New Web Technology Needs Inclusive Cultures

In a new posting, Fred Miller, CEO of KJCG, writes about the benefits of new internet and other technologies as helping create "the possibility of an organizational culture in which the ideas of everyone are as available as those of the CEO, but that will not happen without Inclusion. Organizational hierarchies and politics, top-down decision making, cultures non-supportive of people doing their best work and exclusive cliques in organizations can be addressed and changed with technology being a key component to the change, but not without Inclusion. Collaborative technology can enable effective co-creation, meaningful work and communities of cooperation inside and outside the firewall of an organization, but not without Inclusion.
...Without an inclusive mindset and accompanying behaviors, organizations simply will not have the 360-degree vision to solve complex problems and the “old” behaviors will just form in this new technology container."

Fred and his colleagues are amongst those in the forefront of seeing how the newest web related social networking applications and participatory forums can greatly advance organizational effectiveness, but what makes his points particularly profound from our point of view is that they see the critical role of Inclusion in making this happen.
Now we "just" have to be able to help people learn and practice the values and behaviors of Inclusion.

Teaching Inclusion

How do we go about teaching inclusion in a relatively formal way? We strive to model inclusive behaviors at our conferences and planning meetings, but beyond modeling the kinds of values and behaviors we believe in, how can we develop an outline for workshops or other training vehicles that actually teach people how to be more inclusive, or how to modify their corporate culture towards inclusion?

I'm strongly in favor of experiential learning, despite or maybe precisely because of my tendency to intellectualize things. Put me in a role play or a socio-drama situation and then have a discussion about it afterwards and I get a lot more out of it than sitting through a straight lecture or even from a classroom type discussion. So my suggestion would be to use experiential learning techniques to expose people to the values and practice of inclusion.

What do you think?

A Workshop on Inclusion

Leadership for the 21st Century: It is All About Inclusion is the title of a workshop being presented on the 26th of October 2007 at Sage College in Troy, New York. Institute co-founder Fred Miller (and CEO of KJCG) and Judith Katz, a founding member of the Institute (and the E.V.P. at KJCG).

Notice how they incorporate the practices and values of Inclusion in their work to improve corporate America: "The need for new competencies is raising the bar on what it takes to be a successful leader. At the heart of leading in the 21st century is Inclusion— requiring a new definition of “WE,” and redefining collaboration into a more intimate, yet open process." Thanks for continuing to bring Inclusion into the forefront of modern Organizational Development efforts, Fred and Judith! They go on to make a simple case for the need for training in Inclusion:

"21st Century leaders will need to model inclusive behaviors and mindsets to lead innovative, strategic and collaborative efforts. As we enter these times of mass collaboration, global co-creation of solutions and diverse communities engaged in problem solving, Inclusion becomes a necessary core competency for successful leaders and organizations."

To read more about their work to move to a new 21st century business model for leadership and Inclusion, see the announcement.

21st Century Values

Judith Katz, the Executive Vice-President at Kaleel Jamison Consulting Company has written an interesting article on their blog. It talks about 21st century versus 20th century (19th?) corporate values, stressing that today's young people joining companies deserve and to some extent expect that they shouldn't have to be trailblazers of diversity or inclusion. I'm especially interested in Judith's mention of Inclusion, as she's been one of the Institute's leaders in working on our statement of the Principles of Inclusion, which I can't link to because it's in the Document Repository on our website, and at this point is accessible only to 'registered users'.
So take this as a reminder to register!

Judith points out that "In order to close the generation gaps, organizations need to develop a more inclusive mindset—one in which everyone’s voice is heard and valued, where a new team member can speak frankly with others no matter what their rank or tenure."

Be sure to read the whole article, it's good food for thought. There are several other interesting posts on the JKCG Blog, and in particular I want to comment on one of Fred Miller's posts in another article.