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Overview
In Beyond D&I, Kay Formanek brings her more than twenty years’ experience working with the world’s leading organizations to take diversity and inclusion into the strategic roadmap of the organization. Whether you’re a leader, HR practitioner, sponsor of a D&I initiative or an employee who wants to see your organization benefit from more inclusivity, the book equips you with the tools you need to develop the strategic case for diversity, craft a compelling narrative and chart a tailored roadmap to lock in diversity gains and close key performance gaps.
As well as two core anchor models—the Virtuous Circle and Integrated Diversity Model— the book features case studies, profiles of inclusive leaders, engaging and intuitive visuals and a wealth of evidence-based initiatives that you can start implementing today. With five essential elements and six core capabilities, the result is a definitive, holistic and practical guide that will help you convert your D&I initiatives into sustainable diversity performance.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9783030753351 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Springer International Publishing |
| Publication date: | 10/28/2021 |
| Edition description: | 1st ed. 2021 |
| Pages: | 308 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.00(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Setting the stage for a new leadership paradigm
Business leaders, scholars and politicians agree that we are facing a watershed moment in the history of our world. Organisations are required to anticipate and respond to fundamental changes stoked by the exponential role of technology (e.g. exponential growth in computing speed, 5G connectivity, exploding data storage capacity and deep learning artificial intelligence); highly connected financial and trade markets; and a pronounced consumer shift towards socially responsible consumption. Organisations need to consider their business footprint on a fragile world, for the traditional business model no longer serves a world that is overpopulated and where climate change systematically reduces habitable and productive land. The traditional business model has generated relative economic growth, but a significant portion of the world’s population lives in poverty and is at war.
A new leadership paradigm is required to successfully navigate an increasingly complex environment (VUCA: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous). Just as the environment is fluid, so are the capabilities of a leader fluid. Just as the traditional operating model of organisations requires adaptation, so do the capabilities of leaders require adaptation.
Specifically, future sustainability for organisations requires a 360-degree view on complexity (through cognitive diversity), the ability to create conditions for transformative innovation (enabled by inclusiveness), and a strategic narrative that inspires, energises and unites efforts (expressed through purpose).
At the global-level, diversity and inclusiveness are found in the UN Resolution (The Future We Want), which contains 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in an effort by the UN to create a comprehensive plan of action to build a global partnership for sustainable development to improve human lives and protect the environment. The future we want supposes a global interconnectedness of economics, social issues and the environment – and realising it requires diversity, inclusiveness and purpose.
Organisations are inspired by this global SDG blueprint and are driven to incorporate these SDGs into their purpose, their strategy and their operational measures (ESG) by their stakeholders, who increasingly adhere to SDG goals, including assessing organisations based on how they treat their employees, their environment and their community. This creates the conditions for a virtuous and reinforcing circle between diversity, inclusion and purpose.
Leaders at the helm of organisations need to respond to these new organisational conditions with new capabilities and a new leadership approach. Specifically, leaders need to authentically embody and express their own diversity and inclusive leadership and purpose as they connect and unite their teams and organisation through the shared pursuit of organisational purpose.
Chapter 2: Introducing the Virtuous Diversity, Inclusiveness and Purpose (DIP) Circle
This chapter describes the evolution of the terms and meaning of diversity, inclusive leadership and purpose and their mutual influence and impact, presented via the Virtuous DIP Circle. It also addresses the interplay between diversity, inclusiveness and purpose.
Diversity means having a seat at the table. Inclusiveness means making sure voices are heard at the table. Purpose is having different voices aligned around a common intent. And bias is the reason why some seats at the table are provided to the same people and why some people are listened to more than others.
An example of what is covered in the chapter: Diversity encompasses inherited dimensions of diversity (such as race and gender both tightly associated with systemic social disadvantages) and also acquired dimensions of diversity (such as work experience) that together result in expanded cognitive diversity. How diversity is defined is how it is led. This means that acquiring and nurturing a rich understanding of diversity and how it links back to organisational performance is critical. With this richer framing of what diversity means to an organisation, the diversity gap, with reference to the organisational journey, can be defined.
