Getting Unstuck: – Getting Diversity and Inclusion Right – a Conversation with Jennifer Brown
“Inclusive cultures don’t build themselves. They need to be intentionally created every day, particularly by people that have power. And so if you think that being well intentioned is enough, and that you’re doing enough, organizations will absolutely just return to what’s comfortable. That is just human behavior, and its organizational behavior. So it takes work and consistent focus, and public commitment and steadfast accountability to shift the direction of a culture over time.”
Today on Getting Unstuck
“I would say everybody has a diversity story,” today’s guest noted about halfway through our interview. “And it's just a matter of doing our work to summon it or look at it. Diversity is not just gender and ethnicity related, you know, its socio economic background, its religion, its mental health, it's growing up in an alcoholic abusive home, it is being the first to go to college and your family, it is having a child with a disability, or an adopted kid or being in a multiracial household.”
“Diversity is being asked to the dance; inclusion is being asked to dance. And we could define the belonging as the invitation to bring your best dance moves and your willingness to to show your best dance moves.”
That observation from today’s guest, Jennifer Brown, really made me sit up and think – and I haven’t stop thinking about how my own story has affected me.
Jennifer Brown is CEO of Jennifer Brown Consulting, an inclusion and diversity consulting firm. Jennifer is the author of How to be an Inclusive Leader — Your Role in Creating Cultures of Belonging Where Everyone Can Thrive. She is a leading diversity and inclusion expert, a keynote speaker, a best selling author and the host of her “Own the Will to Change “podcast which relates true stories of diversity and inclusion.
Listen for
• Jennifer’s own diversity story and how it’s impacted her and her current work.
• Why the “moral argument” is often not enough of a driver for inclusion and diversity awareness in many organizations.
• The importance of honest, transparent marketing and communications in any diversity effort.
• Why a defined change management process has to be central to any diversity and inclusion effort.
• How successful diversity and inclusion initiatives succeed or fail depending on middle management.
• The challenge of measuring inclusion.
• How to address resistance and apathy.
• Why a diversity team and designated leader are a must for most organizations.
• The three inclusive practices every organization should consider.
“As the leader, you have to earn this work. It’s got to be personal. And it has to be an internal journey. To come across as authentic as you do it. It can’t be somebody else’s job. It has to be not just your job, but honestly something you’re interested in, that you’re curious about, that you are committed to, that you’re open to, that you’re ready to be challenged and wrong.”