Practical Ways to Contribute to Diversity & Inclusion

Bruce is the founder of ProjectManagementHacks.com, a resource for growing IT project managers.

  Career Development   Organizational Culture  

We have a long way to go to build a diverse and inclusive society. For a time, I wasn’t sure what to practically do about these challenges. The sheer scale and complexity of these issues felt overwhelming. However, I see a way forward—and it can start with looking for practical changes we make personally at the office and elsewhere.

Several studies suggest that from an organizational perspective, embracing diversity is also well worth it. In 2018, Harvard Business Review published research that diversity boosted financial performance in multiple companies. Last year, NPR reported that exposure to diversity could improve our creativity. That’s vitally important for project managers because we often face the challenge of solving new problems.

There are two parts to making progress on diversity and inclusion. The first step is self-knowledge and reflection; the second step is adding diversity and inclusion to our work as a standard practice.

Start With Self Knowledge
Some self-recognition is needed before we can act. This might feel somewhat passive if you are an action-oriented person, but it is a necessary foundation. Specifically, look at how cognitive bias tends to create barriers to diversity and inclusion:

1. Recognize “tradition bias.” Your organization has plenty of traditions and established ways of operating. In some ways, …

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