Last week was about empathy.  This week is about intentional inclusion in hybrid environments.  We’ll look at this idea by exploring a different situation where I had to adjust my behaviors to be more inclusive of workstyles to help bring out the best in everyone.

When it comes to participating in meetings there tends to be two types of people, talkers and processors.  Talkers jump right in to verbally talk through problems, while processors prefer to take their time to think through things before speaking.  I’m a talker and tend to expect people to just jump in and start talking through ideas just like me.  One day I realized that the way I was running meetings led to the talkers drowning out the processors.  This meant we couldn’t capitalize on the great ideas that the processors had.  Now I could have just asked the processors to change, but it’s NOT on them.  It’s on ME as a leader to create the inclusive environment to bring out the best in folks.  I needed to change.  I became more disciplined about sharing meeting agendas and discussion questions ahead of time to give everyone time to think through and form their ideas.  I focused on facilitating the conversation in a way to have more thoughtful conversation from everyone vs. telling people to just jump in.  As a result, we had better discussions and outputs.

What does this have to do with the new working situation?  In the above example, I had to be aware that my actions weren’t creating an environment to get the most out of everyone.  From there, it was on me to take the right ACTION to create a more inclusive environment that could give people what they needed to feel safe and be better able to contribute.  In a similar way, once we get back to the office in this hybrid format, we ALL will need to take new action to include everyone (live and remote).  Ultimately, we will need to be more INTENTIONAL about how we build teams, structure meetings, and get work done to create an environment that is inclusive and brings out the best in EVERYONE whether they are live or remote.  The challenge: How will you be more inclusive in our new “work normal”? 

Bonus blunt challenge: You might have noticed I didn’t mention technology in how we need to adapt.  Having the right technology that works is incredibly important.  However, having the right technology does NOT matter, if we don’t have the right inclusive mindset and aren’t changing the way we lead and do things.  Having the right technology without a change in behavior just means we will have a fancier and more technologically advanced way of NOT creating inclusive cultures that bring out the best in us.  How can we ensure we are upgrading our leadership behaviors while we upgrade our technology?

Side note/pet peeve- Talkers tend to be extroverts and processors tend to be introverts.  We always tell introverts to jump in and talk more.  Why don’t we ever ask the extroverts to quiet down and create space for others to talk?  Things that make you go hmmmm…

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry