Do you…
- Feel committed to advancing racial equity, inclusion, and belonging in your work?
- Want marginalized staff and community members to thrive?
- Want to deepen diversity and inclusion leadership skills and address bias—in yourself and others?
If you answered yes to any of the above, you’re not alone!
Inequities exist everywhere and we can all learn to advance equity and interrupt bias. We can start by making more deliberate choices about the way we operate (practices and policies) and the ways we relate (values, culture, and relationships).
Our friends at Race Forward call these decision-making opportunities “choice points.”
What are Choice Points?
Choice points are decision-making opportunities for leaders to consciously pause, reflect, generate options, and enact changes that advance racial equity, inclusion, and belonging. Choice points are forks in the road, where some paths replicate the status quo (inequities) and other paths lead to better outcomes.
Most of the time, we don’t stop to question the well-worn path. We don’t always notice the people who’ve been pointing in another direction.
When you arrive at a choice point, pause to…
- Spot bias and barriers. Ask: What is our current approach and what is the result?
- Look at unintended consequences. Ask: Who benefits? Who is burdened or disadvantaged?
- Generate options. Ask: How could we create more equity, inclusion, belonging? What changes can we make to ensure more equitable results? Who should we consult?
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Why Should I Use Choice Points?
Leaders and managers are only truly effective when they balance equity, sustainability, and results. Identifying and acting on choice points is a foundational skill for inclusive leadership.
For those of us who grew up in the United States, white supremacy culture has shaped our expectations, actions, and unconscious biases. These biases reflect and reinforce systems of oppression. Most of the time, our organizations uphold these dominant standards by default, unless we interrupt them.
Regularly looking for opportunities to shift the status quo produces cumulative change that helps level the playing field for marginalized people in your organizations—and right wrongs.
Everyone can use choice points to make more equitable decisions within their sphere of control. For example:
- An event coordinator might notice very few local, BIPOC-owned restaurants send bids for catering and examine barriers in the “call for proposals” and selection process.
- A hiring manager might hear that people with certain disabilities face barriers applying and pause to design more accessible hiring practices across the organization.
How to Use Choice Points: 5 Steps
The more positional power or mainstream identities you hold, the more important it is to notice choice points.
1. Know your desired outcome.
What inequities are you noticing and what’s the end result you want? Think of this as the problem you’re trying to solve (the bias or barriers). Are you finding that your talent pool isn’t diverse enough, or you have poor retention of program staff? Whatever it is, decide where you want to go so that you can figure out how to get there.
2. Identify decision-making opportunities.
It happens to the best of us—we get so used to autopilot that we can’t see the choices in front of us. With choice points, you deepen your awareness of your defaults and the decisions in your realm. The more you practice, the more you notice. For example, when you last faced a decision or came up with a new idea, who did you tap for their perspective? Who got to weigh in during the early stages of a new project? How might it have gone differently if you had asked someone else? To identify these decision-making opportunities and check for implicit bias, start with this question: what is my default action or gut reaction in this situation? Why?
3. Examine the choices and their potential impact on equity and inclusion.
This step is your chance to examine the unintended consequences of your default actions. Is one of your hiring requirements resulting in 80% of your candidates looking and sounding just like you? Do you have a staff person who’s been overlooked for a promotion because they haven’t gotten enough opportunities to improve or demonstrate their skills? While every decision you make can impact equity and inclusion, not every choice will carry the same weight. Prioritize the ones that could make the most difference for reducing or eliminating structural, cultural, and systemic barriers that create an uneven playing field.
4. Brainstorm alternatives to the default approach.
Ask yourself, what could I do instead? What alternative actions could I take? From whom should I seek perspective or get feedback? This is an opportunity to partner with those on your team who might have perspectives and experiences you’re missing.
5. Act and evaluate.
Choose the path you think will best advance equity and inclusion and get the results you’re after. After enough time has passed or you’ve gathered enough information, step back and evaluate the results. Did the course of action get you (closer) to your desired outcome? What was the impact on equity and inclusion? What did you learn? What might you do the same or differently next time?
| Step | Ask Yourself… |
|---|---|
| Know your desired outcome. | What is our current approach and what is the result? What do we want to see instead? |
| Identify decision-making opportunities that might have equity and inclusion impacts | What decisions do I make regularly? What is my default path or autopilot choice? |
| Examine choices and unintended consequences | Who benefits from the default path? Who may be burdened or disadvantaged? |
| Brainstorm alternatives to the default approach | What other options could lead to more equitable results? |
| Act and evaluate | Did my choice lead to the desired results? What was the impact on equity and inclusion? |
Choice points are like a choose-your-own-adventure book—the cumulative impact of many small decisions influences the ultimate outcome. Looking for opportunities to shift the status quo can create cumulative change that will help marginalized people in your organizations thrive. While they may not solve racism or eradicate white supremacy culture in your organization, they can help you see where bias might be creating inequities.
