By Dr. Ernest Gundling
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in corporate settings have
undergone enormous changes. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling against university affirmative action policies, numerous lawsuits have been filed by activist legal firms seeking to expand this ruling into the corporate world. The executive order against DEI programs and policies by U.S. federal contractors as well as agencies has further raised the stakes for the broad range of companies that do business with the government, including those based in other countries. A key issue for these organizations has become how to avoid potential charges of “reverse discrimination” while also complying with established Equal Employment Opportunity laws that forbid discrimination against protected groups.
There have been numerous consequences of these legal and political shifts:
- To avoid becoming the next target of activist lawsuits or government investigations, nearly all large companies have carried out a careful audit of possible legal risks.
- High-profile DEI cutbacks or other changes have occurred at a long list of major companies such as John Deere, Harley-Davidson, Ford, Walmart, Tesla, Disney, Anheuser Busch, McDonald’s, Lyft, Home Depot, Google, Meta, Volkswagen, Unilever, and L’Oréal.
- Previous DEI work has been altered and rebranded under labels such as “wellness,” “talent,” or “belonging.”
- Corporate executives who were formerly DEI champions have shifted their attention and public pronouncements to other priorities; public relations materials that formerly touted their company’s DEI credentials now omit such references.
- A number of high-profile DEI leaders have left their positions or taken on different roles, while entire DEI departments have been eliminated.
As DEI has become increasingly engulfed in the heated rhetoric of culture wars and a costly tangle of legal conflicts, this acronym is often tarred with a single broad brush. Yet in many organizations there remains an underlying ethical and social commitment to hire, develop, and promote capable employees from any background, and there is an ongoing debate regarding how these aims are best achieved. It is worth carefully considering each element of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion triad to ensure that truly vital practices are preserved and enhanced. Here we will focus on the topic of Inclusion.
Why Inclusion
Inclusion is best defined as a match between employee capabilities and contributions. With DEI under scrutiny in nearly every organization, leaders still cannot give up on workplace inclusion, which is closely linked with employee engagement and is in fact the core value proposition of democratic societies everywhere. Most executives know that employees who are fully engaged in the workplace are more likely to stay and to go the extra mile to get things done. People tend to have a stronger sense of belonging, loyalty, and commitment to their firms when they are included in key workplace activities (communications, meetings, decision-making, project planning, problem-solving) wherever their skills, experience, and potential for development permit. The “who,” “what,” and “how” of inclusion require ongoing policy discussions and decisions, but inclusion itself continues to be a key ingredient of a healthy workplace.
Inclusion is a perpetual human challenge, a feature of the in-group/out-group dynamic that has been part of human societies from the beginning of recorded history. Part of our basic survival makeup has been to immediately identify others as “friend” or “foe” based on their perceived degree of similarity to us. Over time, with changes in technology and forms of social organization, human groups have sought to extend their reach beyond family, clan, tribe, village, region, state, or country in order to create a more prosperous, just, and peaceful world. In the worst cases, exclusion is linked with armed conflicts and even genocide, especially when accompanied by stereotypes that demonize others and rob them of their full humanity. Unless we wish to give up on larger human societies and devolve into smaller warring factions, we must continue to expand the “in-group” beyond our immediate circle.
Three Circles of Inclusion
Rather than seeing “Inclusion” as merely the “I” in DEI, or as a loaded code word for various “isms,” it is more useful to view it as a series of concentric circles that affect every part of our lives, from our work with people from other cultural backgrounds, to local diversity issues, to our interpersonal relationships. The constituents of each circle are different, but the challenges and necessary inclusion skills overlap. There are practical, kind, and courageous actions we can take at each level to create a more inclusive environment, embracing not just those who are like us, but those who are different.
Global Inclusion
It is often easiest to perceive differences between ourselves and people from other cultures. Such cross-cultural contacts have become increasingly frequent, even with rising geopolitical tensions. Organizations need to be able to attract and retain the best global talent, ensure smooth and effective collaboration across national and cultural boundaries, and ultimately enable employees to rise to higher-level roles based on their performance rather than their personal background or location. Anyone who is traveling or living abroad on business, part of a global team, dealing virtually with an offshore shared services employee, or working with colleagues down the hallway who are originally from other countries is likely to get far better results through intentional acts of inclusion. Here are a few sample inclusive practices that nearly every organization can benefit from:
- Take the time to learn about colleagues from different backgrounds—what has been their life experience, and what can you learn from them?
- Use language that others understand, and avoid insider references that may make people feel left out.
- Build cultural awareness and cultural competence—that is, the skills to “frame-shift” or “style-switch” to solve problems that arise from cultural differences.
- Provide colleagues with insights and tips where needed on how to work effectively within your organization—who does what, where to go for help, what the unwritten rules or practices might be.
- Implement techniques for running effective virtual meetings and for remote management so that your colleagues don’t feel “out of sight, out of mind.”
