October 2009 Diversity and Inclusion Best Practice

IDC Client wins World Diversity Leadership Summit (WDLS) 2009 Global Diversity Innovation Award

A global IDC client has been awarded this prestigious award by a panel of Fortune 100 Companies for its culture change diversity and inclusion programme, which IDC developed and has delivered for it in over 160 of its units across 5 continents.  

So what is special about the Making the Most of Difference (MMoD) programme that contributed to this client winning the WDLS 2009 Global Diversity Innovation Award?

1.      MMoD is underpinned by culture change methodology:

a.      It offers a clear picture of the client’s vision for diversity and inclusion (D&I).

b.      It drives activities to transform its current culture to that embodied in its vision, e.g. it creates dissatisfaction with the present state by offering pictures, through drama scenarios, of the current culture; it has a clear statement of the future vision, and the business benefits it offers, given by a senior member of its Board; it promotes local D&I action planning; progress is measured and successes publicised.

c.       Its design was informed by researching what is currently helping and hindering inclusion across it.

d.      It is reinforced by local change agents, trained for this purpose.

2.      It has demonstrable top-level support, e.g a DVD stating the Board’s commitment by one of its senior members kicks of each of the change workshops, which are part of the MMoD process.

3.      MMoD models inclusivity:

a.      Workshops are attended by staff, both local and expatriate, from all levels of each unit, i.e. senior managers through to front-line support staff, e.g. security guards.

b.      Exercises at workshops are designed to demonstrate the problem-solving and creativity benefits of inclusive working by diverse teams.

c.       MMoD’s IDC facilitators model inclusive behaviour.

4.      MMoD workshops, through interactive theatre scenarios, emotionally engage participants, powerfully complementing the intellectual engagement occurring through inputs, discussions and group exercises. The theatre scenarios are about 7, or 8, minutes in length and are scripted from stories of real situations collected during the research. The 2 actors performing the scenarios remain in character after each scenario for facilitated interactive dialogues with participants, to explore and understand the impact of positive and negative behaviours experienced by the characters. These are powerful at achieving what I call ‘I never realised’ moments.

5.      There is considerable local adaptation of the programme to take account of local strategic priorities and cultural needs.

Finally, it works with the client’s annual engagement survey demonstrating measurable improvements against a range of inclusion indicators.

Dr Ian Dodds,

iandodds@iandoddsconsulting.com

28 Sep 09