DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION — DESIGN FOR SUCCESS!

Avoid these 3 things to Genuinely Celebrate Diversity and Inclusion at Work

You know it’s in the fashion. You have seen the numbers. You are investing in training. You are getting the awards.

Wonderful — but can we now really do something about it?

Diversity is still treated as a luxury brand that organizations sign-up for. We are awarding the initiatives, and we have experts on how to apply for awards that guarantees your stage spot.

My question…

“Where are the results?”

Though D&I is not my direct-action area, I’ve been subtly working on it for quite some time now. The challenge is that all the efforts and awards for D&I aren’t translating into desired results.

What I’ve realized is that there is no [or less] denial for the importance of celebrating diversity — but the way we look at diversity is where the challenge lies.

I don’t want to comment on how your last D&I training transformed your situation — I can vouch one thing for sure… We’ve still not seen the full spectrum of what Diversity means. We’ve been too occupied in playing gender games [is visible from any D&I award ceremony], but there is much more on table. Imagine conversations around LGBT hitting our boardrooms. Racial, generation, people with disabilities, ethnic is yet not that vocal too. Intellectual diversity is way too ahead to deal right now.

In my humble observation, once the organization decides to embark on a journey of creating a more inclusive organization, these 3 things must be avoided at all cost:

1. AWARENESS WITHOUT ACTION:

Imagine if I tell you that there is a micro-organism in the air that might hurt your health, and I don’t give you spray, mask or anything else to protect yourself — how would you feel. Grateful that I gave you awareness or frustrated because you can’t do anything about such awareness.

That’s my point. The value of diversity is widely documented and often communicated. Diversity training, stories of equity and curse of discrimination is known. But awareness alone doesn’t result in desired change. In fact, as per my example, awareness can create backlash. Few authentic studies that have tied diversity communication to an increase in bias and to a reaction against diversity.

As a D&I lead in your organization, you wonder what else they can do. Leaders are looking for results. Employees may appreciate training, but they want support in their real-life, day-to-day interactions. We all need solution and solace will not help. I’ve learned from my experiences that aligning awareness and education with targeted action can change the pattern and foster real progress.

Action Step: Link your next Diversity Training or Communication Session with some concrete action items. Question must be: What must change?

2. TEAM ENGAGEMENT WITHOUT LEADERSHIP ALIGNMENT:

Trust me — that’s the funniest and most tragic things to do.

Often, efforts to create more diverse & inclusive workplace are considered as merely HR work or as standalone initiatives. From launching an initiative to reviewing compensation and then, receiving the award — the crucial role of leadership team is minimal.

Quick check: Is your finance director complaining about lack of diversity in HIS team. Is your sales director concerned about diversity, despite achieving the business results?

Managers throughout the organization must value D&I, not as trend, but as a basic human ethic. They need to see how making changes or developing new perspectives will make a positive difference to them, their colleagues, and their organization.

So, before you plan your next D&I rollout, engage your leaders. Define a leadership strategy and create accountability systems to ensure leaders have the understanding and necessary capability needed to leverage the diversity of talent.

3. INDIVIDUAL SIGNUP WITHOUT ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT:

Individual responsibility is important but without organizational commitment, it’s not that impactful.

Let’s look at the numbers for Covid-19. Countries with clear national directives, coupled with brilliant individual responsibility were least effected. However, countries with loudmouth leaders and lack of national unanimous direction suffered and continue to suffer.

It’s true that individuals make the difference, but by leaning too heavily on individuals without developing organizational systems and practices, decisions are ad-hoc, and people remain confused, or even demoralized. This slows down the progress and the positive impact of diversity in the workplace falls short of expectations.

Action Step: Begin with the systems. Systems that create and reinforce diversity & inclusion throughout the employee experience — and give the value of equity the top priority. Without it, efforts to promote diversity and inclusion are laudable, awardable, but not sustainable.

Diversity is one of Allah’s most beautiful gift to humanity. Our job is simply to be inclusive about diversity.

Celebrate Diversity. Live Inclusively!