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Birds of All Feathers: Doing Diversity and Inclusion Right
A Globe and Mail and Toronto Star bestseller!
A book isn’t going to end racism or inequity. But it can be a start.
Birds of All Feathers is a timely call to action for employers, HR professionals, managers and employees to address diversity and inclusion―because it’s not just the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do.
Michael Bach helps you develop a better understanding around the nuances of terms like diversity versus inclusion and equity versus equality, and shows how diversity and inclusion can drive innovation and creativity―critical to any business’s survival in today’s fickle marketplace. You’ll learn how to craft a D&I policy that’s effective, and how to start the work of dismantling systemic racism and inequity by creating safe work spaces where people can bring their whole selves, find advancement, and succeed.
Whether you are in the arts, healthcare, non-profit, or for-profit sectors, there is a business case for making your organization a space of true inclusion. In Birds of All Feathers , Michael Bach presents a feisty and honest case for the business advantage of diversity and inclusion in the workplace with practical steps to get there.
This book shows you how
• Discover your organization’s “why”
• Learn how to implement and sustain beneficial changes
• Determine how to measure success for your business
With more than twenty years of experience in the field, Michael Bach, founder of the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI), brings clarity and candor to a daunting subject, and shows you how to get diversity and inclusion right.
No more excuses. No more delays. Change―and growth―starts right here.
A book isn’t going to end racism or inequity. But it can be a start.
Birds of All Feathers is a timely call to action for employers, HR professionals, managers and employees to address diversity and inclusion―because it’s not just the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do.
Michael Bach helps you develop a better understanding around the nuances of terms like diversity versus inclusion and equity versus equality, and shows how diversity and inclusion can drive innovation and creativity―critical to any business’s survival in today’s fickle marketplace. You’ll learn how to craft a D&I policy that’s effective, and how to start the work of dismantling systemic racism and inequity by creating safe work spaces where people can bring their whole selves, find advancement, and succeed.
Whether you are in the arts, healthcare, non-profit, or for-profit sectors, there is a business case for making your organization a space of true inclusion. In Birds of All Feathers , Michael Bach presents a feisty and honest case for the business advantage of diversity and inclusion in the workplace with practical steps to get there.
This book shows you how
• Discover your organization’s “why”
• Learn how to implement and sustain beneficial changes
• Determine how to measure success for your business
With more than twenty years of experience in the field, Michael Bach, founder of the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI), brings clarity and candor to a daunting subject, and shows you how to get diversity and inclusion right.
No more excuses. No more delays. Change―and growth―starts right here.
- GenresNonfictionRace
206 pages, Paperback
Published August 4, 2020
25 people are currently reading
199 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
May 10, 2021
Very good book. Here is what I want to remember:
- equality if giving everyone a shoe, equity is giving everyone a shoe that fits
- positive change is much more likely with the creativity and innovation model rather than the social justice model of diversity & inclusion: increasing creativity and innovation means more and different ideas - ideas are the solutions to problems, diversity is the means to new and different ideas
- your business case (i.e. your D&I touchstone) addresses why your organization needs to focus on diversity and inclusion and should focus on people, customers and brand. It simply and succinctly proves the case for D&I (in 2-3 pages that answer the "why")
- D&I work is change management work
- Five Fs: fighters, foes, fence-sitters, friends, family
- from the point of getting hired and throughout their employment, every employee should get mandatory D&I training driven by a D&I learning map that addresses the fundamentals (what D&I means and what it is important in your organization) to more complex topics likes unconscious bias and intercultural competence. Employees should have personalized learning maps: use an assessment tool to figure out if an employee can skip the fundamentals .
- recommends short online learning series
- communication is key
- inclusion comes before diversity, you have to know that your culture is inclusive before you deliberately hire different people
- attracting difference, developing your people, platinum rule (treat people the way they want to be treated), measuring success
- smaller organizations get a bit of a pass. Less than 1,000 employees and you're fine to have a part-time person who has other responsibilities. Less than 250 and you're good with a volunteer committee or council. We need to be realistic. But any organization with more than 1,000 employees should have one person whose sole job is to work on D&I in some way, shape or form.
