Collaboration, Communication, Learning, and Feedback as Core Cultural Values
This post is an excerpt from Do DEI Right, focusing on some of the cultural elements you need to have in place as your foundation for your investments in equity and inclusion work to pay off. Without these, you are putting pressure on top of a cracked foundation, and it will buckle.
A consistently high value being placed on collaboration, communication, learning, and feedback must be in place before you can successfully embed DEI into your organization.
The collaboration component is to help people feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves and are connected to others, both of which are foundational to inclusion. Collaboration can exist both within and across teams and should mitigate any unhealthy internal competition that may prioritize results over behavior.
The focus on communication helps employees stay connected and have visibility into the “why” of their work and the vision for the company. This also bolsters inclusion, and transparency goes a long way toward building trust and engagement. Transparency also helps everyone spot instances of bias and inequity and helps those get addressed much more quickly. Finally, open lines of communication establish flows of input to and from employees as cultural norms.
Remember, communication is as much about listening as it is about talking.
Don’t feel compelled to always jump to action or have an answer.
Creating space to listen and reflecting back what you have heard to ensure you understood correctly are incredibly important parts of the equation. It is very likely that tough conversations need to happen—tough to hear, tough to share, and maybe even tough to realize how something or someone in your company is contributing to the problem. You need to engage in these conversations so you can identify and get to the core of what may be causing issues for your people. This will create your company’s compass for moving forward.
Curiosity and inquisitiveness are welcomed and held in high regard in this kind of culture, creating tremendous opportunities for learning on the job rather than having to wait for formal training. This also creates opportunities for ongoing feedback in a more fluid coaching style, as opposed to holding any feedback until a formal review at the end of the year. This does not mean employees are nitpicked constantly. Instead, they are recognized for doing well, coached when they need to do something differently, and provided resources when they need extra support or accommodation. That is the essence of equity in the workplace.
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