Writing a book is no small undertaking, but whenever a writer begins the journey, they have a reader in mind.
What I observed first hand in my thirty years of leadership and business advisory experience, was how challenged many leader’s feel in having to spearhead DE&I. This leads to a gulf between the organisational intent and the leader’s reality. How can you champion something you have no direct experience of? Leaders are frozen into inaction, feeling they should be doing something but not knowing what to do and somehow feeling responsible for the inequality that they are being asked to address.
This is no way to make inroads into the subject and is likely to make the gulf wider between what is intended and what is achieved, so how do you start? What if you make yourself vulnerable to ridicule? How do you shift from being a leader who is comfortable delegating tasks to one that will share personal and perhaps traumatic details about your life? How can you lead on something when it feels like you are the bad guy (and I do mean guy in this instance) because you represent the group that holds most power and influence, or it feels like your views and abilities are losing currency because you are not in an identified minority group?
If these questions resonate with you, you are not alone. Despite billions of pounds being spent on DE&I in organisations globally, the benefits are slow to trickle down beyond the platitudes shared in glossy annual reports. What organisation would not claim to be in support of DE&I these days? That does not make it any easier to implement as a business leader with competing priorities, performance targets to meet and precious little time to connect with people on anything more than a cursory level.
The Inclusion Edge builds on the ideas shared in my second book, The Female Edge. It has been designed with busy business leaders in mind. It is for those who want to do the right thing when it comes to building diverse teams and inclusive cultures, but are unsure where to start. Big teams, small teams, local teams or global teams; no matter the size of your employee population, The Inclusion Edge will guide you through a process of making your workplace more inclusive and increasing the sense of belonging. I am convinced that leaders can navigate this tricky path towards creating a culture of inclusion and belonging for all their people when they become aware of and willing to address the inequalities that exist. Most organisations will already have an extensive range of initiatives and activities to support their DE&I goals.
This is a great start, but they are only springboards from which you, as a leader, must take your steer and walk your own path. Your people will look to you before any HR representative or well-formed DE&I statement to see what the reality is of inclusion in your workplace. If you have waited in the wings for DE&I to emerge fully formed in your business area or for someone to lead the way, then now is the time to stop waiting and start acting.
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