Category: Uncategorized

Introduction

A reader responded to Take the positive potential approach posted on my birthday – Jan 22^nd this year with the following message:

I’d appreciate a follow on from this thought-provoking blog including some concrete strategies or actionable steps for implementing these principles in practical settings. Also, how individuals in an organisation can address power dynamics which could significantly influence the pace and effectiveness of inclusion initiatives. Lastly, how might we measure and evaluate the effectiveness of inclusion initiatives, which is crucial for assessing progress, identifying areas for improvement, and ensuring accountability in promoting inclusivity within organization. 

I have delayed responding because with my current consultancy with my former employer I am continually refining my thinking as I talk with ERG leads. It has been useful to step outside my focus on disability and consider positive change in general.

Below I will respond to each point separately.

An initial overview

A conversation yesterday on the need to help mangers be more effective in meeting contemporary demands reminded me of the importance of developing a theory of what is going on – and then refining it as evidence becomes available. I speak in terms of evolution of workplace and community culture because that is how I have decided to look at my experiences. Rather than seeing a deficit to be corrected I see a potential to be attained.

Evolution is slow but inexorable. Activism in favour of disability started gaining momentum in the 1960s – along with other critical inclusion causes. In NSW we have the Disability Inclusion Act 2014. There were other moves to enshrine disability inclusion in law, but my point is that this act came into effect roughly 50 years after concerted demand for change got under way.

I have been in the public sector almost as long and I have seen a steady evolution of organisational attitudes toward staff wellbeing. In the latter part of the 1980s the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) introduced requirements to remove discriminatory requirements from job vacancies. It was a half-hearted move in the CES office where I was employed, but it was the start of a vital change.

I don’t have a clear understanding of when Inclusion and Diversity teams became the norm in public sector agencies in New South Wales, but I wasn’t aware of the one in my department until mid 2010, when its Disability Employee Network was established. 

Now the presence of multiple ERGs is a testimony for the need for ongoing and more effective action to improve work experience for members of a spectrum of diversity groups. It’s taken 50 years to get to this point and there’s a lot of work to be done yet.

So why advocate a positive evolutionary approach rather than more vigorous agitation?

Quite simply a decent appreciation of our psychology doesn’t support blaming or pressure. Contemporary workplaces are high pressure from core business demands, so adding additional expectations to conform to inclusion goals can be counter-productive.

While many of us are innately inclusive, others are not – for personal or cultural reasons. Even those who are inclusive are not constantly ‘disability aware’. That takes intentional commitment, involvement and continuity of engagement. Not everyone has the need, motive, or opportunity to develop that level of awareness.

While evolutionary forces will move our communities toward greater inclusivity eventually, simply because there is a majority of people who are inherently inclusive and who are support of positive, we need to think about how effective the change advocates are. In no area of activity does having right on your side constitute a sufficient basis for being effective and successful.

Accelerating the pace of positive change is a high-skill job anywhere and the fact that those who participate in seeking change via ERGs are volunteers doesn’t change the need for high skills. I participated in bush search and rescue in Tasmania many decades ago. We were mostly volunteers, but we had to be skilled and competent. Volunteers are no less accountable for ensuring good outcomes. In this case people’s lives depended on us.

If we have a theory of what is going on we can shape our skills and direct our actions to best effect. If we engage in reflective practice we can refine our theory, upgrade our skills, and make our actions more effective – the action learning cycle.

Some concrete strategies or actionable steps for implementing these principles in practical settings

• See being an inclusion advocate as a skilled role. This includes developing a discourse model that helps you to clearly articulate what you want, and why you want it. Here is a useful starting point.
• Inclusion must be a personal commitment that is universally applied. You can’t focus on disability inclusion and ignore the other diversity groups. You must ensure you are not unintentionally discriminating against other people. Understanding the nature and extent of bias is essential.
• Being authentic and empathic in your interactions with the people you want to influence is critical. This isn’t easy to do initially. Your right to be agitating for change must be calmly centred.

How individuals in an organisation can address power dynamics which could significantly influence the pace and effectiveness of inclusion initiatives

• So much depends on an organisation’s leadership culture and its attitude toward inclusion. You can’t assume that a positive attitude toward inclusion is backed by an informed understanding of how to progress from intent to attainment. Equally you can’t assume reluctance arises from aversion to inclusion.
• Inclusion advocates must have a clear sense of situational leadership, as opposed to leadership based on role and rank. I recommend Loretta Malandro’s Fearless Leadership: How to Overcome Behavioral Blindspots and Transform Your Organization. 
• How inclusion advocates approach an organisation’s leaders is critical. You can be an agitator or an ally. There’s a lot said about inclusion advocates seeking allies in support of their cause and virtually nothing about them being allies to, for example, an organisation’s DEI team. Telling an organisation that you want to help it meet its inclusion obligations and goals makes more sense than calling out its perceived failures.
• Its not easy for an organisation to meet its inclusion goals. Doing so stretches the organisation, its DEI team, and its staff. Change, even for those who are willing, takes cognitive and emotional effort. We mostly can’t honour our own freely made New Year’s Resolutions. Inclusion advocates can’t go to an organisation’s leadership naïve about what they are asking for – and certainly must avoid placing the onus of change upon the executive. I know it’s a cliché but we must be the change we want to see.

