Extracts Form Being Inclusive in A Diverse World v030111

…A Selection of Extracts from the Book…
© Brad Meyer - extracted from the book: Being Inclusive in a Diverse World P age |i
www.collaboration.co.uk BradMeyer@collaboration.co.uk http://bit.ly/BeingInclusive
BEING INCLUSIVE IN A DIVERSE WORLD
Brad Meyer
London ~ October 2010
Globalisation delivered diversity to your doorstep.
When it arrived, did you open your door wide or lock it shut?
Deliverance through diversity is your only sustainable option.
This option requires you to be inclusive in your behaviour.
Being truly inclusive depends on your state of mind.
You are responsible for your state of mind.
Using this book will help you be so.
Take advantage of it.

"Life Is not lost by dying. Life Is lost minute by minute, day by dragging
day, in all the thousand, small, uncaring ways”
Stephen Vincent Benet
Table of Contents (For Selected Extracts)

PROLOGUE… ..................................................................................................7
PART ONE: DEALING WITH MY OWN DIVERSITY DILEMMAS ......................10

THE ILLUSTRATED LIST ..................................................................................11
PSYCHOMETRIC TESTING............................................................................13
A TRANSFER OF UNDERTAKING ..................................................................15
A CASE OF PERCEIVED R ACISM ................................................................18
INTERLOG .................................................................................................22
THE FOUR CHALLENGES – EMBRACE THEM TO ERASE THEM ..........................26
WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU ABOUT BEING INCLUSIVE .................................54
© Brad Meyer - extracted from the book: Being Inclusive in a Diverse World P a g e | iii
Table of Contents (From Full Book)
© Brad Meyer - extracted from the book: Being Inclusive in a Diverse World P age |4
5www.collaboration.co.uk BradMeyer@collaboration.co.uk http://bit.ly/BeingInclusive
***
As you increase the quality, frequency, breadth and depth of

your interactions, you increase your sustainable success.
This is because a company is the commercial result of people

choosing to „keep company‟ with each other for their own
reasons.
Your organisation benefits when it‘s people operate from the

understanding that there‘s no such thing as ‗strictly business‘.
Everything is personal.
When you‘re in trouble or you have a challenging opportunity,

you‘ll know instinctively that when professional planning fails,
personal passion prevails.
And when personal passion prevails, your outcome is

determined by peoples‘ relationships to YOU.
Their relationships with you will be based on their experience of

you – how inclusive of them you have been.
And since your actions speak louder than your words, you need
to ask yourself what you are doing - and to whom?
You need to help people first find their own reasons and then
their own ways to work together more effectively.
You can use both behavioural and computing technologies to

achieve this.
***
Prologue…
OK – it‟s the 3rd of March, 2008. I am sitting at the round

table in our office/flat in central Paris – looking out over a
small cobbled courtyard. The peach paint on the outside
walls of the building has long since faded and is peeling
away, revealing an age gone by. Occasionally, I see
people walking through the courtyard on their way in or
out, always looking industrious yet tired. The people seem
mysteriously serious, given the residential feel and
quietness of the courtyard itself. Perhaps this is an illusion,
borne out my own ignorance of where I am.
In the absence of knowledge,

we create our own stories.
We1 are one floor above the ground level in a small flat
with early 1900‟s drapes that don‟t really fit the windows
properly. Walking in yesterday, the faint smell of warm
wood greeted my nostrils – somewhat like a sauna that
was turned off hours before. The assorted furnishings are
old, but functional (mostly). It‟s an old and quaint
ambiance – one in which I feel at home. Have I become
“old and quaint” myself? I wonder. As I get older I
experience my own internalised form of “ageism”.
My brain ticks over like I am in my early thirties – charged

with the energy of passionate commitment to a cause. My
body however begs to differ. I‟ve been running it ragged
with my schedule – burning several candles on both ends,
to borrow on an old saying.
1 My business partner Hamid SENNI and me

But this place is now home for the week. This will be a week
to focus-in on just one of my parallel business activities. I‟m
a parallel entrepreneur – with three business entities on the
go – but for this week I am here to write this book and to
absorb some of the physical and social reality of what I am
writing about. So much strategy and design work – done in
the head, refined through conversation and then
implemented by someone else in a foreign tongue. I am
here in the heart of Paris to feel the pulse of the city in
which our work won a prestigious award2 for implementing
a successful strategy to promote Diversity and Inclusion.
I am here to reflect on and paint the picture of our journey

so far, in a manner that enables others to see the possibility
that generating an implement-able Diversity and Inclusion
agenda is something that is workable in practical terms.
There is an art surrounding the pseudo-science. I hope to
convey some of both in writing. And Paris is a perfect
setting in which to begin our story.
In 2005, petrol bombs were being thrown into cars in the

heart of Paris. Paris was burning (again). What was behind
the bright loud anger and the dark sombre response to
that anger immediately became a focal point for our
work. More than two years later, we are still at it. Passion –
not profit – has sustained us in this work.
Profit however, is certainly on the cards - and 2008/9 is

becoming a turning point for us in this regard. In fact, the
profit angle on this work was instrumental in our decision to
dig deeper and uncover the business imperatives of
growing a diverse workforce and promoting inclusion
within organizations. But the reality of growing our D&I
business activities has only now generated enough funds
2 www.visionenabler.com/uploadedFiles/trophe.pdf
to secure our office/flat across from the Musee de Picasso
on Le Rue du Temple, in the heart of Paris.
Only now is it possible for me to be here, rather than in my

home office in London, and to write. Only now can Hamid
(my business partner) and I brainstorm in the free-thinking
Parisian space of our own making. Sitting here, it is easier
to imagine the way forward, to work on securing the
additional contracts and promoting the business of
creating a model for Diversity and Inclusion that is truly
implement-able across France and beyond.
For the last two and a half years, “France” has been our
workshop. We have designed, developed and delivered
both personal and group process-oriented interventions to
engage “the French mind-set”. We were drawn to this
work through Hamid‟s personal experiences in France and
our mutual realisation that what we had each developed
professionally, outside of France, could in-fact be
applicable (back) in France.
It‟s been “a hard slog”, as they say in England. If we did

