What we don’t say can speak louder than what we do

Inclusion is one of my favorite words.

We don’t talk about it enough.

We sort of tack it on to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, but the funny thing about inclusion is, without it, none of the other stuff works.?

I also love the word belonging and the quote by Maya Angelou about true belonging:

“You are only free when you realize you belong no place—you belong every place—no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.”

We each have parts of ourselves that belong in some spaces and other pieces of ourselves that don’t belong in those very same spaces.?

The place is the same, I am the same and I belong and don’t belong all in the same moment.?

Sometimes the only difference is which of my identity badges of belonging are visible and which are invisible in that place, and by the opinions of the others viewing me there at that moment.

I recently saw a shirt that said “What makes you different makes you special”. I have this crazy idea that we are all special, both the parts that are different and the parts that are similar.?

I read about a study recently, where the faces and genetics of people who look like twins but are not related were analyzed.?

Looking at them, you might think they were long-lost relatives or secret siblings of each other, but the study found that the pairs that looked the most alike did share important parts of their Genome or DNA but that they often have ancestors from entirely different parts of the world.?

The thing I find so fascinating about this, is that you have two strangers who look like they could be carbon copies of each other, but their experiences in life often triggered by how they appear to others, can cause their genes to switch on and off creating what are called differences in our epigenomes, not to mention, how where we live, what we eat and are exposed to creates our microbiome.

This part of us, made up of bacteria, fungi and viruses, affects our lives in ways that are barely understood today.?

Differences hidden inside pairs of humans that look identical.?

I think about how similar the rest of us can be even when we don’t look anything like each other.?

Sometimes the commonalities that bind us together have nothing to do with what is on our outsides.?

What I find fascinating about creating belonging cultures at work is that we have an opportunity to invite completely different people to share a space. We invite folks from all over the world, from different experiences, backgrounds, social classes, you name it, all the axes of identity to belong because they are “one of us”.?

And one of us is defined as one of the members of this company.

An important question that Learning is often asked is:? How does a company truly foster belonging?

I find that what we don’t say can be just as powerful as what we do.?

As Leaders, if we’re saying it, we should check and see what else we’re leaving out. This is something I listen for, the missing words when people talk about differences.

When people talk about inclusion, what are they not mentioning? They often hit on the visible markers of diversity, but less often on the invisible. And that is exactly the space where inclusion can be a game changer for individuals and organizations.?

When I think about my own identity and the different aspects of it, there are some parts that have oppression associated with them and parts where I am as far from oppressed as you can get.

I am white, college-educated. I grew up in America at a time when I already had the right to vote. No one asked me to get them coffee in a meeting or assumed I was the secretary. I was not sent home for wearing a pantsuit to work…I never thought of it as a pantsuit…it was a suit.

I am an extrovert in a part of the world that celebrates extroverts, especially in leadership positions, It is also true that corporate cultures where I live often subtly punish introverts. There is this spoken and unspoken belief that introverts could be extroverts if they just tried harder, as though one needed to be an extrovert to speak publicly and lead decisively.?

Leaders do not need to be extroverts to be effective. The only difference between being an extroverted leader and an introverted leader is whether being with large groups of people charges their batteries or drains them. That is not a difference you can see from the outside.?

How many companies' Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practices mention introversion or extraversion? Yet a lot of time is spent covering discomfort for introverts in extrovert-driven spaces. What would inclusion look like in companies that valued introverts and extroverts?

Something as simple as thought leadership available in different channels, written letters and articles, broadcasting pre-recorded 1-to-1 conversations, or a live presentation at a town hall for thousands offer a few ways for leaders to engage in a self-selected manner that allows them to best shine and for employees to have a variety of ways to receive and absorb the information.

Bonus points to the leaders who talk about this invisible aspect of diversity and the strengths/advantages that having an organization made up of both introverts and extroverts bring them in the marketplace.?

Other aspects of diversity which may be invisible may include neurodiversity, learning and other disabilities, religion, sexual orientation, military experience, socioeconomic background, marital status, national origin, and many other aspects of individual identity. Some people have aspects that we usually think of as being visible characteristics, such as race, that are not visibly identified by others.

At work, the potential impact of an invisible identity is directly tied to whether or not an employee feels that a part of their identity would be welcomed at work or not.

How you signal inclusion and belonging is directly tied to whether your employees believe your organization to be safe…?

Remember, your employee does not actually have to be unsafe, just like your employee who fears coming out at work, or revealing a pregnancy, a hearing loss, or PTSD…doesn’t actually have to be at risk for not being promoted or put on the shortlist, if they believe that might happen to them because of an invisible characteristic of their identity, then you haven’t done enough to foster a workplace where diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging are alive and well.?

If “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging”, is just a required course, a program, or a department and not a deeply held belief, backed up by action, budget, and behavior that is rewarded and reinforced at all levels, there is unpaid emotional labor being done in order to work for you by a percentage of your employees.

?One day, they may decide that they would like to switch to another company where it just doesn’t cost them so much to work there.

#diversityequityandinclusion #belonging #invisible #visible #hidden #indentity #covering