...and world peace! ...and equity!
What we can learn about intentional word choice from Miss Congeniality and a talent search firm
Recently, while on a binge of TV from my middle school years, I rewatched Miss Congeniality. If you’re unfamiliar with this 2000 throwback, Sandra Bullock plays a rough-around-the-edges FBI agent going undercover in a Miss America-esque pageant.
In one scene, the pageant host asks the contestants: “What is the one most important thing our society needs?” Each replies: "World peace." Just as they ought! Audience approval is evident. Then Sandra Bullock says, "That would be harsher punishment for parole violators, Stan." Registering the judges’ shocked disapproval, she quickly adds, "And world peace!" The judges relax, and the crowd bursts into wild applause.
If world peace is meant to be the magic word in the pageant world, equity is the magic word in the social sector. But its ubiquity has engendered a carelessness of use—so much so that the word often loses any meaning. Rather than a carefully considered, intentional word choice, it's become a checkbox word, an add-on. Ask a panel of nonprofit Executive Directors to introduce their org missions, and they might all glibly answer down the line, a la Sandra Bullock: "Prison reform... and equity!" "Climate change... and equity!" "Youth literacy...and equity!"
But what do we mean when we say equity? Because like any other word, equity takes on different definitions depending on context. Do we mean equity of access, opportunity, or outcomes? Equity for whom? And equity on what scale? Or when we say equity, are we really talking about something else altogether?
for example…
I’ll bet that, if asked, some mission-driven organizations would be hard pressed to define equity in the context of what they do. But social sector talent search firms generally seem to use the word equity with a similar meaning in mind.
Take this sentence from Issacson, Miller: “Since our founding, IM has held a fundamental commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion, which continues today as the bedrock of our values and culture. Last year, 56% of our placements identified as women and 47% were people of color.” Variations of this sentence seem par for the course among IM’s competitors’ websites.
We can infer that by equity, they actually mean diversity in practice. And by inclusion, they also mean diversity. And by diverse, they actually mean women and people of color. They use at least five different words interchangeably in their storytelling. Besides overcrowding sentences and possibly confusing the audience, that does each of those words—which hold their own historical and social contexts—a disservice.
On the flipside, I recently worked with RCG Talent Solutions on defining the language that they felt was core to their story. Among the words that the leadership team spent weeks discussing was… you guessed it! Equity.
Rather than beginning by adding equity into a gorgeous mission statement or a lyrical list of org values, the RCG leadership team began by asking themselves: “How does equity show up in the day-to-day operations of our work?”
Their answer boiled down to this: “We design systems and processes that are intentionally equitable for all candidates.”
Granted, this doesn’t sound as thrilling as, say: “We aim to revolutionize the way leaders are sourced and nurtured in the social sector, driving lasting impact for communities and a more just world.” (I generated this mission statement for a made-up social sector talent firm using chatGPT. More on what we can learn about storytelling from chatGPT later…) Systems and processes just aren’t as sexy as revolutions or a more just world… or world peace!
But they sure are more concrete. RCG can explain what they mean by equitable systems and processes. They provide honorariums for final-stage candidates, because people make different tradeoffs when they spend time interviewing. They design competency-based interviews aimed at minimizing bias. They provide candidates with information about the hiring organization, so candidates can assess whether the hiring org is a place where they can feel safe and succeed.
long story short…
In this newsletter, I’ll refer a lot to staple words and power words. Staple words leave no room for interpretation or inference, like thumbtacks, corn, and hats. Power words connote weightiness, but also hold multiple meanings, like equity, community, and joy.
We have to use power words with intention. And we have to know what we mean when we use them. Otherwise, these words that should hold a world of meaning just become jargon—or what one friend calls “nonprofit gobbledygook.”