Celebrating Differences & Promoting Inclusion: An “Inside” Job
By Marla Skibbins & Marly DiFruscio
“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept and celebrate those differences.” – Audre Lorde
“Diversity is a mixture. Inclusion is making the mix work.” - Andres Tapia
As human beings, we are revealed and make ourselves known to one another by our differences: varieties of race, gender presentation, religion, politics, values, and philosophies (along with a host of other elements that could be named). This diversity is the key and central reality of humankind. All of our ways of being, knowing, and existing in our world are contained in this concept of differences & inclusion. Celebrating differences as well as our similarities helps unite and educate us. Not to mention through others’ differences we become more aware of our own.
Late in 2021, I realized that for much of my adult life I have had a wish for all beings to be happy, safe, healthy, and free. I meditated on that wish, listened to my teacher discuss how to open one's heart to all beings, and truly aspired in my heart to practice so that all beings could live with that liberty and peace. And yet I realized that my wish was very white and self/same centric. Not because I meant to be racist/ageist/xist but because I had not yet really confronted that in my internal dialogue “all beings” were white and looked like me.
In my heart, I knew that I included everyone in that wish. I had no ill will against age, color, sexual/gender orientation, different religious backgrounds, or cultures. They just were not being included in my very limited view. They were “different” and I was unconsciously excluding them.
I imagine we can all fall prey to that. We exist in a world of so much information, complexity, and compressed time. We don’t always have the time to stop and think about the how and what of what we are seeing, and how we are acting in response. We often sift out much of the stimuli so we can cope and have a basic understanding. However, that only further perpetuates our limited world views and unconscious bias.
A friend of mine brought a great article to my attention that illustrates what I’m talking about. We are so used to seeing something (in this case, white medical illustrations) that seeing something different is shocking, exciting, and moving. Part of the reason this is happening is because we unconsciously are so accepting of our limited world view and we don’t take into consideration that this is happening. It’s human to have this experience and yet we need to look inside ourselves to see what we stand for and ask ourselves “Am I really living fully? Am I being accountable for whom I say I want to be?”
Diversity & Inclusion is an “Inside” Job.
D&I is an absolute necessity for any organization that wants to succeed. Embracing team diversity is a privilege that too many companies don’t take advantage of. Celebrating differences means you are open, and it really comes down to how open and non-judgemental can you be. Human beings as a whole are judgment-creating machines. The challenge is to examine our unconscious and unseen perspectives in order to mature as humans.
The first step to really stepping into this process of celebrating differences and fostering inclusion is curiosity and openness. Leaders are in a position to provide psychological safety, inspiration, and innovation for their teams. It goes without saying that leaders are the forefront of curiosity and openness for their teams, their orgs, and themselves. For leaders and teams, this curiosity, diversity, and inclusion increases efficiency, productivity, reduces group conflict, and creates an environment that is better able to accept new team members. On an individual level, it reduces the bias and judgment that subconsciously plagues humans and leads to higher levels of engagement at work.
A 2018 Harvard business review states, “When our curiosity is triggered, we think more deeply and rationally about decisions and come up with more creative solutions. In addition, curiosity allows leaders to gain more respect from their followers and inspires employees to develop more trusting and more collaborative relationships with colleagues.”
I want to live my wish for all beings to be happy, safe, healthy, and free but I need to hold myself accountable and truly mean “all beings”, even internally and unconsciously. This requires me to be continuously and permanently open and curious about myself, about humans, and about my bias. I need to keep looking inside my conscious and subconscious thought processes and continue working on this “Inside” Job.
As a leader, are you where you want to be? Do you promote curiosity, differences, and inclusion in your team and your org? What changes can you make to be accountable for whom you say you want to be? I invite you to look within and sign up for this inside work to see where you might be on this spectrum of thought. I invite you to be open and curious with me so we can continue fostering diversity and inclusion in all leaders and their organizations.