CHAPTER 9
Inclusion Is Intentional
We've all done it. We've asked a woman when her baby is due because she was a little heavier than when we last saw her, but she wasn't actually pregnant. We have asked how their son is doing because the child's hair is short, but that child is actually female. We view the world through our own perspectives without regard for how someone else may be experiencing things. We're taught to follow the golden rule of treating others how we would want to be treated. However, in the workplace as in life, we begin to learn that we should have been taught the platinum rule: treat others how they would like to be treated, rather than how we assume they want to be treated.
Accenture discovered that not everyone at their company felt included when they started the “Inclusion Starts with I” campaign. Ellyn Shook, Accenture's chief leadership and human resources officer, wanted to answer the question “Did our people really feel like they belong?” They decided to create an internal video that profoundly explored the question of inclusiveness. In the video, Accenture employees hold up signs with an experience of bias and as the video continues, employees hold up new messages that explain how each individual has the power to make others feel included.
Inclusion most definitely starts with “I” because it is very difficult to be inclusive when you are not open: open to new people, open to new ideas, open to different perspectives and new possibilities.
Being Open to New Possibilities
In my course on diversity recruiting, I discuss that when recruiters are screening candidates, after they've identified a potential candidate based on their resume but before they invite the candidate to a formal interview, they should stop themselves from rejecting a potentially great candidate because of a bias, and start the screening process by focusing in on the attributes that are required for the job. By maintaining the qualifications as the only criteria for rejection, there is less likelihood they will inadvertently eliminate someone because of a bias. When screening to include, rather than exclude, not only will the candidate pool be more diverse, but inclusion for the candidates overall will increase. If you've ever had quite a few diverse candidates in the candidate pool but none of them made it to the interview stage, this is why.
Practice Openness
Do you try new foods? Listen to different music? Have you learned another language? Do you travel outside the country? If inclusion starts with “I,” these activities will help you listen to and be open to ideas from others. Using connection requests on LinkedIn as an example, what's your personal acceptance policy? Do you only accept requests from people you know? I thought this sounded strange but was surprised to find that a number of individuals act from this philosophy. Which leads me to ask, “Why are you on LinkedIn?” If you only accept requests from people you know, are you simply using LinkedIn as a personal rolodex? And if so, does your personal philosophy change when you need to be connected to someone outside of your network? Do you then expect someone who has a much more open philosophy to connect you to someone you need to know and, if so, do you recognize the hypocrisy?
Inclusion Counts If You're Included
As open as I can be, I also recognize the benefits of joining a private club. I was invited to become a member of a club that requires a rather large initiation fee to join, as well as payment of monthly dues. There's a lot of socializing and networking happening in this club. Many of the members are businesspeople who use the club to obtain sales leads and close business deals.
There isn't anything wrong with being a member of a private club, but what is wrong is denying that members have privileges and advantages that are not accessible to others. Someone who would not have been invited to – let alone been able to afford to – become a member of a private club is at a disadvantage.
We tend to believe the best of ourselves and the worst of others. We assume we have achieved everything we have because we worked so hard, much harder than everyone else. But did we really? Sometimes what we achieved has been partly due to circumstance.
It's easier and more fulfilling to believe we worked hard and achieved than to believe that someone else worked just as hard, or perhaps even harder, and was still denied an opportunity. It doesn't make sense to us so we rationalize. And when we haven't felt it because it hasn't affected us, it is extremely difficult to digest.
Connections Matter: Not Everyone Is the Same and That's Okay
Inclusion requires us to consider other perspectives, to open our eyes to the plight of others and demonstrate empathy. We look at our own success in a positive light while downplaying the achievements of others. Have you ever thought that other people aren't doing as well because they aren't trying hard enough or working hard enough? Or have you acknowledged the good fortune that has crossed your own path prior to making a comparison? It's this perspective that can make it difficult to be inclusive because we believe the other person isn't deserving.
You've probably heard the expression about trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Think about our connection request philosophy on LinkedIn in relation to this idea. Society is the round hole and the square pegs are those people we exclude. If you find yourself asking the square pegs why they just can't seem to make it work and fit in as you have, it might be time to acknowledge they're not square pegs at all. You have simply perceived them that way and they could fit in if you let them.
The success of LinkedIn when we are open is supported by sociologist and Stanford professor Mark S. Granovetter. He published a paper titled “The Strength of Weak Ties” and a book titled Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers and persuasively demonstrates that weak‐tie networking is far superior to strong‐tie networking. A weak tie is easier to maintain, as on a social network. A weak tie could be a second‐ or third‐degree connection, but it could also be a first connection who is simply an acquaintance or someone you don't know very well.
When working to improve the diversity of our own networks, we have to be more open and utilize weak ties. In 2019, when LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner stepped down to focus on “advancing diversity, inclusion, and belonging at LinkedIn through continuing work on innovative recruiting practices, allyship and mentoring efforts, unconscious bias education, apprenticeship programs for people with non‐traditional backgrounds, and ongoing ERG support,” one of the things he admitted they needed to do was pay attention to the unintended consequences that may be caused by the LinkedIn platform.
