BE AN ALLY AND AN ACCOMPLICE
BE AN ALLY AND AN ACCOMPLICE Consider who gets interrupted in a meeting, who gets chastised for taking a controversial or contrarian position, whose ideas and achievements get appropriated, and whose opinions are categorically questioned or discounted. Consider the Black man who is told in a meeting to “settle down” when exhibiting enthusiasm during a robust discussion. Think of the person with autism who’s chastised for not making eye contact or for their difficulty reading social cues. Or the hiring manager who always uses male pronouns in conversation, assuming the candidate hired is going to be a man. These are but a few examples of opportunities for allyship or being an accomplice. An ally is someone who supports individuals and groups of people who are victims of inequities. More recently, the term accomplice has arisen to describe someone who risks their own standing to speak up when inequities occur. Showing up as either is a noble and selfless act. Doing so is about supporting others who, in many instances, have had a different lived experience than you have and may lack the power and privilege that you’ve experienced. There is, however, a larger role for people born with the most inherent privilege and power. If you are a straight, white, able-bodied, neurotypical cis male born into wealth, for example, it’s important to acknowledge the privilege those aspects convey to you in most societies. You can choose to use that privilege for your own benefit, or you can spend it on lifting up those who were not born with the same societal advantages. Those of us born with the most privilege have the greatest responsibility to drop pebbles that rock the boat. In the words of Toni Morrison, “If you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.” Being an ally is of significant value in the moment to the people you are supporting, but the long-term value comes from modeling allyship behavior for everyone around you to see, time and time again. Pebble by pebble, you are showing what it means to be inclusive and making it okay for others to be inclusive as well. Further, you are making inequitable behavior less acceptable because offenders know that it will not go unnoticed. These are the ripples that lead to building a culture where everyone feels safe to stand up for victims of inequities. This article is an excerpt from our book, “Daily Practices of Inclusive Leaders.” If you found this article helpful and want to learn more order our book here: inclusivepebbles.com/order/
Inclusive Leader Profile: Laura Clise on “Spend Like It Matters”
Inclusive Leader Profile: Laura Clise on “Spend Like It Matters” As referenced in my last blog, Eddie and I have been incredibly fortunate over the course of our careers to work with many outstanding leaders. These leaders have consistently modeled behavior that have shaped our own inclusive leadership style. A leadership style that inspires and motivates our people and our teams to grow and achieve more than any of us thought possible. It was important to us in writing our book, Daily Practices of Inclusive Leaders, to introduce you to a handful of these inclusive leaders. We begin the first 5 chapters of our book with a profile on an inclusive leader who exudes the qualities and characteristics of that specific chapter’s focus. Chapter 5 is titled, “Structure and Accountability.” Structure and accountability enable sustainability, authenticity, and norms to be baked into the culture of an organization. These efforts are what create the inclusive environment we know is critical for the success of any Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (ID&E) strategy. Chapter 5 provided the opportunity for our readers to get to know Laura Clise, the CEO and founder of Intentionalist, SPC (https://intentionalist.com), a Seattle-based online guide to intentional spending that supports small businesses and diverse local communities. She is a Main Street small business champion, LGBTQIA+ activist, and advocate for social change through sports. Laura and I have worked together since 2022 as Supplier Diversity Fellows at Seattle University as part of their RAMP UP program (https://www.seattleu.edu/business/centers-and-programs/iec/ramp-up/). The goal is to build better futures for the diversity of small businesses in Seattle’s Central Area at risk of gentrification. In getting to know Laura over the past two years I’ve enjoyed her sharp intellect, creativity, and willingness to speak her truth, consistently providing a fresh perspective and attention-grabbing point of view. Here’s the Inclusive Leader profile on Laura that appears in our book, Daily Practices of Inclusive