Rotary Club of Madison, Wisconsin

–submitted by Bobbie Sladky

Tania Ibarra, co-founder of Step Up: Equity Matters) and Jeannine Bindl (Step Up: Equity Matters advisor, facilitator and project manager) described their organization’s journey as a start-up in Madison which began as a volunteer organization in 2014. By 2019, the organization added its first full time employee. The growth of the organization began to address the big DEI problems in our local organizations and to help them build the confidence and skills to keep moving forward for diversity, equity and inclusion improvements.

The Step Up: Equity Matters change management process includes assessment, strategy development, and implementation in that order – while recognizing that the process is not strictly linear. It is critical that the business’ leadership be a sponsor of the process and committed to the plan. The plan takes 3 – 5 years to fully create positive and sustainable change. The speakers indicated that, to be successful, business leaders must see the lack of diversity, equity and inclusion as a business problem to be solved at all levels of the organization. Their ‘Recognize – Own – Disrupt’ approach was described as ‘never easy’ and ‘never linear’. Continuous learning, and open feedback from all levels within the organization will help lead to inclusive growth.

Emotional intelligence is key in this process – clients must learn to understand their emotions and biases (while recognizing that the word, bias, is emotionally loaded). The speakers are clearly committed to their mission. They have guided many local businesses and organizations to continuous learning by embedding DEI in leadership, all business functions and employee learning opportunities. They definitely made it clear that DEI is good for business, and we know it is good for Rotary.

If you missed our meeting this week, you can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/fTRY3ts9h8k.