not have personal reasons, in addition to our professional
reasons, to be focused on France, we would have
probably walked away a long time ago. But we did (have
personal reasons), so we didn‟t (walk away). And this is a
key perspective enabling our success – both in France and
outside of France.
Nothing is “strictly business”. Everything is personal.
Part One: Dealing with my own diversity dilemmas
Everybody‘s got a past - including me. What follows here
are some of my personal memories of moments where I
had to deal with a diversity-related dilemma. The reason
I‘m starting this way is simple, really. We each need
personal reasons and then strategies for facing up to the
challenges in our life. So I‘m planning on sharing some of
my challenging moments with you straight-away. Some
may seem relevant to you, others not.
Now, you may find yourself wandering off and reflecting

on your own diversity dilemmas while reading through
mine. If you do, then I really (REALLY) would like you to
share them with me online – anonymously or with contact
details. If you leave me contact details, then I will
personally email you – and I don‘t mean with just an auto-
responder bearing my name. There is ALWAYS MORE TO
LEARN in this field – and we can learn from each other,
person-to-person.
Here‘s where you can reach me online:

www.beinginclusive.wordpress.com. Look for my posting
called ―Add Your Comments‖ and add your comments
there (if you would be so kind). Thanks!
Anyway, this section is about me and well basically I‘ve

got a collection of experiences that have caused me to
go through all this Diversity and Inclusion stuff over time.
There are specific experiences that dragged me into the
Diversity and Inclusion arena. Not all of them were
completely positive experiences, of course - but they all in
some way caused me to become aware of and think
about, and then eventually get involved with, Diversity
and Inclusion. So I thought I would share some of these
© Brad Meyer - extracted from the book: Being Inclusive in a Diverse World P a g e | 10
experiences with you and identify what was (for me)
relevant to being inclusive in a diverse world.
These are some specific brief encounters with moments in
my life when diversity played a hand in the cards that
were dealt that day…
The illustrated list

It‘s springtime in Scotland, early 1990‘s. The dark cold
indoor winter days have opened up into warm daylight
hours with flowers blooming in the parks, birds twittering in
the trees and people strolling through the meandering
walkways feeling and smelling the promise of the season.
A nice scene – but not the one I am in. I am in a still-cold

boardroom, witnessing the potential demise of a recently
formed team of directors who have universally
disappointed their Managing Director (MD) on a
continuous basis for several months now. The atmosphere
is frigid and words are being spoken through clenched
teeth. No one sits near the MD – the chairs at that end of
the table where he is sitting are in arm-swinging distance.
This MD is physically expressive.
The height of frustration is clearly expressed in the pallor of

his skin tone and the sweat on his brow. He waves his arms
in the air, calls a halt to the meeting, tells his (also
frustrated) Directors to leave and tells me to stay behind.
This is my first meeting in this board room and so while I am
a little worried about what he might say to me, I am not
worried that it will be about me. It‘s clear that the
relationship with his Directors is the source of his distress –
not me, the newly hired-in consultant.
He tells me that time and time again, he‘s asked his

Directors for section development updates and strategic
planning information. He tosses what he‘s been given
today across the boardroom table and using his right hand
to karate chop his left palm several times says ―I ask for
explicit information and this is what I get – this is all I ever
get – from them‖. I look across the table and see pages of
diagrams and illustrated cartoons. ―They‘re not taking me
seriously at all. This is crazy – half of them are even
doodling during our meetings3!!!‖
Cutting to the chase, this scene has been replayed out

many times in this start-up organisation – the MD asking for
explicit, bulleted information (as expressed by his body
language), and his Directors (all hired for their track
records of creativity and innovation) expressing themselves
visually. The MD instinctively distrusts pictures due to their
lack of detail, while the Directors see imagery as the only
way to convey the whole picture in line with their evolving
vision in an efficient manner.
The thing is, they were naturally expressing themselves in

their preferred, sensory-specific styles. They were very
comfortable with each other doing this. But they were not
adapting themselves to their MD‘s needs to see and / or
read their informational updates differently.
As soon as we figured this out, we asked our selves how we

could accommodate the communication gap between
the MD and the Directors without compromising preferred
styles of expression and information gathering. The solution
in this case was to add bulleted lists to the illustrations –
thereby retaining the big picture while adding in the
necessary level of detail for the MD to feel that he had
what he needed to assess the situation properly and make
informed decisions.
3Some interesting insights on doodling can be found at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/27/doodling-doodles-boring-meetings-
concentration
The doodling during the meeting, by the way, was a
perfect example of how some people doodle to learn and
think while others doodle to distract themselves. You can
guess who in the boardroom had which habit.
 The response you get from others tells you what you are
actually communicating to them – intentionally or
otherwise.
 Others‘ perceptions of your intentions may not be
accurate, but their responses to those perceptions
create a reality you will have to work with.
 Until you step into another‘s shoes, listen through their
ears, see through their eyes and feel through their
emotions, you are effectively operating in a manner that
can be regarded as dumb, deaf and blind by those with
whom you are interacting (or not, as the case may be).
 A simple solution with immediate impact may be possible
– even if there‘s a history suggesting the contrary.
Psychometric Testing
I looked up one day to see a team of people crowding
into the doorway to my office, hoping to distract me from
my paperwork and seek my help. They wanted to know if I
could arrange for psychometric testing to be done on all
the members of their team. They wanted to get this done
because they thought it might help them figure out how
best to utilise the talents inherent with their team. They had
heard and read that psychometric profiling often helped
teams understand each other better. But they were stuck
comparing the pros and cons of the various profiling
methods and hoped I might be able to shed some light on
the subject.
I explained that I wasn‘t a great fan of psychometric

