Diversity and Inclusion Training that Builds Skills and Achieves Specific Meaningful Business Outcomes

Scroll down or use these links to see examples of Business-Aligned® diversity and inclusion training for

     CEOs and senior executive teams
     Middle managers
     Corporate diversity councils
     Entire organizations
     Leadership development .

CEOs and Senior Executive Teams

Situation:
A prominent beverage manufacturer was expanding its business in domestic multicultural markets and internationally. The senior executive team included people from several countries. Many members had international or global responsibilities in current or past assignments.

The team wanted to build upon this experience by further developing its intercultural competence / expertise. This was viewed as important to more-effectively understanding and meeting the needs of different cultural groups, which was key to the global expansion plans.

The development work was also part of deploying an overall diversity and inclusion (D&I) strategy across the firm.

Solution:
The senior executive team completed the online Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). IDI is a validated psychometric instrument that measures how individuals or teams experience diversity and cultural difference.

The IDI results were used to design custom group and individual learning for the team. The group learning highlighted a way to think of D&I as a core business strategy and the direct relationship between intercultural competence and effective leadership. The IDI group report was used to illustrate how the team tended to consider diversity and cultural difference in its work. A key skill was introduced to help the team further develop its intercultural expertise.

Individual coaching sessions were implemented using the individual IDI data. Each person received feedback and coaching tailored both to their developmental sensitivity as measured by IDI and to their executive responsibilities.

Outcome:
The training was well received and members felt it was very helpful and targeted to business needs. A report on the work was incorporated into a firm-wide diversity town meeting. This communicated the senior executives’ commitment and engagement as part of the firm’s D&I strategy.

 

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Situation:
A service provider wanted diversity training to help its CEO and executive management team improve its effectiveness working with increasingly diverse customers. The management team needs to further improve its ability to understand and meet the evolving needs of its customers.

Solution:
A diversity training and development session was designed incorporating Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) assessment and developmental feedback, supporting learning exercises, and related theory. IDI was used to assess how the team perceived and worked with people from different cultural backgrounds.

The learning design and action planning was customized to “meet the team” at their current developmental readiness . The session dealt with communications, teamwork, and customer focus. Practical exercises and supporting theory helped participants build skills for communicating and working with people of different backgrounds.

The program highlighted how any situation can be seen in many ways and linked this to creating business advantage. In addition to group and individual IDI developmental feedback, experiential learning activities were selected to complement the IDI feedback and help the team in its individual and collective development.

Outcome:
The design and delivery plan were well received and the linkage to business needs was clear. Participants appreciated the business focus. They said that the learning gave them the tools and perspectives they needed to become more effective individually and as a leadership team.

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Middle Managers, Sales District Managers

Situation:
A Fortune 500 electric and gas utility serves an extremely-diverse major metropolitan area. The utility's workforce is also very diverse. As part of its ongoing commitment to business growth through diversity and inclusion (D&I), the company wanted to provide leading-edge training for its middle managers including some first-level executives. The high-level goals of the training were to:

• Build awareness of the role of inclusion in effective leadership and achieving business results
• Develop increased self awareness and the managers' cultural expertise in leading diverse teams
• Provide practical tools the managers could use to help build an even-more inclusive workplace and to incorporate D&I planning in a way that directly aligns with their key business goals

The training needed to complement previous awareness training.

Solution:
A custom half-day D&I training program was designed that addressed these topics:

• The effect of "full inclusion" on business outcomes
• A way to think about D&I as directly aligned with their annual performance objectives
• The effects of culture, cultural difference, and their own mindset and behavioral tendencies on the business results they and their teams produce
• A practical planning process to integrate a "D&I lens" into their annual business planning

Experiential exercises helped participants gain insights and learn practical skills. To ensure relevance, case studies and the overall content were adapted to match issues confronting the participants in their work.

The training incorporated the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). All participants completed the online IDI. People participated in the training in intact management groups. The IDI group reports helped match content to learning readiness. Each group saw their own IDI group report and a comparison to the total population of participants.