Leaders: As a college student in the late 1990s, Laura heard Judy Shepard speak about her son, Matthew, whose brutal murder was the highest profile hate crime against LGBT people at the time. Laura recalls Judy’s challenge to the audience, to the effect, “If you want to live in a world where people are out at work, you come out so you live in that world.” Several years later, Laura was concerned about the survival of small Main Street businesses and the fraying of the social fabric of our communities. Heeding Judy’s words, she reflected, “If I want to live in a world where companies are more compassionate and intentional, then I get there by building companies that are more compassionate and intentional.” So that’s what Laura set out to do with Intentionalist. Laura also knew from her experience at multinational, multilateral organizations such as General Mills, DHL, and Intel, how companies struggle with walking the talk in their commitment to equity and social responsibility. So she and her team set out to help big organizations live up to their commitments with “Spend Like It Matters” (her company’s tagline). Intentionalist connects them with small Main Street businesses owned by women, people of color, veterans, LGBTQ-identifying people, families, people with disabilities, and every intersectionality. The model works so effectively that her “tiny” social enterprise company now has the most successful organizations reaching out to her. “I’ve learned to ask a lot of questions, and through those questions and listening, I observed a gap and had an idea on how to fill it. That’s how Intentionalist was born. I realized Inclusive Leadership is not about any one of us having the answer. We navigate to better solutions to the extent that we effectively tap into, and invite, the awesomeness of others. What Inclusive Leadership yields, and why folks we’ve partnered with have reached out to us, is the trust of the stakeholders, those organizations who give a damn about Main Street small business, those small businesses that contribute to our cities and communities, beyond the products they have for sale.” If you’re looking for examples of Inclusive Leadership, they’re in the small local businesses, Laura says. Small business owners recognize that there are much easier ways to make money. They know that their value is in more than selling the products and services available for purchase. Their value is in how they center community, people, and connection in an authentic way. They are living, breathing examples of what is possible when we put people first, when we put community first. When we recognize that value is created through connection and relationships, and when we provide an inclusive space to build belonging. Intentionalist hopes to seed a culture of Inclusive Leadership in the larger organizations they partner with that reflects the Inclusive Leadership seen in the small business community. By the way, Intentionalist also makes it easy for everyday citizens to find local restaurants, bars, gyms, shops, and more owned by historically underestimated, marginalized, or oppressed people. According to Laura, it all starts with everyday decisions about where you buy a cup of coffee, work out, or pick up a birthday gift. So drop a pebble and buy from a small Main Street business today!
Ed Salcedo on Inclusive Leadership
Ed Salcedo on Inclusive Leadership By Jonathan Stutz (he/him/his) My coauthor, Eddie Pate, and I have been incredibly fortunate over the course of our careers to work with many outstanding leaders. These leaders have consistently modeled behavior that have shaped our own inclusive leadership style. A leadership style that inspires and motivates our people and our teams to grow and achieve more than any of us thought possible. It was important to us in writing our book, Daily Practices of Inclusive Leaders, to introduce you to a handful of these inclusive leaders. We begin the first 5 chapters of our book with a profile on an inclusive leader who exudes the qualities and characteristics of that specific chapter’s focus. The first chapter, “Why Leaders Are Key to the Daily Practice of Inclusion” provided the opportunity for our readers to get to know Edward Salcedo. Ed is the founder and president of GCAP Services Inc., a Hispanic-owned small-business professional consulting firm headquartered in Costa Mesa, California. GCAP supports the public sector including highway, transit, and energy projects with a focus on compliance, process improvement, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Since 2022, I’ve worked closely with Ed as GCAP’s Chief Diversity Officer and Advisor. In working alongside Ed, I’ve found him to