Creating Sustainable EDI Change: From Theory to Organisational Practice

Why short-term diversity efforts fail - and how to fix them

In this episode of The Inclusive Growth Show, Toby Mildon is joined by Juliane Schlüsener, a systemic organisational developer, researcher and coach. Together, they explore how organisations can drive sustainable equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) by going beyond surface-level initiatives and embedding change across systems, structures and people.

Juliane shares insights from her research into women working in male-dominated industries, revealing how stereotype threat undermines performance. She also explains why organisations must align their structures and processes with people-focused training to achieve lasting change.

Key takeaways:

• The science behind underperformance in minority groups
• Why short-term EDI initiatives often erode employee trust
• How to embed long-term change through a systemic lens
• The role of leaders in supporting inclusive cultures
• Why Juliane remains hopeful despite societal EDI backlash

Guest highlights:
Juliane Schlüsener, systemic organisational developer and EDI coach

 🔗 Juliane Schlüsener's LinkedIn profile
🌐 Visit mildon.co.uk for more resources and support

If you want to build a more inclusive workplace that you can be proud of please visit our website to learn more.

Transcript

Speaker 1: Welcome to The Inclusive Growth Show with Toby Mildon. Future-proofing your business by creating a diverse workplace.

Toby Mildon: Hey there, thank you ever so much for tuning into this episode of The Inclusive Growth Podcast. I'm Toby Mildon, and today I'm joined by a fabulous guest. Her name is Juliane Schlusener, and we're going to be talking about quite a lot of things regarding equity, diversity and inclusion. So first of all, we'll just get to know who Juliane is and how she got into the field of diversity and equity inclusion. She's done some really interesting research around women working in male-dominated fields. So we'll get to know a bit more about what stood out for her in that research. We'll then talk about how she pivoted her career from research into organizational development and coaching, and why we need to look at structures, processes and people together for real change in organizations. And then what happens when organizations focus on short-term diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. And something else we're going to talk to Juliane about today, the backlash that we're seeing and what gives her hope for the future in the work that we do. So Juliane, it's lovely to see you. Thanks for joining me today.

Juliane Schlüsener: Thank you so much for inviting me, Toby, and it's a pleasure to be here.

Toby Mildon: Can we begin by you just telling us a bit more about your background and how you got into diversity, equity and inclusion?

Juliane Schlüsener: Yeah, sure. Of course. So in general, I'd say I've always been really fascinated by social constructs and dynamics, and that made me study sociology and anthropology, also to look kind of like outside of the box and not just occupy with Western cultures. And then, yeah, studying sociology, I occupied with prejudice and stereotypes a lot, how identity is created and how it shifts with social dynamics or exclusion. And yeah, so that made me get into the field. I'm a systemic organizational developer, a trainer, a mediator and a coach, and I've occupied in how to transform the workplace, how to sustainably transform organizations with that knowledge that I gained in my sociological studies.

Toby Mildon: Brilliant. And the research that you did, can you just share with us a bit more about your findings or what really stood out for you about women who are working in male-dominated industries?

Juliane Schlüsener: Yeah, of course. So, a lot of studies show us that the threat of a stereotype already itself can be alone to make individuals underperform. So if you imagine that if you're part of the out group and the majority of the in group is of a different gender, for example, then that threat is alone to make you underperform as an out group individual. Even if you might be the best of your class, you might be a really high performer, it's very likely that because everyone expects you to not do as great, you won't do great in the end. And this is transferable and also exchangeable for a lot of our diversity variables and dimensions. So if you are part of an ethnic minority, for example, but you study in a majority field with more, let's say, white people, it could be that even though you are brilliant and you are the best in your area, you might underperform as well. And yeah, that's really crucial information. Yeah.

Toby Mildon: Why do you think that's happening? What's the kind of the science behind it?

Juliane Schlüsener: So I think that our identity and our trust in ourselves is extremely narrowly tied to the social groups around us, right? And we can be as sure of ourselves as we want to. If let's say we're working in male dominated fields, for example, STEM areas, let's say we are going to an elite university, but we're studying physics or astrophysics or something where generally there is still more male presentation, then even though we have the knowledge and even though we have the capacities, by the pure threat of that stereotype, subconsciously, we will underperform because we feel threatened and we feel put into a box and our identity can then not translate into that, let's say, psychological behavior of performing well.

