Video

DEI & Decision Making: The Undeniable and Unbreakable Connection

Jan 26, 2022

Presenters: Nigel Vanderlinden, Powernoodle  |  Dave Debacker, Powernoodle

As is the case with much of the DEI evidence and expertise that exists, many organizations continue to operate without the benefit of the evidence and expertise in the realm of quality decision making. As a result, organizations and their stakeholders continue to fall short of their potential. The two realms could hardly be more closely connected as DEI supports and enables quality decisions while quality decision making enables and supports DEI.

This webinar will provide unique insights into the world of decision making today and highlight how DEI professionals – executives, leaders, practitioners, and consultants – are uniquely positioned to move organizations forward in both realms simultaneously; elevating their own brand and value proposition in the process. The session will also provide practical, evidence-based solutions that you can bring to action immediately.

Learning Outcomes
  • Learn – the relationship between decision making and DEI; the state of decision making in organizations
  • Grow – Move forward in decision quality and DEI; elevating your own skills and your impact
  • Do – Practical solutions for creating diverse and inclusive decision-making in your own organization
Additional Files
DEI & Decision Making: The Undeniable and Unbreakable Connection handouts – Download
Transcript

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

11:00:26 Hello everyone and welcome to today’s webinar. I’m, I hope you having a Happy New Year thus far. I’m vendor Program Manager here at the forum and workplace inclusion and pleased to have you here today for di and decision making, that the undeniable and
11:00:41 unbreakable connection with Nigel vendor vendor Linden and Dave to backer a power noodle. This is the first webinar of our 2022 forum on request inclusion part webinar series.
11:00:54 We hope you enjoy this experience and this fine, this information is helpful in your work and join us for future webinars.
11:01:03 They might give me
11:01:07 today an idol and they will be presenting for 45 minutes with questions throughout with 15 minutes of q amp A at the end, the chat will be closed so please use the q amp a for questions and comments closed captioning is available.
11:01:19 Just select live transcript of the live chat transcript option on your screen. There’s also a link to the slides in the chat.
11:01:27 At the end of this webinar, you’ll be asked to fill out a brief survey on your experience, please take a moment to fill out this survey as your feedback helps us shape future webinars we truly appreciate your open and honest feedback.
11:01:39 Today’s webinar is sermon HR eligible, the activities will be provided at the end of the webinar is also being recorded and being broadcast live on Facebook.
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11:02:59 Without further ado, I would like to go ahead and hand things over to Nigel and Dave.
11:03:07 Great.
11:03:10 Let me share my screen. Thank you, Ben.
11:03:14 And hopefully everybody can see my screen now.
11:03:17 So thanks, everyone, and welcome to the webinar.
11:03:21 My name is Dave and I work alongside Nigel at power needle. It really depending on who you ask, I, I have some particular interest and expertise in decision making, specifically in fostering we call quality decisions your quality decision making.
11:03:36 And as such, I’m empowered needles, resident decision geek, which is a term I’m fine with, although I prefer the German theists, maybe a bit more, and inclusion is something that’s really very near and dear to my heart so I’m really happy to have this
11:03:50 opportunity to be with everybody here for the next hour.
11:03:54 So with that, I’m going to let it Nigel introduce himself and just tell you just a little bit about paranormal in the process.
11:04:02 Hi everyone, and thanks.
11:04:05 Both Ben and end date for that brief intro.
11:04:07 My name is Nigel van der Linden I’m CEO of power noodle.
11:04:12 For context, at Dave and I or rather or organization, provide both decision facilitation software and expertise that leverages something that will call collaboration equity to help you and your teams make better decisions.
11:04:31 So, in one place.
11:04:34 You can solicit information from your teams, discuss and debate and vote on solutions, make a decision, turn it into an action plan and in fact communicate that out to your team and stakeholders and how and why that decision was made.
11:04:50 We’re thrilled to be able to have the opportunity to discuss this topic of very important topic of the end and decision making with you and we welcome your, your questions throughout so has been highlighted please feel free to add Q, your questions to
11:05:09 the q amp a as we walk to material, we do have our colleague Susanna that is monitoring the chat and Dave and I will stop intermittently to surface questions throughout the presentation and then revisit those at the end as well.
11:05:24 30 days.
11:05:27 All right, Thanks Nigel.
11:05:29 And so, quicker to work here.
11:05:34 clickers not working, I have to go old school.
11:05:39 Second really get it to advance my slide for me there we go I guess that’s what I should have had up before. In case you wanted this year pictures.
11:05:47 So, really quickly to the agenda you see here on the screen outlines how we’re going to cover our time today.
11:05:54 So we’re going to start by touching base on this connection, some points of similarity. We’ll talk about recent shifts and impacts that affect both of our worlds.
11:06:04 And what I mean by his DNA and decision making worlds.
11:06:07 And then we’ll have a forecast a little bit ahead in terms of where we see things going.
11:06:13 And then we’ll touch on how to adapt and succeed and kind of that new normal.
11:06:17 And as Nigel said in addition to some questions throughout, save some time for questions at the end.
11:06:24 Alright.
11:06:26 So, in the synopsis of this webinar, it was really noted that the realms of DNI and decision making, were closely if not inextricably connected. So I just wanted to start off by delving into that a little bit.
11:06:39 And of course how we how we interact with each other as a fundamental elements of both so so collaboration is going to come up a lot as well.
11:06:48 So, diversity, equity inclusion and quality decision making, are really somewhat two sides of the same coin. And I say that because it’s really almost inconceivable to be able to make a quality decision without the effective input and collaboration have
11:07:03 multiple people who are inherently diverse diverse in how they work, how they think their lived experiences and the like.
