Storytelling in diversity and inclusion

I am currently working in the HR department on a multinational company. I  volunteered to be part of an internal HR committee design to bring the topic of  diversity and inclusion to the daily life of the company. The first step that was taken by  the organization was to launch an anonymous survey to get to know how much people  knew about this topics and how they felt about it. It was not a surprise that most  people in leading positions thought they were very inclusive in the way they managed  their teams. Yet, many people who identify with a minority group answered they felt  at least sometimes uncomfortable by some colleagues attitudes. It was clear that there  was much room for improvement.

The first step to address the issue had to be to create awareness of the problem and  get people involved in to inclusion. It was important to trained all the organization on  diversity complexity and to generate a space of reflection and awareness. The main  question remained open, how shall we address this trainings in order to make sure a  high number of people got involved. It is a matter of fact that in the current context  there is much work to be done, and distance makes harder to create involvement.  Nevertheless, this distance also makes diversity and inclusion in organizations more  important that never in order to keep teams aligned and promote innovation.

As it was mention in the video lectures, storytelling is a powerful tool that can be used  to generate an emotional connection and that was exactly what we needed. If we  wanted people to get engage, then we needed them feel part of the cause and know  they could make a difference. For that reason, we considered it was an excellent  opportunity to put this technique in to practice. We wanted to create some space to  reflation and make people think about their behaviors. It was important not only to tell  people what inclusion is all about, but also make sure they wanted to implement  inclusive practices on daily bases.

We decided to set up a “diversity week” where many events where going to be held  with different topics. The basic idea was to generate short trainings that boost  participants to debate on the issues and discover how their own cognitive biases might  be involved in their actions and reactions. We used some day to day scenarios to  propose reflection. Recreating common situations was a good way to connect with  colleagues. The idea was to prove how different people might have different  perspectives towards the same actions. That way, it was possible for participants to  listen each others opinions and reconsider their own understandings.

Applying storytelling gave us the opportunity to approach diversity issues on a  different way. It was an excellent tool to involve the hole organization in the process  and make sure it had real impact. Unlike other  trainings, when design thinking  strategies are applied the user connect the content with their own thoughts and  experiences. By doing so, it is possible to generate empathy and reflection. We  received very good feedback from colleagues and most participant were interests in

getting even more information and trainings. Moreover, the engagement of many  participants was source of motivation for other members of their teams.

With this experience we could prove how necessary it is to change the approach we  use in human resources to design trainings and coaching activities. Design thinking  techniques can not only help to deliver more effective trainings, but also get a better  understanding of our user needs. Involving the business on the hole process can bring  a better used of our time and resources. It was and excellent exercise for HR members  also to rethink the way we relate with the rest of the organization. Leathers also had a  better response feeling part of the learning process of their teams. It is matter of fact  that design thinking came to the organization to stay.

