Diversity Beyond Lip Service: A Coaching Guide for Challenging Bias

by La'wana Harris, Khalil Smith (Foreword)

Discover how to build a sustainable culture of inclusion with a coaching method that shows people that sharing power isn’t the same as losing it.The elephant in the room with diversity work is that people with privilege must use it to allow others equal access to power. This is often why diversity efforts falter—people believe in diversity until they feel that they must give something up. How do we talk them through this shift?La’Wana Harris introduces Inclusion Coaching, a new tool based on cutting-edge research that identifies the stages of preparation, implementation, and “self-work” necessary to help individuals, teams, and organizations build a sustainable culture of inclusion. Harris’s six-stage COMMIT model—Commit to courageous action, Open your eyes and ears, Move beyond lip service, Make room for controversy and conflict, Invite new perspectives, and Tell the truth even when it hurts—provides a proven process for making people aware of their own conscious and unconscious biases and concrete steps to make inclusion an embedded reality.Harris offers managers and diversity coaches new models to empower everyone from employees to CEOs to “do” inclusion and address deep-rooted biases that are often invisible. She addresses the growing need to challenge bias and build authentic cultures where everyone can feel a sense of belonging.“A good read for all concerned with the question of human training, leadership development, and organizational change. It challenges us to think about diversity in more concrete ways to ensure transformative change in organizational leadership and within institutional structures…. The book’s major strength is the focus on concrete and actionable practices to realize the hopes and dreams of genuine inclusion and diversity.” —George J. Sefa Dei, Professor of Social Justice Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, and Fellow, Royal Society of Canada“A clear, powerful guide through what a growing number of us in the coaching profession believe is imperative to our survival and relevance as a profession…. Through many powerful examples, and with a very calm, incontrovertible voice, La’Wana Harris has made the intersection between coaching and inclusion work crystal clear. Bravo!” —Halli MacNab, PCC, President, Association of Coach Training Organizations, and C.O.O., Accomplishment Coaching

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Race, Professional Development, Leadership

177 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 28, 2019

Reviews

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pragmatic book on the topic of improving diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

For me, the biggest takeaway was gaining the vocabulary to describe some of the things I have seen and experienced at work. For example, I didn't know that covering was a thing; I just thought everyone does that to get along with people. I also didn't quite have the language for why saying that I-don't-see-color is a negative, but now I think I can explain that, because OMG I hear that so much from people.

I really appreciate that the author covered LGBTQ issues in addition to race and ethnicity.

Overall, great book.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably a good book if you and/or the company you work for aren’t too familiar with. Didn’t find something different or new to what I had read or being trained about. Still, good research and written in an easy way.

[Eve · Rating 3 out of 5]

I stayed up late to listen to this whole book. I had it on a faster speed, so a 4h20m became like 2h's instead.

This book is written for capitalist managers. So sometimes there'd be stuff said in contrast to another possibility & i wouldn't know what that other possibility would be.

So the basic premise of this book is that managers are supposed to do horizontal ethics by getting to know their employees & other sensitivity, etc.

I'm still shocked about firms somehow being supportive

The enforcement mechanism is that firms are intentionally trying to get employees of color not to leave.

This is a bit of a rosy picture since chapter 13 of "slavery's capitalism" explained how the systemic abuse is done in order to maintain rank/positionality boundaries, and so in order to also keep up with interchangeablity, we get systemic abuse. So the contexts are likely jobs without the interchangeably .. IDK how sales jobs work.

Also one of the parts near the 25% mark had me looking up thia article because I related so hard when she talked about how exclusionary sports imagery is.

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/sports...

I'm not sure how to rate this because this book reminds me of the mass line, but it's alao paternalist & there was a statement about racism that I can't tell the context for. I know Lenin liked Taylorism which was developed by enslavers in USA so there's something.

That being said, I liked how this book described how lunar new year became a holiday in USA. There were other antedotes like that which I liked this book for.