11:07:11 And really, the more diverse and inclusive we are, the more innovative we are in that increased innovation is vital for organizations as they make decisions about their future.
11:07:22 And that’s really because of the simple fact that without such differences the best ideas often never get surfaced in the first place, where they don’t get selected when they do get surfaced.
11:07:34 So the principles and tenants between our two areas are also aligned, you know, we both want to ensure that not only do we have a diverse group of thoughts and opinions represented, but also that we’ve created those conditions for that diverse group to
11:07:46 be included. And for everyone’s input to be duly and equally considered without bias.
11:07:51 So, we both need to remove those barriers provide for psychological safety, and effectively communicate with everybody.
11:07:59 And this involves shared concepts like information equity, and collaboration activity which affects both DNI and decision making.
11:08:08 So, so one quick example I just wanted a practical example I wanted to share to highlight the overlap between the fields is that, you know, one of the top five biases effect impacting our decisions, making is something called the similarity bias, many
11:08:22 of you heard about this. And it’s that it’s our innate tendency to prefer. What is like us more than what is different.
11:08:30 So while this shouldn’t be an issue it is, and it’s the classic in group versus out group phenomenon it continues to plague, not just our school grounds and social media channels, but also our adult professional corporate lives.
11:08:43 And if we can mitigate biases like this one, we not only solve a barrier to D and I, but we also saw a big one in decision making realm.
11:08:53 So, another element that these two have in common and perhaps not surprisingly, given how tightly coupled they are, is that they’re both really struggling to move the needle.
11:09:03 And I have a couple to highlight this I included just a few third party perspective here. And that’s 75% stat on the left is a real reminder of how much work remains on the DIY side.
11:09:16 And the one on the right.
11:09:18 Well, that one, that one’s from the world of decision making and it’s just plain deflating, especially since things have gotten worse since the research behind that stat was done, and across the bottom is a quote that highlights the how the inclusion
11:09:31 inclusion of diverse perspectives directly correlates with better decisions.
11:09:35 So there’s lots of other overlap and I could spend this whole hour sharing stats and quotes like the ones here, but I suspect you all get the point. In fact, many of you probably already believed in this connection.
11:09:47 Before this webinar which is why you signed up for it in the first place so. So let’s move on and talk about you know what’s transpired and what continues to transpire that results in our current kind of less than ideal states.
11:10:02 But cutting to the chase our world our working environment is faster and more complex or uncertain than ever.
11:10:10 So when we think about pace or speed most of us feel this rather rather intuitively, but beyond that anecdotal and qualitative side of things. There’s finding such as the one here from McKinsey, and it’s quite honestly mind boggling to think that 375
11:10:26 of those companies are going to be disappearing soon.
11:10:30 And to add to that, in your 1958 the average lifespan of companies on the s&p 500, the 61 years and in 2017 it was 18 years. So basically companies that used to exit in their 60s are now exiting as teenagers.
11:10:45 So, directly related, and certainly contributing to those stats, is the exponential increase in complexity and and certainly in that we all work in now can certainly the pandemic is magnified things but even before that.
11:11:01 We were in that same kind of similar boat, where it was difficult to make sense of where we’re at, or predict where we’re going.
11:11:07 And I, there’s this one book I remember being called immunity to change and the author summed it up so well by saying the complexity of our world has surpassed the complexity of our mind and and you know of course in and all this complexity stuff comes
11:11:24 the disruptive technology and other forms of change and transformation, the quintessential Netflix, Uber, Airbnb people disruptors and the like.
11:11:36 In Two other quick really topical examples I wanted to cover here was, you know, first there’s never been a trillion dollar company has in history, until just a really a few years ago, as we sit here today.
11:11:48 We actually have five of them now and one of them earlier this month hit $3 trillion, which is something we just couldn’t fathom years ago.
11:11:57 And you know exactly one week ago today last Thursday for has been around since, 1903 hit an all time market cap record hundred billion dollars.
11:12:07 And that sounds great, you know, until you consider that milestone is a mere 10% of where Tesla is that despite Tesla coming along, literally, 100 years later in 2003.
11:12:20 So, the faster the more complex and certain and volatiles we get, the more contrast like this one become the norm.
11:12:27 And, again, there’s lots of other examples. The point is that each of these highlight the speed and complexity and certainty disruption change etc. Play.
11:12:36 And the real point, you know, calling this out. whoops, sorry.
11:12:41 And thanks for sticking with me on this, the real point of calling this out relates to my previous comment about DNI and decision making being so closely related.
11:12:50 And that is, the faster and more complex our worlds get, the more no single individual and rarely even any individual team or silo has all the ideas and information needed to make a quality decision.
11:13:05 So the need for di is undeniably increasing under these conditions.
11:13:12 All right.
11:13:14 Did I wanted to illustrate this trend with this shift a little more visually, so you can see how the speed and complexity might be represented on a simple graph like the one shown here.
11:13:25 And as you can see both of these, you know speed and complexity have been on a slight and somewhat exponential growth curve for a number of years now.
11:13:33 largely due to a lot of advances in technology.
11:13:36 And, you know, speeds increasing and will continue on that current trajectory, thanks to things like Moore’s law in the like, and complexity has a similar trajectory.
11:13:46 But perhaps even more pronounced for those reasons, we just just discussed earlier.
11:13:51 And you know we’re in a weird pandemic period. Now we’re going to come out of that to some post pandemic area era, hopefully soon, but nobody knows what that looks like so that complexity could be even higher and uncertainty in the future could be much
11:14:03 higher.
