The concept of joy, or the experience of great pleasure and happiness, is important in equity work because it feeds hope. It provides the pause to contemplate why this work is so important.  

Think of all the art, music, and culture that have been created because of oppressed people who expressed joy in their daily struggle for justice. The spirituals that were “maps songs” for the Underground Railroad. The poetry of Phyllis Wheatley, which made her a celebrity enslaved in America. The songs sung by coal miners to help them through their long days of labor and fights for justice.   

And yet, it is far too easy for the joy to fade. As Alex Liu, Beth Bovis, and Kim Fulton wrote in an MIT Sloan Management Review article last spring, “Joy and justice are two intertwined priorities we should all advance, but leaders sow distrust and unease when they don’t speak up and take a stand on urgent issues.” The fight for justice needs joy to sustain it, and joy needs justice to ensure it takes root for all. 

One of the biggest challenges is fatigue. Of course, the best way to cure fatigue in doing this work is to make all the changes and be equitable. But turning an aircraft carrier takes time. And in that time people will go through cycles of excitement, hope, and fatigue. Rather than losing heart, we can be honest about our uphill struggles and seek out ways to access joy.  

Here are some concepts that may help bring additional joy to your DEI work.  

Create and Curate a Soundtrack 

Music is a foundation of any culture – defining, inspiring, and sustaining people. For DEI work, think of the songs of the movement, such as “Eyes on the Prize” or “Marching to the Freedom Land” that were sung by young people being arrested and sent to jail.  

During the Children’s Crusade of 1963, girls in one cell would sing a song, and the boys in their cell would respond or sing along. Despite the tactical violence perpetrated against them, these youth found enough joy to sing. It kept their spirits up, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. credited them with breaking segregation in the South.  

President John F. Kennedy, seeing images of children being blasted with hoses and beaten by police, finally opened his eyes to the urgency to act in support of the Civil Rights Movement. As he stated in June 1963: “One hundred years of delays have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves yet their heirs … are not fully free.”  

That’s the power of music to inspire and sustain change. Now imagine what it can do in your organization. Create and curate a playlist – with suggestions from employees, employee resource groups, and others – that your company can play at town halls or make available across the company.  

Make New Friends 

Talent is the life blood of your company, bringing your mission to life, innovating your future and generating your profitability. Rather than viewing it as a drag, take the approach that attracting and recruiting diverse talent is fun and rewarding, allowing you to expand your horizons and talent pool.   

A great place to start is to connect to the cutting-edge solutions being driven by diverse communities. For bankers. that might be getting to know some the funds that are responsibly driving millions in capital to minority-owned business enterprises (MBEs).  MCCI, Ujima Project, Boston Impact Initiative and Runway are just a few local examples. For real estate professionals, it might be doubling your support for groups like the Builders of Color Coalition and participating in their programs.  

Provide funding for ERGs to do additional internal programming focused on joy, such as organizing “friend-raisers” to help teams connect with new people. For example, when I was helping a bank launch a campaign, we organized a series of friend-raisers hosted by stakeholders including customers, vendors and partners. We brought in a cross-section of departments from marketing and HR to retail and commercial. This decentralized approach to introducing people allowed many departments to get to know these communities together.  

Celebrate the Small Victories 

 I often hear from employees at companies that they never know what happens to DEI efforts. They hear about a campaign for hiring or a DEI audit, but it’s never spoken of again. The solution? Work into every DEI effort a plan to follow up for at least three to five years and celebrate even the small stuff. Now when I say celebrate, I don’t mean parties and press releases for everything. But find ways to acknowledge the wins and the people who helped make it happen.  

Last, but hardly least, as you enjoy your summer, make joyful memories with the people who are special to you. This is positive energy that will help sustain your DEI efforts. The current climate is challenging, and it’s up to leaders to inject joy into the work. It will help ensure success.   

Malia Lazu is a lecturer in the Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management, CEO of The Lazu Group and former Eastern Massachusetts regional president and chief experience and culture officer at Berkshire Bank.