The All-Importance of Cultivating a Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Mindset

Since 2017, I have been a close collaborator of The Inclusion Factory (TIF), founded by Naomi Sedney. TIF specializes in supporting corporations seeking to embark on a diversity and inclusion (D&I) journey and create workplaces that empower their leaders and employees to optimize their potential, regardless of how different they are.

Oftentimes, corporations engaged in this pursuit are often driven by quantifiable targets based on variables such as gender, ethnicity/nationality, or neurodiversity. But to me, as a mother of a 29-year-old non-verbal autistic adult who gets looks from people because he picks up pieces of trash, hums loudly, and squints oddly while walking in public, pursuing D&I requires organisations — its leaders and employees — to look within themselves and examine their D&I mindset.

Seeing the looks that people give my non-verbal autistic son helps me to see that pursuing D&I is so much more than meeting the targeted criteria on gender, nationality, ethnicity, and neurodiversity, etc.

How does adopting a D&I mindset translate into the workplace?

Adopting a D&I mindset means being:

1. Self-aware of our reflexive feelings of discomfort when we encounter people/situations/perspectives that reveal the limits of our comfort zone and our unconscious biases;
   

2. Honest and transparent in acknowledging the existence of such feelings within ourselves;
   

3. Challenged to suspend what we think "ought to be" to open ourselves to reflecting on what "could be"; and

   
   

4. Willing to experience the disruption of the previous balance and harmony within the team/department/organization, recognizing that, without disruption, no real change, on the inside, can be possible.

Adopting a D&I mindset is hard to do. Employees have to confront their natural fears and anxieties about difference and change. Leaders need to understand these natural sentiments, summon the courage to challenge biases, and face the uncertainties of the disruptions with composure and patience to see the "D&I experiment" through.

The D&I experiment is a journey. Even with a roadmap, it will not always feel right; hitting the sweet spot when you have nailed the D&I may take multiple iterations before it is time for another change. But this is what the journey is all about. Every trial and error is building the experience and testing the resilience of your organization's D&I mindset. This is how the D&I culture becomes second nature.

This is why, at TIF, we are not just about helping companies make their D&I numbers. Rather, our mission is focused on supporting corporations in cultivating their D&I mindset so that they can offer an agile, open, and adaptive culture that is open to the new and the discomfort that has the potential to bring about positive change. Only then will you be creating an authentic organization that is genuinely ready to welcome and embrace talent, regardless of how different they are.

And if you are not sure about your D&I mindset and wonder whether this is holding your organization back from achieving D&I objectives, we would love to hear from you!