11:14:05 And along those two lines one really want to add an additional one here and I’m going to call that work scape that this tournament is being used after consulting with the DNA expert.
11:14:18 And what it relates to is not only our work spaces in our workplaces, but also the general landscape of a working environment, hence the term work scape.
11:14:27 So let me add that line in speak to it.
11:14:30 So compared to where we are today. Many workspaces used to be relatively homogeneous homogenous sorry.
11:14:38 Many people live near each other.
11:14:41 As we all had to be kind of within commuting distance the office. We worked in shared offices we dress, kind of similarly sat in the same meeting rooms lunch rooms, etc.
11:14:50 basically, not too many degrees of separation between most.
11:14:53 So, the workspace, you know, subsequently began to evolve or at least change and many of you will recall it wasn’t long ago there’s a lot of publications and a lot of talk about, you know, having four or five distinct generations in the workforce, and
11:15:06 the challenges that would come with that with having such a differences and mindsets of these people working shoulder to shoulder.
11:15:14 We heard about Boomer millennial conflicts, people love to Bastian xz work ethics and likes.
11:15:21 So what happened was pop basic population demographics contributed to an organic increase into the levels of differences in the work scape. So, you know, in addition, and more recently as a result of widespread social justice movements.
11:15:37 Additional workspace differences have come about as organizations have put more of a renewed focus on ensuring they have better representation, as it relates to to gender, race, religion in the lake.
11:15:53 And these efforts to further contributed to increase in work scape differences in the works a probably change much more notably and much more rapidly two years ago when they’re all blindsided by coven.
11:16:00 So, you know, work from home remote hybrid virtual work became almost instantaneous normal.
11:16:06 And with geography no longer be a constraint global hire global hiring, which is an all time high.
11:16:13 So now we have a lot more variability in terms of who our co workers bosses subordinates partners, etc. are where they’re located what timezone their first language, etc.
11:16:24 and hand in hand with that new work, you kind of era and mode, the rapport between workers has become vastly more transactional as opposed to relational more there might be some positive upsides to that one of the big downsides is that we have diminished
11:16:39 opportunity and ability to really get to know someone to understand and appreciate their unique circumstances and differences.
11:16:46 So as we move faster and have less opportunity or time to foster relationships, we have less capacity for recognizing those differences being tolerant being inclusive.
11:16:57 Many of us are now just many one of many faces in a zoom thumbnail and sometimes just a name.
11:17:05 Now I say that but one perhaps less obvious aspect of this remote worship was actually pointed out to me as I prepared for this session, and that’s in this new work skate.
11:17:15 Many people are now much more inclined to be their authentic selves. And by example an introverted person doesn’t have to necessarily spend their nine to five trying to come across as extroverted in the office.
11:17:27 And while that newfound freedom is an upside.
11:17:30 It also contributes to increasing levels of variance in the workspace work scape.
11:17:35 So distilling all this down. Work scapes, we have changed in terms of who we’re working with.
11:17:42 There’s increased differences in terms of where we’re working, and where colleagues are working.
11:17:48 And also when and how we’re all working varies widely working virtually in teams and zoom rather than physical remains were working synchronously or asynchronously to accommodate different geographies and time zones.
11:18:00 And these types of factors alongside others all impact the work state, and the net result is that the level or degree of work state differences has continued to trend higher, as you can see by that gray line on the graph.
11:18:14 Now before I move on because I’ve talked a lot, I want to check in with Susanna to see if there’s any questions about what I’ve covered so far.
11:18:37 So yeah, so we have a. We have a couple of questions here. So just pertaining to the graph that you’re showing here. Somebody had written in speed of what what is measured and how, and I believe that you kind of expanded on that but if you can just go into a little bit more detail.
11:18:40 Yeah, so the speed basically of business and work, where we might have had time to craft and execute strategy over many, you know, let’s say, months and years, that has been compressed now and you have to do those things and hours and days, maybe weeks.
11:18:58 So, everything we need to do everything we need to get done has to be done a lot quicker.
11:19:03 So that was what we meant by speed and organizations are either going to succeed or fail much quicker than they used to. That goes to the comment about the s&p life’s lifespan is, you’re either going to get in and make a go of it and be competitive and
11:19:17 succeed or we stay viable, or you’re going to exit pretty darn quick, we’re not going to have a lot of people that hang in there and kind of model around.
11:19:36 And that’s what most of the stats are talking about from a speed perspective.
11:19:31 I hope that answered the question.
11:19:36 So, perfect. Okay.
11:19:38 Any others or should we get back to the presentation. We do have one more.
11:19:43 Regarding the work scape differences that you’ve outlined. Does that include diversity or is diversity, a separate element to this.
11:20:07 And we decided to focus on work scape differences today because diversity, special word the reserve work diversity can be a very loaded word.
11:20:16 The special word the reserve work diversity can be a very loaded word. And depending on your perspective and what industry reports Yuri, diversity might be increasing staying flat or decreasing in recent years.
11:20:26 And by considered putting a diversity line on the graph, as well as one for inclusion. I simply don’t have the expertise to do that. Especially not within this in, in this crowd and experts on those topics.
11:20:37 So, workspace escape differences can include elements of diversity, like the age one. I mentioned.
11:20:50 Okay.
11:20:50 All right.
11:20:51 Okay.
11:20:53 So where does that leave us. So we’ve got these three trend lines here each note with, notably upward trends as of late, and where the challenge the opportunity comes in, is if and how we adapt to these realities.
