Fostering Inclusion and Belonging

1. Introduction : Hello, welcome to the inclusivity fostering inclusion and belonging cause I'll be your inclusion coach for today. My name is a decay anaphoric and, and in this course you will learn in a practical guide to creating more inclusive culture or work. We'll be looking at why diversity and inclusion matters. We're looking at understanding the nature of biases. And then we'll be looking at finishing year with some inclusion tools that can help you to get the best out of everyone within your organization. So let's begin. 2. Module 1 The Case for D and I: Welcome to Module one, building the case for diversity and inclusion. Why does it matter? In this module, we'll be looking at why diversity and inclusion matters and what are the motivations that we can leverage when having conversations with other people about diversity and inclusion. The first case for diversity and inclusion is what we call the business case. And I like to share this piece of information with you. Inclusive and diverse organizations see a better business performance in terms of our ability to innovate 83% improvement, responsiveness to change in customer needs, 31% improvement and team collaboration, 42% improvement. This is according to Deloitte Australia. The business case for diversity is all around the fact that with more diversity and inclusion, we can be more inclusive in our product engineering and design and therefore create products that appeal to a wider range of people. There is also the argument that if we become a diverse and inclusive, we represent more of our clients and customer needs and we can make more money. That is what the business case for diversity and inclusion is all about generating more business for an organisation. Well beyond the business case for diversity, we also have the talent case for diversity. Every organization wants to get the best talent out there when the war for talent in their organizations to drive innovation and growth. But how do we create this kind of diverse and synergize teams without putting inclusive practice in place. So one of the arguments were devastating cushion is that it allows us to get the best talent across borders, across experiences and our crossbred grounds. I really like this thin about creating a virtuous cycle where the more you attract diverse talents to more diverse talents, one's work for an organization. So think about that. You know, the talent case, the business case. We have one final case that I want you to consider, the social case for diversity. It been the right thing to do. Now, a lot of us are purged diversity and inclusion from this deeply personal place because we have this personal values of equity and fairness. We believe that inclusion and diversity is the just thing to do. We key into global conversations that are happening. Recently, there's been a lot of talk around social justice. If think about the sustainable development goals of the United Nations and the wider push for equality, whether it's gender or race or ability or age or sexuality. We want to be part of that. That is what we call the social case for diversity. So you have a business case, the talent case, and the social case I want you to consider as we go along, which of these cases pulls you a little bit more, which is more relevant to you. And we'll come back to that a little bit later. Now, just talking again about, you know, leveraging motivations because and you want to have this conversations about diversity and inclusion. You also want to know why people care. Because when you can find y decay, you can have those conversations with them a little bit more meaningfully. And some of the motivators for diversity could be again, personal motivators where you hear people say things like, I've got three sisters, I've got four daughters or my wife? Is this my wife, my girlfriend. And in all of this a grade, you need to listen when people say this kind of things because you can really use them to anchor your conversations with them. You also add the organization of valleys where an organization is burbs. We knew as an example, some of the organizations of per, some really strong statements out about Black Lives Matter. And for individuals who are trying to positively contribute to the organizations, they didn't have this desire to be more diverse and inclusive, to feed, to feed the organizational values. So again, you need to identify these employee to those and use those to catalyze the conversations that you have in about change and inclusion. We have other motivators around client demand. Maybe your client has said You need to get more diverse. Maybe you said a KPI legislation in some cases, but whatever the, ANY might be the hor, important when in the war for talent run and get the right people. So, but when you're having conversations about diversity and inclusion, it's very important to start from a place of, and it doesn't matter to you. Because the more you get from people in terms of understanding their motivations, the better you can use those cases, whether it's the business, the talent, or the social case, to really appeal to them. So here is your actual and inactivity for this first module, I would like for you to consider, as I said, which of these three cases is most relevant to you, but also what is your personal motivation for diversity and inclusion? Why does it matter so much to you? And start to use those to open your statements or my diversity and inclusion. See you in module two. 3. Module 2 The Challenges of Underrepresentation: You're welcome to module two. In this module we'll be looking at some of the challenges of underrepresentation. Well, before I progress, I would like for you to consider some of these points. The first thing is that when we talk about diversity and inclusion, and I knew that we talked about the cases in the earlier module. And it's really important that we avoid what we call tokenism, which is selection for diversity, not qualification. That does not help the existing team or the new person being brought in. So think about diversity, not just as a case of spirit in a group I bring in one person in, but actually about creating a culture supports inclusion and