TLDR: this is saying do ask culture instead of guess culture, but because it's a business management book it wrongly assumes that the boss/worker relationship is cooperative instead of antagonistic/contradictory. it's kind of paternalistic. it's good though because it says that inclusion/assimilation infrastructure needs to already be set up before hiring if you want to retain diverse workers. (I guess "complaint" by sara ahmed called this the "diversity door")

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

La'Wanna Harris digs deep into the complex issues surrounding embracing inclusion within organizations. While on the surface it appears that diversity is a completed goal, true inclusion is still elusive at best. Breaking the grip of the ever present but invisible rule that appears to state "you have a seat at the table, what more could you want is not possible without exploring one's own attitudes not to diversity, but inclusion. Inclusion can be defined as creating a space for people to bring the complete package of who they are to the job. She sites examples of African American women being marginalized because of their hair styles that don't fit the cultural code and examples of other people who by being different from the predominant white culture are accepted only on the fringes of work teams and at leadership levels. La'Wanna Harris presents her COMMIT model of truly striving for inclusion, not just lip service. The commit coaching model is as follows: C: Commit to Courageous Action; O: Open Your Eyes and Ears; M: Move Beyond Lip Service; M: Make Room for Controversy and Conflict; I: Invite New Perspectives and T: Tell the Truth Even If it Hurts. Thought provoking and eye-opening; Diversity Beyond Lip Service can be a powerful anecdote to entrenched mindsets that cause stagnation on the global work stage.

[Shiloh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another good book about overcoming discrimination (in both overt and subtle forms), however, I would say it is lacking in diverse perspectives (ironically) in that it doesn't acknowledge the existence of nonbinary people.

Throughout the whole book, it uses terminology like "both men and women," ignoring the fact that there are people not belonging to those groups. Furthermore, it uses the terms male and female synonymously with man and woman, sometimes disregarding intersex people as often marginalized groups as a topic, even though it seems relevant enough.

[Jenni Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the insight La'Wanna provides and many of these items I've brought up to my managers at different times. As a recruiter trying to make diversity a priority, it is critical to look further than just the numbers and truly look at what the organization is doing to expand diversity and be inclusive of the diversity it works to attract. The only thing I would have liked to hear further insight in was how these organizations should work to attract the diversity they need. As for many industries the talent pool can be smaller due to the strict requirements a role can have. La' Wanna mentions that some may not have the industry experience due to the good old boy squads we all have seen in action but what this truly means is that sometimes we do have to look further at the applicant than just industry experience. What experience does the person have that when we invest in the industry training can they bring to the table that makes them an even better candidate than the ones with specific industry experience. its important to be mindful of the innovative difference they can bring from this, so would have loved more of La'Wanna's thoughts, insights and how one can have these conversations go further!

thank you for putting together such an insightful book. La'Wanna- you and your work are so greatly appreciated

[Bobbie Greene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recommended this text as common reading for our DEI task force at work after I attended a couple of Harris's webinars. She breaks down DEI concepts in ways that are approachable, achievable, and even measurable in some cases. Her language is direct and meaningful, and she definitely models the type of conversation she would want others to have around these topics. More importantly, I feel, is that she gives plenty of recommendations for how to be proactive and respectful no matter where in your DEI journey you happen to be. She definitely helped our team lay a solid foundation from which to build an even more inclusive and equitable workplace.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlike another book I read recently on the topics of diversity and inclusion, this author's approach felt genuinely inclusive, rather than creating a sense of "otherness." I still felt the pace was a bit slow, but it definitely was a better approach to the concept of diversity and inclusivity in the workplace than several of the other works I've tried to read on the subject over the past few years.

[Pamela Gioia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pamela La Gioia

Wow! This book is a must-read for anyone who manages people or makes business policies. Ms. Harris is a brilliant thinker who knows how to bring home tough ideas while lifting you up at the same time.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good info, fairly 101 level though

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book, I liked the literary technique of using short stories to convey context for the ideas.

[Gretchen Schott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very practical and useful advice. I found it helpful as a book study to do with my team at work!!

[Dimitri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Making a workplace that offers everyone a change to be successful

My Highlights: https://learning.oreilly.com/u/748020...

[Books of the Night Table]

https://dearsomewhere1.blogspot.com/

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought provoking - taking a commitment to diversity & inclusion to a much deeper level. Otherwise, it can be as the title says, just lip service.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want my whole library to read this book, it was really thought-provoking and I think will help the discussions at my library about diversity and inclusion.