FIGURE1: Proprietary Virtuous Circle Diagram
Chapter 3: Putting the Virtuous DIP Circle to work
This chapter enables leaders to apply the Virtuous DIP Circle within their organisation by leading a strategic assessment of the level of environmental complexity, the associated transformation journey their organisation faces, and their gaps in the Virtuous DIP Circle. The leader is given the tools to identify gaps in diversity, inclusiveness and purpose vis-a-vis their external environment. This Chapter also dwells on the movements in 2020 around COVID-19 and the #BLM offering case studies and examples on how organisational leaders can raise their voices and that of their organisation to support their societal purpose.
FIGURE 2: Proprietary Virtuous DIP Circle Assessment
Chapter 4: Introducing the Integrated Diversity Model
The Virtuous DIP Circle creates a compelling strategic narrative for the organisation vis-a-vis its external environment. The Virtuous DIP Assessment provides the leader with an understanding of the gaps allows the leader to power their transformational journey by capitalizing on their Virtuous DIP Circle within the belly of their organisation. This is done by way of applying the Integrated Diversity Model. The model comprises six critical intervention areas that need to be acted upon in an integrated manner, so that the strategic narrative is fulfilled by tapping into the power of diversity and inclusion.
1. The first intervention area is about extinguishing implicit bias and talent blind spots that lead to a homogeneous talent pool and reduce the richness of talent and its perspectives to support the realisation of the strategic narrative.
• The second intervention area is to develop a clear case for diversity and inclusion that goes beyond the traditional business case that only was expressed across all levers of business performance. The new case for diversity and inclusion is wedged in the societal case and the Sustainable Development Goals. Organisations that are truly operating in accordance with these values can then benefit through the more traditional business case levers.
• The third intervention area is to build inclusive leadership as a key organisational capability so that leaders are groomed not only to lead the diversity agenda, but also to practice day-to-day diversity leadership through their values, behaviours and actions. The fourth intervention area is to re-engineer systems, processes and prools such that diversity and inclusion are maximally supported and magnified to realise the strategic narrative.
• The fifth intervention area is to upgrade diversity metrics so that diversity is measured not only by demographics, but also by engagement and leadership profiles and attributes. The sixth intervention area is to celebrate and augment the diversity and inclusion initiatives and to evaluate to what degree the strategic narrative has been enabled by these initiatives.
This chapter not only introduces the Integrated Diversity Model, but also ratifies the strategic efficacy of the model through sharing the latest research validation and illustrating how the model has been applied in varied forms within organisations.
FIGURE 3: Proprietary Integrated Diversity Model
Chapter 5. Assessing your diversity and inclusion initiatives against the Integrated Diversity Model
Over the past 50 years, there has been an increasing focus on realising diversity in society, by legalizing out discrimination, supporting affirmative action in the 1960s, creating a compelling business case for diversity, and holding CEOs and boards accountable for achievement within organisations and through quotas in many nations.
Despite this focus on diversity in society, many companies still treat diversity as a side-pillar and 75% of organisations have not been able to convert their focus on diversity into results and many have hit a ceiling.
The barriers include a lack of embedding diversity into the transformational journey and leaders who don’t walk-the-talk of inclusive diversity; the failure to comply with legal regulations and industry diversity-linked codes; the inability to capture the hearts and minds of the organisation, resulting in a lack of engagement and “divided diversity”; and finally, lack of supporting systems and processes that operationalise diversity and inclusion initiatives and deliver the desired performance.
The authors provide a strategic way for leaders to assess the way that diversity and inclusion initiatives are currently embedded in their organisation (their organisational typology). This is by way of the Diversity and Inclusion Typology Framework. Through this Typology Framework they can discover where the axis of the Diversity and Inclusion initiatives reside in their organisation and envisage how to re-configure and re-enforce new and current initiatives so as to assure effectiveness of an overall integrated effort.
