Change
Change Claudio Schwarz/Unsplash

It was Sir Winston Churchill who said, "To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often." From our relationships to the money in our pockets to our environment, all things are temporary and transient. Change is an ever-present factor in our lives, yet many struggle to navigate it to reach their ultimate destination safely. Thus, true leadership is all about creating, managing and guiding others safely through change. Now a new industry with a new model has arisen that promises to do this and more for people, firms and nations globally.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is one of the largest issues in the modern workplace, as firms work to dismantle the entrenched prejudices that are holding people back from achieving their full potential as determined solely by their capabilities. It has been proven that diversity is good for business, but organizations are too slow to change, leading to financial losses and unjust outcomes.

Deilight Consulting is a leadership and change consulting firm founded by Ian Clarke in 2021. Clarke left his job as a high-level investment banker at a global financial institution after whistleblowing on the institutionalized hatred and slow or near non-existent action on pledges to improve DEI within the organization by hiring, retaining and promoting more diverse executives. Prior to that incident, Clarke led numerous DEI initiatives at the company, setting up three employee networks and helping lead four.

In his over 14 years with the bank, Clarke worked in gentle gradual change toward becoming a more progressive and accepting institution. Conducting more than 100 interviews with marginalized staff, past and present, his work on DEI culminated in the 45-page Project Speak Up 2021 report. In it, he presented the discriminating methods, human stories, financial costs and practical solutions to oppression within financial services. Despite the initial positive reception to his work, true change never materialized, and he was left with no choice but to leave his job. However, his work was not in vain, as it led to the dismissal of dozens of erring officials, as well as the first Black woman being appointed to the board of a major international bank. It was also the first time two Black individuals simultaneously sat on such a board.

Following his departure from the global bank, Clarke founded Deilight Consulting, which provides knowledge and resources for individuals or organizations that desire to effect genuine change. Unlike other consultancies, Deilight Consulting approaches any issue or goal in a different manner — through science-based methods.

On DEI, Clarke says other methods only contribute to performative allyship without addressing the root causes of hatred. Actually a symptom of repression, hatred for him is a disease that infects people, akin to a pandemic.

"People who suffer from hatred don't believe they are being hateful, so they do not go to an unconscious bias workshop," he says. "On the other hand, those who don't suffer from hatred are most likely conscious of their biases and try to control them. So there's no need for them to attend the workshop either. We conclude that scientifically those things just don't work."

To accomplish its goals, which include solving wicked problems, tackling misinformation and helping the helpless, Deilight Consulting created its Change Engine — the product of two years of scientific research into human identity, change, hatred and oppression.

The Change Engine relies on Authentication, the application of cognitive thought — including ideation, deduction, recognition, speculation, collaboration, curiosity, experimentation, research, empirical evidence gathering and testing — to draw meaningful conclusions about the world or derive causality on changes taking place within it. Its methodology involves three questions: What is the truth? Who's not telling it? And why? For example:

  • Deduction involves tracing causality or making meaningful conclusions on questions we authentically ask ourselves. According to Clarke, "wise humans" can deduce to a scientific standard of "almost certainty" using logic, reason and other acute quantum entanglement-based senses to derive causality across complex webs of interconnected, abstract, incremental changes, known as "strings." However, if people have any bias or prejudgment, the string will elude them.
  • On the other hand, Recognition is attributing any changes in the world, such as objects, events, achievements, issues and deeds, to the Change Makers who are (a) responsible for originating it or (b) impacted by it in the collective human imagination. Recognition is central to cognition and sapience and essential for tasks such as triangulating causality. It's also a precursor to higher human abilities and emotions such as gratitude, compassion, empathy, remorse and self-awareness.

According to Clarke, the five fundamentals of the scientific method are testable, observable, detectable, measurable and repeatable. His self-imposed standard, known as "deilightfully authenticated science," goes even further, adding comprehensive, proven and conclusive. Deilight Consulting conducts rigorous primary research that complies with its exhaustive requirements to underpin everything it says and does.

The Change Engine, he says, is applicable to just about any problem in the world today or any idea we have tomorrow. As a proof of concept, Clarke has created an independent, impartial and apolitical report identifying 14 root causes of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas that is endangering millions of civilian lives in Gaza. He applies the principles of the change engine to figure out a means of resolution to the conflict that can appease both sides to swap further loss of life for peaceful coexistence between Israel and Palestine.

Clarke also authored the nonfiction book "The Sciences of Change," which takes curious minds on a journey through human identity across space and time as it attempts to approach today's most pressing problems and biggest questions with yesterday's news and tomorrow's solutions.

"Not everyone is open to change as I am," Clarke says. "But understand the limit is now our imagination, that we can answer any question or create anything we can imagine. Then you begin to realize the endless possibilities this could bring our civilization, and in its biggest hour of need. It sounds too good to be true. But we've proven the concept works with this report. This technology allows us to make the world of our collective dreams come true — history in the making."