Building (and Sustaining) a Culture of Inclusion

I work at The Center for Leadership Studies (CLS). We are commonly referred to as “the global home of Situational Leadership?.” I firmly believe we are commonly referred to that way because we go out of our way to refer to ourselves in that manner every chance we get!

Net-net, Situational Leadership? is a follower-driven model that revolves around accurately assessing something called Performance Readiness? (the ability and willingness of a person to perform a particular task). As you might imagine, the operational definitions of those parameters are critical. Take ability for instance. In our world, ability translates to task-specific knowledge, experience, and skill. And those three subsets are by no means created equal:

• Knowledge – As it applies to the task in question, how many books have you read? Classes have you attended? YouTube videos have you watched? Etc.?
• Experience – What is your track record with similar tasks executed under similar circumstances? How transferable is your skill set to the specifics of what you are currently being asked to do?
• Skill – Are you currently performing at a sustained and acceptable level?

Practically speaking, knowledge and experience are imbedded in skill, right? By that I mean, if somebody is currently performing a task at a sustained and acceptable level, it renders the amount of knowledge they have accumulated over time, or their previous work experience on similar tasks, comparatively inconsequential.

So, what if the task is something like: building (and sustaining) an inclusive organizational culture?

Most would agree as tasks go these days, that one is both daunting and very much in demand! Among many other considerations successfully completing this task is a function of answering the following questions, and then consistently executing operations in a manner that aligns with those answers:

• How do you build true awareness of the need for a diverse base of talent at your organization?
• What do you do to ensure that talent is effectively onboarded and routinely appreciated?
• How do you remove fear and promote transparency as that base of diverse talent dives in to focus on your ever-increasing competitive challenges?
• Etc.?

Suffice to say I have yet to meet anyone with higher Performance Readiness? for this task than Ann Herrmann-Nehdi. The reason she is so skilled at helping organizations navigate these waters is that she has been studying and developing experience in the extended dynamics of all things diversity and inclusion for decades.

In that regard, we were honored (Marshall Goldsmith, Kathy McDermott, and I) that Ann contributed a chapter to our Lessons from Leaders book. Besides her irrefutable skill in helping organizations build cultures defined by inclusion, I would offer there is not a nicer, more engaging, more insightful, or more genuine source of thoroughly vetted thought leadership anywhere!