testing as a rule. I said this was because people already
tend to put other people into ‗boxes‘ and „leave‟ them in
there – inevitably stunting their growth (or at best, not
promoting potential development). I knew they would
hear this view as contrary to their beliefs, and said so. I also
said that, as they had already been doing some upfront
research, trying to weigh the pros and cons of the various
schools of thought out there, I wasn‘t about to say that the
process couldn‘t be useful sometimes.
I acknowledged how popular the process seemed to be

with senior management teams – certainly in the
corporate world. And I said that I wanted to respond
favourably to their request because they had taken the
initiative to do some up-front thinking and research on the
subject. So I asked them to set aside an afternoon
together and to let me know when they had done so.
The team had already decided that what they really

needed to do was to learn about their strengths and
weaknesses, so that they could work together with greater
awareness. And I also wanted them to see themselves in
an expanded light as well. So I decided I would do
something for them – albeit it something they were not
expecting.
We didn‘t have budget or time to do the normal deep

psychological analysis that many consultancies offer. Yet I
wanted them to have something to reflect on together,
while still focusing on their individual strengths. Plus, they‘d
been ―through the mill‖ and were already predisposed to
blaming each other for their collective situation.
So I came up with an intervention for a two-hour session

that fully engaged them, brought humour into the frame
and also revealed each other‘s unique personalities in
ways that helped them reflect on themselves and their
interactions with others as well. This is what I did…
In advance, I asked them to tell me where they were born

and at what time of day. I provided this data to a third
party who produced (for each of them) a uniquely written
fifteen-page report. This report was an in-depth computer-
generated astrological horoscope, covering many
dimensions of their life.
When I got the reports back, I collated them into

collections according to the syndicate/break-out groups I
planned to divide the staff into for the two-hour session.
Then I removed the front cover identifiers, handed them
out and told each group that it was their job to figure out
which report best reflected which person in their group.
I pre-framed the exercise by saying that ALL

psychoanalytical approaches are seriously questioned by
the proponents of the others, so I decided to take one that
was universally in ―disrepute‖ as the basis for the session.
The truth was NOT the issue as far as I was concerned –
what DID matter was that they use the reports as a
CATALYST for discussion to develop mutual understanding
of each others‘ perceptions. They LOVED it, came to
understand themselves and each other better and many
bonded in a way that was only possible while having to
deal with an externally ―ridiculous‖ situation together.
 When people bring something that is challenging to you,

they may have already done their homework. So take the
time to acknowledge and respect where they are coming
from before launching into a solution.
 When people are in debate at the level of ―Truth‖, ask
them to identify a context in which all sides of the current
debate are ―true‖ or at least equally relevant.
 Then ask, ―Given this shared context, what is it that we will
together most benefit from, if we take the right action.
 Once this shared benefit (within the shared context) has
been collectively identified, you‘ve got a shot at
identifying a useful way forward.
A Transfer of Undertaking
Each company has what it thinks of as its suite of core
competencies that are highly attuned to whatever they
do to generate revenue and to stay in and grow their
business. Every company also has a bunch of ―oh I‘d
rather not have to do that bit‖ set of overhead type
activities that it doesn't regard as sexy or exciting revenue-
generating stuff. You know – this is what we often call the
―back office‖, administrative costs of doing business. And
therefore it sometimes tends to not focus its attention on
developing that area particularly well, and therefore it
sometimes tends to not focus on developing the people
who happen to be working in that area particularly well
either.
So over time, those back office activities can tend to

atrophy a bit, and the people involved in those activities
can tend to lose sight of their own exciting future
potentials. And at some point someone has the idea,
―Well what if we paid another company who‘s efficient at
doing that stuff to do it for us instead? And since we‘re
going to do that, we‘re not going to need these staff
anymore, so maybe we should give them the opportunity
to go work for the other company...‖
Well, in the particular experience that I‘m thinking of, I was

working with the receiving company – we‘ll call it
―Company B‖. We were about to receive all of the staff
from ―Company A‖ in a very exciting multi-million pound
deal. And as part of this - because for Company B, this is
core revenue-generating activity - we were going to pour
all sorts of training and development cash into our ‗new
hires‘. In fact, we were planning to invest significantly
more money into the staff than the old company had
done. And we felt very good about this. But for some
reason the people didn‘t want to play along. So as
designers and negotiators of the deal, we began to sweat.
The people who were going to be transferred in this

undertaking were looking like they were actually intending
to opt out of both companies and go work for somebody
else - and that would have ruined the entire deal really.
We (Company B) needed those people. Not only for the
insider knowledge they had of Company A, who was to
be their new client - but also, we just needed that
additional amount of ―human resource‖ to provide the
service. So it was a very handy and critically necessary
amount of ―resource‖ that seemed to be slipping through
our fingers despite our calculated generosity for
developing the staff. Our perspiration turned into
desperation and we decided to take a time-out in the
negotiations and talk with everyone involved, in-person.
Why didn‘t the people want to play along, when their new
company was going to put in all this extra effort and
money and resource to support and promote them? There
was a very specific reason, and that is, at the individual
employee level, they were going to be going home each
week with less money in their pocket, less cash. So
regardless of the fact that this new company was going to
spend far more money on helping them to develop, they
were in fact going to be walking out at the end of the day
with a smaller cash-in-hand pay cheque. And at the socio-
economic level in which they were working, this was simply
not a margin that they or their growing families could
afford or wanted to accept.
So are you wondering how this scenario is relevant to

Diversity and Inclusion? Here‘s the explanation. Company
A and Company B both thought ―hey, this is a good deal
for the people. Significantly more money is going into their
development and over time, things are going to get better
and better for them‖. But neither company had actually
consulted with the staff targeted for the move and so no
one had noticed that the actual cash-in-hand effect was
worse for the people involved.
We had only communicated to them – not with them. So

we didn‘t expect the problems and we certainly didn‘t
understand it when people said ―forget this, I‘m leaving‖.
So regardless of our organisation‘s strategic intentions to
be inclusive of a diverse workforce, what we should have
kept in-mind was; how the actual individuals involved felt -
what it was that they were measuring to feel included – at
a practical level. Once we did do this, once we
understood their situation – and they knew that we
understood – we were able to re-structure the deal so that
no-one lost out on pay day. The deal was done. Phew!
 You can‘t simply say ―you‘re included‖, or ―people are our

greatest asset‖. That just doesn't work. You can ask them,
―What is it that you need to see or hear or feel or know or
do, or for me to do, that would result in your knowing that
you really are included in what we‘re thinking about
doing?‖
 All value is context-dependant – and what you actually
communicate can only be measured in the RESPONSE you
get - not by what you intended to say or to deliver.
 You need to step into your target recipients‘ shoes and
walk a good mile with them inside their context before
opening your mouth or your cheque book, so that you can
deeply consider things from within their context first.
A Case of Perceived Racism

