image of hands in the table of three people, one of them holding a marker to start writing.

We have compiled a list of some of the sources behind The Inclusion Game.

The science behind the Inclusion Game.

Creating an Inclusive Mission Statement

Inclusive language helps engage employees, avoid stereotypes, and increase productivity and creativity. When managers use inclusive language, it creates more inclusive attitudes among employees. Customers may also have more positive impressions of companies that use inclusive language, and employees may feel more valued and engaged.

Good Practice Example: Ford Foundation

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core to our mission and to who we are as a foundation. To address the challenges of a complex—and increasingly diverse—world, we need to make sure every person has a voice and a seat at the table. While we strive to build a future grounded in justice, we know tackling inequality around the globe begins at home. We are committed to not only creating a diverse team where everyone feels represented and respected but also embedding these values across our work and philanthropy at large.”

Bad Practice Example: Avon

“Our purpose sits at the heart of everything we do: we use the power of beauty to transform women’s lives for the better.”

Diagnosing Business Challenges in Diverse Teams

We often assume that in teamwork 1 + 1 = 3. That the sum of the individuals delivers more than the individuals working seperated from each other. This is not only the reason why a team usually comprises members with different expertise and experiences, but it’s also the reason why we tend to strive for diversity in teams. However, a long line of research has consistently shown that 1 + 1 is not 3, but more 0,3. Quite literally. That is, members in a team don’t automatically share their unique knowledge, expertise or perspective with the group. They tend to share pieces of knowledge and perspectives they know are socially accepted by the group. Research shows that teams that need to make a group decision, that even when all the necessary pieces of information to come to the best decision are spread throughout the team, they don’t automatically share those crucial pieces of information or don’t take them into account when decisions are made. The key to understand this mechanism is Psychological Safety. If you want to stimulate knowledge and perspective sharing in team, members must feel safe to take social risks in the group. To share their (dissenting or unique) perspectives and concerns and feel safe to elicit controversy in the group, without being judged personally.

Good Practice Example:

The Bay of Pigs invasion of American troops into Cuba under the presidency of J.F. Kennedy in 1961 was a disaster. It was the consequence of Group Think. A series of decisions made, steerd by confirmation bias and by ignoring dissenting views. However, President Kennedy learned from his mistakes. A year later, during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, het took a different approach. He decided to gather as much different information and courses of action possible. He composed the EXCOMM team to explore different options. He himself was not part of the team in order to avoid that the team would be influenced by his views or what he favored and to prevent bias in that way. The EXCOMM team was given time to prepare several strategies and Robert Kennedy, who was part of the EXCOMM team, would explicitly take on the role of Devil’s Advocate. He was tasked with arguing against the proposed courses of actions in order to make sure the group would debate and discuss the proposal thoroughly. Luckily this led to a successful outcome this time where JFK was able to otne down his Russian counterpart by making well-considered moves. One of the steps they took to improve relations was to establish a direct telephone connection between the two leaders in order for them to be able to contact each other immediately.

Bad Practice Example:

Do you remember the Challenger in 1986 that exploded after its’ launch? Well that was the grave consequence of group think. The night before the launch, Bob Ebeling and four other engineers at NASA contractor Morton Thiokol had tried to stop the launch because they were concerned . However, their managers and NASA had overruled them. To them they were only a small minority of a whole group of engineers and the majority of engineers didn’t seem to be concerned. That’s why the decision makers didn’t take Eblings’ concerns seriously. That night Ebling told his wife, Darlene, "It's going to blow up." When Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch, Ebeling and his colleagues sat stunned in a conference room at Thiokol's headquarters outside Brigham City, Utah. They watched the spacecraft explode on a giant television screen, and they knew exactly what had happened.

Hiring Diverse Teams

Focusing on “culture fit” may lead to hiring lesser qualified employees where implicit bias may influence hiring decisions, focus surface-level diversity characteristics (e.g., ethnicity, religion, gender, country of origin) and ignore deep-level diversity characteristics (e.g., non-observable characteristics such as attitudes, values, and beliefs). More diverse teams are more innovative and companies with more diverse staff are more profitable.

Good Practice Example:

The staff at Kaiser Permanente, an American healthcare organization, reflects no racial majority. Over half of the staff are people of colour. Three-quarters of all employees, nearly half of the executive team, and more than one-third of their physicians are women.

Bad Practice Example:

CERN theoretical physics department is overwhelmingly white and male. Senior positions are have no representation of gender or racial diversity while administrative positions are exclusively women.

