What we're getting wrong about diversity and inclusion
Look at this picture. Do you see an old lady or a young woman?
If you've read Stephen Covey's, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, chances are you know how to see both.
Here's a quick reminder:
When I used this picture in one of my training sessions at the office a few months ago, the participants who had never seen this picture before not only saw the old lady, and the young woman, but also a cave on top of a mountain and a few other things.
At the time, I thought they were all joking and brushed their ‘interpretations’ aside to end the session on time.
Upon reflection, I've come to realise that I should have spent some more time on understanding why they saw what they were seeing and how I could see it too. It took a bit of retraining my mind to see the young woman and the old lady. With some effort, I could easily open my eyes to the wide range of interpretations that my colleagues could detect.
I think that’s what a lot of leaders get wrong about the idea behind “inclusion and diversity”.
Just like the young girl and the old lady from the picture earlier, there seems to be a ‘range’ within which ‘diversity’ operates and when we see something that’s more diverse or unique or new we aren’t sure what to do with it.
When we don't understand something new, the best response is to try and understand it.
However, when there are pre-existing templates for what ‘diversity’ may look and feel like, we may just be defeating the purpose of the inclusion and diversity agenda. Corporates have a tendency to write up rules and set policies around all aspects of working in an organisation, which is sensible. But the question is whether these policies aren’t inadvertently limiting teams from fully embracing the diversity that exists within them.
Consider for example, the perfectly innocuous practice of companies gifting boxes of chocolate to its employees on their birthdays. Brilliant initiative.
Except some of the employees are vegan.
Awkward.
They can either take the box or simply forfeit it.
The broad brush policy simply doesn't consider that there could be something beyond the convention of giving sweets and confections to the employees on birthdays.
In the same vein, office parties are generally always high volume, alcohol charged affairs and yet not everyone who attends them necessarily drinks alcohol and believes that partying is the definition of ‘fun’.
Something I've also noticed in India is that facilitators tend to make jokes in Hindi while presenting to make the delivery more impactful. However, in a training room which has participants from other geographies or has a few members in the audience who don't speak the language, this simple embellishment could fall flat for them. It's not a great feeling to sit quietly in a training room while all other participants are cackling with laughter.
Most companies are trying to get their staff mix right by showing that they have representation in the form of PWDs, LGBTQIA headcount and holding special events for these groups alongside other groups that are a not as widely represented in the traditional corporate setting. These are all exemplary initiatives.
What we aren’t doing more of is letting the diversity of these groups and other groups thrive in the corporate setting. This is because not many organizations spend time thinking of rewriting long standing policies that existed to serve the staff mix that prevailed in the previous decade. Any new policy is simply an ‘add-on’ to make a paltry allowance for a small pool of employees.
They say, “Diversity is being invited to the party, and inclusion is being asked to dance”.
Well, I think that's no longer enough.
Inclusion becomes tangible only when the invitees to the party have a say in the planning of this ‘party’.
It's imperative for the leadership to ensure enough safety for an open minded dialogue to take place at every stage of policy making that involves employee engagement through inclusive practices. It's also necessary that employees also engage with this process and call out what's working and what isn't when it comes to inclusion and diversity.
There’s no point in ‘being asked to dance’ if you can’t hear the music. You can play along pretending to have a good time but in so doing you deprive your colleagues from learning an alternative way to ‘dance’ or ‘celebrate’ that could enrich the whole group.
I know it sounds like a lot of work, but going back to the example of the picture of the old lady/young woman, the key thing to see both perspectives was to first be open to the idea that there's something that you're not seeing.
The key word is to be open.
Open to considering that the status quo can be improved and that listening to new ideas can lead us down roads we never knew were on the map. The more we make our workplaces equipped to open themselves up this way, the better the chance of creating a truly inclusive corporate ecosystem.
