Discussion 1

· Lecture – Distinguish Between D&I See Word doc .

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Examine Methods of Fostering Inclusion in Work Groups

Think about what it means for managers to be inclusive with their direct reports or team leaders and foster inclusion within a small work group. What behaviors do they use to promote inclusion? In this module, you will explore some of the recommended strategies that people can use to promote inclusion. You will examine ways to create an inclusive climate and consider how people can bring about more inclusivity in decision making.

Creating an Inclusive Climate

In this series of videos, Professor Nishii examines an inclusive climate from several perspectives and makes some practical recommendations about what people can do to foster inclusion.

Developing Trust Video Transcript:

Psychological safety is a construct that helps to explain the differences that people experience and whether or not, they feel comfortable admitting when they don't know, or taking risks within their work group. Psychological safety refers to the belief that people are safe in taking these risks, and expressing their work-relevant thoughts and feelings. The issue to think about here is if team members can't bring themselves to speak what's on their mind that is they censor themselves, then they won't experience inclusion, nor will the group benefit from their perspectives. If team members don't trust each other, then they're going to waste time and energy thinking about what they should say, and what they shouldn't say, and wonder about the true intentions of their peers when they're interacting with them. In order to actually speak up within a group context, people need to know that even if they make a mistake, if it's a well-intentioned mistake, then others won't think less of them. That they won't be penalized, they won't be resented for saying what they did, and that it's okay for them to ask for help and for them to ask for information or feedback. That's not a sign of weakness that instead, it's actually something that's expected as a part of learning. Within the context of diverse groups, it's essential that people share these expectations about the kind of impact, if any that these cultural differences can can bring to the group. If people value the idea that different perspectives will help the group, this should help to promote psychological safety and help people to feel that it is safe for them to express the perspectives that they have even if they might be counter to those that have been expressed by other people. In order to facilitate psychological safety, one of the most important conditions as I've already alluded to is that, you need to prioritize trust and respect within a group. There are a number of activities that groups often engage in to try to promote trust. It's good to take these or other steps proactively rather than assume that trust will develop well in a natural way. So, you've probably heard of outdoor ropes courses, and maybe you've even done one yourself. 

The purpose of these courses is to take people out of the work group context, and really focus on developing trust across people. Across members of the group. But there are other less physical outdoorsy ways of doing this too. So, one method that is sometimes used in organizations is to create, deliberately create the space for group members to engage in storytelling, or sharing personal information about themselves. So one example is for each group member to answer a set of questions, so here are three questions for that could potentially work. So, one would be very kind of easy introduction into this discussion would be: Where did you grow up? How many kids were in your family? What was the most difficult or important challenge of your childhood? And people then have a chance to tell some story about where they came from, and how they grew up. And in telling that story, often people make themselves vulnerable. And the people then listening, see that, and that tends to promote a sense of liking and a sense of trust. And also, in revealing something about your personal life, people learn to get comfortable being open about other things. So if I can be open about something that was really difficult for me, well then I can be open about something that's happening today at work. And when people share these personal stories, they also develop a deeper understanding of each other, and they start to then be able to interpret their coworkers' behaviors within the context of this more personal information. There are other things that groups can do too. So, during what we call the chartering process, that's when a group comes together, it's important for the group to take the time to establish the goals and expectations that the group has for itself. And in this process, it's important to speak explicitly about psychological safety. For people to establish shared, expectations for the importance of protecting that psychological safety, and for the importance of sharing these dissenting views that we will have this openness to diversity that the diversity of perspectives and ideas. And the group leader, but also, other members of the group can play a very important role in providing kind of real-time permission to group members to continue with that sharing of diverse ideas. To say look, I know we're having a really difficult conversation right now, it's uncomfortable, but this is good. Let's keep going. Let's try to get to the bottom of this. That real-time permission can be more powerful than kind of theoretical abstract permission for the group. And finally, it's important that I've emphasized this several times, but it's important to minimize status differences within the group to the extent possible. What happens when we have status differences is that the people who are in a lower status position tend to censor themselves more. They tend to feel pressure to assimilate, and to the extent that they feel that way, they're less likely to feel safe in expressing any sort of dissenting views. And if that happens, well, we've kind of lost the value in diversity.

