Solving Business Problems through DEI

Ella Washington has worked at the intersection of business and DEI for years, from advising global clients on diversity at Ernst & Young to helping build a DEI-focused practice at Gallup from the ground up.

When Washington, a professor of practice in management and an organizational psychologist, had the opportunity to join Georgetown McDonough in 2019, she saw the chance to put years of personal and professional experience to work educating future business leaders. She now has served on McDonough’s DEI Standing Committee, reshaped aspects of the curriculum, and is currently serving as a special adviser to the dean.

Below, Washington offers perspective on what DEI brings to the business world.

How did you first become interested in DEI as a field of study and work?

It comes from personal experience—seeing bias, seeing lack of opportunities, a lack of the ability to bring your authentic self to work. People talk about it, but it’s not a reality to all people. It’s important to recognize that we all have bias. The first way we manage bias is to acknowledge that it exists, and the more you understand it, the more you can manage it. We need to create environments where people can understand their biases, then manage them.

How did the Innovation Through Inclusion course come about?

I really wanted to create a course that allows us to think outside the box in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We’re training future business leaders. What do they need? A major component of that is innovation. This course pushes students to think about how DEI can help people and how inclusive teams can bring fresh perspectives to problems. They’re asked to think about an unmet need in a cross-section of an industry. They choose a population or cause or topic, such as gender equity in a particular industry. They must have a foundational understanding of both the topic and the field. But then the task is coming up with a practical proposal to address this inequality. How would you meet this need? How would you change? Doing this work pushes students beyond their normal bounds to contribute to a working environment.