Accelerate inclusion by adopting agile strategies

Methods honed by the tech and manufacturing industries are surprisingly relevant and effective for workplace culture

This next generation — Generation Z — won’t stifle their true selves and if they don’t feel included, they’ll likely leave.

But creating an inclusive culture isn’t a one-and-done process. Use agile methodology to create an inclusive culture and a workplace where diverse employees want to stay.

The agile strategy is based on lean manufacturing principles and is most prevalent in software development to develop innovative technology using iterative and sprint methods. It is predominantly employed when there is uncertainty, said Kevin Caringer, an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado at Denver who teaches information systems courses in the school’s MBA program.

In their book “Building the Agile Business Through Digital Transformation,” Neil Perkin and Peter Abraham note that agile businesses are those that can identify changes and adapt to rapidly meet client needs and develop new systems, products and ways of working.

Perkin and Abraham also note that companies decay slowly over time because they do what they did before with some minor changes. This concept applies to DEI programs and initiatives, too. Companies tend to do what they’ve always done and cite the stale program’s failure as a reason to stop trying.

Pamela Meyer clarifies in an article on the Scrum Alliance that if companies and firms want to utilize agile for DEI, they should primarily focus on the three principles of the agile methodology: transparency, inspection and adaptation.

Transparency. Meyer notes that transparency means everybody in the company knows what the initiatives are and they have the information they need to make decisions. Also, they know what decisions are being made, why they’re being made and how it impacts them.

Inspection. Inspection means that the teams and the companies are frequently checking themselves on implementing DEI initiatives and also checking their own assumptions and biases over time, Mayer says. In this stage, it might be helpful to do some introspective leadership work through programs like the Financial Planning Association and Latino Leadership Institute’s Insight to Inclusive Leadership Badge program.

Adaptation. Meyer explains that this means your team is willing to adapt in light of new information and discoveries. For instance, you might have identified unintentional discrimination in your hiring process (say you run your numbers though an HR tool and find you disproportionately advance white applicants), and so you adapt your process to better create an inclusive culture. Or if you run a pay audit and determine you’re inexplicably paying your female advisers far less than your male advisers, you can quickly adapt and shift the discrepancy.

COMMUNICATE TO CHANGE

But implementing the agile methodology means changing the culture of your firm. And that takes communication. “The secret sauce for the agile methodology is really the communication,” said Caringer.

Perkin and Neil outlined key principles for an agile business that you can utilize to start to change your culture, adapted for advisers:

Success and progress are defined by working outputs.
Deliver value — both to clients and stakeholders — through iterative sprint working that delivers value through continuous progress and momentum.
Effective cross-functional collaboration, supported through clear intent, is critical for success.
Empower teams to deliver through a flexible working environment characterized by trust and comfort with dissent. The best results emerge from small teams with a high degree of autonomy.
Minimize bureaucracy and politics with co-location and face-to-face communication as often as possible.
Technical excellence and good design are central to maintaining pace and agility.
Continuous improvement is achieved through embedded reflection time, and behaviors and culture that support learning. Change and iteration are constant, and the pace of progress never slows.

Apply these principles to DEI programs through the metrics designed to assess success, Caringer says. That is how an agile approach translates constant improvement to a client experience shaped by inclusion.

Ana Trujillo Limón is director of coaching and adviser content at Carson Group.