11:21:07 If we can recognize and leverage these trends, we should be able to improve our collaboration and by extension the quality of our decisions.
11:21:14 And I think this is where things have fallen down for a great many individuals, and a great many companies.
11:21:21 So speaking of the collaboration and decision making elements let’s add those lines to complete the graph here we go.
11:21:28 So as you can see from the graph, there really hasn’t been much change in collaboration, the efficacy of our collaboration or the quality of our decisions leading up to 2020.
11:21:39 And that’s because traditional approaches and methods, such as meetings whiteboard sticky note workshops, about Mark Brasi voting and other in person synchronous methods didn’t really evolve much.
11:21:51 So the line shown any number represents our collaboration advocacy. Basically how efficient, effective inclusive and equitable our collaboration is and how well it fits into our current environment.
11:22:03 So as I mentioned, if we continue to use these traditional outdated paradigms and tools that don’t really fit in with this new faster complex and highly differentiated work scape starting in 2020 you start to see this line trending in the wrong direction.
11:22:18 And with collaboration advocacy being somewhat of a proxy for the quality of decisions, we naturally extend or extrapolate that impact on that later blue decision quality line.
11:22:29 And it actually takes a slightly bigger hit, because there’s more than just collaboration elements that go into that.
11:22:36 So, you know, the realm of decisions and the world of decision making can be is where power noodles existed for many years.
11:22:44 And so this just later, the story this lighter blue line tells there’s no surprise to us but it can be a little revealing and shocking to others, and taken all together you have somewhat of a perfect storm and that in order to survive and thrive.
11:22:57 We need to make increasingly better decisions faster than ever. At a time when we’re slow and struggling to adapt to increasing levels of differences in the work scape and struggling to find effective ways to collaborate with others, under this new normal.
11:23:13 And the net effect is the gap area donated by, or noted by the double headed blue arrow here as three trend line is three of the lines trends up to trend down and creating the gap shown here.
11:23:27 This has a number of impacts on each of us literally on a daily basis.
11:23:32 And what are those impacts What are those trends mean for all of us.
11:23:35 Well, continuing to use those outdated approaches to collaboration prevents psychological safety which is a key element of getting different types of people to work together, whether they’re making decisions or otherwise, and where diverse perspectives
11:23:49 are not her included equitably vital information remains hidden.
11:23:55 When people remain effectively excluded collaboration is done poorly information is hidden and low quality decisions are made, getting people in the same page and supporting those decisions becoming becomes incredibly challenging.
11:24:09 You simply don’t get the alignment and buy in you need. So even if we got lucky and we made a good decision despite ourselves, we fall down where the rubber meets the road in the execution or implementation phase, which often manifests itself is delayed
11:24:23 unnecessarily difficult or it right field projects. So, as a result of all the items, you know, mentioned here confidence in the leaders and competence in the organization itself Wayne’s and other negative impacts like reduced employee satisfaction engagement
11:24:41 scores and elevated levels of churn, and we see that manifested in what’s being referred to as the current resignation right now.
11:24:50 So, it’s a picture is this all paint, it’s actually just a little bit worse than that.
11:24:56 And, you know, that’s been checked and base where are we are today. Things are going to go from bad to worse. And so in this graph, we’ve actually extrapolated out five years.
11:25:06 And as you can see the same 2022 gap exists, but somewhat pales in comparison to the gap that we see ahead of us. So if we weren’t there already a field kind of pump it in saying that we’re now at an inflection point those top three lines the speed complexity
11:25:21 and works work scape differences. They’re not suddenly going to go in the opposite direction or even level off, and perhaps naturally and rightly so.
11:25:30 In contrast, what is in our control is whether we leverage those increases in our work scape differences to be smarter and more innovative about inclusion and equity.
11:25:40 In doing so, increase the effectiveness of our collaboration and increase the quality of our decisions.
11:25:46 So again, through a whole bunch of stuff with people there so I’ve only got two more slides to cover. I will pause in, just check in with Susanna once more because I see why it’s hitting the question and answer area.
11:26:00 So I suspect new things have shown up in there.
11:26:03 Yes, we’ve got lots of great questions, and we’ll, we’ll pick up a few of them here and I’ll save a couple for the q amp A at the end, relevant to what you’re currently speaking on, we had a great question, what criteria are used to measure decision quality.
11:26:21 That’s a great one. And, Nigel laughs because he’ll say don’t ask Dave that question because he will talk for two days.
11:26:29 Saw the very quick version is there’s actually a book called decision quality there’s a whole science to it goes back 50 or 60 years. But what we’re talking about today is the most in the most simplistic simplistic terms.
11:26:43 There are six elements to achieve a quality decision. And what we’re looking for is you can, you know, get a check box or 100% value and each of those six elements.
11:26:52 There’s a mention of that coming later. And I think it actually maybe even a picture of the book type thing.
11:26:58 That’s not our book by the way we’re not endorsing, but, but if he answers that specific question so if you just Google six elements of decision quality.
11:27:07 You can see them right there.
11:27:12 Any other Susanna. Yeah, well, one more.
11:27:15 Somebody was interested to know more about the data that’s collected to measure decision quality and collaboration that because see if that isn’t covered in the book say that you just referenced the data.
11:27:30 Yeah, I mean, there’s lots of stats on the kind of efficacy evidence, I say lots, there’s lots for the people who are in there. And basically the rest of the world doesn’t know anything about it.
11:27:41 Yeah. So, how do I do this unless you’re subscribing to a framework where you measure decision quality, you don’t have the stats. So in cases where we measure it, we know the stats are pretty abysmal.
