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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-08-25
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN66TUu0aL0
okay picture this mid eighties I was hired by a fortune fifty company to become one of twenty six division sales managers really proud in my performance I was racking it was number six side of twenty six business changes happened divisions needed to be collapse mine was one of our when they announced the new sales leader a person who had the worst sales record in that company
cat I'm ask I really didn't know what happened I mean the key metric for this organization was sales and then it occurred to me maybe it happened because I was different I was the only woman out of twenty six division sales managers and guess what that organization didn't know what to do with me you know how to cross the difference they didn't know how to create
a culture of inclusion yes that was because of gender but this can happen for a multitude of reasons it could happen because of race or ethnicity who your parents are where you went to school where you're going to school socio economic status it could happen just because you don't fit the mold lots of organization want leaders to rush the stage grabbed a microphone and heaven forbid
if you're an introvert or extrovert are really the key leaders fast forward nineteen ninety five my son John Michael he was in second grade I picked up perfect school for him my dear friend owned operated and ran this school I bend a school a couple times and I'd seen some of the kids in a second grade class but I'd never been there when all the kids
were there at once until the day of the field trip to the pumpkin patch now some of you have been on some of these field trips I was sitting on my bale of hay in the kids stream dive to find their perfect pumpkin I have this amazing awareness my son's blond head shone bright early across the sea of the children he was the only white kid
in the school every other child was African American you know with the most beautiful thing was he never notice anyone I know the more beautiful thing is the other kids never noticed they embraced my son for his difference Charlotte's the south Charlotte where less than a hundred and fifty years earlier forty four percent of the residents were slaves every person in that school embraced all the
differences all the voices were being brought together for the purpose of ensuring that these kids were performing at their absolute best in gas why in that culture in that environment where differences were valued where differences were embraced the kids were performing two out of four grade levels above national standardized you may be sitting there wondering why am I telling you about my career from a long
time ago and my son who by the way will be twenty eight this month the reason I am telling you is I think the times that we live in our soul absolutely critical for us to find a way to cross this difference we live in a time of great compile complexity great complexity and disruption disruptions simply mean this Henri lending change every day technology changes seismic
demographic shifts social media globalization wake up in the morning wondering what massive changes happened that's gonna impact my life my world my affairs so we need a new way of having dialogue across different so that we can address these situations these problems that are emerging we need a way to capitalize on the intelligence of differences we need a way to take advantage of the opportunities that
are coming our way we need a shift in thinking so what's the answer I believe that inclusion is the solution inclusions about getting everybody's voice heard to drive to an outcome it's about ensuring that everybody's perspective experience talents are used to drive to a result you have to do something to include people you have to do something to practice inclusion I'm gonna tell you what that
is and then I'm gonna tell you how I came up with it in my day job I am founder and CEO of inclusion and we take inclusion really seriously number one ask me what I think number two keep me informed number three let me participate in decision making those super straightforward behaviors are things that emerged as a result of a global study that we did with
SMU's executive education department called the global inclusion in tax %HESITATION for about twenty years we've been looking at inclusion behaviors with our clients yes these emerge from business and yet the study that we did did cross position cries age gender in fourteen countries we looked at the full spectrum of people within the workplace the first question we wanted to ask was our inclusion behaviors important a
resounding yes in every single one of the fourteen countries people wanted inclusion behaviors at a higher level than was culturally normative yeah is gigantic because what it says to me while this was done in the workplace everybody wants to be included even if it is and what their experience stain in day out in their culture you wanna be included I wanna be included the other question
we wanted to ask answer is there a return on investment for inclusion behaviors when I found the data the first time I was so let up about it and I still am every organization any of us are involved with whether it's education whether it's a volunteer organization whether it's the workplace we are leaner than we've ever been before well we can find something that's going to
impact the return on investment with no dollar investment it's so exciting to me what we found is that inclusion is a strategy to drive engagement productivity innovation and retention let's start with retention again retaining your best talent in Europe volunteer organizations just as critical as retaining your best talent in the workplace participants were fifteen percent less likely to leave in the next year simply with inclusion
behaviors be nearest five percent more productive the holy grail in organizations is engagement participants said they were twenty five percent more engaged when inclusion behaviors were you Ste the globally translate word for that is motivated imagine that you could motivate people by twenty five percent simply by using inclusion behaviors in the final area innovation innovation is needed to deal with the complexity of our times not
only were people twelve percent more likely to come up with ideas but they're also twelve percent more likely share those ideas the results of the globally inclusion in tax align very nicely with an article that Harvard Business Review wrote called why diverse teams are smarter very simply paraphrased it says that diverse teams look at information and examine the facts more carefully because they don't go into
group think they don't let homogeneity of the team Dr toward some pre determined outcome implied in that article is a practice of inclusion boon so I've laid out here why I think inclusion is important and what inclusion is I have also laid out the return on investment so the question then is if it's so straightforward why are we doing it because it's hard to do a
whole because I may not want to ask you what you think I know you're going to disagree with me probably before I ask you if I if I inform you you may use it against me and the next conversation we have and if I let you participate in decision making I know how long you talk I may never get my work done today that's human and
remember it's also human to want to be included I wanna be included you wanna be included inclusion getting all the voices together to drive towards an outcome to drive toward a result the practice of inclusion asked me what I think inform me let me participate in decision making yes is our call to action this is our test maybe we didn't know the impact that we could
