June 18th, 2014
The Forum on Workplace Inclusion is one of my favorite D&I conferences, I highly recommend it (March 17-19, 2015!). At the 2014 conference I facilitated a pre-conference session focused on the future. It was a very interactive workshop, and the participants were tasked with coming up with a vision of the future (I think we were focusing specifically on what would be different about work/the workplace in 2025), so that we could then work back from there and consider what those possible changes mean for us today.
I was reminded of a couple of things. 1) thinking about the future is hard, and 2) D&I and HR practitioners do not spend nearly enough time talking and thinking about the future. The reality of today is obviously important and should receive the bulk of our time and attention, but if we do not have big conversations about the future it gets kind of hard to be proactive and strategic, as we get stuck simply responding to what is in front of us.
“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
Malcolm X
I get to present a couple of sessions at the SHRM Annual Conference and Expo this coming week and one of them is The Future of Diversity & Inclusion: 5 Next Practices. I have been able to work with organizations of all shapes and sizes, across industry and geography and I am hopeful that one of the ways that I can be valuable to business and community leaders, HR leaders and D&I practitioners is to share what I see in the way of emerging practices and opportunities related to this work. This session is going to consider the importance of:
authenticity: D&I efforts must begin with a commitment to authenticity…we cannot simply hire people who look different from each other, we have to allow them to actually behave differently at work. I think that leaders commonly underestimate the impact and frequency of conformity and groupthink.
decision making: This is a huge opportunity for us, as it is incredibly important to the organization, currently not very consistent or deliberate in most organizations and has strong connective tissue with D&I. Diversity drives good decision making.
relational networks: Another huge opportunity, informal networks of relationships play a massive role inside the organization, but most organizations pay them no attention, several powerful D&I interventions here.
behavioral intelligence: If an organization adopts an updated, evidence-based understanding of human behavior (specifically judgment and making decisions about people) it can do things to mitigate the natural bias that shows up in our interactions and decisions…giving us the opportunity to make better talent related decisions.
employee experience: Variance in employee experience as well as root causes, is incredibly valuable feedback relative to organizational culture. For example, are women experiencing this workplace differently than men, and if so, why? Lots of opportunity here, including a move toward intentional employee experience design.
Hope to see you there, or somewhere!
Be good to each other.
Going to SHRM? See you there! You can catch me on June 23rd talking about Building a Culture of Innovation, and June 24th talking about The Future of Diversity and Inclusion. Say hi!
Also, check out my new FORWARD! workshops…already scheduled for Minneapolis and St. Paul, and maybe coming your way next!