How might we measure and evaluate the effectiveness of inclusion initiatives, which is crucial for assessing progress, identifying areas for improvement, and ensuring accountability in promoting inclusivity within organization.

• Most well-run organisations have methods for measuring how effective actions are. Much will depend upon how well-resourced and supported its DEI team is – and whether staff are motivated to participate in their means to measure success.
• Inclusion advocates must be close allies of DEI teams and support their efforts to measure responses and outcomes.
• ERGs should have their business model that helps them measure how effective they are. I recently came across The ERG Handbook by Aimee K. Broadhurst and Supercharge Your ERGs by Joseph Santana. Broadhurst’s book is a comprehensive guide that covers the key steps needed to develop a good business model that embraces ways to self-evaluate performance. I haven’t read Santana yet.
• If there is a good working partnership between an ERG, the organisation’s executive and its DEI team there will be a commitment to evaluating efforts to grow inclusion and accessibility.

Conclusion

I have intentionally focused on the skills and capabilities of inclusion advocates and their ERGs because without these skills and capabilities any activities are less likely to deliver the outcomes desired.

As I have noted, being a change advocate is a skilled role. Such an advocate must work with the psychology of individuals, groups and organisations. In larger corporations this is acknowledged as a critical and well-paid role. But DEI is often seen substantially as a ‘feel good’ thing driven by passionate people – paid if they are members of a DEI team but mostly volunteer if members of an ERG. True, some corporations offer some degree of compensation to ERG leads and, rarely, an ERG lead might be a paid role.

My commitment is to professionalise the standards of inclusion advocates and ERGs leads because such a role is complex and difficult. There are ‘gifted amateurs’ of course, but they are either self-taught or have critical professional experiences, training or education that give them a solid foundation upon which to build a reputation for being highly effective.

Disability Inclusion will be an ongoing challenge simply because our workplaces are continuous experiments in complexity and diversity as our communities evolve. In decades past discrimination was the casual norm. Now it is a contested norm. But how that contest plays out will be the difference between discrimination still being a norm in another 50 years or being an exception a decade hence.

We can/must choose to contest with knowledge, insight, skill, and empathy.

Introduction

I live in the Blue Mountains, about 100 kms west of Sydney. It is a beautiful region loved by Sydneysiders as a destination for day outings. I have mixed feelings about this – as any anybody living in an attractive destination knows. We can be overrun by visitors on weekends and holidays. In 2020 and into 2021 COVID brought residents a period of blessed respite. We had the place to ourselves – and that was wonderful. That said I do believe that people with disability are equally entitled to be a nuisance.

The Blue Mountains City Council (BMCC) has an impressive commitment to inclusion and accessibility. In June this year (2024) it launched its Blue Mountains Mobility Map. As a member of the council’s Access Advisory Committee, I was able to contribute some thoughts to the map’s development.

I was particularly impressed that the council committed itself to developing the map with limited funds and produced a useful web-based tool that could be accessed on mobile phones (as well as tablets and computers). This was an innovation that had potential to be replicated across the state, across the nation and beyond.

What does the map do?

The map covers the BMCC local government area, principally localities along the Great Western Highway. The map gives the opportunity to identify accessible playgrounds, toilets, parking, walking tracks and lookout as well as other facilities and services. It means that people like me with mobility disabilities can plan a visit to the region and not have to guess whether a potential destination is accessible.

You can explore the map here.

The value of the map to a person with mobility challenges

I don’t travel as much as I used to. Places and travel routes are not as accessible as I need. So, when I do go anywhere I have to plan carefully. Travelling itself is bad enough for me. It can be draining physically and emotionally. It is hence deeply disappointing to arrive and have no idea where is accessible, inclusive and safe. The opportunity to consult a map that guides me on what and where is accessible would be a huge advantage. 

My personal reaction to this Mobility Map is that it must become a universal tool to which other critical information can be added. My major travel gripe is the way motels misrepresent that they have ‘accessible’ rooms. Last year I travelled east to the coast and booked into a motel I was assured was accessible. It was true there was a handrail into the shower and steady grips in the shower cubicle. But I am 186 cms tall and I had to bend over a lot to grip the handrail, rendering it useless. It was way too low. The toilet had a grip mounted on the wall, but it was too low and too close to be on any use to me.

I have previously approached the NSW government recommending that it set standards concerning claims about accessibility made by motels. I mostly travel solo, so I don’t have a companion who can look out for my safety. In the last 5 years I have found only one motel with a genuinely accessible room – The Shearing Shed in Dubbo. I was told I was lucky to have gotten the room, given the demand for it.

