Many organizations have recognized the importance of diversity and inclusion in their future success. They have made it a top priority. Moreover, most leaders have become more sensitive about whom they hire, promote, and assign to projects and teams. Leaders are sensitive to sharing information equitably among their staff.
Diversity in the world is a basic characteristic of human society, and also the key condition for a lively and dynamic world as we see today.” — Jintao Hu
Research shows that diversity makes inclusion harder. Teams with more differences must exert more significant effort to help others feel like they belong. Mitigating the risk of stereotyping and other biases make everyone feels like he or she are on the same team. Diversity and inclusion reinforce one another.
However, the pendulum of change often swings too far. The effort to force diversity can lead to over-inclusion. Are you looping in too many people to various emails, meetings, and projects? Over-inclusion impacts job satisfaction and retention. Also, the quality and timeliness of employees’ work may suffer. This may waste time, money, and energy. It creates a drain on productivity.
To avoid these pitfalls, you must thoughtfully exclude people and master the art of expectation matching.
Unconscious Bias
This form of bias reflects the opinions we hold about people based on stereotypes or group affiliation(s) as opposed to facts and observations. Unconscious beliefs manifest themselves in behaviours that have a detrimental effect on inclusion. However, as diversity increases, the more likely it is that the impact of unconscious bias will be apparent (i.e., more diversity + unconscious bias = less inclusive).
Under-inclusion is a problem. You will not achieve the needed diversity of thought. Team members feel left out, minimized, or excluded. Unconscious bias is the one component that can derail all your efforts at optimizing the benefits of inclusion.
What is Over-Inclusion?
Many leaders think of diversity in ideological terms with regards to the relative proportions of demographic groups (e.g., defined by gender, race/ethnicity, age, religion, national origin, etc.). This is not a good way to start. It does not capture the notion of inclusion in its broader sense.
Optimizing inclusion requires a mix of different perspectives — through diversity. These differences reflect factors such as education, work experience, socio-economic backgrounds, political affiliation, work style, personality, cultural background, and so on. All these factors (and more) are critical to achieving a real diversity of perspectives. John Hopkins’ diversity wheel is an excellent tool for considering the full breadth of diversity.
Over-inclusion occurs when the cost, in terms of time and money, of having extra people outweigh the value of their contributions. For example,
- meeting with two or more people and their contributions are redundant
- being on an email thread with dozens of other people and having no real idea who is meant to do what
Over-inclusion is being too attentive to include people without thinking about the value of their participation. I have shared research that the ideal size of a team or board is five to seven people. Beyond seven people, the group becomes ten percent less effective for every extra person.
Think of inclusion/productivity as following a standard distribution curve.
Then there is the ideal amount of inclusion. It’s when the right people know the right information at the right time.
We have created a digital bureaucracy. It is multiplied over many meetings, emails, and projects. Meeting deadlines and moving processes along become a struggle.
What Are the Costs of Over-Inclusion?
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” — Proverb
Over-inclusion occurs from good intentions paired with wrong instincts.
We are social beings and want to feel a sense of belonging. Research shows the profound impacts social inclusion and exclusion have on how our brains function. This suggests that a feeling of belonging is vital for survival. Such a legacy makes us aware of other people’s social needs, such as relatedness, status, and fairness. These domains affect how people feel rewarded or threatened. By extension, they affect our unconscious responses and performance.
When you are getting things done, you include people in emails, meetings, and projects. You are partly appealing to this set of empathetic impulses. However, those same impulses that lead you to over-include. As a result, your team may burn out because of overwhelming cognitive load and decision fatigue. Moreover, they may develop unhealthy, “always-on” mentalities toward their work.
Something must give.
Uniqueness and Belongingness
Belongingness — satisfying competing needs to feel both similar enough to others to be accepted as part of a group.
Uniqueness — being recognized for our individual qualities and contributions
Effective inclusion achieves a balance between these two needs. Groupthink happens when individuality disappears, or the group rejects you for being too far out of balance— the lone wolf.
A sense of belongingness occurs when one feels accepted, supported, and valued by their team, department, or organization. A real sense of uniqueness is achieved when a person feels they are different from others in their group and these differences are respected and appreciated.
People may not always agree with you. However, they appreciate what you bring to the table. This is a delicate balance. It is crucial for inclusion.
How To Exclude Thoughtfully
Thoughtfully excluding Is the antidote to over-inclusion. However, you need to be careful not to undermine your efforts mitigating bias and unconscious bias and increasing diversity. You need to bring a sense of uniqueness and belongingness. This requires you to thoughtfully remove some people from threads, meetings, and projects. You need to match expectations and to communicate effectively.
Managing and reconciling expectations is a matter for the brain. Specifically, one region of the brain known as the anterior cingulate cortex. In part, it detects conflicting information, both from our environment and in social interactions. For example, the anterior cingulate cortex causes you to pause when your favourite coffee shop is suddenly closed, or when an apparent ally turns on you.
When your brain is tasked with resolving these kinds of conflicts, it uses significant cognitive resources. Since your mind only has a finite amount of energy, it is crucial for you to minimize how often expectations are violated. This enables you to conserve your cognitive resources for more significant decisions.
When you think the task will benefit from more diversity and inclusion rather than a diversity checklist of representation, think who are the five to seven people that will add the most value. Ensure there is a diversity of thought with the group.
Remember that the effectiveness of the group to make good decisions will decline by 10% for each person added beyond seven. Be open to explaining your thinking. You will create clarity. People will not always agree with your decisions, but at least they will understand and respect them.
Launching Projects
Launch projects by specifying who is involved to what degree and for what role, along with who is not required and why not. Have conversations to ensure your expectations for each person’s role align with their understanding and expectations for their role. Your investment up front will pay significant dividends.
You will need to ensure that:
- the right people are involved
- the right people are not included — and they understand why
- everyone accepts where he or she fits into the scenario
The result of deliberately, optimizing inclusion is faster and more accurate decision-making and fewer hurt feelings. Those who were once unnecessarily included are freed up to reinvest their cognitive energy in other pursuits.
Final Thoughts
Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common. Celebrate it every day.”— Author Unknown
Optimizing inclusion requires attention to more than a focus on diversity alone. It is critical to take steps to minimize unconscious bias and ensure your employees feel that they both belong and uniquely contribute, to your organization. The journey will be challenging. Tell stories about ideal behaviours.
Show how inclusion can get misunderstood. Generating understanding helps to align team members with the organization’s goals, without telling people to sacrifice who they are as a person when coming to work.
