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One of the ways that we can ensure that we have a more inclusive organization is to focus on meetings, because so many of us spend so much time in meetings.
Lift all boats
Today, a lot of meeting dynamics can be very exclusionary. They are geared toward rewarding the person who already has power and status. It actually mirrors a lot of the social dynamics that we see in society today. So, largely meetings are dominated by men, by white people, by people who already have status and privilege and hierarchical power. Usually, the loudest voice in the room. It can leave out people who identify as introverts or people who historically have been marginalized in society: women, people of color, people with other underestimated and marginalized identities.
What we find is in intentionally designing an inclusive culture — in really focusing on what some of the challenges women of color face — actually everyone benefits. It truly is one of those situations where a rising tide lifts all boats. I worked with a client, which had a very meeting-heavy culture, and some of the interventions that we worked with them on was creating a more inclusive meeting culture. And when we followed up with this client, what was really interesting was not only did women and people of color feel like they could belong more, but even white men who identified as introverts said that they felt like they could belong, like their voices were heard more often.
Research on the importance of diversity has found that, when teams were given a puzzle to solve, teams that were racially mixed generally solved the puzzle quicker and were more likely to solve the puzzle. Because the less you believe that the person next to you is the same as you and has the same information as you, the more likely you’re going to share the information that you have. So, we found that in a variety of settings, the more racially mixed, especially, meetings are, the more innovative they are. They result in better outcomes and less groupthink. It makes, really, business sense, and it makes moral sense, and really across the board, it makes sense to have more diverse and inclusive meetings.
Ensure equal airtime
Nicole Gugliucci, a female astronomer, found that often her ideas and other women around her ideas, were not really heard until they were repeated a second time by a male colleague. So, she termed this phenomenon ”he-peating.” When a woman presents an idea or talks about something that she has observed as an expert or as someone who has experience, that idea isn’t heard until it is repeated again by a man. “He-peating” also happens to women of color from other women, who are white women. And so, we need to very deliberately ensure that we credit whose idea it originally was. How can we be more deliberate about ensuring everyone has equal air time?