Video Transcript – Different Groups

I'd like to talk about climate for inclusion. I'm thinking here about the climate of a work group, rather than the climate of the larger organization, because what we see in research is that the different groups or departments within an organization tend to take on slightly different climates. The construct of climate for inclusion helps to pull together some of the ideas that we've been talking about related to the importance of meaningful interpersonal connections and psychological safety and trust. I think that most people are used to talking about organizational culture. They think of organizational culture as an organization's personality or values. Organizational climate is a related construct, but it's more specific, and it's more strategically focused. So, I'll tell you a little bit about organizational and then move to talking about climate for inclusion more specifically. 

So, climate, organizational climate, refers to the shared meaning that employees attach to the events, policies, practices, and procedures that they experience and what that communicates to them about the behaviors that they see as being rewarded, valued, supported, and expected within the organization. So, climate has a strategic focus. So, in this case we're talking about climate for inclusion. So, it refers to employees' shared perceptions about what the organization's policies and procedures communicate about inclusion, and the behaviors, the inclusive behaviors, that they see as being rewarded and valued and expected of them within their day-to-day work lives. So, climate is created and maintained through a number of different mechanisms. Probably the most noticeable are the policies and practices and structures of the organization. Those that support the formation of a particular type of climate, that is, that support the formation of inclusive climates, including things like reward systems, training content, and the factors that are emphasized in selection and promotion decisions. So, the question is whether or not employees receive the message, through these various organizational practices, that inclusion is indeed a priority for the organization. So, this is akin to the first source of inclusion that we've talked about, that is, that organizational policies and practices communicate something very important to employees about inclusion. It's also important to keep in mind that it's a form of both direct and indirect communication that comes from up above about the importance of inclusion within the organization. But the day-to-day behavior of managers also plays a very important role in forming climate. So, managers engage in role-modeling, they communicate to their employees what's important based on the kinds of behaviors that they attend to, the kinds of behaviors that they reward in their employees, and the expectations that they communicate, and so forth. We will turn again to talking a little bit more about the role of managers. The other thing that helps to shape climate is the set of norms, the behavioral norms, that employees themselves create within their work group. So, what employees actually do and what they expect of each other. So, within this broader definition of climate, I'd like to now turn to talking about climate for inclusion more specifically. The important thing about inclusive climates, as I'll define it here, is that inclusive climates provide the conditions under which people rely less on stereotypical thinking, and under which groups are less prone to these counterproductive in-group out-group dynamics that can get in the way of that diversity value chain that I spoke about. There are three key dimensions to climate for inclusion. The first is that (again, think in terms of a work group or a work department) the employment practices within that group, that unit, need to be implemented in a way that is perceived as fair by the people working within that unit. So, employees are always looking for cues that tell them whether or not some employees, members of some groups, are favored over members of other groups. That is, by virtue of being a man or a member of some other demographic category, does somebody have a higher chance of success? Does somebody have greater access to resources and opportunities? To the extent that they do, then that will perpetuate these status hierarchies based on, in this example, gender. But to the extent that, in a work group, the way that practices are implemented does not have anything to do with one's gender or other demographic background, then in that context those status hierarchies are invalidated. They become delegitimized. And that's what we need. We need for people to really perceive that HR practices are fair in order for them to buy the message that inclusion is actually valued, and to start to break down some of those in-group out-group effects that we spoke of before. So, that is a kind of a precondition for inclusion, but that's not enough. So, what also needs to happen, and this is the second dimension, is that there need to be strong norms that cultural differences among group members will be integrated. That people are not expected to check their identity at the door when they come to work. That instead, people bring their whole selves to work. You've probably heard this term before. The idea is that people don't experience pressure to assimilate to some dominant majority, and that people are expected to develop these cross-cutting ties (by cross-cutting I mean cutting across traditional and that people are also given the latitude and the opportunity to engage in that kind of discussion that leads to more personalized understandings of one another. So, here the idea is, okay, so the diversity is now at work, right, people bring it to the table, so to speak, but it will only benefit the organization to the extent that the diversity of perspectives are actually leveraged in decision making. So, that's what the third dimension refers to, is the extent to which those inclusion and decision-making groups have to take proactive steps to actively seek and integrate the diverse perspectives that are represented among the employees in a group. People have to have a common commitment, so a shared commitment, to working through those differences, this conflict that I spoke of. People have to be committed to doing that. And there have to be mechanisms in place to make sure that those different ideas are actually expressed within the group.

Strategies for Facilitating Inclusion and Trust in Groups

Professor Nishii's can help foster inclusion in a group setting.

It's worth examining the ways in which you can foster greater inclusion and trust at the work-group level. Professor Nishii offers practical strategies for facilitating psychological safety and inclusion in groups, such as breaking groups down into smaller work groups and making sure the group membership rotates so that subgroups don't form. People tend to be more willing to take risks and express opinions in smaller groups.

