Week 44: Vanilla Almond Biscotti & "Leading Inclusion"

This week is dedicated to Leading Inclusion, by @GenaCoxPHD and Vanilla Almond Biscotti.

Leading Inclusion is another favourite book of mine. I was able to read the book on a recent flight from Vancouver to Montreal and I will say I love this book and I learned a lot.

The author Gena Cox uses “REDI” instead of “EDI” which stands for Respect, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Her reasoning for having Respect as the first word is because if leaders do not first ensure that equity deserving groups feel respected, nothing else matters. I couldn’t agree more with this statement.

Respect is absolutely crucial.

The book is broken into 3 parts: Mindset, Boldness and Action. Each chapter has a recap and questions for you to reflect on which is really great as a reminder.

There is a really great exercise on page 89 to understand your beliefs asking you to reflect on questions like do you interact with others outside of your race outside of work?

Later in the chapter the author shares an example of sharing a meal with employees where the host would ask this very important question “If you could give credit or thanks to one person in your life whom you don't give enough credit or thanks to, who would that be?” Now this was my aha moment where I thought how can I use this in my daily work. Just think if we asked ourselves this on a regular basis.

Every Thursday I have put a reminder in my calendar to reflect on who I haven't given enough credit to. There is a great section on organization readiness outlining whether you have a diversity, equity or inclusion issue. For example you have an equity issue if you discover employees of colour are hired and promoted into the least paying, least flexible jobs. Again this is very tangible to measure.

Cox does a really great job to make things practical which I really appreciate. Over the last 7 years I have read many books that are very theoretical when it comes to EDI & having practical examples that I can use in my workplace the next day is really great.

Have you read this book yet? If so, let me know your thoughts.