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The Inclusion Imperative

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The Inclusion Imperative

How Real Inclusion Creates Better Business and Builds Better Societies

Kogan Page,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

Is your organization diverse, inclusive – or diverse and inclusive?

Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Stephen Frost provides a brilliant, if somewhat long and repetitive, case for a new approach to diversity and inclusion (D&I). Drawing on his experience leading the Diversity and Inclusion team of the “London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games” (LOCOG), he implores you to stop forcing diversity upon your workplace. Stop creating a separate, expensive and often annoying parallel organizational process. Instead, weave diversity and inclusion into your business plan so it aligns with and supports your business objectives. Instead of compliance and policing quotas, use evidence to convince your colleagues that diversity and inclusion are the right values to carry out and the best course for your business. The 2012 London Olympics were the most diverse and inclusive in history; the congruence of those two factors is not a coincidence. getAbstract recommends this inside account of how the London Committee developed its proven, flexible methodology to any leader seeking concrete, immediate applicable ideas and tactics for diversity and inclusion.

Summary

Diversity and Inclusion (D&I)

Welcome to “Diversity 101” and “Diversity 2.0” – the elementary levels. Diversity 101 emphasizes compliance and enforcement. It doesn’t work. Diversity programs at the “Inclusion 2.0” level promote mandatory training, mentoring and integration, but they aren’t sustainable.

What if diversity could help you achieve your business goals and provide a competitive advantage? What if doing the right thing could be the best thing for your business? Welcome to “Inclusion 3.0,” in which you don’t have to do anything, and no one makes you fulfill quotas or forces you into training. You work with a D&I team that tells you very little while asking questions and listening a lot. This team learns about your business goals, comes to understand them, and aligns its diversity strategy and initiatives to help you achieve them. Diversity 101 and 2.0 represent net costs to organizations. Inclusion 3.0 emphasizes the bottom line and convincingly claims to create societal and shareholder value.

The 2012 London Olympic Games

London won the right to stage the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, in part because it promised openness – an...

About the Author

Diversity consultant and Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Stephen Frost is past head of Diversity and Inclusion for the London Olympic Games.

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