The current backlash against DEI creates an uncomfortable choice for organisations—or at least it appears to. 

Defend everything that has historically carried the DEI label or distance the organisation from inclusion altogether. 

Neither response is particularly useful. 

A more productive starting point is to acknowledge something that critics sometimes get right:  

• Not every initiative conducted in the name of diversity or inclusion has worked.  

• Programs can become performative.  

• Language can alienate rather than engage. 

• Representation targets can underperform when the systems producing the outcome remain unchanged.  

• Training can increase awareness without changing the decisions through which careers are shaped. 

• And initiatives perceived as providing benefits to selected groups without a clear connection to universal fairness can weaken the coalition needed to sustain change. 

Organisations should be willing to examine those failures. 

Changing the label does not change the operating system 

Whatever terminology an organisation chooses, leaders still have to answer some basic questions: 

• Are people promoted through fair and transparent processes? 

• Is access to high-value work distributed well? 

• Are performance and potential assessed using clear criteria? 

• Can employees challenge ideas and raise risk without unnecessary personal cost? 

• Do leaders receive the information and perspectives they need to make strong decisions? 

• Can talented people access the tools, resources and support required to perform? 

• And does the organisation measure whether its systems are producing the outcomes it intends? 

These are management questions. 

They affect talent, decision quality, execution, innovation, trust and organisational performance. 

Removing an inclusion program does not answer them. 

A more useful test 

At Symmetra, we have developed a set of criteria, the FIVE framework, which should enable organisations to move past a rigid defence or rejection of entrenched DEI propositions. 

It asks organisations to focus on four universal objectives: 

• Fairness: Are systems, processes, resources, rewards and opportunities designed so everyone has the same opportunities to learn, develop, grow and excel? 
• Inclusion: Does everybody, regardless of difference, feel respected, valued and empowered to maximise their full potential? 
• Voice: Do people have appropriate influence, power and input in the areas that affect them and where they can add value? 
• Enablement: Do people have the opportunities, tools, resources and support they need to be successful—and are obstacles being removed where they get in the way? 
• These are not a menu of activities. They are a filter for examining whether the organisational system is working as intended. 

The useful criticism: activity is not impact 

One legitimate criticism of conventional inclusion efforts is that organisations can confuse activity with progress. 

An event was held. A training program was completed. A target was announced. A network was launched. 

None of these is inherently wrong. But none proves that the underlying system has changed. 

The more demanding questions are:  

• Did access to opportunity improve?  

• Did the promotion process become fairer?  

• Did decision quality improve?  

• Are leaders demonstrating different observable behaviours?  

• Can more people influence decisions that affect their work?  

• Have the barriers identified in the data actually moved? 

This is the difference between performative activity and an outcomes-based strategy. 

The dangerous conclusion: do nothing 

Where the backlash goes wrong is in treating shortcomings in some inclusion programs as evidence that organisations will derive no further benefit from managing Fairness, Inclusion, Voice or Enablement. 

That leap makes little sense. It simply means the organisation needs a better approach. 

The strongest solutions redesign the organisational system rather than relying predominantly on changing attitudes. 

That means examining policy, process, technology, incentives and behaviour together. 

It means replacing vague intentions with measurable outcomes. 

It means designing decision processes that reduce unnecessary subjectivity. 

It means developing leaders through observable behaviours rather than broad statements of values. 

And it means measuring whether changes are actually working. 

Redesign, rather than retreat 

The present challenge may actually offer organisations an opportunity. 

Not an opportunity to abandon inclusion, but rather an opportunity to become more rigorous about it: 

• Remove activities that cannot demonstrate meaningful impact. 

• Replace ambiguous language with clear organisational outcomes. 

• Connect fairness explicitly to better talent decisions. 

• Make Voice consequential rather than symbolic. 

• Design Enablement around real barriers to performance. 

• Measure what changes. 

The political backlash may therefore offer a golden opportunity for your organisation to redesign inclusion.