Equity Inclusion Leadership

21 March 2021

Article summary: let’s keep talking about inclusion while we address power imbalance in a structural manner.

I am a natural collector of things. Pets, friends, spices, cushions, vintage dresses – I want them all. Obviously I need to curtail my collecting for the benefit of paying our mortgage, and also for getting sleep (in my late 30s I am finally acknowledging I am someone who needs 9 hours kip to truly look after myself, and that means quiet evenings and fewer cats* to wake you up during the night). However I will always keep collecting peer reviewed scientific articles, and well-written and/or innovative links, for the rest of my life.

Today, if you wish to read them, I will share some of them with you. You can even scroll down right now and see what piques your interest – I don’t mind. After the links I give my two cents on how to embark on an Inclusion and Diversity journey.

You may or may not have noticed from my LinkedIn, I love peer-reviewed articles. I studied Chemistry and Psychology (Psych would have been my minor, if we had minors in NZ science degrees back in 2001). One day I will do my Masters in Organisational Psychology, and that will be a fun time for me, because I love peer-reviewed articles.

My raison d’être (reason to be) and my rapunga whakaaro (philosophy) is to keep always learning. My Gallup Strengthsfinder key strengths are learner, positivity, maximiser (I like to make projects go from good to great), developer (of people), and…. input. I collect things. I collect new concepts, novel artifacts, and different paradigms.

The internet makes us all pretty lazy. We’re always looking for the next cat gif, the next joke, the next shocking story about someone who was being silly and doing something we would NEVER do (there are psychological reasons for this, including perceived scarcity of time, and scarcity makes people act weird). We titter, share, move onto the next entertaining moment of our life.

Psychology, and specifically organisational psychology, suggests that underpinning all these entertaining moments we can, and I would argue should, focus on personal, organisational and structural change. I believe this with every molecule of my being – which is why I am sharing these links with you today. I won’t even ask you to pay me an hourly consultant rate to share this knowledge.

Some of these links are specific to a New Zealand context, but all of these links are worthwhile reading. Some may help you argue your point in a boardroom or a business case, some may be more suited to sharing with your organisational leaders, or policy-makers. You may even be able to learn enough to change careers to being a diversity and inclusion specialist, if you’re also a good writer, and a decent facilitator. We need more of us. If you are an Inclusion and Diversity specialist, reach out. I would like to chat.

• Maternity leave and parental leave
• Disability Responsive Training modules
• Women in Tech
• Women in the Workplace: Mental Health
• Iceland makes it illegal to pay men more than women
• Neurodiversity
• Inclusion nudges
• NZ – how parenthood continues to cost women more than men
• Recruitment and here
• Resources on maximising female talent from Ministry for Women
• Building Gender equality toolkit
• LGBTQIA+
• Why the typical performance management review is biased
• The role of psychological safety in D&I
• Hiring bias
• Multicultural teams: cross cultural approaches to time management
• A study used sensors to show men and women are treated differently at work
• Mentemia – the importance of a daily mental health plan video
• Is respect the new belonging?
• Shift your environment to shift behaviour

These links are stacked with policy first, because evidence suggests structural changes have a far lasting effect than unconscious bias training. I’m all for a conversation about historical power imbalances, but that isn’t unconscious bias training. Teaching people the human brain is biased without any strategies to address this at a structural level, is a waste of time and money. Start with your policies, your parental leave, your domestic violence policy (does it exist?), your flexible work policy.

Above all, revise your recruitment strategy and make sure ALL your job ads have inclusive language AND salary banding if at all possible. Those of us who aren’t historically in the ‘pale, stale, male, colonisalist’ camp (sorry white men), don’t know how much we’re worth. If you give us a salary band, we can say what we think we should get paid. Pulling a number out of thin air isn’t fair, and you’re going to need to spend a bunch of time standardising salaries at some point in the future when you realise you’re paying people a bunch of different sums for doing the same job.

Why not just have the contractor rate, salary value, or salary band on the job ad from the very get go, and only pay within the band – no negotiating?

After all of that, I would recommend working with a change project manager to nut out how you will start a conversation about power imbalances in society, and at work. Speaking power to truth. This is true facilitation, and you will need a facilitator with a strong background creating safe psychological spaces (see Amy Edmondson’s work in this field).

I have designed training that works to start a conversation. None of this will be fixed if we just talk about it forever.

If you found any of this helpful, please let me know on my LinkedIn.

* Please note, I said less cats, not no cats. We currently have two beautiful rescue cats who we love wholeheartedly. If you can adopt a shelter cat, please proceed to do so as soon as possible. You will not regret it. If you can’t adopt a pet, why not volunteer at your local shelter?

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