Ultimately, it’s not about getting it “right” every time—it’s about taking yourself off autopilot, noticing when and where you have the power to make a different choice, and being intentional about your decision.
Moving forward, check out some choice points scenarios based on real client stories, our “bias check” tool for identifying choice points, and a list of common choice points below.
Common Choice Points
Below are some of the most common choice points, or key decision-making opportunities, leaders face. As you add more to fit your context, think about the big buckets of work that you’re responsible for and identify the most common decisions that impact equity and inclusion outcomes in each area.
Relationship-Building
- How do you incorporate the four elements of relationship-building (space for authenticity, building trust, navigating difference and power, and shared purpose) in your interactions with your staff member?
- How do you talk about or address tensions related to identity, power, inequity, and difference?
- When you make a mistake or misstep, how do you acknowledge it? How will you fix it?
- Are there any disparities in how you respond with different team members?
- How do you celebrate, spotlight, and acknowledge each team members’ work and contributions?
- With whom do you most often show genuine curiosity or vulnerability?
Goal-Setting
- Whether they’re at the organizational, team, or individual level, goals represent your priorities. Do your goals have an explicit equity and inclusion component?
- How do your goals align with your values and commitment to racial equity?
- How do your goals minimize disparities across lines of difference or build power for marginalized people?
- Who do you involve in your goal-setting process?
Delegation
- To whom do you delegate stretch assignments? Who is getting the opportunity to build or showcase skills beyond what is currently required of them?
- Conversely, who usually ends up with maintenance tasks, like taking notes at meetings, working out logistics for conference calls, or cleaning up the office kitchen, whether or not it’s part of their job description?
- Who do you proactively check in with, offer support to, or share feedback with after you’ve delegated a task or project?
- How in the mix/out of the mix will you be after delegating a project?
Hiring
- Have you focused on what it takes to do the role, the must-have competencies and talents (rather than who you had in mind)?
- Are there qualifications that unintentionally exclude candidates that you can set aside (education requirements, teachable skills, personality traits, years of work experience)?
- Who is impacted by this hire (or vacancy)? Who should you talk to about the role, process, and timeline before you begin?
- How transparent are you about compensation? What factors inform salary and other compensation negotiations?
- How do you engage connectors to help build a diverse candidate pool? How are connectors appreciated?
- When you (or your hiring committee) are on the fence about a candidate, how do you decide how to move forward?
- Do you test for racial equity and inclusion competency in your hiring process?
- How do you mitigate bias in your hiring process?
- How do you create an atmosphere of ease and belonging in the interview?
- Do you periodically review your data to spot patterns around who makes it through each round and eventually gets hired?
- How will the onboarding process be structured to create a sense of belonging and prioritize time for relationship building?
Check-ins
- Who do you have regular check-ins with?
- Whose check-ins tend to get canceled or rescheduled?
- How prepared are you for your check-ins with staff? Do you bring your list of priority items to discuss?
- Do you share feedback during check-ins?
Investing in People
- Who do you give feedback to? How regularly? What kind is it (corrective, developmental, or positive reinforcement)? How clear and honest is it?
- Who are you—formally or informally—mentoring?
- Who do you offer growth opportunities to? How often?
- When you need to make a big decision or have a new idea, whose perspective do you seek?
- How can you make career pathways and advancement transparent to your staff?
Performance Problems
- Have you been clear about role expectations, including both the what and the how?
- How explicit have you made your implicit expectations? For instance, if making a deadline means getting it to you three days early to review and approve, does your staff member understand that?
- Have you reflected on the quality and quantity of your feedback:
- How regular were your check-ins?
- Have you given direct feedback on the issue?
- Did you make time to connect, ask questions, and seek understanding?
- Thinking about your entire team, are there any inconsistencies in who gets your time, feedback, guidance, or investment, where unintended bias could be at play?
- Will coaching, feedback, or training improve the performance issue?
- Is the problem showing up in an area that’s truly a requirement for the role, or is it more of a preference or tradition?
- Have you sought others’ perspectives in assessing the quality of their work?
This article was originally written in partnership and consultation with Terry Keleher of Race Forward.
The Management Center is a 501c3 organization that helps leaders working for social change build equitable, sustainable, and results-driven organizations via trainings coaching, and online resources and tools.