Courageously inclusive teams
Our team development programmes create teams who have:
Courageously inclusive teams aren't just good for employee engagement, or the moral and ethical thing to do, they are fundamental to the success of your organisation.
- Safety such that everyone feels able to share their authentic experiences, opinions, feelings and beliefs as appropriate to the organisational setting
- Space which enables everyone to express their perspective on the work topic and have it honestly heard before a decision is agreed
- Clear and co-created decision-making processes (these maybe different in different situations) in which the boundaries of responsibility, authority and collaboration are clear
- The ability to recognise a conflict of opinions and give them space to be rationally resolved
- Uncovered conflict caused by power, politics, inequality and other factors and addressed it in a way which honours the influence of the team's external environment and organisation structure
Courageously inclusive teams aren't just good for employee engagement, or the moral and ethical thing to do, they are fundamental to the success of your organisation.
Diversity and inclusion networks and cross-organisation project teams
Diversity and inclusion networks generally consist of employees who volunteer to spend time advancing the needs of a specific group (e.g. women, LGBTQ, BAME, disability and mental health). They tackle complex, conflicting, inherently personal issues, on behalf of the organisation.
In our unfolding VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world new types of teams are emerging to solve increasingly complex or 'wicked' problems. These problems require collaboration across the whole of the organisation, including teams of employees reporting to multiple board directors and/or multiple teams working towards a shared goal. These teams vary from a small centralised team who rely on people from across the organisation to support their activities to large centralised teams reporting directly into a Strategy/Transformation Director or the MD.
These teams face specific problems including;
Based on their very nature, these teams, and the people they report to, depend on inclusive cultures to function. We have worked with both types of teams in varying types and sizes of organisations to help them become self-organising and impactful.
In our unfolding VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world new types of teams are emerging to solve increasingly complex or 'wicked' problems. These problems require collaboration across the whole of the organisation, including teams of employees reporting to multiple board directors and/or multiple teams working towards a shared goal. These teams vary from a small centralised team who rely on people from across the organisation to support their activities to large centralised teams reporting directly into a Strategy/Transformation Director or the MD.
These teams face specific problems including;
- The impact of political and emotional dynamics at board level on team activities
- The challenge of gathering and analysing data from across the whole organisation
- Pressures external to the organisation forcing change within the organisation
- Unclear benefits of outcomes for everyone required to collaborate
- Competition for resources and funding
- ‘Wicked’ dynamic problems which take time and resources to solve
- Unclear goals and decision making frameworks
- Team members who often need to influence beyond their place in the hierarchy, sometimes about an inherently personal topic
Based on their very nature, these teams, and the people they report to, depend on inclusive cultures to function. We have worked with both types of teams in varying types and sizes of organisations to help them become self-organising and impactful.
Infographic source materials
- Research by Deloitte. Juliet Bourke, Stacia Garr, Ardie van Berkel, Jungle Wong (2017) Diversity and inclusion: The reality gap (2017 Global Human Capital Trends)
- Research by Bain & Co. Published in HBR. Marcia W. Blenko, Michael Mankins & Paul Rogers (2010) The decision-driven organisation
- Research by Deloitte. Juliet Bourke, Stacia Garr, Ardie van Berkel, Jungle Wong (2017) Diversity and inclusion: The reality gap (2017 Global Human Capital Trends)
- Eric Larson published in Forbes (2017) New Research: Diversity + Inclusion = Better decision making at work
- Eric Larson published in Forbes (2017) New Research: Diversity + Inclusion = Better decision making at work
- Paper by Korn Ferry Institute. David Lange & Andres Tapia (2016) The inclusive leader
- Deloitte review. Juliet Borke & Bernadette Dillon. (2018) The diversity and inclusion revolution. Eight powerful truths
Contact us to explore options for developing courageously inclusive teams in your organisation.