Inclusion

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ILRDI001: Improving Engagement

Cornell University ILR School

Take Steps towards Inclusion

In this module, you will learn how to evaluate the inclusiveness of the climate in your unit. You will utilize methods to assess inclusive climates and look at strategies for continually assessing climate and revising your inclusive leadership tactics as needed.

Student note: In the required project for this module, you will be directed to try communicating with some of your team members about developing an inclusive climate. You may want to schedule that conversation now.

Evolving Climate Perceptions

There are many ways to assess the inclusiveness of your unit’s climate. The most obvious is for you to observe how team members interact with each other and with you.

The first step to shaping the inclusiveness of your climate is for you to observe your team carefully. Knowing the current state will help you to plan your strategy for how to articulate inclusion standards so that you can have the greatest impact. What evidence do you see of behaviors that or patterns that facilitate and/or inhibit inclusion? Know that assessing your group's climate can be hard. We often don't want to see problems that we need to address. It requires an ability to look for evidence of inclusion and exclusion, but also a willingness on your part to see the truth. The pieces of evidence for you to look for include, first, evidence of inhibitors; for example, is it possible that some team members might perceive there to be differences in life chances? How might unconscious bias be impacting the assumptions that people have about teammates? What evidence do you see of microaggressions? And furthermore what are the losses to the team that result from the presence of these inhibitors? How can your team benefit by undoing or reversing these patterns? After you've had a chance to think about existing inhibitors, you can engage your team members in a discussion about what can be done to undo these inhibitors. The goal is for you to help motivate your team members so that they too want to change the climate because they can see how they and others would benefit. In addition, you should look for evidence of facilitators, because these are the behaviors and interaction patterns that you can reinforce immediately in order to strengthen the inclusiveness of the climate. Remember that people's behaviors interact in a cyclical process so that the experience of inclusion is an ever-evolving process. It's important for you to stay tuned in, so that you can notice changes in your group's climate.

Reflect on your own observations. What do you see with respect to the following?

· Are team members treated as valued members of the team?

· Is each team member connected to others in the team?

· Do individuals appear to feel comfortable sharing aspects of their experiences, background, or opinions that they might not share in common with others in the team?

· Do team members listen to each other with an open mind when they express dissimilar views?

· Do you see evidence of any team members being silenced by others? Are some team members quieter during team meetings while others are more dominant?

· Are any team members at risk of feeling misunderstood by others?

· What evidence do you have about whether team members perceive that organizational policies/standards are (or are not) applied in a consistent and fair manner across team members?

Methods to Assess Climate

In addition to paying close attention to team members’ experiences of inclusion, also consider talking to them about inclusion issues. One way to do this is to hold a team meeting and state that the purpose of the meeting is to discuss the team’s climate. A good way to start might be to ask some of the less senior people in the team to share what it was like to join the team (e.g., what they observed about desired modes of behavior, how time and space are used, how disagreements are handled and decisions are made, etc.). By seriously considering team members’ suggestions for how to improve inclusion, you can learn a lot about their inclusion experiences.

There are multiple methods for assessing climate; there are formal methods, and there are informal methods. Formal methods usually require consent from the larger organization; that is, they involve more formal policies and procedures. And they include, for example, employee surveys, focus groups, and interviews. The advantage of formal assessments is that they make it very salient to employees that the leader is interested in the information being collected. The very act of assessing inclusion can help promote inclusion within your team by signaling to team members that inclusion is important to you. Informal assessments, on the other hand, refer to on-the-spot assessments by the leader. 

They can be led proactively by you, or you might passively receive information from team members. Informal assessments include things like observations of individual actions, paying careful attention to your own perceptions about the quality of interactions, or discussions with team members about their experiences and insights related to team inclusion and dynamics. Observations can be made both by you, as the leader, or by a third party who observes from a more neutral position. Regardless of whether you use formal or informal methods, although a combination really is best, it's important to keep in mind that if bad news is punished, it's going to be covered up. If you react negatively to input that you've received, you'll undermine your future effectiveness. Although it can be hard, also remember that if you hear things that you didn't expect, it doesn't mean they are wrong; just use it as a reminder that no one individual can see the whole picture.