11:27:55 And there’s look and we know the reasons why for most for the most part, it’s the fixing it.
11:28:17 Changing the paradigms that’s the big barrier, so I can’t really get into the detailed stats right now because kind of all over the place.
11:28:11 That’s great.
11:28:12 Okay.
11:28:14 So we’ll circle back to some of these questions later. Sorry.
11:28:18 Click the wrong button there.
11:28:20 Okay, so I’m just going to quickly move on here.
11:28:25 Like I said, I have two slides.
11:28:26 So, so as this divergence gets more and more pronounced as that gap widens that we see there, We’re going to continue to feel those negative impacts that we touched on a couple slides ago, they’ll just get more severe.
11:28:39 And you know, I ran this graph by a colleague a few days ago.
11:28:42 And he said you know it reminded him of a massive and growing income gap between the haves and have nots.
11:28:49 And just as that income gap is effectively making society poor as a result of its continued growth. So does this one, the bigger this gap here is on our screen, the more we suffer the effects.
11:29:00 So I don’t know if that analogy works for others but I thought I’d share it, just in case it does because it worked for him.
11:29:06 So analogies notwithstanding, you know, as a result of that, The combination of these trends shown here.
11:29:12 I I’d say there’s an emergent and an urgent need for a shift in people process technology to change that tragic trajectory.
11:29:21 And of course, as is the case with changing landscapes, there’s going to be winners and losers as we as we progress through this, this year and the next.
11:29:30 And, you know, the losers, if you will, there, they’ll just ignore and deny and delay changing their paradigms and ways of working together, no downplay the role D and I in collaboration, and they’ll continue to make progressively lower decisions, and
11:29:44 eventually they’ll become a part of that statistic we talked about in terms of organizational life expectancy.
11:29:50 But the winners the winners are going to be the ones who recognize what’s going on, and adapt, both timely and effectively.
11:29:57 The leaders will adapt and grow and bring new ways of work into their organizations, organize, employees in those organizations will be more engaged and loyal and productive.
11:30:08 And when employees see that their voices heard and reflected in the decision making process, they will feel valued and respected creating a sense of belonging and Nigel is going to be touching on some of these issues shortly.
11:30:21 So, and finally, I wanted to touch briefly on why we feel that this audience in particular is well suited to improve things on both the DNI and decision making front simultaneously, kind of killing two birds with one stone is the adage goes.
11:30:39 So first off, it’s obvious that many leaders and organizations need help.
11:30:45 You know the efforts to be genuinely more diverse inclusive and equitable in how we collaborate, have been slow and in some cases relatively superficial.
11:30:54 There’s been already broken approaches to collaboration have been extended nothin amplified as a result of shifting to online virtual vote.
11:31:04 And many of these people hear about the poor stats and they realize there’s a need an opportunity to improve their D posture, but at the same time don’t have a good grasp on what to change how to change or where you need to begin.
11:31:17 So fortunately them for them. Each of you as DNI professionals, and whether that’s as an executive leader or practitioner or consultant or whatever you’re the ones they’re going to be looking forward to help.
11:31:33 You’re the skilled and trusted guides along, you know what’s going to be very new and unfamiliar ground to many people.
11:31:46 And just really one quick tangent comment here is that I’ve talked about a lot of our two realms are so similar, but one potentially large advantage D and I has over decision making, came about last May, when the ISO unveiled 4315 standard on diversity
11:31:56 and diversity and inclusion and personally I’m extremely envious because I can only dream of there being a standard related to quality decision making.
11:32:04 But I mentioned this as an example of one recent event that serves as both a high profile reminder of the importance of DNA, but also as a trigger for organizations to be take more immediate and concrete steps and moving that needle forward in this regard.
11:32:19 You know companies recognize the positive impacts associated with achieving certifications to standard ISO standards like that, both for bottom line performance but also for external objects and whatever their motivator.
11:32:33 As a result of that creation of that new standard last year, companies are going to be looking for expertise and support in this regard. In the coming months and years.
11:32:42 So, back to my symbiotic comments, kind of the beginning, as each of you help organizations improve on the DNI front, you’re also helping those same organizations improve their decision making.
11:32:55 And as people like Nigel and I get organizational leaders to improve their decision making, you’re going to see improvements in the DI area as well, by far, by improving and fostering one in necessarily do the same for the other it’s, it’s like an infinite
11:33:09 interconnected loop, and that was my weak attempt by the way that that imagery that you see there.
11:33:15 It’s not my forte.
11:33:17 So finally, you know the gap that we talked about here, exists because our environment is fundamentally, and quickly changed, but we haven’t adapted our paradigms and processes in lockstep with that.
11:33:29 So through your efforts, you can alter that trajectory set that there’s more of a positive correlation between that those increased workspace their work scape differences.
11:33:39 And both the efficacy of our collaboration and the quality of your decisions.
11:33:43 And as idealistic and naive as that sounds, it’s also, you know, the simple reality of what should be happening. Each of us is different in one or more ways.
11:33:52 And what makes us different or unique should not result in us being excluded in any way for any reason.
11:33:59 So with that, I’m going to stop sharing my screen and pass the baton to Nigel to walk us through the next section.
11:34:18 Thanks so much, Dave I’ll just do a quick technical check Can everyone see my screen and full presentation mode.
11:34:16 Can you comment. Yeah. Thumbs up.
11:34:19 Excellent. Thank you.
11:34:21 So as Dave has outlined, there is very much a symbiotic relationship between quality decisions or decision making, and the and I and I very much welcome the challenge that he outlined to all of you that you have a significant role to play in not only
11:34:42 advancing the and I in your organization’s, but at that same time also advancing the speed and quality of which an organization can make decisions in the starting point is something that we call collaboration equity.
