A Story of Inclusion
The words diversity, equity and inclusion are today’s hottest business buzzwords , and of course smashed together in today's "DEI" landscape. But the real question is, is their meaning making its way into the daily actions of your people?
Inclusion is simply the invitation to join.
Today, I want to share a story of inclusion. Inclusion is simply the invitation to join – join a project, join a meeting, join a conversation, join in any effort. You can't force someone to say yes to an invitation, but you can always invite them. You also need to create the conditions that would make their 'yes' more likely. (Learn more about psychological safety here)
I facilitated an executive team's off-site retreat a while back. We had three nights of dinners. Each night we did a sharing exercise from Priya Parker's book, The Art of Gathering, called 15 Toasts. Each team member shared a personal story based on the theme from our work that day
While the first two dinners included just the executive team, the final night's dinner was opened up to guests. This included spouses and friends, as well as an employee who happened to live in the area.
When the dinner prompt was given, everyone was invited to take a turn. For the guests, it was encouraged but clearly framed as optional.
The stories shared that night were about personal missions. I wanted people to share why they did the work they did, and what drove them at the deepest level.
There were sixteen guests, and throughout the evening, to my amazement, everyone shared, including a friend who was tagging along, and even a quiet spouse. The stories shared by both team members and those outside the team were personal, touching, and sometimes heart-wrenching -- stories of cancer, death, family, love.
While I know how to foster this for teams, I cannot tell you exactly why the extra guests felt compelled to share that evening, because I never had a chance to ask them. Though if I had to guess, I would say it's for a few reasons.
Number one, they were explicitly invited to share, but also not pressured to. They simply felt included.
Number two, they could see that the deep listening around the table would be a gift to them.
And finally, number three, they understood (intuitively if not consciously) that their story would give something to the group in return, because they had felt that when they were receiving others' stories.
The next day at our final team-building session, I remarked to the team: if you're wondering what inclusion actually looks like, THAT was inclusion, right there.
