Diversity is a an inclusive environment wherein differences—human, cultural, and systems—are leveraged as a competitive business advantage in order to:
• provide exceptional customer service
• ensure the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of employees
• achieve exceptional workplace and business performance
• deliver the highest quality products and services

Inclusion is an environment where there is “equity of opportunity” for personal and organizational success, as well as pride in the organization.

Employee Engagement is a level of “employee commitment” to the organization that ultimately results in greater discretionary effort in his or her work—beyond the expected or compensated level of performance.

The Roles of Leadership/Management and Employees

All three of the initiatives cited above have two dimensions: The Role of Leadership/ Management and The Role of Employees.

1) The Role of Leadership/Management
• Create an environment of integrity and trust.
• Provide employees with career and growth opportunities.
• Establish an environment where employees take pride in the organization
and communicate that pride to others.
• Provide opportunities for personal and professional development.
• Establish quality interpersonal relationships, communication, and
problem resolution.
• Create an environment for work-life quality, balance, and integration.
2) The Role of Employees
• Request, ensure, and design engaging work that is personally
satisfying.
• Ensure that your work is aligned with the organization’s or business
unit’s goals and objectives.
• Assume a natural leadership role among peers as greater delegation
occurs (Leadership is the ability to influence others).
• Design a career development plan inclusive of the experiences and
learning you will require.
• Establish quality interpersonal relationships, communication, and
collaboration among your peers.
• Define and create a plan for work-life quality and balance.

The role of leadership/management is to proactively provide an inclusive environment and management practices that support the development, learning, and well-being of employees. An inclusive environment is an organizational context where all employees experience being wanted, appreciated, and valued.

1. Wanted for their diverse membership as part of the organization.

2. Appreciated for the unique contribution they make in creating the culture of the organization.

3. Valued for the unique perspective they bring in terms of creativity, innovation, and high-performance.
It’s also an environment where an employee feels commitment and passion for their work, beyond the expected or compensated level of performance.

Leadership is the ability to influence the thinking, commitment, and behaviors of others.
Transformational leaders are able to:

• Facilitate the proactive adaptation to change on the part of others;
• Understand and manage the relationship between the human dimensions of work and exceptional performance;
• Understand and manage a spectrum of people, competencies, and styles;
• Understand that the external results one produces is a direct consequence of one’s inner motivation;
• Have an in-depth understanding of one’s self.

Leadership/Management Support—A Personal Assessment

Instructions: Take five minutes to evaluate yourself in terms of your overall workplace performance in a leadership and/or managerial support role. Use a scale of 0 (lowest) to 10 (highest) for each statement with respect to employees under your supervision or those you work with.

1. I am skillful at facilitating both the professional development and personal growth of employees I lead/supervise.
2. I am comfortable working with people who have beliefs and values divergently different from my own.
3. I ensure an environment where high performance is expected and achieved.
4. I ensure, by measurement, a “worker-friendly” environment where employees experience work-life quality and balance.
5. I proactively engage in personal and professional growth.

For the item where you feel as if you rank the lowest, find a colleague or friend outside of work that you trust to give you honest feedback on  two to three Small Acts of Inclusion® might be able to incorporate immediately that would have an impact.

Innovations recommends our course Leading During Turbulent Times—The FuturePerfect Leadership Model as the first step in implementing positive change in the workplace. For more information on transforming your organization please contact us.

If you liked this self-assessment, you might also like our free High Performance Leadership Self Test at www.innovint.com

1. Realize that how we view the world is through our unique reality— our reality is not necessarily right or superior to others.
2. Be willing to acknowledge that we all have biases and prejudices—tell the truth.
3. Consider the possibility that most insensitivities are unintentional—assume most people are well-intentioned.
4. Be open to feedback when you experience conflict that involves diversity—have the courage to admit that you might have been too quick to judgement or that you might have offended someone.
5. Create experiences and friendships across diversity differences—experiencing others in relationship is the most powerful way to create diversity!
6. Be willing to confront your fears of experiencing differences—have the courage to change and grow, it is key to our survival.
7. Be willing to explore issues of human equality—we all seek to be superior to others in some way.
8. Remember, diversity is a process of continuously learning through experiencing the differences in others–create a relationship with someone with whom you have the greatest prejudice!

