Inclusiveness at Work

July 30, 2021 Business related, Sociocultural Issues No Comments

This is a worthy, challenging goal that can only be attained by valuing our humanness. As such, it’s about each individual person, including yourself.

Inclusiveness

Inclusiveness at work is about many things, such as gender, race, age, nationality, and religious denomination.

The borders are those of morality. Sociopaths or people who don’t have an inclusive attitude should not be allowed to sicken the atmosphere for all. That’s just a question of being realistic.

The core of this morality is that each person is equally of value-as-person. For instance, a physician may be more valuable in a medical setting, but that doesn’t make him more valuable-as-person. The only relevant difference relates objectively to work itself.

Inclusiveness at work is about not letting anything unrelated to the job play a role in assessing the value of any individual.

Inclusiveness is an inner attitude.

People need to ‘be inclusiveness.’ The company needs to be an ‘inclusiveness company.’

Thus, inclusiveness is not an additional characteristic but an intrinsic part of the identity of a person or company. Without this part, the identity would change enough to talk of a different entity. The person or company would feel unrecognizably changed.

Being realistic in this – instead of utopic – is to acknowledge that people are no saints. We all have some troubled associations in our mental landscape, whether we like it or not. Self-acceptance is not about ignoring them, nor about cutting them out. It’s about acknowledging the challenge and finding it worthwhile to take that challenge.

Therefore, now we know what inclusiveness is about and where it resides, how can we attain it?

More than just a decision

An inner attitude is not just the result of choice. For this, it is too enmeshed within the personal mindscape.

Thus, to say that an organization should be inclusive is not the end but the beginning. Growing from less to more inclusive involves a cultural change. [see: “Culture Changes when Top-Down meets Bottom-Up“]

This involves taking into account the subconceptual layer. Therefore, it can never be merely a conscious decision. To mistake it for this leads to frustration ― or even more: the reversal of what has been previously accomplished.

So, what more?

A continual growth process.

This is to be incorporated into the whole of career support for any person. It is a stance towards all the concerned and also the less concerned.

The final goal (attractor) is an environment in which this particular focus is not needed anymore. For instance, as to gender, [see: “Gendering the Workplace“]. However, even if this goal is attained, support is still needed to keep it so.

Lisa-as-career-coach is well placed to make this feasible. [see: “Lisa in Career Coaching“]

A company-wide coaching attitude

Surely, this starts with leadership, preferably at the top of the organization. Leadership that is coaching while taking into account the deeper (subconceptual) layers is Open Leadership. [see: “Open Vision on Leadership“]

Inclusiveness is openness in its own right. Eventually, within moral boundaries, it’s about acceptance and tolerance of each individual’s individuality. There is no true inclusiveness without validating uniqueness.

There are as many races as there are people.

There are as many genders as there are people.

There are as many religious attitudes as there are people, or even more.

But there is one striving that can be equally valuable for all, and that is Openness itself.

That’s the final and necessary aim of inclusiveness.