Making Equitable Policies

In Canada, 81% of companies surveyed have a diversity policy and 79% have processes and practices to promote diversity. The key aim of diversity policies are to ensure that people are treated equally. In a company, equality focuses both on purpose and effect. In other words, a company’s policies and practices should provide each person with an equal opportunity to succeed at work. Therefore, the aim of diversity policies are to achieve substantive equality, which is a critical factor in promoting a diverse and equal workplace.

Policies and procedures must additionally go beyond legal compliance. This includes commitment to fostering respectful norms, values, and behaviours. Policies should reflect an on-going and evolving commitment to change the culture of the company in addition to making a clear statement about your company’s position on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. Corporate social responsibility policies can be a useful way for mainstreaming equality in organizational transformation.

Good Practice Example:

The European Institute for Gender Equality shows how a Gender Equality Plan (GEP) can contribute to fostering a more inclusive organizational culture. A GEP is a set of commitments and actions for promoting gender equality in an organisation by focusing on structural change.

Bad Practice Example:

Companies such as Berkshire Hathaway and Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc rank among the lowest on surveys of corporate diversity practices. At these and other companies, diversity is treated as an issue of legal compliance. There is little overall corporate commitment to diversity. They have little to no family-friendly benefits, references to LGBT, disability, race/ethnicity, and/or gender employee resource groups, few internal initiatives, and include neither sexual orientation nor gender identity and/or expression in equal employment opportunity policies.

Creating Inclusive Products

Research shows that testing the accessibility and usability of new products and services can improve the user’s experience and increase market share and penetration.

Good Practice Example:

According to Barclays, embracing accessibility helps reduce legal risks, strengthen brand presence, and improves customer experience. Apple similarly have used innovation in accessibility by working with a variety of user groups including persons with disabilities and integrating their needs and preferences in their product and service designs.

Bad Practice Example:

The department store Target, news company CNN, and Amazonhave all been sued for inaccessible products and services. This has led, not only to the financial loss of defending the lawsuit, but also in reduced reputation and market share. Apple disregarded the needs and preferences of women when they released their HealthKit app without including a period tracker, again leading to a loss of sales and impact on the company’s reputation.

Public Relations Disasters

Negative publicity can lead to fewer purchases of a company’s products or services and reduced customer loyalty. In contrast, a strong public statement in light of media criticism can help reduce the impact of the negative publicity.

Good Practice Example:

Victoria’s Secret entered a public relations crisis when they launched their slogan “The Perfect ‘Body’ featuring ultrathin supermodels and implying women who were thin and flawless had a “perfect body”. This campaign affected the health and safety of women and caused damage to their self-esteem. The consumer backlash online resulted in a petition signed by over 30,000 people. The company apologized for the offensive ad and changed the slogan to “A Body for Every Body”. Consumers responded with positive comments on the change and that the company was moving in the right direction.

Bad Practice Example:

Tinder came under scrutiny in a Vanity Fair article, which labeled Tinder-dating as a “dating apocalypse”. Tinder responded with a series of tweets complaining about the Vanity Fair article. In the eyes of consumers, Tinder’s reaction was a ranting meltdown.

Additional References.

APA Inclusive Language guidelines https://www.apa.org/about/apa/equity-diversity-inclusion/language-guidelines

Lauring, J., & Klitmøller, A. (2017). Inclusive language use in multicultural business organizations: The effect on creativity and performance. International Journal of Business Communication, 54(3), 306-324.

Lauring, J., Selmer, J. (2012a). International language management and diversity climate in multicultural organizations. International Business Review, 21, 156-166.

NYTimes (2017) Uber Workplace Culture https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/technology/uber-workplace-culture.html

Dali, K. (2018). Culture Fit” as “Anti-Diversity. The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion, 2(4), 1-8.

American Sociological Association. (2009). Diversity Linked to Increased Sales Revenue and Profits, More Customers. Science-Daily, April, 3.

Talke, K., Salomo, S., & Kock, A. (2011). Top management team diversity and strategic innovation orientation: The relationship and consequences for innovativeness and performance. Journal of product innovation management, 28(6), 819-832.

Law Society of Alberta. 2005. Guidelines for Drafting and Implementing A Diversity and Equality Policy in Legal Workplaces & Sample Diversity and Equality Policy.Calgary: Law Society of Alberta.

Victoria State Government (2017) Workplace policies to support equality and respect: Practical Guidance. Our Watch, Melbourne, Australia.

