Originally published in the May 2005 Issue of Link & Learn. 

TAs organizations shift from the industrial revolution model of mass production to the global model of innovation and customization, people's roles are undergoing a revolution as well. No longer unthinking automatons of the assembly line, no longer replaceable cogs, people are today's sole source of tomorrow's most important commodity: intellectual capital. Although many organizations talk about regarding people as assets and the need to tap into their knowledge and expertise, few know how to do it. Even among the most well-intentioned, few organizations create an environment where people feel a sense of belonging and are able to do their best work.

For an organization to be a Top Tier performer, it needs to include all of its people in the work of creating new pathways to operational and financial success. For greater competitiveness and sustainable success, an organization needs every member's skills, ideas, experiences, energy, and best performance.

As the survival and success of organizations becomes more dependent on how well their people work-and work together-one thing has become clear: Leveraging Diversity and Creating a Culture of Inclusion is a critical part of the answer.

The Task: Creating and Sustaining an Inclusive Work Culture

In many organizations, efforts have been made to increase the representation of people of color, women and other groups in the workforce. However, increasing the representation of any population is insufficient for real gains in organizational performance. The issue is not having diversity (of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives) but creating an environment in which those differences and our similarities are utilized and leveraged to yield higher performance. For most organizations, this requires a major shift in the way they operate and do business.

Diversity exists in virtually every workforce. Differences, however, are rarely regarded or used as an asset. In most organizations, few people feel welcome or able to contribute their full range of skills, experiences, ideas and opinions. They are expected to think, act and express themselves in conformance with a fairly narrow range of behaviors. Few organizations devote much effort to the task of enabling new people to feel included in the life of the organization. Consequentially, few people fully invest their primary or discretionary energy to the organization.

Culture Change as a Business Strategy
Changing an organization's work culture is not something that can be accomplished through a new mission statement, employee handbook, recruitment policy, or mentoring program. It cannot be done overnight, with a one-day workshop or training program.

Creating an inclusive work culture that leverages diversity requires systemic change. It requires a clear organizational imperative and platform for change; a fundamental shift in mindsets and behaviors followed by changes in policies and practices. It must be tied to organizational goals and direction; and establish a new set of competencies and capabilities required of people at all levels, including clear skill sets and behaviors for leaders, managers and front line workers. It requires new ways of defining and measuring success. It requires new ways of thinking about and working with people, both individually and collectively, inside and outside the organization. In short, it requires Total System Change.

Unfortunately, most efforts to leverage diversity and create a culture of inclusion take a programmatic approach with little direct linkage to organizational performance and direction. Often the effort is the responsibility of Human Resources and not owned by line managers and operations.

Unless the people of the organization have a clear understanding of the connection of the culture change to the business of the organization, they have little reason to expend energy in making the culture change work. Culture Change sounds suspiciously like one of those "soft" issues that are not seen as essential to the real business of the organization. Therefore, the need for culture change must be presented in "hard" terms-of dollars and cents, the bottom line, and fulfilling the organization's mission and key business strategies-as the difference between profit or loss, success or failure, survival or extinction.

Starting at the Top
For a change effort to have any chance of success, it must be "owned" by all levels of the organization. However, a crucial area of focus is always the senior-most leaders - and assuring that they truly understand and can articulate how this work is fundamental to organizational performance and success. Senior leaders must be accountable for the successful implementation of culture change. This is not something that can be delegated to middle managers. Senior leaders must play an active role in the change process. To create an inclusive work environment that leverages diversity will take time, energy, resources, and involvement of everyone, and senior leaders must lead the way.

Making Inclusion THE Way of Doing Business
Organizations that embark on efforts to create an inclusive work culture that leverages diversity seem to follow a natural progression in their strategies and activities to get to that point. Since different parts of organizations may be in different places with regard to attitudes, policies and leadership styles, there can often be overlapping or intermingling of the stages we have identified below. To achieve breakthrough performance from creating an inclusive work culture, it is necessary to develop the leadership and management skills to foster inclusion, educate the people of the organization in how to behave inclusively; and create a broad awareness of the business imperative for creating an inclusive work culture. Often, it is necessary to go through the initial stages shown in the diagram below in order to achieve an awareness of the real benefits to be gained from leveraging diversity and creating a culture of inclusion-and the extent of the work required to get there.

