For the past few years, there’s been a growing focus and demand that organizations address diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Although there’s been numerous studies that have demonstrated how a diverse workforce leads to improved financial performance, productivity, innovation, and overall growth, the numbers of visible minority groups and women in decision-making or leadership roles remains extremely low.
So if there’s a clear business case to be made for increasing diversity both in the workplace and in leadership circles, why is there still so little traction to address this, especially when so many organizations are struggling to find talent to help their organization achieve their goals. That’s what I’ll be examining with my guest, Dr. Marlette Jackson, in this episode of my “Leadership Biz Cafe” podcast.
Marlette is a researcher, educator, and cross-functional leader with over 8 years’ experience building and scaling DEI initiatives. She’s also the Global Director of Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at Virgin Pulse, where her work involves building processes, policies and programs to attract, develop, and retain the best talent from all backgrounds for Virgin Pulse globally.
Over the course of this episode, Marlette and I discuss:
- What leaders and their organizations need to do to make their diversity and inclusion be more than a feel-good measure.
- How to change the narrative that supporting more visible minorities and women to move into leadership roles means asking others to give up their opportunities.
- Why we need to reassess how we understand power in the context of diversity and inclusion.
- What leaders need to do to encourage visible minorities to access their own power for the mutual benefit of the organization and employees.
- How diversity and inclusion initiatives help to address the growing mental health crisis at work.
- How we can overcome our blindspots and biases to recognize the role we all need to play to make our workplaces more welcoming and inclusive for everyone.
- How leaders can start this discussion in their organization and the 4 phases to successful implementation of diversity and inclusion initiatives.
This is such an important conversation on a topic that every leader needs to get familiar and comfortable with. So I hope you’ll make time to check this episode out to hopefully get some powerful food for thought on how you can address this issue in your organization.
Noteworthy links:
- Dr. Marlette Jackson’s articles from Harvard Business Review:
- Former Goldman Sachs executive Edith Cooper’s New York Times piece: I Was Told I Have Career Advantages ‘as a Black Woman.’ Here’s How I Replied
- Dr. Marlette Jackson’s website – marlettejackson.com