Outcome:
The IDI group report showing the participants' actual results built credibility and was one of the highlights of the program. Participants felt the training was practical and provided useful insights into developing their own leadership and the effectiveness and productivity of their teams. Further results are ongoing.

 

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Situation:
A major pharmaceutical company wanted a diversity training module for newly-promoted sales District Managers. The training had to be focused on helping the District Managers achieve their business results. The program had to be high impact and to provide practical tools the new managers could use in their day-to-day work. It ideally would help the managers in recruiting, managing diverse teams, and selling to increasingly diverse customers (physicians and purchasing organizations of large health care providers).

Solution:
A custom diversity training program was designed that addressed these topics:

• Relationship to the company's core values
• Distinct yet complementary nature of equal employment opportunity (EEO), affirmative action (AA), diversity, and inclusion
• The direct link between business results and D&I
• The importance and central role of effective communication with people of different cultural backgrounds

Experiential exercises helped participants gain insights and learn practical skills.

Outcome:
The participants felt energized, informed, engaged, and more ready for the challenges of their new position. They felt the understanding of diversity and inclusion as a key business strategy and the communication skills learned better prepared them to effectively recruit and manage a more diverse team, and to understand the needs of and sell to their increasingly diverse customers.

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Corporate Diversity Councils

Situation:
The diversity council of a business unit of one of the largest global diversified energy companies was comprised of scientists, engineers, administrators, and managers from across the unit. The council had three high-level objectives for a 1.0 to 1.5 day development program:

 

• Learn leading-edge organizational diversity and inclusion concepts
• Develop the team’s effectiveness
• Determine how best to support their business unit’s business objectives

Solution:
A custom program was designed to provide the council with leading-edge diversity knowledge, team development, and tools to implement Business-Aligned® diversity and inclusion planning.

The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) was used to assess the council’s current effectiveness in working with people of different cultural backgrounds. These results guided program design to maximize learning and minimize backlash. IDI group-based feedback and related experiential exercises provided deep learning and team development.

The program included practical background and perspective about diversity and inclusion, highlighted the connection between business results and intercultural communications effectiveness, and provided learning, tools, and practice in communications and developing Business-Aligned® diversity action plans.

Outcome:
The council achieved a dramatic shift in its thinking about the business potential of diversity and inclusion. They practiced developing action plans that achieve meaningful business results, and linked this to the council’s business planning process. The council also learned new skills to build their operating effectiveness both as a diversity council and individually in their technical work outside the council.

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Organization-Wide Learning

Situation:
A Fortune 100 company needed all its work teams to learn more about diversity and inclusion and the linkage to business success, to see diversity and inclusion at work in their company, and to develop their own action plans.

Solution:
The solution focused on engaging team supervisors and leaders and on distributed learning at the individual team level. A multimedia toolkit was developed that addressed team work processes and annual objectives. The toolkit included background on diversity and inclusion, examples of teams using these concepts to achieve meaningful business results, and an action planning framework.

After distributing the toolkit to managers, supervisors, and team leaders, they were asked to hold a meeting with the people they supported. In the meetings, teams acquired the intended learning and created action plans to incorporate the ideas into their own work.

An accompanying tool was designed to help employees develop their annual objectives and do their work in ways that built inclusion and creativity. This was deployed as part of the performance management process.

Outcome:
The first round of deployment created company-wide action plans and indications of positive impact. A second round was planned to more tightly align the teams’ action plans with strategic business goals.

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Leadership Development

Situation:
A large national fraternity was providing leadership development to all its chapter Presidents, and wanted this done from a perspective of diversity and inclusion.

Solution:
A keynote address was developed that highlighted how to use diversity and inclusion to drive one’s personal leadership style.

Outcome:
The chapter Presidents learned the linkage and acquired specific tools to use diversity and inclusion to shape their individual leadership. They successfully applied this framework to the rest of their developmental work.

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See more about how MDB Group can develop and deliver diversity and inclusion training customized for your employees and leadership.