Reconstructing Inclusion was an idea before it was a book title
Reconstructing Inclusion was an idea before it was a book title
Reconstructing Inclusion is not a set of DEI prescriptions – a “how-to DEI” book is NOT its aim.
I started writing Reconstructing Inclusion: Making DEI Accessible, Actionable, and Sustainable in my head around 2014.
Beyond my public health career as an epidemiologist who worked heavily in health equity and disparities from college through my last public health-oriented role at my alma mater, the Rollins School of Public Health, my formal entry into corporate DEI began in 2003.
Between 2001 and 2004, I started two niche job boards: Georgia HealthWorks (focused on healthcare organizations in the Southeast U.S.) and, later, Diversity HealthWorks, a national, healthcare-focused job portal that assisted organizations with their talent needs via job advertising while sharing content about health equity and cultural competency.
With Diversity HealthWorks, I recognized the need to create additional revenue streams while the job board and community I built within were gaining traction.
So, I cold-called several diversity and inclusion consulting firms. Only one firm, formerly known as Cook Ross, replied.
After meeting Howard Ross and his wife and partner, Leslie Traub, I got fast-tracked into the world of diversity and inclusion (before equity took the position it holds now (i.e., EDI, JEDI, DEI, etc., depending on your preferences, geography, and emphasis).
The early 2000s saw the beginning of a shift from seeing Diversity and Inclusion “problems” predominantly as intentional, conscious discriminatory acts based on in and out-group standing to viewing such behaviors as the product of implicit preferences.
Diversity and Inclusion professionals began using the Harvard Implicit Association Test, insisting that most people who perceive historically less privileged groups with prejudice do so unconsciously.
This period also started what we can arguably say was the beginning of rapid growth of the global DEI space which is now projected to be a $25 Billion market by 2030.
Reconstructing Inclusion: Book Launch in Washington, D.C with Howard Ross
Fast forward to 2014. I had been at Novartis for five years after being hired to help start their D&I efforts anew. It was a fruitful and fun five years. I had a great boss. We had unwavering support from the President’s office, and access to engage across the entire organization.
By that time, I was uncertain about how much longer I would be there. I figured that in three years, I could get further validation of the approaches we had experimenting with internally and with a variety of partners externally.
The idea of Reconstructing Inclusion started to emerge as I was thinking about my exit.
A theory of change emerged via our engagement across the organization from senior management teams and decision boards to junior research scientists in the company mentoring college grads, from backgrounds and experiences much different than their own, in preparation for the pursuit of a PhD or M.D./PhD from a top research institution.
The beginning of a theory of change emerged from this work.
We landed on the notions of Multidimensionality, Bridging > Bonding, and Inclusive Networks as illustrated in the slide below, created in 2014.
I began to learn about social constructionism in 2007 and then got a chance to meet and briefly work with Dr. Ken Gergen, who has been hugely influential in my work. Engaging with Dr. Gergen, I came to clarity about the extremely important notions of co-creation and confluence.
In his book Relational Being, Gergen states, “If we wish to generate more promising futures, the major challenge is that of collaboratively creating new conditions of confluence. How can we draw from our relational histories in such a way that new and more promising confluences result?”
This passage and countless others led to deepening this philosophy from the theoretical to the practical - to identifying a set of actions and skills that allow for us to co-create the conditions for thriving. Yet, my intentions never have been to suggest that anything that I do as a practitioner be prescriptive.
So, Reconstructing Inclusion was written as an amalgamation, a mash-up if you may, of frameworks to point you inward. Inward toward capability building for you to astutely traverse the tensions and complexity that is in organizational life.
And then, go from there to engage and co-create and shape the future ways of being that create the conditions for thriving in your organization.
It doesn’t serve you or the work for me to prescribe something.
For some, recommendations from an “expert” provide a sort of comfort. I am not aiming for comfort with commoditized bits and pieces that might serve you in the short term but come with long-term tradeoffs that might not enable you to mindfully adapt and pivot as needed.
If there is any prescription connoted in the work of my firm, Inclusion Wins, or specifically in Reconstructing Inclusion it is more akin to nutritional advice. Staying with the analogy, I recommend things that have helped me and others I’ve worked and learned with to clarify and envision where we are and want to be; and this directional coherence has enabled us to make more informed decisions.
For a nutritionist, this would apply to food choices and learning how to make such choices everyday for enjoyment and to meet health needs.
When it comes to creating an organizational culture where all can thrive and make their best contributions to the organizational mission, the recommendations made are similar. Use them to guide you toward the evergreen Northstar of everyone thriving.
Again, Reconstructing Inclusion is not a set of DEI prescriptions – a “how-to DEI” book is NOT its aim. Rather, it is a principle-centered guidepost that allows you and your people to move into and out of a variety of circumstances, learn, refine, and grow your capabilities so that you adjust to context with aplomb. You get to a point where stressors are your friends. These stressors, like a muscle after being broken down, then nourished, and rested, grows.
In an ongoing process of co-creation and confluence, you move through organizational tension and complexity toward antifragility.
The theory of change focused on Inclusion System Design/Development, Cultural Intelligence (CQ), and Social Capital, which is a rethread through the book, is that there is no fixed set of things to do or ways to be, that meet the needs of every organization.
A 2019 version of the Inclusion Wins ‘Theory of Change’, before Reconstructing Inclusion was published.
You must determine from stakeholders what matters to them.
That is, what will allow more people through your organization to create the conditions for one another to thrive? I am generous in the book about how I see one can go about this effectively. And I am clear that organizational complexity requires that we leave space for the unknown and emergent to reveal new directions, relationships, and possibilities for creating the extraordinary.
There is no way for me to know that if people are not engaged and engaging in proactively building the capabilities to discover what people feel increases their “thrive index” and then experiment with actions to test hypotheses.
I don’t know what your “right” or “wrong” is. You do.
In my work and that of others I’ve engaged with, my bet for your sustainability in DEI making it normative—accessible to all, actionable, unambiguously prioritized, and sustainable (i.e., purpose-aligned) is building a set of capabilities that I’ve seen build the muscle to constantly evolve your efforts.
And while doing so, build internal capacity to the extent that you have a number of ‘skilled operators’ (I couldn’t call them Smooth Operators in deference to Sadé)— who keep the ball rolling amid turnover, overwhelm, and things that you find as barriers.
Barriers that are more than likely gems hidden in a labyrinth, until you and your skilled operators can discern patterns that create the conditions for you to see them shine.
I hope this was helpful. . . Make it a great day! ✌🏿
In this episode of the ‘Reconstructing Inclusion’ podcast, let’s discuss the current state and “the attacks” on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and the need to redefine its contemporary frame. I talk about the concept of iatrogenic effects, drawing from the work of Ivan Illich, and its relevance in the DEI space. Why are self-reflection, intentional broadening, greater contact, and the promotion of agency in mitigating iatrogenic effects important in advancing the potential of DEI work?