Click here to return to Blog Post Intro
Trailblazers: How Top Business Leaders are Accelerating Results through Inclusion and Diversity by Redia Anderson and Lenora Billings-Harris (2010)
My journey toward diversity & inclusion competency has been marked by some key readings, including this one by Redia Anderson and Lenora Billings-Harris.
Their book talks about a new role in the C-Suite. While many companies have embraced Chief Financial Officers, Chief Information Officers, and even Chief Human Resources Officers, only a few have Chief Diversity Officers. Trailblazers examined the seven and a half (yes, 7.5) essential competencies of effective Chief Diversity Officers, including:
- Business acumen
- Visionary and strategic leadership
- Collaborative relationships
- Influence
- Large-scale systems change: While there is certainly short-term low-hanging fruit to be reaped, for the greater part, this work requires a view for long-term results. Large-scale systems change is said to take between eight and ten years to be fully embedded into an organization’s culture.
- Effective communicator
- Accountability for results: Typically only three to five inclusion and diversity strategic objectives are chosen each year as part of a multiyear strategy. This allows for streamlined focus, maximizes the effectiveness of available resources, and enhances the visibility of results for the entire strategy. When they selected discreet and meaningful objectives, these Trailblazers were in a much better position to show true traction, gain momentum, and deliver tangible results back to the organization.
7.5 Impatient patience: Trailblazers are never satisfied with the status quo—ever. These organizations recognize that inclusion and diversity require commitment for the long haul. These Chief Diversity Officers understand that change management takes time without letting that understanding create personal or organizational complacency; therefore, they refuse to “settle” for mediocre results
Kiersten Robinson (former Director of HR Strategy, Leadership Development and Inclusion at Ford) shared that one of the key competencies from her perspective “comes back to that change management competency in knowing when to pull and when to push from behind. ‘Leading from behind’ is important so that the change effort is attached to the business and not to HR or the OD practitioners… Lastly, we’ve taken a number of cultural change efforts at Ford. A really strong lesson that we learned in the majority of failures was due to the role that we as HR or OD practitioners played; we weren’t ‘leading from behind.’ So the change effort was attached to us—rather than the business or the operations—meaning that it wasn’t integrated into what our employees do. It’s a principal understanding that we’ve been able to grasp now that has resulted in great success.”
So, what does this all mean for you, especially if you don’t have a Chief Diversity Officer? Here are seven things you can do to help your organization build an inclusive work environment:
- Share your stories: Your personal experiences of difference—as well as stories in which you’re keenly aware of being included—make strong statements about how willing you are to be transparent and learn from others.
- Become an active mentor: Get to know three high-potential, junior-level individuals who come from a different background than your own.
- Support your organization’s employee resource groups: Organizations are increasingly requiring their employee resource groups (ERGs) or employee networks—all synonymous terms—to demonstrate their relevance and contribution to the organization. These groups must go beyond the important yet conventional tasks of increasing retention and functioning as incubators for their constituency group’s leadership talent.
- Make inclusion and diversity updates a standing agenda item at your regular leadership team meetings: Our Trailblazers have used several techniques with positive results, one of which is to create something some call Diversity Moments. This builds on the notion of Safety Moments that organizations use to keep the spotlight on the importance of safety. At the beginning of all team and staff meetings, time is allotted on the agenda for a volunteer to share a Diversity Moment “aha” experience. For example, the employee might tell others about how she makes a point to get to know someone she does not already know but inviting them to lunch in the company cafeteria.
- Seek opportunities to include messages of the business imperative and the impact of inclusion and diversity to your company’s bottom line in every speech you give and every meeting you hold—internally and externally.
- Build a diverse leadership team: The author recalls a conversation in the mid-1990s with the CEO of Shell Oil Company about workforce representation targets and selecting talent. The author’s position was that leaders should always select the best candidate for the job regardless of gender or ethnicity. Shell’s CEO countered by noting that as long as there are underrepresented groups relative to availability in the talent pool, you should hire qualified candidates and you should set representation targets to ensure you are getting at least your fair share of all the available talent. Otherwise you are not likely to reach representation that meets availability because “best” is largely defined by a selector who has biases they are not even aware they have.
- Monitor, measure, and reward evidence of inclusion and diversity progress: Utilize the performance management system as well as your organization’s rewards and recognition programs to emphasize progress.
Every individual has his or her own definition of success for what they’re trying to do—in terms of what diversity, inclusion, and fairness should be—and that makes this work brutally difficult. This is not some mass marketing opportunity; this is a very personal thing, a scenario for which every individual has their own definition of success. So while you can use all the metrics you want . . . achievement is still determined on a very private and individual level.
As a result, it’s really important for leaders to decide for themselves at a very personal level what diversity and inclusion means for them. Then they must demonstrate how they want to manage their business and use the leadership style that flows from that personal understanding. Ultimately, success requires that you constantly build organizational and personal muscles around this work.
Out of This World Leaders are continually building diversity & inclusion competency, as they shoot for the stars!