Well, this experience I‘ve labelled as ―perceived racism‖.
And I‘ll call it ―perceived‖, because in the end, my
conclusion and the conclusion of those around me was
that it was a perception that needed to be challenged,
rather than something that was deeply ingrained and
causative in terms of the problem we encountered.
The experience took place in a company that had what it

thought of as ―a quality problem‖, and they had invited
me to come in to see if there was anything I could do to
help. And when I walked in, it wasn't a quality issue in
terms of the output that hit me instantly walking in, but the
quality of the morale, which was like on the floor. It was
really low. I mean there were 200 or 300 people in this
building on three floors in open office environments, and
there was almost no sound or movement. People were at
their desks, but they appeared to be sunk into stupors and
didn‘t really seem to feel good about being there, and I
certainly didn‘t get any sense of life from them.
There were two things that had happened. One was that
this was a group of people who had also experienced a
transfer of undertaking. In fact the company that had
―sold them off‖, was on the other side of the physical
building and had built a wall between them, a physical
wall between them. So the people felt like limbs of the old
organisation that were atrophying, because the
circulation had been cut off. So that was part of the
morale issue. Their previous employer may have made a
logical economic decision to outsource, but the
psychological impact of that logical decision was now
becoming apparent.
Another part of the morale issue was that there wasn't a lot
of upward movement any more. No one felt that they
had much in the way of career prospects, and as it turned
out, on the first week I was the most senior management
person on-site, because the others happened to be on
holiday, someone submitted their resignation, and cited
racism as their reason for resigning.
Now no company wants on their records people leaving

because of racism. I say it that way because I think some
companies don‘t actually care if there is racism, as long as
it doesn't become a PR issue or staff / productivity issue.
But in this case, it didn‘t matter to me whether the
company knew or cared. What mattered to me was that
someone had felt the brunt of a racial issue to the extent
that they were actually quitting, stopping their own
employment in order to get out of the situation.
So I sent an e-mail to everyone and said, ―For the next
week or whatever it takes, my office is an open door. You
can come in on your own or you can come in with a
colleague. I want to hear about anything related to racial
issues‖, and I just put up-front that this person has resigned
citing racism as the issue and we‘re going to open this up
and get to the bottom of it.
Because I was new to the organisation and because I was
an American in the UK, and because I was a little off-the-
wall anyway, I could get away with what I then did. And
what I did was I had a ream of A4 copy paper, photocopy
paper, and I had flip chart markers. And every time I
heard someone say something that I‘d heard someone
else say, I wrote it down on a sheet of A4 paper and I stuck
it to the wall. Because every time you hear something by
more than one mouth in two separate occasions, that‘s an
implicit piece of folklore within the context in which it‘s
being said – and a people‘s folklore will lead you to the
heart of their understanding of their world..
One of the phrases was something like ―you‘re okay if you

take the train to …‖ - and it was a town that was named.
And it‘s an odd phrase to hear, but to hear it twice out of
two different people in two different situations, told me
there‘s something in this phrase. So any phrases I heard
more than once, I put up on the wall and that included
phrases like ―who does Brad Meyer think he is to be asking
these questions?‖
Yeah. I heard that more than once also. But basically

people started coming in, scheduling to come in, and
some came alone and some came with one or two friends
and we‘d have a conversation, and I‘d hear something
that would remind me of something else. I‘d look for it on
the wall and I‘d say ―in what way does this relate to…‖,
and I‘d point to something on the wall.
And what was happening was through their dialoguing
with me and with the wall, the bigger picture was coming
out for them and for me. It turned out that what it all
boiled down to for this person was that – well first of all,
nobody was moving up the career chain anyway at that
point. But what was particularly painful for this person was
that their manager wasn't paying them any personal
attention at all, and it was so different from before with
their last manager, that they thought that racism must be
the reason.
And the reality was this manager was having trouble at

home and was just barely making psychological ends
meet, either at home or at work so there wasn't any space
for other activities at that point. So when all of this sort of
opened up a bit, one of the phrases on the wall was
―managers are people too‖. The perceptual gap
between the people started to dissolve and the end result
was that the person took back their resignation and
happily stayed and the working relationships evolved quite
well.
 When it comes to Diversity and Inclusion issues, when you

leave things unsaid they just boil. And when things come
to a boil, people prepare to bail out. It‘s not even a
question of whether the perceptions are accurate,
because it‘s the response to the perceptions that has the
real impact.
 Find really simple ways to open up the dialogue and to
be as transparent as possible with issues as they arise
rather than wait until they culminate in something
dramatic like a resignation due to racism.
 A perception may be inaccurate, but a person‘s
response to their perception is one hundred percent real
– and therefore very impactful.
 Left on their own, people perceive your observable
actions (or non-actions) louder than your words (said or
unsaid).
 By demonstrating personal transparency & positive pro-
active regard and intention for and on behalf of others,
you can transcend many perceived barriers – and
sometimes transform the response to them too.
Interlog
It‘s 5th March now. We took yesterday out to work on our
aspirations to help develop a ground swell of receptivity to
Muhammad Yunus‘4 new book – due to be released in
French in Paris in April. We met with two colleagues who
also feel strongly about the potential for Yunus‘ ideas
making a difference in the world. Already, two members of
the CAC 40 (top 40 French companies) have made
significantly tangible investments in social business ala
Yunus. We think this is great and we think we can in our
own small way help too. So we invested the day in
discussions about how to do this.
So my writing style may feel a little different to you now.