We view our ethnic cultural diversity as an example to the world of how the rich integration of cultural
heritages has evolved into a beautiful, proud, and spiritual mosaic.
We value and embrace the diversity of colors, physical differences, modes of expression, points of view, and personal choices of all those who choose to be classified as African Americans.
We recognize and realize our natural potential for contribution to the evolution of global diversity and
human equality across the planet.

We value the opportunity for full participation in the totality of American society and acknowledge the fact that opportunities presently exist which are unprecedented in American history.

We further acknowledge that these opportunities will require diligence, persistence, and commitment that will test us in ways which are presently not required for other Americans.
We individually and collectively must transform our focus from what has not been available, as a reason for limited participation and dedication, into a focus with intensity upon that which we choose to achieve—here and now.

We recognize that a major step in our full realization of the “American Dream,” is our mutual support for each other, economically, politically, educationally, emotionally, and spiritually. We must recapture, as a people, our fundamental African-based values as a source of self-love and self-respect.

We must form networks for mutual economic and political support in order to achieve success, so that we might more effectively contribute to American and global harmony.

We acknowledge that the concern for ourselves, as African Americans, is an intermediate step en route to the ultimate achievement of global cultural integration.

We view cultural integration as a context where all people of the planet are valued, accepted, as humanly equal, and involved in mutually supportive activities.
We are ultimately committed to the creation of a global mosaic that is founded upon a set of human values which transcend our individual or group differences.
William A. Guillory, Ph.D.

1. Maintain an open mind – Make a conscious decision to be open and receptive to challenging dialogue.
2. Focus on the person – Attempt to avoid all distractions and give the person your undivided attention.
3. Control your emotions – Focus inwardly when you experience a reaction to what is being communicated to understand the emotional message of the person.
4. Show interest – Smile or nod when you agree; avoid shaking your head in disagreement even when you are not convinced of their ideas or opinions.
5. Formulate overall impressions – At regular intervals, summarize in your mind what is being communicated.
6. Evaluate the content – Evaluate the content of the communication, not the person or his or her style of delivery.
7. Read between the lines – Listen for hidden messages between the lines using your intuition. (Subliminal communication)
8. Practice makes mastery – Remember, mastery comes with practice; particularly of non-verbal cues or messages.

If you incorporate these simple steps each day, you will see significant improvement in the quality of your relationships with others, both at the workplace and in other parts of your life.

Danny

1. Assess your present level of personal empowerment.  Honestly evaluate your present level of personal and professional mastery of your job by soliciting input from a broad spectrum of sources.
2. Assess the quality of your performance. Determine whether your performance falls below, meets, or exceeds expectations.
3. Assess your level of commitment. If your performance is below expectations and you are sufficiently skilled for your present job, seriously reexamine if you are committed to meeting the expectations of
your present job. If not, make plans for doing something else.
4. Determine the new skills you require. If you feel you are committed to meeting the expectations of your present job, write, in detail, the new personal and/or professional skills you require, based upon expanded
responsibility and accountability.
5. Acquire a mentor/coach to hold you accountable. Acquire a mentor or a coach to assist you and hold you accountable to your commitment, based upon the consistent results you produce.
6. Overcome your self-limitations. When you encounter a barrier, have your mentor facilitate you in overcoming it. Remember, it is ultimately your responsibility to take charge of overcoming your selflimiting
belief(s) by designing and performing challenging assignments.
7. Define a new challenging area of activity. If you meet or exceed your present job expectations, describe a project or an area of activity that you would enjoy which involves significantly expanded responsibility
in terms of the acquisition of new personal and/or professional skills.
8. Expect new learning opportunities to occur. Begin the project, utilizing and/or learning proven professional methods and knowledge. If difficulties or problems occur, apply steps 5) and 6) above.

I’ll have more on Empowerment in the coming days.

Danny

• Sourcing – establishing a system and criteria for identifying highly motivated, multicultural individuals for potential employment.

• Attracting – presenting a compelling case to potential recruits that are interested in your organization.

• Recruiting – the collective effort of an organization to show a potential employee that his or her future is best realized by their employment.

• Developing – providing the opportunity and support necessary to an employee for their continual expanding potential.

• Advancing – providing the opportunity for employees to attain higher positions of responsibility, as a result of mentoring, coaching, and visible opportunities, in proportion to performance.

