Allyship or Lived Experience? When thinking about ERG sponsorship, which is preferred?

We had a pretty interesting moment with a client the other day in a meeting as we were talking through some challenges. For me, it was one of those “Now I remember why I do this job” type of moments, one of those moments where you have a truly interesting question to consider, and in the process of doing so, you are able to evoke your “why” – your motivation for doing what you do.

Here’s the situation:

This company with which we work was looking for executive sponsors for two employee resource groups (ERGs) that didn’t yet have sponsors. One of the ERGs was for people of color within the firm, and the other was for parents. The company had identified two leaders, both wonderful, who could divide these responsibilities. One of the leaders is a parent, and the other identifies as a person of color. So the question was asked: “Allyship or lived experience?”

In other words, when choosing ERG leads, is it better to prioritize lived experience or prioritize allyship? We didn’t have an answer off the bat. We asked to think about it for a bit, and we talked it through initially. 

So, here’s what we’re gonna do. Right now, stop reading and think through this question. Think through your answer to this matter. When you’re ready, scroll down for what our advice was and why. 

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Ready?

The short answer is that there is no right or wrong answer to this particular question, and any course of action can work. But for Holistic, and for this particular question, we suggested that allyship was the way to go. There are three reasons for this, which are stated below:

• The “lived experience” leader can still participate in the ERG, and not only will they get to enjoy the ERG, but they’ll get to “learn on the job” by watching another leader serve as an executive sponsor. So you get a double value that makes more sense than the other way around. Further, the “lived experience” leader can enjoy the ERG as a member without feeling like they have to take on a huge amount of responsibility.

• By installing an advocate or an ally, their pursuit of the efforts of the ERG will be purely altruistic. By not having any individual “skin in the game,” so to speak – because they are not directly affected as a member of the ERG, they will be pursuing the efforts of the ERG in a purely supportive and advisory fashion, individual interests to the side.

• It’s an incredible opportunity for leaders to learn and grow. We often forget how important it is to invest in our leaders and give them opportunities to grow and learn. It’s like, “hey, congrats on your success. You’re good.” No! These folks need to learn and grow, and being in a position that requires utmost empathy and consideration is actually a very valuable professional development opportunity for the individual and the organization alike. 

• A fundamental concept of our approach at Holistic is that DEI is everyone’s responsibility, everyone’s challenge, and that we are all stewards of everyone else’s experience at our organizations. This is the perfect example to prove that point. If you install the “lived experience” leader to the ERG that supports that group, then you are, in essence, saying, “Parents should deal with parents' challenges, or Black employees should deal with challenges for Black people and employees.” Wrong. Everyone should deal with everything, and we as organizations can build this culture. 

As we said above, there’s no right or wrong to this, and in many cases, having an ERG lead with lived experience in that space makes a ton of sense. However, this was a delightfully interesting situation that we encountered, and in the process of thinking it through, we were able to learn a bit about allyship and a bit about our own philosophy as it relates to creating lasting, sustainable DEI structures within organizations. 

To allyship!