Grosser, K., & Moon, J. (2005). Gender mainstreaming and corporate social responsibility: Reporting workplace issues. Journal of business ethics, 62(4), 327-340.

EIGE Gender Equality Plan Templates https://eige.europa.eu/gender-mainstreaming/toolkits/gear/what-gender-equality-plan-gep

Culvert Investments, (2015). Examining the cracks in the ceiling: A survey of corporate diversity practices of the S&P 100.

Domínguez, T., Fraiz, J. A., & Alén, E. (2013). Economic profitability of accessible tourism for the tourism sector in Spain. Tourism Economics, 19(6), 1385-1399.

W3C Business Cases for Web Accessibility https://www.w3.org/WAI/business-case/

Barclays Accessibility Guide for Suppliers https://home.barclays/content/dam/home-barclays/documents/who-we-are/our-suppliers/Accessibility-guide-for-Suppliers-May2020.pdf

Tech Crunch (2016) When It Comes to Accessibility Apple Continues to Lead in Awareness and Innovation https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/19/when-it-comes-to-accessibility-apple-continues-to-lead-in-awareness-and-innovation/

W3C Target Inc. Case Study https://www.w3.org/WAI/business-case/archive/target-case-study

Level Access Netflix and CNN Sued Over Lack of Captions https://www.levelaccess.com/netflix-and-cnn-com-sued-over-lack-of-captions/

Ars Technica (2010) Lawsuit Over Kindle Navigation By Visually Impaired Settled https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/01/lawsuit-over-kindle-navigation-by-visually-impaired-settled/

The Verge (2014) Apple Promised Expansive Health App so Why Can’t I Track https://www.theverge.com/2014/9/25/6844021/apple-promised-an-expansive-health-app-so-why-cant-i-track

Griffin, M., Babin, B. J., & Attaway, J. S. (1991). An empirical investigation of the impact of negative public publicity on consumer attitudes and intentions. ACR North American Advances.

Ahluwalia, R., Burnkrant, R. E., & Unnava, H. R. (2000). Consumer response to negative publicity: The moderating role of commitment. Journal of marketing research, 37(2), 203-214.

Menon, G., Jewell, R. D., & Unnava, H. R. (1999). When a company does not respond to negative publicity: cognitive elaboration vs. negative affect perspective. ACR North American Advances.

Business Insider (2014) Victoria’s Secret Perfect Body Campaign https://www.businessinsider.com/victorias-secret-perfect-body-campaign-2014-10?r=US&IR=T

Vox (2015) Tinder Vanity Fair https://www.vox.com/2015/8/17/9165723/tinder-vanity-fair

Rock, D., Grant, H., & Grey, J. (2016). Diverse teams feel less comfortable—and that’s why they perform better. Harvard Business Review, 95(9), 22. https://hbr.org/2016/09/diverse-teams-feel-less-comfortable-and-thats-why-they-perform-better

American Sociological Association. (2009). Diversity Linked to Increased Sales Revenue and Profits, More Customers. Science-Daily, April, 3. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090331091252.htm

Noland, M., Moran, T., & Kotschwar, B. R. (2016). Is gender diversity profitable? Evidence from a global survey. Peterson Institute for International Economics Working Paper, (16-3). https://www.piie.com/newsroom/press-releases/new-peterson-institute-research-over-21000-companies-globally-finds-women

Carter, S. (2017). Extreme Innovation: 3 Superpowers for Purpose and Profit: Param Media. https://books.google.no/books?id=1b-1AQAACAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Dillon, B. & Bourke, J. (2016). The six signature traits of inclusive leadership. Deloitte University Press. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/au/Documents/human-capital/deloitte-au-hc-six-signature-traits-inclusive-leadership-020516.pdf

GSMA (2020). Perceptions of Power: Championing Female Leadership in Tech. https://www.gsma.com/gsmaeurope/latest-news-2/perceptions-of-power/

Sey, A., & Hafkin, N. (2019). Taking stock: Data and evidence on gender equality in digital access, skills and leadership. United Nations University, Tokyo. https://www.itu.int/en/action/gender-equality/Documents/EQUALS%20Research%20Report%202019.pdf

Williams, J. (2021). Why corporate diversity programs fail -- and how small tweaks can have big impact. TED Talks Daily https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkczIuZmVlZGJ1cm5lci5jb20vdGVkdGFsa3NfYXVkaW8/episode/ZW4uYXVkaW8udGFsay50ZWQuY29tOjc1MTY4?ep=14 new activities.