11:35:01 It’s really the path, or what I like to describe is the path to quality decision making. And I think as we go through this, it will further emphasize how decision making and d&i or as they put it two sides of the same coin.
11:35:20 Just to establish a definition, collaboration, equity enables your team to contribute inclusive of what makes them different.
11:35:33 And that can be their location time zone role, technical proficiency age, gender, race, ethnicity, age, physical abilities.
11:35:44 Again, creating the conditions, or your organization to collaborate and make decisions, inclusive of those circumstances.
11:35:59 How do we carry our collaboration equity in your decision making process.
11:36:05 So we have wine, six steps, or excuse me, five steps or categories in this process.
11:36:12 And it begins with a purpose, and in particular, declaring that you are entering into a decision making process or to say another way that decision must be made it was about to be made.
11:36:27 It also includes engaging diverse perspectives that these highlighted, engaging diverse perspectives is positively correlated to decision outcomes.
11:36:39 Must design that decision making process for inclusion meaning, creating the ideal conditions for participants to contribute to your decision making process.
11:36:52 We might also say, this is about removing obstacles to authentic participation mitigating bias a group dysfunction which can very much impact the quality of our decision outcomes, and then creating inflammation equity, which meaning, ensuring participants
11:37:13 and stakeholders have the information that they require to effectively contribute to the decision making process disseminate an action the outcomes.
11:37:28 Start with that first step that in the purpose.
11:37:32 So, decisions are sometimes known by another name that can be brainstorming collaboration, problem solving, teamwork.
11:37:43 However, when we consider the purpose of these activities, it’s often a decision.
11:37:49 It’s not brainstorming for brainstorming fake but rather brainstorming for the sake of making the decision.
11:37:58 So by declaring the need for decision you’re directing attention to a situation where a deliberate choice, must be made in triggering an intentional decision making process, which includes who should be involved, how we design that process in particular
11:38:19 for inclusion, how we mitigate bias and group dysfunction throughout that process. And then finally, how we create inflammation equity.
11:38:33 So I’m certain, it’s not any surprise to this group that diverse groups are positively correlated with decision making outcomes.
11:38:46 So, diverse groups, as opposed to homogenous groups, focus more on facts, so they raise more facts. They are more likely to constantly re examine facts and remain objective in that process.
11:39:00 The process was facts more carefully, in part by considering the perspective of an outsider or someone different than themselves and diverse perspectives their diverse groups are more innovative, so they will raise more radical ideas, and alternatives,
11:39:20 all of which the positive impact to the decision making process and decision making outcomes.
11:39:29 The question might be asked, well, who, who needs to be involved.
11:39:32 How do I ensure I have diverse perspectives. So, when answering that question we simply offer up a helpful framework that’s based on beans, rapid framework to, to determine who to include in a decision.
11:39:50 I say it’s based on beans framework because we added to both impact and proximity so consider when determining your group of decision participants who needs to recommend that decision needs to agree input, who likes Sparky be impacted by that decision
11:40:12 and I would highlight and acknowledge that that is often the group that is most left out there was forgotten in a decision making process. The proximity.
11:40:22 So, are those that are closest to the work in fact part of that decision making process.
11:40:28 And then finally, who performs.
11:40:31 Ultimately, wants a decision is made and who decides who is the ultimate decision maker in that process.
11:40:40 They third step is designing your decision making process for inclusion, So, let’s acknowledge that, including is not inclusion meaning.
11:40:56 Simply, the act of inviting diverse perspectives to participate in your decision making process is not necessarily inclusion it’s, it’s not going foreign inclusion requires intentional design intentional design of all of the things that make your group
11:41:17 different be work schedules location abilities device preferences, or are so on.
11:41:26 I’ll find an example. In preparation for this webinar. And we decided to make the materials available in advance.
11:41:37 So, some of you may have navigated to the forums websites and pulled down that material in advance to give yourself time to perhaps prepare or consider the materials so that you can arrive here in a good place to listen and participate.
11:41:57 That’s an example really of offering the options in terms of how to engage a group in a decision making process. And more broadly.
11:42:12 In, in collaboration.
11:42:14 So please consider. Are you in your process, offering options for both asynchronous and real time collaboration.
11:42:24 have you provided an agenda.
11:42:27 And perhaps most importantly, have you provided in advance.
11:42:42 Is there pre work that you’re asking this group to complete. So again, those that
11:42:38 benefit from let’s say time in reflection, have the opportunity to do so, and therefore can contribute more fully and completely to the discussion and to the decision that’s to be made.
11:42:51 Have you considered your technology solutions.
11:42:54 Does everyone have access to these technology solutions is everyone know how to use it.
11:43:01 And I’ll highlight.
11:43:03 Perhaps an obvious point is, have you asked your stakeholders, how they would like to collaborate, or contribute to the decision making process and, you know, there’s a, an excellent resource that we provide them the link there from a blog called ran
11:43:20 scope.
11:43:22 And in there.
11:43:24 The author outlines this idea of user guides. In other words, every individual default involved in that collaboration or in fact in the decision making process, highlighting to their co participants, how they prefer to work together how they prefer to
11:43:41 collaborate.
11:43:44 Is that a perhaps this is a good time to pause for questions Is there any that has been surface that are relevant to the material I shared so far.
11:43:55 Yes, for sure. We have one question asking you to comment on cultural differences and how these elements may vary across various groups with significant differences such as race, gender wealth, age.
11:44:12 And how can one person, we accommodate all participants uniqueness and or differences.
