Inclusion for all

At Chelsham have always been very clear about our specific focus on inclusion work. There are plenty of excellent players who specialise in equality and diversity – we have plenty of experience in those areas too, dating back to the 1990s. But…

…for years we have been saying to our clients that we are beyond the point where internal equality initiatives, the ‘first wave’ of equality, diversity & inclusion developments, are enough.

That is not the same as saying we have achieved equality in every business – that self-evidently is not the case – or that we should cease focusing on equity. The same applies to many common approaches to diversity, the ‘second wave’, such as internal networks – they have their place. Of course they do. But we can do better…

The ‘third wave’ entails a clear focus on behaviours, leadership and shared ownership as we seek to create businesses with truly inclusive cultures. Businesses in which inclusion is seen as relevant for everyone, as ‘the right thing to do’ and as a commercial enabler.

This is our specialist area and we look to drive understanding of the possibilities created when inclusion is seen as a theme which cuts across everything, as opposed to a ‘stand-alone’ item on the people agenda.

A recent blog by the rather wonderful Nick Court, a blog which was the catalyst for these musings, focused on class and exclusion; Nick thoughtfully and vividly brought to life his experiences of navigating the world of work. I commend it to you and it makes the point very clearly that inclusion is, and must be, an agenda that is relevant for and benefits every single person. I would add: it is hard to explore diversity and inclusion in England without reaching the conclusion that class is a primary factor and needs to be a focus.

Too few businesses really do enough, for example, to foster conditions of social mobility. Too few think about how it feels to join a team full of Oxbridge graduates for someone who took an alternative route which didn’t include a top University.

So inclusion starts from the position that we are seeking to understand what might lead to exclusion specifically in your business. This opens up the possibility that the conditions which lead to exclusion might not be predictable and may even surprise you: the white, straight, middle-aged man who has felt excluded on grounds of class/background? The man who feels excluded in a majority female organisation or department? (As an aside: one of the toughest ER cases I ever handled was in precisely this situation. And the man’s grievance was rightly upheld.)

This in no way denies that the majority of cases of exclusion are experienced by minority groups; instead it opens up the possibility that this is an agenda for everyone. I’ll probably end up saying this multiple times in one blog but it has to be repeated in an era where some are setting out wilfully to misrepresent what we do…

With attacks on the mere idea of inclusion prevalent in the press and in politics, where some seem to be competing to say the most outrageous things in order to gain the prize of leading the Conservative Party, it’s important to me and to us to restate why inclusion, inclusive behaviours and inclusive leadership must be top priorities for all organisations.

Adept inclusion work has nothing to do with blaming people, lecturing or trying to foster conditions of guilt. To the contrary: we avoid the word “should”, definitely don’t preach and focus on the positive choices people might decide to make to foster inclusion and to avoid exclusion.

To repeat: we want to see, and to help create, a world in which everyone works for inclusive businesses and in which nobody is excluded because of who they are or due to any perceived or real sense of difference.

And we are far from that.

Best wishes

Tony