What Inclusion and Pancakes have in common? Three observation from work and life…

This article has been originally published at: https://thefancysquare.wordpress.com/2020/07/03/what-inclusion-and-pancakes-have-in-common-three-observation-from-work-and-life/

There’s one pattern that I’ve observed — not only on social media, but also at the workplace — when it comes to the topic of inclusion: it takes something fundamentally bad to happen for the topic to receive, not the attention that it deserves, but just more attention in general. As for the time in between the so to be called ‘unfortunate events’ [ironically speaking], we are comfortable with passively ingesting [diversity & inclusion] related content meant to create AWARENESS. By no means I believe these resources are not useful, in fact, I strongly agree that becoming more aware and grounded into the actual reality is a fair first step, BUT is it only me that feels we are stuck at step 1?! Diversity and inclusion is an ongoing discussion, it is a presentation, an emotional video, a training that makes you feel guilty, an event, a campaign, but from what I’ve seen, this topic never takes the form of actionable ideas — and no, sharing a quote on social media addressing a fundamental breach of human rights does not count as action. When it comes to inclusion in particular, awareness is not enough!

[Disclaimer] I am no expert on the topic. I did had the chance though to work on various diversity and inclusion projects both during my studies and as part of my job, and this is how I became truly curious about it in the first place. I am passionate about human dynamics and the underlying reasons for which people exhibit certain behaviors. Circling back to inclusion, I believe it is a human-dynamics challenge I enjoy exploring, and learning about :). So, this article is a summary of my observations.

Observation 1: Diversity and Inclusion come as a package and are treated (wrongly) accordingly

To set the record straight, diversity is facts; it is measurable, and an environment can have it or not. However, in a diverse environment, inclusion is not a given. Inclusion has to do with human behavior and the impact (positive/negative) it has on the wellbeing of the individual. In other words, an inclusive environment is what makes diversity stay. Unlike diversity, inclusion cannot be easily measured, it is not tangible, but people recognize it within themselves. To me, inclusion could be measured in feelings. Therefore, all efforts to increase the diversity of an environment do not contribute to improving inclusion, hence changing behavior.

Observation 2: Does inclusion go against our nature?

Personally, I believe inclusion is a rather vague concept — becoming more inclusive as individuals is not a very intuitive process and it becomes a hell of a challenge in the absence of guidance.

To me, inclusion is like…pancakes — they require a diverse set of ingredients, flour, eggs, milk, butter and honey (or any other filling of choice), but when completely unfamiliar with this dish, one can hardly imagine how to mix the ingredients in such a way that results in…well, pancakes, without following a recipe. And even then, it takes practice not to burn them or to reach the right thickness.

So, why is there no recipe for inclusion? I see current awareness campaigns/videos/trainings/events talking about how tasty pancakes are and how to learn more about the ingredients pancakes are made of, while there’s hardly a focus on the recipe. And sometimes, I do believe that being intentional and more explicit in setting expectations could really make a difference.

Unfortunately, creating a more inclusive environment is not as straight forward as cooking pancakes, but I do believe a better job can be done at making inclusion more tangible by setting more realistic expectations. When looking at inclusion from the perspective of changing the world, it can get overwhelming and quite disappointing, especially if the starting point is a mystery. So, my take on this is that I should remember that I am trying to make pancakes, not build a spaceship.

Observation 3: A practical approach towards inclusion

It was sometimes in winter and I think I’ve been in my current team (at work) for over a year. I always got along with everybody, or at least I think I did, and felt quite certain of the fact that I could pretty much invite anybody to join me for lunch when we were at the office, without having to deal with an awkward conversation. One day though, I got a message on Teams that was not about work or lunch, it was actually an invite to bring along whoever I want and attend a live performance with some of my colleagues. Maybe you wouldn’t consider this a groundbreaking experience, but in the moment, I did not only feel happy, but I also felt like I have achieved something big and that have I managed to climb whatever imaginary social ladder there is that I’ve potentially created for myself.

But the point that I want to make with this, is that I believe that at times, like mentioning the spaceship earlier, I set unrealistic expectations for myself in regards to being inclusive, when in fact it is easier than I think — and this particular story proved that it only takes one intentional message to make somebody feel like they belong. That made me think that to become more inclusive, I need to start small and to narrow down the scope to changing my own behavior first.

Based on my experience so far, I personally feel both included and inclusive…

• when a colleague is feeling safe and is trusting me enough to share their situational struggles and be vulnerable.
• when I am paying attention and proactively trying to understand what the best way is to work/communicate with somebody based on their personality traits.
• when one of my colleagues/acquaintances is making space for my voice to heard during a heated conversation because they notice I am uncharacteristically silent, not because of lack of knowledge, but because I might feel slightly out-powered;

My intention was to write a snack-size piece, but it looks like I have not been successful in achieving that. That being said, I will wrap-up by saying that inclusion starts within the individual and there’s always something simple we can do every day that can change the (for the better) the experience of the people we are interacting with that might not feel at ease within a group. And that can be done with the resources we have at our disposal — don’t forget, we are making pancakes, not building a spaceship.