Disruptive Inclusion: From Diversity to Inclusion to Business Impact - Part 2: Disruptive Inclusion through Inclusion Innovation

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The Inclusion Innovation process is a catalyst that creates business communities that flourish. Our mission is to connect individuals and organizations to improve marketplace (products and services), workplace (engagement and performance) and community (reputation and advocacy) results.

The model depicts how we connect internal and external stakeholders through Leadership, Culture, Empowerment and Social Media Technology to generate ideas from the bottom-up and outside-in to foster business innovation and results.

[Complete our Diversity, Inclusion and Innovation – Strategic Leadership Assessment (DII – SLA) here >>> to measure your readiness to engage in Disruptive Inclusion.]

The Inclusion Innovation model has three requirements.

First, put the “D” back in Diversity and Inclusion by establishing representation goals that are integrated within organizational objective setting and performance reviews.

What is the point of promoting inclusion, if you are not passionate about ensuring diversity?

While at a former employer, I developed a President & CEO scorecard that was presented to the Board of Directors annually. Below is a reproduction of the scorecard that represented 5% of the Chairman & CEO’s compensation:

Goal: Show continued progress with respect to the diversity of our customers, distribution partners, workforce, suppliers and procurement / purchasing spend.

Component	YE XXXX	YE XXXX	YE XXXX
Individual premium growth in diverse zip codes
Business premium growth in diverse zip codes
Agents of color appointments
Agents of color production / policies in force
Women agent appointments
Women agent production / policies in force
People of color – new hires
People of color – net new hire ratio
People of color in the workforce
People of color in management
Women in management
Diversity education Participation rate Effectiveness rating
Employee opinion survey X company clearly defines diversity X company does a good job of seeking customers in urban markets People of color participation rate
Supplier Diversity # active certified diverse suppliers # active certified diverse suppliers in supplier pool $ diverse supplier spend % diverse supplier spend

Second, foster self-awareness and cultural competency among community and business leaders so that residents and employees feel acknowledged, understood and valued for their ideas and perspectives, from their cultural orientation.

You can begin to cultivate this cultural competency by asking your direct reports, or colleagues, three questions:

What about me prevents you from reaching your full potential?
How do my strengths prevent you from exhibiting your strengths?
What don’t I know about you that could aid our collective success?

The model, or process, below was used at a previous employers to ensure the performance review process was fair, inclusive and accelerated business results. This model helps you clarify job accountability and authority; coach talent; increase a manager’s self-awareness and supportive behaviors; and adjust to, or leverage organizational structure, systems and culture to generate a high performance culture.

Third, utilize collaborative (social) technology to increase the velocity and volume of ideation, innovation and tangible results from employee network members and partners. This is the final requirement of disruptive inclusion.

In this final stage, D&I is not viewed as an initiative but as an effort to build a diverse, inclusive and growing “community” generating ideas and innovation that is put into action to achieve mutually beneficial objectives.

While at Ahold USA, our associate Business Resource Groups received project management and collaborative technology training, utilized Google Drive, Sites and Group to develop and execute project charters that raise associate awareness of Giant’s Own Brand products.

Click below to view one of their BRG events that raised associate awareness of the company’s products in a manner that also raised their cultural awareness.

These three steps, or enablers – Representation Goals, Cultural Competence Training and Collaborative (Social) Technology – are Disruptive Inclusion in action. It is the work I have been doing over the last three years.