Inclusion is the key to success
so let me set the scene for you
in march 2019 i’m in a
beautiful resort in wine country
napa valley california i just flew from
london and i feel so excited to be
here i’m at my company’s annual
kickoff event to celebrate our success
with all my colleagues from all around
the world
i feel on top of the world i’m pumped up
to be here
with all my colleagues for three days
and as i sit down in my hotel room
to check where i’m supposed to be next
i find out by accident
that i have not been invited to the
women in business lunch
i feel like a door has been slammed on
my face
i feel excluded i feel rejected
i feel like i did not belong this is
another act from exclusion by my own
boss
who for the last 12 months has been
excluding me from team events and has
been
passing me over for a long overdue
promotion
telling me that i was not ready
yet to be promoted
that act of exclusion from that launch
made me feel more excluded more
disconnected
from my manager than ever before
but feeling excluded at work is not
something that happened
just to me it happened to many of us
but in particular to women and other
minorities
for every 100 men that are hired
and promoted to a manager level position
only 72 women experience the same thing
and it’s not that women don’t negotiate
or don’t ask for promotions
in fact women negotiate and ask for
promotions
even more often than men the hard truth
is that when women negotiate people like
them
less for it i can certainly remember
how many times i was told that i was too
aggressive and too confrontational when
i ask for a promotion
but research continues
women are often hired and promoted
based on past accomplishments whereas
men are more often
higher than promoted based on future
potential
i certainly remember how many times i
had
have been told i was not ready yet for a
promotion
so i find out three ways
that you can invite everyone to your
table
so that they can bring everything to the
table
i use the act acronym
a articulate your why and set goals
c change your mindset
nt take real action
in 2019 as i joined a new
company i realized that we only had
one black colleague in our entire team
he was very quiet he was very
shy and always kept to himself
one day our vice president invited him
to join our weekly sales team meeting
to talk about his favorite project the
charity project
as he joined our weekly sales team
meeting
and he started talking about his
favorite project
he literally lightened up he became
more chatty he was making jokes
he had a nice word for everyone every
morning
and the entire team started to bond
together which was
not the case before he even came up with
new ideas for his work
inviting everyone to the table ensured
everybody brought everything to the
table
think about why diversity and inclusion
is important to you and your team
is it because it will make your team
more collaborative
is it because it will make your team
more innovative or
more creative thinking whatever the
reason
make sure you understand why inclusion
and diversity is important to you
and set goals remember
inclusive organizations are twice more
likely to exceed financial results
but most organizations don’t set goals
for diversity and inclusion
monetary goals drive behavior faster
invite everyone to your table
and they will bring everything to the
table
c change your mindset
in 2019 i experienced
another act of exclusion by my own boss
as we sat down for my annual performance
review
she talked to me about one particular
area
that i needed to improve in order to get
promoted
i needed to be less aggressive
i needed to soften down my tone
and i needed to be less confrontational
in meetings
meanwhile my boss promoted my male
counterparts who interrupted everyone
in meetings who was the most
confrontational
and who was the most outspoken in team
meetings
a study by yale psychologist victoria
brescol
reveal that when male executives
speak more often in meetings they are
regarded
as more competent but when
female executives speak more often in
meetings
they are regarded as less competent and
suffer
lower competency ratings
one leader’s fixed mindset can hinder an
entire stem
collaboration and productivity
think about your own mindset is it
fixed or is it growth orientated
do you avoid challenges are you
threatened by others people’s successes
or do you seek to learn and do you seek
to speak about challenges at work
in 2018 my vice president
invited or hired one openly
gay man to join our team
he was bubbly he was young he was warm
and he was so much fun to be around
in dark contrast with the rest of the
team who was made of more
conservative straight men
as the weeks went on i could hear
offensive jokes targeting our new hire
and offensive comments targeting our new
hire
eventually he resigned i felt furious
especially because it was the second new
hire
to leave the company and the first hire
was an openly bisexual young woman who
experienced a similar treatment
some questions you can ask yourself to
check your own mindsets
include how diverse were you last 10
hires
think about your last 10 promotions
how diverse do you consider them to be
think about whose efforts you
acknowledged in your last
team meetings and think about
who were the last 10 people to leave
your organization
how diverse do you consider them to be
or do you notice any similarity in their
backgrounds
think of yourself as a change agent if
you think of yourself
as a change anger agent and you hold
yourself accountable
you’re gonna be more successful to
create an inclusive team
inviting everyone to your table
will make sure that they bring
everything to the table
t take real action
at one of my last companies the average
age was
32 years old the team was made of
young ambitious high achiever
people one day we hired a new sales
manager
he was in his 50s it was the first time
we had someone who was older than 40
years old joining our team
he started implementing new processes
and new systems
and the team became more productive
and more consistent quarter after
quarter
having someone from a different
background join our company
made everyone more productive and more
open-minded to receiving new ideas
one thing you can do to create a more
inclusive team is to diversify your own
network
how diverse do you consider your own
network to be today
in 2019 as i joined a new company
i realized that the rest of my team from
the marketing team
was all based from san francisco in
california
they were all in their in their mid 20s
and there
were all with no kids in contrast
i was based in london uk i was a mom
of a two-year-old toddler
and a baby and i was the only one
whose english was her second language
in our team meetings i could feel that
the atmosphere was very hostile towards
me
i could feel that i was the old one out
i felt like my voice was not being heard
and i was
not invited to the important meetings i
felt constantly rejected
and i always felt like i was the odd one
out who did not belong to the team
one area that you can improve on
to make sure your team feels included is
unconscious bias training
unconscious bias training can help
create a more inclusive team
if it has the right context the right
content
and is delivered to the right audience
invite
everyone to your table and they
will bring everything to the table
so in march 2019 i
flew back to london after that company
annual kickoff event in california napa
valley
and as i returned to london and i sat
down with my
mentor for our weekly catch-up i noticed
he had a big smile on his face
so after i asked him what was going on
he announced to me that i had been
invited
to join our company’s achievers club
with our ceo at the reed skeleton
in california i felt
so grateful to have been invited to that
prestigious event with our ceo
i felt like i was part of the team i
felt that the team
was my family and i felt like nothing
could stop us from achieving our goals
together
that year i delivered everything i had
and i brought everything i had to the
table
and i was the most productive i had ever
been at that company
inviting everyone to the table made sure
everyone brought everything to the table
so we talked about the acronym
a articulate your why and set goals
c change your mindset and t
take real action but if we go back to
the way we used to do things and we
don’t change anything
we’ve wasted our time so today
i want to ask you one simple question
what will you do to invite everyone to
your table