Inclusion’s Ripple Effect
A few years ago, when we at The Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group began thinking through the concept of Inclusion as the HOWSM, we could not have imagined how many dozens of business practices it might impact. Today, we don’t have to imagine it—we are seeing it happen. Our clients are using Inclusion as the HOWSM in an ever-widening array of applications. Kaizens are incorporating the Inclusion as the HOWSM mindset to enhance the effectiveness of their teamwork. Global R&D functions, for whom communication from site to site can be a major challenge, are building online tools to foster greater awareness of people’s expertise—creating a global community, sparking collaboration, and increasing the speed of knowledge transfer. Manufacturing sites have brought people together to translate corporate strategy to their own specific operations. Supervisors and managers are listening to front-line people in the effort to identify pockets of waste and areas for innovation.
Inclusion as the HOWSM is becoming foundational in many day-to-day interactions—from one-on-ones, staff meetings, and yellow belt projects to tier meetings and town halls. It is becoming a critical dimension in changing interactions within the organizations with which we work, accelerating results and performance.
Moreover, organizations have adopted Inclusion as the HOWSM to navigate traditional business milestones:
- Emerging from bankruptcy
- Merging with or acquiring another company
- Closing plants and offices
- Creating new ways of interacting with vendors, suppliers, and customers
- Managing rapid expansion
- Breaking through competitive barriers
- Reinventing brand value propositions
These applications illustrate something we have always believed about inclusion: that, far from being a peripheral or conceptual tool, it is an imperative for how to do business, a new way to interact and lead organizations toward sustained success. Moreover, Inclusion as the HOWSM can serve as a fundamental mindset in nearly every aspect of business, in nearly every corner of the world. Almost any issue or change confronting the organization can be addressed more effectively by including the right people, at the right time, doing the right work.
When organizations approach Inclusion as a HOW to achieve organizational results, extraordinary things happen. Decision makers gain a 360-degree view of the issue at hand—a view necessary for making better decisions. Knowledge and success practices transfer rapidly throughout the organization, allowing good ideas to be shared and applied more quickly and eliminating the waste of reinventing the wheel. People feel safe enough to speak up and share their ideas and perspectives so that problems are solved faster. Individuals and teams are willing to make problems visible more quickly and identify innovative solutions in collaboration within and across business units. The entire organization can begin to perform at unheard-of levels.
Organizations using Inclusion as the HOWSM are experiencing these changes—which is why many of them have committed to driving an inclusion mindset throughout their systems. They stand as evidence of the power of Inclusion as the HOWSM to accelerate results and drive ever higher performance.