We‘ll see. Where was I - oh yes; Hamid‘s journey out of
France and our eventual meeting in England and our
decision to work together, to merge our professional skill
sets to deliver on our shared vision of promoting Diversity
and Inclusion in practical ways – in France and beyond.
I didn‘t enter these decisions lightly. I entered them
gradually, over time. I won‘t kid you – the sojourn into the
D&I hinterlands traversed many a sleepless night and
coffee-catalysed day. The notion that you can ―embrace
it to erase it‖ was seriously tested. And though luck has
played a helping hand many times in our endeavours, we
have been developing a suite of tools and techniques that
4 For more information about Dr Yunus, check out: http://yunusphere.net

others have been able to apply to tangibly beneficial
effect.
The transition into working effectively with a diverse set of

people – including those that we have thought of as ‗the
others‘ can be done with relative ease now. A way to
traverse this unexplored terrain, full of unknown dangers, is
being extensively mapped out. A road map is developing.
Looking at it will give you an immediate sense of the type
of landscape you will be driving through and what gears
to shift into and when. Following it will keep you from
driving over most (if not all) of the cliffs.
We‘ve walked the talk. We‘ve run the gamut and we‘ve
scaled the heights. We‘ve heard the call, listened to its
voice and heeded its messages. We‘ve seen the writing on
the wall, read the graffiti and painted ourselves a vision for
the future while mapping out the terrain of our past travels.
Our vision for creating a global Diversity and Inclusion

model with local applicability at the operational level has
enabled us to move forward through new territories. The
landscape was new to us at any rate. We are indebted to
earlier D&I cartographers – especially the former UK
Commission for Racial Equality. The CRE publications
provided us with the early warning systems of what we
were getting into, what we were going to have to consider
in both breadth and depth in order to survive the launch
into the corporate D&I space.
It took us a long time to read and digest their materials

though. Eventually, it seemed to us that we could
drastically simplify what we were reading – to make it
more chewable and digestible if not nutritious as well. This
endeavour took numerous iterations. But we saw a light at
the end of the tunnel and we went for it.
Now we have some very useful tools – including a pair of
questionnaires based on the CRE research and
development. We have reconstructed it inside our
frameworks. These frameworks enable you and anyone
you want to work with, to easily examine virtually every
piece of the puzzle.
Would you like to see it? Is this something that you might
be interested in? Does it tick any of your boxes? What are
you looking for, by way of simple solutions with immediate
impact and lasting learning?
We have found that our tools enable people to quickly – in

one day – assess their situation and establish an
operational framework for progressing a model for their
Diversity and Inclusion agenda within their organisations.
One day, and your vision, strategy and action plan for
being inclusive in the diverse world you live and work in
can be clear. It will be tangible. It will be measurable.
Our track record in this area has lead to a new charity

being set up in France that has copied our process
designs. We influenced a material change in the French
constitution as well. More recently, we have been
engaged by ACSE to facilitate the design and
development of a practical diversity model – a standard
approach to inclusion - that this French government body
will be free to deploy across the governmental, business
and NGO sectors.
What‘s your vision? Do you have one? How clear is it?

What‘s most important to you about establishing and
implementing a sustainable Diversity and Inclusion
agenda?
Earlier, I asked you to reflect on what you wanted to get
out of reading this book. Now I‘m asking you to reflect on
what you want to get out of your D&I agenda. We have a
template to help you clarify what‘s most important to you
about progressing your D&I Agenda. If you ask us for a
copy, you can check it out and see if you‘d like to use it.
Part Two: Getting specific on our interventions
The Four Challenges – Embrace them to erase them
You cannot escape these challenges in your Diversity and

Inclusion work. Every time you need to make a change,
you must address these challenges — or you won't
achieve the sustainable change you are striving for.
The United Nations invited us to join an Expert Group

Meeting on social inclusion in September, 2007. We met for
four days at UNESCO‘s headquarters in Paris. We were
asked to provide an in-depth case study for review before
the meeting took place and to also provide a short,
provocative presentation to stimulate conversation on the
first day of the meeting, just after lunch. 5 We were the only
representatives of the business / private sector present and
we were told later that our presentation stood out for its
brevity, for its clear, concise messaging and for the
stimulating discussion that ensued.
A modified version of the case study we prepared is in the

appendix of this book. You can read what we provided to
the United Nations, and you will also find some additional
insights which we did not have time to go into when
preparing the case study initially.
In this short presentation which we gave at the UN, you will

gain an overview of the insights you will glean from
reading the case study. Here is what we presented in slide
form, along with the essence of what we said, slide-by-
slide….
5This presentation draws from my own modifications to the NLP ‘neurological levels’
model as originally framed by Robert Dilts
“Welcome back from lunch. I understand that we are the only
representatives from the business community in this meeting. I welcome
the opportunity to engage with you and to learn from you as your
academic, NGO and governmental perspectives will add to my
understanding of social inclusion. And I feel honoured to have been
invited to join you.
In the next few minutes, I will share with you some of the insights
harvested from our on-the-ground efforts to promote inclusivity. You will
also see that we have codified a number of practices which we have
found to be very useful when engaging people for the first time, as well
as for working with them over time.
We have selected a few of these practises to speak about today. I will

begin the presentation and my colleague Hamid Senni will complete it.
Slide 1
[Slide 1] From reading the invitation and the meeting guidelines, I
understood that we could choose to speak about anything that
pertained to the topics listed in the agenda for our session. I very much
appreciated this, from a flexibility stand-point. So we asked ourselves
what we could most effectively provide for you here in just a few
minutes time, that would both inform and inspire reflective discourse
with us.
We decided to share with you some of the lessons we have learned

while “facilitating participation” to “overcome exclusion”. We decided
to concentrate specifically on what we believe has enabled us to
succeed (when we have succeeded).
Not all of our experiences have been a resounding success of course,

