Difficult Conversations: What Organisational Culture Reveals About Who We Really Are

Most organisations say they value honesty, openness, and inclusion. Leaders encourage people to “speak up” and “lean into discomfort.” Many run workshops on “courageous conversations” or roll out training designed to help teams talk about difficult issues.

But here is the reality: very few organisations are truly built to handle difficult conversations. The systems, incentives, and habits in most workplaces make these conversations either unsafe, rushed, or ignored.

This matters because we are living through a turning point for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

Across the UK, Europe, and globally, companies are pulling back. Some are cutting budgets. Others are rebranding DEI under softer labels like “culture” or “well-being.” Leaders often worry that being too vocal about diversity will cause political or reputational trouble. And yet, at the same time, employees are clear: they expect inclusion, they want accountability, and many will leave if they do not see it.

The question is no longer just should we have difficult conversations. The real question is: can our organisations actually hold them?

The State of DEI in 2025

The last few years have brought big changes.

There are growing reports in the media and from research organisations that companies are pulling back from earlier DEI commitments.

In the United States, for example, IBM has reportedly scaled back diversity policies, citing tensions between business demands and fairness. Barclays has dropped gender and ethnicity targets in its American operations. Other firms have chosen to step away from the language of DEI altogether, rebranding it under safer terms like “talent,” “culture,” or “well-being” in order to avoid political heat.

The same pattern can be seen in the UK. According to news coverage, Meta cut its DEI programmes along with its fact-checking operations, sparking pushback from staff worried about reputational damage. BT removed DEI targets from middle managers’ bonuses, restricting them only to senior leaders. In contrast, the Co-op’s leadership has spoken out publicly, warning that abandoning diversity commitments risks undoing hard-won progress.

Public surveys show that opinion is divided. An Ipsos UK poll in 2025 found broad support for practical initiatives: 71 per cent support flexible working, 65 per cent support gender pay gap reporting, and 64 per cent support inclusivity training. But 36 per cent of Britons also said workplace DEI has “gone too far,” while 19 per cent felt it has not gone far enough.

Employees themselves, however, are more consistent. A UK workforce study in 2025 found that three in five workers would consider leaving if their employer rolled back on DEI commitments. Younger workers are especially clear: many Gen Z employees say they will not even apply to companies that do not demonstrate inclusive values.

So we find ourselves in a moment where, according to reports and surveys, organisations are retreating while employees are demanding more. And caught in the middle are the difficult conversations that make or break culture.

Why Difficult Conversations Break Down

It is easy to tell people to “speak up.” The phrase appears in leadership handbooks, corporate training sessions, and values statements. Yet speaking up is not the hard part. The real challenge is creating conditions where speaking up is safe, meaningful, and taken seriously.

When those conditions are missing, difficult conversations collapse. They either never happen, or when they do, they leave people more bruised than heard. From what we see in workplaces across sectors, there are four recurring patterns that explain why this happens.

1. Cultures of Getting Along

Many organisations pride themselves on being “friendly” places to work. Harmony and politeness are treated as signs of success. Leaders say they want collaboration, not conflict. On the surface, this seems positive. Who would argue against a supportive team culture?

The problem is that when harmony becomes the highest value, honesty is sacrificed. Discomfort is labelled as “negative” or “unhelpful.” Raising an awkward truth about bias in promotions, or inequities in pay, risks being seen as disruptive. Instead of valuing the courage it takes to voice discomfort, organisations treat it as a threat to team unity.

This creates a dynamic where people smile in meetings and nod along, but afterwards whisper frustrations in private. Conflict does not disappear; it goes underground. And when it stays underground, it shapes culture more powerfully than the polite conversations on the surface.

2. Cultures of Speed

In workplaces built around productivity, speed is everything. Teams are rewarded for delivery, efficiency, and hitting the next milestone. Meetings are designed to move quickly, with clear actions and outcomes. Reflection is seen as a luxury, not a necessity.

