We formed the LookThink Diversity Hub in June 2020 to bring about systemic change and make an impact in our community, both at LookThink and beyond.
There’s a little mantra that we have here at LookThink: Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. It’s our reminder that small imperfect change is still progress. Here are 5 things it taught us on our journey to improve diversity & inclusion (D&I).
- Focus on all initiatives, not just 1.
At first, zeroing in on our hiring process initiative felt like a smart approach, but it meant sacrificing progress on the other 2 initiatives we defined: community outreach, and implementing D&I best practices into our own client work.
Making progress in one area but not the others felt frustrating. We decided that the best solution was to spread the work out across the team so we could devote our efforts to all 3 initiatives equally. - More meetings can be a good thing
Said no one ever—until now. After the first year of our D&I efforts, we held 1 meeting to reflect on our progress and pinpoint action items to improve it (retros and agile methodology ftw!). While it was great for our calendars, it was bad for our team’s progress and morale.
Now we meet every 2 weeks and use a set agenda to guide us. This gives us more opportunities to course-correct and have productive conversations. - Leaders drive us forward
We (hi, Lola, Kyle, and Ian here!) took on the Diversity Hub leadership roles to digest feedback about what worked, what didn’t, and ways to improve. The big (surprising) takeaway was that we needed more leaders.
We tapped 2 additional people (that rotate out every quarter) to lead each of our 3 initiatives. This helped balance out the workload and increased involvement from the whole team. - Small groups have bigger conversations
Building a sense of community in a virtual environment is hard. Our solution? Zoom breakout rooms. When people joined small groups dedicated to 1 initiative, conversations exploded. - Spread the (D&I) wealth
Leading D&I initiatives is a lot of work, especially when the whole company is involved.
Asking a few people, with an already full workload, to execute on the ideas from an entire company? Not realistic (or fair).
Making meaningful progress—and avoiding burnout—meant sharing little bits of work with lots of people. Now, we all spend a few hours a week contributing to our 3 D&I initiatives.
Read LookThink's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement Here
Resources
To make sure we built our Diversity Hub the right way, we did a ton of research. And we’re excited to share what we found with you.
Kickstart the conversation and measure your D&I
Diversify your company culture
- 5 Ally Actions Newsletter
- Developing Inclusive Leadership: Helping Leaders To See Themselves as Others See Them
- Erase Bias by Erasing “Bro” Culture
- Why Most Performance Evaluations are Biased, and How to Fix Them
Diversify your hiring practices
- 5 Proven Ways to Attract and Hire More Diverse Talent
- Diversity Hiring: 6 Steps To Hiring More Diverse Candidates
- Diversity Management for Small Businesses
- Textio: Advanced Language Insights for Hiring and Brand Content
- The ‘Problem’ Woman of Colour in the Workplace
- What Can’t I Ask When Hiring?
Diversify through design and language
- Black Illustrations: Beautiful Illustrations of Black People for Your Next Project
- How to Choose Diverse and Inclusive Photos
- Latinx is growing in popularity. I made a comic to help you understand why.
- Scopio: Black photographers
Advocate for D&I in your community
- Coronavirus and Racial Disparities
- Get it Wrong for Me: What I Need from Allies
- The Fullest Look Yet at the Racial Inequity of the Coronavirus
Do you have interesting and helpful D&I resources to share? We’d love to take a look! Contact us here and send us a message.
Authors & Co-Founders of the LookThink Diversity Hub:
Lola Fadojutimi, UX/UI Design Department Manager
Kyle Hardy, UX Project Strategist
