Tips for working in a diverse organization

Hi, welcome. My name is Liz. I'm the learning and development lead here in the diversity, equity and inclusion team at Vista.

As global organizations, Vista and Cimpress have an incredible amount of diversity across our team members, bringing diverse perspectives, experience ideas, all to help us form the best possible outcomes for our customers and the best experience for our team members.

I wantto share with you three common myths when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion that I know can get in the way of being able to make the most of the incredible diversity in our organizations.

And then share some resources with you at the end around how you can continue to build your awareness and skills so that you are creating the best experience for yourself, your team members, and for our customers.

The first myth I wantto share with you is that inclusion is just about feeling good. Inclusion, of course, is about feeling good, and I'd also like to share some of the research behind the value for our business and our customers when it comes to working.

Inclusively. Research from neuroscience has shown that when people feel included, specific neurochemicals are released and parts of the brain are activated.

That increase our capacity for creative thinking, complex problem solving, collaborating, risk taking, and innovating. So when we're creating inclusive ways of working and inclusive environments with our team members, we're creating a space where not only are we leveraging these skills to a high degree, but we're supporting those that we work with.

Be able to think more creatively, solve problems more effectively, and work in a more innovative way. At the end of this video, towards the back, I'm goingto share with you a whole range of resources around small actions you can do that will help create more inclusive meanings and environments in your ways of working together.

The second myth I wantto share with you is that good people aren't biased. When we have this belief, it gets in the way of our ability to take proactive action to address bias because human brains are neurologically wired to have bias and has nothing to do about whether we're a good person or not.

All brains have bias and this acceptance that we're subject to unconscious bias can be fueled for us to take action to mitigate and manage these so that we can diminish their impact.

Now, biases can get in the way. Many of you'll probably be aware not only of creating inclusive environments, but also in our effectiveness in decision making and solving complex problems.

When, we have biases we are more likely to have groupthink, go to people who have similar perspectives and views than than we have, and to work in ways of working that are very similar and, and don't challenge the status quo.

Let's do a quick check in around reminding what bias. So bias is a preference or judgment based on an attribute.

They're rooted in societal norms. They're based on previous experiences, our upbringing potentially and primal neurological wiring. There might be biases we have about people which are linked to stereotypes which we don't intend to have, which don't align with our values, but are part of our unconscious bias.

And they can also be mental shortcuts. Now there's a time and a place for these mental shortcuts and bias in prehistoric times, that's the primal neurological wiring.

This really helped our ability to be able to, in a very quick moment, discern an insider from an outsider friend or foe.

And it was essential in those prehistoric times. In modern times. These mental shortcuts are useful when it comes to being able to navigate millions of bits of information in any given moment, but they come with the side effect.

And that side effect is it can reduce our ability to make objective, clear information and assess all the data in front of us in an effective way.

So what biases aren't, they're not based on logic, they're not rational, and they're not based on objective data. So when we have a decision we need to make, where we need to be able to drawing on all the all the facts, all the data, all the different perspectives to come up with the best solution for our teams and our customers, then we need to actively take action to be able to mitigate and manage those unconscious biases.

And again, at the end of this video, we'll share some links to where you can access resources on practical actions you can take in your role to help manage bias in your day to day.

The third myth I wanted to share with you is that the worst thing you can do is to say the wrong thing.

Now, when we have this fear of saying the wrong thing, what it does is it holds us back from meeting with different people, involving people who share different perspectives, or it also makes it difficult to come back from when we might have said the wrong thing.

Now, diversity is complex in all its forms and unfortunately making mistakes is part of growth and learning, and it's impossible for us to have full awareness of, of perspectives across all the range of diversity.

But we do have a responsibility to continue to learn and to grow and to actively work on our relationships with others.

So I'd love to encourage you to approach all your conversations with good intent and a growth mindset. So stay open to learning and adapting, but most importantly, we have that care for one another.

And so if we've engaged with people who have different backgrounds and experiences to us, and we've said the wrong thing, to have the humility, to acknowledge that, to check in on the other person and to make a commitment, to learn and to do better in the future because it's really important that we can work together and work effectively and build meaningful relationships.

And at times that might be a little bit bumpy. Let's have a look at some of the resources because we do have a resource around what are some of the steps you can take if you've said something that's hurt someone's feelings or you've said the wrong thing so that you can continually to build that relationship together and learn and continue to evolve going forward.

So on our confluence page for the diversity, equity and inclusion team, we have a whole range of resources. So everything from toolkits around what are some practical actions you can take when you're working in a, a culturally diverse team or you're working in a team that has team members all around the globe at any given time, what are some of the tips around communicating inclusively?

And we have a whole range of other guides and encourage you to have a look here. We also have access to a glossary and around capabilities.

So things like managing bias, actively including and creating a sense of belonging for those that we work with. So again, welcome to Vista and Syras.

We really look forward to working with you to getting to know more about you and your unique perspective and talents and welcome.