The ACT Report lays out 4 recommendations and 10 actions that tech companies and leaders can take to shift the DEI paradigm
CAMBRIDGE, MA (Nov. 5, 2021) – Harvard Business School Professor Linda Hill, a founding partner at Paradox Strategies, was among 7 peer reviewers for a just-released report calling for bold, collective action in the tech industry and elsewhere to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
Produced by a coalition of 29 leading experts in academia and tech, Action to Catalyze Tech (ACT) challenges tech companies to open-source DEI best practices, collaborate on systemic solutions, and increase accountability to drive change. Over 30 CEOs and leaders have pledged to take action.
“It was my privilege to be a peer reviewer of this important report,” Dr. Hill said. “Now we all have a playbook to move the needle on DEI in tech.”
The report says CEOs must approach and resource DEI like any other business imperative. Companies won’t move the needle on DEI until they introduce systemic efforts, led by top leadership, that drive accountability for DEI throughout the company, it states.
“At Paradox Strategies we believe successful DEI efforts begin with an organizational diagnosis supported by top leadership,” said Managing Partner Taran Swan. “A comprehensive diagnostic can drive the development of an actionable DEI strategy that senior management is accountable to and that can be cascaded throughout the organization.”
Convened by the Aspen Institute, the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), PwC, and Snap Inc., a cross-industry working group partnered for more than a year to aggregate relevant, research-based actions that businesses can take to help radically improve DEI outcomes.
The ACT Report compiles this research and provides a blueprint and tools for companies from startups to mature organizations to implement to drive internal and sector-wide change. The full report is available here.
A coalition press release said executives from organizations including Airbnb, Apple, Dropbox, Etsy, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Salesforce, Spotify, and Uber, have committed to being founding signatories of the ACT Report, pledging to hold themselves and their companies accountable to accelerate progress toward achieving DEI success. Together, these founding signatories represent more than 500,000 tech employees.
Paradox Strategies offers a full range of solutions to support DEI initiatives, and produced a report on DEI best practices earlier this year.
Related: See our 3-part series on building diversity
6 questions talent management must get right to build diversity at the executive level
Building diversity, Part 1 of 3: Achieving diversity at the executive level requires diversity of opportunity and development among potential leaders.
6 mid-level career boosters minority managers typically miss out on
Building diversity, Part 2 of 3: Each of these opportunities is critical for developing fitness for upper-level roles.
Paradigms that don’t work + 5 upper-level career boosters
Building diversity, Part 3 of 3: Leaders need to make a fundamental shift in mindset to further perfect their readiness for the top ranks.
Linda Hill is named to Thinkers50 Top 10 for 2021
‘It’s very humbling to be included on a list with so many individuals whose work I admire,’ Linda says. She was also Thinkers50 Top 10 in 2013.