togetherness. Because so low status can very quickly lead to marginalization. So just bear that in mind. Also, I want you to think about the target inclusion state being more about balanced than anything else. So you want to have a balance in numbers. Representation of a balanced and experiences and expertise, have a balance and engagement and have a balance in respect across the team. So just be mindful of this two ideals that isn't about tokenism, but also it's about balance. And what are the challenges of underrepresentation and exclusion? Why does it matter that we include everybody at work? The first thing to consider as a challenge is the web of systemic challenges, which is that it's not just one thing that really damages a person's experience in the workplace. It's often a symphony of events happening together at the same time that actually leads to this systemic web of challenge. So bear that in mind as we progress. And the first thing is to understand them. Bias plays such a big part in exclusion and the challenges of underrepresentation exists. An exclusion is that you're more likely to be a victim of bias because you are the one unlike the other. And I want you to cast your mind back at the last time that you were the only in the room, the last time that you were the different interim dat Thiele and consider that for some people that is their daily lived experience. We also have Nussbaum's mitts and behaviors that affects people that are from under-represented groups or excluded people more likely than not. And if you think about some of these negative stereotypes and myths and cultures and behaviours around maybe women, for example, not being as efficient, efficient at sunset and a certain jobs as men about people of color maybe not being thrust wadi or different stories and stereotypes that float around the replace. And our people come into work every day, not just representing who they are as an individual, but now I've inter, represent the big group that they belong to and how that can be such a huge psychological burden, especially when often none of this stories and norms are true. And also think about small numbers. Small numbers leads to reduced advocacy because nobody really is fighting. You're kinda, you don't know who to trust. You don't know who believes you, who sees you, who recognizes your efforts, and the Italians and what you bring to the group. So if you think about bias been a big part in that systemic web of, of challenges. And then you've got the norms, the stories to stereotypes, and you've got the fact they, you're limited by numbers is just u. You've got reduced advocacy. You can see how for a lot of people from under-represented groups, The Work Flex experience becomes overwhelmingly negative. And it's very important that we understand as beyond this as well, we have structures and processes that are put in place to support often the majority. And when structures and processes are put in place to split the majority or the minority groups within that space are excluded from benefits into four dividends of the organization and experience. Some of the structures might be how we conduct our interview processes. Are we conduct our talent management processes such as, you know, annual reviews. You know, how sometimes that feedback that we give people from limited RAM, from minority groups might be limited or be vague and not really tied to business outcomes are very much focused on experience. And the talent development structures around maybe been more, for example, bb being more friendly to men or people who exhibit masculine leadership attributes. So some of those purchases, when they come together, they do create such complex problems. And I want you to remember this as we go along that lead to biases, little stereotypes lead to structures, lead to students. Numbers can build up to massive disadvantage. So it's not often, as I said about one thing. It might be a series of themes that creates a challenge. So your lead inactivity is to really think about the people that you work with who may be experiencing. One of the things that we've talked about, whether they are suffering from stereotype in bias structures, small numbers or meats and stories around, around a quarter groups that they belong to. So that's your concentration. I'll see you in module three. 4. Module 3 Understanding Bias: Hello, welcome to module three on the standing bias. Now, in the previous module, we talked about how literally two biases and stories and systems and stereotypes can lead to great disadvantage. In my work as a diversity and inclusion coach, what I've found is that a lot of people don't actually know or recognize our unfold biases. We tend to think, oh, she's my view of the world are women. I'm not hurting anyone, but actually subconsciously sometimes we are because we use our biases to determine what is acceptable, what gets an opportunity, and what is not acceptable. So in this module, but considering some of the common biases that are relevant within an inclusion context, the first bias is the self-serving bias, which is the bias that we have towards ourselves in a way around. So I'll give you an example. We add, we would naturally attribute successes to our talents and our gifts and our personal strengths. So we would say things like I got that job because I worked really hard. Oh, I wonder contract because I was very personable and likeable. But also on the same hand, we would attribute are failures to external forces. So you'd see things like, oh, I didn't get the job because my interview didn't like me or I lost my job because my boss isn't absolute nightmare. And all of this is our brain's way of protecting us in a way by proven to us that we are great. And anything else that doesn't work according to plan is because it's out of our control. Now the second bias is the fundamental attribution error, where we flip it when relating to other people. And we actually will then attributes circumstances to a person's personal characteristics without considering external factors. So you might hear things like, Joe is always late because isn't a bit of a lazy person. We would naturally not say, why is Joe always late? Or if you're always late because we've moved them