In this Member Workshop with Centennial College, discover the profound impact of inclusivity and gain the tactics needed to guide your organization towards a brighter and more inclusive future.
Event Information
Inclusion has become a prominent term resonating within organizations worldwide, yet its true essence and implementation remain a question. What is inclusion, and how can leaders effectively foster it? This session delves into the profound impact of inclusion on organizational success, dissecting its business cases, the pivotal role leaders play, and its potential to drive transformative change.
If you're keen on driving a culture of inclusion and reaping its rewards, this session is a must-attend. Gain a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted benefits that inclusion brings to every facet of your organization's functioning. Learn how leaders can steer the ship towards cultivating an environment that champions diversity and inclusivity, catalyzing individual growth and collective prosperity.
Key takeaways:
- Comprehensive Impact of Inclusion: Grasp how inclusion permeates all aspects of your organization, enhancing teamwork, creativity, and overall performance.
- Empowering Leadership for Inclusivity: Discover actionable insights into how leaders can nurture an inclusive workplace, fostering an environment of equality, respect, and collaboration.
- Cultivating Supportive Practices: Uncover how personal and organizational practices align to support and reinforce the inclusion journey within your organization, leading to enhanced overall success.
- Strengthen Organizational Culture: Examine how EDI is implemented. By doing this, we “solve” the problem of strengthening organizational culture and delivering improved business outcomes.
Workshop Video
Thank you for your interest in our event! The event has now passed, but we are pleased to share that the recording is available for you to review. Catch up on all the valuable insights and information shared during the event. We hope you find it informative and useful.
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so hello everybody my good morning everyone my name is capil guy and I am
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the senior manager of membership engagement here at the Toronto region Board of Trade thank you all for joining
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us this morning for our valued member Centennial College's workshop on leading with inclusion empowering Success
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Through diversity today's enlightening webinar will help us discover the profound impact of inclusivity and gain
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the tactics needed to guide your organization towards a brighter and more inclusive future please note that
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today's session will be recorded and uploaded to our YouTube channel if you have any questions while the webinar is
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going on please post your questions in the chat and we will answer your questions dur during our Q&A session at
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the end before we begin I'd like to acknowledge this land on which we are meeting is home to diverse First Nations
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Inuit and mate peoples though you could be joining us or watching from anywhere the board's offices are located on the
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traditional territory of many indigenous Nations they share with us a sense of responsibility responsibility for
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intergenerational Equity the well-being of today and tomorrow and now without
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further Ado I'd like to pass over the mic to Michael and Richard from Centennial College so they can get
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things started thank you everyone great thanks capella uh good morning everyone
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um my name is Michael Simons I'm the uh chair of specialized academic certificates and access programming at
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Centennial College uh and I'll have my colleague uh introduce himself and then uh we'll
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we'll Dive Right In and my name is Richard Williamson I am one of the faculty members at um Centennial and um
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really heavily engaged with a a program that is specifically about leadership and inclusion um that's offered both at
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the the undergraduate student level but more specifically related to our conversation today we offer this for um
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people currently in working in organization um at all levels and in all
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sectors Michael thanks Richard so as you see here today we're going to be talk about empowering success to diversity
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and inclusion and and I really want to sort of begin to give you a framework around how that's going to work so if we
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go to the next slide uh we'll begin to talk about you know how do we how do we begin to have that discussion uh and one
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of you know even though it sounds relatively fundamental one of the first things we always need to to think about
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is well how do we begin you know how do we start this how do we incorporate this into our organization or or as an
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individual and and often the feeling that we've encountered and heard about from participants in our program is that
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you know we're willing but you know what do we do you know how do we do it um people recognize that it is important
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that it is something that should be considered it is something that can make a organization successful but often one
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of the stumbling blocks is that they simply don't know where to uh where to to begin so we're just going to move on to the next slide and
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um you know before we start I I think it's important to know you know who are we you know uh why should we even be
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paying attention to us I mean here we are a couple of people showing up today and to talk about something that's
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relatively uh new to some complex to others uh and and one of the things we
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want to make sure you're clear about is that the the the snapshot of information you're going to get today is based on a
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variet of things it comes from a variety of sources and so uh you've met Richard he's one of our our faculty members but
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all the faculty members that are involved with this this type of program in Centennial they have years of EDI uh
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expertise and this is one of the things that certainly informs the kinds of things you're going to hear about today uh we also have a program advisory
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committee uh that helps us uh understand the nuances the changes the needs the
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unique situations that we need to be aware of when we're uh uh working with working with students uh and that leads
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to regular curriculum updates we understand this is this is an evolving sort of feel it's not the sort of thing
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where you you set the curricular you set the ideas five years ago and hope that
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they're still relevant today we're always uh trying to make sure that we're current and and that the curriculum is
