How to become truly inclusive

A model for inclusion

We see, hear and read much about workplace inclusion. As this is National Inclusion Week here in the UK, I’m sure we’ll be seeing a proliferation of content circulating about what inclusion is and the benefits to organisations.

Grasping the concept isn’t hard, what’s elusive is understanding what’s involved in becoming more inclusive and supporting others to contribute to an inclusive culture. That is why posts with ‘three, five, seven tips (or any other number) to becoming more inclusive’, while useful, fail to provide broader context around what it takes for someone to become truly inclusive.

So, I started doing a little digging. And when I couldn’t readily find what I was looking for, I started doing a little thinking. And that led to some deep thinking and some even deeper conversations about what’s involved in becoming someone that embodies, creates and maintains inclusivity. The outcome is the inclusivity model that follows.

This model is grounded in Liebfrog’s many conversations and years of work with professionals wanting to develop the courage and skills they need to lead with clarity and decency - of which inclusivity is an integral part.

Visualising inclusivity

We identify three touchpoints (circles), reached by journeying through three phases (arrows), that are fundamentally important to thinking, and behaving inclusively.

The trigger
Ignition points are different for each of us, but there’s often an external trigger that sparks our interest - illuminating something we haven’t seen before. Something that exposes a hidden bias or challenges our world view. Before this ignition point, we don’t know what we don’t know.

A poignant trigger in recent memory was the murder of George Floyd, which ignited mass protests around the world. But our triggers can be far more personal and closer to home, for example a piece of feedback, the results of an employee engagement survey or an event in our personal life.

I recently worked with a male client whose trigger followed the birth of his daughter. He suddenly noticed barriers that existed for her but that he’d never seen or experienced himself.

Sharing his experience, he compared it to a race, where once the starting gun is fired the boys’ track remains clear, while the girls’ track becomes littered with hurdles.

Touchpoint 1: Activated Awareness

His daughter’s birth was the trigger that activated this client’s awareness and marked the start of a journey of discovery about gender bias, injustice and inequality.

Once we become aware of something, we can’t become unaware. As former Facebook Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, said: “We cannot change what we are not aware of and once we are aware we cannot help but change.”

For when someone or something triggers our awareness, most of us can’t resist the call of curiosity. It’s this call that sets in motion a chain of events that can develop, enhance and change the way we think, feel and act to becoming inclusive.

Phase 1: Noticing

The first phase in that chain of events is ‘noticing’.

It’s like buying a car:

We do some research.
We decide on the make and model.
Then we spot loads of them all around.

Of course, those cars were always there - it’s just that we’ve activated our awareness so notice more of them.

It works the same way for inclusion. Once we have become aware of something we previously hadn’t seen we notice it everywhere. Not because it wasn’t there before, but because we have now started paying attention and noticing.

Touchpoint 2: Acknowledgement

It’s at this point that we start to acknowledge something has changed for us. And it’s usually here that we admit there’s something we’ve been missing that requires rectifying and that we have a role to play in bringing about important change.

This is significant because it means we are now ready to start learning.

Phase 2: Acquiring

We now enter a phase of acquiring what we need to close our knowledge gap. This intentional learning can take many forms, from researching and reading, to formal training or coaching and everything in between. Anything that helps us acquire the insights, tools and skills we need to get to the next, most critical, touchpoint…

Touchpoint 3: Application

Let’s be honest, we can acquire all the knowledge in the world, but it’s only when we start applying it that we begin to truly grow our capacity. Transitioning from theoretical to practical isn’t easy, but it’s this third touchpoint where we need to invest most of our time and energy.

This is hard. It requires us to find the confidence to do things differently, challenge long standing ways of working (and views), and have more courageous conversations we might have previously shied away from.

It requires courage, vulnerability, humility, and, most importantly, the willingness to make mistakes. Because we surely will.

And applying what we know leads us into the final phase of our inclusion journey…

Phase 3: Practicing inclusion

Practice makes perfect.

This phase takes us to a place where we start thinking, speaking and behaving more inclusively by honing our newly acquired skills until they become easier and eventually second nature.

It also helps us recognise the cyclical nature of this process. We peel back the first layer of an onion, only to discover there’s more. In making steady progress, we discover there is yet more to learn – that the loop of self-awareness is the route to inclusivity. The more we discover, learn and implement, the more inclusive we become.

Your turn

In a nutshell this model shows how to visualise, plan and plot a way towards more inclusion. It often starts with a trigger. That sets in motion a cycle towards more inclusion with three touchpoints, Awareness, Acknowledgement and Application. We reach these touchpoints by journeying through three phases, Noticing, Acquiring and Practicing.

And while this model offers a helpful way to think about the process towards inclusion, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that the constant throughout is people – people who have the courage, confidence and conviction to challenge themselves to re-think, re-learn and re-act – because it’s ultimately people that change culture, not process. And so, if you or any of your team would like support to successfully navigate the journey towards inclusion, here’s a reminder of the model, accompanied by some of the ways Liebfrog can assist.

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