By now you’ve realised that we’re passionate about all areas of diversity and inclusion, from age to disability; sexual orientation and gender to race and religious beliefs.* It’s important to us that people who might feel like the ‘other’ are not marginalised, have a voice, are engaged and included. Equally as important is how everyone experiences the culture in an organisation, on a day to day level.
Before we go any further we have to do our first bit of myth busting. Too often people in the ‘majority’ think that diversity and inclusion is about, and only applies to those in the ‘minority’. How can we say this tactfully? This is just WRONG.
Remember when we said, we are all unique? Good, so we all have something that we can bring to our work environment. But we have to feel safe enough to take risks, be vulnerable and put ourselves out there. To be connected enough to what the organisation does, feel that it’s meaningful and ultimately that we have a future there. This applies to all whether you are a Manager on an org chart, or a leader without a title but with much greater influence. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been there for 5 years or 5 minutes. It’s about a culture that’s going to allow you to work in the best way for YOU to achieve your best. So that’s not a minority issue, that’s a majority opportunity.
*(plus all the other protected characteristics).
We start with an insight gathering process to evaluate the existing culture before identifying opportunities for change.
We co create D&I action plans to work at all levels of your organisation, integrated with your existing infrastructure.
We develop and deliver foundational learning that enables a shared understanding of D&I concepts and behaviours across organisations.
We review existing communications and business needs before developing the plan to take your organisation forward.
We create engagement plans and effective communications approaches to build awareness and support for change.
We develop approaches to protect and enhance your brand when potential issues emerge that could threaten your organisation.
Through our approach to facilitation we focus on creating safe spaces for all, and the principle of mutual respect for all participants.
Our workshops relating to core diversity and inclusion principles provide support for your teams to respond to their specific challenges.
Provide mentoring and support around leadership principles to enable talent to excel in what they do.
The okusoka model draws inspiration from principles of psychology and philosophy to provide an evidence based approach to culture change.
We use measurement & analysis to inform the effectiveness of D&I activities to establish key performance indicators going forward.
We can provide business intelligence & strategy services across all aspects of commercial asset exploitation, from portfolio review to licencing opportunities.
Understanding that your culture needs to change is quite often the easy part, knowing where to start and how to achieve the change that is needed, can be more difficult.
We have a phrase, or maybe it’s a mantra…anyway its four words. Ask the right questions. There it is, simple isn’t it? No, not really, at its core this approach asks you to always do the hard part first. Asking the right questions can be disruptive, difficult and awkward, and I think that’s why we like it so much. When we follow those four words, and also consider who’s in the room when we do so - the outcomes can be inspiring and transformative. So for us, the foundations of our success lie in the questions we ask. This philosophy is at the heart of our Inclusive Programme.
The Inclusive programme delivers cultural transformation through four distinct stages; Discovery is an immersion and insight gathering process to evaluate the existing culture. Development a programme of strategic planning and engagement – bringing people along whilst developing understanding around what an inclusive culture means for the organisation. Knowledge a programme of learning and providing the education that provides the foundations for cultural change. Implementation is when we move from planning to action, including all the identified activities required to deliver change.
Supporting all of this is measurement & analysis establishing baselines and key performance indicators to map and check sustained progress for the future.
From time to time, I post a mixture of short form and longer reads here, it might be in connection to a project, a conversation or something that I’ve seen that’s moved me to share my thoughts. I hope you enjoy reading them.
We recently brought together sixteen leaders from the charity sector to take part in our first virtual Leadership roundtable: Challenges in a post COVID-19 world and intended it to be a leadership discussion with a difference.
A few weeks ago, I talked at an event about failure and the reason I’m writing about it now, (failure that is not the event), is because it struck me that we hardly ever do and certainly not in a positive light.
In 1971 Marvin Gaye released his seminal classic concept album ‘What’s Going On’, featuring a Vietnam veteran returning to America to witness hatred suffering and injustice. It just seemed appropriate to use this amazing piece of music – a searing documentation of the struggles of people at the time as the title of this blog.
Get in touch with us by email, we’d love to hear from you.
At okusoka + co we co-create organisational cultures that are truly inclusive and work for all.
