Joe Gerstandt | keynote speaker, freedom fighter, freak-flag flier

I hope to bring greater clarity to diversity and inclusion work. Being sloppy and careless with our language easily and often undermines the behaviors and outcomes that we work toward. If we create a solid foundation with our language, identifying definitions, characteristics and indicators, it becomes much easier to then build behaviors and target outcomes — because we know what we’re working toward. Clarity and consistency in our language enables constancy of purpose.

I have written a great deal about what diversity is — what the word means, what the characteristics of diversity are, how it shows up in our work, etc. — from my perspective. It is not the Gospel According to Joe, though that has a delightful ring to it. None of this is done in the spirit of “teaching.” I am not a teacher, just a fellow traveler. You can come to use whatever definitions you like — I just hope to inform and inspire that process.

While I have spent a fair amount of time unpacking what diversity is, I have not spent as much time on inclusion, so I want to do a bit of that now.

This is the definition of “inclusion” that I use:

the act of including additional difference in a group or process

So, I am talking about the things that you deliberately do (as an individual, group or organization) to include more difference. Inclusion is not something that you are or are not. It is something that you do. It is behavior: the deliberate behavior of seeking out and including more difference. So, rather than telling me that you are inclusive, tell me what you are doing to include.

Inclusion is activist. This is not an intellectual or reflective endeavor. It is not about whether you get it, buy it, embrace it, cherish it, or embrace it. That stuff is all quite highly overrated. It is not about your intentions, your aspirations, or what you do not do. That is all stuff for another conversation — a conversation that will not take place here.

Inclusion is dialogic. To truly include difference requires a certain amount of sharing of power, so that relationships are balanced. When power is not shared, one side must do all or most of the accommodating, resulting in conformity rather than inclusion. Organizations seeking to be more inclusive must be very serious about minimizing power and privilege dynamics that exist in any hierarchy.

Inclusion is generative. Greater diversity of inputs into a group or process drives greater variance in outcomes. Said another way, groups with greater diversity either over-perform or under-perform groups with less diversity. You are literally increasing the potential of a group by including more difference. Whether this inclusion fuels positive outcomes or negative ones largely depends on how willing and able the group is to deal with the additional tension.

So, that is enough to get us started. In my next post I will lay out some of the core markers of inclusion.

 Be good to each other.