Creating a Culture of Inclusion Starts with Creating a Culture of Awareness

Diversity and Inclusion still makes people uncomfortable, but the first step to solving any problem is to not hide from it, and the first step to any form of action, is awareness, as Mellody Hobson said in her Ted Talk “Color Blind or Color Brave”. The smart corporations address diversity and inclusion head on, and are color brave. They actively seek to hire people of all races, genders, sexual orientation, and religions. In learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable, we stretch ourselves become more creative and solve more difficult problems. Hiring people that don’t think like you, come from where you come from, will challenge your assumptions and provide powerful new insights. Once you have made a commitment to diversity in hiring, and know the benefits of having a diverse workforce, you must now cultivate an employee experience where diversity is celebrated and people from a variety of backgrounds can work together.

Self-awareness

Every leader, no matter how evolved, has biases, and you have to really have a strong self-awareness strategy to keep them in check. My fellow HR Executive Kristen Pressner explores this in her TedX talk Are you biased? I am. I liken a self-awareness strategy to having a full-length mirror. Keep checking yourself in that mirror, because the success of inclusion depends on the authenticity of your leadership. Model this in your behaviors and in your communications. Kick start training programs to increase awareness initiatives owning your own need to grow. You need to authentically share the intention that inclusion is a key priority for you, and that you will model this in that way you structure teams, hold meetings and give everyone equal opportunity for advancement.

Team-awareness

When you bring a diverse team together, set the precepts for successful meetings. Always have an agenda, and follow up action items from any meeting. This will keep structure to all meetings, and provide a neutral playing field. Above all, encourage everyone to feel safe in surfacing new ideas, and treat every member of the team with respect. If need be, write guidelines for successful meetings. Chances are the more you include diverse team members, and the team benefits from the added creativity and new points of view to solve the client problems or come up with new offerings, the more they will see the benefits of inclusion. Allow for healthy debate and the challenge of ideas; that is needed to get breakthrough thinking. As long as it is done with respect this should be encouraged. Pair people up with folks they do not normally work with on small projects to help them get to know other people on the team. These experiences can go a long way towards the larger team success.

Measurement

Inclusion does not happen overnight. It’s important to have an anonymous feedback system where people can express challenges and offer solutions, and you can tweak your strategy along the way. As a leader, you must develop methods of accountability that links to business outcomes. Create performance metrics with inclusion goals which sends the message this is an important corporate initiative. You can measure your diversity results year over year with your EEO reporting. As your inclusive culture takes hold, internal referrals of diversity candidates should rise, as well as retention of diverse employees.

A culture of inclusion only serves to amplify the thinking and creativity of your employees. In a recent Fortune article “Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.”. Companies that openly articulate values of inclusion and have a diverse employee base often appeal to a wider customer base as well. While everyone has an unconscious bias, let’s confront the issue, and become more aware of how employees and teams alike can adjust behaviors to ensure that everyone feels included. We can and should become comfortable with the uncomfortable. We can all benefit from an inclusive culture where everyone feels valued and respected not for where they came from but for the ideas they contribute.