At the heart of the best strategies for working with diversity is the understanding that complacency is the enemy. Experts in diversity and inclusion consulting will be upfront about this fact. They will reinforce that like any human evolutionary area, one will have never arrived totally at one’s destination. The main strategic commitment is to improvement, growth, development, and sustained focus on what is meaningful to people in terms of their values and aspirations. 

Top diversity and inclusion consulting firms build these ideas into organisational strategies to ensure a sustainable cycle of feedback at each achievement milestone. There is a continuous process of analysing and probing increasingly deeper to find the next targeted outcome that will deliver better and better results for everyone. 

We will learn to celebrate our successes and the right results, but be ever mindful of the fact that there is always more to be done in pursuit of organisational health and well-being. There is the ever-present risk of progress unravelling swiftly in the dynamic space of people and organisational interaction, especially in a volatile world with innumerable challenges.  

Monitoring the vital statistics of diversity and inclusion status at regular intervals is, therefore, pivotal in judgement and decision-making on revisions to strategies and key plans throughout the year and into the future. Adjustments and realignments and new thinking and ideas are an integral part of moving forward. 

Eye on execution 

Even with extensive diversity and inclusion training, there is no guarantee of attaining improvements if there are flaws in the execution of strategies that are not detected early and dealt with decisively. Interrogating honestly about what is going well and what is creating actual or potential setbacks is essential to making the right strategic choices in terms of what to prioritise and focus attention and resources most effectively on.  

For example, if the leadership in the organisation does not have the correct orientation, mindset, and skills when it comes to facilitating diversity and inclusion, it will be almost impossible to create and deliver change that cements positive diversity and inclusion as the hallmarks of the organisation’s structure, functioning, culture, and climate. 

Diversity training companies create the foundation for the best strategies to flourish. Diversity and inclusion consulting, however, is needed to provide proper guidance on what strategies are likely to work and which will not in the short, medium, and longer term after gaining insight into the current organisational status quo in these areas as they advance. 

Because complacency is the enemy, even the best diversity and inclusion strategies will fail, if a robust approach to strategic management is not adopted. As with most human endeavours targeting improvement, project management practices and tools will help us excel. Project management lends rigour to the process given inherent structure and strict functioning applied within projects. 

Just because diversity and inclusion touches on the soft dimensions of organisational spaces, it does not mean it is exempt from the strict imperatives of business management that lead to superior performance. We have to have the discipline, detailed planning, and clinical reviews that exemplify best-in-class project management. 

Great projects also have great project champions. So we need to select them particularly carefully to ensure they have a deep appreciation and passion for diversity and inclusion. We must combine the motivational energy of exceptional project champions, who know that momentum in the right direction means taking all contributors and stakeholders with them, with an unrelenting demand for delivery within the charted phases of projects.   

Owning execution 

It is one thing to have the best theoretical strategic content for working with diversity, but entirely something else to implement it. We must be clear that without the right strategy on giving effect to strategic content, we will in all probability be left confused at why with the best intent, we continue to fail. The key here is understanding that perfect strategic content does not determine superb results. 

The job of getting people to embrace and collaborate on strategic adoption is paramount. Top diversity and inclusion consulting firms will empower the organisation to come together at all levels to create, understand, and commit to change actions that will provide the opportunity for the desired transformation. 

Bearing this in mind, the central diversity and inclusion strategy must be an organisation’s engagement strategy. It is only once we have a clear understanding of what sits in the hearts and minds of our people, of what will provide their satisfaction in terms of a greater sense of contribution and belonging, that we start to make better and better strategic choices. 

We do not get to start with a clean piece of paper when formulating diversity and inclusion strategy. We need to come to terms with the fact that we must start with where we are. This may also involve dealing with all the history and baggage that got us to where we are in the first place. Unless we are prepared to acknowledge our organisational “truths” on a range of fronts, we cannot get to the heart of problems and dilemmas that need solving. 

Diversity and inclusion consulting will not solve our internal organisational problems for us. Harnessing this expertise simply provides us with a greater opportunity to take strategies, with the maximum potential for success, and make them live within our organisations if we are genuinely willing to take a different course.