The Real Barriers to Scaling DEI in Large Organizations, and What Actually Closes Them
Most large organizations do not struggle with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) work because they lack commitment. They struggle because they try to scale it the way they would scale a program: a budget line, a single owner, and a set of activities to complete. Programs do not survive contact with pressure. Infrastructure does.
Based on research we conducted with 55 senior leaders across 11 sectors earlier this year, four barriers to DEI progress show up again and again when DEI work tries to scale past a single team or a single initiative.
Barrier 1: Ownership Without Authority
The person named accountable for culture change is rarely given the actual authority to decide, act, or make an unpopular call. Accountability becomes a title attached to blame rather than a tool attached to power. In our research, leaders were direct about this: accountability paired with real decision-making authority looks completely different from accountability handed down without it, and most organizations only build the first half.
Barrier 2: Activity Mistaken for Infrastructure
Training days, workshops, and strategy documents are common, valuable, and rarely sufficient on their own. Only 18% of the leaders we surveyed said their organization had moved from messaging DEI to actually embedding it into daily operations (i.e. hiring, decisions, how meetings begin). The rest are still measuring effort instead of outcome.
Barrier 3: Budget Fragility
When resources tighten, DEI is typically the first line item cut, not because it lacks value, but because it was built as a program. A program runs on a budget line, is owned by one team, and is measured in activity. A capacity is built into how the organization already runs, is owned by everyone who leads, and is measured in what actually changes. Only the second version survives a hard year.
Barrier 4: Misalignment at the Leadership Level
Only one in four of the leaders we surveyed described their leadership team as fully aligned on what to prioritize right now. Without that alignment, DEI initiatives compete with each other rather than compound, and effort gets spent inconsistently across the organization. No amount of good individual work closes a gap the leadership team has not agreed exists.
What a Structured Approach to DEI Change Management Looks Like
Scaling this work at the enterprise level is less about adding another initiative and more about sequencing four moves correctly. First, see what is actually happening beneath the surface rather than what the top-line numbers suggest, since averages hide who is experiencing the workplace differently. Second, build real alignment among the leadership team on what matters right now, before adding anything new. Third, turn that shared understanding into how leaders and managers actually operate day to day: the decisions, conversations, and behaviours employees experience directly. Fourth, build what can hold once the pressure hits: talent systems, leadership expectations, and measurement that do not depend on one program or one person.
Skip a step, and the rest does not hold. Most of the organizations we see struggling with DEI at scale have invested heavily in the third move (training and activation) without ever doing the first two.
This is the same pattern that came through clearly in our recent white paper, Navigating the Pressure, built from a survey of 55 senior leaders and a full day of roundtable discussion. If any of this sounds familiar before committing to a full DEI implementation, the place most organizations we work with start is with an honest, outside read of where they actually stand. That is what our free Equity Capacity Assessment is built to provide.