Difficult conversations, however, require time. They often involve silence, pauses, emotions, and the patience to stay with discomfort. They do not fit neatly into a 30-minute meeting slot. In cultures of speed, these conversations are postponed indefinitely, labelled as “not urgent,” or avoided altogether.

The cost is high. Issues that are avoided in the name of speed resurface later in ways that are far more disruptive. A team that does not take time to address concerns about exclusion during a project may find those frustrations spilling out during a crisis, when emotions are running hotter and stakes are higher. Speed looks efficient in the moment, but it often creates more work and deeper harm in the long run.

3. Cultures of Fear

Fear shows up in many forms. Leaders may fear reputational damage, worrying that one wrong phrase will lead to public backlash. Managers may fear losing authority if they admit mistakes. Employees may fear career consequences if they challenge decisions.

In this climate, silence feels safer than honesty. Reports show that many leaders today prefer to say nothing rather than risk “getting it wrong.” This avoidance filters down the hierarchy. If senior leaders choose silence, employees quickly learn that honesty is not rewarded.

The result is a culture where difficult conversations are replaced by carefully managed statements, or by silence disguised as neutrality. But silence is not neutral. It protects those in power and leaves those experiencing harm without a voice. Over time, the unspoken becomes toxic, shaping the organisation in ways no one acknowledges out loud.

4. Cultures of Hierarchy

Finally, hierarchy plays a major role in who can speak and who cannot. In theory, “everyone’s voice matters.” In practice, safety is distributed unequally.

Research in Europe, such as the EEA Climate Survey (2025), shows that senior leaders often feel comfortable speaking up, while junior employees, women, people from ethnic minority backgrounds, LGBTQ+ staff, and employees with disabilities feel far less safe. The same words spoken by a senior executive are heard as “strategic insight,” while spoken by a junior employee they are dismissed as “emotional” or “difficult.”

This unequal distribution of voice reveals the limits of so-called openness. It is not that people are unwilling to speak. It is that they have learned, often through painful experience, that speaking up comes with risks they cannot afford.

The Gap Between Values and Reality

The effect of these four cultural patterns is a wide gap between what organisations say they value and what they actually practise.

On the surface, organisations celebrate openness, inclusion, and “bringing your whole self to work.” They put these phrases on posters and websites. But in practice, employees learn that some truths cannot be spoken without consequences.

The culture that results is one of surface-level alignment and hidden fracture. Outwardly, the organisation looks committed to dialogue. Inwardly, it punishes candour, silences dissent, and protects the status quo.

And this is why difficult conversations break down. Not because people do not want to have them, but because the culture is not designed to hold them.

What Avoidance Costs

Avoiding discomfort does not make it disappear. It does not soften conflict or make bias less damaging. It simply pushes the tension underground, where it grows stronger and more corrosive. When organisations sidestep difficult conversations, the costs show up in multiple ways.

Disengagement and Departure

The first and most visible cost is disengagement. When people feel that speaking up will not change anything, they stop trying. They keep their ideas to themselves. They hold back from challenging weak decisions. They withdraw from conversations about strategy or culture.

Over time, disengagement becomes departure. Research in the UK shows that three in five workers would consider leaving if their employer rolled back on DEI commitments. Catalyst found that more than 60 per cent of Gen Z workers will not even apply to organisations that do not demonstrate inclusion. The message is clear: silence on DEI drives talent away.

Organisations often frame attrition as an individual choice, but in reality it is a cultural signal. When people leave, they are telling you that trust is broken.

Surface Unity, Hidden Fracture

Another cost is false alignment. On the surface, teams look cohesive. Meetings are polite. Everyone agrees. But underneath, unspoken frustrations and differences remain unresolved.

When a crisis hits, whether it is an incident of discrimination, a public controversy or a business downturn, those hidden fractures burst into the open. A team that avoided difficult conversations about power or fairness before the crisis finds itself paralysed during it. Leaders are shocked by the sudden anger or resentment, but in truth, the warning signs were always there. They were simply ignored.

