The Inclusion Conundrum: How does the Elephant Fit In?

I was thrilled at the opportunity to attend the best high school in the Capital, hundreds of miles away from my hometown in Ghana. I was one of the ‘lucky’ few students from my village that got in. It was a major achievement and I couldn’t wait to start. However, my excitement soon turned into a nightmare.

I never felt at home and there was a big price to pay for being ‘different’. It hurt me to regularly hear comments from my classmates like: ‘how come you are so well mannered, you are not like the people from your part of the country’. I was lonely on most weekends because, while my colleagues invited me to their ‘in-group’ parties, the discomfort of feeling out of place was frequently greater than the discomfort of being alone in my dorm room.

I sometimes wonder why I felt more excluded in high school in Ghana than I have ever felt after living in the United States for almost 20 years. And this happened in the country of my birth where 99.9% of people are of the same race and share a similar culture. I say this not to minimize the real challenges faced by many US organizations in creating an inclusive environment with employees from a wide variety of backgrounds, but to make the observation that inclusion cannot be taken as a given. Channeling my inner Vernā Myers, I would like to add that, in my experience living on multiple continents, the bigger question is not simply about inviting people to the party but rather asking them to dance.

I was motivated to reflect deeply on my adolescent experiences while reading Roosevelt Thomas Jr’s classic book, ‘Building a House for Diversity’. In the book, he tells a rich fable of the Giraffe and the Elephant that is relevant to today’s enhanced focus on diversity at the workplace. In the fable, Giraffe, a carpenter, owns an award-winning home, tailored perfectly to her needs. Mr. Elephant, another carpenter, is a friend, and one day she decides to invite him to her house to work together on some projects.

The Giraffe and Elephant fable is relevant to the challenges many organizations face in building a truly inclusive workforce. For example, when Elephant arrived at Giraffe’s home, he immediately encountered challenges from doorways that were too narrow for him to navigate through and stairs that were too weak to carry his weight.

To resolve Elephant’s challenges, Giraffe suggests the following:

• Take exercise classes to reduce his weight
• Learn ballet so he can be lighter on his feet

Here is some food for thought from the fable in the context of work:

1. Are your managers, existing employees, and new employees fully equipped to succeed with the reality of the ‘Inclusion Conundrum’? Do they have the tools and the perseverance to stick with these efforts?
2. Are you signaling or actively expecting ‘Covering’ from new or existing employees to fit in? What is the cost of this ‘Covering’ on inclusion and productivity?
3. Are you putting in the hard work and effort required to make changes to your culture, work environment, norms, etc to accommodate a more diverse pool of employees?

Let’s take a deeper dive into the issues of ‘Inclusion Conundrum’ and ‘Covering’.

1. Reality of the Inclusion Conundrum

The Inclusion Conundrum refers to the challenge of creating an inclusive group, which can be at cross purposes with increased diversity. The task of inclusion is a challenging endeavor because in-groups have a tendency to actively resist efforts to bring in others considered to be from ‘out-groups’. This fact has been evidenced throughout human history and recent research on brain science has shed some light on an ‘Us’ vs ‘Them’ bias.

The challenge of inclusion does not, and should not, minimize the compelling business, human and geopolitical case for diversity as expertly discussed by Lindsey-Rae McIntyre of Microsoft in a recent interview with Michael Gervais ‘On The Evolution Of Diversity ‘. What is clear however is that major sectors and organizations are failing miserably at their stated goal of inclusion.

McKinsey in their 2020 publication “Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters’’ provides some interesting data on employee sentiment on diversity and inclusion across the financial services, technology and healthcare sectors. In what I consider the most concerning part of the report, it states:

“While overall sentiment on diversity was 52% positive and 32% negative, sentiment on inclusion was markedly worse at only 29% positive and 61% negative — which encapsulates the challenge that even the more diverse companies will face in tackling inclusion. Hiring talent isn’t enough — it is the experience they have in the workplace that shapes whether they remain and thrive’.

