Interculturalist's Director of Coaching, Akiko Maeker, be presenting at the 28th Annual Forum on Workplace Inclusion. The topic of her presentation will be “Who Is Leading Your Diversity and Inclusion Initiative? Let’s Talk About the WHO of D&I Leadership.” The Forum on Workplace Inclusion is a learning conference that inspires new ideas and change in the diversity and inclusion space and takes place March 29-31, 2016, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The presentation will focus on how Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) leadership can be better. The premise is that designing and implementing D&I initiatives is not an easy task. Sometimes even the best intentioned D&I initiative fails. D&I leaders often pose the WHAT and HOW questions, “What should we do to increase diversity?” or “How can we create a culture of inclusion?” While these are important questions, there is a critical question too often ignored: Who is leading the D&I initiative? Who is the Chief Diversity Officer? Who are the people on a D&I committee? Who are the external consultants hired to work with the committee? The answers to these questions can make or break a D&I initiative.
Akiko's current research is the basis of the topic. She is investigating how one's intercultural competence affects how they view culture, diversity, and their work. Early results show that leaders and professionals, depending on their level of intercultural competence, tend to recognize or deny, accept or reject, utilize or ignore, or maximize or minimize the diversity that exists in the workplace.
In Akiko’s session, she will discuss a framework that will help organizational leaders and D&I professionals take a fresh look at their approach to D&I leadership with learning outcomes of the session to include shifting perspectives from only focusing on the WHAT and HOW of D&I initiatives to including the WHO of D&I leadership and assessing more fully what it means to be an effective D&I leader.
Will you be attending the conference? She's looking forward to meeting some of you there!