• Retaining – the result of the proactive, professional development of an employee.

Business objectives have continued to evolve over the centuries as technology presents us with more efficient work tools and more challenging tasks. Dr. Guillory shows this progression over time and suggests that every organization develop a talent management support system that continuously monitors the efforts of employee well being.

http://www.businessweek.com/managing/special_reports/20090326work-life_balance.htm. Recent studies have shown that even with the technological breakthroughs that have helped make daily tasks simpler, we can still find ourselves stressed and time crunched. These studies also show that in a stressful environment, productivity and employee wellness progressively decline, killing an organization’s profitability. These recent finding have spawned the new age of work life balance. Where employees work in their most productive time scales and shift their focus to the appropriate task at hand.

Some of the steps that Fortune 500 Companies are implementing include:

1. Telecommuting – When employees work from home, they not only create more work time by saving the daily commute, but they also save the overhead cost of a rented or owned business facility. One of the biggest innovators in this is Capital One who is promoting a work from home option to all levels of management.
2. Flexible Schedules – The Corporate Executive Board conducted a research survey asking employees what the most important aspect of their employer was. They found that “In the current economic environment, work-life balance now ranks as one of the most important workplace attributes—second only to compensation.” Their article describes this balance as “The gift of time.” Many large companies offer their employees free time for education, physical fitness, or personal errands. Or they may offer company gym memberships or discount meals as a way for employees to make the best use of their daily time.
3. Education – Many of us just don’t know where to start when it comes to balancing our lives. What is the most important activity we do every day? What activities will help me be more productive? These questions are all addressed in each of our Work Life Balance Workshops. We recently added a resource to our website called Creating Sanity. This is a free self evaluation that we offer workshop participants to help them balance their priorities.

This month Innovations International celebrates its one-year anniversary in becoming a virtual organization. Our employees all balance their home and work life while assisting our clients with successful initiatives in leadership, diversity, creativity and work life balance. The learning we experienced has given us the in depth knowledge that we bring to each of our clients as we assist them in making a similar transition.

Kathleen DiFrancesco
Director of Marketing
Innovations International

1)   Overcommunication is necessary–When we are in a traditional office environment, we tend to pick up many things just by osmosis…spontaneous conversations that come up, impromptu meetings that are called, etc.   Even though it may seem like overkill, it is absolutely vital to be very clear on your meaning, and ask questions if there is any doubt.

2)  The technological tools–Before going virutal, we took a great of time exploring different options for tools that we could use to replicate our communication patterns, and also to save money.   Most of the tools we identified were either free or low cost, and all are internet accessible.   For free applications, we selected Skype for our in house calling/chat tool, Gmail for our email addresses, and Google Calendar for our organizational calendar.  For low cost tools, we chose Egnyte as the virtual server, Ring Central for our virtual PBX, Highrise for our customer database, and Basecamp for project management.   We also have begun holding virtual conferences, and now use Webex as the tool for those events.  Switching to this internet based system has probably saved us 15% in operating costs.

3)  Connecting with other resources–We have also opened up to using Elance as a resource to help us staff up on projects that require skills outside of our core competencies.  Many clients have needs that now cannot be filled by their in-house teams and are looking to us to fill the gap in related areas.  As a result, we now have a trusted team of people that we have identified through Elance who are able to ramp up quickly on our projects.  We have been happy overall, although I would add that our best experiences have been when a project was clearly definable in terms of a result, rather than a result that was more subjective.

4)  Flexibilty–Our team loves the flexibility and the ability to balance work and home life.   Some employees do their creative work at 5am and begin sending in the results of their work, while others make work late into the night.  I am able to work in between taking my children to school, and then soccer practice in the afternoon, fitting things in both before and after. Life unfortunately does not fit neatly into boxes, so this flexibility has made us view our work and our lives in a different way.

5)  Relationships are still the key–Being virtual actually has made the need for quality relationships even more important.  Being isolated with time to reflect on something can result in thoughts running wild, so picking up on cues in someone’s voice or tone can serve as a guide in figuring our someone’s emotional state.   Don’t ignore your instincts….if you think you “hear” something, ask them, because there is probably something to it.

It has been a great experience, and I will share more thoughts on this soon.

Danny