Reimagining Success in Racial Equity Work

Aug 7

3 min read

Diverse hands form a circle on a tiled floor, showing unity. People wear colorful, patterned clothing, conveying a mood of togetherness.

What Does Success Look Like—When We’ve Never Seen It Before?

I recently had a thought-provoking call with a public sector client embarking on a culture change initiative—one focused on improving engagement and outcomes for Black and Ethnic Minority communities within their remit.

As we tried to envision what a “successful outcome” might look like, it struck me how elusive and unfamiliar that vision still is—not just for them, but for many of us engaged in this work.

The truth is: we don’t fully know what success looks like.

Not here. Not yet.

What we are trying to achieve—a truly inclusive, equitable culture that centres belonging and justice—hasn’t existed in the way we imagine it. It isn’t something we can look up in a handbook or copy from another department. We can’t benchmark our way into it.

So What Now?

We must admit a hard but powerful truth:

We don’t have the full picture of what successful racial equity looks or feels like, because it’s never been achieved before and because it is a vision that has, and will continue, to shape shift over time.

Instead, we will have to co-create it—together.

We will need to design our version of good, great, and excellent.

And that requires more than a strategy document.

It demands a mindset shift.

Because while we may already know what poor looks and feels like—what not good enough does to morale, trust, and safety—it’s far harder to dream and build from that place. Especially when there’s pain in the room.

Doing this work well calls us into something deeper. It requires:

VULNERABILITY – To admit we don’t have all the answers.
HOPE – That a better future can be made real.
BELIEF – That those most harmed by current systems deserve more than survival.
TRUST – That across our differences lives a shared desire for change.
COURAGE – To be visible in a society where histories of fear and erasure persist.
STRENGTH – To take the first step. And then the second. And the third. To keep going.
DETERMINATION – To break cycles of harm and invisibility.
COMMITMENT – To be the change, not just demand it.
TENDERNESS – To hold each other gently when the work touches old wounds.
PATIENCE – With ourselves, and each other.
TIME – For reflection, both alone and in community.
REST – Because this work is hard. And in a culture that idolises productivity, rest becomes a radical act of resistance.

Text on white square reads: "These are not corporate KPIs—they are the conditions for change." Background shows cloudy sky and green field.

This is where trust is built. Where imagination is activated.

And if we are serious about equity, we must be willing to hold both the discomfort of not knowing and the power of what could be.

This is not fast work.

It is not linear.

It is not perfect.

But it is necessary.

So, let’s stop trying to replicate what never worked for us in the first place and instead build something new—from the inside out. Because success in this work won’t be found in old templates. It will be found in relationship, in honesty, and in collective creation.