Why Focusing on Barriers—Not Just Identity—Is the Key
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This piece is part of an ongoing series responding to the wave of DEI rollbacks and resistance. Each article offers thoughtful strategies to help you lead in ways that increase diversity and retention—without harm. Pre-order The Equity Edge now and receive The Equity Edge Instructor Guide FREE—a limited-time offer designed to help you bring these practices into your workplace with care, courage, and clarity.
Today we are discussing a powerful question. What if we focus on barriers first and identity second?
For years, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts have centered identity, so most companies have approached them with a numbers-first mindset. Hire more women. Promote more Black employees. Get more individuals who identify as a person with a disability into leadership.
At first glance, this makes sense, right? If certain groups are underrepresented, shouldn’t we fix the numbers?
But that’s not the real problem. Representation alone doesn’t explain why some people remain locked out of leadership, influence, and wealth. That’s why most DEI efforts, despite good intentions, keep running into the same walls—fatigue, resistance, accusations of unfairness, and, well, backlash.
Many view the recent backlash against DEI initiatives as a sign of its decline. But instead, it’s an opportunity. Opportunity to set the narrative that identity alone doesn’t explain why certain groups remain underrepresented in leadership, wealth, and influence. Hiring more people from historically excluded backgrounds doesn’t fix the barriers that keep people from advancing. In fact, the real challenge isn’t just who gets in—it’s what’s blocking access.
Instead of asking, “Who is missing from leadership?” we should be asking, “What is keeping people out?” If we shift the focus from identity alone to the obstacles baked into the system, we make change smarter, more sustainable, and impossible to dismiss as a political agenda.
This is what real equity looks like. The more we remove barriers that have kept people out for generations, the more equitable a system we have.
Why Hiring More Historically Underrepresented Employees Isn’t Enough
Look at any company that has tried to diversify its leadership team. First, there’s momentum. Hiring numbers improve. More women, more Black professionals, more employees with disabilities step into leadership. Then, over time, the numbers stall. People leave. The gains fade.
What happened? People did change, but the system didn’t.
Sponsorship—one of the biggest factors in career advancement—is still unequal. Research shows that Black professionals are four times less likely than White men to have sponsors. Workplaces still expect leadership to look a certain way—assertive, dominant, always available. That model favors a narrow group, leaving women and professionals from nontraditional backgrounds fighting to be recognized as “leadership material.”
And it’s not just about race or gender. Many workplaces—and the US government recently— resist flexible work policies, making it harder for employees with disabilities, caregivers, and people with chronic health conditions to thrive. Hiring more people doesn’t solve the problem if the environment wasn’t built for everyone in the first place. Even if they’re hired, people are being set up to fail.
If companies only focus on who they hire instead of how they advance, retain, and support talent, they’re just shuffling people around without fixing what’s broken.
Why Identity-First DEI Efforts Backfire
When companies focus only on identity, they invite backlash. People question whether hiring and promotions are fair. Some claim that increasing diversity and retention is about picking winners and losers. The narrative gets stuck in culture wars instead of meaningful change.
We saw this play out with the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling on affirmative action in higher education. The decision blocked race-conscious admissions, and now, similar legal challenges are emerging against (and for) corporate DEI programs. But here’s the key: the ruling didn’t ban efforts to remove barriers, expand access, or ensure fairness. It just said identity-based selection couldn’t be the solution.
That’s why a barrier-focused approach is the smartest path forward. Instead of debating “quotas” or “hiring goals,” it makes equity about fixing broken systems—something no one can argue against.
The Smarter Approach: Remove Barriers, Expand Access
Increasing diversity (from the perspective of diversity recruiting) was—and is—never just about bringing more Black and Brown people into the workplace. It has always been about expanding representation where it’s lacking—whether that means reaching more marginalized candidates, LGBTQ+ candidates or even increasing outreach to White candidates in fields where they are underrepresented, like in the DEI industry.
In that sense, the key to making increasing diversity and retention effective isn’t just outreach—it’s removing the barriers that block underrepresented groups from getting in.
Think about hiring. Many jobs still require college degrees, even when there’s no connection between a degree and job performance. Companies like Google, IBM, Bank of America, and Tesla have dropped degree requirements for key roles because they realized they were shutting out great talent.
Look at how promotions happen. Leadership decisions are often based on vague feedback—some employees are told they “need more confidence” while others get concrete steps to improve. Standardizing performance reviews reduces bias and makes promotions about real performance, not gut instinct.
Then there’s workplace culture. Employees from historically excluded backgrounds often face higher scrutiny, more microaggressions, and extra pressure to prove themselves. Companies that invest in psychological safety, where employees can speak up, contribute, and lead without fear, retain talent longer and build stronger teams. However, it is important to understand that all this is not about making DEI “less controversial.” It’s more about making it sustainable.
The Bottom Line: Fix the System, Not Just the Numbers
Workplace equity doesn’t happen by hiring more people from historically excluded backgrounds. It happens by fixing the barriers and obstacles that have kept them out in the first place.
Barrier-focused DEI is legally sound, business-smart, and harder to challenge. You don’t need to check boxes, and you certainly don’t need to spend every waking moment worrying about lawsuits. Creating a fair system where the best talent has a real shot at success is never a liability. No company has ever been boycotted for making opportunity more accessible—or for making their workplace stronger.
Curious about what these obstacles are and how to break them down?Don’t forget to grab my new book, The Equity Edge.
It lays the obstacles out clearly, showing exactly where they show up in hiring and promotion for job seekers, recruiters, and hiring managers. It walks you through real-world scenarios where these obstacles create barriers, then delivers practical, actionable solutions to remove them. What do you get? A guide to the workplace where equity is built into core business practices—and into how you hire, lead, and retain top talent.
And let’s be honest—that’s what every company wants, right? A stronger, more diverse workforce without the backlash, resistance, or unintended harm.
Want to get ahead and grab your copy before everyone else? Preorder now!
