INdivisible: RADICALLY RETHINKING INCLUSION FOR SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS RESULTS

INdivisible shows how organizations can bridge the gap between the promise and practice of inclusion. Challenging today’s piecemeal approaches, it provides a comprehensive framework to achieve visible impact for business, society, and sustainability. It shows how everyone – senior leaders, middle managers and individuals – plays a part.Disruptive global challenges and shifting workforce expectations make it more important than ever to get inclusion right. Organizations need to draw on the skills, strengths and perspectives of the widest possible mix of people to find creative solutions and adapt to these changes. When inclusion flourishes, it galvanizes the whole working environment: attracting talent, fueling innovation, cultivating positive internal and external relationships, raising performance, and preparing organizations for the challenges ahead.Yet many companies struggle to achieve these desired business outcomes. Uncertain what inclusion really looks like, what action to take, or how to measure progress and impact, they too often focus on isolated initiatives.New thinking is needed to close the gap. In this powerful book, Alison Maitland and Rebekah Steele provide an effective way forward. They show why inclusion is indivisible from the way organizations operate and the results they achieve. They give solid facts supporting the business case and step-by-step guidance to make inclusion happen. Inclusion has to be more than an afterthought, more than a few questions in an employee engagement survey, more than offering people a sense of belonging, more than focusing only on single-identity marginalized groups, and more than an end in itself. Addressing the limitations of current initiatives, the book shows that an integrated strategy is needed to fully understand, measure and take action on inclusion.Drawing on their unique Inclusion IMPACT® approach, Maitland and Steele present a clear picture of what inclusiveness looks like, compelling case studies, and practical, immediate actions for senior leaders, middle managers and individuals to take.The book contains a whole-system strategic framework, novel measures and scorecards to demonstrate progress and the difference it makes, innovative ideas to design inclusion into the work environment, and a vision of cross-industry collaboration contributing to sustainability and to a more cohesive and caring society. Enhanced with powerful illustrations by J. Rodes Gardner, this ground-breaking book shows how to harness ‘the power of everyone’. It is for all who want to create more human and successful organizations – for the leader with the formal title, and the leader inside each individual.

Alison Maitland is a writer, speaker, adviser and coach. Specializing in leadership, inclusion and the changing world of work, she has co-authored two previous books, Future Work and Why Women Mean Business. A former long-serving journalist with the Financial Times, she is a Senior Fellow in Human Capital at The Conference Board and a Senior Visiting Fellow at Cass Business School, London. She is Chair of the Cass Global Women's Leadership Programme Executive Board and has served as Vice Chair of the International Women's Forum UK. She was Director of The Conference Board's European Council for Diversity and Inclusion in Business for nine years. alisonmaitland.com