My friend and colleague Tyronne Stoudemire conducts a demonstration using milk and chocolate sauce. He pours the chocolate sauce into a glass of milk and the chocolate naturally settles on the bottom. He points out that you can add “diversity” but unless you stir it up, the added chocolate keeps going to the bottom of the glass. This suggests to me that to get to inclusion you have to be intentional and you have to keep stirring it up. Not an easy endeavor for many organizations!
There are a number of definitions of inclusion that go something like: creating an environment where all talent can reach their full potential. Andres Tapia, in his book The Inclusion Paradox describes diversity as the mix and inclusion as making the mix work.
Diversity is a more concrete and tangible concept. In many cases you can count how much diversity you have. Of course there are also many dimensions that are not visible and do not get counted. However, dimensions like socio-economic status, education, thinking styles can be counted, albeit in some cases a fairly difficult task.
Inclusion, on the other hand, is more elusive. The extent to which one feels included is personal and I dare say varies based on one’s world view. One employee in a focus group complained that he was consistently left out of meetings where he thought his input would add value. In the same group, another employee said that it did not bother him in the least that he was left out of the meetings. He felt that there were too many meetings, taking away from time to be productive at work.
Inclusion is often measured via engagement surveys where specific questions are added to ascertain employee opinions about the extent to which they feel included. Questions such as my manager creates an inclusive environment or my manager values my opinion are two examples. When the data is segmented by demographic groups, leaders can determine if historically underrepresented groups feel less included.
I believe it is important to augment the quantitative surveys with focus groups to hear the actual behaviors that translate into inclusion for different individuals and groups. For those from more individualistic cultures versus more group or relationship oriented cultures, the concept of inclusion might be very different. By the same token, inclusion might look very different from a generational perspective.
In future posts, I will explore the complexities of the concept of inclusion.
