Think Big, Include More
This is the Part Two of a talk I gave in September 2022 to the Counterweight Conference on Liberal Approaches to Diversity and Inclusion. Part One is here.
What if we were to direct our attention to the deepest purposes and highest potential of D&I? What if D&I were about improving the performance of organizations, building a better world through these organizations, and growing as professionals and human beings? These aims call for a broader view of inclusion. Let’s include more people in who we aim to benefit, more varieties of diversity, and more explanations for why people feel excluded. This will make D&I valuable to everyone and, ironically, create better results around diversity of gender and ethnicity.
This is what I mean by Think Big, Include More.
Think Big
Let’s start with thinking big.
D&I is about achieving organizational aims
Think Big suggests an aspirational focus. To me, this means viewing diversity and inclusion not as some nice (or not-nice) stand-alone initiative, but as something central to the ability of organizations to reach their full potential. Now, to do this, we’ll have to get beyond the idea that D&I is just about black and white or male and female. More on that later. The point is that taking D&I seriously means seeing how it benefits every aspect of how teams and organizations run. This is true for a company with 10 people, 1000 people, or 100,000 people. If you work for a software company, D&I makes you a better software company. If you work for an environmental organization, D&I helps you be a better environmental organization. If you work for a high school, it’s about producing better educational and social outcomes for students. Whatever your core organization purpose is, D&I is here to support that.
If these words sound strange to hear, it’s an indication that for a variety of reasons we’ve treated D&I as something unrelated to why organizations exist–we haven’t taken the potential of it seriously.
Now, you might be thinking: Wait, Amiel, are you saying that diversity isn’t about creating a more diverse workforce? Are you implying that our goal shouldn’t be to foster greater inclusion?
The answer is: No. These goals are essential. In fact, they have intrinsic value. What I’m adding to the picture is that they also have extrinsic value, namely to serve the purposes for which the organization exists. It’s both/and. Both making the workplace more diverse and inclusive and achieving the organization’s deepest aspirations.
So that’s the first meaning of Think Big: seeing Diversity and Inclusion as central to the work of organizations.
D&I is about tackling global challenges
And there’s more. D&I can help us tackle big global challenges — indirectly. Let me tell you what I mean.
For many years, I’ve felt passionate about what we long was called environmental sustainability. Today we might call this climate solutions or regeneration. If the organizations I help are working in this area, I’m a much happier and more alive person. Ditto if they are involved in reducing wealth inequality, promoting liberal democracy, or working on what some call the “meta-crisis.”
So how does this relate to D&I? Simple. If I help an organization use D&I to perform better, and if the organization is working on climate solutions or liberal democracy, then–Bingo. High quality D&I helps me contribute to a better world, which in turn helps me get out of bed in the morning.
Now, let’s turn to you. Think about the organizations where you spend your time. Now consider the one you feel most passionate about. Its purpose really lights you up. If D&I could help that organization accomplish what the organizations is all about, wouldn’t that be great?
D&I is about building your career and growing yourself
Now, there is one final way to Think Big. What if engaging in D&I were good for your career and helped you grow as a person? What, in other words, if it were one of the best forms of leadership and professional development?
The field of adult development proves useful here. It teaches us that managing diversity isn’t just a skill. It’s a capacity to take on different perspectives, to put ourselves in other shoes–anyone else’s shoes. This capacity isn’t something we are born with. It’s something we grow–long after we stop growing physically. The bad news is that this capacity takes time to develop. The good news is once we develop it, we can use it in every conversation at work–and in the rest of life. In other words, if we engage in D&I work deliberately over time, we grow as human beings–personally and professionally. For example, one thing that competent people managers do is provide different strokes to different folks. They treat everyone with equal respect but not the same way. They meet people’s individual needs and honor their idiosyncrasies. There is another word for this: managing diversity. So good D&I makes for good managers.
And the same is true for all of us, whether we manage people or not. Getting better at diversity and inclusion is an extraordinary way to grow up as adults. It’s a wonderful path for building the capacities and skills we need to thrive in the workplace, navigate our careers, and even bring our best to our families and friendship
So, to summarize, these are three ways to Think Big: deliberately use D&I to improve organizational results, tackle the world’s biggest challenges, and enhance our careers and growth.
