Hello All,
We’re now starting chapter 3 of Inclusion on Purpose: an intersectional approach to creating a culture of belonging at work, by Ruchika Tulshyan (2022, MIT Press).
This summary below was the result of my AI prompt:
How to Develop an Inclusion Mindset
- Shift from intent to impact: Good intentions aren’t enough—learn, unlearn, and adopt measurable inclusion habits.
- Habits: Seek diverse perspectives, examine defaults (e.g., who’s invited, who speaks), and define inclusion as a core leadership competency.
- Measure: Track behavior change and team outcomes (belonging, attrition, advancement).
That is the Gemini summary of the second chapter.
Chapter 2 starts with a story that illustrates how the lack of an inclusion mindset can set a whole organization on its heels and derail promising careers. Tulshyan writes “Jodi-Ann Burey received a frantic phone call from her manager to attend a leadership meeting scheduled for the next hour at the fast-growing startup she had recently joined.” As the story unfolds (p37-39) we learn that the manager asked her to bring slides to show the management team what she was working on. Given the short notice, she knew at that point that she was an agenda afterthought even though she was leading the DEI efforts at the organization. Although she was surprised she actually had slides ready, so she went to the meeting.
She presented her slides but the CEO eventually verbally shot down every idea—saying that the ideas were not relevant to the company's work, and continued a “hostile line of questioning” for 30 minutes. Burey quickly realized that the substance of her work was not the problem, the problem was that the CEO didn't believe she was competent. And worse, she said one of the things that she carries with her years later is that no one in the conference room stood up for her, even though many expressed shock after the meeting was over.
Burey knew that “even a white person who has less power than me in the company could have said something to redirect the conversation, but what bothers me is that white people at my level or above did not stand up for me and these were the same people who were really open to me before the leader came in. When you have toxic leaders everyone falls into line.”
When Burey left that organization (after the job “dissolved quickly into multiple instances of being second-guessed and humiliated, receiving biased feedback, and eventually being rudely reprimanded while her colleagues looked on in silence. p. 39 ”) she felt desolate about what her career prospects would look like.
This story details how rapidly a reputation can be damaged, how bias can snowball through an organization, and what can happen when no-one steps in to interrupt bias in action. Many different outcomes were possible if only someone had spoken up for this talented employee. In Chapter 2, Tulshyan covers the inclusion mindset that is so critical to interrupt racism at work. She draws an analogy here to the “growth mindset” concept that we might be more familiar with—the idea that we can all grow and learn if we are open to that and believe in it. Her approach is to think of getting better and better at inclusion if we believe that we can, expect to be constantly learning new things about inclusion, and see that leaders can create organizations that have an inclusion mindset.
She introduces the BRIDGE framework (p.42) to help us remember how to cultivate an inclusion mindset:
- Be uncomfortable
- Reflect (on what you don't know)
- Invite feedback
- Defensiveness doesn't help
- Grow from your mistakes
- Expect that change takes time
Through the rest of the chapter she details what each part of BRIDGE means in detail, offering reflection questions and encouragement while sharing her own struggles to keep an inclusion mindset at all times. I want to focus on E, number 6, to illustrate these details. Expecting that change takes time is hard for some of us with a real “action bias”. Once we see something, we want to change things and change them right away.
Tulshyan cautions that this can be very problematic for inclusivity and anti-racism work because so much of what is needed is to first sit in discomfort and learn. Learn what’s really behind biased actions. Learn what underlies assumptions and where the hidden agendas are having impact. Doing something isn't always the right thing, and can create backlashes that inflict more harm than good.
As I finish this and reread the AI summary of the chapter, it’s clear that my thoughts about this book and Gemini’s thoughts about this book are not the same! Humm…
Until next month—be well and keep learning!
All the best,
Holly
