Summary

We begin with the premise that the ability to sustain diversity in your company and to reap its advantages requires good inclusion practices to be built into your company culture. For your company to be inclusive, everyone needs to do the work to bridge the cultural and communication gaps between people of different races, ethnicities, genders, neurotypes, abilities, backgrounds and experiences. Diversity practices run into difficulty when policies and structures are centered around dividing people into groups and treating employees in different groups differently. Inclusion practices give each employee a place of belonging and provide for both development and accommodation universally across all employees. An inclusion culture enables a diverse employee group to thrive, and naturally attracts a more diverse job applicant pool.

Examples of good inclusion practices include:

• Embracing diversity as a benefit and a corporate value, from the top down.
• Ensuring that the diverse population is represented at all levels and in all functions of your company.
• Encouraging a culture of respect where employees listen to, make space for and work to understand all of their fellow employees.
• Assuming all employees are competent, honest and desire to do well until proven otherwise.
• Communicating clearly and regularly with each employee about expectations, tasks, and any difficulties they might be experiencing.
• Collaboratively resolving problems and conflict, being sure all sides have been able to air their concerns before determining paths forward, and that the path forward is both realistic and addresses the concerns of all sides.

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A couple of years ago, I quit my job in technology. I love technology and really enjoy thinking about data and efficiency. However, there was another concern that I wanted to spend some time thinking about, and that was that there were so many autistic people I knew that were having a hard time interviewing, finding a job, and (more importantly) sustaining that job. 

Over the years, beginning with my very first job, I have worked with many people who presented in the way an autistic person does. While I never asked for any diagnoses, I was to some extent able to appreciate the challenges that they face. Furthermore, I actually had very positive experiences with many of them – lots of creativity, thinking out of the box, innovative solutions to things, a strong focus and desire to get the job done. So why was the work environment often so unfriendly and inconsiderate towards them?

I thought, with my experiences both as a parent of an autistic child and as a person who worked with many autistic people, I understood where they were coming from. I thought that my experiences as a basically minority population (older women) in a field that was dominated by a different population (younger men) would have taught me what it was like to be in a situation where you were chronically misunderstood and discounted. I thought that my good intentions would prevent me from doing anything that would hurt or discount the population I wanted to support. I was so wrong.

With my considerable google skills at hand, I set out to figure out what the existing best practices were to support autism in the workplace. I started to grasp the concept of neurodiversity, and instantly sought its benefits. However, I was also picking up on a lot of material coming out of a deficit or disorder view of autism.

I tried laying out my ideas on how to support this new concept of neurodiversity into some sort of a training or teaching methodology that I could use to help non-autistic people understand their autistic coworkers better. This resulted in a set of training slides that I was trying to refine. Thankfully for all involved, at that time I also had the good fortune of meeting Tim Goldstein, an autistic person who does neurodiversity training. He volunteered to review the training slides for me from his autistic perspective. I jumped at the opportunity to get such useful feedback.

I do not remember much about what Tim said to me after he read the slides, but I do very vividly remember my main takeaway: “You should listen to some more autistic people before trying to do something like this.” Wow. Great feedback, directly to the point, in true autistic style.

So, what did this experience teach me? One of the things I took away from that experience is that no matter how many biases I have experienced against me, and no matter how much I have worked to go against my own unconscious biases, I still have things to learn. Even though I thought I had a handle on some aspects of diversity due to being a female engineer I did not actually have a handle on neurodiversity. Just because I have been disregarded, put down and muted does not mean I do not do the same to others, intentionally or unintentionally.

Having both desire for and experience in relating with people who are very different from me did not prevent me from big mistakes in the area of diversity. One huge mistake I made was not considering representation – basically, that if you are talking about or speaking for some group, your primary input on what you are saying comes from members of that group and vetted by members of that group. Better yet, you do well just to amplify what they are saying themselves. The people in a minority group are much better experts on that group than people who have studied that group but are not a part of it. 

