Re-framing inclusion

What does your culture of inclusion have in common with a gluten allergy?

My partner has a gluten allergy. Nothing serious, but it makes eating out just that bit more effort.

You have to do your homework about where you’re going to eat and check if they have something on the menu that’s going to work. It’s more common now, so most places are pretty well versed in what a gluten allergy is and how to cater to include those who suffer with it.

We arrive at our chosen place, are seated and handed a menu. Then a staff member explains which items are okay for him to have.

This usually go one of two ways:

You can’t have the pie, pasta or herb crusted special of the day.
I’ll have to go and check about the fish.
But you can have the [name of dish] but without the chips/bread/sauce/croutons…
would you like some bread while you're deciding? Oh, except you can’t have that either sir.
But she can [insert awkward smile]

OR

Let us know what you want and we can make it work for you.
All our sauces are made from gluten free flour and we keep our fryers gluten free too so we can do pretty much everything.
Except for bread.
We know gluten free bread sucks, and even though we bake our own we still haven’t perfected it, but we will soon!

Knowing that someone has considered your needs from the outset makes you feel like you matter.

Acknowledging that it takes more effort for a kitchen to make gluten free a default but they do it anyway signals their understanding of inclusion.

Designing menus that cater FOR the needs and wants of their patrons, not for themselves is huge in terms of experiences.

The difference it can make to those affected is everything, and for those of us without allergies and intolerance's, we simply don’t notice the difference.

This for me is the difference between shaping people to fit your vision, and shaping your vision to fit your people. It’s the difference between assimilation and inclusion.

Diversity without inclusion is simply offering a menu to people and telling them what they can and can’t have, and forcing them to adjust themselves while those around them tuck in.

Inclusion is understanding the needs of your people and working out how you can change to meet those needs. It takes effort, and you probably won’t be able to get it all right.

But you can start, AND you can acknowledge the areas you’re not doing so well and demonstrate what you’re doing to keep improving anyway.

Just because we’ve always made bread one way, hired from a certain graduate pool or for culture fit, measured potential in the same “tried and tested” manner, it does not mean this is the only, or even the best way to get the outcomes that will make our organisations successful.

What are YOU doing to challenge the status quo in your organisations to make inclusion the default?

If the answer is that you’re not sure - drop me a line and let’s talk.