Beyond talk - how to build diverse and inclusive organizations
At the African Community Conservation Forum we convened two months ago, there was an essential session on building diverse and inclusive organizations. Africa is an incredibly diverse continent - yet despite such rich diversity - the face of African conservation has often reflected a primarily limited, privileged demographic, lacking diversity (and often exclusive) on many fronts.
During the session in Naivasha, a diverse group of African conservation leaders agreed that while this topic is often seen as sensitive and uncomfortable, we have to embrace, talk about and address it. To create real lasting change, organizations - including their leaders and teams - must take the courageous step to create the time and space to engage in open and safe conversations about how to truly build diverse and strong organizations. The session aimed to explore and understand new perspectives, and the leaders stressed that while open conversations are a start, they have to be followed by actions that institutionalize this work, keeping it a priority.
"The leaders emphasized that the more this topic is discussed, the more manageable the conversations become, allowing for clearer paths to implement change," explains Maliasili's Omagano Shooya, who facilitated the conversation.
Firstly, what do the terminologies mean?
More acronyms can often just create noise and confusion, and then the words and meaning behind them get lost. Here we want to define the terms, describe what DEI means and why it matters.
Diversity spans a spectrum of human experiences, backgrounds, and viewpoints. In conservation, this translates to embracing a wide array of voices, backgrounds, and experiences, recognizing the various ways that difference exists in your context.
Equity is the dedication to regularly assess systems and structures, pinpointing and eliminating biases in how opportunities and resources are distributed. The goal is to ensure everyone receives what they need to achieve fair outcomes.
Inclusion surpasses mere representation. It involves intentional actions that enable people of all characteristics to take part fully and create environments where everyone feels valued, respected, and heard, fostering a true sense of belonging.
Social justice is about fairness and equality in society. It means ensuring that everyone has the same rights, opportunities, and treatment, regardless of their background, so that everyone can live a life with dignity and respect.
Guidance and recommendations to go beyond talk
During the session at the forum, the leaders discussed and identified several strategies to move from talk to action.
1. It is not a checkbox item →
Building more equitable, diverse, and inclusive organizations shouldn't be about ticking boxes; it should be considered an integral part (and the DNA) of any organization that genuinely wants to commit to building stronger teams. Embracing diversity will make your team better by bringing in new ideas, ways of working, perspectives, and experiences. And equity and inclusivity will create more ownership, trust, and commitment.
2. The work begins with you →
We must start with valuing ourselves as leaders, and modeling this in our families, communities and workplace. As one leader pointed out, “Our values are not what we say but what we practice.”
It also means training ourselves and our teams to recognize unconscious biases. This exists when we unconsciously hold attitudes, or hold both negative and positive stereotypes about others. These biases are neither good nor bad, but they impact how we make day-to-day decisions. They show up in various ways such as who we hire, who gets listened to during meetings or how decisions are made that affect different categories of people. It calls us to cultivate empathy for the lives and experiences of others - putting ourselves in their shoes, especially when their lives and experiences are not similar to ours.
As with everything, there has to be room for mistakes. People are learning to let go of their biases, and to be more empathetic when using a language that is not familiar to them. Kind correction and assuming best intent goes a long way.
Define diversity in your context. For many parts of Africa, diversity isn't just about race and gender. It encompasses more than that and will often include the community you come from, your ethnicity, gender, physical ability, religious beliefs, clan, age, socioeconomic status, level of education and more. Leaders need to understand what diversity means in their context and incorporate it based on that.
3. Cultivate an inclusive organizational culture →
Leaders and organizations must nurture a culture that purposefully values diversity and inclusion, and consider it in every decision the organization makes such as the hiring process. For example, do you keep hiring people who went to certain schools, or speak a certain way? Do you hire people who come from a background similar to yours, or who conform to your way of doing things?
Having this lens helps reduce unconscious biases when hiring. We all have certain stereotypes of groups of people which affect the decisions we make. It's therefore important to not only be aware of them but also have them called out in recruitment policies, onboarding processes, etc. It's also vital to ensure that the organizational culture doesn't solely reflect the founders' perspectives but accommodates diverse viewpoints.
4. Ensure fair pay structures →
Leaders should find ways to establish fair and transparent pay scales. In many organizations, including conservation organizations and nonprofits, differing salaries based on terms like "expat" or "local" perpetuates inequality. Moving organizations toward equitable pay is essential, and having conversations with your donors about needing fair pay for everyone on your team should be part of this too.
5. Develop a pipeline of diverse leaders and facilitate leadership transitions →
Develop pathways for diverse leadership across the organization. This encourages different ways of thinking, leadership styles, and varied experiences. Beginning the process from the hiring stage ensures that planning leadership transitions is not an afterthought or a surprise, but the end of a talent management strategy within the organization. This topic was discussed at length at a recent webinar led by Maliasili’s CEO Fred Nelson and some of our partners. You can find a summary and recording of the webinar here.
6. Invest in the process →
Fostering diversity and inclusion requires significant investment for meaningful outcomes. Every worthwhile organizational process or system change needs investment to make it happen. Investing in the process may include time, resources, training, or other unforeseen needs, and you’ll want to plan and allocate resources to these.
7. It is a cross-cutting issue →
DEI should be a cross-cutting issue across an organization. Leaders must ensure that every team embraces it, fostering a unified and holistic approach toward creating a culture where all individuals feel valued and empowered.
As the conservation leaders stressed, discussions on this topic should be continuously evolving, and the recommendations above are not exhaustive, rather a place to start. Building a truly diverse and inclusive organization takes time, work, courage, honesty, patience, investment and ongoing reflection.