Purpose and Plans

Yesterday, I attended the Diversity & Inclusion in India 2013 Forum presented by Community Business. The theme of the Forum was 'From Diversity to Inclusion - Realizing the ROI'.

The keynote speaker was Mr. Mark Kaplan, author of The Inclusion Dividend and Principal at The Dagoba Group, an integrated global consultancy that specialize in Diversity & Inclusion and Sales Management to help leaders take tangible steps to enhance inclusion and optimize teams. By doing so, the customer is able to improve their bottom line. 

How can a more diverse workforce increase your ROI? This was a new concept for me, and I listened eagerly.

He talked about the Business Case for Diversity & Inclusion - The Inclusion Dividend. Similar to an investment dividend, this is the business ROI, dividend, that is received from hiring and retaining a diverse workforce that feels accepted & comfortable in our work environment.

Mark first defined:

What is Diversity? Simply put, it is the presence of difference.

What is Inclusion? It is about the climate. It is about the extent to which a diverse group of people feel fully part of a team and are able to make their best contribution.

What is Meritocracy? A culture where individuals are rewarded based upon their performance.

What is Bias? It is natural and human, much of it is unconscious. Unconscious bias is pervasive, it translates into behavior.

Mark's main points on the Business Case for Diversity & Inclusion are below. The explanations have been paraphrased by yours truly. 

Internal

- Talent Acquisition: The larger your talent pool, the more qualified talent you will hire

- Productivity: People that feel accepted in the workplace will be more productive

- Morale: In an inclusive workspace, people will share more, be closer and feel happier

- Innovation: A more diverse work place will produce more diverse/unique ideas

- Talent Retention: In an inclusive workspace, people will be happy and choose to stay

External

- Client Acquisition: Diverse people (employees) cater to diverse people (clients)

- Growth: By catering to diverse clients, business can expand across the same or new verticals

- Penetration: Brand popularity/penetration will increase as clients learn about the D&I initiatives

- Innovation: An organization that utilizes the brainpower of it's entire talent pool innovates better and faster 

- Client Retention: Clients will stay with a brand they feel is inclusive and diverse

After the business case was made, Mark introduced two notions on how to visualize D&I in the workplace. 

Unconscious Bias

Mark asked the room, "Who is from Philadelphia?" One lady raised her hand and instantly Mark and her had a deeper connection than Mark had with anyone else in the room. Mark extended the analogy to the workplace. If he was a team manager, he may talk more with this colleague from his hometown. This additional face time with the manager could lead to business discussions, and eventually this employee will be more 'in the know' and feel more comfortable on Mark's team. Which employee will be poised to perform better? The one from Philadelphia of course.

Unconscious bias is natural and human. It affects our behavior. Mark mentioned it was best to accept this reality and make a conscious effect to address it. Managers often get defensive when asked if they are biased towards certain employees. Mark stated it's best for these managers to just accept their unconscious bias, and free up energy to consciously address it. 

Some examples of Bias are:

Affinity Bias - based on a sense of personal connection to the other person

Mark suggested that everybody take the Harvard Implicit Association Test to help you become aware of your affinity bias.

Confirmation Bias - confirms my preexisting perception, stereotype or image

Systemic Bias - bias that gets embedded into systems and processes i.e talent acquisition and talent management

Inside and Outside Dynamics 

He introduced this subject by asking the audience, "how many left handers are in the group?" A handful out of the hundred or so participants raised their hand. He asked the left handed people what difficulties they face by being left handed, some challenges raised were - smudging ink while writing, having to order a special pair of scissors, being forced to shake hands with your right, etc.

"Did any right-handed people in the room ever think of what life is like as a left-handed person?" Most people didn't raise their hands.

In this example, the left-handed people were the Outside group, and the right-handed people were the Inside group.

I was in the Inside group! This felt strange for me, as I have been a life-long stutterer and have always felt part of the "Outside" Group.

Diversity is important, but is relatively easy to achieve. You can expand your recruitment options and hire a more diverse junior level. However, what is even more important is creating an inclusive environment in which all people feel supported and comfortable. As a stutterer, I always feel more comfortable when I can openly share with an individual or a group "I am someone who stutters" and on doing so, receive a positive, accepting response. When I feel I am in a safe environment to stutter, I share my thoughts more and in fact I stutter less!

The KEY to change here was to get insider groups engaged to think about this stuff, and show them the return - i.e. how creating an inclusive environment benefits the bottom line.

Mark related this to a Human Rights struggle. The most significant change has happened not only when an outsider group revolts against an insider group, but when the insider group engages with the outsider group.

A question was asked from the audience, "In India, we have a reservations policy that is similar to affirmative action in the United States, that reserves a certain number of seats in a University for Indians from historically underprivileged castes. This is our way of addressing the caste issue. How do you engage the insider groups in this issue, when they have to give up their privileges to others?"

Mark replied (paraphrased in my own words): "If framed as only giving up privileges, then the insider group will resist. However, if framed as it's not a level playing field, and this policy will level the playing field, then insider groups will accept."

The key here is to verify whether the playing field really is not level. If so, action definitely must be taken to level it, and a truthful, detailed explanation must be given to the insider groups as to how this action is necessary to level it.