be a leader who cares deeply about his employees, his customers, his community, and every individual with whom he does business. Ed’s heart, courage, and wisdom as a leader have enabled him and his employees to run a successful small business for 26 years and counting. Ed’s inclusive leadership style is based upon 5 core principles that affects his thinking and behavior daily, it’s what makes Ed a role model of inclusive leadership. Here’s Ed’s five core principles: Listen. Be humble. Gain input from everyone. “Keep an open mind; listen without judgment. To listen is so powerful. Be silent. Then when you speak, tell them what you are hearing. People want to be respected. Their voices are just as important as anyone else’s.” A few years back, Ed’s company, GCAP Services, changed its employee performance evaluations to include an employee self-assessment and manager assessment. The leadership wanted to learn from their people what they enjoyed doing, where they wanted to grow, and how they wanted their managers to support them. They created a safe space for people to voice their ideas, opinions, and perspectives. Ed’s thinking was that a small company like GCAP may not be able to fulfill every employee need, but it can help people gain experience in the areas they are interested in and help them on the path to where they want to go. The results have been extremely positive. Employees were spot-on in their self-assessments, making the whole feedback process much smoother. “They knew where they needed to improve and what they needed to grow. It was so much better for them to tell us. We’re listening to them explain how they can be better, instead of us just telling them what we want.” Share information with employees. “It’s important for people to understand what I do as president of GCAP. I want to give people the knowledge to learn, to understand, to think about, and to plan what we’re doing as a company.” Ed believes GCAP has benefited from its culture of cascading information to everyone, which then enables information to cascade up to leadership. That way, learning happens at all levels of the organization. Share information with business partners. “If you are always calling and asking your business partners for something, after a while, they’re not going to take your calls. But if you’re calling to give them something that they are interested in, it creates an environment where people want to hear from you. You establish a great relationship, and they are happy to share if you need any help.” When Ed and his staff obtain information from a social or business event, they go out of their way to share it. They’ll intentionally share business leads and opportunities with people in GCAP’s network: business partners, consultants, and even competitors. And they never have any expectation of getting something back in return. Ed believes it’s one reason GCAP gets so many new opportunities, “A partner will send information over saying, “I think this is closer to what you do than us” because they trust that GCAP will do the same for them.” Give people a chance. “Give them the tools, be there for them, and get out of the way. I’m not quick to correct unless someone’s factually wrong. I’m a macromanager not a micromanager.” Early in Ed’s career, Tony DeLuca, the former CEO of the $1.5 billion IT Group Inc., served as his manager and mentor. Tony put his trust in Ed, giving him a chance to lead a new subsidiary, even though Ed didn’t have much experience in those days. Tony treated people with respect and gave them opportunities to prove themselves. And now Ed is paying it forward. For Ed, giving people a chance extends to appreciating their different ways of doing things. He gives them the opportunity to bring their own style to their work. He loves to train and teach his staff, but once they’re up and running, he pulls back, letting them do their good work, unencumbered by management oversight. Participate in social justice initiatives. “If you can provide a little nugget, a little bit of knowledge about what’s going on in other, less privileged communities, you can have a huge impact on people.” The social injustices in the US that were brought to the forefront over the last several years changed Ed’s leadership. They made him aware of what he needed to do externally in his community and internally at GCAP to be a part of the solution. Ed started participating in professional groups such as the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative, providing Latine entrepreneurs with help in scaling their business. He joined the Orange County (CA) Hispanic Chamber of Commerce supporting youth educational programs.
Who’s In Your Kitchen?