Save this list of recommended strategies; you may want to use it within team meetings or other work-group discussions about inclusion.

The Role of the Immediate Manager

Inclusion isn't simply handed down to the staff by the CEO or executive director; it's important to keep in mind that everyone cooperates in creating a culture of inclusion. Managers play a particularly important role in facilitating work-group inclusion.

So now I'd like to talk about the important role that line managers play in fostering inclusion within organizations. There is certainly a lot of attention that's paid to the role of senior leadership when talking about diversity and inclusion. And it is true, senior leadership is critical. 

A lot of things have to happen from the top but it's not enough to focus on senior leadership. A lot of what happens, the experiences that people have at work are shaped by their immediate supervisor, not the people at the very top of the organization per se. And this is an idea that has been supported by decades of research, including research done by organizations like Gallup, that show that people end up leaving their organization because of the experiences they have with their immediate supervisor. Not necessarily because of the experiences they have with the broader organization or its policies and practices. So the manager is important because he or she is the implementer of practices. So you can have really great diversity and inclusion practices on paper that have been designed well by the senior leadership. But how those practices impact employees depends on how a particular manager implements those practices. So how consistently do they implement them, how fairly, how reliably, how do they talk about the practices? So the manager is this filter, in a way, through which the organization's practices are transmitted before they actually impact employees. Within the context of diversity this is certainly the case. What we see is that most barriers to diversity management actually emerge at the level of the line manager. So employees might learn about an organization's policies and practices during training or during the socialization process when they first join an organization. But what they learn there is tested against their day-to-day experiences, which are impacted or shaped by the line manager. And so it's really important that organizations focus on what these managers are or are not doing to promote inclusion. Ideally these behaviors should be part of the more general performance management system. There should be clear signals that managers are expected to engage in these behaviors as part of everyday management and that diversity and inclusion is not this add-on thing that they occasionally attend to. It's a way of managing employees on a day-to-day basis.

What are four ways that managers can promote inclusion?

Answer

Effective managers promote inclusion by (1) continually attending to inclusion dynamics; (2) clearly articulating norms and expectations related to inclusion; (3) role-modeling inclusive behaviors; and (4) holding others accountable for engaging in inclusive behaviors.

Manager Behavior — Fairness

As an immediate supervisor, the first thing to do is your own personal work; that is, take the time to identify and understand your own biases and prejudices. Subsequently, the supervisor should attend to certain themes in behavior. The first relates to fairness.

Manager Behavior — Cultural Integration and Differences

Whether or not employees feel safe and motivated to fully engage at work depends in part on the norms set by the manager's own behavior. Although all organizations focus on assessing and developing managers' task-related skills, knowledge, and abilities, many fall short when it comes to assessing and developing managers' social and relational skills.

Intersectionality

Key Points

Intersectionality refers to how your social identities interact and impact one another.

Everyone has different experiences with bias, discrimination, and inequity.

Intersectionality can be used to ensure your workplace is promoting equity, not just equality.

The concept of intersectionality was formally created by Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe the specific interactions of bias and discrimination in the experiences of Black women. Broadly, the concept is about how your social identities interact or intersect in various situations, resulting in being treated with privileges and/or bias. The idea is that the meaning of one social identity is dependent on one's other social identities as well as the power and privilege (or lack thereof) afforded by those identities. 

Intersectionality is a concept that's important for everyone to understand because it provides a framework for understanding how bias and discrimination appear in the world.

When you enter a room, you don't enter as just one social identity; you carry all of your social identities with you, whether they are visible or invisible to others. Your race, gender identity, sexuality, socioeconomic status, (dis)ability, religion, ethnicity, etc., impact your life at all times. Sometimes, that impact is direct and results in being treated with privilege or bias by others. Other times, that impact is indirect.

This is the basis of intersectionality. Because all of your social identities have an impact on you and how others perceive and treat you, the way your identities intersect can result in specific, unique experiences of bias and discrimination. Consider Dr. Crenshaw's specific example of bias and discrimination toward Black women. Black women experience sexism due to their gender identity and anti-Black racism due to their racial identity. Because social identities intersect, this means that Black women often face bias and discrimination stemming from both marginalized identities at once.

