Are Your Employees Sending Their Robot Surrogates to Work? Several years ago, we conducted an organizational assessment for the president of a mid-size company who wanted to build a more diverse workforce. As a result of the assessment, we helped his executive team revamp their recruiting and hiring strategy to be more inclusive, and increase diversity amongst their new hires….
A senior leader at a high tech company called and said, “Simma, I just spent an enormous amount of money for a training program about unconscious bias. It was very well received and people are still talking about how much they liked it,” he said. “However, nothing changed.” The demographics stayed the same, people of color, women, and LGBT people…
Protest organizers in Oakland didn’t want to stop people from looting because they didn’t want “restrict people’s freedom of expression.” I’m not going to use the looting and destruction as an excuse to negate the reason for the protest like I’ve seen some people do. But I support arresting people who do loot, and I support organizers of demonstrations doing…
The CEO’s Uber Diversity Dilemma Uber executive, Emil Michael suggested at a dinner party attended by people like Arianna Huffington and Kara Swisher that Uber would pay a million dollars to hire researchers to dig up dirt on journalists who wrote negative stories about Uber. “They’d look into your personal lives, your families,’ and give the media a taste of…
6- Let other people share their expertise, talent and experience, even when their ideas differ from yours. You may find their idea is better. It’s easy to talk about being open to other ideas, but it’s not that easy to do it in practice. Smart leaders know what their strengths are and they know how to find people who are…
5-Learn and recognize the different ways in which people are intelligent and contribute to the organization. Stop being stuck in recognizing and respecting only one type of intelligence (yours.) So often in my diversity and inclusion programs, people will make comments like,”I have no problem with people who are different. I respect everyone.” First of all, if you think that…
Here is the 4th Way to Foster Breakthrough Innovation Through Diversity Leadership. 4- Be introspective and get real about your biases and assumptions. Your behavior that results from those biases and assumptions can impede participation and innovation. Ask yourself, “Whom am I not seeing? Do I greet all of my employees or just the ones who are like me? Do…
2-Be informed about your employees but don’t micromanage. Acknowledge the progress no matter how small, made by people on your team. Research by Theresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer shows that employees are motivated when their managers are aware of and acknowledge even their small wins. Be specific! Don’t just say “Good job.” That means nothing and is…
In this business era of speed, competition and globalization, innovation rules all. You never know where the next great product, process or profit builder will originate. Good Diversity Management and Culturally Intelligent Leadership can make the difference between repeatedly hearing mediocre ideas from the same people, or mining the hidden genius in your organization for breakthrough ideas. Conversely, not knowing…
My book “110 Ways to Champion Diversity and Build Inclusion,” is now in paperback on Amazonhttp://amzn.to/1vsuvN7Practical no or low-cost ways to champion diversity and build inclusion every day in your organizationCheck it out now!
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