Tokenism and Stalled Progress

When organisations avoid tough conversations about power, diversity risks becoming tokenistic. Representation may improve on the surface, with more women, more people of colour and more visible diversity, but decision-making power stays in the same hands.

This creates a dangerous illusion of progress. Organisations can claim success on diversity metrics, while inequities remain embedded in pay, promotions and influence. Employees see through this quickly. They know the difference between real inclusion and symbolic gestures. Once again, avoidance undermines trust.

Everyday Harm

The most painful cost of avoidance is the continuation of everyday harm. Microaggressions go unaddressed. Bias in recruitment or promotion remains unchallenged. Exclusionary behaviours are normalised.

For those experiencing the harm, the silence around it is as damaging as the behaviour itself. To name an issue and see it ignored sends the message that your experience does not matter. To watch leaders remain silent in the face of bias is to learn that safety is not for you.

This is why so many people, particularly those from underrepresented or marginalised groups, describe their workplaces as exhausting. The labour of carrying unacknowledged harm takes a toll on health, confidence and belonging.

The Evidence

The costs of avoidance are not just anecdotal. The research is clear.

The British Council reports that inclusive organisations see up to a 50 per cent reduction in staff turnover and 75 per cent fewer sick days. The health and retention benefits are tangible.

McKinsey’s global research has shown again and again that companies in the top quartile for gender and ethnic diversity on leadership teams are significantly more likely to outperform financially. Diverse leadership does not guarantee success, but it makes organisations more resilient, more innovative and more responsive.

Employee surveys confirm the link. According to Catalyst and the NYU Meltzer Center (2025), 76 per cent of employees say they are more likely to stay with an inclusive employer, and 61 per cent of Gen Z workers say they would never apply to an organisation that does not support DEI.

In other words, the business case for inclusion is not in doubt. But focusing only on performance risks missing the deeper point.

Beyond the Business Case

The human cost of avoidance is harder to measure, but more important. Silence eats away at trust. Every time an organisation avoids discomfort, employees learn that honesty is unsafe, that their truth is unwelcome, and that loyalty will not be repaid.

Trust is fragile. Once it is broken, it is hard to restore. And without trust, no amount of strategy or branding will create the culture organisations claim to want.

Avoidance may feel easier in the short term. But over time, it corrodes culture, drives away talent, and leaves organisations weaker both morally and commercially.

Who Gets Protected When Truth Is Spoken?

When someone raises a difficult truth, what happens next?

This is the moment when culture reveals itself. It is easy for leaders to say that they value honesty, that they welcome challenge, and that they want people to speak openly. But when the words spoken are uncomfortable, when they expose bias or inequity, the real question is whose safety the organisation chooses to protect.

In many workplaces, the system bends towards protecting those with power. A senior leader who questions diversity targets is listened to, their discomfort carefully managed, their authority respected. A junior employee who questions bias in promotion decisions risks being dismissed as negative, disruptive, or difficult. The same honesty, voiced by different people, produces very different consequences.

This unequal distribution of safety is one of the clearest signals of organisational culture. If truth is welcomed only when it comes from the top, the organisation has not built a culture of openness. It has built a culture of control.

The Unequal Burden of Risk

For those with privilege or seniority, speaking up often carries little personal risk. A senior manager can express scepticism about DEI targets and still be seen as credible. A well-established leader can admit mistakes and be praised for humility.

For those without that protection, the risks are far greater. A woman pointing out gender bias may be labelled as overly sensitive. A Black colleague raising concerns about race may be accused of playing the race card. An LGBTQ+ employee speaking about exclusion may be told they are making others uncomfortable. In some cases, people face career penalties for naming the realities they live with every day.

The burden of risk falls most heavily on those who are already marginalised. This compounds inequity: the people who most need to speak are the ones who have the least protection when they do.

Evidence From Research

Studies back this up. Research with software engineers and AI professionals in 2025 found that employees from underrepresented groups continued to report exclusion, microaggressions, and discrimination, even when DEI programmes were in place (arXiv, April and June 2025). The findings suggest that formal commitments to diversity are not enough on their own. Without cultural conditions that protect those who speak out, the lived experience remains one of silence and fear.

