Don’t just tick the box

Diversity is more than ticking the box with programs and metrics

Challenge: You have all the right Diversity programs, but it still feels like lip service

Solution: Lead with your heart, intervene, when needed and listen carefully!

Most corporates today have diversity programs. And yet many would argue, that true diversity is not yet achieved. For diversity to work, you need to have inclusion as everyone’s individual value. And we all know, how hard it is to change our own values, let alone an organisations. For a very good example, read the challenge of this NZ CEO.

A cultural journey takes time and with all changes, it starts with awareness. This means, you, all your leaders and your teams need to talk about differences – but not in a political correct way, no, you should foster open discussion and appreciate opposing views.

We are not always rational. Our subconscious dictates more than we know

Challenge: If you are not conscious about your attitude, how can you do something about it?

Solution: Take a pause, think and re-evaluate. And make it a regular practice!

Bias is a short cut your brain has to take to be able to deal with the many decisions you make every day. You cannot eliminate all bias. But when the decision matters, you should at least give yourself the chance to think instead of being led by your subconscious. This is the very first step, you can take. Google’s RE Work explains very nicely how bias works.

By the way, not every subconscious processing your brain does is bad. Scientifically this is called heuristics. Have a look at this interview with Gerd Gigerenzer about when to go with your gut.

Be the change you want to see!

Challenge: The leaders in this company still act biased. Why should I change?

Solution: Change starts with ourselves. And leaders need to be credible role models!

Everyone should start with themselves, because it is simply the right thing to do. But indeed, leaders need to be credible role-models. To start this journey the leaders probably need scientific evidence to trigger their rational buy-in and experience it itself for the emotional buy-in. For the rational, scientific proof, there is a lot of research:

1. Formal and Informal Discrimination Against Women At Work: The Role of Gender Stereotypes

2. Using Conjoint Analysis to detect discrimination: revealing covert preferences from overt choices

But more important is the personal experience. There are tests anyone can take, like this one from Harvard. More intense personal experiences can be had in workshops, we deliver, where you see your own bias, but in a safe environment. Because, let us be clear: we are all biased. The difference is, what we do about it.

For courage, build alliances

Challenge: I see bias at work, but I don’t dare to speak up.

Solution: Create alliances to help raise awareness and make informal contracts how to act, when you disagree!

How many times have I heard, that especially women feel “spoken over” in a meeting, not heard, their opinion ignored. There is even a term: Manterrupted.

Oftentimes, it is not easy to speak up as you do not want to sound petty, overly sensitive or defensive. I have been spoken over in a meeting (and believe me, I am pretty assertive myself). Fortunately, a male colleague took up my point, so it did not get lost. This is what you can do: Search out people you trust, male and female, who will speak up for you and bring attention back to you and the argument you are making. And you should do the same for others, of course. In addition, one should in general create expectations and agreements for meetings and decision taking and what to do in case of overlooking or interrupting someone else’s point. This agreement and regular practice will improve the team dynamics in general and really help with the diversity of decision taking.

Creating awareness on the amount of speaking time allocated to everyone, versus reality really helps as well.

Moving from good intentions to action

Challenge: We all have good intentions, but how to keep it alive in the busy working day.

Solution: Create the right choice architecture with nudges to keep people on their chosen path!

A nudge can remind you to  pause / think / reevaluate to keep you from unconsciously taking the wrong decision. It can be mindful, like a regular reminder in form of an email or notification via an app. Or it can be mindless in making the desired behavior the easy one or the undesired harder like removing printers from the floor, your office is on.

Creating the choice architecture for a diverse organization will have many aspects. It can be rational, e.g. reminders, emotional, e.g. through story-telling, physical, e.g. an open lay-out of rooms. It is a very good exercise for a team to come up with their own nudges to foster a diverse environment, e.g. in form of a world café.

Fake it till you make it!

Challenge: What can I do personally?

Solution: Power Poses, Humor, Breathing!

A very simple personal action, we can take, as a minority, as a woman, to continuously renew the courage it needs to e.g. speak up confidently, is to use Amy Cuddys famous power poses. ​There is some controversy in academia about the effect on hormones, but the effect on “felt power” is acknowledged and I can testify to it from personal experience

The idea is to “trick” our mind into feeling more powerful, than we are originally. The advantage is, that on a physical, hormonal level, the conditions are created, that we can speak and act with more confidence (testosterone) and less stress (cortisol). This is a simple step we can take immediately, to change the way, we are perceived.

Another, equally effective way is to smile. We all know, that happiness reduces stress and boosts the immune system. So what if we can make ourselves happy. Vera Birkenbihl, a German researcher, talks about 60 seconds fake smiling, that triggers a neuro-physiological response, that helps us feel happy. In a real smile 10 seconds would suffice.

There are many similar simple steps, that anyone of us can start immediately, mindful steps and tools, that take little effort, but can have great effects. The challenge is to create habits and not revert back to old behaviours. How? Create your own choice architecture.

It starts with ourselves.

The journey towards more curiosity and appreciation – the core of true diversity - starts with awareness.

It is not complicated to listen deeper into ourselves, but it helps, if we are guided by examples and reminded continually to not revert back to old behavioral patterns.

Trainings, we deliver, on leadership, communication, team building, they all start with raising awareness of the different perspectives we have.  And through exploration and mirroring techniques, we start recognizing our blind spots and more importantly, develop simple steps, how to pause before taking instinctive action driven by our unconscious. These skills are extremely useful for any leader and any team, that wants to keep or develop a trusted working environment for higher performance.

But it is not skills alone, that support your journey: The best, albeit at times seemingly slow and cumbersome, way to create inclusion, to stop conflict, to create collaboration and to foster appreciation is through building true understanding with personal experience and exchange among people and groups. This is not a one-off exercise. A workshop or a teambuilding can be a good starting point. But how to keep this alive, when normality and business as usual kicks in again?

To anchor changed behavior, you will need to build in regular interventions and nudges to remind people to stay on their chosen path.

With these NUDGES you create the choice architecture for a sustainable change.