Who’s In Your Kitchen? In memory of inclusive leader Peggy Joan Maxie By Jonathan Stutz (he/him/his) When you entertain at home, who are the folks congregating in your kitchen (as they always seem to do)? It’s a question I routinely pose during my Inclusive Leadership training sessions. This thought exercise arose from Martin Luther King Jr.’s time in Alabama during the US civil rights movement of the 1960s. The social justice leader and his collaborators enjoyed plentiful meals in the home of activist Georgia Gilmore as they planned their strategy and tactics. Dr. King posed the question while thinking about the time his team spent together in Gilmore’s kitchen. The people in your kitchen are the ones you spend the most time with, who get to know you at a deeper level, and whom you get to know equally well. But if they are limited to the folks who look like you, think like you, and have a background and culture similar to yours, then your world view becomes increasingly narrow. It becomes very difficult to grow your cultural competency and your comfort with people different from yourself if there are only people like you in your kitchen. I will be forever grateful to Peggy Joan Maxie, the first Black woman elected to the Washington State House of Representatives, for inviting me into her proverbial kitchen over 40 years ago. Peggy passed away recently, at the age of 87, but the lessons she taught me about servant leadership, about empathy, about cultural intelligence, and about biases, will live on forever. I first met Peggy in 1981 when we were both part-time employees of Time-Life Libraries. Being a State Representative is considered a part-time role and like me, a student at the University of Washington (UW) at the time, she needed to earn money outside of her primary responsibilities to make ends meet. To look at us, you couldn’t imagine two people more different. Peggy was 45 and I was 22 years old. She was a single, Black woman, born in Texas, and a devout Catholic who had almost become a nun. She was introverted, reserved, and an accomplished six-term legislator. I was a young, extroverted white Jewish Canadian American and newly married. I was just getting started in life, about to graduate from the UW and begin my career journey. At Time-Life, Peggy was also an “only,” the only Black woman in the office. I was drawn to Peggy because she was an elected official and a Democrat. I was a Political Science major with experience working with Democratic campaigns, looking to expand my experience in politics and community organizing. I was fascinated with leaders and leadership—it was pretty much all the books I read—and Peggy was an inspirational leader. She was incredibly warm, generous, and approachable. She took a personal interest in me, and we became friends. She even recruited me and another colleague from Time-Life, Michael Waskevich, to work on her campaign for reelection one summer. Through her actions, Peggy demonstrated unique emotional and cultural intelligence. She knew how to listen deeply, to ask open-ended questions, and to be curious about personal stories, all in her quest to understand people’s lived experiences. She wanted to know what made someone feel proud and happy but also, and perhaps even more importantly, what was not working for them—their issues, problems, needs, and concerns. Little did I know at the time, she was my role model for what I came to know as “inclusive leadership.” Peggy, Michael, and I spent tens of hours together preparing for debates, discussing campaign strategy, building yard signs, and canvassing door-to-door her district, the 37th, one of Seattle’s most ethnically and socio-economically diverse districts (from Madrona in the north to Columbia City, the Rainier Valley, Rainier Beach, to Renton). And as Peggy and I got to know each other at a deeper level, I discovered we had much more in common than not. We shared a strong moral code and a deep interest in creating a more equitable society. If Peggy and I had not taken the time to invite each other into our respective kitchens, my life would not have been the same. Peggy changed me. She was instrumental in forming me and encouraging me to follow my path. I’ll miss Peggy and I will never forget my time working for and with her. So here’s what I learned from Peggy and from life: If only more of us spent time with people different from ourselves in one another’s kitchens, how much greater understanding and empathy would we have in this world? If a diversity of people is lacking in your personal life, you’ll find it tough to be comfortable with folks outside that demographic at work. Connecting with a diversity of individuals at work will also be difficult if you always spend your social time at work—for example, lunch, coffee, or tea breaks—with the same people every day. On a daily basis, take steps to expand the circle of people you spend time with. Ask someone new to lunch. Grab coffee or tea with somebody from a different culture than your own. Utilize Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (ID&E) events and really all your social opportunities to connect with a diversity of individuals. Use the time to get to know them, learn about their work, and how they experience the work environment. What is their lived experience? What are their interests and hobbies? Their views and perspectives? Listen with the intent to understand and to build bridges. Over time, this practice will increase your skills as an inclusive leader and your empathy as a human. Your new knowledge will factor in when reviewing resumes, interviewing job candidates, considering the makeup of your team, and determining what needs to be changed. In the process, you’ll be changed, and the people around you will be equally and positively affected. So ask yourself now: Who’s in your kitchen? And who are you going to invite
How ID&E Benefits White Men — and Everyone Else Too!