to work in this new location is now quite further from his home. We would naturally blame or attribute a person's plasma characteristics for the actions. Now juxtapose that with the self-serving bias where on one hand, we believe we are great. I'm on the other hand, we believe that when people make mistake is because they're not. And you can see out within a team structure or within an organizational context that can be really, really problematic. Now the other type of bias to think about is the similar to me slash homophily effect. Where as human beings we like what looks like us. We, again, because of ourself seven buyers believed that we are great. And so whoever looks like ours talks like ours is great. This is particularly important when you think about mentoring and sponsorship opportunities, senior leaders will gravitate towards people that remind them of themselves, you know, the good ol boys club or, you know, sharing the ladder with people that remind you of your own struggles. This a great and similarly unless, but in the process we exclude people who are not like us or people who, you know, don't remind us of ourselves. So consider this three key parts, aspects of, of buyers and are all of those three can sometimes come together and create a really, really damaging effect. The way that we relate with people on our beautiful inclusion into our day-to-day practice. My learning challenge for you for module three is to think about this three broad attributes. Aspects of buyers, the self-serving, the attribution arrow, and the similar to me Effect. And think about which one you most likely use a lot. Which one are you most likely to fall yourselves, to see yourself falling into trusting your own judgement a little bit too much and not giving other people the benefit of a doubt. Always seeking out for people that most like you. I'll see you merge a full thinking. 5. Module 4 Developing a Learning Mindset: Hey, you're welcome to module for developing a learning mindset. When we talk about inclusion and belonging in what we really want to get to is for you to develop a learning mindset around becoming more inclusive. It's not about having all the answers. It's not about being afraid of making mistakes sexually been okay to say, I'm learning to be more inclusive in my thinking. I'm learning to be more diverse because we want organizations to be learned in organizations. And one of my favorite examples of a learning organization is Microsoft under Satya. Satya Nadella is leadership. And if you recall, when he became CEO, he had made some statements around gender pay gap, but women needing to trust the process. These statements were not well received. But what satire did next was what was truly outstanding. Embrace the learning process of say, a, I got that wrong. But I'm now committed to learning and listening. And not only did he learn about gender pay gap and out to accelerate women's leadership? What he did was effectively turned Microsoft into a learning organization. So I'd encourage you to learn a little bit more about Microsoft's Learning Organization model and see perhaps what you, what you couldn't learn there. Some of you might have heard of Carol Dweck pointed this all growth mindsets around us, recognizing that teams that were praised for effort eventually outperform teams that were praised for intelligence. And so effort and resilience matters and being able to go and that growth of is a truly special thing. So as we go into the next module where we'll be talking about some of your early inclusion toolkits. It's really good to have that open growth mindset. And what we've fixed in all this is just how I am. Oh, it's too late now. I'm a woman of a certain age and Romana was such an edges the way I was raised. Everything can evolve with learning. So it's really important to have that learning mindset. And to help you with your learning mindset, it's really identifying what your goals and aspirations are. Obviously, you've listened to this course and watching this course in learning because you have a goal in mind. So it's really great to write those down and actually say this or what I, this is what I would want to achieve, whether it's the legacy you want to live in an organization, in a team, whether it's the number of people you want to recruit within the next couple of months. Or whether it's just evolving your leadership style to something that's been more mature and more Quarter and irrelevant. But it's great. Identify what those aspirations and goals are. And we can then talk about how you gain the confidence and know-how to really bridge the gap. Now, it's important for me to say that your goals, your personal goals and aspiration in relation to diversity in English and should not be based and fear and self-preservation. The concession on a lot of learning to do when you start from a place of fear and self-preservation. You want your goals to be based on an excitement for learning. You know that, that curiosity and discovery and wondering, what else could you be, what else could you learn and what else could you gain? And also be aware of the expert trap? This is very difficult for some leaders who are used to having to solutions being the one to pave the way for others. To actually then flip the script and say, I don't know, I'm learning, I'm struggling. A bit of a challenge and that's okay. Embrace that challenge, but don't fall into that trap of evaded. No, I close up again, we go back to Satya, Nadella and Bina CEO and just come in at, say, I'm just learning and not trying to be smart about everything can be really helpful in your learning process. And then just consider the zones of ambiguity where the first zone is really a zone of safety where you feel really comfortable. And that might be that you feel really comfortable in homogeneous groups where you can really share your ideas with like-minded people. And then you think about the zone of ambiguity, which is where you start to feel a bit of a stretch like, well, I'm not really used to this. Oh, I didn't know what to do. And then you go to the zone of danger where you're completely out of your comfort zone and you're panicky and you're worried. And the idea is to turn your Zune of danger to your