Deborah Biddle
For more than 30 years, Deborah Biddle has sought to understand how people experience their organizations. She's worked with businesses, nonprofits, healthcare systems, educational institutions, and public agencies, asking a question that continues to shape her work: What do people actually experience inside organizations?
That question has led Deborah to analyze thousands of employee survey responses and work with leaders who want to build organizations rooted in trust, fairness, belonging, and respect. She is especially interested in the gap between what organizations intend people to experience and what they actually experience.
Deborah is the founder of The People Company Consulting Group, a TEDx speaker, author, executive coach, and leadership consultant. She serves on several nonprofit boards and enjoys helping leaders create cultures where people and performance thrive.
Outside of work, Deborah enjoys singing/leading worship, watching movies, traveling, and spending time with her family. She believes the best ideas come from listening well, asking better questions, and being willing to challenge what we think we know.
In-Person | Institute
1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
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Facilitated By: Deborah Biddle
Audience: Open to Everyone 18+
We say we value justice. Our CEOs say it. Our mission statements say it. Across 22 organizations and more than 3,500 employees whose survey responses we studied to build this session, the story splits in two. Over 90% of people believe their leaders genuinely care about inclusion. Fewer than half of the people who actually reported harassment or discrimination say it was resolved well. That gap, between what organizations declare and what people live, is what this session is about.
We'll start with what's true right here, this year, on our own streets: two men killed by Madison police on the same stretch of Williamson Street, eleven years apart, and a community that has now had to grieve this more than once. We'll widen out to what national data shows. This pattern isn't confined to policing, or to any one employer. It shows up in the nonprofit sector, where people of color still lead fewer than one in five organizations, a number that hasn't moved in fifteen years. Then we'll come back to a practical question every organization can act on: not "do we believe in justice," but "what happens in the moment someone needs it, and does that moment actually work?"
This session pairs a short, honest data reveal with facilitated small-group dialogue. Participants will leave able to name where their own organization's justice gap actually lives, in belief, in access, or in resolution, and identify one concrete checkpoint for when they return to work on Monday.