Creating A Diverse And Inclusive Workplace Is Your Competitive Advantage In The Marketplace with Maureen Berkner Boyt

Inside LaunchStreet interviews Maureen Berkner Boyt, the founder of The Movie Exchange, a training and mentoring organization for companies who want to develop, promote and retain women and create an inclusive workplace. We delve into why diversity and inclusion are a must-have strategy, and how it leads to business success. We also talk about how our own unconscious bias hinders innovation, and how to overcome those biases.

 

Key Takeaways:

[1:58] Why should we care about diversity and inclusion in business? Learn how avoiding pale, male, and stale can provide many profitable benefits to your business team including a higher team IQ and a greater number of business patents.

[3:00] Diversity in your business is really just common sense. If we are examining projects looking at lots of different angles, the outcome is simply going to be better.

[4:40] Why do businesses so often end up with team players that look exactly alike?  What is unconscious bias?

[6:26] Tamara and Maureen share experiences about unconscious bias including a man and a woman switching email addresses to test the theory of unconscious bias.

[9:15] How does a team leader begin to interrupt the bias? Is acknowledging that the bias exists enough?

[12:40] Three powerful tools are shared for women to have a more inclusive voice: One, the secret sauce everyone must have is a sponsor. Two, the “like me bias” must be identified. Three, teams must talk about the implication of sex.

[15:20] What are the rules of inclusive teams?

[18:58] Women must simply learn to say thank you!

[21:00] Leaders need to start ‘reaching down,’ and taking a second look for talent already on the team, and then sometimes providing that extra little push of encouragement for women to fully feel ready to participate.

[22:26] Do the “millennials” have more or less unconscious bias? The results may surprise you.

[24:44] What is the first step a business should take to begin to remove the bias?

[27:18] When a business gets inclusiveness right, it’s both a strategic competitive advantage and a strategic imperative.

[28:13] Find out why “shrink it and pink it,” just isn’t enough in the innovation marketplace.

[30:30] Get introduced to “naive realism” as Tamara shares a personal experience from early in her career.

[32:07] Learn about two successful businesses that are getting diversity right!  Listen to how they have achieved success and incredibly fast growth.

[34:22] Tamara and Maureen discuss actually going beyond the idea of, and into the implementation of busting up unconscious bias.

[37:18] Why should every strategic map include diversity and overcoming unconscious bias?  Why must it be measured and held accountable, to avoid sheer insanity?

[39:10] Hook up with Maureen at mo@moxieexchange.com