but we have chosen to speak of one initiative today that has met with
plaudits both from within the community we were involved with and
from others who unknown to us at the time were watching and waiting
for the results of our efforts.
Slide 2
[Slide 2] Now I should mention that we‟ve drawn on a variety of
experiences that we have had with a variety of people working in a
variety of organisations. Not all have been explicitly about “inclusion”
but all were implicitly requiring us to help people feel included. And you
will know from reading our case study that we have come to make an
important distinction between “being included” and “feeling included”.
Our experiences have come from around the world, working primarily in
multi-national organisational development, cross-cultural team building
and personal strategies for success. As we are in Paris this week, we
decided to draw on some of our experiences in France over the last
couple of years that happen to be explicitily about social inclusion.
In November 2005, civil unrest broke out on the streets of Paris. This
caught our attention and we decided to look into what was going on
to see what we might be able to do to help alleviate the tensions and
perhaps help find a way forward that engaged everyone concerned in
a positive manner.
This was a tall order, of course – and one that was not to be fully met
overnight. But we felt that we had both the personal passion and
professional skills needed to make a difference. And we felt compelled
to try. Over time, we realized that persistence was also needed!
While our case study details what we did step-by-step, I will reduce the
discovery process of a year-long effort into a few sentences. This is what
we found…
We found that the bomb throwers were disaffected non-white youth

who saw no job prospects linked to education. They had consequently
dropped out of the academic stream and found themselves at
variance with their surroundings in virtually every way. While their older
siblings had gone through the education system, they had largely not
secured employment – so the younger ones thought “why bother
getting educated”? You may be able to appreciate the logic in their
thinking.
We found that the employers felt they had impunity from the problem,
as they had made logical decisions to only hire from France‟s top
schools and since only white students were ever presented to them
from these schools, the problem was not their concern. Plus, when it
came right down to it, they regarded the non-white community as
generally impatient and violent and so (understandably) did not want
them in their offices.
We found that the top French schools were really only interested in
matriculating white students because they believed there was a good
chance that non-white graduates would not get hired. This would then
negatively impact their statistics regarding the percentage of their
graduates that got good jobs. This in-turn would result in reduced
applications to enter their programmes. You may be able to
appreciate the logic in their thinking as well.
So everyone involved seemed to have logically assessed the situation

from their particular perspectives and chosen behavioural pathways
resulting in what seemed to us as a systemic or “catch 22” problem.
So we decided to try something a little different, to see if we could help
break the paradigm - something which ultimately resulted in
representatives from the predominantly white corporate world getting
together in the same room with educated (but unemployed) non-white
graduates, to look at the national issues surrounding the recruitment of
visible minorities.
As a result of this (and to our surprise) we were presented with a

prestigious award for the promotion of Diversity and Inclusion in France.
So we decided to share with you here some of what we have been

learning along the way – some of the things we did to ensure that we
could get a diverse collection of people into the same room to discuss
a shared problem and begin to identify solutions everyone could agree
on.
And this is precisly what we will do now…
Slide 3
[Slide 3] Basically, when we prepare for an intervention - be it in our
work with multi-national organisations, smaller teams or even with
individuals - we know that there are four challenges that every person
involved will need to deal with. These challenges seem to us to be
universal and unavoidable. So we prepare for them in-advance each
and every time we have the opportunity to do so.
But before I speak to the four challenges, let me step back for a
moment and illustrate the context within which all change programmes
take place. Using this model helps us understand the substance of the
challenges we are likely to encounter.
Slide 4
[Slide 4] When the environment around us begins to change and the
results we are getting also begin to change, we begin to look at things
differently. Stirred from our slumbers, awakened by our desire to get
comfortable again or spurned on by an opportunity that we see, an
idea about “changing something” begins to emerge in our mind, body
and soul.
9/11 had this effect for many people. No one has to tell us what those
numbers stand for. Similarly, in our teams, organisations, communities
and countries – when new stuff happens around us, we assess the
impact and the implications for ourselves as individuals, for our families,
for our teams, and so on.
Slide 5
[Slide 5] We begin to ask ourselves what we can do about the situation.
What can we do differently, to achieve a more desirable result in the
changing environment?
What “new behaviours” can we adopt which when we apply them will
result in our regaining our status quo or maybe influencing the
environment in ways that allow us to grow even stronger than before?
Slide 6
[Slide 6] Once we have decided on what needs to change in how we
operate, in what we do; we ask ourselves what we need in order to be
able to actually behave or operate in this new way, to do this new thing
– whatever it is.
Do we need some training? Do we need new technology? Do we need

a new procedure? Do we need more or different people? Do we need
to redesign our infrastructure? Do we need some combination of these
or perhaps some other things?
What time frames are involved? What are the windows of opportunity
we need to be ready and able to climb through when those windows
open?
Slide 7
[Slide 7] When we have settled on answers to these questions, when we
believe that we are ready to initiate our “change programme”, we
send out a message, a memorandum, a slide pack and a
“communication” explaining the logic of our thinking and the decisions
we have taken which everyone will be expected to comply with and
adhere to going forward.
The questions that we asked ourselves – the ones that guided us to the
answers we now believe in – are generally not conveyed. Or if they are,
no inclusive feedback loop is established to allow those impacted by
the change programme to engage with us regarding their own
thoughts on the matter. And this is where we are faced with the four
essential challenges which I will talk about now.
So you‟ve been listening to me for a few minutes now and I know you
will have been asking yourself a few questions. And these questions are
in fact variations of the four challenges that I‟ll share with you now.
Slide 8
[Slide 8] The first challenge: NOT TRUE
At the first and shallowest level is the small matter of truth, or a

consideration for the comprehensiveness and accuracy of your
assessment. People will be asking themselves if the foundation on
which your programme is based is sound or not. Questions will go like
this;
“Do I believe that the environment is actually different now, as

described? If I do, then do I think that the results we are getting are at-
risk or could be better, given this proposed change? If our results do
seem to be at-risk, are the selected behavioural changes really the
changes we need to apply, in order to achieve the desired results in this
changing environment? If the identified behaviours do seem to be the
right ones to go for, then do I believe that the resources that are being
allocated as enablers to this vision are in fact what we actually require
to get the job done?
As a management team, our typical behaviour suggests that we

