We delve into the key differences between a standalone EIB strategic plan and embedding EIB into a strategic plan. These two approaches offer unique benefits for organizations looking to prioritize equity, inclusion, and belonging.
A standalone EIB strategic plan provides a targeted focus on these values. By dedicating a separate plan to EIB, organizations can clearly define their objectives, align resources accordingly, and demonstrate a visible commitment to EIB. The detailed roadmap and accountability mechanisms of a standalone plan ensure that the organization stays on track towards achieving its EIB goals.
On the other hand, embedding EIB principles into a strategic plan leads to comprehensive integration of equity, inclusion, and belonging. This approach promotes a cultural transformation within the organization, making EIB an integral part of decision-making processes and organizational DNA. By aligning EIB with other strategic goals, organizations ensure its consistent prioritization and long-term sustainability.
Both approaches offer the benefit of consistent progress. A standalone EIB plan allows for dedicated resources, milestone monitoring, and iterative improvement. Meanwhile, embedding EIB into the strategic plan ensures continuous integration, ongoing evaluation, and accountability across functions.
Middle managers are more than norm bearers; they hold the potential to be the champions of equity, inclusion and belonging (EIB) in their organizations. Despite facing countless challenges, they are uniquely positioned to bridge the EIB gap that often exists in corporations. The key to thawing the "frozen middle" lies in empowering these managers with the right tools, support, and knowledge to navigate the complex terrain of EIB. By doing so, middle managers can become the linchpin to EIB success, fostering a culture of inclusivity from within.
Organizational culture has emerged as a critical factor that determines the success of an organization. It plays a more significant role in achieving better organizational outcomes, more than the established policies and strategies. The quote “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” coined by Peter Drucker, one of the leading management consultants of all times. Drucker realized the importance of culture to an organization compared to the strategy. With the rapidly changing organizational landscape, organizations require leaders with the ability to adapt to the changing demands. Let’s add what the Niskanen Center states as culture eating policy for breakfast, especially in public sector settings. This can be related to any policy being made, even with the best intentions, are written to take entirely different meanings, and have different effects as they are implemented throughout the hierarchy, as Jennifer Pahlka states. Therefore, leaders need to adjust their leadership styles, with inclusive leadership taking centre stage.
Transformational leadership has long been a popular leadership style in all types of organizations. (I will admit that during graduate school, I was a big fan of this leadership style.)
Leading transformational change involves helping the organization transcend its current positioning, performance, and capabilities. This requires visionary thinking, the ability to tackle complex problems (like overcoming organizational inertia), and the courage to make difficult choices (like when to shut down or sell off assets that were once considered “core”). Leaders must think deeply and manage their emotions in intense situations, all while stakeholders expect to see results. (Via Lancefield and Rangen, HBR 2021)
Transformational leaders focus on inspiring and motivating their employees towards working together towards a shared vision. However, with this type of leadership, conformity is enhanced, with little to no diversity of opinion being welcomed. The leader dominates the decision-making process, leading to missed opportunities for business growth and a deficiency in diversity within leadership positions, leading to stagnation and no innovation.
On the other hand, inclusive leadership prioritizes creating an inclusive environment that allows every employee to feel valued, and providing opportunities in the organization to flourish regardless of race, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Inclusive leaders recognize the significance of diverse opinions, experiences, and uniqueness of ideas which enable customers, shareholders, and employees to contribute to the organization’s overall success.
Fostering a culture of trust, openness, and appreciation for differences is the foundation for inclusion, leading to diverse teams, better equipped to develop innovative solutions and aligning with the ever-changing demands of customers and other stakeholders.
Six Signature Traits of an Inclusive Leader
Six traits, or the 6 C’s of an inclusive leader include cognizance, courage, commitment, collaboration, cultural intelligence and curiosity. These traits represent the diverse new world of markets, customers/citizens/users, ideas and talent. These shifts influence priorities and reshaping the capabilities required of leaders to succeed in the future.
Inclusive leadership’s impact on organizational culture links directly to employee engagement, retention, and productivity. It creates a culture of psychological safety , where employees feel safe to bring their true selves to work, which fosters creativity and innovation(watch my Global Conversations interview with Lisa Ferrol)
When an employee feels valued and appreciated, they are more likely to be engaged in their work hence leading to increased productivity, loyalty, and reduced employee turnover rates ultimately leading to better business outcomes. Moreover, inclusive leadership aligns with the values of younger generations, such as millennials, and the Generation Z, which prioritizes inclusion and diversity when looking for job opportunities. The right inclusive leadership style has an excellent chance to attract and retain high-quality talent.