This gap between policy and practice is not unique to the tech sector. European climate surveys in economics and academia have reported similar findings: women, ethnic minority staff, LGBTQ+ employees, and people with disabilities consistently feel less safe raising concerns, and less confident that speaking up will make any difference. The pattern is consistent across sectors.

The Illusion of Safety

Many organisations claim to provide psychological safety. Leaders quote research by Amy Edmondson or repeat phrases like “there are no bad questions.” But the evidence shows that safety is not experienced equally. It is not enough for leaders to declare that people can speak up. Safety is measured not by intentions, but by outcomes.

If certain voices are regularly silenced, ignored, or punished, then the claim of safety is an illusion. Employees quickly learn what can and cannot be said. They learn that power is more likely to be protected than truth.

What This Means for Leaders

Unless leaders face this truth, promises of openness will remain empty. To change it, leaders must ask themselves difficult questions:

• Who feels safest to speak in our organisation, and why?

• Whose honesty is rewarded, and whose is punished?

• How do we respond when someone raises an uncomfortable truth?

• Do we protect the comfort of the powerful, or the courage of the vulnerable?

  
  

The answers to these questions matter because they shape culture far more than any value statement or training programme. Until organisations confront the unequal distribution of safety, they cannot claim to be inclusive.

What Leadership Really Requires

So what does leadership require in this moment?

The most powerful action is not launching another initiative or publishing another glossy report. It is creating the conditions for difficult conversations to happen.

That means showing humility, admitting mistakes, and modelling repair. It means protecting people who speak up rather than protecting the comfort of power. It also means investing in tools that change behaviour. For example, UK research shows that mandatory gender pay gap reporting narrowed the pay gap by about 18 per cent in companies required to disclose (arXiv, 2020). Transparency works because it makes silence impossible.

Leaders must also resist the temptation to retreat. When accountability measures are removed, as in the case of BT’s decision to change its bonus structures, the signal is clear: inclusion is optional. Employees notice. By contrast, organisations that maintain commitments even in a hostile climate show that inclusion is not negotiable.

A Broader Debate

We live in a divided moment. Public opinion on diversity, equity and inclusion is sharply split, and this division is shaping both national debates and workplace culture.

Surveys show the fault lines clearly. In the UK, Ipsos polling in 2025 found that a majority of people support specific DEI measures such as flexible working, gender pay gap reporting, and inclusivity training. At the same time, more than a third of respondents said they felt DEI in the workplace had gone too far, while only one in five said it had not gone far enough. These results reflect a wider tension. Many people support the outcomes of inclusion when framed in practical terms, but some remain suspicious of the language or the politics that surround it.

This division is mirrored in the workplace. Employees increasingly demand inclusion, with three in five UK workers saying they would consider leaving if their employer rolled back on DEI commitments. Younger generations in particular view diversity as a non-negotiable value in choosing where to work. Yet at the same time, organisations are scaling back, often citing fatigue, political risk, or financial pressures. Some leaders talk about the need to “focus on the core business” or to “move beyond identity politics.” Others simply avoid the subject altogether.

The debate is not only about what DEI is, but about what people imagine it represents. For some, it symbolises fairness, opportunity, and belonging. For others, it is seen as bureaucracy, political correctness, or even a threat to meritocracy. These different interpretations make the subject emotionally charged and easily polarised.

The Political Environment

The wider political climate is amplifying this tension.

In the United States, DEI has become a flashpoint issue. Some states have introduced restrictions on what organisations and universities can do in relation to race and gender. Companies that were once vocal in their commitments have faced boycotts, legal challenges, and political scrutiny. For many leaders, the safest option has become silence.

In the UK, the debate has taken a different but related shape. Politicians and commentators increasingly frame DEI as “woke” or unnecessary, casting doubt on the value of targets, training, or investment. Headlines about “culture wars” filter into boardrooms, making leaders wary of being seen as too progressive. The risk of reputational damage is not only external; it is also internal, as organisations fear alienating parts of their customer base or workforce.

