D&I is widening our horizons, and enriching us with a broader knowledge and perspective.
Diverse customer target groups, require diverse talent pools. In addition, D&I (or DEI) make a better and more equal world.
Diversity comes in many forms - that be through gender, age, seniority, hair colour, ethnicity, social class, disability and etc.
If a person has two or more of these diversity x-factors attached, they experience intersectionality.
(and I say x-factors, because they are a gift, as much as an obstacle).
The highter x-factor a person has, the more he/she has to hope for biasfree counterparts. The paradox here is, that diverse people have better prerequisites for understanding other people's x-factors, and lead the diversity agenda naturally, through their incorporated understanding of living with an uniqueness.
People with any kind of diversity element just want to be able to blend it. Often HR or Communication Units take advantage of those people, if they own a D&I agenda they want to promote. They put them in the 'spot-light', as a Hype and promotion tool. Often, if the opposite happens, they are hidden away - and experienced as 'phenomenons' rather that equal human beings. Luckily, that is mostly observed among the moral lacking priviledged, with egos higher than most of us can imagine.
True D&I champions & credible Leaders, know no boarders between priviledged and non-priviledged, and they are first and foremost human.
Be clear on your Diversity agenda. How broad is it - who is included, and who is excluded from it? In times of scarcity on talent pools, we tend to embrace everyone with our branding campaigns. Though, our thoughts and behaviours - our culture - does not always follow. We do not Walk the Talk. Maybe we should start there, or it least communicate clearer. No corporate bullshit. Tell and demonstrate your true politics.
An indicator for the existence of D&I in a company, or it least good inclusion, is ironically the lack of a D&I office. Companies who live diversity and inclusion to the fullest, do not need Head functions to tell their organisations to treat other people as human beings, regardless of gender, social status, hair, eye and skin colour.
Truly want to be diverse and inclusive? - here is what to do if you are responsible for creating a more diverse organizational culture:
If you really want to foster a diverse and inclusive company that contributes to innovation and growth: invite your diverse people for confidential 1:1 conversations about their well-being. Ask them, what contributes to their wellness, and what doesn't. Let their answers be free of consequences, and you'll see how much you'll learn, and how easy you will be able to pin point the obstacles getting in your company's way of winning even more business acumen and success in the market. Let the interviewer be someone who has no direct power over the person whose opinion you're interested to learn more about.
The level of biases determine how inclusive you'll be towards a diverse group. If you only surround yourself with people in your network, who look and think like yourself, you probably will not have as great a prerequisite to lead a diverse group, as someone who per default surrounds themselves with diverse opposites.
Inclusion does not cost a thing, and it's quite easy. It just requires sincere acceptance and respect towards other human beings, especially from those who are in power.
- sometimes mixed with a little bit of courage.
If you are a stereotype company, based on a DNA of stereotype priviledged male and female, in social class and colour, do not communicate you are something else. Instead, say - you have the ambition to change - and that you are working actively towards it. Demonstrate your ambition through sincere initiatives and target-related performance data.
D&I does not come through marketing or branding campaigns. It exists within humans, who truly have an open view on other humans, and who believe, that we are all born as equals, deserving the same respect, opportunity and acceptance, regardsless of social status and starting point in Maslows.
Leadership and successful businesses are all about embrasing, nurturing and empowering the core - employees and customers. By failing on D&I agenda, institutions will at some point be perceived as heartless robotics - waiting for a better (more human) algorithm to conquer theirs.
Do not victimise those who do not see themselves as such. Magic happens when diverse energy come togeher. Promote that change. Be that change. Behave your change. And when you succeed, feel free to communicate it.
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