- you do need access to a bit of IT time, HR time, Marketing and Communications time, and a senior leadership champion/sponsor - ideally the CEO as well - a designated team (even part-time) and a budget are also important
- self-interest is usually at the root of failure when D&I doesn't work
- individual, community and organizational self-interest all influence D&I work
- to be successful in D&I, self-interest needs to be put aside and there must be a willingness to understand one another's needs in order for us all to move forward as one
- equality if giving everyone a shoe, equity is giving everyone a shoe that fits
- positive change is much more likely with the creativity and innovation model rather than the social justice model of diversity & inclusion: increasing creativity and innovation means more and different ideas - ideas are the solutions to problems, diversity is the means to new and different ideas
- your business case (i.e. your D&I touchstone) addresses why your organization needs to focus on diversity and inclusion and should focus on people, customers and brand. It simply and succinctly proves the case for D&I (in 2-3 pages that answer the "why")
- D&I work is change management work
- Five Fs: fighters, foes, fence-sitters, friends, family
- from the point of getting hired and throughout their employment, every employee should get mandatory D&I training driven by a D&I learning map that addresses the fundamentals (what D&I means and what it is important in your organization) to more complex topics likes unconscious bias and intercultural competence. Employees should have personalized learning maps: use an assessment tool to figure out if an employee can skip the fundamentals .
- recommends short online learning series
- communication is key
- inclusion comes before diversity, you have to know that your culture is inclusive before you deliberately hire different people
- attracting difference, developing your people, platinum rule (treat people the way they want to be treated), measuring success
- smaller organizations get a bit of a pass. Less than 1,000 employees and you're fine to have a part-time person who has other responsibilities. Less than 250 and you're good with a volunteer committee or council. We need to be realistic. But any organization with more than 1,000 employees should have one person whose sole job is to work on D&I in some way, shape or form.
- you do need access to a bit of IT time, HR time, Marketing and Communications time, and a senior leadership champion/sponsor - ideally the CEO as well - a designated team (even part-time) and a budget are also important
- self-interest is usually at the root of failure when D&I doesn't work
- individual, community and organizational self-interest all influence D&I work
- to be successful in D&I, self-interest needs to be put aside and there must be a willingness to understand one another's needs in order for us all to move forward as one
November 8, 2020
Interesting and easy to read primer on a topic of interest to me. Probably not that useful for anyone needing a detailed how to manual. Could've done with a little less self promotion and corny humour.
September 13, 2020
A very engaging read that will facilitate readers of all backgrounds on starting, further advancing and sustaining their workplace diversity and inclusion journey. Bravo!
September 30, 2021
I'm a little torn on my rating here. So in general, the book has a really good background and base overview of DEI. I didn't learn much new, but it was a good refresher of most major topics. I work at a company that recently started up a DEI Taskforce and we did pretty much everything that the book is outlining already. I have several main complaints with the book. The first is that the author tries to throw in humor, but I honestly didn't find it very funny, which just made it distracting at best, annoying at worst. Secondly, I disagree with a lot of what he had to say about ERGs. It's not so much that I don't agree that they can be real change drivers, but that I think that there is *also* value in them 'just' being social clubs and not including allies. And finally, at the end, he really lets small companies off the hook for hiring a DEI person. And while I can understand his reasoning, I think that a small company is actually where you can most easily make the most impact and prioritizing and hiring someone early can be hugely beneficial (which I would have liked to see him at least suggest).
October 2, 2021
Though a little light on real “in the trenches” ideas, and despite the numerous “Oxford defines ______ as” eye-roll moments, there is a LOT of really good stuff in this book about increasing diversity and inclusion in an organization. Ultimately, a lot of what this book is about is actually about just good leadership…and yet it is so very needed.
March 25, 2021
If I had never read anything about diversity and inclusion, this book would have been a great intro to the subject. The author uses humor well, and is well versed - but for me, the book was a little to elementary.
December 14, 2020
An easy-to-read and relatable resource on the basics on diversity and inclusion. I enjoyed Michael's light humour style and his straight-shooting messaging.
March 2, 2021
The good: practical steps (although a bit vague) for setting up an EDI function within an organization, and it's a fast read. If you need to be coddled and have a "safe space" in order to even consider diversity and inclusion, you will love this book.
The bad: The US and Canada are not interchangeable, particularly not with regards to social justice issues.
The ugly:
- Zero discussion about power dynamics or hierarchies, which seems unconscionable for a book speaking to corporate/institutional power players.
- His perspective is that Diversity and Inclusion are good ideas for organizations because there aren't enough straight, white, able-bodied males to go around.