Across Europe, similar debates play out in different national contexts. In some countries, DEI is framed as a legal compliance issue. In others, it is attacked as a foreign import or as an elite concern disconnected from ordinary people’s lives. Wherever the debate takes place, the effect is the same: organisations are caught between the expectations of employees and the pressures of politics.

Beyond the Headlines

Yet here is the deeper truth. The future of DEI will not be determined by political headlines, public statements, or the rebranding of programmes. It will be determined by what happens inside organisations, in the everyday conversations between colleagues, teams, and leaders.

The real question is not whether you support DEI in principle. Most people will say yes when asked. The harder question is whether you can handle what DEI means in practice.

• Can you sit with disagreement when people have fundamentally different experiences of the same workplace?

• Can you face anger or frustration without rushing to shut it down in the name of professionalism?

• Can you admit that systems built for speed, efficiency, and control may not be capable of delivering equity without being redesigned?

• Can you allow discomfort to surface, not as a failure of culture, but as evidence that culture is doing its work?

  
  

Reports and research suggest that most organisations struggle here. They may have the right values on paper, and the right commitments in their strategies, but they lack the cultural muscle to sustain real dialogue. The moment discomfort appears, the system moves to protect itself. Leaders avoid risk. Teams retreat to silence. Employees censor themselves.

And that reality is the true measure of culture. Not the vision statements. Not the glossy reports. Not the social media posts on International Women’s Day or Pride Month. What reveals culture is whether organisations can face into the tension of difference without turning away.

Until organisations develop that capacity, DEI will remain fragile. It will always be vulnerable to political winds, budget cuts, or leadership changes. Because without the ability to hold difficult conversations, inclusion cannot move from aspiration to practice.

Building Cultures That Can Hold the Hard Stuff

If organisations are serious about inclusion, they need to go beyond statements of intent and create the conditions where honesty can survive. This means redesigning everyday practices so that difficult conversations are not exceptions but a natural part of working life.

Here are some of the foundations that matter most.

Time and Space for Reflection

Most workplaces are built for speed. Meetings are designed for efficiency, decisions are driven by deadlines, and success is measured by how quickly something is delivered. In this environment, reflection feels like a luxury. Yet reflection is the soil in which honesty grows.

Organisations that want to support difficult conversations must build in deliberate time and space. That might mean extending meetings to allow for dialogue rather than rushing to decisions. It might mean scheduling forums where employees can explore sensitive issues without fear of judgment. It could mean leaders modelling reflection by pausing before they respond, showing that speed is not always the same as progress.

Accountability at Every Level

Too often, responsibility for DEI sits at the top of the organisation, or worse, in a single department such as HR. While senior leadership is important, real inclusion only happens when accountability is distributed across every level.

That means embedding inclusive behaviours into performance reviews, into promotion criteria, and into team objectives. It means holding managers accountable not only for results but also for the culture they create. And it means treating inclusion as a shared responsibility, not a specialist subject handled by a few.

Protecting the Truth-Tellers

When someone raises an uncomfortable truth, the organisation faces a choice: protect the person who spoke, or protect the comfort of those who were challenged. Too often, the latter wins.

To build cultures that can hold difficult conversations, organisations must actively protect those who speak up. That might mean leaders publicly backing employees who raise uncomfortable issues, ensuring they do not face career penalties. It might mean establishing clear channels for raising concerns and ensuring responses are transparent. It certainly means rewarding honesty rather than punishing it.

The true test of inclusion is not how leaders respond when people agree, but how they respond when people dissent.

Discomfort as Growth

Many organisations treat discomfort as a sign of failure. When a conversation becomes tense, when people feel uneasy, or when conflict surfaces, leaders often rush to smooth things over. This instinct is understandable, but it is also damaging.

Inclusion requires a different mindset. Discomfort is not failure. It is evidence that something important is being named. Growth is rarely comfortable. Organisations that treat discomfort as a normal part of change will be better placed to build trust and resilience.

