How would you advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion with colleagues who don’t understand its importance? Bill Van Eron

This question is like asking “How would one advocate for a more open culture, innovation and stakeholder relevance?”?

They are all interdependently connected.?

The ultimate goal needs to be trust and stakeholder relevance.?

It helps employees to be aware of what and why leaders are struggling to apply actions that always rise up when this system is in place. Employees focused on trust and relevance add a crucial layer that delivers higher outcomes.?

It shocked me how few employees understand the system in play as that insight is key to the value of diversity, equity and inclusion.?

Some examples:?

1. It’s not enough to just expect a more entrepreneurial open culture. Step up and be the catalyst to such a culture as I did. That earned popularity creates solid momentum for positive change. An employee who recognizes the needs and who addresses them in logical ways is far more valuable than those who just do the minimal expectations and who criticize, then leave the system.?
2. The more alike employees are, the more power internal truths have in ways that limit performance. We all get trapped in closed cultures despite the need to be more open. When I left my job as HP’s top ranked market strategist to immerse myself for two years in HP’s customer facing stakeholder ecosystem, it was because design awards judges told me I was doing hero marketing as the only layer of relevance between product and markets. I was greeted by the sales force as a converted factory puke, with respect to their why. Our team immediately led in global quota achieved by 3X two years in a row, because relevance touched all facets of business.?
3. When managers had bought into 20–30 years of bottom line thinking where attention to diversity, equity, inclusion and trust and relevance were often waived off as unneeded expenses, shifting to a values-based business model is best led by a diverse set of employees.?
4. Being on the outside with full 100% transparency to look in gives stakeholders the insights they seek to establish who keeps promises made internally and externally.?
5. Innovation is the byproduct of an open culture, diversity, trust, inclusion and systems awareness, versus just one piece of it all.?

There is a lot more to share, but core skills that helped me seem missing in most or all organizations.?

Design Thinking: The ability to synthesize what really matters beyond product engineering, to see trends, needs and preferences clearly.?

Systems Thinking: The ability to see the system that surrounds all actions or inactions in ways that all feel listened to and factored in without compromise.?

Value Creation: The ability to rise above conventional actions to make a bigger difference.?

Everything Human is interconnected. No longer can you isolate a need such as we all saw with innovation and now see with transformation. If you lie about anything and expect trust, that is wrong.?

Just understanding the breakdowns gives us an understanding of where to accelerate attention.?

Most people get hung up on words without really understand the why’s behind each.?

Most of these changes are natural and can impact all current projects with reasonably agile time frames.?

Find someone with my still rare experience to walk you though the new leadership model in ways that enable you and others to soar. Be mindful of pretenders who use the words yet who have yet to apply them.?