December 23rd, 2008
A big part of my work involves developing and delivering workshops focused on issues of diversity, inclusion, healthy relationships and cultures. I was recently delivering a half-day workshop for a client organization and started things off by asking everyone to briefly introduce themselves and also to share the one thing they really hoped to get out of the session. There was a great variety of answers to this question; one theme in particular that caught my attention was compliance. Several folks were going into this session wanting to know how to stay out of trouble and how to keep their company out of trouble.
Knowing what the rules are and why they exist is important for all of us, in both our personal and professional lives. But we have done ourselves a great disservice by framing diversity and inclusion as issues of compliance. Most of the responsibility for this confusion is on those of us that work directly in this field, and unfortunately we have a great deal of work to do to correct this perspective. This is an area where we very much need to be in collaboration with business leaders, HR leaders and others.
Diversity is no more about compliance than the issues of sales, customer service or leadership are primarily about compliance.
Compliance training should be about compliance and diversity programs should be about diversity, its value and how to best realize that value. Reviewing relevant policies, practices and laws is fair game for any training and development programs, but compliance should not represent the core diversity message. Organizations with diversity training primarily focused on compliance, are organizations that do not truly understand the value that diversity represents. If your individual approach to diversity and inclusion consists of avoiding lawsuits then you do not understand what diversity is.
With diversity, inclusion, creativity and other intangible assets becoming increasingly critical for individual and organizational success and survival the time has come for us to expect more of ourselves and each other.
It’s scarcity thinking vs. abundance thinking.