Mark asked the audience to consider the following questions (try to answer them yourself):

- In your company identify and discuss examples of the most significant insider and outsider groups? 

- How do you interrupt inside and outside groups and unconscious bias? 

He mentioned that usually someone on the insider group has a choice as to whether they take the time to acknowledge the challenges faced by someone of the outsider group. It is key for insider group leaders to make the choice here to engage with the outsider group and create an inclusive environment.

Mark shared some methods that can help leaders create an inclusive environment:

- Self-awareness

- Engage System 2: This is the system you use when you turn off auto-pilot/habitual behavior, and begin to think consciously, rationally and slowly. This concept is from the book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

-Tailor

I could immediately relate with this concept as I have run a restaurant in China for 4 years. A quarter of my staff were Indian and three quarters were local Chinese. It was always a challenge as a leader to ensure no outside groups were formed and to create a level playing field for all. 

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The next talk that stuck out to me was given by Ms. Summi Sharma, Director of IndiGo. Summi talked on women in the workplace. She shared how there may be a common bias/stereotype that women have a lower retention rate. She shared an example of a team with 55 men and 45 women. A year later, 10% of the men left and only 5% of the women left. The reason women left was primarily for family reasons, child bearing, etc. Men, on the other left, left primarily for other opportunities. Summi shared how she felt women were more loyal employees, and only left if they absolutely had to. 

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The next interesting story was shared by Ms. Anindita Baneerjee, Practice Head of Diversity Management at Renaissance Strategic Consultants Pvt. Ltd. She mentioned that in an organization she worked with they had an issue with employee groups speaking their mother tongue, and leaving out groups that did not understand. The two primary employee groups were the Punjabi and Bengali speakers - upper management thought the Punjabi speakers were using their local language the most. The organization started an initiative to encourage more inclusion among the groups. The initiative: if you use a language different than our lowest common denominator - English or Hindi - you will need to put Rs. 10 in a glass jar. In the first month, the jar filled up very quickly. And to managements surprise the Bengali group were filling up the jar faster than the Punjabi group, when management had always thought that the Punjabi group spoke their language more - this is an example of Confirmation Bias. In the second month, the jar filled up less quickly. And in the third month, they had trouble even filling the jar.

Further, Anindita shared the research based slide above to highlight the strongest Insider group associations among individuals - identities - that exist among Indians. The strongest primary identity is Indian, and secondary identity is:

State 45%

City 16%

Region 10%

Country 4%

Religion 3%

Community 3%

Global Citizen 3%

Not sure 16%

The results were very surprising. Given the recent religious conflict in Uttar Pradesh between Muslims and Hindus, and similar inter-religious conflicts throughout India over the past decade, I assumed that most individual's secondary identity would be with their religion. It is, however, reassuring to know that a majority of people share a secondary identity with their neighbors - state or city. This is a positive note in a secular India.

Anindita also shared the above slide regarding the average personality based attrition challenges for the four geographic areas of India.

North - On the move, always aspiring for a Little More

East - Lowest attrition, happy with where they are

West - Career minded, always looking for a better opportunity

South - Stays longer, look for growth in functional area

Whether the above regional generalization is true is debatable. Like all generalizations I'm certain there will be those who fall out of the stereotype and those who conform to it. 

Anindita stated the way toward a more regionally diverse & inclusive work environment exists in answering the questions below.

- Are more than 50% of your top management team from one region?

- In top management teams, do you often find clusters of local language conversation in the breaks?

- Do you ensure that senior managers have worked in multiple geographies within the country prior to promotion?

- Do you have a policy on regional diversity? How is it explicitly communicated and made tangible?

Next, I truly enjoyed listening to Ms. Srimathi Shivashankar, Associate Vice President, Diversity & Sustainability at HCL Technologies.

She shared how she grew up in a small village and she only began to learn English in Middle School. Even after she joined the corporate world, she would think in her mother tongue and need to translate it into English. For this she would require two minutes before she was able to respond. Soon she brought this down to one minute, then 30 seconds, then just a few seconds. I found this very inspiring. It always inspires me to see people who face the challenge of learning a skill that most of us take for granted - speaking English. As a stammerer, I've always struggled with speaking 'fluently' whereas most others take it for granted. These stories rejuvenate my inspiration me to accept this challenge and face it boldly. 

Srimathi shared HCL's unique management philosophy of employees first, customers second (EFCS) principle, created by Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL Technologies and author of the book Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down. As written in the slide above, HCL creates a culture for Employees that promotes them becoming Ideaprenueurs - innovative people in every aspect. 

On the same lines, HCL has four internal programs developed and run by Employees.

The Heritage Network - a network of HCLites who play a key role in the conservation of the cultural heritage resources.

The Chargers oversee the local festivals being celebrated in the office locations and promote a culture of inclusion.

The EFC help HR to shape policies that are culturally inclusive - ex. religious holidays / dress code / quiet rooms / official language / inclusive language network

MEME is our internal social website which has a number of affinity networks that help employees understand culture and religion based issues.

These internal programs set a tone for the kind of culture present at HCL. It is one that respects every employee's individual culture which in turn sets the tone for a broader one HCL-culture of diversity.