Turn diversity and inclusion from a challenge into an opportunity

If I told you that by making some behavioural changes, you could grow your business, attract amazing talent, keep them, work in harmony with people and the planet, set your work contextually well and come up with innovative solutions, would you be interested?

Would you say: “Absolutely. Help me with what I need to do!”? Or would you fight against it and say: “Nah, not for me”?

All the studies done in the area of diversity and inclusion show that having a mix of people in an organisation is not enough to create better outcomes; you have to have an inclusive culture too. If you don’t have an inclusive culture, you’re better off with a homogenous team than a diverse one, and maintaining the status quo, but you’re less likely to be resilient or grow as effectively.

If you have a diverse team with an inclusive culture, however, the upsides are significant. Research shows that inclusive leaders make employees feel 84% more motivated (BITC, 2014). Moreover, organisations with inclusive cultures are eight times more likely to have overall better business outcomes (Bersin by Deloitte, 2017), six times more likely to be innovative (ibid), twice as likely to meet or exceed financial targets (ibid) and three times more likely to be high performing (ibid).

If you would like a piece of that pie, then how do you make the changes required to successfully employ a diverse team and how to you create an inclusive culture?

You may have heard the statistic from professor Timothy Wilson’s book ‘Stranger to Ourselves, Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious’  that we process 11 million pieces of information at any given moment (if we have access to all five of our senses) but have only the conscious capacity to process 40, so bias, or the short-cutting of information and heuristics, is a human biological necessity. We are, therefore, all biased, and while some biases are good, many can be unhelpful, and these are the ones we need to work to manage. 

We have to recognise we are inherently biased and use the right framework of behaviours to create, implement and enforce the procedures, policies and practices that mitigate the impact of bias, because the existence of the procedures, policies and practices does not ensure their use.

I think it’s worthwhile to go back to basics and look at some definitions:

Diversity – this is just the FACT of visible and invisible difference. Everyone is part of diversity. Diverse is not something an individual is, but something a group might be. Aspects of diversity include, but are not limited to, age, race, gender, marital status, physical ability and neurodivergence. Diversity also encompasses concepts like geographical location, access to technology, experience of abuse and body shape, anything that could result in discrimination and elements that don’t. You can’t hire a “diverse candidate”, that’s a nonsense. You might hire to create a more diverse workforce, but really, when people talk about diversity they’re usually trying to do something about addressing underrepresentation. 

The ONS revealed that in 2021, only 3.1% of the UK population were white, able-bodied, heterosexual men based in London and the south east. This demographic is, therefore, overrepresented in leading and being employed in commercial property, the residential sector, construction, architecture, planning and engineering. It stands to reason then that there is a lot of opportunity in addressing this demographic imbalance.

Inclusion – this is the ACT of creating an environment where people feel that their identities, values and lifestyles are acknowledged, respected and accepted. Acceptance doesn’t have to mean agreement with someone else’s choices, but inclusion is more than mere tolerance; it’s conscious work to gain an understanding that perspectives and decisions are for individuals to have, not for any of us to judge.

Equity – this is equality of access to life/society/opportunities based on individual need and making up for historic imbalance, and the IMPACT of bringing together diversity and inclusion. For the avoidance of confusion, equality is about everyone getting the same, which is fine if we’re all at the same start point, but we know that is not the case.

And here I want to introduce you to CQ – cultural intelligence – this is the behavioural framework which allows you to navigate the bias activated when faced with difference (diversity), so you can behave with acceptance and understanding (inclusion) to create outcomes that are accessible to all (equity).

When CQ is UNPACKED, it is the academically proven capability to work and relate effectively with those who are from different backgrounds to you.

The analogy I like to use is this: if diversity is the richness of the landscape and inclusion is the winding road through it, to reach our destination of equitable outcomes, then CQ is the best, most robust, vehicle to get us there.

Professor Wilson says: “The “do good, be good” principle is one of the most important lessons psychology has to offer. If you do not like something about yourself, it can be helpful to alter your behaviour in a more positive way.

“To fashion a satisfying, functional self-narrative, and to establish a desirable pattern of habitual, non-conscious responses, the best advice is to practice, practice, practice.

“Little steps can lead to big changes and all of us have the ability to act more like the person we want to be.” 

At Building People, this is the opportunity that we are helping you and the built environment sector to seize. Our aim is to be the leading platform enabling diverse people and organisations to thrive in the built environment, and we’re fully focused on developing Building People as a neutral and holistic hub for equity, diversity and inclusion. Why not join in with us and our movement for collaborative change?

It is totally achievable to make the steps to change yourself and to be successful at then creating, implementing, enforcing and supporting inclusive structures and processes, and embedding them, person by person, in an organisation. 

The question then should not be ‘Do I want to do this? but ‘When can I start?’

To understand more about this, join me at this Building People event: https://www.buildingpeople.org.uk/Home/Learning-and-Events-V2/View-Activity/id/710