The buzzwords “diversity, equity, and inclusion” are everywhere right now, but you can’t be blamed if you don’t quite have a handle on what they mean.

The origins of DEI date back to the civil rights era — but recently “DEI” has been thrown around with regard to everything from plane crashes to Super Bowl halftime performances. These business practices are under renewed scrutiny now, thanks to conservative activists and President Donald Trump’s newly enacted policies. That’s something Eric M. Ellis spends a lot of time thinking about.

Ellis is the president and CEO of Integrity Development, a consulting firm that helps businesses with DEI programs. “I think that everybody is looking for a sense of belonging,” he says.

Over the past 30 years, his outlook on implementing DEI in the workplace has changed. “When I started doing this work in the ’90s,” he says, “I thought my job was to be a diversity ghostbuster. I had a formula.” Now he does things differently. “I changed my style from one of blaming and shaming to one of becoming more transparent around my own biases, because I believe that bias is a human condition,” Ellis said.

So how do companies address that bias now? And what does DEI’s future hold? We explore that on this week’s episode of Explain It to Me. You can listen to Explain It to Me on

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