next zone of safety, right? So your actual and an activity for this module is to one think about the growth mindset more generally and identify what areas do you think you might need to develop a growth mindset. And then secondly, think about the zones of ambiguity and identify when it comes to inclusion and belonging and making people feel part of a team and developing equity. What is your zone of safety? What would a zone of ambiguity look like? And what is your definite zone of danger? And we'll talk about that a little bit more in the next module. Thank you. 6. Module 5 An Inclusion Tool Kit: Welcome to the final module of the fostering inclusion and belonging cores. And in this module we'll be looking at your inclusion toolkits. In the previous module, I asked you to think about what your zones of safety ambiguity to endanger could look like and what areas you think you might need to develop a growth mindset. I would just talk you through that. All leadership led in process where you may lack awareness right now. But as you develop the awareness, you then start to gain the tools to achieve your dreams. The first thing to bear in mind is that typically you might be unconscious, leading competent to start. And then when you become aware, say after like a course like this, you become consciously incompetent. And that can be frustrating because then you'll want to do more. But with practice, you then become a bit consciously competent, right? And as you internalize and gain some mastery, you go into on conscious competence. So where are we really trying to get to? Is an unconscious competence in inclusion. So bear that in mind that you want to move from blissfully ignorant to produce and resorts reliably and effortlessly. It's okay to feel vulnerable and take risks and experiment and manage the expectation of failure. It won't always be perfect, but you can expect to recover from, from any of those incidences. So focus more on where this learning can take you. So here is an inclusion toolkit for you to use from today. The first is active listening. I'm sure you've heard a lot about listening in life generally, which is a bit bizarre because I was rich in reading a piece of, can't remember. It was a journal where someone said we spend so much of our time learning to read and write, pursued little of our time learning too. But inclusion is underpinned by listening. Because if you don't listen to people, you don't know them. If you don't know people you can't really foster inclusion and belonging. So not just listen to engage, but listening to understand. And I have some spots here that you might find interesting. Listen is actually not as cheap as you might think, 11 million daily meetings in 2010 in the United States. But $75 million lost two people not listening. You know, I mean to say the same thing over and over again is actually costing your organization money. So it's important develop this active listening ability that allows us to not only engage with people, as I said, Patreon standard. And what is the process of listening? The first is the internal process of listening, which is where you listen to yourself. And you can ask yourself things like, do they really understand me? Am I being really clear? Am I carrying people along? And this process is very important because it sets the piece for Ru communicates. So practice listening to yourself. And then you have the focused listening, which is then listening to others. Concentrated. Belonging in that movement with them, you know, it's not. Sometimes we have so many things vying for our attention, but what you don't want to have to be reassuring people, you are listening, you want them to just take their reassurance from you. And then the final stage of listeners, the globals listening where you are now not just listen to yourself at the same time, listen to another person, but you're listening to the environment, you're reading the energy. You can tell from the non-verbal skills if they're comfortable and they're uncomfortable, you can sell. Can we have this meet in some other time when you might have more information? These are simple steps that allow people for them, that empowers people to feel more included because you're reading the room, listen to them, but you also trusting your own instinct. So active listening, as against passive listening, which is just listening but not really processing, is really important in fostering inclusion. Now, emotional intelligence is another toolkit that I will give you. And what actually do we mean by emotional intelligence is understanding first and foremost, how your own emotions affect you, but also are the emotions of other people affects you and them. Now, issues of inclusion and diversity are very torturing the very emotive statements and the very emotive conversations because it relates to parse structures, personal validity up it was see themselves, morality, status. And so a lot of emotional intelligence is required to manage multi-cultural teams and cross-cultural teams because people are very charged when they feel outnumbered or when they feel that they're in a position of privilege and power. Su, leaders or lead induced teams need to engage all of their emotional intelligence to really measure our emotions, whether it's fear, whether it's power or whether it's anger or whatever it is, is affecting people and use those emotions to manage them. But the first step is really to be aware of are the things you say, are you say my impact others. But also how the things are that people say my impact you. And when we're talking about emotional intelligence, you want to ask people what you want to ask yourself first. But ultimately you want to be able to ask people, how do you feel? Because if you say to someone, what do they think, they might give you an opinion? But when you ask them, are they feel they truly put a name to the emotions that they're feeling. Ask yourself if you're in a when we talked about those zones of comfort, if you're in a zone of ambiguity, it's okay to ask yourself, why do I feel though I feel a bit nervous. And then you can see them saying, guys, I feel a bit unsure. Just starting and discuss a little bit new to me. And also identify our Does your