How ID&E Benefits White Men — and Everyone Else Too! In most western countries, white men are the most privileged, have the most power and most status of any group in the society. According to the most recent data from the Pew Research Center, white men in the US dominate leadership roles in the top U.S. political, business, and higher education positions. They are also the group most likely to push back on inclusion, diversity, and equity (ID&E) initiatives. In the US, the unspoken fear of some white men is that ID&E will lead to their displacement by people from historically underrepresented groups. In the media, we hear this expressed as “replacement theory.” It’s the belief that if currently underrepresented groups like women, people of color, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQAI? community, benefit from ID&E initiatives, it’s at the cost of recruiting, hiring, promotions, and opportunities for white males. But ID&E is not a zero-sum game. Increasing diversity doesn’t mean that one group loses and another one wins. In fact, a rising tide of ID&E lifts all boats—the research is very clear on this. In business, diversity work is about building the highest-performing teams. Studies going all the way back to the 1950s show that diverse teams outperform homogeneous teams. If you’re part of a diverse team, you win by benefiting from increased output, creativity, and ultimately, innovation. If you’re the (effective) leader of a diverse team, you win by getting recognized for your team’s success. In summary, diverse teams have the greatest potential to be high-performing and when high-performance teams win, so do their leaders. This simple business case for diversity has been proven, time and time again. What has not been communicated well in the past, however, is the necessary role the most privileged groups, the ones that dominate the culture, play in advancing ID&E goals—and how they benefit. The narrative of how ID&E benefits the dominant culture has been hijacked. The outcome of these false narratives, like replacement theory, is that ID&E programs are being defunded and jobs eliminated. So it’s time to take our story back, to set the record straight. It’s time to explain exactly how ID&E helps everyone, including the dominant culture! The first false narrative ID&E professionals like myself need to debunk is that ID&E work excludes white men, or whoever comprises the dominant culture where you live and work. The real story: We need the diversity of thought and experience of white men too. The puzzle isn’t complete without them. We all share a desire to be seen, heard, valued, and understood. We all have an innate desire to be included and to feel we belong! As my co-author Eddie Pate and I wrote in our upcoming book, Daily Practices of Inclusive Leaders, building a culture of belonging creates an environment where everyone can feel safe to be their authentic selves, to feel connected to one another, and truly believe they belong—and that includes white men. The culture of belonging that ID&E aims to create intentionally includes white men and all the diversity they bring. The second false narrative that we’re setting straight is that white men are a monolith. No. White men bring so much more to the table than their race and gender. Look at me. I’m a 64-year-old white male with an advanced university degree, Jewish, born in Toronto as the youngest of four children, and raised in the Deep South and eastside of Seattle by a single mom. I’m married to a woman; we have two grown daughters. My race and gender are just two dimensions of my diversity. Take my religion and cultural background, for example. In the last six months, my lived experience has changed. The recent rise of antisemitism has put me and my people in the crosshairs of hate, discrimination, bias, and stereotyping in the US, now more than ever since the Holocaust. In the US, Canada, and other countries, we’re facing harassment, 3 vandalism, assault, murder, and in Israel, you can add torture and rape to the list. Suddenly for the first time in my own life, I have this lived experience, and now even greater empathy for people from historically underestimated, oppressed, and marginalized communities. I bring more to the table than my race and gender. I bring my values and ethics, my dual Canadian and US heritage, my religion, a long career in both small and large businesses, living and working domestically and internationally, knowledge and ability in cross-cultural communication, product localization, project management, corporate compliance and governance, operations, sales, human resources, wholesale distribution, the tech industry, all while raising two independent, strong, and successful women with my wife of nearly 42 years. All white men are more than just their race and gender. The beauty of ID&E is that it makes space for all the dimensions of my (and everybody else’s) diversity to be seen and embraced. That benefit of ID&E for white men is not talked about enough. Don’t we all want to be seen and valued for more than the aspects of ourselves that are most apparent to everyone else? Yet I must also acknowledge that being white and male, as well as raised in an upper middle-class household, has afforded me unearned privilege, power, and status in our society. At my birth, I did nothing to earn the privilege, power, and status that comes with being a white male and that has given me a leg up in reaching my goals all throughout my life. And neither did my parents, or their parents. It was all luck of the draw. So what’s my role in making inclusion, diversity, and equity a stronghold in the spaces I inhabit? It is to use my power, privilege, and status to create space for everyone to be seen, to be heard, to be valued, and to be understood. To influence my peers, and to help get everyone with all their different experiences and perspectives in the boat, and rowing in the same direction, to reach whatever ID&E goals
