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Six Ways To Move From Diversity To Inclusion That Start With You

Six Ways To Move From Diversity To Inclusion That Start With You
by Sherry Marts

Your organization has a beautifully written statement of your commitment to diversity and inclusion (D&I). You know that embracing and promoting D&I is the right thing to do. You have worked to increase the diversity of your staff, your board, your membership. On paper and in those online photos of your recent annual meeting, it looks like you’re succeeding. And yet:

• You can’t seem to hang on to the people you hired because they added to the diversity of your staff;
• Your nominating committee is struggling to find “diversity” candidates for your board; and
• Although your Women’s Caucus, Black Caucus, LGBTQ Caucus and Hispanic Caucus are thriving, your meeting planning committee seems unable to progress beyond adding a few token “diversity” speakers to the program.

What’s going wrong?

As Elizabeth Engel and I describe in detail in our new whitepaper, “Include is Verb,” focusing on diversity is only half the story. The inclusion side of “diversity and inclusion” is crucial to ensure that your organization reaps the benefits of diversity.

Moving beyond diversity to create a culture of inclusion – one in which everyone has opportunities to participate and contribute without having to assimilate or pretend to be someone they aren’t - begins with the work that individuals must do on themselves. That includes steps like:

• Learn about implicit biases – The unconscious associations that we all make – so you can find ways to recognize and neutralize them in yourself. One example: When it comes to people who are different from you, make your second thought your first action, because your first thought is more likely to subject to implicit bias.
• Diversify your professional network. Where do you turn for advice, collaboration, commiseration and socializing? What can you do to increase its inclusiveness?

Read full article on Event Garde.