emotion inferences you're thinking. But as you mature, also identify out of people's emotions influence their thinking. Say if this person is visibly afraid, outbreak that in friends to Wadia thinking and that allows you to relate with them on a more human level. Also, you want to go to ask what caused the immersion? I feel so uncertain, or why do they feel so unsure? And being able to investigate the courses brings a lot of, you know, comfort and a lot of inclusion. And finally, how can I manage this immersion so that they don't manage me, you know, how can I effectively puts this emotions in check and actually do I need to do, but also for other people outcome, they manage the emotions a little bit better. And what advice in sport could you offer? So it's very important. This model is called the Salovey and my ability model by the Yale School, the Yale Center for emotional intelligence. And I use it a lot, is How do you feel? How do you feel outpost that influenced the way you're thinking? What's costs in it, and how can you manage it. So this 3D, coupled with active listening, can be a really puff catalysts for making people feel really safe and that they belong. Now, another thing to be mindful about is what we call the notion of covering. Margaret Sacha, for example, at a voice coach to trainer, to turn down the pitch of our voice. And this is really important because we always ask people to bring their authentic self to work. Well, the problem is a lot of people are not confident about their authentic self. Actually, they bring their coverings to work. And so emotionally intelligent people understand that sometimes what you see is not really what you get and be mindful that people might be covering. And so it's, it's a delicate situation, but you've got to be mindful of, say for example, especially people from minority, ethnic minority groups do quite loved covering network where they might subdue their ethnicity, their authenticity, and b, appear a little bit more like the majority group. And that for them, introduces an extra level of struggle and an extra level of efforts because they have to struggle and cover to belong. So just some things to be mindful of. Another tool kit in addition to another tool in addition to active listening and emotional intelligence, is to practice what we call workplace justice. What bliss justice is, making sure that there is a perception of general fairness at work where you have not only fear procedures which have fear outcomes, and that you're constantly. And this is perhaps where equate see 3D lies, is equity really lies in that place where your outcomes match your procedures. So it's not just about saying, well, everybody gets access to days, but it's also making sure that everybody can use the access in a way that actually brings equity. So what place Justice is really powerful as a tool to utilize and day-to-day practice to drive more inclusion is to look around the table, around the procedures that you're engaging with and being sure that, oh, actually, what does this person need to get more from this procedure? What does that person mean? Need to get more from this procedure so that we can have equal outcomes as much as possible. So think about ways that you can incorporate what police justice into your day to day practice. And finally, psychological safety. I really liked this notion by Amy Edmondson, Professor of Leadership at Harvard University. And she found that, you know, teams that was actually interested. She found that teams that have the safety to report errors where surprisingly reporting more arrows. And actually the teams that dinner maybe didn't have as much safety were reported as much errors and she thought, Is that right? But actually it is right because more errors lead to more learning. And psychological safety is all about creating spaces where people can say, I made a mistake and learn from that process. Obviously, we know that they're crucial points where mistakes can be fatal. But generally what you want is to create a culture where people can easily say they've made a mistake or learn faster. It's about learning fast beyond being afraid of making mistakes. Because alone organization is a leading organization. You know, you take all of that learning's and you'd cut allies it into growth and innovation. And, you know, you start to have better outcomes for inclusion. Now we will talk about psychological safety. How do you make that happen, right? You respect other people's opinions, so you have to trust the information that has been given to you and you have to seek involvement after sick people out, you know, and accept that their views might be different from yours, you know, because a lot of times you might seek out wanted them to sound just like you and say what you want them to say. Well, actually you want them to say what they wanted to say. So developed that psychological safety by being curious about your members. Giving everybody a voice, asking for opinions, asking for what we would think, respecting these opinions when they're given and making sure that the different perspectives towards and reactions in your decision-making process. This all come together and create an atmosphere for learning. And what you want to do is combine this for tools to get more inclusive practice. So you want to listen actively what a practice, a lot of emotional intelligence, make sure that people are connecting to people in a really deep human level. And then you want to make sure that you are practicing what pledge justice, ensuring that your outcomes aligned with your procedures. And finally, you create that environment where people can say, I made a mistake. But remember above all, this is a learning exercise and it takes a wild embedding crucial into your day to day practice. But when constant practice, you can move from that zone of complete safety to Xun of our big weighty and actually reach your danger zone and make your danger zone safe side. So your final Lenin activity is to create a plan. Over the next three to four weeks, hour, you're going to use all of these tools within the relationships, teams, and organizations you work with. Thank you so much, it's been a pleasure and I hope to see you against them.