The Typology Framework reveals whether the organisation treats diversity and inclusion strategically or operationally and whether diversity and inclusion initiatives are focused more on external compliance or on capturing the engagement and support of its people. It is when organisations are able to drive their initiatives strategically and operationally, with compliance and with the hearts of employees, that there is a sweet spot of diversity performance that creates magnified and sustainable diversity performance.
However, there are usually one or more blind spots within an organisation, which results in the organisation placing more emphasis on one or more dimensions to the exclusion of the others, consequently undermining diversity performance.
An analysis of companies reveals a certain typology of diversity initiatives that occurs:
1. Compliance Focus (focus on metrics and quotas, but little focus on inclusion and people)
2. Soft Focus (focus is mostly on inclusion and people engagement, often heavily driven by HR, but lacks the strategic focus and initiative to measure diversity like a business)
3. Missionary Focus (there is genuine commitment to diversity by the CEO and board, but it is not operationalised in the organisation)
4. Disparate Focus (there are many disparate initiatives, often from within the organisation itself, but they lack strategic sponsorship)
During the Typology assessment, the following questions are addressed:
1. How has the focus on diversity changed within your organisation?
2. Which diversity initiatives get the most attention?
3. Do you recognise yourself in one of the Typology Types?
4. Can you provide characteristics and examples for each typology in your organisation?
5. What typology is most important for your organisation, given your strategic narrative and your transformational journey?
6. Why is there no integrated view, and what opportunities are being missed by having a fragmented view?
7. What are the key immediate actions that would allow the organisation to build an integrated program?
8. What is the role of your board in supporting you to achieve an integrated focus within your organisation?
FIGURE 4: Proprietary Diversity and Inclusion Typology Framework (comprises 4 figures for each typology type)
Chapter 6: Surfacing implicit bias that negates the Virtuous DIP Circle’s benefits
The ability to reap the benefits of the Virtuous DIP Circle and its related journey is deeply compromised by the automatic, restricted lens of leadership. System 1 is a catchphrase for the host of implicit bias, cognitive bias, and automatic and stereotypical thinking that leadership unwittingly exhibits as it attempts to put the Virtuous DIP Circle to work. It is important to recognize that the restricted lens of leadership is a feature of human survival and has its seeds in the hard-wiring of humans, from birth through a process of biological development (with its roots in neuroscience), and is a feature of the world we live in, where there is strong interaction between societal norms, values and roles and the decisions leadership makes. The biological and social hard-wiring causes the most fervent leaders of the Virtuous DIP Circle to be unwittingly waylaid in their pursuit of the dynamics required to deliver its benefits. Leadership requires not only awareness of the limitations of their lens, but also support from rituals, practices and behaviours that create an environment wherein the results of their leadership efforts become effective.
Neuroscience has provided a perspective on why this is: it is our hard-wiring. Although it has been critical to our survival for the past 10,000 years, this hard-wired and lazy default of in-group and out-group thinking creates barriers to entry and the nourishment of diverse talent. Furthermore, we are characterized by System 1 and System 2 thinking, and this creates lazy and default thinking (i.e. stereotyped thinking) when we are under stress and making talent decision. These are talent blind spots.
FIGURE 5: Proprietary Adapted Implicit Bias Codex
Chapter 7: Moving beyond the traditional business case for diversity and inclusion
This chapter sets out both the societal case for diversity (forged on the principle of equality) and the business case for diversity in your organisation.
Societal Case
Moving beyond the traditional business case means leading the conversation with the social case (‘the right thing to do’) first instead of the traditional business case levers. Increasingly CEOs are motivated to develop diversity because it’s the right thing to do, and it’s good for society. Moreover getting stuck in the statistics of the business case will delay the real work from happening.
For organizations looking to increase the representation of severely underrepresented social groups, communicating messages about their commitment to fairness and equality is crucial. However, as representation increases, the organization might think about shifting diversity communication to valuing and appreciating social group differences.
Business Case
Ever since the BOLD initiative in the 1990s, there has been formidable research attempting to prove the correlation between diversity and performance. This business case has been built mainly on demographics (e.g. diversity performance related to gender, race and age) and surfaced the genuinely accepted levers for performance in our society and within organisations.
