Sustainable Strategy 1: Examining Absence, Bias and Inclusion for Human-Centric Human Resources
Three key foundations of a Sustainable HR/Human-centric approach are diversity, equity and inclusion. At the end of the article, I’ve listed a series of questions about absence, bias and participation to meaningfully start exploring those concepts.
This post is the first in a series of three this month exploring one of the key elements of Sustainable HR: a corporate strategy (including mission and values) that is truly rooted in an approach of inclusion, diversity and equity. This post focuses on the main assumptions behind this approach to developing strategy and explains why some companies decide to choose and invest in it.
INCLUSION There are often 3 key assumptions behind choosing an inclusive approach.
First, a main principle of inclusion assumes the wisdom of groups and democratisation of decisions. NESTA, the UK's innovation foundation, has invested and implemented this concept of the wisdom of groups throughout its organisation and decision making processes. Go here to read about how the wisdom of groups was used to predict what would happen with some of the key dates and events around Brexit.
Second, that the "top-down" approach to decision-making and strategy in organisations does not fully draw on the true experts and expertise available. Many of the people who often are finally responsible and accountable for decisions and strategy are professional managers rather than the experts who carry out the actual day-to-day tasks needed to fulfill their choices. While there are benefits to this type of orgnaisational hierarchy, it also means that sometimes there are gaps between strategy and reality.
Third, there is usually some sort of assumption related to engagement. Commonly this translates into trying to engage more employees and stakeholders by developing strategy through consultation but stops before really allowing "them" to make any decisions or truly sharing responsibility. Furthermore, people who have engaged in the consultation are often not part of the final drafting process or communicated specifcally with about how their input has had impact. A more inclusive process ensures that consultations are not just "for show" and that they have some sort of demonstrated and communicated impact on the final result.
DIVERSITY and EQUITY One of the main drivers behind choosing to expand and become more diverse and equitable in corporate strategy development is the recognition that many organisations, businesses and non-profits are staffed and run by people who come from a shared background or professional culture. This means that the people in charge of making decisions or strategy, even with the best will and accountability possible, often have the same assumptions and priorities. They will often even ask the same questions because they have been "trained" in a similar manner.
Using tactics to expand diversity and equity often helps balance this quite common tendency to similarity. By purposefully and consciously including a wider range of stakeholders in decision and strategy making processes, it not only avoids issues such as exclusion, cliques and blindspots, it opens up and builds upon a much broader range of knowledge, wisdom and experiences.
Perhaps, most importantly for many, it makes the invisible visible. For example, it can be quite obvious that many organisations and Boards are comprised of people of a similar age, gender, education or profession. Thus, when diversity is considered, many start by looking to enggage and include the "others". A truly diverse approach also examines the norm and how our "us" impacts decision and strategy as well.
Trying to focus on diversity and equity usually needs three parallel tactics: 1) Whose viewpoints and experiences and wisdoms are we missing that could be relevant to our decision and strategy making process? How can we compensate for or include them?
2) Based on the composition of our group that makes most of the decisions and strategy choices, what are our strengths likely to be as well as our inherent biases and gaps? How can we proactively create a decision and strategy making process that is built upon a recognition of our inherent biases as well as a foundation of diversity?
3) How can we truly engage more stakeholders in our organisation's decision and strategy making processes in order to share, balance and collaborate in a more equitable fashion? How can and do we want to be more equitable? Does this mean more collective or collaborative approaches, employee and stakeholder education or even shared ownership of information, decisions, resources/profits or even the company itself?
That's all for today. The next post will explore in more detail what the "steps" might be towards developing a strategy that is inclusive, diverse and equitable.
INCLUSION There are often 3 key assumptions behind choosing an inclusive approach.
First, a main principle of inclusion assumes the wisdom of groups and democratisation of decisions. NESTA, the UK's innovation foundation, has invested and implemented this concept of the wisdom of groups throughout its organisation and decision making processes. Go here to read about how the wisdom of groups was used to predict what would happen with some of the key dates and events around Brexit.
Second, that the "top-down" approach to decision-making and strategy in organisations does not fully draw on the true experts and expertise available. Many of the people who often are finally responsible and accountable for decisions and strategy are professional managers rather than the experts who carry out the actual day-to-day tasks needed to fulfill their choices. While there are benefits to this type of orgnaisational hierarchy, it also means that sometimes there are gaps between strategy and reality.
Third, there is usually some sort of assumption related to engagement. Commonly this translates into trying to engage more employees and stakeholders by developing strategy through consultation but stops before really allowing "them" to make any decisions or truly sharing responsibility. Furthermore, people who have engaged in the consultation are often not part of the final drafting process or communicated specifcally with about how their input has had impact. A more inclusive process ensures that consultations are not just "for show" and that they have some sort of demonstrated and communicated impact on the final result.
DIVERSITY and EQUITY One of the main drivers behind choosing to expand and become more diverse and equitable in corporate strategy development is the recognition that many organisations, businesses and non-profits are staffed and run by people who come from a shared background or professional culture. This means that the people in charge of making decisions or strategy, even with the best will and accountability possible, often have the same assumptions and priorities. They will often even ask the same questions because they have been "trained" in a similar manner.
Using tactics to expand diversity and equity often helps balance this quite common tendency to similarity. By purposefully and consciously including a wider range of stakeholders in decision and strategy making processes, it not only avoids issues such as exclusion, cliques and blindspots, it opens up and builds upon a much broader range of knowledge, wisdom and experiences.
Perhaps, most importantly for many, it makes the invisible visible. For example, it can be quite obvious that many organisations and Boards are comprised of people of a similar age, gender, education or profession. Thus, when diversity is considered, many start by looking to enggage and include the "others". A truly diverse approach also examines the norm and how our "us" impacts decision and strategy as well.
Trying to focus on diversity and equity usually needs three parallel tactics: 1) Whose viewpoints and experiences and wisdoms are we missing that could be relevant to our decision and strategy making process? How can we compensate for or include them?
2) Based on the composition of our group that makes most of the decisions and strategy choices, what are our strengths likely to be as well as our inherent biases and gaps? How can we proactively create a decision and strategy making process that is built upon a recognition of our inherent biases as well as a foundation of diversity?
3) How can we truly engage more stakeholders in our organisation's decision and strategy making processes in order to share, balance and collaborate in a more equitable fashion? How can and do we want to be more equitable? Does this mean more collective or collaborative approaches, employee and stakeholder education or even shared ownership of information, decisions, resources/profits or even the company itself?
That's all for today. The next post will explore in more detail what the "steps" might be towards developing a strategy that is inclusive, diverse and equitable.