Developing Individual Awareness. Many organizations begin their efforts to address diversity and inclusion by implementing activities that are pre-packaged "one-size-fits-all" training exercises that relate primarily to enhancing understanding and awareness of differences among people. The primary goal of these activities is to help individuals interact better with other individuals. There is usually little focus on changing the organizational systems or business practices, although that may be an unintended outcome from a forward-thinking leader who attends such an event.

Implementing Programs and Activities.
In many organizations, the initial work on raising awareness about diversity leads to an acknowledgement that more work is needed. This often occurs because overall awareness about "diversity issues" has been raised, and people begin noticing and talking about the inequitable experiences of different groups. Organizations may institute a number of different programs such as mentoring, support networks, high-potential career-path development, targeted recruiting, and/or communication skills enhancement to address issues raised.

The programmatic approach is an important but insufficient step; activities and programs are often fragmented. At times, different parts of the organization hold responsibility for different programs without much linkage or coordination (HR, Talent Management, Diversity Councils, Network Groups, Supplier Diversity, etc). Some organizations create their programs and activities based on prepackaged programs from different vendors or from benchmarking studies, each focusing on a specific diversity issue. Even if programs are coordinated through the same department, they remain loosely related at best and rarely linked directly to overall organization strategy and performance.

Many organizations experience a "backlash" at this stage, with some people making charges of "reverse discrimination." Such charges are one of the clearest indicators that the organizations have not effectively positioned the change effort as critical to organizational success and long-term sustainability.

Combining Programs and Activities into an "Initiative." When an organization realizes that leveraging diversity is more than understanding differences and increasing representation, it begins to make a fundamental shift in its approach. Efforts that had previously been fragmented and programmatic, suddenly become important business and organizational priorities. The organization begins to pursue them with a strategic intent. The various parts of the effort are evaluated, and those activities that fit within the strategic intent are knit together into a "Culture Change Initiative."

The investment in this initiative is justified by an understanding that the organization must change as a system on a systemic level. The focus moves from the needs of individuals to the needs of the system, and in identifying new competencies for a new culture and workplace.

Linking and Aligning Initiatives into the Strategic Work of the Organization. For the greatest effectiveness in changing people's mindset, behaviors and enhancing business outcomes, an organization must integrate the culture change effort into the strategic work and goals of the organization. This involves integrating the competencies and practices of building inclusion into the organization's other major strategies and initiatives, e.g., leadership, quality, mergers/acquisitions, strategic alliances, downsizing, re-engineering, and/or becoming a preferred stock.


A Way of Doing Business. As an organization unleashes the synergy gained from integrating its culture change effort with its business practices and strategic goals, the result is measurable benefits through new or improved processes and outcomes. Institutionalizing the change involves using these and other measurements to hold senior executives, managers, and all members of the organization accountable for acquiring, practicing, and continually improving their performance, and thereby continually enhancing the organization's skill-base, culture, overall performance, and financial and business success.

The Bottom-Line: The Best Reason For Creating a Culture of Inclusion
Organizations that have made long-term commitments to building and sustaining inclusive workplaces and work cultures that leverage diversity have seen substantive, measurable, positive change, such as increased productivity, successful penetration into new markets, improved customer service, reduced employee turnover, and increased market share. They have also reported new levels of engagement, creativity, commitment, and improved job satisfaction from people at all levels of the organization-from line workers to the CEO.

Although a comprehensive change effort requires a major investment in time and resources, there are many actions to create an inclusive environment that do not cost anything. You can start first thing tomorrow morning by greeting every colleague you see, and calling them by name. It all starts with Hello.

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About the author: Judith H. Katz and Frederick A. Miller are Executive Vice President and CEO, respectively, of The Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group, Inc., one of the nation's leading consulting firms specializing in strategic culture change. www.kjcg.com.

This issue of Link&Learn was published in May 2005, by Linkage, Inc. (http://www.linkageinc.com). Please direct copyright and additional questions and comments to LinkandLearn@LinkageInc.com