Toby Mildon: Okay. And how did you move from doing research into organizational development and coaching work that you do nowadays?

Juliane Schlüsener: So in general, it was just time to put everything that I learned in theory into practice. And I was really keen to finally make a difference in reality, in real life, so to say, and take that research and all that knowledge and change how we work. And that brought me into the practical work of equity, diversity and inclusion. And that was already motivation enough, I think, to finally go there and do something different, yeah. 

Toby Mildon: And something that you feel really strongly about is that we need to be looking holistically at structures and processes and people together if we want to make real, lasting, sustainable change. Can you explain to us why you have got that thinking?

Juliane Schlüsener: Yeah, of course. So if you work in systemic organizational development, you're aiming for sustainable change, change that stays. You want to transform organizations in a way that the change you create or you try to create lasts and is not gone already again in, I don't know, a few weeks, a few months or next year even, right? Because not only is it very frustrating if we try and implement change that isn't staying, but then also on the other hand, we can't forget the economical point of view. It costs a lot. And so with systemic organizational development, you look at organizations and you try to understand the interactions between the different systems and to break that down, it means that if you look at an organization from the bird perspective, from the macro perspective, then you will see three pillars in an organization and that is structures and processes and people. 

Juliane Schlüsener: And with most strategies that are in place nowadays, if you look at corporations, if you look at normal firms, even at public institutions in the public sector, you will realize that their strategies will always tie in these three pillars into the strategy, into the KPIs. But often with transformation projects, with change projects that I see or that we see in general in society, it's missing. This sustainable and systemic pattern is missing. So if we don't tie those three pillars to one another and make sure that they support the change measure that we're trying to bring on the way, then it's very likely to fail because it's not supported. And if you'd like, I can give an example for that.

Toby Mildon: Yeah, an example would be really great.

Juliane Schlüsener: So I think what we're often seeing in the organizational development is something where we have projects or initiatives or measures, but they are kind of existing individually in the organization's fields and world, right? So a good example could be an unconscious bias workshop or a leadership training. Everything basically that we already know from equity, diversity, inclusion work. And often organizations focus on the pillar of the people. And don't get me wrong, that's great initiatives, that's great measures. And it's incredibly important that we do work on the individual and psychological level of those people in an organization. 

Juliane Schlüsener: But then on the other hand, you can only be such a good leader. You can only be such a good colleague and go through these trainings and constantly double-check yourself and analyze yourself if we are looking at performance or if we're looking at feedback or if we're looking at recruiting. And only the people column, the people pillar is being addressed. But the policies in the structure pillar or the feedback processes in the process pillar are not supporting the change that we're trying to bring on the way with sending our employees through these initiatives, through these training programs, workshops, and so on. It's very likely that we will fail.

Toby Mildon: Yeah, that makes total sense. And obviously you're based in Germany and I'm in the UK. A few years ago, there was quite a lot of new headlines in the news about the effectiveness of unconscious bias training. And the UK government and the civil service basically said they were going to stop all unconscious bias training because they said it wasn't impactful. And I would have to agree with them. Going on a one or two hour workshop or doing an e-learning, it will raise your awareness about what bias is, but it doesn't really change behaviors. And like you say, we need to be looking at things like how bias exists within our processes and our systems. And we need to be unpicking those processes and systems to make them more inclusive.

Juliane Schlüsener: Yeah, I completely agree. Yeah.

Toby Mildon: So what does happen when organizations focus on the short-term EDI initiatives?

Juliane Schlüsener: First of all, I would say that nothing really gets embedded. So the change that we're looking for is not happening, first of all. I think then we create a sort of trust problem within the organization as well, because imagine you are an employee and there are so many short-term DEI activities or initiatives coming along your way and you are being sent through them. Might it be a workshop or maybe it is even, I don't know, another sort of project, but you feel like nothing's really changing because they're all not tied to one another. They're individually and just floating around. And so because of that, employees will get frustrated and they won't trust the organization anymore. They won't trust the initiatives anymore because they feel like it's nonsense initiatives or they don't make a difference or they don't impact anything. And so they get really frustrated. Most importantly, I would say, though, that, of course, the systemic issues absolutely stay untouched. 