Intersectionality can also mean that someone's experiences of bias and discrimination are impacted by their privileged identities. For instance, a white woman can experience sexism in a workplace dominated by cisgender white men, but her experience will likely look different compared to a woman of color in that environment. Sometimes, the white woman will experience benefits from her whiteness in a majority white environment; for example, she may be paid less than cisgender white men in her role, but she may have a higher pay than the woman of color in her role. Individuals with multiple marginalized identities tend to be tokenized and/or perceived as more deviant from the normative group. 

Finally, intersectionality is also a key part of promoting equity in the workplace. Intersectionality shows that different employees may need different degrees of support, resources, and systemic change to reach a space of equity — even if they share the same marginalized social identity. Creating a culture of equity and belonging in the workplace cannot come from very broad change; it requires the specificity of intersectionality to be sustainable.

How do you bring intersectionality into the workplace?

While intersectionality is a complex topic with a lot of nuance, there are tangible ways you can use this concept to create an environment of inclusion, belonging, and equity. The first is that it provides a reminder to pause and recognize that not all individuals who share a social identity can be assumed to have experienced similar levels of privilege and marginalization. Applying intersectionality results in greater empathy for the experiences of others and allows you to better identify bias and discrimination.

Here are some ways you can apply an intersectional approach to your work:

· Analyze organizational data using an intersectional lens. Look at how employees who are a part of multiple demographic groups compare in terms of compensation, growth opportunities, experiences of belonging and inclusion, and other metrics that can show inequity.

· Utilize intersectionality in programming for employee resource groups (ERGs), trainings, and other outlets meant to promote inclusion and belonging.

· Create long-term DEI goals with intersectionality in mind. Consider many different marginalized social identities and ensure that your goals do not tokenize any current or incoming marginalized employees.

· Scaffold intersectional resources and support for employees, such as formal mentorship initiatives and onboarding experiences, that promote an end-to-end culture of belonging and inclusion.

As with most DEI topics, this is only scratching the surface of intersectionality. You can learn more by reading Dr. Crenshaw's interview with Time magazine,  "She Coined the Term 'Intersectionality' Over 30 Years Ago. Here's What it Means to Her Today,"Links to an external site.  as well as her TED Talk,  "The urgency of intersectionality."Links to an external site.

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Assess the Sources of Inclusion

Ideally, inclusion is fully aligned and integrated across the organization, and that means at the organizational level, at the management level, and at the work-group level. What does this look and feel like to employees? In this module, you will examine and discuss your own experience with inclusion. You will read about what inclusion looks like to the individual employee and you will use helpful tools to assess inclusion at different levels. Finally, you will complete your course project, in which you report on your results and write a memo to your boss with your recommendations for improvements.

Organizational Level of Inclusion

If you are like many people, you focused on the variety of practices Company A uses to try to create a diverse work environment. At this point, what's important to recognize is that having these practices in place does not necessarily mean employees experience the organization as inclusive.

So the question that I asked you is whether or not you expect Company A or Company B to be more inclusive. Most people focus on the fact that Company A has a lot of diversity best practices or D&I best practices in place. And given that, it's easy to assume that Company A is probably more committed to diversity and inclusion issues. And that therefore, people might be able to expect that the company will invest more in their success, that they are more valued if they work for that organization, and probably that they'll experience some sort of pride for working for a company that has these best practices in place. And it's true that well-designed diversity and inclusion practices are indeed important and it's good for companies to have these practices in place. But the question is whether or not having these practices in place alone guarantees that employees will experience inclusion. It's important to keep in mind that these practices alone are often insufficient for promoting inclusion in all the different ways that we'll be talking about in this course. So I once heard somebody say that traditional diversity management is like counting numbers, whereas I think we can think about inclusion as making those numbers count. So a lot of these practices that had been in place for awhile, like targeted recruiting and having these mentoring programs and the like, help to attract people to an organization, help the organization to hire diverse employees. But they don't guarantee that the employees, once hired, once in the door, experience inclusion and end up staying with the organization. When inclusion, it requires is a fundamental shift in the organization's culture. It requires that there is a change in the way that people interact with each other at work such that traditional stereotypes can be debunked. And people can start to really interact in much more authentic ways, such that one's particular social category membership, like gender or race, ethnicity, or disability status, any of these social categories should no longer be predictive of how successful one can be within the organization, how integrated somebody feels within the organizational context. We'll talk a little bit more about these different definitions of inclusion but what I'm trying to point out to you here is the idea that these D&I best practices alone will not guarantee inclusion. In fact, there's some recent research by Alexandra Kalev and her colleagues that shows that these diversity practices that have been implemented by organizations for decades now are not actually successful at helping to increase representation at higher levels of the org

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