This requires leaders to reframe what success looks like. Instead of aiming for harmony at all costs, success can mean surfacing the issues that were previously hidden. Instead of seeking agreement, it can mean ensuring that all perspectives are genuinely heard.

Transparency as Practice

Silence thrives in the absence of information. One of the most powerful tools for breaking silence is transparency.

The UK’s gender pay gap reporting requirement has shown that disclosure can drive change. Research indicates that companies required to publish their pay gaps have narrowed them significantly. Transparency removes the option of ignoring inequity. It makes the conversation unavoidable.

Organisations can extend this principle beyond pay. Publishing diversity data, reporting on inclusion metrics, and being open about where progress is slow are all ways of making honesty part of the system. Transparency should not be a once-a-year report, but a continuous practice.

The Nature of the Work

None of this is glamorous. It will not make headlines or win awards. It will not always be comfortable. It is slow, patient, and often invisible work. But it is the kind of work that makes inclusion real.

Without these foundations, inclusion remains a slogan. It stays on posters and in policy documents, but it does not live in daily experience. With them, organisations create the cultural resilience needed to hold the hard stuff — not just once, but again and again.

The Real Test of Culture

Culture is not defined by the posters on the wall, the slogans in annual reports, or the carefully designed values pages on a website. Those things may tell us what an organisation aspires to be, but they do not show us what it actually is.

The real test of culture comes in the moments that are least scripted and most uncomfortable. It comes in the room when someone says something difficult.

What happens in that moment is the truest reflection of culture.

• Do people lean in with curiosity, or do they look away in silence?

• Do leaders protect the person who spoke with courage, or do they move quickly to protect the comfort of the powerful?

• Do teams make space to sit with what has been said, or do they rush to smooth over the discomfort so that things feel normal again?

  
  

These are not small details. They are the difference between a culture that is genuinely open and one that is performative.

Every organisation will say it values honesty. Every leader will claim they welcome feedback. But when honesty arrives in the form of criticism, when feedback challenges deeply held assumptions, when the truth disrupts the story an organisation tells about itself, the gap between words and reality is exposed.

If people are punished, sidelined, or quietly ignored for naming uncomfortable truths, then no amount of branding can repair the damage. If those in power are consistently protected while those who challenge them are silenced, then inclusion is not real.

This is why moments of tension matter so much. They reveal more about culture than surveys, workshops, or values statements ever can. The test of culture is not what we say when things are easy, but what we do when things are hard.

Closing Reflection

In 2025, the challenge of DEI is no longer about saying the right words. Most organisations already know the language. They can produce values statements, design training slides, and post supportive messages on social media. Words are easy.

The real question is whether organisations are willing to build the conditions where the wrong words, the imperfect words, and the necessary words can be spoken without fear.

Because inclusion is not neat. It is not tidy. It does not fit neatly into a strategy document or a quarterly report. Real inclusion is messy. It involves discomfort, disagreement, and the willingness to be unsettled. It asks leaders to hear things they would rather not hear. It asks employees to take risks in the hope that their honesty will matter. It asks organisations to confront the fact that systems built for speed and efficiency are often not built for fairness.

This is the deeper truth: inclusion is not a comfort zone. It is a practice of courage. It does not depend on getting everything right the first time. It depends on being willing to try, to listen, to repair, and to try again.

And it begins, always, with the conversations we most want to avoid. The moments when someone names a truth that makes us shift in our chairs. The moments when we would rather change the subject, or move on to the next agenda item. The moments when silence feels easier.

Those moments are the test. If we can stay with them, if we can protect those who take the risk to speak, if we can treat discomfort not as failure but as evidence of growth, then inclusion becomes more than a slogan. It becomes lived culture.

The future of DEI will not be shaped by politics alone, or by corporate branding exercises. It will be shaped by what happens in those small but pivotal moments, day after day, inside organisations.

The question for every leader, every team, and every organisation is simple: when the next difficult conversation arrives, will you turn away, or will you lean in?