Juliane Schlüsener: So the systemic discrimination will still happen, reproduce itself because we're not touching the long-term initiatives that would have an impact. Mostly we find those in the pillars of the structures and the processes, because if we don't change the policies, then there is no chance for the initiative to have a lasting impact, right? We also need to somehow help in the decision making processes and so on. But one last aspect of it is that leadership obviously cannot learn and train to catch all the impacts that's made through these short-term initiatives. So we could have differences or conflict arising. We could have even positive things arising like inclusion. But leaders aren't built to really catch all of this in their capabilities because everything's just looked at short term.

Toby Mildon: Cool. And we're seeing quite a lot of backlash around equity, diversity and inclusion at the moment. Politically, within society, it seems like there's a lot of division being created. What gives you hope for the future, though, just despite this going on?

Juliane Schlüsener: Yeah, I think one thing that's definitely giving me hope is that sometimes we still have these really opened and deeper conversations about inequities in several spheres of the society. And that definitely gives me hope because people are having them instead of rather avoiding them, even though, of course, we want them at a political level and continuously and all the time. I also realize that some organizations do definitely understand that inclusion or equity, diversity, inclusion work is tied directly to innovation, retention and sustainable success. I think the business case sometimes for some organization, despite the backlash, can be incredibly strong. And those are really, really good examples that I like to use in my webinars, for example, as well, because they speak for themselves. And that gives me hope. Grassroot energy, definitely, of course. 

Juliane Schlüsener: I always love seeing people organizing themselves in organizations, but also in society. Bottom up, I think that's a very powerful tool, especially if we combine it with others. Yeah, I think also systemic organizational development is a little bit more accepted nowadays. And we are seeing more understanding for systemic change, at least if the change projects focus on digitalization or innovation and so on. And I think if we transfer this change and manage to bring it back to EDI work, then hopefully, yeah, we can make a difference as well. Yeah. And last but not least, perhaps the people that just don't give up and do the work quietly and sometimes even hidden, but consistently with a real intention that really motivates me to keep on going.

Toby Mildon: Excellent. And what does inclusive growth mean for you?

Juliane Schlüsener: That's a really good question. For me, inclusive growth would mean that all people are able to grow. On an equitable level. So maybe creating conditions where everyone can contribute in an authentic but also in a safe way without having to fear or be threatened by consequences. I would say releasing systemic barriers, of course, because we can't create those opportunities for everyone without the systemic angle. Maybe aligning performance and culture and learning with inclusion to not see it as this constant edge on like we see it in EDI, but to rather understand that it is ingrained in the organizational architecture and culture. Yeah, I would say that. And of course, always strengthening resilience and strengthening trust so that we can continue our work.

Toby Mildon: Excellent. Well, Juliane, it's been lovely to catch up with you. Thank you for sharing your expertise and your experience and your wisdom with us. It's been lovely to have a chat.

Juliane Schlüsener: Thank you, Toby. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak here and to have this conversation with you.

Toby Mildon: You're welcome. And thank you for tuning into this episode with Juliane and myself. It's been really great to understand her background and how she got into the field of EDI through research and what she's found around the stereotyping that we often create around in-groups and out-groups and how that can impact on people's performance. And then also the importance of looking at sustainable change holistically by focusing on structure, processes, and people all together, and why we should avoid doing those short-term box ticking kind of EDI initiatives that a lot of organizations do. And actually how, even though there's a lot of backlash around EDI at the moment, there's a lot for us to be hopeful about, that there's a positive future, I think, in the work that we do and the kind of change that we want to see being made culturally within organizations. 

Toby Mildon: So, hopefully this episode has been insightful for you and has given you some food for thought that you can start to apply to your own organization. You can find Juliane on LinkedIn if you want to follow her content. I will include a link to her LinkedIn profile in the show notes of this episode. I'm also available on LinkedIn if you want to follow my work. And if you do need any support advancing EDI in your organization, the first port of call is to go to my website, mildon.co.uk, and look at what we do and feel free to reach out to me if you need any support. Until next time, I look forward to seeing you on the next episode, which will be coming out very soon. Until then, take good care of yourself. Bye-bye. 

Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to The Inclusive Growth Show. For further information and resources from Toby and his team, head on over to our website at mildon.co.uk.