Breakthroughs Blog

We can help employees work across their political differences with a commitment to measured, fact-based conversation and an active focus on what binds us, rather than divides. To that end, Jay Van Bavel at New York University offers valuable, practical, research-informed strategies, including cooling down rhetoric, debunking stereotypes, and creating common goals.

Robust measures are needed if organizations are to follow through on pledges to create opportunities with Black and other marginalized people.

What keeps the current movement for change from flickering out into a passing moment? How can leaders fulfil recent public commitments? This is an acute challenge for organizations just beginning to formally address DEI or recognizing the limits of past practices.

To build back better from this crisis, sustainability and inclusion must be side-by-side at the heart of planning, design and restructuring.

Inclusion is a moral and business imperative. Leaving people out shatters lives and undermines conditions for businesses to thrive. Bringing everyone in means individuals flourish and a full mix of people collaborate for a better society and more sustainable businesses.

Huge numbers of people across different countries are exasperated by systemic inequities laid bare by the pandemic and the patterns of violence against Black people. CEOs are joining the conversation with statements expressing empathy, urging inclusive behaviour, and promising action. And we need more than words.

Each of us has the moral responsibility to take action; those in the mainstream must work alongside those who are marginalized. We all have a duty to positively impact lives with immediacy today, and to sustain those impacts for the lives of tomorrow.

We know that COVID-19 is disrupting Diversity & Inclusion events, threatening the momentum of D&I strategies, and interrupting the work of D&I councils and committees. This is piling on the anxiety for everyone involved. One way to stay connected is by collaboratively learning and building the value that D&I creates for organizations.

Healthy relationships are at the center of D&I. Our work is about bringing a broad mix people into relationship with one another to advance individual, organizational, and even societal impact. Restorative Justice has lessons for our work.

Many of us are familiar with pervasive D&I breakdowns that complicate our ability to deliver on the promise of diversity and inclusion for individuals, the business, and broader society. You can read more on the D&I Dirty Dozen, but I want to highlight a few of these in an exploration of how we can start to change the conversation about D&I.

Progress in the field of D&I is sluggish and often fleeting. To achieve our critical goals for individuals and businesses, we must be willing to question familiar assumptions and re-consider the relevance and effectiveness of today’s best practices. This does not mean rejecting all that we do now. But it does demand that we are open to thinking and working differently.

The stakes for getting D&I right are high, both for organizations and individuals. Unfortunately, many of our familiar D&I ‘best practices’ are inadequate amid ever-evolving demands and complicated contexts. To advance D&I outcomes, we need next practices.

As we strive to keep pace with the increasing demands of organizational and societal complexity, we need innovation to elevate and accelerate meaningful, sustainable D&I outcomes for individuals, teams, organizations, and society. To deliver on the promise of D&I, we need breakthroughs.

Amid the divisive social and political debate surrounding the migration of refugees and asylum-seekers, some companies have brushed negativity aside, viewing the crisis as an opportunity to do good and benefit their business.

Companies need to address the whole of inclusion -- feelings, actions, and organizational factors – to know what they need to do differently to face the business challenges ahead. Consider this case at a multinational conglomerate.

We know that engaging a broad mix of people is crucial to sustainably addressing our most difficult business and societal challenges. Including diverse perspectives and identities is both the right thing to do and a potent ingredient for innovation and business success. As we recognize the value we have brought to organizations through our work in D&I, we also know how far we still need to go.

Just as a blueprint guides the construction of an optimally functional house, we need a blueprint to create inclusive organizations that work for a diversity of people. A D&I ecosystem strategy provides this guide. Starting with mission-critical business outcomes followed by a discovery of how D&I can enable business results, the ecosystem approach systematically considers opportunities for change through the lens of 7 key elements of the organization (detailed below).