Specific Ideas on Managing for Inclusion
In a previous post, I made the case that creating a team or organization culture that is inclusive starts with having core management routines that are inclusive. Here, I describe some of the specific ideas to execute on that.
First things, first.
Before engaging in a journey toward greater inclusion, I would encourage you to be more specific about what you mean. You might take a few minutes to answer these questions:
What does “inclusion” mean to me?
What would be the benefits of having greater inclusion?
Defining Success
One way to help convert your intention to be more inclusive to action is to define what it would look like in reality. Ask yourself: What specific behaviors would be evident if my team were inclusive?
Based on your answer, you can then set objective standards for how you’ll evaluate if the team is inclusive. Some examples, for inspiration:
Almost everyone talks or makes a contribution in our team meetings
Ideas come from all parts of the team, including partners
As the team leader, I get unsolicited, constructive feedback regularly
New people joining the team report that they are coming up to speed quickly
When biased language is spoken or “bad” behavior occurs, someone on the team calls it out or objects
For each team meeting, the invitation list includes all of the people who might contribute valuably or find value from the meeting
Measuring and Tracking Inclusion
The objective standards above will be instructive, but they will not necessarily tell the whole story. After all, inclusion is about a feeling that individuals have. To understand those feelings, you’ll have to ask team members.
My recommendation is to convert your answer to What does “inclusion” mean to me? and the objective benchmarks into specific statements that team members would agree with if the team were truly inclusive.
Then, include questions like those below in a team experience survey.
“Please state how much you agree or disagree with the following statements.”
I am comfortable speaking up in team meetings.
On our team, it’s OK to express an alternative perspective from everyone else.
On our team, ideas are evaluated based on their merit rather than from whom they come.
I have received development-focused feedback from other team members recently.
I feel valued.
My contributions are recognized.
I know what’s going on.
I feel like part of the team.
When doing this, it’s not even necessary to tell the team that your intention is to measure inclusion. Instead, it can be a part of an ongoing effort to help the team perform more effectively.
And in fact, the very act of soliciting team members' perspectives on team dynamics—and then creating discussion about it—is already a step toward greater inclusion. That’s even more the case when you ask them to define what a healthy team would mean to them and then frame the experience survey relative to that definition.
Inclusive Problem Solving
Inclusive problem solving is just quality problem solving. It’s more robust, it helps raise dependencies and issues faster, and it helps everyone feel invested in the solutions. Put another way: it helps get results.
There are many ways to have collective problem solving—e.g., regular deep dives, strategy retreats, “Big Debate” Meetings. But however you do it, the main idea is this: ask your team members what they think.
Doing that effectively implies:
Creating space for team problem solving
Inviting everyone to the space
Providing ways to submitting ideas for those who cannot make it
What you shouldn’t do is take the problem solving burden onto your own shoulders, come up with conclusions, and then communicate them to others. It’s bad for getting the right solutions, and it’s bad for inclusion.
Inclusive Team Forums
One way to include others is through inviting the right people to your team’s core problem solving and planning meetings. This can be important both for getting timely input that helps you arrive at better solutions and for everyone feeling aligned to those solutions.
A step you can take right now: look at the invitation list for your existing team meetings and ask yourself the following. Who is missing? Who could provide a valuable perspective? Whom do we rely on to execute decisions that we make in each meeting?
Use the answers to help you identify opportunities for greater inclusion.
You might also consider special forums that bring together people across functions (e.g., Fix-It Week, Five Whys meetings).
Inclusive Information Sharing
It’s pretty hard for team members to feel included if they don’t know what’s going on. In my experience, some cultures restrict information because of norms of secrecy, but this is shortsighted. Sam Walton wrote about the value of transparency in his rules for running a successful company:
“RULE 4: COMMUNICATE everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they’ll understand. The more they understand, the more they’ll care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them. If you don’t trust your associates to know what’s going on, they’ll know you don’t really consider them partners. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.”
— Sam Walton: Made in America, p. 315
More often the lack of information sharing is not intentional. It’s simply because the leader doesn’t step back to think about what information team members really want and why.
There are many easy ways to share information more broadly, including:
Taking 5 minutes to email the main takeaways from team meetings
Creating shared electronic spaces where people can track information and projects
Creating physical spaces where people can see projects (e.g., Kanban Boards)
Doing project updates in a public forum (e.g., sharing weekly Snippets by email or Slack)
Inclusive Team Activities
For many people, a big part of their feeling of inclusion has to do with how comfortable they feel with the people they work with most. As a leader, there are many team activities that can help build these relationships. Some examples:
Coffee Time. “We have many rituals. One is something called coffee time: every day at 4 o’clock, in every one of our studios around the world, everybody stops and they have the opportunity to go into the kitchen and people just socialize.” — Doreen Lorenzo of Frog Design in a NY Times Corner Office interview
“I Feel…”. Start your weekly or daily kickoff with each person stating how they're feeling. As the team leader, you will need to model the openness you want to see (and may need to provide an example list of emotions!). This nudges team members to share what's going on in their lives outside of work.
Alternative “I Feel…”. Instead of sharing specific feelings, ask team members to rate how they’re feeling on a scale (e.g., 1 to 10, -3 to 3). It can be easier for some people to share this way than to name a specific emotion..
Weekend Reports. Start your weekly team kickoff with everyone sharing stories from the weekend. Make sure you have enough time so that it is not rushed. This enables people to share their personalities and interests outside of work. As the team leader, model the openness that you want from others.
All the activities above are designed to create spaces in which team members can share more about themselves, which helps them form authentic bonds. What’s important as the team leader, however, is that you should not force sharing. And if you’re just starting to do this kind of team building, it may take time to everyone to feel comfortable.
Finally, a note on team fun activities.
These excursions out of the office are a stand-by of team-building efforts, but they can be ineffective if not designed well. Specifically:
Design for interaction. It’s not just about having fun next to each other, but fun with each other. That’s the difference between, say, a baseball game (lots of time to talk to each other while watching the game) and a movie (all watching the same thing, but cannot talk).
Be inclusive when picking activities. It’s not that every team event has to be extremely fun for every team member. It’s more that collectively they reflect interests. One can avoid bias in selecting activities by starting your list of options by asking team members what would interest them. At minimum, avoid delegating this task to a small group of team members who don’t reflect the wider team.
Be inclusive when scheduling. Make sure team social events are accessible in time and space for all team members. That is, schedule them during normal business hours. For example, parents may not be able to make the happy hour that starts at 5:30, but they might be able to attend one that starts at 4pm. Or they could make an evening event with enough notice to arrange childcare.
Final Reflection Questions
After reading this, I would encourage you to think more about how you might implement greater inclusion on your team.
To what extent are my current team routines inclusive or exclusive?
If I look at the invitation lists for my core meetings, who is being left out?
What barriers does my team have to greater inclusion currently?
What behaviors must I display to set a tone for inclusion?
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I'm happy to talk more about this.
I’d welcome any thoughts or ideas you have! And I’m certainly willing to talk more about anything that would be useful to you.
Additional Resources
Synthesis of diversity and inclusion research
Blog Post: Leading Inclusively
Blog Post: Strategies for Interrupting Bias
Blog Post: How Business Leaders Can Support Equity...Right Now