When I listen to representative people in a group, I gain a better understanding of their experience. When I listen respectfully, with an open mind, and through the lens that we are all fellow humans here on earth – then I gain the wisdom that comes from their direct experiences and thinking. When I listen to many people in a group in order to get a feel for the group, I learn the span of diversity within the group and can respond to each member as an individual, but within their group’s common experiences and context. This holds both for when I am a member of an advantaged group listening to members of disadvantaged groups, and vice versa.

This whole process led me to think about inclusion a lot more than I had been. I had a diversity mindset, but it was abundantly clear to me that I did not have an inclusive mindset.

Diversity-First Thinking or Inclusion-First Thinking?

True inclusion is not about managing groups and getting groups of people to get along. It is not about categorizing people so that we can attach them to our favorite generalizations about that kind of person and what they need or desire. It is not focused on things like genders, races, religions, cultures or abilities – ideas which divide people. 

Why do I say that grouping ideas divide people? Start with the fact that in any social situation, power is already distributed unevenly. Because of this, any grouping concept can and often will be used by the groups that are more powerful to maintain and increase their power over the groups that are less powerful. People in the groups that are less powerful fight back just to receive the same considerations and benefits as those in the more powerful groups. Being in one group or another defines your experiences. Your lack of shared experiences with the other group hinders dialogue, empathy and trust. In this way, dividing people in groups sets up unhealthy patterns of antagonism and opposition between the groups.

True inclusion means moving from the notions of “us” and “them” to the unified notion of “us”. It is about helping everyone understand one another and learn how to incorporate everyone’s strengths into the team. It is looking at each person and treating them as a valid, equal partner with their own individual abilities, desires, history, experiences, needs and concerns. Some people historically have been muted – their input has been ignored, spoken over, marginalized and/or mocked. For those people, treating them equitably means paying special attention to their voices and elevating those voices to the point where their input is considered on an equal footing with others’. When there is a conflict, treating people equitably is about each side listening to and working to understand the concerns of the other side, and looking for solutions to the conflict that meet everyones’ concerns. Inclusion means we are all in this together. We look for input from all involved. We solve problems with all involved. We all do the work together.

Doing inclusion well naturally leads to doing diversity well. That is, how well a company does inclusion has a direct impact on how well they do diversity. Diversity increasingly is becoming important in the workplace. The benefits of including diverse employees in a company are well-documented – for example, see  [Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter], [How Inclusion Matters], [Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage]. Diversity improves when a company in its core values, from the executive level down, believes that diversity is advantageous and desirable. The best people I have worked with are those who truly looked at diversity as an advantage, an enabler for more relevant and creative work.

Diversity metrics are useful in keeping an eye on things, but true diversity can be hard to measure. Diversity metrics can leave unmeasured populations out – for example, an autistic white male may be counted as being in an advantaged population (white men) when in actuality he is in a very disadvantaged population (autistic). Additionally, the things you may be interested in measuring may be things that an employee does not want to disclose. 

While diversity metrics may be useful, the metrics themselves inherently group and divide. Because of this, diversity metrics need to remain firmly as evaluation metrics, used for seeing where biases still exist within a company. Since doing inclusion well enables doing diversity well, the place of diversity metrics is to give the company an indirect window on the strength of their inclusion culture. When diversity metrics are used instead to drive the hiring and retention processes in the company it is like putting the cart before the horse.

Rather, the focus on hiring and retention does best when it is driven by inclusion considerations. When a company focuses on inclusion, they incorporate hiring and retention processes  such as Universal Design Inclusivity, an approach to diversity that is coming out of the neurodiversity movement. It is a different kind of thinking – one that comes from realizing that we all are different, we all have strengths and needs, and we all do best when the company universally strives to give us work that fits into our strengths, and accommodates us based on our individual needs. Everyone is supported, and no one is left out.

How do we become more inclusive?