Include More
Let’s shift our focus to the second part of my title: Include more. You might be wondering: Include more what?
Include more people
Now, before I answer that let me tell you something funny. While creating this talk I spoke the last sentence out loud into my phone’s transcription function. The auto correct changed “include more what” into “include more white.” Yes I know that is a hilarious use of the auto correct, yet it actually brings me to the first meaning of “include more”: include more people. D&I isn’t, for example, just about helping Black Americans and women feel more included and welcome. It’s about helping everyone feel included, everyone feel engaged, everyone bring their best.
If this sounds like a new idea, it isn’t, and it isn’t certainly mine. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr., one of the pioneers of diversity work, taught us this a long time ago. The purpose of diversity work, he said, should be to create work environments where everyone can thrive. This is evident in the title of his first book, Beyond Race and Gender. Would it surprise you to know that he wrote a book with that title 30 years ago? Now, notice he doesn’t say ignore race and gender. He says beyond race and gender. And what he means by that is to include race and gender in our definition of diversity and yet go way beyond it. Both/us. Again, he encouraged us to create work environments where everyone can thrive.
Yes, this absolutely must include people who have been historically excluded, marginalized, and silenced. Now when I say these words, who are you thinking of? Of course, in many industries and environments this means people identified as black and brown, as well as women and people who identify as gay and bisexual and so on.
And… it includes others who have been excluded
Like, for example, introverts. Remember Susan Cain’s book, Quiet? That’s all about introverts. One reason it was so popular is that there are a lot of introverts with great things to offer, yet many organizations haven’t fully included them.
Another example is men in businesses dominated by women.
Or how about sales and marketing folks in companies where engineering rules the roost?
Then there was a big client of mine where if you were a man who ran track competitively in college and beyond, you were in the inner circle. People listened to even your stupidest ideas and cut you a lot of slack when you broke company policies. Not only women were excluded from these perks, but also all men who hadn’t run competitive track. That’s a lot of people excluded, isn’t it!
And then there was a hospital network I worked with where the core group, as organizational theorist Art Kleiner calls it in his book Who Really Matters, was comprised of people who had served in the US Army. If you had not been in the army, you had to work twice as hard.
Include more means include everyone. Even people who we might typically think of as being far from marginalized — the so-called straight white male who, for the sake of argument, is also extroverted in a culture that values this and a member of the organization’s core group. You’d think such folks feel totally included, engaged, and content. But not according to data on employee engagement from Gallup. In its latest surveys, Gallup found that only 34% of employees are engaged. 16% are actively disengaged. And the rest, which is 50%, are simply disengaged. These are not great figures. On an anecdotal level, I’ve spent enough time working with folks like this — the straight white male in the company’s core group– to know that when they come to work, they have to exclude many parts of themselves. Even the people who are on the surface thriving are often not thriving as they could. This is another reason why it is so important that diversity and inclusion create work environments where everyone can thrive.
Include more forms of diversity
So, that’s the first meaning of Include More: Include More People. Now let’s look at a second meaning, which is to include more forms of diversity.
Here we get to the very heart of how diversity can help organizations accomplish what they set out to do — one of our Thinking Big principles. It’s all about conversations — in particular, the quality of our conversations. How we speak and listen to each other. Conversations are how we agree on what matters, coordinate action, assess what worked and what didn’t and why, ask for what we want, offer what we can contribute, and make hard decisions. Now, here’s something I’ve noticed about human beings. Tell me if this sounds familiar. Other people don’t respond in conversations the way we would expect or want them to. “Why is she doing that?” “Why don’t those people over there see things the way I do?” If you have asked yourself these questions, you are not alone.
Now we come to a fulcrum. When people don’t respond the way you want, what do you do? Do you dwell on how they’re wrong–in other words, how they’re not like you? Or do you get curious about what makes them see things differently? If you dwell on how they’re wrong–and they do the same thing to you–the conversation doesn’t go well, does it? Welcome to life on most teams most of the time. Now, if instead you get curious about why they see things differently, you’re creating a new world. You’re adding a pause between what you hear and your response. You’re giving yourself time to take in the other person and their ideas.