The importance of culture in organizations cannot be overemphasized, especially with the changing business environment’s demands. Culture should be a top priority for leaders, intentionally making moves towards building and maintaining a positive one. Transformational leadership is not to be disregarded altogether, but if culture is eating strategy and policy, organizations cannot afford to ignore diversity, and inclusivity in leadership which can lead to poor organizational outcomes.
Organizational culture is crucial to the success of a company and is created and maintained by effective leadership. While transformational leadership has its benefits, it can often lead to a lack of diversity within leadership positions, missed opportunities for innovation, and a focus on conformity rather than diversity of opinion. Inclusive leadership, on the other hand, creates a culture of belonging and trust, which leads to diversity of opinion, increased innovation, better business outcomes, and aligns with the values of younger generations. Therefore, with the rapidly changing environment, especially with the rise of diversity and inclusion, inclusive leadership prevails over transformational leadership.
If I wanted to be serious about my business, it required some clarity.
My past self as an urban planner collided with my present as future self as a organizational development consulting. I debated on a name change again. Urban planning and finance professionals still attempt to reach out via social media because of the name, but I attributed this to utter laziness on their part. So the name is here to stay.
Most importantly was the logo change. What precipitated it? I wanted it to be resemble continuity and flow. The Black and Gold was old, tired and resembled anger in my mind. It needed a refresh.
The teal colour has meaning. Ever since the San Jose Sharks were announced as a National Hockey League franchise in the early 90s, I fell in love with the colour. (I still root for the Toronto Maple Leafs, for better or worse.)
Digging deeper, “Teal combines the calming properties of blue with the renewal qualities of green. It is a revitalizing and rejuvenating color that also represents open communication and clarity of thought. For Tibetan monks, teal is symbolic of the infinity of the sea and sky, while it is the color of truth and faith for Egyptians.”, according to creative design Canva’s website.
Finally, there are teal organizations. Named by Frederic Laloux in his 2014 book Reinventing Organizations, these organizations are characterized by features such as self-managed teams, intuitive reasoning, decentralized decision making, wholeness and a deeper sense of purpose. It is with this purpose of a human-centred approach I want use to bring equity and belonging to organizations.
Look! I’ve never watched any Star Wars movies and never will. SciFi isn’t a genre of film I like. Sue me!!!
So when I hear continuously hear practitioners float around JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion), or some jumbled up letters to mean the same thing, I take issue with it. I already have an issue with the bastardization and cheapening of the industry through the forever use of acronyms.
There are four criteria for measuring equity: procedural fairness, access, quality, and outcomes. Justice is also the larger organizational value within which equity resides. They are equivalent in nature where equity is focused on the concern of the provision of services and justice is more values-oriented. So then why do we need to separate the two areas in the work we are trying to achieve?
I will concur with Lily in that justice informs the work we do with the eventual outcome of equity through policies, process and access to services. Just like I never understand why were are still chasing diversity like its a fad, I believe adding justice to the title means we are not going to take away the power of organizations to operate. Justice is the role of the public sector, an area I have been in for much of my career. If you want justice, run for public office and be part of that change. As Lily said in their post, there is no price tag for justice.
We are all activists in some way, shape or form. But to achieve equity and proper organizational change, there must be some form of level-headedness and maturity. Not shouting to the rooftops, or getting likes on Linked In. By no stretch of the imagination am I a gatekeeper to White privilege. My experience working in the public sector, it has been about making effective policy change through equitable facilitation and consultation. As Susan Gooden states in her book, Race and Social Equity: The Nervous Area of Government, “the implementation of justice is context-based which is dependent upon understanding a complex array of historical, political and social factors” and equity means that public administrators are attentive to differences in fairness and justice based on social characteristics (p.25).
To create equitable organizations, it is about engaging leadership , defining equitable outcomes and redesigning the system with employees and public at the forefront of that change – regardless of the sector. Have a read of Minal Bopaiah’s book Equity: How to Design Organizations where Everyone Thrives where she goes through her steps for organizational change.
I am never going to call myself a JEDI practitioner, as much as I won’t call myself a DEI/EDI practitioner. Justice and fairness definitely inform my work. My mantra though is to advance equity in organizations through strategic policy change using a systems thinking approach. My call to action is for practitioners to do away with this acronym in order to make effective change with the work we do.
