Inclusion. Reducing the consequences of identity.

I have written here frequently and recently about the importance of getting crystal clear on what inclusion means in your organization. One of the big reasons this is so important is that it makes it much easier to then identify specific behaviors and practices that comprise an inclusive employee experience. This in turn makes it   [Read More…]

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Are humans really the most valuable asset in your organization?

I am skeptical. I am not skeptical that it is true that human beings are your organization’s most valuable asset. I personally have little doubt that it is true — rather I am skeptical that you actually believe it, and here is why. If you and the rest of your organization truly believed that, I   [Read More…]

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Inclusive Meetings – Interruptions

Last week I wrote about picking specific chunks of the workflow in your organization to focus your inclusion efforts on as an alternative to the easily overwhelming goal of culture change. I then wrote about and shared some ideas of how we might do that with meetings. Today I am going to get even more   [Read More…]

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Your first mistake toward inclusion, and how to avoid it.

The first mistake, the most common mistake, and possibly the most limiting mistake that organizations make in the name of inclusion is failing to clarify their objective. They get all revved up in pursuit of a vague, ambiguous target only to find themselves confused, exhausted, and struggling to show progress a year or two down   [Read More…]

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Inclusive Meetings

In my last post, I talked about focusing your inclusion efforts on a specific aspect of your culture or work experience. One of my favorite early targets for intervention is meetings. Meetings are an aspect of work that often touch all or nearly all employees. They are also commonly not very intentional, not very inclusive,   [Read More…]

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Inclusion. Narrow the focus, apply more pressure.

Far too many organizations bite off more than they can chew in trying to make their culture more inclusive. They make some proclamations, bring in some training, and then… hmmm, what do we do now? Is anything changing? What was the objective again? Culture change requires a lot of resources, a lot of patience, persistence,   [Read More…]

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Inclusion, Step 1. Check yourself.

Step #1 One of the most common questions I get is “where should we start?” I generally look at helping an organization become more inclusive as a chicken or egg kind of thing. There are a number of places that you can start, none necessarily right or wrong. The most important thing is the getting   [Read More…]

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About your conference…

The SHRM Annual Conference is one of my favorites. It is consistently a great opportunity for me to see a bunch of folks I dig, meet some new folks to dig, and I always catch a bit of a buzz off of 15-20,000 HR professionals gathered together to talk about this stuff called work. While   [Read More…]

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How about we stop letting other people define the work?

Most of the few posts I have managed this year have been focused on language. I think that language is one of the most powerful and one of the most overlooked tools at our disposal. A fair amount of the resistance that I meet in the workplace relative to Diversity and Inclusion work is not   [Read More…]

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Inclusion: What are you building on?

Somewhere in their delightful book, Switch, Dan and Chip Heath write “What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity.” I believe this to be true and especially true when it comes to D&I work. I would say that the lack of clear, concise, common language and logic is Mistake #1 that organizations make…and   [Read More…]

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