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updated uh and one of the things that that's allowed us to do is is to be successful for the the past decade um so
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it's important that you know when when you're listening to us today that it comes from a place of of of some level
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of expertise but we also invite questions and and your sort of unique takes and and understanding of what
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we're going to be talking with that talking about excuse me so with that in mind I'm gonna hand it over to Rich oh
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thank you Michael U and good morning and welcome to everyone we're really glad that you're here um we're really
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passionate about this work and uh we're hoping that you share that same kind of passion with us or maybe you'll feel a
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little bit more passionate even by the by the end of our um our talk this morning just just to go back for a
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moment to something that Michael mentioned um in terms of the the people that we work with um there's an
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incredible willingness interest in in this type of work around Equity diversity and
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inclusion uh but there's frequently and the one theme I would say that emerges routinely in all of the work that we do
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is that yeah we're interested we're willing but what do we do and how do we do it and we're really hoping that even
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though this this morning is going to be an overview we're going to give you enough speciic specific information that you will be able to take away some
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really U specific ideas of what you can do um but also kind of launch something
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about a path forward so one of the first things that we um we really focus on in
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in our work is ensuring that we we have shared understandings of the terminology we we use because that again is one of
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the things that I find in having done this work for many years now um everyone
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brings different understandings of these terms so I would like to just go through and tell you you a little bit about some of the the terminology we use and how we
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Define it many of you may have seen this graphic before or some variation it it's
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all over the place on the internet and that's where I grabb this image but I I I really like it because I think it
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captures an an idea really well um and and it really helps to inform the
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work that we talked about so if you look at the the third of it that says under under the equality you know the concept
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of equality still Services um but we have a really understanding that equality really doesn't meet needs in in
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the Contemporary world because everybody gets the same and you see the three characters there each standing on a an
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equal box um it's certainly working okay for one person it's partially working for the little individual in the red top
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um it absolutely doesn't work for the person in the purple top equity in the center image um talks about people
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getting what they need specifically to enable them to have you know
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approach things from a from a a more equal starting point so everyone's able to see this baseball game happening
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because they each one got what they what they need and that's really what Equity work is about sadly the image on the
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right reality is is truly um you know I think a really nice representation of
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just exactly where different people's starting points are and this may resonate with with some of you and you
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know things you've heard or people you've met or experiences you you have had yourselves so the we we need to work
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from a a common understanding of terminology and this is how we we talk about
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Equity the next term that I want to um look at is diversity and this is a really really sensitive one
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um we frequently have um very very big range of um understandings or
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determination of what what diversity actually means and frequently it comes down to to skin
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color or culture and culture frequently is connected to a a home country um we
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work with a much broader understanding of what diversity is and the image that I've pulled in here is um is this nice
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Iceberg and it shows the the what they refer to is the water line of visibility
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you can see that skin color gender race and age pierce the surface so those are the
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things that we you know visibly can capture around you know the diversity or uniqueness of of individuals but the
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enormity of of an iceberg as we know um is what's below the surface in other words what can't be seen and if you take
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a look at this image quite closely um I think you can likely connect with a
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number of things you know relative to yourselves you know aspects of yourselves that um may be quite unique
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to you and not common to other people um but are still you know really critical valuable and important aspects of of who
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you are but they're not noticed and unfortunately I sometimes in in my work
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encounter people you know who will say things like well we need to have we need to hire more diverse people and of
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course my thinking is you know well everyone is diverse everyone is a is a mixture of different um
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identities as they you know as you can see you represented from this Iceberg um
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when PE when I hear comments like that I I realize that I still have a lot of work to do in terms of guiding people to
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seeing people as more than a one identity marker you know none of us is a single aspect of of our identity we are
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a combination um and some of you and many of you may be familiar with the
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term of of intersectionality that we are all individuals of a number of identities and those are we have
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intersections of identity so it's a much more complex image of who we are the one
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the the really really I think important takeaway from this is that there's no such thing as diverse people and
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non-diverse people everyone is diverse because everyone is a combination of these identity markers so that's