These business case levers include the following:
1. Increased bottom line performance, such as ROE and ROI
2. Increased customer congruence
3. Increased innovative capability and creativity
4. Increased talent pool
5. Increase employee engagement and wellness of people
6. Increased access to networks and information
Of the 6 key business case levers identified above, there is causal* research evidence supporting business case levers 3 and 6. There is correlational* evidence supporting business case levers 1, 2, 4 and 5.
Organisations also struggle to develop a business case for their organisation and are unable to fully articulate how diversity and inclusion investments and initiatives translate directly to the fulfilment of their strategic narrative, support their transformational journey and yield bottom-line benefits.
Leaders are presented with a compelling view of what constitutes a moral and business case for diversity and inclusion initiatives illustrated by the latest research and case studies of organisations that have finely tuned their business case to their context, purpose and transformational journey.
FIGURE 6: Proprietary Societal and Business Case for Diversity
Chapter 8: Creating an inclusive leadership capability
This chapter explores inclusiveness as a capability, the characteristics of inclusive leaders, and what constitutes the actions, metrics and behaviours of inclusive leaders.
Research has confirmed (ref. Stefano et al.) that only when teams are diverse and they are supported by inclusive leaders do abnormal positive benefits accrue to diverse teams. Within organisations where diversity is pursued for the benefit of window-dressing and where managers suppress diversity, those diverse teams deliver abnormal negative performance relative to the homogeneous teams. This research is not widely known and is not often talked about, which has created a sense that by simply adding diversity to a team, one can deliver on the societal and business case for diversity.
The reason inclusive leadership is so important is that diverse voices need to be not only invited to the table, but also encouraged to speak and be heard. These outcomes of being invited and being heard are facilitated by leaders who are able to create an environment of respect and support for diversity and to sponsor diversity initiatives. Inclusive leaders create workplace dignity and are regarded as stewards of the values of diversity and inclusiveness.
Further research highlights that there is no more impactful manner to create an inclusive environment than through the behaviour, practices and actions of inclusive leaders, for these leaders create a culture-in-motion and are emulated for being fine diversity and inclusion leaders.
Research and experience also confirm that the Inclusive Leadership Capability is one of the most important capabilities for organisations that wish to navigate a complex world and where inclusive leadership is impressed in all the organisation’s leadership processes, including the assessment of leaders as inclusive leaders and the manner whereby inclusive leaders are rewarded.
FIGURE 7: Proprietary Inclusive Leadership Capability Assessment
Chapter 9: Embedding diversity and inclusion in the belly of your organisation
Given that the hard-wiring of people – leaders included – is difficult to adjust, the best method for creating an inclusive environment is to develop rituals, processes and structures which constantly serve as a reminder for why diversity is important and to de-bias processes within the employee life cycle. This chapter deals with the manner through which senior leaders in an organisation can ensure that the strategic narrative for diversity and inclusion are cascaded within the belly of the organisation.
This chapter also addresses rituals and practices that can be adopted by the chair of board, executive board members, the CEO and other senior leaders so as to send an important signal to other leaders and the organisation about their personal commitment to and support of diversity and inclusion.
Rituals, practices and policies for pioneering organisations in diversity and inclusion are listed and compared to those in less mature organisations. These pioneering rituals, practices and policies are natural candidates for being cascaded into the belly of the organisation.
Pointers are given to senior leaders regarding the type of interventions that should be initiated by practitioners in their organisation to review and de-bias the talent-touching processes. The specific operational actions are dealt with in the Practitioner Handbook, which will be published as a separate book.
FIGURE 8 : Proprietary List of Highly Effective Interventions for Leadership of Diversity and Inclusion
Chapter 10: Formulating relevant diversity and inclusion metrics
Since the early 1950s, the focus on and measurement of diversity have largely been at the demographic level, with specific focus on gender, race, age and sexual identity. The measurement of demographics is largely targeted to the senior levels of the organisation (e.g. the percentage of women on a board) in aggregate and still largely dominates the measurement of most diversity programs.
