Diverse teams are two times more likely to meet financial targets, three times more likely to be high-performing, and six times more likely to be innovative and agile. Employing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategies is not only the right thing to do, it’s a competitive advantage.
In 2023, DEI was consistently one of our most requested topics. DEI initiatives serve as the foundation to building a welcoming and safe environment where employees from different social, cultural, racial, and economic backgrounds with diverse opinions, perspectives, and experiences can work and excel together.
From combating unconscious bias to fostering belonging and tackling systemic racism, our DEI experts challenge status quo thinking to spark change. Below are the top 5 blogs we published in 2023 exploring the impact DEI work can have in the workplace and beyond.
Beating Bias
Yassmin Abdel-Magied on How to Combat Unconscious Bias Within Your Teams
Biases — whether we know it or not, we all have them. They’re shortcuts created by our brains to better handle the millions of pieces of information thrown at us at any given point. The problem is that these shortcuts can be based on faulty information, and it’s up to us to actively retrain our brains to combat that misinformation.
An internationally renowned speaker on the subject, Yassmin Abdel-Magied has experienced the impact of bias in the workplace firsthand. She is a mechanical engineer, and her first job was working on oil rigs — there weren’t a lot of people who looked like her on those rigs.
Yassmin combined her personal experience with research to outline the ways in which bias breaks down workplace culture, and shared practical strategies leaders can use to combat bias and create safer, fairer, and more productive workplaces for all.
Once we acknowledge our biases, and the fact that biases impact us all, we can stop being imprisoned by them and focus on rewiring those shortcuts to be based on reality vs. fiction.
Diversity as a Competitive Advantage
Dr. Ivan Joseph: How Diversity is Good for the Bottom Line
Born in Guyana, Dr. Ivan Joseph knows what it’s like to look different and sound different, to be a Black student on a white campus, to be a leader from an under-represented group. He has experienced the challenges and opportunities of being a designated hire. And he understands from the inside the complexities of creating an inclusive organizational culture.
Ivan broke down the competitive advantage diverse workplaces have over their competitors and why creating diversity policies is an effective business decision. He than shared tips on how to attract diverse talent and break through the “road blocks” often preventing teams and organizations from becoming more diverse.
If you have any doubt as to whether diversity is good for business, just take a look at Nike Golf. Before Tiger, there was no such thing as Nike Golf. When Nike partnered with Tiger… he brought 4.5 million new customers to the brand. Tiger added $60 million in profit to Nike in golf ball sales alone.
Moving IDEA Forward
Michael Bach Named a Top 10 Influential DEI Leader Revamping the Future
In 2023, Michael Bach was named one of the 10 most influential DEI leaders revamping the future by CIO Views. He is the founder of the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI) and CCDI Consulting with 20 years of experience within the inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA) space.
As a nationally and internationally recognized IDEA thought leader, Michael is celebrated for his vast knowledge of leading practices in creating equitable workplaces. He is the bestselling author of two books: Birds of All Feathers: Doing Diversity and Inclusion Right and Alphabet Soup: The Essential Guide to LGBTQ2+ Inclusion.
We wrote a profile on Michael, exploring how he turned his passion into a career as well as his many successes in moving IDEA forward in the workplace. He also shared three simple yet effective tips to help leaders advance IDEA in their workplaces based on his experience in the field.
I’m white, a cisgender-presenting man, and physically able-bodied. My parents, particularly my mother, recognized that those identities came with a lot of privilege. She raised me to believe I had a responsibility to use that privilege to the advantage of others.
Creating Systemic Change
Five Questions with… Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Healthcare Leader and Changemaker
We were proud to add Dr. Alika Lafontaine to our roster in 2023. He is the first Indigenous physician and youngest doctor to lead the Canadian Medical Association and the first Indigenous physician to be listed on The Medical Post’s 50 Most Powerful Doctors.
Alika has been at the epicentre of healthcare system change for almost two decades. He’s behind one of the most ambitious Indigenous health transformation projects in Canadian history and several initiatives designed to transform health systems to better serve Canadians and Canadian physicians.
We were fortunate to sit down with Alika to learn more about him and his journey to becoming one of Canada’s most renowned healthcare leaders.
People walk away from my keynotes feeling like they have a better grip on what they need to change and how to execute that throughout the systems they find themselves in.
The Future of Events: Building Spaces of Belonging
How to Intentionally Design Events that Foster a Sense of Belonging
Creating cultures of belonging is vital to our well-being, and the more we learn about belonging, the more we can easily see how it ties into the event-going experience. Events are tools for building shared experiences and opportunities for connection — cultivating a sense of belonging amongst our attendees and within our events only serves to enhance this.
Belonging is the feeling of being accepted and honoured for who you are by your own self and by the people around you. It’s the feeling of security and support when there is a sense of acceptance, inclusion, and identity for all.
We reached out to some of our experts within the field — Ritu Bhasin, Michael Bach, Riaz Meghji, and Anthony McLean — to share some advice on how event planners can cultivate a culture of belonging at their in-person events.
Ensuring that you have speakers from diverse communities, captioning your slides, reserving seating up front for people who are visually or hearing impaired are all critical practices, but what is said and how it’s said is just as important…
Ritu Bhasin
Publishing 2-3 blog posts weekly, we share insights and advice from our leading roster of experts on the topics that you and your audiences want to hear about. Follow us on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram to stay in the know.
