E: Embed and Engage
Context is a Compass – Are You Reading It Right?
Over the past few weeks, your messages, stories, and examples have poured in — demonstrating how ODLC members are not only learning these V.A.L.U.E. framework principles but also living them. We’ve entered this new phase of leadership with clarity, conviction, and a collective spark that’s hard to describe… but impossible to ignore.
I’ve never felt more energized or hopeful about what’s ahead. This community is meeting the moment and shaping the future.
You’ve voiced your alignment.
You’ve anchored in evidence.
You’ve led from your lane.
You’ve understood the moment.
Now comes the real test: Can your leadership live beyond you?
E = Embed and Engage is the final — and most crucial — step. It’s the shift from performing equity to normalizing it. From solo effort to shared infrastructure. From intent to institutionalization. This requires a particular set of strategies and perspectives.
🛠️ Practice Tips: From Idea to Infrastructure
It’s one thing to lead an initiative – it’s another to design it so others can carry it forward. These tips are designed to help you transition from effort to infrastructure and from energy to endurance. Try one (or all) this season:
- Start with what already exists. Review current protocols, engagement initiatives, patient workflows, and onboarding materials to ensure alignment and consistency. Where can equity be woven in, rather than bolted on?
- Bring new voices to old tables. Invite frontline staff, community representatives, or non-traditional partners in and redesign conversations. Sharing power expands sustainability.
- Measure what’s maintained. Track how long health equity efforts last beyond launch. If they vanish when priorities shift, it’s time to embed them more deeply.
- Celebrate “shared wins.” Give credit to the teams and partners who keep the mission alive, not just the leaders who started it.
TRUE STORY: A Product Becomes a Platform
A Med Tech company noticed that one of its surgical products was underutilized in rural and safety-net hospitals — despite strong performance in major metropolitan centers.
Instead of launching a new campaign, the company leader decided to take a different approach to consider how the product was delivered.
He worked with sales, clinical education, and engineering teams to:
- A revised training curriculum accounting for real-world constraints in under-resourced settings
- Practical scenario guides to help sales representatives troubleshoot issues tied to health literacy, physical space, and staffing
- A feedback loop that included clinicians and processing staff from community hospitals, who helped refine and validate the materials
The result?
Increased uptake at pilot sites, smoother post-sale implementation, and a new Inclusive Design team embedded into R&D.
“We didn’t just improve access. We redefined how we train, listen, and lead.”
Why it works:
He embedded equity into daily operations — and engaged voices across silos.
That’s Embed and Engage in action.
🔗 Ready to Dive Deeper?
Embedding equity isn’t about good intentions – it’s about designing forward-thinking systems that can’t return to the way things were.
Systems don’t shift without structure, strategy, and courage.
We included the course elective “Designing Policies and Policy Change” in the certificate program to equip mission-driven leaders with the tools to not only advocate for change but also design it, influence it, and embed it into the systems that shape our communities.
In this particular course, you’ll define a problem your community is facing, shape a bold but achievable policy goal, and craft a plan to move decision-makers toward action. You’ll learn to navigate constraints, challenge the status quo, and design change that aligns with your values and your vision.
Learn More & Enroll TodayIf your efforts disappear when you do, it was a project. If it deepens when others join in, it’s a movement.
The Work Must Outlast the Leader
Believe it or not, the most substantial equity and inclusion work is often invisible – not because it lacks impact, but because it’s everywhere. It’s baked into the workflow, the playbook, the hiring guide, product training, community roundtables, and the systems people rely on every day.
If your efforts disappear when you do, it was a project.
If it deepens when others join in, it’s a movement.
This was always the vision behind ODLC: to elevate leaders and facilitate engagement that transforms systems from the inside out. I recognized early on that impact doesn’t come from what you start. It comes from what others can carry forward.
So don’t let this critical framework sit on the page or get lost in your email.
Live it. Share it. Build with it.
Why? Because your V.A.L.U.E.™ becomes visible when it stops being a message and starts becoming a method.
Endlessly Energized,
Dr. Erica Taylor
