inclusion

Managers: To Increase Performance and Productivity, Create a “3C” Environment

May 24, 2011
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I’m just finishing reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers.
I was really taken with Chapter 4 where he talks about “concerted cultivation.”  It’s a term coined by sociologist Annette Lareau to describe the specific way some parents teach their children to navigate the world successfully.
As I was taking in the behaviors Gladwell was describing, they seemed so [...]

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Managers: Have You Had Your Defining Moment?

October 28, 2010
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Early in my career as a corporate employee I found myself challenging one of my supervisors.
He seemed to be very “classist” against people in non-exempt positions, like administrative assistants, clerks, technicians.  He was very suspicious of their requests for overtime, for instance.  When one woman told him she had to take her child to a [...]

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At Work: We Are Family?

October 27, 2010
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I was reminded again today about me being a stick-in-the-mud about describing the model work environment as “like family.”   I already went over my aversion to this last year, so to be fair, I would like to focus on what’s good about this notion.
Let’s get underneath this.  When managers say that want their workgroup to [...]

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Tomato? Tomahto? What Do We Call Those People Who Work Here?

October 2, 2010
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Words matter.  I saw a video about preventing sexual harassment once about a woman who was starting a new job. She was talking with a female coworker about how the men on the crew called them “girls.” The coworker responded with, “It’s only a word…” The snarky part of me wanted the [...]

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What if They Ain’t Buyin’ What I’m Sellin’?

September 15, 2009
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Here we are again, Joe Gerstandt and I, exchanging questions and answers.
Joe: We both focus largely on the intangible assets in an organization or community…the things that cannot be easily counted or weighed…things like difference, trust, relationships, culture, etc.  What can we do so that more business leaders come to value these incredibly powerful (but [...]

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The Most, Bestest Book (on Diversity & Inclusion in the Workplace)

August 11, 2009
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Joe Gerstandt and I have an ongoing Q&A exchange that we are posting on both of our blogs.  This week I have this question for Joe.

Q: For an organization leader who sincerely wants to better understand what it is going to take to make her/his organization more innovative, by way of diversity and inclusion, what [...]

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Interview with a Freedom Fighter

June 29, 2009
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All that time on Twitter is paying off! I recently connected with Joe Gerstandt, self-described Keynote Speaker, Workshop Facilitator and Freedom Fighter; Blogger of: Inclusion/ Leadership/ Innovation/ Culture; Father, Question-Asker, Freak Flag-Flier, and the other Beastie Boy.
Joe got my attention when he immediately got what my work is about (after all, it [...]

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