Signs of an Inclusive Mindset

Inclusion is slowly becoming a steady conversation at workplace, in the way we work, drive business, or attract talent. In my opinion, one word that has gained tremendous popularity and usage in the last few years is – Inclusion. An inclusive mindset is at the heart of driving the efforts to make a workplace more inclusive and accepting for all.??

So, what is this inclusive mindset we are talking about and how do we identify one?

At an office gathering, I noticed one colleague ensuring he kept another colleague with vision impairment company, while the others got busy socializing with guest visitors in the room. Another time, I noticed a volunteer go out of their way to help a person move around at a Summit even though that was not the ask from them. A new hire once rushed to me realizing last minute that the fun activity she had planned for her team was not inclusive for a colleague with disability and now wanted to change everything to ensure the teammate doesn’t feel left out. Parallelly, these are also people who are doing steady at work, haven’t resigned, and also been able to manage their downfalls little better than others.

Who are these people? Which training did they attend? How did things like these come so naturally to them while others still don’t move an inch after spending hours taking inclusion trainings and seminars. How do you recognize and promote such talent in your organization?

A range of definitions exist on inclusive mindset. For me personally, an inclusive mindset exhibit

1. traits of being open to other perspectives
2. Places more importance on the person in front
3. Leads with kindness and compassion; lacks ego
4. Allows people to bring their authentic selves to work,

Are these naturally occurring traits or is something that can be carefully cultivated over a period of time through regular interventions and experiential setting.

Thus far, in my experience, inclusive mindset can be seen in the most fleeting ways. It is how you respond to situations rather than who you are as a person. Because you might not have an inclusive mindset at all points and in every situation of life. But it takes careful reflection of our own self to identify how can we include better – anyone and everyone.

Quick tips on how I feel one can develop an inclusive mindset:

1. Build an attitude of “No one gets left behind” – easier said than done because most of us are in such a hurry to get task or objectives completed that we are quick to move sometimes at the risk of ignoring or leaving people behind who might have valuable contributions to your objectives.
2. Empower first before empathizing – a lot of us have moved our curve from sympathy to empathy as leadership trait to build stronger people development skills. What we need to move from here is to move to the empower mode.
3. Self-reflection – our ability to reflect on our actions and be able to observe any hidden biases is a great way to develop our brain from acting on default to acting by design.
4. Be open to change / Be scared – we are naturally tuned to exclude in our behavior and processes hence inclusion is going to make us uncomfortable. But sometimes getting scared is a way of identifying we are getting out of our comfort zones and only when we do that do we really learn!

There isn’t an easy answer. I am myself in the journey of exploring the full meaning and developing an inclusive mindset. But few things that have personally helped me is trying to not leave anyone behind or giving up on people. Forces me to think of ways to get the strengths to the table and using it well. Not easy but attempts are making it progressively better. Second is reflection, which probably allowed me to notice some of the examples above. Helps me find compassion in the most fleeting moments and catch myself when am about to decide based on “experience” and stop to verify with a colleague and get a second opinion.

So what are your signs of noticing an inclusive mindset? Look forward to hearing on your experiences in the comments section!?