The FAIR Framework

Rooted in the leading edge where research meets practice, and recognized by the Harvard Business Review, the FAIR Framework is the future of people-first organizations. It goes far beyond the superficial language and isolated initiatives that define too many workplaces today, to instead prescribe exactly what works: four core principles and four core outcomes for building organizations that work for everyone.

FAIR Is a Set of Outcomes

FAIR is designed to place outcomes, or results, above all else. Not ideology, commitment, or good intentions. Outcomes. Outcomes can be measured and tracked. Outcomes make commitments tangible and accountable. Outcomes enable transparency and good communication. All FAIR work in all organizations and all contexts seeks to achieve these four outcomes:

Fairness

When everyone is set up to succeed and protected against discrimination.

Access

When everyone can fully participate in an experience or environment.

Inclusion

When everyone feels respected, valued, and safe for who they are.

Representation

When everyone trusts those who lead them.

The Four Tenets of FAIR

What makes FAIR a framework rather than just a set of shiny words are these four tenets, four ironclad principles for what makes FAIR work actually effective. This is where the research meets practice. Each of these four tenets was arrived at after a decade reviewing countless studies, meta-analyses, benchmarks, and ideas, and putting the most promising ones to the test in my own practice with dozens of organizations and leaders around the world. Many practices fall short of what they promise, even as organizations pump millions into scaling them. Some of the most powerful, impactful, and transformational practices are simpler, easier, and cheaper than we might think. The FAIR Framework and its four tenets are a compass for leaders to stay grounded when everything else feels uncertain.

Outcomes Over Intentions

Rather than evaluate FAIR initiatives or strategies by looking for leadership commitment, communications, or appearances, an outcomes-based approach requires us to gauge FAIR efforts by whether they have measurably achieved progress.

Systemic Over Individual

Rather than “self-help” interventions limited to changing one person’s behavior or mindset at a time, FAIR efforts shift behavior at scale by changing unfair workplace systems—policies, processes, practices, and culture—to become more fair and human-centered.

Coalitions Over Cliques

Rather than put the blame for a problem or the onus of problem-solving solely on identity groups, FAIR efforts are achieved through broad coalitions bringing people together across differences to take responsibility and build solutions that work for all.

Win-Win Over Zero-Sum

Rather than seeking progress for certain groups but not others or communicating about change in zero-sum ways, FAIR efforts aim to solve the root causes of unfairness and by doing so, build a new status quo that is more beneficial for all.

See the Framework in Action

In my work with leaders and organizations, one of the first steps is gauging their starting point — how their team, function, or workplace measures up to the four tenets of FAIR. To what extent does their workplace prioritize results? Shape systems? Sustain coalitions? Communicate the win-win? The free diagnostic quiz below is a simplified version of the comprehensive diagnostic assessment my clients receive, with scores mapped onto the same 5-stage maturity model I work through with leaders. Take the quiz and you'll get a sense for whether your workplace's progress on each tenet is Absent, Superficial, Emerging, Integrated, or Transformative, and receive some strong recommendations on how to progress to the next stage. Try it out for yourself!

Unpacking the Framework

Can I use FAIR to describe my own work?

So long as your work centers outcomes, shifts systems, creates coalitions, and seeks to benefit all. Not all work that called itself “DEI” meets these criteria. If you’re unsure, I encourage you to first reflect on your own practices and where they might evolve to become more effective. FAIR is a new acronym to describe a new approach, one that centers impact over feel-good fluff. I invite any leader and practitioner with a similar approach to building healthier organizations to use FAIR if it resonates with you.

What does FAIR work look like?

FAIR work is any work that applies the four principles—Outcomes, Systems, Coalitions, Win-Win—to improve fairness, access, inclusion, and representation for all. Are you collecting data on the effectiveness of your hiring process to identify and eliminate bias, rather than just lecturing your hiring managers and calling that a win? That’s FAIR. Are you creating a standard design process for your products and services that incorporates the perspectives of your users, rather than resolving exclusionary or discriminatory user experiences on a case-by-case basis further down the line? That’s FAIR. Are you encouraging your employees to work together with leadership to set respectful communication norms, rather than delegating this work to an underfunded and burned out Employee Resource Group? That’s FAIR. Are you framing flexible and remote work arrangements as benefits to all workers’ wellbeing and productivity, rather than using a narrow lens like “flexible work is for new mothers” that can foster resentment and frustration? That’s FAIR.

FAIR is how healthy organizations continually improve themselves. Rather than hiding their flaws behind shiny language, trying to “fix people” instead of improve systems, fractionating into cliques instead of working together to solve hard problems, or framing change in terms of winners or losers, FAIR gives leaders and practitioners the means to make real change in a time when trust is low and tensions are high.

Why is FAIR necessary?

Everyone wants workplaces where they can work and succeed free from discrimination, but the bundle of initiatives and programs commonly described under “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) may no longer be the best way to achieve this outcome. In recent years, mainstream DEI has not only become the target of conservative backlash, but also come under critique from practitioners and organizational change experts for inducing burnout, activating backlash, and most concerningly, failing to improve workplace outcomes or reduce discrimination.

What’s needed in this moment is a reset. Not simply a rebranding of DEI to be less controversial, but a reimagining of DEI to be more effective—in how we talk about it, how we do it, and what we achieve through it. FAIR is that reset.

To learn more about the FAIR Framework

Read my new piece in the Harvard Business Review.