Category: Features

The Power of Inclusion: Project Team Success Starts With People, Not Plans

The Power of Inclusion: Project Team Success Starts With People, Not Plans

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Every day, projects within organizations are either succeeding or failing based on a number of internal and external factors. Yet, there is this secret ingredient that remains true for high-performing teams: Their diversity!

No, it’s not just race or gender (though these are two dimensions of diversity where groups are often underrepresented across leadership or project teams). Naturally, every person on a project team brings a unique perspective and expertise that others on the team may not have.

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41 Reasons for Optimism as The Winters Group Celebrates 41 years in Business 

41 Reasons for Optimism as The Winters Group Celebrates 41 years in Business 

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The Winters Group celebrates 41 years in business on March 16. As I reminisce about how the diversity, equity and inclusion field has transformed over the years, I celebrate the undeniable progress. Though the current all-out attack on everything connected to diversity, equity and inclusion is infuriating, I choose to remain optimistic that good will prevail in the end. I believe that when people feel the devastating impact of dismantling programs and strategies that seek to help EVERYONE experience a fair and just society, such protections will once again be embraced.

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The Power of Inclusion: The “DEI Hire” Fallacy—Who Gets to Define Merit?

The Power of Inclusion: The “DEI Hire” Fallacy—Who Gets to Define Merit?

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The best person for the job should always be hired. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? It’s a phrase said as a universal truth, a fundamental principle of fairness. But who gets to decide what “best” means?

Historically, definitions of merit have been shaped not solely by ability or effort but by access, privilege, and exclusionary systems. What we call “merit” is often a reflection of who has historically held power rather than an objective standard of excellence.

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From the Desk of Mary-Frances Winters: DEI Practitioners, Reinvent Yourself in The Age of Artificial Intelligence 

From the Desk of Mary-Frances Winters: DEI Practitioners, Reinvent Yourself in The Age of Artificial Intelligence 

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Diversity, equity and inclusion practitioners have expertise to offer in the burgeoning world of artificial intelligence (AI). One of AI’s critical challenges lies in addressing human aspects such as bias and fostering fairness, accountability, ethics, cultural sensitivity and understanding nuance. These are skills that many diversity, equity and inclusion practitioners already have, and technical teams need this expertise to build equitable, socially responsible technologies. 

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Power to the People: Queer Existence Isn’t Dangerous. Bigotry Is.

Power to the People: Queer Existence Isn’t Dangerous. Bigotry Is.

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There was a time when I believed the rights of queer and trans people were on the rise, and would continue in a neat upward trajectory, affording many people in my communities access to life-affirming and life-saving resources, healthcare, and legal protection. Then, into the headlines crept hints of backlash. A book banned from a library. A drag performance drawing protests. Steadily, it built to an all-out political attack on the rights and identities of queer, and particularly trans people.

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Power to the People: A Way Forward After the US Presidential Election

Power to the People: A Way Forward After the US Presidential Election

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As we reflect on one of the most consequential U.S. elections in our lifetime, emotions are running high. This election brought us a choice between division and polarization or unity and inclusion. The contentious and divisive rhetoric surrounding the campaign was such that no matter who the winner was it would require some healing and a plan forward. Let’s commit to cultivating spaces where everyone can belong, empowered by our shared humanity.

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Power to the People: We Can’t Afford to Ignore Education

Power to the People: We Can’t Afford to Ignore Education

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I began my professional career as a middle school teacher in Washington, D.C., teaching sixth, seventh, and eighth grades in a public school in a low-income neighborhood. While in graduate school, I studied the ins and outs of the public education system with a particular focus on urban schooling. Though my student teaching experience was in a rural Georgia high school, I figured that teaching in D.C. couldn’t be that much different — kids are kids, after all, and good teaching is good teaching.

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Power to the People: The Reversal of Roe v. Wade and IVF — Where Does Choice Really Lie?

Power to the People: The Reversal of Roe v. Wade and IVF — Where Does Choice Really Lie?

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Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, conversations around reproductive rights have been reignited with a fire we haven’t seen in years. People are asking tough questions like, What does autonomy over our bodies truly mean in this country? And who gets to decide? While much of the conversation has centered around abortion, the ripples of this decision extend far beyond the abortion clinic. They reach into the private and often hidden realms of those like me who have experienced infertility and relied on reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization (IVF). Suddenly, choices we thought we had control over feel fragile and precarious.

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Power to the People: History Repeats Itself in the Fight for a Multiracial Democracy

Power to the People: History Repeats Itself in the Fight for a Multiracial Democracy

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The impending U.S. presidential election looms large in the minds of many around the world as a fight for democracy. We are being reminded once again of just how fragile this experiment is: to be a democratic society that purportedly stands for freedom, equity, and justice. At the heart of the struggle is race. The fight for a multiracial democracy in the U.S. has been marked by violent clashes and systemic attempts to maintain white male domination, most notably since Reconstruction, a period after the Civil War when the U.S. government tried to address both the destruction of slavery and the preservation of the nation. Sadly, history continues to repeat itself.  

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Power to the People: Don’t Believe the DEI Lie

Power to the People: Don’t Believe the DEI Lie

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Do you consider yourself a discerning person? Someone who isn’t easily swayed by pundits or propaganda and can see right through prepared talking points or an agenda? Excellent. Then I will let you in on a dirty little secret about DEI that some people don’t want you to know: You have already benefitted from DEI programs and policies, and you might not have even realized it.

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Racial Justice at Work: Practical Solutions for Systemic Change

Racial Justice at Work book cover

Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit

Inclusive Conversations: Fostering Equity, Empathy and Belonging Across Differences

We Can’t Talk About That At Work! (Second Edition)

Cover of the book We Can't Talk about That at Work (Second Edition) by Mary-Frances Winters and Mareisha N Reese

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