Managing Resistance to DEI Consulting: A Temporal-cyclical Perspective

Resistance to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work is widespread and jeopardizes its possible impact in the workplace. Such resistance is experienced by internal staff but also by an under-studied group of DEI workers: DEI consultants, who are hired to develop, implement or improve an organization's DEI efforts. In this paper we investigate and sketch out how DEI consultants encounter resistance and the tactics they deploy to manage this resistance. Reporting on a three-year project about DEI consultants in Denmark, our qualitative analysis derives insights from 35 interviews. On this basis, we show how DEI consultants' resistance management tactics constitute a three stages, temporal-cyclical process: 1) Preventing resistance - managing resistance before delivering the consulting service via individual and collective preparation 2) Responding to resistance - managing resistance in the moment and at the site of service delivery and 3) Processing and learning from resistance - managing resistance after having met it with peers in networking spaces, with colleagues or with clients. Our findings we offer a processual take on the work of DEI consultants. We thus contribute to better understanding how consultants manage resistance to DEI work before, during and after experiencing it, and how this temporal-cyclical dimensions brings us to consider where and with whom managing resistance to DEI work can be performed.