Before You Begin, A Readiness Check

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Before launching any formal culture change effort, the most valuable thing your organization can do is pause and take an honest look at where you are actually starting from. Not where you hope you are. Not where you think you should be. Where you genuinely are today. 

This pause allows for building enough self-awareness to start well: to set realistic goals, find the right support, and avoid the most common and costly mistakes that derail culture change efforts before they gain traction. 

If your organization has been doing this work for a while, this check-in still matters. It is worth periodically stepping back to ask honestly: are we building on a solid foundation, or have we been moving forward on assumptions that deserve reexamination? 

A few honest questions to sit with before you launch: 

• What are we actually trying to achieve and for whom? Who will be most affected if this work succeeds, and have those employees had meaningful input into how we are approaching it? 

• Do we have genuine leadership commitment not just stated support, but visible, active, sustained engagement from the CEO and senior leadership? If not, what needs to happen before we begin? 

• Do we have a realistic budget and have staff time protected for this work? Or are we expecting meaningful change from a minimal investment? 

• Do we understand our current workforce, who is here, who is thriving, who is not, and where the most significant gaps and barriers exist? 

• Have we established a baseline, a clear picture of where we are today that we can measure progress against over time? 

• Do we have the internal infrastructure to support this work, meaning a sponsor team, an internal champion structure, and a clear point of contact for a consultant? 

• Are we prepared to follow through on what we hear from employees? If we ask, we must be ready to respond. 

If several of these questions surface significant gaps, that is useful information. Use the relevant sections of this guide to address those gaps. Consider engaging a Workplace Culture and Belonging Consultant to help you assess your readiness and design a starting point that reflects where you actually are. 

External resources for organizational self-assessment

If you want structured tools to support your readiness process, the following resources offer frameworks specifically designed for this purpose: 

• Alliance to End Hunger: Racial Equity Assessment Tool 

• Coalition of Communities of Color: Tool for Organizational Self-Assessment Related to Racial Equity 

• Race Forward: Workforce Development Racial Equity Assessment 

• Racial Equity Tools: Evaluation Resources 

• Western States Center: Racial Justice Assessment Tool