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something that we need to establish really early on in our work and in your own workplaces and the work that you do
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ensuring that you have some really good common definitions is incredibly helpful
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so that takes us to our our next image what we talk about um when we talk about
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inclusion and I think this um this image works really really nicely to convey that for you so inclusion clearly is
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that idea of um all the different color dots connected within that one Circle
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the the images below exclusion you can see all the green dots are in the center but all of the other color dots are
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outside so they're really not they're not included they may be connected to
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but they're not actually a center and um at the Forefront and really included segregation and integration you can see
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you I think are probably you know pretty self-explanatory how they work you know segregation being a dominant group and
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all others in a completely separate and segregated area integration is an interesting one because it's the
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dominant group the large circle with the green dots with in a sense a sub group
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internal to it but not really well connected and this this hearkens back to
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a really really interesting article that was um done written a number of years ago and interestingly published in shadan magazine talking about of the
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challenges that multiculturalism brings because multiculturalism really um frequently focuses on differences and
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while we want to acknowledge and recognize difference we also don't want that to become the primary driver that
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we you know we see people as being different from ourselves in a way that that separates
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and creates something like in integration so that includ if I can just draw your eyes back to that inclusion
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circle at the top that's really what our aim is every everybody's together everyone you know interacts and engages
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and we're on a plane together so that we're not you know some elevated some not that's really ultimately our goal so
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these clarifying these terms is really helpful for us um in terms of you know starting the
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conversations because if we don't have common understandings then we're really working at Cross purposes so ultimately what we're
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looking for in our working definition is that in a workplace and that's really
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what we're talking about here today you know workplaces and leadership in workplaces our working definition is
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really simple everyone everyone feels valued respected and
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included but we have a challenge you know that's a really admirable thing to say everyone feels valued respected
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included but there are barriers and the barriers of things that we really need to focus on and and
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understand and then begin to dismantle if we truly want to move towards inclusion where everyone does feel
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valued respected and included so let's take a quick look at um a little bit about barriers so I've brought back that
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image of the iceberg with all those different identity markers and those identity markers um
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are where barriers can exist so barriers generally exist relative to these
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different markers so there could be barriers relative to skin color barriers relative to gender barriers relative to
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sexual orientation um Family status any of those identity
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markers so one of the things we want you to think about is in order to feel valued respected and included you know
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our our working definition of inclusion we need to address the barriers that we face you know that are based on our
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identities and I want I would like to just you know for a moment to give some thought to this
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question what barriers have existed for you in your your workplace and they could be relative to
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any of those so I'm hoping that many of you are already thinking some of these things that barriers relative to
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Identity markers whether those are visible or not so give that question in red what barriers have existed for you
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in your workplace just give that a moment's
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thought unfortunately it's just a moment so we will be moving on um but we're
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going to give you an idea sort of where we're aiming so when we think of equity diversity and inclusion and the barriers
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and the barriers are really critical because that's what really what defines what we need to do we go by the work of George day so George a is actually an
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academic um you from Toronto um and this one quotation in the
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center is just capture so beautifully um you know what our idea is and I'm hoping
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that you this is something you'll be able to take away so inclusion is not bringing people into what already exists
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it is making a new space a better space for everyone now that's pretty lofty that's
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pretty ambitious but it's something that I think we need to keep in our minds that we're not really sort of saying
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well we're going to bring you into what we currently have and then you know what
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happens with you know situations like that is then people feel a very very strong pressure to modify them elves
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code switch for example um into ways that things are done so what we're aiming at is then is a is a new space or
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a space that has been rethought into such a way that people don't need to change who they are and fully adapt and
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adopt the Norms of an an organization so that they can be comfortable in in you
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know working and thriving and feeling valued respected and included again we go back to that kind of working
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definition that we have the one word that's really key here
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and really can't emphasize this enough is the final word everyone so I think George really just
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so brilliantly pulled this together that inclusion is not about taking something that exists and adding in some more
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people so let's get a few people from this group and from that group and bring that group and then okay we're good now