And here’s the connection with diversity. There are many possible reasons why someone would see things differently. If you narrowly focus on gender and ethnicity, you’re missing much of the story. Conversely, the more of these forms of diversity you appreciate, the greater your odds of understanding the other person and therefore responding skillfully.
Fortunately, there are many opportunities to understand each other better and adapt our actions to the particular person and situation. Thus: better teamwork and better results.
This calls for a really broad view of diversity.
Again, back to Roosevelt Thomas, Jr. one of the grandparents of diversity work. The title of his 1992 book — 1992! — was Beyond Race and Gender. Thirty years ago, he knew how important it was to acknowledge many different forms of diversity. So let’s flesh these out.
If we were to include more forms of diversity, what would this look like?
Let’s start with personality styles. Remember what that Myers Briggs teacher said. Good personality type systems support diversity work. You realize the immense differences that exist within people who look similar on the outside — so it becomes harder to stereotype. And you see what you have in common on the inside with people from different cultural or ethnic groups. It’s about unity. What a refreshing way to move beyond stale old categories and learn what we have in common and how we differ in surprising ways! So that’s the Myers Briggs. Let me speak about an instrument I use called the Enneagram. Whereas Myers Briggs is about personality preferences, the Enneagram is about people’s deep motivations–what makes them tick. This makes it especially valuable for simultaneously exploring diversity and helping people grow — one of the promises of Thinking Big. There are nine Enneagram types. Each one is wired to value different things and tell a different story about the world. For example, I identify as what’s called Type Six or the Loyal Skeptic. This type, this pattern, is wired to notice signs of danger and prepare for them. This affects what I pay attention to and how I respond. It creates idiosyncrasies that others sometimes find adorable and other times find irritating.
Now, that’s me. One of my business partners identifies as Type Nine, the Peacemaker. This type aims to find harmony, soothe situations, and avoid conflict. Notice how differently we are wired. So it creates many opportunities for getting upset with each other. If he and I weren’t aware of what makes each other tick — our differences– we’d have frequent flareups. Because we are, each of us can do two things: first, cut each other some slack — ”hey, that’s just how he’s built”. Second, adapt how we speak and listen with each other so it works better for the other person. That’s unity through diversity. It’s what happens when I use the Enneagram with teams. So that’s personality types.
Another form of diversity is operational sensemaking. This is something my colleague at the Jazz Leadership Project, Mark Palmer, works with. Let me put it in my terms. People who grow up in a sales organization tend to see the world differently from people who grow up in engineering. They’re almost like different species. When companies don’t make these differences discussable in a healthy way, sales spends half its time complaining about engineering, and vice versa. On the other hand, companies that see this as natural diversity can use the differing gifts of each operational perspective and operational culture to make better decisions. Sales and engineering are just two examples. You could say the same thing of Marketing and Operations, or Finance and Human Resources. This is real diversity in action, too
Then there is diversity of experience with an organization. In some companies I work with, there is tension between old-timers and newcomers. This is a form of diversity. When people don’t have a way of working with it, they often dig in their heels, stereotype each other, and get into unnecessary conflicts. When folks see these differences as natural and discussable, they can work through them. They can learn what gifts each group brings.
Now, I deliberately didn’t mention it first, but diversity of culture, gender and other such markers is also very important. We must not bypass this. Yet maybe it’s time to expand our view of why such diversity matters. Again, it’s about helping organizations realize their aims. For example, we need talented women in leadership not just to improve women’s careers but to improve leadership and therefore life inside of organizations. We can say something similar about folks from Black American culture. Today’s organizations know they need to be more resilient and more improvisational.
As my colleague Greg Thomas, CEO the Jazz Leadership Project, has taught me, these qualities are central to Black American culture. Resilience and improvisation. Now does this argue in favor of hiring a dark-skinned person from Nigeria or Germany? Not at all. They have similar amounts of melanin but different culture. Still, look beneath the surface and you’ll find other reasons they might add value.