10 Steps to Inclusive 1:1 Meetings
10 Steps to Inclusive 1:1 Meetings Creating an inclusive culture begins with you. Leaders who consistently exhibit inclusive leadership behavior can develop high performing teams that achieve their goals and objectives while enjoying a meaningful connection to one another. As a leader one of the most valuable tools you can employ is the 1:1 meeting with your employees. This is where you can build a deeper connection with each person, helping to motivate and inspire them, leading them to achieve higher levels of performance, be more willing to take risks, and to innovative with greater creativity. One-on-one meetings provide a unique opportunity to get to know your direct reports on a deeper level, learning about their personal goals and aspirations, challenges they might face, and skills that could surprise you. It is also an effective way to help some overcome a feeling of “onliness” as discussed in last month’s blog. Here are 10 steps to follow for Inclusive 1:1 Meetings: Get it on the calendar, ensuring the 1:1 is a recurring event. This demonstrates your commitment to the individual. When schedule conflicts arise, ask to reschedule. Be on time. Being on time sends the message that the person you are meeting with matters and that you want to hear what they have to say. Change the conversation and setting occasionally. Leaders who show an interest in their direct reports’ personal life and goals outside of work can create those deeper connections. Post-COVID, get out of the office and meet over coffee or lunch or take a walk together. This method to change things up and be less formal helps both of you relax and to be more comfortable sharing information. Allow your employee to set the agenda. You may have a couple of items to share but this is their meeting, and their agenda should be paramount. Try to avoid status updates that can be accomplished through other means, and encourage them to arrive with a prepared agenda, ideally sent to you beforehand. Celebrate Wins! Ask the employee how they prefer to receive positive feedback. Not everyone enjoys public recognition, and so the 1:1 is an ideal time to let them know you value and admire their achievements. And for those who enjoy public praise, there’s no crime in doubling up and thanking them privately and publicly. Demonstrate vulnerability to build trust. You can do this by asking for feedback on your performance. Don’t defend your behavior or justify any action, just listen and seek to understand. How am I performing for you as your manager? Are you getting what you need? If there’s one thing I could change about my behavior or leadership what would that be? Feedback is a gift, so when the employee shares, be sure to thank them. Focus on your employee’s strengths. Acknowledge their unique talents and abilities. This can be especially impactful when doling out a new assignment – let them know you see the gifts they bring to work every day and why you believe they can execute this new task well. This is a great opportunity to engage your employee and let them know that you continue to appreciate and value their work. Ask precise questions. This communicates to your employee that you are engaged and listening. Take notes on your action items or follow up commitments, it’s a great way to let them know what they are saying is valuable. Inform your employees on changes that will impact them directly. If there are plans being discussed, gain their perspective. This is effective to let people know that their opinion matters and an excellent opportunity to implement #8 above. Ask how you can help them. Ask where they need you to be involved. This may include attending a meeting, sending an email, giving them more independence, connecting them with someone in your professional network, or escalating an issue when needed. Keep in mind the need to style-switch if working within a multicultural environment. For example, if working with an employee who *may* operate from a more “indirect” and/or “hierarchical” cultural lens, some of these may prove challenging particularly numbers #4 and #10. To learn more about developing your cultural competency, reach out directly. Give these 10 steps a try and observe how your employees respond over time. If you enjoyed this blog, please consider sharing with your professional network on LinkedIn, your colleagues at work, and following Global Diversity Partners here. Copyright © 2021 Jonathan Stutz
“Onliness” and the Power of Connection