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we've got you we've brought in some diverse people it's really shifting uh workplaces and workplace cultures into
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being um places where everyone can feel valued respected and included so again
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you know big and lofty goals um but really important because they're really
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fundamental to who we are as human beings and who we are fundamentally as people is important in our workplaces we
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do great work um and we feel we valued and we feel we contribute when we can
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when we can feel that way in our workplaces so um our Challenge and a lot
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of the work that we actually do at Centennial is exactly this you know digging deeply into so so what do we do
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um how do we create these better spaces I'll be honest and I'm sure it's
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no surprise this is not easy work um it's it takes a lot of thought it takes
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a lot of commitment um and it takes time so it's not going to be it's not
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something that you can do an activity or you know throw something into place and then it starts to
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work so the focus that we have in particular is on inclusive leadership
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and we need to be attentive for a moment with um the word leadership this does
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not necessarily mean formal positions so it's not something that you have a title and suddenly you're you're a leader
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truly anyone can be a leader and when we really examine you know closely
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organizations and workplaces and workplace cultures there are many many leaders some of them very positive uh
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people at all sorts of different levels within an organization some of them contribute wonderfully to the work some of them
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take away from it so i' I've been very privileged in my career to be able to be
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engaged heavily in this work but I've also had management roles in um in the past where I've managed um fairly large
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staff on on my own as a single manager um and I've certainly come to see how
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there can be leaders who are not formal in any way and who can be very strong leaders in positive ways and people
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equally who can be strong leaders in not positive ways we want to bring those people on board we want them to use
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their leadership in very specific ways to start with we're probably looking at um more formal leadership
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roles in s to Kickstart things but as well one of the things that we really need to think about is for leaders to be
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inclusive there are some really there are some really fundamental um skills um there are some knowledge that's needed
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there are some skills and there are also dispositions and so while be speaking to those
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specifically I highlighted the word courage because I would say that yes
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this this work takes courage so it's really not for the faint of heart and I think it's truly something that we can
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expect of leaders to be courageous um in doing this work uh that doesn't need to
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be too difficult because if your heart really is in it um then it happens if you're doing it in a perfunctory way uh
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it's probably not going to happen so let's take a look at some of the knowledge sets that we have one of the
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really key aspects of the knowledge is um understanding what the issues are um
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and that's a really big significant piece that know we engage with in our our work is really starting to build a
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good foundational um breadth of knowledge because it's much more than you know simply those um visible
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identity markers it's not just about gender it's not just about race or you know culture or country of origin there
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are many more aspects so fully understanding you know what the issues are is um is really is something that um
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is really critical um so the issues need to be known and the issues need to be understood um the second Point here have
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knowledge of the why we need to know why we're doing this work is it purely for moral ethical reasons is it you know
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something that's you know very personal um is it something organizational is it connected to a business case so having
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knowledge of the reasons why you do this work and we will get into some of the business cases that's incredibly helpful
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to to work with another aspect that's needed um is
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the steps the take the steps to take and the Order of the steps that are are taken so later I'm going to be
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suggesting to you that you indeed you plunge you know dive into this work don't stop don't don't wait for you like
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the perfect day but you do need to know how change happens you need to understand how people operate so there
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are some big knowledge pieces that are are really important those frequently come you know with your own professional
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learning your Rel to leadership but you can add in this um Equity diversity and
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inclusion aspect to without without much difficulty at all so knowledge areas
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some very specific skills areas one skill is the ability to Envision you know what does this
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actually look like um pushing forward without some clarity is um frequently
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misguided and we frequently see um misguided efforts that keep
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organizations in different directions you know if they if they're um brief or
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shortterm U visions they sometimes can be actualized sometimes successfully sometimes not and
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then they fizzle away and they die out um that's really dangerous because it does damage to to this work and and all
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the language connected to it so being able to Envision long term what what is
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this going to look like when we're all finished what's happening in the organization what are people doing how are people interacting with each other
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visible behaviors so being able to Envision that and then begin to articulate it the second point the
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skills to bring about change successfully um we in our work um at