What are the causes of the negative experiences of inclusion at the workplace? Why are many organizations failing to create an inclusive environment for their employees?

I do not have all the answers but it appears to me that most of the diversity initiatives being put in place today are similar to putting ‘new wine into old wineskins’. The potential impacts of such actions are clearly stated in Matthew 9:17: “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved.”

My considered opinion is that many organizations and DEI practitioners do not have a clear understanding of why people resist inclusion efforts and tend to underestimate the challenge of making inclusion stick. This quote from Mary Casey and Shannon Robinson in their book ‘The Neuroscience of Inclusion’ captures the challenge faced perfectly: “When we meet someone and the brain doesn’t like their differences-the way they think, the color of their skin, what they believe, how they dress or any other characteristics the brain perceives as outside its comfort zone — this is no small event. When the brain registers differences as discomfort, it sends an ‘away’ impulse and even regards these differences as potential threats’

Work by Dr. Joshua Greene of Harvard University in his book “Moral Tribes’ clearly indicates the prevalence of an ‘Us’ vs ‘Them’ bias throughout human history. For millions of years, brain mechanisms evolved to cooperate with people who are like us (in-groups) but have had little experience cooperating with people from other groups (out-groups) and in many cases act with hostility toward them.

To achieve real inclusion we cannot overlook the extra effort our brains have to make to include others and the level of discomfort associated with going against some of our most basic instincts. This discomfort holds true both for the underrepresented employees as well as those in the majority. This may explain the phenomenon of covering by employees from both groups. It can be argued that underrepresented groups face the brunt of feelings of exclusion, which according to research by Naomi Eisenberger UCLA “may be just as emotionally distressing as experiences of physical pain”

2. Covering

In their seminal paper titled ‘Uncovering Talent: A New Model of Inclusion’, published by Deloitte, Dr. Christie Smith and Kenji Yoshino take a deep dive into the widespread occurrence of ‘Covering at work’ and the impacts on inclusion. ‘Covering’ is used to describe how underrepresented groups go to great lengths to minimize the perceived stigmas of their identity in order to fit in.

The covering paper does an excellent job of analyzing the different pressures underrepresented groups face in bringing ‘their authentic selves to work’ and the gymnastics they frequently undertake to feel included. They identify four axes of covering:

1. Appearance-based; how employees alter the way they naturally present themselves in order to fit in
2. Affiliation-based; how employees might go to extra lengths to avoid the stereotypical behaviors associated with their group
3. Advocacy-based; how employees might avoid standing up for their group in order to fit in
4. Association-based; how employees might minimize association with others from their group in order to fit in

According to the Deloitte study, 83% of LGB individuals, 79% of Blacks, 67% of women of color, 66% of women, and 63% of Hispanics reported covering. It also highlights that while the frequency of covering is greater with underrepresented groups, 45% of straight white men also reported covering.

From the data point on straight white men, it is clear that any effective inclusion initiatives need to focus on all groups of employees and not just underrepresented groups. Results may differ but might be worthwhile for organizations to conduct internal research to understand the prevalence of covering within their employee groups.

It is clear that our shared commitment to inclusion and diversity cannot be accomplished only with good intentions. For inclusion to stick, it has to be the responsibility of everyone; senior executives, mid-level managers, HR, existing employees, and new employees. I would like to invite you to reflect on the following as you implement your inclusion and diversity initiatives:

1. How could you mitigate the expected increase in ‘disharmony’ as a result of a greater diversity of your workforce?
2. Are ERGs, on balance, helping or hurting your inclusion efforts?
3. How might you rethink the structure of ERGs to mitigate the Us vs Them bias?
4. How could you effectively bring along ‘majority groups’ into your inclusion initiatives without ‘pressuring’ them?
5. How might you help underrepresented employees ‘uncover’ and bring more of their authentic selves to work?
6. What changes might you make to your organization internally to make it more conducive and welcoming to an increasingly diverse group of employees?

In my next post, I will explore some practical inclusion strategies and explore how to create a sustainable program that takes into consideration the challenges we discussed in this post.