a more equitable future, leaders must grasp the urgency of their role and responsibility in the change effort.
In this updated and greatly expanded second edition of her bestselling book, Jennifer Brown takes a deeper dive into what it takes to be an inclusive leader and examines the challenges and mindsets that continue to hold many leaders back. Combining nearly two decades of professional DEI expertise with personal experience and reflection, she tackles complex topics such as identity, privilege, and systemic inequities. Following her widely acclaimed Inclusive Leader Continuum, Brown makes the journey to becoming an inclusive leader more informed and actionable by offering new structure and content throughout the new edition of the book, including new insights and stories, detailed strategies and tools, and discussion guides to spark learning at the individual and organizational levels.
Purchasing info, synopsis & image credit: book.jenniferbrownspeaks.com
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An intimate, impertinent, and incisive collection about race, progress, and hypocrisy from Jill Louise Busby, aka Jillisblack.
Jill Louise Busby spent years in the nonprofit sector specializing in Diversity & Inclusion. She spoke at academic institutions, businesses, and detention centers on the topics of Race, Power, and Privilege and delivered over two-hundred workshops to nonprofit organizations all over the California Bay Area.
In 2016, fed up with what passed as progressive in the Pacific Northwest, Busby uploaded a one-minute video about race, white institutions, and faux liberalism to Instagram. The video received millions of views across social platforms. As her pithy persona Jillisblack became an "it-voice" weighing in on all things race-based, Jill began to notice parallels between her performance of "diversity" in the white corporate world and her performance of "wokeness" for her followers. Both, she realized, were scripted.
Unfollow Me is a memoir-in-essays about these scripts; it's about tokenism, micro-fame, and inhabiting spaces-real and virtual, black and white-where complicity is the price of entry. Busby's social commentary manages to be both wryly funny and achingly open-hearted as she recounts her shape-shifting moves among the subtle hierarchies of progressive communities. Unfollow Me is a sharply personal and self-questioning critique of white fragility (and other words for racism), respectability politics (and other words for shame), and all the places where fear masquerades as progress.
Purchasing info, synopsis & image credit: jilllouisebusby.com/unfollow-me-essays-on-complicity
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How do you improve your DEI program and create an amazing culture that attracts people of all kinds to your company?
You need to learn the latest (and greatest) diversity, equity, and inclusion principles and apply them. These applications need to be at the core of your organization and work culture.
In Inclusive 360, you will learn:
Why you need to understand your “why”
How to establish your baseline state of diversity, equity, and inclusion
The steps to take to set diversity targets
- How to increase and promote diversityHow to improve representation
Simple tools to promote inclusion
And much, much more.
Purchasing info, synopsis & image credit: www.inclusive360.com/book