Student note: In the required for this module, you will be directed to try communicating with some of your team members about developing an inclusive climate. You may want to schedule time for that conversation now.

Creating a Shared Perception

How can an individual leader communicate standards for inclusive behavior? And why is that important? Communicating standards and creating shared perceptions is critical, as Professor Nishii explains.

So the next step is articulating a clear vision and a clear set of standards for inclusive behavior. Your task is to make your vision for inclusion understandable, precise, powerful, and engaging. By providing a rationale for your inclusion standards, you are going to help to create a stronger climate. Here's some tips for articulating inclusion standards: Remember to adjust the message for the audience; it's about them, not you. Use stories and examples extensively. Recognize that communication should not be one way, and that the way that you communicate about inclusion should itself be inclusive. You should balance advocacy with inquiry, and what I mean by this is that listening and responding to team members' comments or questions with clarifying questions can have a greater impact on the message that your team members receive than what you say, because doing so helps to do two things. The first is it validates to your team members that you're listening and that you're interested in what they have to say. And, two, it ensures that you understand the underlying questions or perspectives that are being expressed. Once you've articulated your inclusion standards, listen. Listen and watch carefully for cues about how well those standards have been understood and how vigilantly they're being followed. 

Depending on what you see, revise the way that you convey and reiterate the standards, until you're confident that they're shared by all of your team members. The success with which you're able to create an inclusive climate will depend in large part on the extent to which you routinize the discussion of inclusion throughout your team. The more issues related to inclusion are discussed, the more salient and embedded they will become. This will help to internalize inclusion standards as "The way we do things around here," thereby strengthening the climate in your group.

Most companies have a formal diversity and inclusion policy and publicly espouse their commitment to diversity and inclusion. However, what ultimately matters most is what employees deduce about the importance of inclusion through their informal communications and interactions with their leader – you. The more consistent you are across time and people in the way that you respond to issues related to inclusion, the stronger climate perceptions will be. Occasional attention to inclusion is likely to do little – team members look for repetitive evidence within the context of daily events to validate claims about the importance of inclusion. What is particularly telling for employees is whether you prioritize inclusion even in the face of increased work pressures, how you respond to crises and other critical incidents, and how you integrate principles of inclusion into everyday discussions about the team’s work. For example, rather than focusing an entire meeting discussing specific task-related goals and adding a cursory, non-specific reminder about inclusion at the end, a more effective approach would be to discuss a specific rule or standard for inclusive behavior that is most relevant for the successful accomplishment of the task goals in question. The more you can use explanations (not just compliance) to motivate workgroup members to behave inclusively, the better. Explanations should focus on how inclusion helps the team to achieve its goals, for example by helping team members to remember that it is not possible for any one person to see the whole picture, and that instead, different views are needed to see the bigger picture.

The Importance of Modeling

What will happen if leaders adopt these inclusive standards as their own and demonstrate the desired behaviors for their team? And on the other hand, what will happen if leaders talk about inclusive behaviors, but don't demonstrate them personally? A key principle to remember is that your informal behaviors matter just as much, if not more, than your formal behaviors. There is a big difference between what is conveyed by leaders in formal, staged settings versus through the informal observation of their behaviors. If you insist on empowering team members and valuing inclusive decision making but react impatiently or judgmentally when a team member attempts to express independent thinking, it’s your behavior that people will pay closer attention to.

Okay; the next component of creating inclusive climates that I'd like to discuss is role-modeling. The first step to role-modeling inclusion successfully is internalizing inclusion standards yourself. When these standards are internalized, your behavior will then come across as genuine and authentic. When your actions are perceived as genuine by team members, they will start to adopt these standards as their own, internalize them, and commit to them. If a leader doesn't walk the talk, however, it weakens climate, because team members then receive inconsistent messages about what's really important. It feeds cynicism about whether inclusion, and therefore the well-being of employees, is actually valued. It erodes trust in the leader and diminishes psychological safety because the leader is seen as less predictable. So, it's important to try to be realistic and critical when you think about the inclusive behaviors that you role-model as a leader. Which inclusive behaviors do you exhibit? What do you think members of your team would say about whether or not you exhibit these behaviors? In adapting your behaviors, you should focus on your team members' perceptions of your behaviors, not your intended behaviors, since it's what your team members perceive that ultimately guides their behaviors.

