Get Diverse Hires to Stick

Diverse hiring is critical for building thoughtful and resilient organisations which thrive in uncertain climates. But diverse hires only stay when they feel truly welcome, part of the team, and not perceived as a token or box-tick hire.

Building a thriving diverse team culture, with curiosity and willingness to learn about the perspectives of others is central in building successful diverse teams.

Don’t just get diverse hires to stick, help them to contribute to their full potential.

WHAT

You spend money on recruiting for diversity for many reasons: you want to be able to recruit the best talent from the deepest pool; you want your employee base to look like your customer base and to reflect the world outside; you recognise that diverse points of view make for better decisions; your stakeholders expect it of you; and you know it’s the right thing to do.

But it causes pain. Your people feel overlooked while new hires feel mis-sold, misunderstood, and unwelcome.

We can help you build a more diverse culture in a culturally more healthy way.

WHY

Life is diversity and diversity is life: difference and diversity are inevitable.

For the individual, overcoming our inherent fear or disdain of difference brings the possibility of connection, and is therefore the cornerstone of a meaningful life. For the organisation, recognising different points of view is essential to building the situational awareness which is critical for good decision making. Different perspectives help all see more clearly, unlocking creativity and innovation.

Creating an inclusive culture which embraces diversity is simply the right thing - the human thing - to do.

HOW

Our approach is unique and uniquely powerful. It creates lasting change. We root it in emotional intelligence rather than in identity.

We start by making it personal - creating the conditions in which it’s safe for your people to connect to their own experiences of being the ‘other’, regardless of who they are. Everyone, regardless of identity or relative power, needs to be allowed to express and connect with their own experiences of disadvantage and disempowerment. It’s no longer safe for many to talk about these things. This drives resentment which foments sabotage or non-cooperation with inclusiveness efforts.

Once your leaders have reconnected with their own feelings of being ‘the other’, we show them how our own preferences - in working, communications and relational style - drive what we are attracted to and what we are allergic to. They start to understand that their discomfort with difference is as much about them as about the other.

We then explore replacing judgment with curiosity. Judgment keeps us safe by pushing responsibility for weakness or difficulty into the other thereby driving disconnection. Curiosity, however, requires us to be vulnerable in thinking about and taking responsibility for our impact on the other, thereby driving connection through building empathy and understanding.

At the same time, we work with more junior or less powerful colleagues to explore the differences between intent and impact, so that they are better able to assume positive intent in their interactions with others, and give people around them the benefit of the doubt.

The result is a less defended, more connected, more emotionally intelligent and sensitive team, which takes responsibility for their actions, and is more resilient and forgiving of slips when they occur.

Recent Engagement

Structured Diversity Coaching Program for Divisional SLT at major global technology company

Focus on changing behaviours, thinking and understanding, not just processes, policies and procedures.

With a selection of qualified executive coaches, all of whom had one or more protected EDI characteristics, we worked both one on one and with the wider leadership team utilising both traditional coaching models, and self-disclosure and story-telling to help participants understand individual personal experiences of difference and diversity. This method build rapport quickly: highlighting the humanity and fallibility of the coach enables participants to feel more able to disclose their own worries about issues around inclusion and exclusion.

The focus was on helping leadership team members recall and understand their own experiences of difference and to recognise how drawing on these experiences enables a fuller understanding of diversity and greater access to empathy and curiosity in place of judgment.  That shift from doing (performative, and potentially a tick-box) to being (implicit in thinking and behaviour) enabled a critical shift in how the team leaders understood and engaged with EDI, helping them move effectively towards creating real, lived inclusion in the workplace.