How can your organization build an environment that promotes teamwork and collaboration among a diverse group of people?

How do you deal with someone who has a different perspective from yours?

Join Annemarie Shrouder, the foremost expert on issues about diversity and equity, as she talks about the power of inclusion and its value in making diversity work in an organization.

She’ll discuss about the importance of “bringing down your blinders” while acknowledging the fact that each of us have unique perspectives. She’ll tackle the challenges of changing the culture of an organization while accommodating inclusion in the workplace. Finally, she’ll reveal the value of bringing something more into the workplace by embracing your uniqueness.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How did Annemarie start working on diversity and inclusion.
• The power of inclusion and what it means.
• What is “insider/outsider” status and how it relates to work performance.
• How to take care of gender diversity in such a way that women get the feeling of inclusion especially in a male dominated industry.
• How to help people raise awareness about their own biases or “lens” that create/sustain barriers to inclusion.
• What makes trainings and workshops effective in promoting an inclusive environment inside an organization.
• The challenges of changing the culture in an organization.

Tweetables:

• Inclusion isn’t just a thing that matters to kids. Inclusion matters to everybody.
• The value of inclusion is to create a space for people to share, collaborate and have their voices heard.
• Unless we become aware of how we see the world, we can’t facilitate inclusion environment.
• If we can push ourselves out of our comfort zone just a little bit, that’s where learning takes place.

Big Takeaways:

• An inclusive environment is where people feel valued and acknowledged for who they are and what they can bring to their position or job.
• People who feel they don’t belong (an outsider) are not as engaging or as productive like the other members of an organization. Thus, it undermines their sense of worth and self-esteem.
• Putting down your biases lets you recognize that people don’t operate like you do. By doing so, you create an opportunity for others to be more engaged and free to become who they are.
• Perspective makes a big difference. And by welcoming different perspectives, we would be able to reach more people, communities and clients.
• Even though companies get the value of inclusion in training and workshops, it takes time, commitment and continual support to install the changes needed to move the culture in a positive direction. In most cases, it requires changing of the guard to accommodate inclusion into the organization’s culture.
• The biggest challenge is to realize that something that works for you doesn’t necessarily works for everybody.

Related Links & References:

• Annemarie Shrouder’s website: annemarieshrouder.com
• “The School that Equity Built”: http://www.etfo.ca/shopetfo/pages/default.aspx

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