He asks, “What happens if you have the aptitude, what if you have the skills, what if you have the grit, resilience, and growth mind‐set, what if you're exactly the person our organizations are looking to hire? What if you're a star talent but you didn't grow up in a high‐income neighborhood, didn't go to a top school, and you haven't worked for a top company?” What happens is some of you will never meet that person because your personal philosophy is to network only with people you already know.
Inclusion Can Be Learned
Inclusion is an intentional act, so consider a show called Through the Wormhole, hosted by Morgan Freeman. In the episode “Are We All Bigots?” a scientist demonstrated how we can actively include by using different strains of mice. Let's label them Strain A and Strain B.
Two mice were put into an area where part of the space was caged. There was a mechanism that the mice had been trained to use; when pressed, it would allow the trapped mouse out of the caged area. When two mice from Strain A were in the experiment, one would use the mechanism to let the other out of the cage. The same was true for the mice from Strain B. However, when a mouse from Strain A was put into the experimental area with a mouse from Strain B, they would not let each other out. They would bypass the mechanism and leave the other caged in.
The scientist then took mice from both Strain A and Strain B and socialized them together. At the end of their shared time together, she put a mouse from Strain A into the experimental area with a mouse from Strain B – one it hadn't been socialized with. The mouse from Strain A used the mechanism and let the new mouse from Strain B out of the cage. By socializing the mice, their behavior changed. They learned to include other mice they had previously excluded.
This shows that there is hope for us. We can learn inclusion. The culture of your organization, your quality of life, and your success as a leader is affected by your ability to socialize with others who are different than you, both in and out of work.
Actively Work Towards Inclusion
It's as simple as having lunch with someone different or asking someone new to work with you on a project. Spend a little time learning about views that differ from yours. If you can accept that we are all different, and agree to respect those differences rather than simply tolerate them, inclusion, rather than exclusion, will be your default.
What does your network look like? Is your personal and professional network homogenous? Do the people in your inner circle have the same religious beliefs? Are they all in the same socioeconomic class? Do they all look like you? Make a concerted effort to expand your network by including new people in your circle. Take deliberate steps to introduce yourself to individuals who are outside of your network, who are a different race, gender, socioeconomic status, or from a vastly different geographic region. The next time someone asks why your recruiting pipeline is devoid of a specific demographic, rather than say you don't know, take action to identify two or three individuals so that the next time, you can provide referrals rather than acceptance of the status quo.
Pepsi Falls Short with Ad
The business application can be demonstrated in what has been called the “worst ad ever,” created by Pepsi in 2017. As described by Teen Vogue:1
In the commercial, we see a blonde, bewigged Kendall [Jenner] in the midst of a photo shoot, while a protest takes place on the streets just steps away from where she is posing. As “Lions” by Skip Marley plays in the background, the camera cuts between the protesters, many of whom are artists. It's an inclusive crowd for sure, with people of all identities joining together to march with signs depicting the peace symbol.
As the ad continues, it becomes increasingly obvious that Kendall wants to join the marchers, and she even locks eyes with one of the protesters who nods at her as if to say, “Come on.” In the ad's climactic moments, Kendall removes her blonde wig, wipes the dark lipstick from her mouth, and filters into the crowd. She is seen approaching a line of police officers, and she hands one an ice‐cold can of Pepsi. There is a pause, and then the officer pops open the can, yielding cheers and applause from the protesters. The words “live bolder, live louder, live for now,” fill the screen as the ad comes to an end.
If you never actually saw the ad, you may want to read the Teen Vogue article because they did a fantastic job of explaining why the ad is tone deaf, exploitive, and insensitive. Late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel said out loud what nearly everyone was thinking: “The fact that this somehow made it through – I can't imagine how many meetings, and edits, and pitches, and then got the thumbs‐up from who knows how many people is absolutely mind‐boggling,” he said.
What every person of color was thinking, and correctly it appears, is that there couldn't have been a person of color with any authority anywhere near this project or the ad wouldn't have seen the light of day. There are six key people who are credited with creating the ad and, of course, all six are white. Inclusion could have prevented Pepsi from issuing the standard apology: “Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly, we missed the mark, and we apologize. We did not intend to make light of any serious issue.”
Tokenism and Inclusion
Tokenism can be the downfall of inclusivity. As defined by Oxford Languages, tokenism is the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of sexual or racial equality within a workforce.
If the creative team at Pepsi had included individuals of color, could this debacle have been avoided? I'd like to think the answer is yes. More nuanced is, if they had included more than one individual of color, would they have had the psychological safety needed to speak up and be heard in the meeting? Unfortunately, the answer there is probably no and if that's the case, it would be attributed to tokenism.
Examples of tokenism can be a lone woman in an office dominated by men or a Black person being offered the job of Chief Diversity Officer primarily or entirely to make an organization look fair. When you practice tokenism you harm the person, the company, and the overall field of diversity and inclusion because it is inauthentic. In a company where we conducted a gender audit, gender in senior leadership was a big issue because all of the women would leave right before they had the opportunity to be promoted or within the first year of being promoted. One example was a woman who was promoted to the executive table but was not afforded the responsibility of having actual direct reports. She was given an advanced title in name only, but with no real authority. Unsurprisingly, she left the organization.