11:44:18 So, on the question of how does one possibly accommodate all uniqueness and differences of which would include culture.
11:44:29 In one word, its options. So providing many options for participants to contribute to the decision making process.
11:44:42 Today, and then I’m sure this is an experience.
11:44:46 Common too many of the participants in the webinar today.
11:44:51 Most decision making process or collaboration are limited to real time meetings.
11:44:59 But in other words, meetings are the dominant forum, by which we engage in the decision making process.
11:45:05 And this, in fact, disadvantages those that have perhaps an analytical personality type.
11:45:13 Perhaps are more introverted, or find meetings, too stimulating or overwhelming.
11:45:23 The offering that group options as to how they contribute, and in particular because I’m making the comparison to real time asynchronous options. So, can they submit questions.
11:45:31 Order contributions in advance, either by email or shared google doc or file repository options are the key to that.
11:45:44 But it continue to to move along.
11:45:50 Continuing on with the conversation about designing your decision making process for inclusion, this also incorporates psychological safety so you must design you must create the conditions for psychological safety in your decision making process.
11:46:08 So that participants can share their authentic perspectives and the benefit in particular to the decision making process is that that group or those individuals were in fact generate the broadest range of possibilities, and ideas, but also be more likely
11:46:29 to uncover hidden information, hidden information and one of the, let’s say, key enemies of quality decision making.
11:46:39 But let’s also acknowledge that doing they’re doing so in creating the conditions for psychological safety, that they will, In fact, feel heard.
11:46:51 And by feeling heard it will engender greater trust, and by end of the process.
11:46:57 But there’s some very simple let’s say tactics or strategies, one can use to create psychological safety in your decision making process and that may be to establish rules or guidelines like a no interruption rule or separating the stages and ideation
11:47:13 and evaluation so people can offer up their ideas unencumbered or without the fear of being judged anonymizing contributions in fact that’s one of the simplest and yet most effective forms of creating psychological safety knowing that this comment or
11:47:33 this contribution cannot necessarily be associated to me. And therefore, I can say what I need to say without fear of judgment reprisal, or the like.
11:47:44 And then another common tool that we like to share is a team agreement to again set the appropriate expectations or boundaries of that decision making process and we highlight this here in the deck it’s a resource that’s made available or can be available
11:48:01 to you just simply go into on our website power noodles about comm slash team agreement.
11:48:07 A team agreement again focuses on setting expectations and boundaries and how you work with your team.
11:48:15 Communicating guidelines and ways of working establishing principles to create psychological safety and, ultimately, ensuring that no one is left out or left behind
11:48:32 a conversation regarding d&i is incomplete, of course without talking about without talking about bias and group dysfunction.
11:48:48 And the same is true for decision making, bias and group dysfunction.
11:48:54 gone unchecked can significantly undermined and organizations efforts in making quality decision making.
11:49:14 So, an effective event, certainly begins with an awareness of these, I, excuse me an awareness of these biases and how to mitigate or interrupt them so being able to recognize and resist.
11:49:34 I’ll just talk about a few here. The first being the protection of mindset, which is, you know, whenever we encounter something that conflicts with our mindset the first impulse is to reject or attack it, and some
11:49:46 specific examples of that are the confirmation bias or overconfidence or status quo bias.
11:49:52 We can mitigate that resistance.
11:49:56 By adopting a learning free so accepting that we don’t know everything and that we, and what we currently believe in, may be wrong.
11:50:11 mitigating protection of mindset, can also be achieved by establishing a devil’s advocate or someone appointed, or given a specific role in your decision making process to present a contrarian view.
11:50:26 Personality habits, which are really just a collection of habits and personality characteristics that create them. So, a simple example are you know extroverts are energized by real time discussion with others, whereas into foods.
11:50:44 I’m away from such discussion feeling dreams.
11:50:48 And this is often referred to as a preference based habit.
11:50:51 Personally I have a preference or apply for action so we’ve gone on check. I may short circuit important aspects of the decision making process in favor of progress and personality and habit by us also contains selectivity by, which really encourages
11:51:23 to focus on the information that fits our customer your way of viewing the work or, or the world as the case may be.
11:51:23 And also social influences in a very powerful bias in the decision making process really our beliefs and behaviors that the glutes.
11:51:32 Some of the most common and probably will recognize the conformity bias which is really a tendency of people to behave like those around them, rather than using their own personal judgment.
11:51:46 Another bias groupthink is often used to describe the general tendency be good to discourage that refuse.
11:51:52 We can mitigate that by encouraging participants to voice dissenting views. And that goes hand in hand with some of the tactics to create psychological safety.
11:52:03 We can anonymize contributions for that individuals, do not feel let’s say the pressure or the influence of that social group.
11:52:13 And we can also construct teams to incorporate a diversity of skills personality, and the points.
11:52:23 We no highlight at your dies is often a way to in fact mitigate some of the biases that often creep up in the decision making process.
11:52:39 And then the final step is creating information, equity.
11:52:45 What we mean by that is that participants have access to the information required to effectively contribute to the decision process. The antonym of information equity might be information in equity or inflammation privilege.
11:53:01 So only certain people or certain groups have access to the needed information.
11:53:08 There’s a very practical ways that that can be achieved. One is sharing relevant information by a common repository.
11:53:15 What I’d like to highlight here is making space for perspective taking to create a shared understanding.
11:53:24 In many of our worlds or schedules were often booked the zoom meeting the zoom meeting a zoom meeting to zoom.
11:53:42 And that bleed splits a little time or opportunity in those meetings to take perspective like to understand the way others think or view the world, or set of information.