assume people will trust our assessment and just get on with it, just do
what we have asked them to do. The idea that they are thinking, “Not
true!” may not even cross our minds.
But if we have a fundamental break-down in respective beliefs – and

we don‟t address it when it occurs – our change programme may not
be sustainable.
Let us assume for the minute though, that all is hunky dory – that
everyone involved believes in the assessment and in the devised
response to the situation as being the logical, even obvious choice.
Slide 9
[Slide 9] The next two levels of challenge have to do with RELEVANCE.
OK, so you figure what I am saying is right, given the context I am

coming from – but what does that have to do with your group? It may
be truly relevant “over there” where Brad is, but from where I am sitting,
it‟s just not all that important to my situation, to my colleagues. In short,
even though you‟re right in your assessment (given your context), is it
really that important over here, where we are?
Further, let us say for a moment that you believe that it is indeed
relevant to your organization. What has it got to do with you personally
– at an individual level? Can you leave it to the others to do what‟s
necessary, so you can just get on with your life and your work? I mean,
maybe your colleagues might not be saying “So what?” – but let‟s face
it; do you really care yourself? Does it really help you fulfil your own
sense of purpose at work or in life? Are you asking, “Do I care?”
Finally, if you have concurred that yes actually - the needed resources
are being provided to enable the behaviours that are necessary to
achieve the desired results in the changing environment, - there is one
more very critical challenge to be addressed.
Slide 10
[Slide 10] Indeed this one challenge could motivate the people that
you need to be positively and proactively involved, to actually argue
with, debate and even refute the accuracy, relevancy and value of
your assessment even if they know it to be true, important and relevant!
This is the challenge about the messenger and all that he or she
represents to the recipients of the message. Tell me (seriously) if you
have never heard someone say something like, “who are you to be
talking to me this way?”
If, when delivering the message of change, you are not in rapport with
your audience, do not have the respect of your intended recipients, or
do not recognize their free will and mind to consider for themselves
what you are saying to them first, then there is a very good chance you
will have to go back to the drawing board. You need to address the
question, “Who are you, to be telling me?”
Someone once said that there‟s no substitute for the real thing. There
isn‟t. And if you aren‟t “the real thing” when you initiate the change
programme you have in mind, your Diversity and Inclusion programme
will simply fall flat. People will see through you even as you attempt to
look right past them to your own end-goal.
Think back on the challenges you have faced in your work where
active participation from others was critical to your success. What
challenges did you face regarding their involvement? I think you will
find these four challenges were at the heart of the matter.
When someone is nit-picking over your proposal, refusing to see the

obvious though perhaps inconvenient truths regarding the matter at-
hand – what was motivating this challenge?
When you look towards your current endeavours where the

involvement of others is critical, where will the brunt of your challenges
present themselves and what can you do about them in-advance, to
embrace and then erase them?
Slide 11
[Slide 11] This last slide shows you in a nutshell what we look at to help us
prepare in-advance, and what we fall back on when unforeseen issues
arise.
The tools circled in yellow are products we have developed and

frequently use with our clients. We are happy to discuss their use over
coffee later, but for now, I will leave you to ponder and reflect for a few
minutes as we prepare now for our discussion…”
OK - that probably took you longer to read than it did for

us to say it in Paris. Sorry about that. I am hoping though,
that this is mostly because you decided to take the time to
think about what you were reading and to pick up an idea
or two that you can ―take away‖ with you already. Please
let us know if that‘s so!6
If you want to share a virtual coffee break with Hamid or

myself to learn more about the tools circled in yellow on
that last slide, let us know and we will find a way to do this
with you. We‘ll help you think about how you might apply
them in your own work.
When you read the case study 7, you will learn some of the
ways that we have used our tools to embrace and erase
some of the obstacles we encountered along the way.
These were not obstacles unique to our situation. Nor were
the tools that we used only relevant to the specific context
you will be reading about in the case study.
Your job while reading this case study will not be so much
to understand our context, but to think about how you can
use such approaches, tools and techniques in your own
environment, to address your own challenges.
6 www.beinginclusive.wordpress.com
7 Which you will find in the appendix
Speaking of these things - let me summarise that last slide
for you in slightly different terms;
You need to think deeply (and inclusively) about the

people involved in your change initiative. You need to be
asking the following questions;
1. What does each person involved hold as true?
2. What is logically relevant for each stakeholder
group involved?
3. What is personally relevant for each individual
involved?
4. Who are you to the others involved and who are
they to you?
Along the way, you need to;

1. Leave a tangible trail of respect for the beliefs of
those involved
2. Expect and plan for a lot of networking and lateral
thinking regarding and on behalf of stakeholder
groups
3. Expect and plan for many interactions with target
group members to better ensure positive
participation
4. Find and create deeply shared contexts for a
mutual sense of purpose and value for promoting
positive sustainable participation
Finally, it‘s worth looking into how you can use the VE ™
Tool Kit to really help everyone engage with each other.
Let us know how you get on. We look forward to hearing
and learning from you too.
Having become aware of the four challenges to change -
and how you can accommodate them at a process level
- it‘s time now to get very practical. It‘s time to turn this
process-level approach inward – on you. It‘s time to give
yourself some quality you-on-you time.
You‘ll find that by taking the time to first reflect on what is

true, relevant and personally important to you about being
inclusive, you‘ll discover a lens of increased clarity for
measuring and progressing your own D & I agenda with
others with increased impact.
The next two chapters (and our other personal Workbooks

using this approach) introduce you to immense possibilities
to sharpen your focus, fine tune your brain and shape up
your state of mind as you want and need it to be now.
The approach you are introduced to in this section of the