However, pioneering organisations are demanding a richer view on their diversity and inclusion interventions by attempting to measure additional aspects, such as new dimensions of diversity (e.g. work specialisation) at all levels of the organisation as well as measuring critical contributors to diversity performance, such as the engagement of their people, the presence of inclusive leadership, the return on diversity investments, and the realisation of the societal and business case levers for diversity and inclusion.
This chapter proposes a formula by which a 360-degree view on the state of diversity and inclusion can be measured, thereby better supporting the realisation of the strategic narrative for diversity and inclusion and its contribution to realising performance goals.
FIGURE 9: Proprietary Diversity and Inclusion Measurement Formulae
Chapter 11: Celebrating and diversity and inclusion
The first chapter of the book painted a picture of the changing context for organisations. Next, the case was made that a Virtuous DIP Circle powers organisations that wish to navigate this external complexity and deliver on a new paradigm in which organisations strive to be strong in a sustainable and SDG-linked world.
A dynamic environment requires an agile and dynamic Virtuous DIP Circle, resulting in an expanded strategic narrative. Consequently, the Integrated Diversity Model is also dynamic. Thus, diversity and inclusion is not a project nor a program, but a journey – and the journey does not end, because the context and the transformational agenda of the organisation are never constant. Given that reality, the journey needs to be seen in waves and celebrated per wave, and the learnings need to be distilled, shared and celebrated.
This chapter explains to leadership what constitutes external and internal recognition that is at the origin of well-deserved celebration.
The chapter also provides best practices for leadership rituals and practices that sustain and renew the Virtuous DIP Circle and seed the reinforcement and enrichment of the Integrated Diversity Model interventions.
FIGURE 10: Proprietary Diversity and Inclusion Recognition Score Card
Chapter 12: Summary of strategic interventions for the leader and their organisation to put the Integrated Diversity Model to work
This chapter concludes the book by offering the leader a way forward to encapsulate the learnings and reflections in strategic yet practical interventions that allow them to serve as a strategic leader of diversity and inclusion and to translate their vision to an actionable way forward for those who will operationalise these efforts within the organisation.
This chapter also makes the case that successful leadership incorporates leadership of self (i.e. the leader), leadership of the team and the leadership of the organisation. Consequently, the chapter creates an inventory of personal, team and organisational interventions that have an impact by creating reinforcing mechanisms for realising the Virtuous DIP CircleWhat People are Saying About This
“The business case for diversity is now established beyond doubt. Unilever believes in the power of diversity to drive stronger business outcomes. Kay’s book is based on the latest well-researched insights on the subject. The resulting model complements a traditional approach to Diversity and Inclusion with the need to also factor-in Equity, Purpose, and Leadership. It is a practical guide to the Why?, What?, and How? of turning diversity into a source of high performance in organisations.”
Alan Jope, Chief Executive Officer, Unilever PLC
"Beyond D&I provides practical tools for business leaders who hold these values and strive to integrate them throughout their organizations.
Kay Formanek shares her global perspective and experience through a narrative accessibly grounded in research findings. Her vision is to guide readers through a D&I journey, empowering them as change agents within and beyond their organizations."
Zoe Kinias, Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour, INSEAD
“Kay shares a wealth of insights that frame diversity and inclusion as a business imperative as well as a deeply human one. She makes a compelling, multi-dimensional business case for the journey required to lead diverse teams so we can all do our part in navigating the world’s overwhelming complexities. We need courageous leaders to take on this challenge and commit to advancing diversity and inclusion with leadership and purpose in their organizations and in society. Kay’s book takes the dialogue and understanding to a new level.”
Jill Ader, Chairwoman, Egon Zehnder
“Kay is a bright star in the world of diversity, inclusion and belonging. Working with her for years in Aberkyn has been a treat. She always surprises me with her evidence-based insights, inspires me with her soft-spoken style of facilitation, and raises the bar for me on how to apply it pragmatically every day in business. It is great she now captured her ideas and method in this book, to make them accessible for all of us”.
Arne Gast, Senior Partner McKinsey & Company, leader of the People & Organizational Performance Practice across Asia-Pacific, and co-founder of Aberkyn