- Be prepared to spend a lot of time being educated about how and why white men's feelings have to be carefully accommodated in order for change to happen.
- Actual quote from someone who claims to host EDI discussions professionally, for a living, just after he reveals that he, personally, discovered the phenomenon of white guilt in 2019: "It never dawned on me to feel guilty about the color of my skin, just as it never crossed my mind to consider another person as less-than because of the color of theirs." (Before I get comments on this: No, I'm not suggesting he needs to feel more guilty. I'm saying: This admission is a huge red flag that he has skipped all kinds of steps in his own personal antiracist work and therefore, he should not be the one to pose as an expert in telling other people how to do this work.)
The bad: The US and Canada are not interchangeable, particularly not with regards to social justice issues.
The ugly:
- Zero discussion about power dynamics or hierarchies, which seems unconscionable for a book speaking to corporate/institutional power players.
- His perspective is that Diversity and Inclusion are good ideas for organizations because there aren't enough straight, white, able-bodied males to go around.
- Be prepared to spend a lot of time being educated about how and why white men's feelings have to be carefully accommodated in order for change to happen.
- Actual quote from someone who claims to host EDI discussions professionally, for a living, just after he reveals that he, personally, discovered the phenomenon of white guilt in 2019: "It never dawned on me to feel guilty about the color of my skin, just as it never crossed my mind to consider another person as less-than because of the color of theirs." (Before I get comments on this: No, I'm not suggesting he needs to feel more guilty. I'm saying: This admission is a huge red flag that he has skipped all kinds of steps in his own personal antiracist work and therefore, he should not be the one to pose as an expert in telling other people how to do this work.)
December 3, 2020
This book is....interestingly written? Right away in the introduction the author points out his own ironic use of two quotes in the same paragraph *eyeroll* and then in chapter one while offering a definition for Accommodation, the author writes “aerodynamic keyboard” when I think he meant “ergonomic keyboard”? Quite honestly I’m not sure. The author seems to think he’s funny so it could be a joke? A not funny joke? Who edited this book?
May 14, 2022
This is a good primer. Bach collects a lot of information and presents introductions to the topics. The problem is that most people won’t bother to do the deeper dives necessary to really make a difference. This will mostly appeal to wealthy, white CEOs looking to demonstrate that they’ve started “doing the work”.
October 23, 2020
The overview of EDI could have been much more nuanced...the author tended to glaze over everything EDI without getting into the meat and bones of it. Expected more from the CEO of CCDI. Guys I think this book might kinda suck?
September 20, 2020
Well written and easy to understand format. Excellent intro to D&I.
December 26, 2020
A good primer on D&I.
January 6, 2021
Fast, easy and very practical read. Quite usable and helpful. Would recommend!
February 8, 2021
Michael shares his years of knowledge in simple easy to understand terms. It is a great getting started with diversity and inclusion.
February 12, 2021
One of the best books on D&I available out there. Must read.
April 11, 2021
This book is a most for anyone who works! It is simple, effective, and funny! Michael Bach does give great foundations for d&i.
Read
April 19, 2021It is a great book - easy to read and important perspectives stated clearly.
August 5, 2021
A decent primer on the concepts. Also included are some links for how to take the concepts further.
September 1, 2021
Easy intro into D&I, fun humor, and accessable language. This is a high level intro book, and is a great place to start thinking about how to form your D&I program.
June 7, 2024
Informative AND funny
July 16, 2025
LOVED this book - no jargon...well you know, lots of jargon, but jargon and buzzwords explained. Great resources for organizations to start with on their D&I journey. It can't be stuffed under the pillow so I recommend this book as a fun, informative and actionable book to read. Well done Michael, great book!
July 6, 2025
2.75⭐️
the author claims its offensive to use the term “disabled people”, when this is actually the communities preference (over people with a disability). other than that, it wasn’t a very nuanced overview of diversity and inclusion, and could’ve used higher quality references and scholarship. gender was skipped over entirely
the author claims its offensive to use the term “disabled people”, when this is actually the communities preference (over people with a disability). other than that, it wasn’t a very nuanced overview of diversity and inclusion, and could’ve used higher quality references and scholarship. gender was skipped over entirely
October 25, 2021
A refreshing, informative, and often humorous approach to diversity and inclusion. Creativity and innovation are central. I loved it.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews