Walking the Talk, a ZRG company and a global leader in culture change, has released a new white paper entitled Shaping a Culture of Inclusion, a fundamental element in today’s corporate strategy.

Drawing upon decades of experience working with thousands of leaders in hundreds of organizations across the globe, Walking The Talk’s white paper provides considerable evidence that:

1. Inclusive cultures exhibit high levels of innovation, collaboration, and meritocracy that unleash potential and productivity that drives superior performance.

2. Inclusive culture cannot be achieved by simply adopting processes and systems. Behaviors and the beliefs that underpin those behaviors are critical. This starts with organizational leaders.

3. In today’s business environment, customers, employees, and partners are demanding to see evidence of inclusion. Companies that embrace and shape inclusive cultures are gaining market share and winning the war for talent.

According to Amanda Fajak, an Executive Director of Walking The Talk, although many leaders focus on inclusion, they aren’t having the impact or making the progress they want and need.

“In an inclusive culture, every team member, regardless of their background, finds a profound sense of belonging and connection. They feel appreciated for their unique qualities and the distinctive value they bring to the table,” Fajak said. “Today’s workforce needs to feel comfortable expressing their authentic selves in the workplace, with their opinions not merely heard but actively acknowledged and recognized.”

Meanwhile, there is also growing scrutiny of organizational cultures from customers, shareholders, boards, and employees, with an increasing demand to see real evidence of inclusion.

“For a company to build an inclusive culture, it requires sincere integration of everyone’s perspectives into decision-making processes,” Fajak added. “Why is this important? Creating an environment where people truly belong and are included has been shown to affect both top and bottom lines. Companies that get this right outperform their competitors.”

Grounded in research from 30 years of working with leaders to assess, diagnose, define, and create culture, Walking The Talk outlines how to shape and embed an inclusive culture and examines:

• What is an inclusive culture
• Why an inclusive culture matters
• How to build an inclusive culture
• The importance of behaviors, symbols, and systems in shaping a culture of inclusion
• How simple, everyday changes can make a tangible difference.

To download your copy of Walking the Talk’s “Shaping a Culture of Inclusion” white paper, click here.

About Walking The Talk
Walking The Talk helps organizations build more inclusive cultures by shifting the mindsets and behaviors of their people. This increases the impact of DEI initiatives to achieve business outcomes. Their approach to building inclusive cultures is holistic and considers:

1. Behaviors (Actions day-to-day).

2. Symbols (The visible decisions you make: How you use your time, assign resources, and who you have on your team).

3. Systems (The processes you use to manage HR systems, financial reporting, and budgeting). We identify the shared belief system that drives or hinders inclusion in the organization.

Walking the Talk’s simple, yet powerful three-step process takes organizational leaders step-by-step through a culture journey to increase inclusion by identifying the shared belief system that drives or hinders inclusion in the organization:

• Being receptive to others' ideas, perspectives, and feedback, as well as communicating readily and transparently.
• Keeping a modest view of your own importance.
• Having a restless and relentless desire to discover new things, to find out more, and deepen understanding.

Through market-leading qualitative diagnostic, Walking The Talk helps its clients understand their current culture, including whether the behaviors required to build an inclusive culture are encouraged or not, and whether behaviors that diminish inclusion are discouraged or tolerated. A key component of the diagnostic process is the assessment of the three key behavioral patterns that need to be present and healthy for inclusion to become the norm in the organization.