11:53:47 And then the final point I want to highlight on inflammation equity is it not only applies to those participants of the decision making process but as well stakeholders of your decision making process, but also consider those individuals that might be
11:54:04 on the receiving end of what a decision is made, they two should have an understanding for how you and your team have arrived at a decision, who was involved the alternatives or ideas generated, how those decisions were or alternatives were evaluated
11:54:22 the decisions made and how it impacts them.
11:54:29 Just to recap, the path to quality decision making is in fact achieved by creating collaboration equity in your decision making process which starts with purpose to declare your decision, engaging diverse perspectives and your decision making process,
11:54:47 designing for inclusion. So remember, including is not inclusion, you must create or design the ideal conditions for participants to contribute to your decision making process mitigating bias and group dysfunction which can impact decision outcomes, and
11:55:03 then creating information equity so ensuring participants and stakeholders have the information they require to effectively contribute to the decision making process.
11:55:13 Finally, how can we scale and sustain this process or rather, how can we institutionalize collaboration equity to make these practices, sustainable, not only in your teams, but across the organization that I offer up the very common model of change management
11:55:37 people process and technology, people being ue and I professionals as Dave has shared and established, have a unique opportunity in a unique position to help organizations advance.
11:55:53 Both the DNI goals but as well decision quality, quite frankly, at the same time or within the same effort. So be the change demonstrate collaboration equity in the decisions you and your team make document and communicate how decisions are made in your
11:56:09 team organization, having I’d highlight get labs employee handbook is a great example. Get lab is a technology company, and has taken a unique approach of open sourcing their employee handbook so you type in either follow that link or type into a search
11:56:29 engine, get lab decision making process, they detailed a decision making process for their employees are quite frankly for anyone who wishes to see it.
11:56:37 And then finally, technology, and abroad this technology and tools so leveraging tools like power needed to ensure that you have a scalable and consistent application of collaboration equity in your decision making process, leaving this up to individuals
11:56:57 alone, even those well trained and well intentioned is incomplete it needs to be baked into the DNA of the process, tools and technology to again be institutionalized and made sustainable organization wide
11:57:15 data we welcome questions.
11:57:20 I think we’ve had quite a few questions. Thanks for everyone’s contribution here. And one of the questions is, if we have any materials that will help DNI committee through changes.
11:57:37 Yes, we do make reference to a few materials at be.
11:57:43 For those that downloaded the slide deck, at the end of the call, I’ll surface, a few as I advance the slides here, but I’ll call out a book that quite frankly has been very influential in helping we empower little as an organization make the tie between
11:58:00 quality decision making and DNI efforts so individual by Alex and Maitland and Rebecca steel indivisible was also the inspiration for the team agreements resource that I referenced earlier in the presentation.
11:58:18 The other is Baines rapid framework, which you can follow the link through to, and then the decision quality book that Dave referenced earlier in his presentation.
11:58:31 So to be clear we did not write that book.
11:58:35 So we’re, we’re honest brokers here, but it is.
11:58:41 It is well recognized as the standard in making quality decisions.
11:58:50 Perfect. And we have one more question asking you to speak on how to mitigate unconscious bias against race, ethnicity culture and disability, and you touched on that but if we can expand on that a little bit.
11:59:04 Yes, I’m hopeful that some of the suggestions that were raised in the slide itself, were, in fact, helpful in in surfacing some of that.
11:59:17 Again, maybe my, my own personal preference but I often find that in fact bias interrupters happen to be the most effective forms of mitigating the impact of bias and group dysfunction in the decision making process.
11:59:34 And so I’ll, I’ll give an example of that.
11:59:40 Of course we want to foster an environment where individuals have psychological safety in the decision making process. If there is a discussion to be had that could in fact be influenced by social pressures so let’s say an employee, and a boss.
11:59:57 Simple bias interrupter is to cohort, those two groups so in other words do not have a direct report. And, you know, a superior boss, participate in that discussion.
12:00:14 At the same time, create a safe space for that employee to in fact offer up their authentic perspective, without concern for, you know, do I need to support what my bosses advocated for this decision.
12:00:27 What will my boss, think about my idea.
12:00:31 Again, opportunities to interrupt that bias so process interventions.
12:00:41 Yeah, you know, I’ll just jump on that as well and add my two cents saying, you know, this goes to the point about creating what we call that psychologically safe environment.
12:00:50 And the selective and intelligent use of anonymity can help as is techniques like the nominal group technique.
12:00:57 And those things are deliberately created and should be part of a person’s tool kit at want to actively proactively manage those biases and mitigate them.
12:01:09 Thank you, Dave.
12:01:10 I think we’ve now reached time and Ben any final thoughts as we wrap up.
12:01:17 No, I just want to say thank you both so much for the wonderful webinar.
12:01:23 And I also read it in divisible by, Allison and Rebecca and we did a podcast about it and now it’s all definitely a great book. Definitely. Highly recommend, and I highly recommend you check out the podcast as well.
12:01:35 But yes, I just want to thank you both for the wonderful webinar and I want to thank everyone who attended and, and thank you for this great information, and for your great questions.
12:01:46 Keep an eye out we may be doing a follow up podcast to get to some of the questions that we weren’t able to answer in this webinar.
12:01:54 So keep an eye out for that.
12:01:56 But, yeah.
12:02:00 And as I as probably as promised the HRC activity ID is 584400, and the Sherm activity is to two dash, five, six, and then those will be sending those out in an email after this with the cert what the survey link.
12:02:19 I’m also going to go ahead and put it in the chat.

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