In my article Breaking Out of In Group Thinking, I talk about the notion of in-groups and out-groups. Psychological group theory brings us directly to the point that we all have to work against our nature in order to be inclusive and welcoming to people who are different from us. We never completely get there. Yet, we also consider that America was predicated on a declaration that states that all are created equal, that we all have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Being inclusive and treating all people equitably is a goal worth striving towards.

Work towards diversity at all levels

From differences come balance and completeness

Diverse representation at all levels means that the groups, departments, and seniority levels within your company all have a wide range of different kinds of people, and that within such a diverse group all employees operate on equal footing. Each person respects, listens to, and responds to each other person in the team – there is no favoritism. Diverse individuals occupy significant roles – in the executive suite, in human resources, in product development, in operations. If your company just engages a token diverse Human Resources person, or engages in diversity theater without real impact among the employees, this is not diverse representation. 

Diverse representation means that employees are connected with and teaming with people both very like themselves and people who are very different from themselves. More marginalized populations can benefit from connecting with people who have similar experiences, cultural backgrounds, strength/weakness profiles both in hiring and mentoring. However, they also benefit from things that currently often only can be provided by the less marginalized populations – sponsorship, mentoring, networking and career development. Similarly, more dominant groups benefit from communication skills and understanding of differing viewpoints that come from the more marginalized populations, leading to greater creativity and to the development of products that support a wider range of people. Thus, diversity benefits everyone.

A company also benefits when diverse representation is present during the hiring process. Much can be learned about the interviewee by looking at them through different lenses and different experiences. For example, an autistic interviewer is likely better able to understand the capabilities and competencies of a fellow autistic interviewee, while a non-autistic interviewer may better be able to judge how best to enable the team the interviewee is interviewing for to create a welcoming environment for them.

Model and encourage listening and collaboration

Problems happen when someone isn’t listening

When you are interacting with a person who is different from you, has different communication patterns from you, and responds to experiences differently from you, listening to them is the key to understanding how to work with them and to support them. An equitable organization supports and models good listening practices at all levels of management, and especially at the executive level. An inclusive organization is characterized as a place where everyone is listened to, where everyone’s voice is considered valid, and where everyone can speak in safety.

When you are interacting with a person, no matter what your initial impression is, it helps to set the relationship off with a good footing when you presume competence, honesty, and an intention to do well. Is Joe describing how a work situation is affecting him? Assume Joe is competent to evaluate that situation’s impact on himself, even if you would have reacted very differently. Is Mary stating that she would be able to focus better if she had a more secluded cubicle? Assume she is competent to figure that out, as opposed to thinking she is being manipulative to get a better cubicle. Is Alex struggling with a challenging relationship? Listen with empathy, and without offering unsolicited advice. Alex probably has already thought about whatever advice you are about to offer. This is not to say that people are always competent, honest, and desiring to do well – rather, it means that it helps to start out from this presumption until proven otherwise. The lens you listen with will affect the whole conversation.

A second key component to listening is to ask open ended questions. Open-ended questions are ones that invite complex answers, and do not predispose the person to answer in a specific way. During my coaching training, and as a practicing coach, I have learned the value of open ended questions and how they empower people to express themselves more deeply and reflectively. Questions that are not open make assumptions that the answerer may not share, or even that they find irrelevant or demeaning. Open-ended questions give the responder the freedom to reply in their own communication patterns, according to their own thought processes. Thus, they are an efficient strategy to enable understanding of commonalities and differences between the participants.

A third key component is to give people space to process the question, reflect, and formulate an answer. When two very different people are interacting, their thought patterns and communication patterns are different. When you ask such a person a question, they need to reflect on the question and what you are actually asking, and translate it into their own patterns of thought and communication. Then they need to reflect on the translated question, which may be something they have not previously considered or thought about. Once they come up with a response that they are willing to share, they then need to translate that response into a form that you, the questioner, will be more likely to understand. Processing, reflecting, and responding to the question takes time – the more differently you think, the more time it will take. However, taking time at this point to wait for a thought-out answer helps prevent misunderstandings. Misunderstandings can waste time later; the current wait is worth it.

