From backpack to bookshelf: Books every emerging leader should read

Book 3: Lily Zheng's DEI deconstructed

As I thought about the books I wanted to share with other emerging leaders, those that had been most impactful for me, one kept returning to the top of my list: Lily Zheng’s DEI deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right (2023).

Part of the reason is that, although the DEI landscape has undeniably shifted significantly over the past several years, despite this major wake-up call, the core shortcomings Zheng highlighted remain. Too many organizations still rely on quick fixes, one‑off trainings, and empty commitments instead of addressing the systemic work that real inclusion requires.

In conversations with former colleagues and friends across sectors and industries, the concerns are familiar: DEI work often feels fragmented, commitments made by leaders aren’t consistently backed up by behaviours, programs remain underfunded and under‑resourced, and the work is frequently left to those with the least power. Not to mention that explicitly racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory behaviors are still too often met with inaction, underscoring ongoing gaps in how organizations protect employees and ensure accountability. Workers have increasingly clued in to the fact that much of DEI remains performative. A 2024 Gallup survey found that while high-quality health benefits, strong workplace culture, and flexible work arrangements ranked as top priorities “a company that promotes DEI” ranked dead last, a clear signal that employees expect more than statements and programs that don’t change their day-to-day experience.

This is precisely where Lily Zheng’s DEI Deconstructed stands out. Unlike performative DEI, Zheng offers a pragmatic, outcome-focused framework that helps leaders move beyond intention, understand what actually works (and what doesn’t), and build the kinds of inclusive practices that produce tangible outcomes for employees.

For anyone approaching DEI with a degree of skepticism, you're in good company. Zheng begins with a scathing review of existing DEI policies, training, and approaches that have come to define what they describe as a fledgling and often failing industry. Zheng acknowledges that such an openly critical stance might leave readers wondering why they remain in the field at all. I read it instead as an honest act of self-reckoning, something akin to what Amaechi (2021:159) (whose book The Promises of Giants is the first book in my 'From Backpack to Bookshelf' series) describes when he calls on leaders to view their organizations both truthfully and critically. Zheng does precisely that for the DEI industry itself.

Drawing on their experience as a long-time practitioner, Zheng carefully explains the failures of the DEI industry, while also clearing, as they put it, “a narrow path through the minefield of ineffectiveness that, if taken, can allow this rapidly growing industry to evolve beyond its problematic roots” (80).

Zheng spends significant time explaining what DEI work is not, providing "the sort of deep knowledge that sets effective practitioners apart from DEI hobbyists: the knowledge of not just what DEI work is but also just what it isn’t.” (57) Central to this argument is the idea of negative expertise, which Zheng refers to as “knowledge and awareness of what to avoid that typically comes from direct experience but can also be learned from the experience of others” (57).

This is particularly important in the field of DEI, where enthusiastic but inexperienced advocates often attempt interventions that feel intuitively correct but ultimately prove ineffective. Zheng offers an illustrative example. In an effort to diversify their team, a leader might begin reaching out to professional organizations serving underrepresented communities. Yet without the benefit of negative expertise, that leader may not realize that such organizations are unlikely to engage without an existing relationship built on trust. Nor might they recognize that bringing in underrepresented hires without changing the culture, processes, or practices of the team will likely result in those hires leaving shortly thereafter.

In such a scenario, Zheng argues, the leader’s attention would be far better spent addressing the culture, structure, and strategy of the team itself.

Zheng's argument: if you want to become an effective DEI practitioner, or leader, you need to know what doesn't work just as much as what does.

Throughout the book, Zheng provides research and data to counter many of the missteps made by organizations, particularly those seeking quick fixes. For example, the move toward blind résumé screening as a response to bias in hiring. While intuitive, some research suggests this approach can actually obscure important contextual information about candidates, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds. Similarly, requiring individuals who have engaged in discriminatory behaviours to attend remedial training often produces the opposite of the intended effect.

Zheng's second argument: quick fixes do more harm than good.

Having highlighted the industry's failures, including decades of poorly designed DEI interventions that ignored outcomes, underestimated people’s need to maintain a positive self-image, and treated change as a series of one-off initiatives, Zheng offers a blueprint for how individuals throughout an organization can 'do DEI right'. But far from providing a quickly scannable "best practices" or "step-by-step guide", Zheng goes to great lengths in considering context—distinguishing between low-trust, medium-trust, and high-trust environments—and its impact on how to achieve DEI. As Zheng puts it, if you're operating in a low-trust environment, "any DEI effort that requires that stakeholders trust each other is dead in the water almost as soon as it's proposed" (223).

'Everyone has a role to play' in DEI work is a common refrain from DEI practitioners, but often that's where it ends, without any indication of what role everyone should play. Without role clarity, individuals across organizations are often left unsure how they are meant to contribute to achieving DEI, and indeed, responsibility often drifts downward to those with the least amount of power. Zheng fills this gap by identifying distinct roles (Advocate, Educator, Strategist, Backer, Builder, and Reformer) and explaining how they align with different positions and levels of power within an organization (Individual contributor, Manager, Senior Leader, Employee Resource Group, DEI Professional). Crucially, they acknowledge that while everyone has a role to play, the nature and scope of that responsibility shifts depending on one’s power.

When I first read the book, I occupied two of those positions simultaneously: manager and internal DEI professional. Zheng suggests that managers, given their limited time, prioritize 'backing' their employees who take on roles such as advocates, educators, or organizers. As Zheng notes, managers hold a uniquely important position within organizations because they are often able to protect their teams, for example, by “us[ing] their formal power to legitimate the efforts of an employee advocate or educator and shield an organizer from potential retaliation” (184). Understanding that my role as a manager was to support and protect my team, rather than lead every initiative myself, was an important shift in perspective.

If Zheng offered role clarity for my managerial responsibilities, what they offered for my second role (as an internal DEI professional) was something slightly different: a pragmatic framework. Coming from academia, where much of my work was grounded in highly critical spaces, I was already deeply committed to equity and inclusion. What I lacked was a way to translate that commitment into effective change within large bureaucracies (i.e. move from theory to practice). Zheng's book helped bridge that gap. The framework it offers is unapologetically practical and, at times, requires resisting approaches or language that may be more radical but ultimately risk alienating potential allies or getting in the way of the outcomes the work is meant to achieve. It helped me reorient my own approach toward outcomes, and toward strategies that would actually address the complex and systemic challenges facing the organization.

It also helped me put words to challenges many internal DEI practitioners quietly encounter. Despite strong intentions, these teams often operate without the trust, authority, or resources needed to advance changes that lead to meaningful outcomes for employees. Zheng’s analysis helped me better understand these structural constraints and, in doing so, develop a kind of “negative expertise”, a clearer sense of the conditions under which internal DEI efforts are unlikely to succeed.

For emerging leaders navigating similar tensions, DEI Deconstructed offers something invaluable: a pragmatic framework for approaching the work with both clarity and realism.

(A brief note: Zheng’s newest book, Fixing Fairness, was published in early 2026 and is high on my reading list.)