book comes primarily from the Neuro Linguistic
Programmer's tool kit..
What is important to you about being inclusive
This chapter is designed to help you clarify what‘s
important to you about being inclusive.
Underpinning every behaviour which has become a habit
are the gems that we as individuals treasure. All of our
habits originate from what we hold dear - what we value -
even if the habitual behaviours are no longer appropriate.
Give yourself the gift of personal clarity. Know what you‘re
really up for before you step up and commit yourself to
being inclusive.
Use the table in the next page to list your answers to the
following STEP ONE questions…
 In the context of being inclusive, what is important to you
- what do you value?
 What else is important to you, in this context?
 And what else?
 And what else?
 And what else?
 In this context - of being inclusive - if you could have all
of this, what would make you leave it all behind? What
additional values regarding being inclusive might this
imply? Please add these to your list.
 If you had left it all behind, what would attract you
back? What additional values regarding being inclusive
might this imply? Please add these to your list.
 On the next page (in the next table), re-list your values in
the right-hand column.
 As you are doing this, add in any additional values that
you may think of.
What is important to me about being inclusive
following STEP TWO questions…
 Re-write your values into the table to the right.
 On a scale of 1 – 10, how important to you is [each
individual value listed] to being inclusive?
 For values with the same numerical level of importance,
add as many decimal points into the numerical ranking
as necessary in order to make distinctions of importance.
 On the next page (in the next table), re-list your values in
the right-hand column, this time sorting them from most
important (at the top of the list) to least important (at the
bottom of the list.
Rating what is important to me about being inclusive
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following STEP THREE questions…
 If in the context of being inclusive, you could have [the
most important value] - but you could not have [the
second most important value] – would this be OK? If not,
please ask yourself the next question.
most important value] plus [the second most important
value] - but you could not have [the third most important
value] – would this be OK? If not, please ask yourself the
next question.
most important value] plus [the second most important
value] plus [the third most important value] - but you
could not have [the fourth most important value] – would
this be OK? If not, please ask yourself the next question.
 Carry on with this line of questioning until you answer
―YES‖ – indicating that all values below the current
critical set can be distinguished by a lesser degree of
criticality for you.
 Feel free to re-assign a different numerical value to
something if after reflection it feels right to do so.
Ranking what is important to me about being inclusive
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Use the table below to write in your answers to the
following STEP FOUR questions…
 Concentrate on a short-list of your most critical values.
 Concentrate on a max of 6 (six) critical values.
 List them here, in the table below.
What is most critical for me about being inclusive

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Use the diagram on the next page to illustrate your

answers to the following STEP FIVE questions…
 In the context of being inclusive, consider what is critically
important to you for a moment…
 Considering your top six critical values in turn, how are things
working for you just now?
 On a scale of 1 – 10, how satisfied are you that [each of your
critical values] is as fully realised as you would like it to be?
 On the assessment wheel, place a dot on each critical value
line, to numerically represent your satisfaction level (from 1 to
10) for each critical value. Then connect the dots.
 So…… If this were the rear wheel on a bicycle of your being
inclusive, how balanced / smooth and high would your ride be
right now?
6 1
5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2
4
3
Now that you have clarified WHY being inclusive is

important to you personally, how useful will it be for you to
know and refine your own personal strategy for being in an
inclusive state of mind whenever you need to be? The next
chapter is designed with this achievement in-mind.
You can get the rest of the story here!
http://bit.ly/BeingInclusive

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…A Selection of Extracts from the Book…

Globalisation delivered diversity to your doorstep.

Deliverance through diversity is your only sustainable option.

This option requires you to be inclusive in your behaviour.

Being truly inclusive depends on your state of mind.

You are responsible for your state of mind.

Using this book will help you be so.

Take advantage of it.

Table of Contents (For Selected Extracts)

PART ONE: DEALING WITH MY OWN DIVERSITY DILEMMAS ......................10

As you increase the quality, frequency, breadth and depth of

This is because a company is the commercial result of people

Your organisation benefits when it‘s people operate from the

When you‘re in trouble or you have a challenging opportunity,

And when personal passion prevails, your outcome is

Their relationships with you will be based on their experience of

You can use both behavioural and computing technologies to

OK – it‟s the 3rd of March, 2008. I am sitting at the round

In the absence of knowledge,

My brain ticks over like I am in my early thirties – charged

1 My business partner Hamid SENNI and me

I am here to reflect on and paint the picture of our journey

In 2005, petrol bombs were being thrown into cars in the

Profit however, is certainly on the cards - and 2008/9 is

Only now is it possible for me to be here, rather than in my

It‟s been “a hard slog”, as they say in England. If we did

Nothing is “strictly business”. Everything is personal.

Now, you may find yourself wandering off and reflecting

Here‘s where you can reach me online:

Anyway, this section is about me and well basically I‘ve

The illustrated list

A nice scene – but not the one I am in. I am in a still-cold

The height of frustration is clearly expressed in the pallor of

He tells me that time and time again, he‘s asked his

Cutting to the chase, this scene has been replayed out

The thing is, they were naturally expressing themselves in

As soon as we figured this out, we asked our selves how we

3Some interesting insights on doodling can be found at:

I explained that I wasn‘t a great fan of psychometric

I acknowledged how popular the process seemed to be

The team had already decided that what they really

We didn‘t have budget or time to do the normal deep

So I came up with an intervention for a two-hour session

In advance, I asked them to tell me where they were born

When I got the reports back, I collated them into

I pre-framed the exercise by saying that ALL

 When people bring something that is challenging to you,

So over time, those back office activities can tend to

Well, in the particular experience that I‘m thinking of, I was

The people who were going to be transferred in this

So are you wondering how this scenario is relevant to

We had only communicated to them – not with them. So

 You can‘t simply say ―you‘re included‖, or ―people are our

A Case of Perceived Racism

The experience took place in a company that had what it

Now no company wants on their records people leaving

One of the phrases was something like ―you‘re okay if you

Yeah. I heard that more than once also. But basically

And the reality was this manager was having trouble at

 When it comes to Diversity and Inclusion issues, when you

So my writing style may feel a little different to you now.

4 For more information about Dr Yunus, check out: http://yunusphere.net