DEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right

The definitive comprehensive and foundational text for critically analyzing and applying actionable DEI techniques and strategies, written by one of LinkedIn's most popular experts on DEI.

The importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace cannot be understated. But when half-baked and under-developed strategies are implemented, they often do more harm than good, leading the very constituents they aim to support to dismiss DEI entirely.

DEI Deconstructed analyzes how current methods and “best practices” leave marginalized people feeling frustrated and unconvinced of their leaders' sincerity, and offers a roadmap that bridges the neatness of theory with the messiness of practice. Through embracing a pragmatic DEI approach drawing from cutting-edge research on organizational change, evidence-based practices, and incisive insights from a DEI strategist with experience working from the top-down and bottom-up alike, stakeholders at every level of an organization can become effective DEI changemakers. Nothing less than this is required to scale DEI from interpersonal teeth-pulling to true systemic change.

By utilizing an outcome-oriented understanding of DEI, along with a comprehensive foundation of actionable techniques, this no-nonsense guide will lay out the path for anyone with any background to becoming a more effective DEI practitioner, ally, and leader.

About the Author

LILY ZHENG (they/them) is a sought-after Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion speaker, strategist, and organizational consultant who specializes in hands-on systemic change to turn positive intentions into positive outcomes for workplaces and everyone in them. A dedicated change-maker and advocate named a Forbes D&I Trailblazer, 2021 DEI Influencer, and LinkedIn Top Voice on Racial Equity, Lily's work has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, New York Times, and NPR. They are the author of Gender Ambiguity in the Workplace (2017), The Ethical Sellout (2019), and most recently, DEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing it Right (2022). Lily holds an MA in Sociology and BA in Psychology from Stanford University. They live with their wife in the San Francisco Bay Area, and can frequently be found putting together yet another all-black outfit and enjoying good Chinese food.