Building an Inclusive Team Environment

00:05 As a leader or team member, there are certain steps that need to be taken to support inclusive excellence.

00:11 And what is inclusive excellence means? It means that, DEIB subsumed in inclusive excellence.

00:20 So, when we're doing it the right way, we consider diversity fully, which cuts fully consider equity.

00:26 We fully consider what inclusivity is, and we fully consider what belonging is and all those things create an environment that kind of exudes inclusive excellence.

00:38 So where do we start with that? Because obviously, we will never know everything about every person on the team, but we can do things to build toward that.

00:47 And one of those things we need to do at the outset of everything we do in terms of team building and collaborative assignments or whatever is to start with a establishing agreements.

00:59 Mutually established agreements in terms of how we want to proceed with meetings, how we want to proceed as a group, how we want to get the work done, and everybody should have an equal say in that agreement.

01:11 Even if you don't directly communicate what you think should be on there.

01:16 If you agree with it, you do want to communicate that you agree with it.

01:19 If you disagree with it, you want to communicate that you do.

01:22 And you want to give a rationale for why.

01:25 So communication is very important. Transparency is very important.

01:29 And we not only want to do that, at the beginning of the first meeting, we want to do that at the start of each meeting.

01:36 And there should be a space where people can change the agreement, as a team, as necessary.

01:42 So we may want to add to the agreement, and some things may no longer be relevant in the agreement.

01:47 But the whole purpose of this is to facilitate inclusive excellence and collaborative intelligence and collaborative excellence, to meet the goals of the team and the organization.

02:00 So all members should be a part of every part of the process.

02:03 And sometimes, when I say that, I don't mean that you have to micromanage each little piece.

02:09 So there will be people who have shared interest in certain things that you're working on as a team.

02:15 And those people might get into little subgroups.

02:17 And at the end of the day, everybody should agree on the final product and what the objectives, goals and outcomes are.

02:25 Rather than the individual goals, it has to always come back to what the organizational goals are.

02:31 Another important piece is bridging language barriers.

02:35 How do we do that? We have to continuously check in and double check.

02:39 And also consider the fact that at certain points in the process, people become more comfortable.

02:45 So in the beginning of facilitating the team, there may have been people who didn't speak up because they weren't comfortable.

02:51 But the more they got to know everybody else on the team, then they're able to communicate like what their needs are.

02:58 So flexibility, again, is important. And adaptability is important.

03:02 Make sure you diversify and establish some preferred communication channels.

03:08 Have multiple is what we're saying in terms of there.

03:12 And then we want to use them consistently and checking in, revisiting.

03:17 So do we want to communicate only by each of these things? I'm going to say although we want to have a multitude of different ways.

03:24 We communicate based on people's preferences.

03:26 So phone, email, text, chat, project management software.

03:31 And again, going back to cultural intelligence, thinking about where people are in terms of their careers, that's important.

03:38 Because experience matters.

03:41 Age matters, where people are in terms of whether you're a millennial or not. Whether you meet and we didn't grow up in the age of full technology, like it is now.

03:50 So how do we accommodate everybody's needs and preferences? And we want to do that in a way that's not labeling judging.

03:57 How do we get the work done? That's what the focus should be.

04:00 And how do we accommodate everybody, so they feel comfortable.

04:03 We want to use inclusive language, and ask and respect salutations and pronouns.

04:10 Again, it's not whether you agree with things or not, it's how do we respect people and respect people's preferences needs and show that we value people.

04:18 You want to acknowledge people in ways that avoid cliches.

04:23 So we often say we want to give a round of applause.

04:27 When we think about very abilities, there may be people who cannot do that.

04:31 So, just saying something in a way that an example could be that instead of saying everybody give a big hand, everybody clap, everybody stand, some people can't.

04:40 And we don't want to assume people are being disrespectful, because they don't.

04:45 We just want to say show appreciation in whatever way that you can or you choose.

04:49 Because we also still have choices and preferences, as I said.

04:53 And accommodate diverse abilities.

04:55 with assistive technology, closed captioning breaks.

04:59 And often, if you're gonna do something within or outside the organization, and depending on the size of the organization, you may not know everybody's needs.

05:09 And when people don't feel like they're part of an inclusive environment, they may not share. Feel safe.

05:14 Sharing some of those diverse abilities.

05:18 So that's why I want to reiterate.

05:21 It's so important to make sure that we have an authentically inclusive environment, so that we consider all those things again on the front end, and not wait for someone to come and say it.

05:33 Let's just do it if we can.