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Centennial we we partnered with Harvard University on this on change management work because we really want the people
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we work with to have a deep understanding of the complexities of change management it's not just
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following you know a particular model the canra model or the Adar model um
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models are really helpful but actually diving into doing the work and
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understanding the human relations that are you know that play into changes as well so our work with Harvard is really interesting in terms of how we build
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knowledge and capacity to understand change well beyond the
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models and I think the final skill is understanding um having the skills
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needed to to build inclusion which means having a really clear picture of what inclusion means so if we go back to
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George day building a better Spa a new space not bringing people into an existing space but building a new space
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that is beneficial to everybody so nobody's feeling squeezed out nobody's feeling you know neglected or forgotten
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about or like oh I have to step aside for for someone else because that is a common type of refrain that we hear um
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and that's really not what this work is about it's not squeezing people out in favor of others as much as we may hear
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that from time to time so there's a knowledge base that's required there's a skill base but also a dispositional um
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base That's essential so I've stated it here in terms of I want a successful
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workplace where everyone feels valued respected and included so that's you the disposition is the
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desire for that to happen another disposition um I'm not afraid to do the work so that speaks to the you know our
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road sign of Courage as well I'm not afraid to make mistakes and if you're not afraid to
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makees mistakes and there's a certain humility attached and humble leadership
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um is is really effective leadership when when you can uh slip up you can
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make a mistake you can do something wrong um accept it readily admit the mistake and then draw on the Knowledge
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and Skills of the people you work with um that does that gives a lot of credibility to you so not being fearful
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or you know feeling the need always to have all the right answers for everybody all the time so um not being afraid but
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ALS and feeling comfortable to be able to make mistakes and to learn from them so U one of the the knowledge areas was
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that around business cases and so I want to speak very specifically to those quickly but specifically so this is the
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type of knowledge base that we would talk about the ROI or the return on investment um for inclusive leadership
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so just a few um helpful points here um organizations that focus on
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diversity and inclusion gain a quantifiable boost in Employee
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Engagement so yes it absolutely um Equity diversity inclusion work is a
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moral and ethical um choice and action it also actually has good business
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results and in in the work that we do we have found that um this is frequently a
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a really powerful starting point to get people on board we get their heads on board with some of the information
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you'll be seeing on this slide you know things like about boosting Employee Engagement you know oh now you've got me
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listening and then we get to their heart eventually but we may need to start with their heads but as long as we're going
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to get to our destination in the end that's probably what's really important a few other pieces just quickly um some
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bits of information from research companies with diverse leadership teams so again you know diverse a mixture of
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people outperform less diverse organizations 15% higher for gender
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diversity 35% higher for ethnic diversity so that came out of
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McKenzie organizations with more women in board position s outperform peers now
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that's probably not a surprise to a lot of you uh but here it is it's a fact you know that was studi that was researched
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we have all of this research I'm just giving you a single line from it so Catalyst brought that information
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forward for us team-based assessments of inclusive teams show 80% better results um deoe
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does a lot of work um in this and deloid Australia specifically wonderful material that they come out with well
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well researched um terrific studies um very helpful but the improved results from um inclusive
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teams is really quite remarkable um you may be thinking in your own mind some of the you know the teams you have are they
26:40
inclusive and do they do better work than than non-inclusive teams and again another one from um Delo
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not delot Australia this time um inclusive Talent systems as a talent strategy best predict the highest
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performing company compes so when inclusive Talent systems are intentionally done as a talent strategy
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those organizations outperform so for those who need the
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business case as opposed to the moral ethical case here it is and there's loads more where this comes
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from okay so let's get a little bit more specific about what do you actually
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do so we talked about knowledge skills and dispositions so some of the things
27:26
that um important necessary for you to be doing um this work we frequently talk about is
27:33
it starts with yourself it's not sort of what you're going to do or expect of others or you know things you put in
27:38
place you really do need to start with yourself you need to know whether it's you or people in your organization that
27:45
they have done this work and that they have done this thinking and they have engaged in it themselves and come to
27:50
their own understandings of their own positions potentially their biases their identity markers how they're similar or
27:57
different to other people so the the work really um really starts with with ourselves always starts with
28:05
ourselves we need as well to be able to and this is an I just think an interesting thought to embrace the
28:11
Paradox of individuality and group identity and because we sometimes get
28:17
