You’re a Strategy executive looking to build a diverse and inclusive team. How do you get started?

Here is a foundational question : is their diversity at every level of the organization from C-suite to managment to the front lines? Is there a balanced representation of genders, ethnicities, ages, abilities, and experiences? This is where diversity starts and ends. For inclusion, are employees choices and voices heard? Use stay interviews, surveys and open discussions with leadership to address inclusion issues.

Understanding your talent pool is critical to starting in the right direction. Knowing your company's needs and gaps in workforce is your next step. Then you can assess how best to balance diversity, equity, inclusion, value, and cohesion (among other factors that are important).

You have to very clearly define your starting point but also on how you are measuring success in this setting. You first need to have a clear definition of the KPIs that you are going to use to measure the current situation, to understand if you are reaching your goals or not.

Make sure to test whether the candidate is a good listener. Early in my consulting career I attended a listening skills seminar. It gave me valuable tools on how to be a god listener. A diverse organization needs diverse ideas to win strategically. A good listener can build upon early thoughts to deliver a better strategy.

What is your overall goal? And how is your current team equipped to achieve those goals? When that overall goal is clear, what are the skills you need your team to have so that they can achieve those goals as efficiently and effectively as possible? What would your ideal team look like? How can you identify the individual and collective strengths to create an improved team with better synergy? Ideally, you may want to interact with internal and external stakeholders to ensure you are all aligned in your vision for the team and encourage those stakeholders to identify great team members that could join your enterprise. Think more about the end goal and overall puzzle rather than adding individual characters.

In my experience, setting the goals for DE&I can be very complicated if we narrowly define Diversity. Most people often think of a person's race or gender when thinking of diversity, so the goals clear but ineffective at developing diversity in your team. Thus, it's important that in defining your goals you clearly define the WHY for the team, the value of diversity of thought, of diversity of experience. You also have to very clearly define what you want to accomplish on both the diversity and inclusion side of the equation. Lastly, I would suggest that we don't focus too much on "inclusion" but on "belonging" if we want reap all the benefits of a diverse team.

Effective diversity initiatives require setting specific, measurable objectives across hiring, retention, and promotion to ensure an inclusive culture. Metrics should capture the diversity of staff and leadership, and assess the workplace environment through regular surveys, focusing on employee perceptions of inclusion. Goals might include increasing representation in management roles or enhancing employee engagement scores among underrepresented groups. Regularly reviewing these metrics helps identify areas for improvement, ensuring strategies not only bring diverse talent into the organization but also foster a sense of belonging and respect for all employees, crucial for the initiative's success.

Improving representation is just the first baby step. Creating the culture of listening, open mind, fairness, and providing accommodation is the key to retain the diverse hires. A lot of businesses are stuck on the first step to hire target group every year without actually improving the internal dynamic. Unconscious biased are left unaddressed. Instead of setting a KPI for hiring specific groups, I encourage businesses to review the reason why, to try changing your hiring practices and focus on listening to different voices. If you have predominantly been hiring from referrals, try campus recruit, community outreach, or diversity program partnership. Reach out to the diverse hires that left the organization to listen to their story.

Specially in the US, you have to make sure that you include HR and the DE&I teams when developing and deploying your action plan. Getting them involved in the development will increase their commitment to support your efforts, and you will for sure need them when executing the plan. And of course include your team. Involving them in the process will help you with providing them with a sense of belonging.

To build a diverse and inclusive team, strategic adjustments in recruitment and development are crucial. Start with a blind resume review to minimize bias, focusing solely on skills and experiences rather than personal identifiers. Next, prioritize candidates who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes (STARs), by removing formal degree requirements. This approach values practical skills and the tenacity to achieve results. Finally, robust mentoring programs can be established to nurture talent both internally and in the broader community, fostering skill development and offering growth opportunities. A comprehensive strategy leverages diverse perspectives for organizational innovation and success, ensuring a welcoming and inclusive culture.

Like all other strategic initiatives, make sure you have measurable goals with KPIs (leading and lagging) for your Diversity & Belonging activities. And then make sure that you look at your KPIs so that when something is not going as planned, you can take quick corrective action and/or modify the process to better serve your goals.

I've been on this journey for the last 5 years or so, where I seek out learning opportunities for other minorities and DE&I professionals. The main reason is that I realized that in terms of Diversity, we all have blind spots. So being exposed to diversity opens your mind to think about diversity differently, more holistically. And that is the beginning of doing things better for your diverse team, for creating a sense of belonging.

The culture of an organization & strong leadership commitment & seen to be committed play a significant role in shaping diversity & inclusion efforts. Commit to continuous learning & improvement in your approach to diversity & inclusion, integrating it into every aspect of business at all levels. Stay informed about best practices, emerging trends, & research findings in this domain in the workplace. Engage in ongoing education & training to enhance your understanding of unconscious bias, privilege, microaggressions, obscure structural barriers, ochlocracy at divergent viewpoints & other factors that influence inclusion outcomes. Remain open to feedback & adapt your strategies as needed to create a more inclusive, equitable work environment