As a business owner or a leader in any capacity, have you recently reviewed the partnerships and relationships that you have built around you and your business? How many of the people in your network are “like” you? How many have similar lived experiences and identities like you? When we are surrounded by people who are different from us, who challenge us, we are compelled to reevaluate our thoughts, our words, and be able to articulate the reasoning behind them. If those around us are confirming what we think all the time, we are usually not questioning our thinking. Sometimes to solidify an idea, you need to first try to disprove it and have it purposefully challenged by others. You may even get a new concept or approach for putting your original idea into action.
Growing new perspectives around you starts with building inclusive partnerships. For a business, these partnerships will not only be good for creativity and innovation but also to help expand the impact of your services or products, your market reach, your brand perception (personal and business), and to further your social responsibility and Environmental, Social, and Governance goals. Ultimately, these will help your bottom line. By prioritizing inclusive partnerships, you can attract the socially conscious consumer/client. There is a 90% increased likelihood that your product or services would be purchased by a particular group because you have been conscious of them and their communities in your efforts.
You do not want to end up with any kind of partnership, however. All these objectives above can only be achieved if we are purposeful and proactive in our partnerships. Not to mention, genuine. Here are a couple of key areas to revisit on your way to building purposeful, inclusive partnerships:
1) Check Your Mindset and Internal Practices: Tie your partnerships to your values, mission, and specific objectives that you have for your business or organization. Is there a mindset that partnerships are a talent strategy, growth strategy, and customer strategy? This may mean a mindset shift for you and for your employees to understand that inclusion and equity can be integrated into all operations and practices. If that inclusion space is not fostered internally, going out and creating various partnerships will not be as successful. Really, they won’t be authentic. You need to do the work internally within you and with your team to foster awareness and skills to work with those who are different. Tokenization is treating people as a symbol for inclusion or compliance, without truly providing a space for meaningful participation. It harms leaders and businesses. Word gets out fast on this one. For example, do we only speak well and support the Latino community when they are our customers, taking their money, but we don’t include their viewpoints, hire from that community or give back to organizations that matter to their culture and wealth. The same question would apply to any group or culture. Do we mirror our customer base in talent and representation, as well as behaviors and values?
2) Notice Your External Messaging and Brand: Recognize that equity and inclusion are still top of mind for many organizations, investors, funders, shareholders, boards of directors, clients, etc. In these times, we are being confronted more publicly and visibly on social media and in the news by racial injustice, gender inequality, the relationship between poverty and race/ethnicity, environmental disasters, the struggles of the transgender community, religious intolerance, border violence, and attacks on many institutions that we had not questioned before. How would you like your business and leadership to be remembered in history? How have you worked to make sure your business communicates its value and purpose with integrity and without offense. This also means reexamining photos, images, and words that you use to make sure they are not feeding into stereotypes and that they highlight the strengths of various groups. The statistics on boycotts prove that consumers are watching. Over half of consumers have boycotted a brand based on its stance on an issue.
3) Reexamine How You Collect Data: Look at how you collect data in your business, from your website to your operations to marketing and sales to talent, etc. Is it specific and nuanced? For example, look at cost savings and where these are coming from—how diverse vendors and partners might help with that. Do you have data on the markets that you want to target? Do you know how to message to their listening/needs? Where are the gaps, what’s getting in the way for your data being grounded in truth? Are there memberships or publications that you may need to be part of? What spaces do you engage with? What are your time metrics? Where are your talent outreach efforts concentrated? Do you break down your data based on demographics or behavioral preferences? Are your contractors from varied circles and communities? Have you considered generational identities in addition to other main categories? When you get a large project or a platform to amplify your work, do you already have a diverse pool to tap into for collaboration and to provide access? Do you have a vision into the future with the changing demographics in our society and the economic impact we need to make?
If these changing times have taught us anything, it is the power of agility and the need for collaboration. The research shows that by surrounding yourself with diverse perspectives and having the tools already streamlined and established to leverage those perspectives, you will be able to manage change and grow your impact faster.
Author Samara Hakim
Samara Hakim, JD, is an international culture and inclusion thought leader, data strategist, speaker, writer, coach, and facilitator. For over a decade, Samara has equipped leaders with the mindset and skills to work with those who are different, by mitigating bias and integrating culture into business practices and metrics. She has extensive experience in communication, conflict transformation, diversity, equity, inclusion, implicit bias mitigation, and culture transformation. Learn more