Finally, it is important to remember that each person that we interact with is facing their own challenges – possibly a diagnosis, or a stressful circumstance, or other situations in the work environment that you are not aware of. Each individual has the right to decide how much of their personal challenges they are comfortable talking about, and to whom. Listening in this space, where you realize that there may be other things going on that you do not know about and have no need to know about, and not pushing or forcing the person to disclose what they do not want to disclose, has the effect of building trust and support. It is okay to accept a person’s input and requests as being valid even though you do not understand all the reasoning and circumstances behind it.

Communicate clearly across the organization

Communication is key to organizational health

Looking at the nature of in-groups, out-groups, and muting, we see that the issue that divides groups is that each group uses language in different ways – thus, the nature of the divisions among us are rooted in communication. Listening helps us understand our communication differences. The knowledge acquired through listening to each other gives us the understanding and facility to adapt our communication patterns to each other’s communication styles.

In order to do their job well, an employee needs to receive clear and understandable communication about the expectations related to their job, both in general and on a recurring basis. To ensure that a job expectation is understood, the employer does well to check back with the employee on their understanding of a job and its scope. The employee does well to ask questions to ensure that their understanding aligns with the company’s expectations. A good example of clear day-to-day communication is work items or tickets in the software development world. A good ticket specifies the requirements of a new software feature, defines who is generating the requirement – and thus, who needs to accept that the software implements the feature, and works according to a definition of “done” which clearly indicates when the work on a ticket is complete. This can be distilled to defining what needs to be completed, who are the stakeholders who will be using the finished product, and what the expectations are for a product to be completed.

Communication between an employee and their manager is key to a broader understanding and clarification of overall job requirements as well as expectations regarding team roles and responsibilities. Regular one-on-one meetings between an employee and their manager ensure that the employee has a discreet place to bring up uncertainties and struggles. Employees benefit when they have more continuous feedback on what the expectations are on them and how well they are meeting those expectations. When the employee is not meeting expectations, collaborating with them to identify where the challenges are and involving them in working through those challenges sets them up for success. It helps if these meetings have a rhythm of topics and questions that supports the manager in doing their work and ensures consistency of the meetings within an organization and management level. A consistent rhythm also systemetizes the management process, making it less likely for bias to be introduced within a given relationship. 

Lastly, and possibly the hardest communication to establish, are the processes around reporting and resolving conflict. This includes reporting difficult situations, reporting belittling and harassing behaviors and around resolving interpersonal conflicts. Especially in a company with increasing diversity, where the equity lessons are still in the early stages of being learned, communication differences will exacerbate interpersonal relationship challenges. When left unaddressed, conflict, harassment, and other undesirable situations increase. As with management meetings, it helps if there are regular, known, and possibly anonymous channels for raising concerns. One example is to put out regular surveys on how the employees feel, how connected they feel and how well they feel they are enabled to contribute to the company and to grow in their careers. Equally important to uncovering conflict is how it is resolved. In any conflict situation, it is crucial for all sides to be able to provide the input they feel is necessary for understanding their viewpoint. A good interpersonal resolution process is non-judgmental and collaborative, allowing each party to voice their side, listen to the other side, and respond to the other side before working together to come up with a mutually agreeable solution. It helps when this process is done under the mediation of fellow employees who are trained and skilled in listening and unbiased facilitation, especially when the conflicting individuals are at different levels in the management or social hierarchy.

In conclusion …

I believe that when a company strives for inclusion, at all levels and in all ways, then diversity and equity will follow. If you want your company to become more diverse and to remain more diverse, it requires a broad mindset change to one that embraces difference as an asset. An inclusive organization pays attention to things like representation, listening, communication and collaboration. These cultural values apply across the company, ensuring equity and a level playing field for all employees. The result is a win-win for all.