that toggling between oh well we have to focus on the individual and each individual's wants and needs and you
28:22
know how they're unique oh but we're also a team or a group so how do you toggle between those how do you Embrace
28:29
that Paradox so that's a key thing that's really valuable in just in terms of your own thinking how does that work
28:35
how do we see people as individuals within the group um challenging thoughts
28:41
but again a lot of this work is thinking work it's not sit down and you know write reports work it's thinking and a
28:47
lot of that thinking comes out of great quality conversations um the skill to Envision
28:53
frame and create positive change I spoke about that a little bit earlier with the work that we do with um with Harvard
28:59
around change management so it's the ability to you know Envision that long-term Vision frame things for
29:06
people which fra and framing you know frequently involves including people in that so that there's a full
29:11
understanding of what's happening and then how to create the positive change um you know using models and other um
29:19
aspects that you that you know that clearly can be learn change management is a pretty critical skill um fostering
29:25
true meritocracy and I would say that you know if you're really operating on a true meritocracy frame it's not only
29:33
what you're doing but it's also what you are SE to be doing so you know that people in the
29:39
organization have great confidence that people are you know that they're careers and their work and you know invitation
29:46
to projects whatever it happens to be it's based on truly on the merits of their um their knowledge and skills and
29:53
abilities um and not on other perceived aspects of like why they may have been
29:58
invited in or promoted or whatever um using inclusive processes um this is one
30:05
of the probably the most impactful and immediate kinds of things that you can do um I strongly recommend the use of um
30:15
in inclusive facilitation kinds of processes for myself when I'm working
30:21
with people and not just speaking as I am this morning this is not my standard kind of approach um I like the work of
30:28
ingred Ben she has just done some terrific work on how to facilitate work
30:34
in organizations in a whole range of ways and all of them are highly
30:39
inclusive so facilitation skills a facilitative approach to work um is a
30:46
wonderful way to get started and it doesn't have to be under an EDI um heading or department or team it can be
30:53
anybody anywhere anytime um but very very effective so that's a piece that
30:58
you know even independently can be worked on um sourcing and utilizing data
31:03
one of the things that we'll talk about is goal setting and having some measures and metrics so how are what data do we
31:10
do we need or want that's going to help us how then do we use that data and then how do we cycle back how do we measure
31:16
you on an ongoing basis do we see improvements or not all those sorts of data questions that come up but using
31:23
data pretty critical in this work um building Rel relationships and developing people
31:30
um all of us in the different you know in in of the different locations we have within our
31:35
organizations um can be doing this and it is an aspect of leadership this actually comes from the Ontario
31:41
leadership framework that was created by Ken lewood and his team so building
31:46
relationships with people sustaining those and those relationships can then develop um other people so we're really
31:53
cultivating and nurturing the the the growth learning and skill develop development of of
31:59
others securing accountability that's both securing our own personal accountability to the work that we do
32:05
our accountability towards others and our accountability within the organization um and you know what we do
32:12
what we contribute in and how do we assess that and how do we um how do we report it and how do we then celebrate
32:18
it as well leading an improving Core Business in inclusive
32:24
leaders inclusive leaders um in their work lead and improve core
32:31
business so that's never a part that we that we have to leave out um all of
32:39
us in our work we're not setting aside our core work in order to do inclusion Equity diversity work we are leading and
32:47
we're improving our core business but we're doing it in an inclusive way um that F Fosters and cultivates inclusion
32:55
within the workplace so we we're never ignoring or leaving behind the the
33:00
actual work of our organizations um and to that point developing um the organization to
33:06
support the core business so this is very connected to developing people so we're committing to the work of the
33:12
organization but we're just doing some of that work in a different way in many ways it's um inclusion work is Shifting
33:18
how we do work um but it's not taking the work away or it's not taking a focus
33:23
away from the work so they actually are married and that marriage of inclusion work and focusing on Core Business work
33:31
um that's where the magic happens and it's it's doable um I don't like to sort
33:38
of tell my own experiences but I have to say I've done it and it works um it truly works it is a journey for sure um
33:45
but it's an exciting one and you know there's unlimited growth that can happen here um it does
33:52
work and finally um for this one we're going to talk about personal leadership
33:57
resources again this comes from the Ontario leadership framework by lewood
34:03
and and Company um or team he's not the company personal leadership resources
34:08
are things like um optimism resilience perseverance we need
34:15
those we need our personal leadership resources um just as aspects of our kind
34:21
of character or personality and the dispositions that we bring to the workplace okay okay so talking of dis
34:28
dispositions um it's the dispositions in many respects are the will and I i'
34:34
think you to just draw your attention um to the the graphic for a moment here you can see these are um well you can see it
34:41
just at the top I managed to capture that title for the this image um again it's from deoe the six signature traits
34:49
of an inclusive leader so inclusive leaders demonstrate
34:54
curiosity they're interested they're curious they find out that um and curiosity is a is a person who takes on
35:01
a learning stance so they're not the ones who know everything they're the ones who present themselves as Learners
35:07
um so that's an element toward becoming an inclusive leader when you don't have
35:13
all the answers but you sure have the questions cultural intelligence there's
35:18
an awareness of you know a workplace culture but also that individuals all come from their own cultures um and
35:25
culture not just being country origin but it could be cultures related to the
35:30
identity that we saw back in that um in the iceberg so different aspects of who
35:37
we are are in many cases you know cultural aspects maybe the you know the people we um socialize with our family
35:44
members the kind of backgrounds that we have you know maybe educational background upbringing you
35:50
know if we were raised in wealth or poverty all of these are in a form cultures so awareness of those cultures
35:56
and having cultural intelligence understanding those um is helpful collaboration again this speaks to what
36:02
I mentioned just a moment ago about um facilitative processes we build facilitative
36:08
processes um for the purpose of collaboration bringing people together drawing on all their unique talents um
36:14
to do better work and you'll remember one of the Returns on investment was you know that when when there's
36:20
collaboration that with um well integrated and in diverse teams they are more successful than than non diverse
36:27
STS commitment this does not work for the faint of heart um you you don't give
36:34
it up because it gets hard um you stick with it but you share that burden a bit with others and you let them know you
36:40
know this is hard work but I'm not stopping um you know this is important we need to you know carry it on we may
36:45
need to shift our speed or our um you know the the scope of our work um at
36:52
periods of time depending on you know the ups and downs of things that are happening but we don't let let go of the
36:57
commitment it's always there we don't drop it when you know when the going gets tough it just maybe takes a
37:02
