What does a workplace utopia look like to you?

This is the question Dr. Ella F. Washington asks companies, and often she hears about an ideal vision of an organization that values diversity and inclusion and wants employees to bring their whole selves to work.

Many organizations desire this ideal vision and know that it's a journey to get there—but still don't know what's required to make the journey. Organizations have largely missed the mark when it comes to creating environments where all employees thrive in an equal and equitable way, because they treat diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as a program that gets done rather than the necessary and difficult journey it is. A truly inclusive workplace requires invention and reinvention, mistakes and humility, adaptation to a changing world, constant self-reflection, and sometimes significant sacrifice.

The road to an inclusive workplace is a difficult one, but you can traverse it, and there's help along the way. Start here with stories of companies making the necessary journey, including Slack, Kaiser Permanente, and PwC. Hear from their leaders about their successes and failures, times they were on the vanguard, and the moments they realized they had much more work to do. These are profiles in perseverance from people who are keen enough to recognize the need for inclusive workplaces and humble enough to know they're not there yet.

Washington brings her years of experience as a DEI leader in multiple industries to give you a frame for thinking about where these companies are on their journey and where you may be, too. Progress is hard-won on the necessary journey to becoming an inclusive organization, but it must be won. John Lewis said it best: You see something you want to get done, you cannot give up, and you cannot give in.