Characteristics of Inclusive Leaders

In the next section of your Course Workbook, you will identify inclusive leadership behaviors that you would like to role model for your team. Professor Nishii offers you the following examples of leader tactics for promoting inclusion to get you started:

· Clearly and regularly communicate your expectation for respectful treatment, relating to one another on a personal level, being mindful about protecting an environment wherein coworkers feel comfortable openly expressing different points of view, and leveraging one another’s unique strengths.

· Avoid engaging in preferential treatment of some team members over others.

· Show an interest in getting to know team members as people (not just as workers).

· Encourage team members to communicate their perspectives and opinions and listen carefully when they do. Take the time to understand where someone is coming from when they express a different perspective.

Strategies for Fostering Inclusion

Download the Tool

Use this helpful list of  Strategies for Fostering Inclusion Links to an external site.

Professor Nishii offers a list of recommended strategies for fostering inclusion within any work group. Save these tips and use them as needed to guide your conversations and your efforts to hold others, as well as yourself, accountable for the climate you all inhabit.

Enforcement Mechanism

As a leader, you can quickly establish your priorities and values by consistently linking rewards and punishments to relevant team member behaviors. To the extent that you praise team members when they engage in inclusive behaviors and confer higher status upon individuals who facilitate rather than inhibit inclusion, team members will be motivated to engage in those behaviors. Similarly, you discourage unwanted behavior based on how you react to it. People are motivated to avoid negative reactions, especially on the part of leaders. Thus if you express a strong negative reaction to a team member who is dismissive of a coworker by saying that that is no way for adults to treat each other, team members will quickly understand that an important expectation has been violated and will avoid engaging in similar behaviors in the future.

Once again, consistency is critical. If you as a leader say that inclusion is important but accept exclusionary or silencing behavior from a subset of team members, the value of your words will be severely undermined. When it comes to enforcing inclusion standards, consistency and fairness are both important. You will also need to clearly articulate to the team why rewards and punishments are being employed in order to help ensure the proper causal links are formed. Professor Nishii explains more.

 The last part of the cycle of creating inclusive climates that I'd like to discuss is enforcing and reinforcing inclusion standards. You've probably heard of transformational leadership. An important component of transformational leadership is challenging followers with high standards and communicating optimism about the ability to achieve those high standards. In order to align team members' behaviors with your standards, you can use a combination of rewards and punishments. Reinforcement mechanisms are most effective when they are salient, that is, when they mean something to the individual, otherwise it wouldn't be motivating. And second, they need to be connected to the behavior. 

That means it should be easy for people to understand that the reward or punishment is attached to a specific behavior. Consistency and fairness in how you reward and punish behavior is also really important. If people perceive that you punish certain behaviors in some group members, but not all, it will erode trust and will also weaken the climate.

Examples of Rewards and Punishments

There are different ways that leaders can reinforce wanted behavior, and this is true of an inclusive climate. Consider formal and informal mechanisms. Professor Nishii discusses options here.

Rewards and punishments can be both formal and informal. Examples of formal rewards and punishments include promotions or appointments to leadership roles for demonstrating exemplary inclusive behaviors, or recording something in an employee's personnel file. Examples of informal rewards and punishments might include congratulating somebody for a good performance in front of their peers, or maybe confronting somebody about their non-inclusive behaviors. Here's some tips for confronting someone about their non-inclusive behavior: It's important to wisely choose a location for the discussion, and you might warm up by planning what you'd like to discuss beforehand. Start with where you agree, and then address any areas of disagreement, and provide specific examples to support your decision. Ask for the individual's ideas about how inclusive climate can be improved. Make sure that you don't turn the session into a monologue. Remember also that the more often you discuss inclusion standards within the team, and the clearer those standards are, the more team members will reinforce each other. In fact, peers have a vital role in encouraging each other to behave according to inclusive standards.

Guidelines for Confrontation

Download the Tool

Use this helpful list of  Guidelines for Confronting

Sometimes, as a leader, you will have to confront others within the organization or workgroup when you observe them engaging in non-inclusive behaviors. Download Professor Nishii's list of recommended guidelines for handling such confrontations most effectively.

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