slightly different position in the car and again courage it come you know it's interesting that courage you know
37:08
resurfaces as a signature trait of of a leader if we don't have courage then we don't really um have in a sense the
37:15
determination and drive to carry through and cognizance and generally
37:21
cognizance of bias is really is the thing that um you know that that's such a
37:28
that's such an important thing so you know unconscious bius training is is a really helpful thing as long as
37:34
everybody's involved in that and not just you know the people that we think they need to have unconscious not us
37:41
they need to have unconscious bi it's only when when I we when we include ourselves and you remember my comment
37:47
earlier about um we start with ourselves well if we're GNA if we want someone to look at unconscious bias um we do that
37:54
we do it ourselves first uh and we talk about it and we're open about it um before we would expect
38:01
others so um I think this image might capture a little bit of kind of how
38:07
you're feeling when you you're thinking about your current work and thinking okay and all of these things I'm saying
38:13
um might lead you to like either look like this person or feel the way she's probably feeling um is this only the
38:21
work um for leaders um to do is is it really only for them and like I I put
38:27
this slide in purposefully because this is a question that comes up so frequently um for me that uh you know
38:35
people thinking well when they start doing it or when you know they need to do this and they need to do that no it's
38:41
this is for all of us and each of us you know if we draw on our commitment and our courage we know we then can take
38:47
some steps toward helping move this forward it's really exciting when you know people I get to work with do decide
38:54
to take steps forward and approach leadership and and frequently they're very surprised when they take forward some good
39:00
ideas so it is everyone's work to varying degrees some will maybe be
39:05
leading it some will be funding it others will be um driving it other ones will be supporting and and spreading the
39:11
word you know so different people will take on different kinds of roles but all of us are involved um and it speaks to
39:18
um a quotation from a a wonderful writer um Margaret Wheatley she's also in a
39:25
sense like a consultant for um businesses and she talks about invite one of her really famous lines that I
39:31
just love is invite everyone who cares so if we invite everyone who cares
39:38
then we start to spread this work around um to everybody and that can be kind of
39:44
infectious so we you now how to engage everybody well first off um you know the
39:52
saying that all saying context is everything so I put that at the top of the list so yep context is pretty Dar
39:58
critical you need to know your context we can't tell you what exactly to do because you need to look and identify
40:05
what your context is and know then what you know what what barriers may exist
40:10
what Pathways may exist you know what could be done um when what speed um we
40:16
spoke about um the knowledge that's needed you how to engage people but also
40:21
you know what's the you know what What's the timing you know what's the the tone of the workplace so what you know the on
40:26
those knowledge elements that you have the skills you have you know there are some specific engagement types of skills
40:32
like what I've talked about ingred Benz and her facilitation skills work the dispositions um that's where it
40:40
goes to us individually what are the kinds of dispositions that we have do we carry those traits of you know the six
40:46
signature traits of inclusive leaders you know if we carry those dispositions of curiosity and and commitment and
40:52
courage then you know we are on a path to being able to engage people ongoing
40:58
learning um there isn't much talk these days about learning organizations and there
41:04
has been um there was much more talk in past years about organizations being learning organizations and um this is a
41:11
really key piece that this is not work that happens with a few workshops or
41:18
like a a committee that goes off and does something but none of us are really quite sure um ongoing learning is you
41:26
know for everybody at all levels done collaboratively done together you know
41:31
as best possible setting goals um you don't get
41:37
very far you don't um make much Headway if you don't have some specific goals that you're working with and then some
41:42
follow-up measures to see where you know where progress was made or not what
41:47
maybe why was progress made and so what did we do what what should we repeat because it worked well where did we not
41:53
meet goals why not are the things that maybe maybe we should avoid in future um participation again think about that
42:01
quotation from Margaret Wheatley invite everyone who cares so when do we
42:09
start just just get going okay don't wait for the right day there's no right
42:14
time there's not the right day it's not you know the a week from Tuesday it's not you know when the spring comes it's not when this project
42:20
finishes you get you can start it as simply as just opening up conversations you know you intended this you know this
42:27
talk today take it back start talking it up in the in the office you get those things going um so not to be um afraid
42:35
of it include everybody this is not just thought and discussion and ideas for a
42:41
particular group it it truly is for everyone and then together when you have
42:48
these conversations you know determining together um what do we need to do what
42:53
do we need to learn what are some of the those skills you know and knowledge sets that we need to have that would really
42:59
guide us in this work you know the things that I spoke earlier about knowledge sets skill sets and disposition sets and then get going on
43:07
it now I hope that tone this doesn't sound too too flippant because this is
43:12
I'm not flipping at all with this um but I think I'm maybe hoping to bring us
43:18
back to a point of as much as there's an awful lot of content in this um talk that I've just
43:25
done there's also an understanding that um we can't do everything and and prep
43:32
and plan and then kind of have a like a launch date um for certain things there
43:37
may be launch dates but in general this work is everybody's work all the time and we can engage in it at any point and
43:45
at least we can and because what we're doing is then we're we're reconstructing in a sense the context in which you're
43:51
in so that you can then move forward um maybe with some somewhat more fertile
43:57
fields to be sewing the seeds thank you for listening to all
44:02
this I normally don't speak at at Great length without you know back and forth in discussion so this is um this is a
44:10
bit of a challenge and I'm sorry if you I'm hope you're not feeling that it's been an information D but maybe some
44:16
great nuggets um we would like to turn it over to questions now
44:22
so capil um I think you were looking at the chat and Pi yeah yeah yeah for sure
44:28
um no thank you Richard that was a wonderful presentation um very informative even for myself and the work
44:34
that I do every single day um amazing so thank you for this content um if anyone has any questions uh please feel free to
44:42
enter them in the chat if you like for me to uh submit the questions to Richard
44:47
um otherwise you're feel free to uh raise your hand in the meeting and uh
44:53
what I'll do is I can unmute you and you can ask Richard your yourself whatever works for you uh Richard I actually did
44:59
have um a few questions um so there was a question that had I I remember at some
45:05
point in the presentation there was a slide where there's a few different circles where you had differentiated between
45:10
integration uh segregation and inclusion it was very well uh laid out but um I
45:17
wanted to ask um is it common for people to um kind of get confused or um
45:27
maybe maybe not get confused but to mistake or get confused between integration and inclusion is that common
45:33
you feel um not so much with those words attached but um I would say that you
45:41
said the thinking would reflect that and by that I mean there is this idea um and
45:48
I think I may have commented but you know kind of hurriedly um there sometimes is that idea that you know we
45:55
