Is there really an 'i' in your D&I?

Many years ago now I trained to be a teacher.

Delivering ‘inclusive’ lessons where the needs of every learner had been both considered and catered for was a vital component of a successful lesson.

?I was reflecting on this the other day when considering the ‘I’ in D&I. In the past I have experienced first hand what it's like to be on the receiving end of an 'exclusive' rather than 'inclusive' working environment. And my experience tells me that I think we often miss the point regarding ‘inclusivity’. In reality quite often it ends up just being about Diversity. We say things like - “one of our key priorities is ensuring we are a diverse community, providing a supportive, inclusive environment for that ‘diverse’ community to thrive in”. Of course, that’s laudable and indeed absolutely what we should be doing. But that’s not Diversity AND Inclusion, that’s delivering a strategy which is inclusive towards our diverse population. The two things are not mutually exchangeable.

?Not wishing to be controversial but just to bring that to life – do we actively say – “we need to hit our quota on hiring enough people with dyslexia”! Or – “we don’t have enough introverts or ambiverts in the business, there’s too many extroverts – let’s make sure we really balance that out next year!”

Clearly no. We don’t.

?So, how many dyslexics DO you have in your organisation? Are they part of your inclusivity strategy? This is where truly understanding the D&I agenda is so important. If we are truly inclusive, surely we should consider how well we, as individuals and as an organisation, enable those with dyslexia to thrive? To do that you might first need to understand how many dyslexics are operating within your environment. But chances are you won’t know. Some will still be traumatised by the many years of struggle and feelings of failure they endured before it was diagnosed, and so keep it very much to themselves. And often it isn’t diagnosed till adulthood, if at all, because so many elements of dyslexia are not obvious.

My son has just one form of dyslexia?- apparently there are 6. Quite recently, I have realised that both my daughter and myself also share this same trait. Rather than an issue with spelling, de-coding and writing, it’s to do with how we process what we hear, and how we make sense of things.

If someone tells me a number over the phone - I find it very difficult to understand what I am hearing and be able to write it down. I need to see things in front of me. I also struggle to listen or indeed speak if there is lots of background noise or other distractions. The other day I was chairing a meeting and a colleague was gently tapping some notes on his laptop. I felt a bit pedantic and ridiculous but I had to ask him to stop because suddenly I was unable to ‘hear’ my thoughts in order to articulate them into words. To make sense of situations and problems I have to draw diagrams. It’s common knowledge with anyone I work with that I use flip charts as much as possible – it’s because I can’t hold the information in my head AND make sense of it at the same time.

At times this slows me down. I can take longer to create a slide deck than others because I have to do the ‘making sense of it’ first. I’ve received feedback that I need to “speed up”, “get more training”. It’s also why I struggled with maths problems at school.

At home, given time, I excelled at maths. I drew pictures to break the maths problem up into chunks and could then solve them without a problem. The maths wasn’t the problem. De-coding the question was the problem. But my bullying, critical maths teacher once even wrote in my end of year report that “Louisa clearly receives help with her homework”.

No I didn’t. Not even once!

Just without her breathing down my neck, and with space and calm to work and draw pictures to help me make sense of the question, I could do the maths. I failed my GCSE (O level actually!) 3 times. And then as a final act of desperation, my school found me an amazing tutor. A retired kindly chap called Colonel Harvard who helped me regain my confidence and taught me strategies to succeed. I am forever grateful to him.

I still hate being put under pressure to review data and solve problems in a group; it’s embarrassing when I don’t immediately ‘get it’. And I have even again had feedback where in the past leaders have told me - “we know data and analysis is not your thing”. No that’s not true! I’m good at analysis. I’m good at spotting trends. I’m just not good in a time constrained environment, under pressure with people watching!!

?With D&I quite rightly we tend to think about the big issues, the obvious focus points, but actually inclusiveness should encompass the big and the small or less obvious. It should be, well……….inclusive! So please can we stop judging others and start learning about them? Please can we become more educated, more supportive, broaden our thinking and expand and adapt our leadership styles. Please can we stop limiting what ‘good looks like’ and expand our notions and remove our judgement and become aware of our unconscious biases.

?D&I strategies should be in place to allow individuals to thrive and organisations to benefit. Of course, the benefits of a truly diverse organisation are well documented. But they should not be narrowly seen as a quota to be met or a box to be ticked or an initiative or workstream to be run. Rather they should just be the way we roll - be at the heart of the way in which we operate as an organisation, as individuals and critically in the way we manage and lead our teams.

?As Jimmy Etheredge, CEO of Accenture (and ranked #1 for D&I in North America https://www.diversityinc.com/diversityinc-top-50-2022/) says “Inclusion is about enabling everyone to be their authentic selves and fully contribute as valued team members. When we do that, it has a powerful compounding effect.”

?What more could you do?