The list of forms of diversity, of course, is even longer. There are differences between generations. My generation, Gen X, has lived through different periods of history than, say, the Millenials. We were shaped differently.
Notice what all of these things have in common. They all describe what’s behind diversity of perspectives.
The more of these forms of diversity we recognize, the easier it is to cut each other some slack and adapt how we interact with each other so we can get better results.
So, again, the first thing we can include is more people. The second is more forms of diversity.
Include more explanations for exclusion
The third meaning of Include More involves why people feel included or excluded. When someone feels unwelcome in an organization, what is behind this? Here are some possibilities:
If they’re from a culturally underrepresented group, the first explanation is often that the company doesn’t welcome their culture and ethnicity. Or their gender or sexual orientation. This is the best known part of the story and often valid. But if we treat this as the one and only cause for people feeling excluded, we tie our hands behind our backs in making things better
Another explanation for exclusion involves the social needs of the person being excluded. David Rock of the Neuroleadership Institute says that humans have five social needs wired into our brains. When we don’t get these needs met, it ramps up our nervous system and floods our bodies with stress hormones. The five needs go by the acronym SCARF. Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. Let me focus on two of them. S is for Status. Remember those lawyers on the political campaign? A big reason canceling the event brought one of them to tears is that it was a blow to her status with her peers. Call it exclusion by loss of status. A is for autonomy — our sense of control or agency over events. One way we feel excluded is by not having a say over what happens.
Then there is cognitive bias within people doing the excluding. There are many forms of cognitive bias, and they show up everywhere. A classic example is confirmation bias: I look for evidence of what I already believe. Another is availability bias: whatever comes most quickly to minds seems like it happened many times, when maybe it happened just once. This is a reason why some people don’t get promoted or assigned to choice projects. Just imagine how much more skillful managers would be if they were better at catching cognitive bias about everything. Which brings me to..
Sometimes managers are simply not up to snuff. In my experience, a huge number of people get promoted into management without making the inner and outer transitions from individual contributor to people manager. They don’t build the necessary skills and they don’t expand their identities. One of the most important things a manager needs to learn how to do is to manage different people differently. This isn’t an easy thing to learn, which may be why so few people have learned it. So, sometimes exclusion is due to poor management.
Then there are the skills and capacities of the people who feel excluded. Remember, we’re moving beyond the drama triangle, beyond the idea that you can think of yourself as a victim and demand other people do all the changing. Instead, we all can learn to become more emotionally resilient. We all can learn to become more skillful at navigating political dynamics, assessing who can be trusted for what, making powerful requests and offers, tending to our self-care, and making choices that make the best of difficult circumstances.
Finally, there is what I’ll call a meta explanation that draws on something I said before. All of the examples I’ve given involve more than just skills. They involve inner capacities that we aren’t born with but instead grow as adults: like managing complexity, putting ourselves in others’ shoes, and taking responsibility for our own emotions and not owning others emotions. As the Harvard educator Robert Kegan says, most of us are in over our heads. Our capacity in these areas is less than what the world demands of us. Getting better at diversity and inclusion isn’t just a skill. It’s about growing up as adults. It’s about moving closer to our potential as human beings.
Pulling the Threads Together
Now, as I draw to a close, let me pull these threads together. The bad news is that today we have unhealthy D&I, healthy but suboptimal D&I, and unhealthy opposition to D&I. None of this is going to simply disappear. This is the world we live in. Yet, for those of us who care about this endeavor and want to see it succeed, we have some options
We can think big by seeing (1) how D&I can help organizations fulfill their aspirations (2) how these organizations can contribute to the world’s biggest challenges and (3) how being involved in this experience can improve careers and help us grow.
To do this, it pays to have a broader view of inclusion. We can include more people that we aim to benefit. We can include more varieties of diversity to foster better collaboration. And we can include more explanations for inclusion and exclusion so we respond differently and create a more positive and generative work environment.
I hope these comments have been valuable to you and I wish you the best in your journey with D&I.