you know here we are we're a group we're an organization we're a team whatever um and oh we need to diversify and you know
46:01
that's you know maybe like a bit of a checkbox for us so let's hire one of these one of these one of these and you
46:08
know so then we now we're now we're diverse um or we have the diverse representation you know within our group
46:14
or team or Department um that can end up being very much you know that
46:20
integration where you know there's a kind of a group within the larger group but that that group stays
46:26
kind of isolated i' I've experienced that myself and it's really quite it's really interesting to observe
46:33
um it's it's unsettling um to be part of because you don't feel connected to
46:39
other people at least that for me my sense was being connect but it's a little bit of that you know we should
46:45
get some of them to join us and that's you know something I'm really uncomfortable with this is not about
46:51
getting them to join us you know this truly is about um you know fully
46:57
integrating everybody to you know together um so it's not an Us and Them
47:03
kind of perspective is that sort of where you were where your thinking was coming from yeah because I think that um
47:10
honestly like I think that it comes from a genuine place where people are looking to you know do the work and um you know
47:16
to do better but sometimes I think uh you know maybe people can kind of make that mistake along the
47:22
process and you know and to your point I you know this is I think something like
47:27
ultimately what we're aiming for is inclusion it's not sort of like oh we're not inclusive now you know we're going
47:33
to do all these things and then we'll be inclusive it's it's a process and it it may start with
47:39
integration but once you've got integration you see Okay so we've got all these people together but this group
47:44
is over here and this group is over there and you know the group people are sort of subdividing themselves I've seen
47:50
that it's it's quite unsettling for me um then you know okay so we brought
47:58
people together in in one place but they're still separating themselves so then we look at so okay now now we need
48:04
to move in a direction to kind of bring people together so there's more mixing and that's where I really really like
48:10
the work of Ingrid bz because you know her facilitation work and I just I mean this is like the third or fourth time
48:17
I've mentioned I can't speak highly enough about facilitation processes that integrate and include
48:23
people so I would say yeah when integration happens you're you still have some work to do to move toward
48:29
inclusion no and I thank you for um for for breaking that down we do have some comments and questions in the chat
48:35
Richard um so Monica mentioned that she also was a fan of the inclusion slides and the iceberg um as well and there is
48:43
a question uh sorry I'm just bringing this down here there's a question from Rose uh her question is when you talk
48:50
about the work being for everyone how do you recommend sharing or conveying this message message to senior
48:58
leadership um yeah this is a question that comes up a lot in the work that we do at s um
49:06
and I would say that one of the things that like I found in my own experience
49:12
like as an employee in in a workplace when I was you know pretty new um and what I would still advise I think maybe
49:17
because those things worked well for me but to put together some you know some thoughts ask for a little bit of time
49:23
and just take the ideas forward um now some you know that that's kind of like
49:29
the simple you know um the simple version of the answer but in a sense
49:35
have a have a purpose have a point you know if you're not seeing that things are happening if you see that there are
49:40
barriers then you're taking that idea forward you know I've been hearing about it I've been looking at it I've been
49:45
reading about you know you know inclusion work you know it looks like it could be valuable and helpful for us um
49:52
I'm seeing some issues kind of in in our organization or chamber Department um
49:58
and I just i' just like a few minutes to discuss those with you um so I I've
50:04
actually coached a couple of people on this and um it has been hugely successful the reaction usually is that
50:11
um that I find is people say that they were really surprised at how incredibly well-received one recently someone said
50:19
to me that they when they took this idea forward they the person they took it to
50:24
said you know what I've been struggling with for a long time I haven't talked about it I haven't said anything but I've been thinking about it so much and it's really interesting you came forward
50:31
so this person just felt like like she wrote to me right after the meeting and
50:36
she said it was just like an incredible experience for her because it was like it was like she felt embraced by this
50:43
person that she had been a little bit hesitant about going to but they were struggling with it um so and one thing
50:49
that I always find really valuable is if you can connect it in some way to the organization's mission Vision Values you
50:56
know commitments whatever whatever the organization is saying you know like you know I looked at our organization's
51:02
Mission and you know we talk about diversity and inclusion um I'm you know like what what kinds of things are we
51:08
doing because that that really appeals to me that's valuable for me you know like I I see a need for that so
51:15
connecting it to things the organization says it believes in you know that's a that's a really helpful tool as well or
51:22
referencing some of the you know the research you know the Deo Mackenzie and Catalyst work you know that I I
51:28
mentioned on one of the slides there are ways make it forward
51:34
there's interesting term I heard once someone said to me you know find a way to speak to their listening and and and understand as
51:42
Richard suggests you know what what is it that the organization values and there's places where that's written
51:47
there's places where that's communicated informally and and how can you if you're
51:52
looking for a way you how can I frame what I have to say in a way that the organization goes okay when I hear that
51:59
that fits with with some of the other thoughts I have about how we want to be as an organization and this new
52:05
information may help us get there so there's always a you know there's a bit of research there is but you know you
52:10
take your own experience within that organization and you look around you pay attention you see what's important and
52:16
if you can frame it all the better yeah and to Michael's point I
52:22
think if if this is a person who's going to hear um the return on investment then
52:27
you start with that if they're going to hear the company motos you know Mission Vision Values then you can work with
52:34
that so there there are different kinds of entry points so I think it was Rose who asked that question Rose I hope
52:39
that's something
52:47
helpful yeah so no rose rose is thanking you for
52:52
that awesome well um Michael and Richard I want to thank you all um on behalf of
52:59
you know the board um and everyone who attended today thank you for the wonderful presentation uh this is
53:05
definitely work that we need to you know always be active in and um you know we
53:12
really appreciate you all coming out today so we will be actually putting this recording on our YouTube channel
53:18
and so please look out for that and we hope everyone has a wonderful day and
53:24
thank you all for joining thank you so much for having us yeah thank you all right have a good weekend
53:31
thanks everybody okay bye bye
Workshop Agenda
- 11:00 AM - Virtual Check-in
- 11:05 AM - Workshop Programming
- 11:50 AM - Q&A
Speakers
Michael Simons, Chair, Centennial College
Cathy Gallagher-Louisy, Professor, Centennial College
Dr. Richard Williamson, Professor, Centennial College
About our member:
Centennial College is a diploma- and degree-granting college in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the oldest publicly funded college in Ontario. Its campuses are situated on the east side of the city, particularly in Scarborough, with an aerospace centre at Downsview Park in North York. Centennial offers more than 260 programs, including bachelor's degrees, diplomas, certificates, post-graduate certificates and apprenticeship programs, across many fields of study.