“Onliness” and the Power of Connection The isolation from friends, family, and co-workers caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the critical importance of our human connections. Loneliness and mental health issues caused by this isolation can be as devastating as COVID-19 itself. This historical event has given so many of us a new opportunity to better appreciate the effects of loneliness. However, people outside the primary demographic of your organization have likely felt varying degrees of loneliness for a long time – long before COVID-19. When you’re ‘the only one’ on the team, it’s difficult to feel you belong. If you’re the only Black woman, the only transgender team member, the only employee with a disability in the group, you are less likely to feel a connection to teammates. Being ‘the only one’ is such a common dynamic for historically marginalized people there’s a name for it, “Onliness”. When employees feel isolated and alone, it makes it more challenging for them to perform at the same level as those employees who feel a connection. It’s especially important for leaders to understand that employees that don’t feel supported when advocacy, coaching, or mentoring is most needed, are not included in lunch or after work social activities or are the last to find out about decisions impacting them directly, will end up feeling more isolated and alone. Ultimately, there’s a greater likelihood their morale will drop, they’ll become less motivated, take less risk, be less creative, and may ultimately leave, either by their choice or yours. The experience of working from home during COVID-19 provides an opportunity to appreciate and better understand the common experience of historically marginalized groups. Employees can better appreciate the importance of the human connection to employee health and building a high-performance team. In addition, when leaders share their own personal experience with isolation, loneliness, and even depression they demonstrate vulnerability, and this vulnerability will draw them closer to their employees, especially those historically marginalized people. All of your employees will feel safer being vulnerable with you, knowing you can empathize with them. Vulnerability-based trust is a core construct in the work of Patrick Lencioni (“The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”) and Brené Brown (“Daring Greatly”) in creating human connection and in developing high performance teams. I encourage leaders to prioritize growing an inclusive culture where employees feel connected to you and to each of their teammates. Creating a connected culture starts with you, and specifically, utilizing one-on-one meetings as a critical mechanism to achieve employee connection. One-to-one meetings provide a unique opportunity to connect with your employees at a deeper level. In next month’s blog, we’ll cover “10 Steps to Inclusive 1:1 Meetings”. Copyright © 2021 Jonathan Stutz
How to Increase Diversity and Productivity – Lessons from COVID-19
How to Increase Diversity and Productivity – Lessons from COVID-19 There are many lessons to learn from the past nine months and going forward, there’s opportunity for companies to increase both the diversity of their teams and productivity by allowing employees to work from the location of their choosing. Employees are demonstrating consistently higher levels of productivity working from home than previously thought possible. Across the high-tech sector, software developers are, on average, writing more lines of code than when they worked in the office. Not only are people engaging in productive tasks during time otherwise spent commuting, but video- and tele-conferencing is allowing employees to collaborate effectively across time zones from geo-dispersed locations. This past spring my former employer, a Seattle-based company, was backfilling a few positions on our team with offers ready to go out to two Black candidates, one candidate in Columbus, OH and the other in Atlanta, GA. The last step prior to extending offers was to ask each candidate to relocate to either our corporate headquarters in Seattle or the major Operations hub in Nashville. Neither candidate was willing to relocate so the offers were not extended. Our team lost the talent and the opportunity to increase our racial diversity. The constraint to be physically located in Seattle or Nashville prevented our team from increasing the diversity of our workforce and from securing the knowledge, skills, abilities, and unique perspective of the two candidates. Companies based in locations of relative racial homogeneity often blame a lack of workforce diversity on the lack of diversity in the region. The opportunity is for companies to act now to gain a competitive advantage in diversity recruiting by allowing diverse talent the option to choose to work in their region of choice or from home. Increase your investment in diversity outreach, in building trusted relationships within Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPoC) communities, then as the top of your recruiting funnel reflects greater diversity, set policy to support your candidate diversity by enabling employees to work from the location they choose. The companies that recognize this opportunity will enjoy happier, more productive, and loyal employees. Copyright © 2021 Jonathan Stutz