Читать книгу UNBIAS - Stacey A. Gordon - Страница 11

In the Alignment phase, your organization leaders will utilize the information provided in the Awareness phase, which provided clarity around the current state of the organization and start to align on the strategy. Determining the direction and agreeing to support the strategy is an important and fundamental factor.

In this phase, education is again present to reinforce the knowledge that diversity and inclusion within organizations does not only begin by increasing the number of represented identities across gender, race, ethnicity, ability, and age. It is understood that an organization must undergo a process to become diverse and inclusive, and it continues by assessing how key elements in those core concepts are being practiced. To do so, there must be a shared understanding of what diversity and inclusion is rooted in and how it is important for the organization.

After months of one‐on‐one interviews and focus groups, Lisa's HR team has gathered eye‐opening, experiential data from her employees about the state of the organization. As she discusses her discoveries and proposed path forward with department managers, she learns that several of them felt the “diversity” assignment wasn't really a priority, that what mattered most was the optics of looking like they made an effort while still increasing the company's overall revenue. Lisa leaves the meeting frustrated and disappointed by the company's disjointed viewpoint.

The pillars of diversity and inclusion are held in the beliefs, actions, and practices of an organization, from employee to leadership. The objective of the Alignment phase is to educate everyone on the critical components of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace in order to practice and thus cultivate this in the organization. It is incumbent upon the leadership to authentically embrace this knowledge. To get the leadership team to buy in and commit to diversity and inclusion, the leaders have to align on the direction as well as the value to the company. Lisa and her team have a lot of meetings in their future because without alignment on the need to reach the goal, they have no hope of aligning on a strategy to achieve it. They have to help the leadership team see how unconscious bias is affecting each and every department and receive commitments to do something about it.

One additional outcome of the Alignment phase is the setting of expectations. This phase creates accountability in leadership and demands action as a next step. Demonstrating support for the strategy provides clarity, as well as trust, to the workforce and sets the expectation that action will follow. Failing to move to the Action phase destroys the momentum that has been built, casts doubt on the data that has been obtained, and erodes trust in your leadership team.