I think when people relate poor performance of some ‘woke’ companies (which I don’t agree as a term to describe companies because woke literally just means an awareness of social issues) as indicative that ‘woke’ practices don’t work - it’s a serious oversimplification.
What I don’t agree with is positive discrimination policies in companies (e.g. you have to have X number of women or minorities on your board or prioritising DEI hires over non-DEI hires) because that’s curing the symptoms not the cause of wider societal problems. In my opinion, it all comes down to unequal access to education & a failure to educate minorities & women at a young age that they can do/be anything they want to be.
If companies actually want to be ‘woke’ they should instead sponsor education programmes in difficult neighbourhoods, programmes which encourage women to pursue STEM/Finance jobs etc, and also education programmes which build up confidence etc. Naturally, this sounds more like the governments job, but business can try and plug the gap by doing these things. They don’t because it’s probably more costly & the impact is only felt in the LT. A DEI hire and pink washing (don’t know what the DEI term for that is) is cheaper and easier.