- Ensure that you ask others for their ideas and opinions, even if at first they seem reluctant to speak up.
- Find ways to expand your team’s “in-group” through shared experiences, photos, common interests, highlighting the capabilities that each person brings, and recognizing useful contributions from anyone.
- Advocate for high-performing colleagues from other locations who may be less visible in discussions about promotion or succession planning.
- Adopt successful inclusion practices from colleagues in other locations: e.g., acknowledge global holidays, learn how to greet team members in multiple languages, or incorporate a broader set of diversity variables that might include factors that are less important in your own setting.
Domestic Inclusion
On a more local level, it is important to consider what groups or individuals have been marginalized in your environment based on some aspect of their background: race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability, region, education, socioeconomic status, language, and so on. There are relatively straightforward actions that organizations and employees can safely take to address these marginalization issues:
- Expand your recruiting pipeline by seeking out talent from a wide range of sources, using shared criteria that avoid hiring bias or favoritism.
- Create internship programs that are open to all and can give people with different degrees of prior experience a more equal playing field as they start their careers.
- Ensure that managers and project leaders know how to foster psychological safety—the willingness to speak up and take reasonable risks without the fear of being punished.
- Serve as allies to one another by sharing opportunities to build wider networks and visibility.
- Offer coaching support and/or mentorship opportunities for all high-potential individuals, including those who are underrepresented in the workplace and who may not have built-in networks of people they can turn to for guidance.
- Leverage task forces with a diverse set of members to tackle challenges such as retention of women managers or employees from underrepresented groups.
- Reach out to community institutions and partners and provide support for local schools, nutrition, youth employment, quality healthcare, childcare, or vocational training to address systemic issues that reinforce marginalization.
Interpersonal Inclusion
It is natural to enjoy the comfort of being around like-minded people with similar backgrounds. Reaching out to others who are different in some way requires greater effort. Yet if we only associate with those who are like us, our world may become increasingly narrow, rigid, and fearful. How broad are our social circles? How can we gain access to new information? What kind of person do we aspire to be? Successful societies and their economies balance individual interests with altruism, and high-performing leaders tend to be surprisingly humble and willing to give credit to others (see Jim Collins on Level 5 Leadership). In our own daily lives we can become more inclusive of differences in a way that primes us to be champions of global and domestic workplace inclusion as well:
- Expand your social circle. Join new groups, visit new places, and access different sources of information so you are not trapped by insidious media algorithms that feed you what you already know, believe, or want in ever more refined ways. The circle of contacts that most people have naturally expands as they grow and mature, later contracting with old age, but we can accelerate and extend the expansion process voluntarily by being more inclusive in our personal lives and cultivating ties even with those who disagree with us.
- Revisit interactions with friends and family. Our closest relationships are the launching point for our engagement in broader society. Listening with greater care and attention to our own partner, children, or opinionated relatives during the holidays prepares us to be a more inclusive workplace colleague and mediator.
- Cultivate the skills to illuminate rather than diminish others, as the social commentator David Brooks suggests in his book, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others and Being Deeply Seen. Being curious, receptive, affectionate, and generous, for example, are capabilities that grow with deliberate practice and can just as easily atrophy with disuse. Although each of us has built our self-image and identities through a combination of life experiences, holding these loosely may allow us to become more curious and kind. Frank Ostaseski comments on his own encounter with a serious illness: “As I accepted the fragility of my life, it opened me. I felt myself to be a porous thing, more transparent, more permeable.”
The Goal of Inclusion
Inclusion continues to be an ever-present challenge, and organizations that are not inclusive of people from different backgrounds will likely find that this affects their business outcomes in a negative way. No employee wants to feel excluded or treated as a second-class citizen. Inclusion is connected to basic human desires to be a full-fledged group member and to have workplace opportunities to grow and prosper like anyone else. Difficult and contentious though inclusion sometimes may be, a world without it would be one with little promise or hope.
We can’t include everyone all the time—there are always limits to our physical and mental resources, clashing views about how much inclusion is enough, and legitimate questions about how we can work together most efficiently. On the other hand, as the number of people on our planet increases toward nine billion, with most of this population growth occurring in emerging markets, we all have to stretch ourselves to live together in ways that are peaceful and mutually beneficial. What John F. Kennedy said more than sixty years ago about the then wildly ambitious goal of traveling to the moon could also be said about inclusion today. “Why choose this as our goal?” We do these things “not because they are easy, but because they are hard…because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.”
Dr. Ernest Gundling is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Aperian, and has been involved with the organization since its inception in 1990. He partners with multinational clients to develop strategic global approaches to leadership development, teambuilding, and change management. He has lived, worked and traveled abroad for much of his career in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, including six years' residence in Japan. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and is the author of six books — the most recent is Inclusive Leadership: Global Impact — as well as numerous other publications.