My vision is a statewide mobility map that also provides real information about a whole range of accessibility concerns,  including accessible accommodation – something the BMCC map does not yet cover.

The potential of a mobility map

Aside from my issues about accessible accommodation there are questions about whether a variety of facilities and services are accessible. This includes cafes, restaurants, and shops as well as other businesses.

I use Google maps a lot and I am sometimes irritated by the number of businesses whose information clutters my screen. But that tells me there is a possibility of enticing accessible businesses to make their presence known on a mobility map. 

I think the map is a wonderful idea whose potential begs to be developed. I understand that in realising this potential money and management beyond a local council’s scope. But at a regional or state level realising that potential is eminently doable.

The ideal would be to develop the mobility map as an app for mobile devices as well as computers.

Conclusion

I contracted GBS in 2008 and acquired permanent mobility and grip disabilities. In 2009 I bought my first iPhone and discovered how mobile technology could enhance my lived experience of disability.

My first response to the BMCC’s mobility map wasn’t that it would make my life in this community any better. I have lived here 22 years. My immediate reaction was to imagine how good it would be to have such a map available when I visit places I don’t know. At the moment, a visit to an unfamiliar destination requires a lot of net-based preparation. This is especially the case when it comes to identifying accessible toilets, parking, recreation areas and accommodation.

The BMCC has opened up an extraordinary potential that all people who need to know how accessible a community or destination is can benefit from. The mobility map should have ongoing refinement, of course.

Check the map out. Urge your local government to create something similar. Better still urge it to create a coalition of local governments who can share costs or access funding.

Introduction

I was recently alerted to a promo for training for ERGs and this set me to wondering what I now think of the idea. After all my operation as an ERG lead was transformed after one keynote conference speech and participation in a day long workshop on Networkology.

So much depends on the nature of the training and the skill/experience level of those participating. In an ideal world there would be a perfect match of training content and format with need. In the real world that match is mostly down to good fortune and destiny. I didn’t go to the 2018 AND Annual National Conference intending to get a transformational education. I may have been the only ERG lead at this event at the right stage of my development to extract maximum benefit from the experience.

For the past 14 months I have been providing periodic mentoring support to a handful of ERGs leads. This experience has been an opportunity for me to rethink, and sometimes re-imagine, how ERGs might be supported. I currently have a bias toward longer term mentoring over short-term training. But I can see that either option may serve particular needs.

Below I want to reflect on a few ideas about training and mentoring for ERGs.

Is training always a good idea?

It isn’t. It’s often a waste of time. This is for 2 key reasons:

1. It often provides an intense burst of information which overloads our cognitive capacity and doesn’t build long term capability.
2. There is rarely any follow up.

I am not a fan of training as a concept. I prefer education. Training has its place in many contexts, but not in all. You can be trained in a particular skill, but you must be educated to acquire a skill set. Training tends to be seen as a time-limited exercise in learning a skill or a discrete set of information delivered in isolation. Education implies skill development plus the acquisition of knowledge developed over time and in some cultural context.

True, there are training courses that extend beyond one session and may have multiple sessions over weeks or months. Here I am not trying to create a clear or definite distinction between training and education. Rather stimulate awareness of the spectrum of ways we can learn.

There’s a huge difference between acquiring knowledge and skills and applying them. When it comes to running an ERG well so much depends on what skills, experience and knowledge you bring to the role – and hence what your need developmental needs are.

In short, if your developmental needs match the content of a training course, take the course. But how do you know whether you have assessed your developmental needs accurately?

What is involved in running an ERG well?

When I first encountered Kate Nash’s idea of Networkology I had an idea of what management and leadership were as defined skill sets – based on years of reading and research. That was in 2018. Since then, I have come to better appreciate that these skills are built on academic disciplines and a scientific approach (psychology and neuroscience).

Not all ERG leads come with a solid background/education in management and leadership. Neither do they come with experience in navigating organisational politics or have reputational standing with the organisation’s executive leadership.

Some organisations grant their ERGs high status. Others do little more than sanction an ERG’s establishment and grant modest support. ERG leads can be selected by competitive recruitment or election by ERG members.

Some ERGs are seen as an accountable business unit and others are led by volunteers with an ill-defined function.

A minimal requirement for a successful ERG is skilled leadership operating a body recognised as being integrated into the organisation’s inclusion policies and accountable to members (meeting needs and delivering outcomes) and the organisation’s executive leadership (value for money and contribution to inclusion objectives). 

But who might know this? Who might agree that this, or an alternative, formula is what should be applied?

Whole organisation training/education

If there is only a focus on developing the skills of ERG leaders there is a risk that, unless the ERG leads are very carefully selected, the skill deficit might be significant and beyond the realistic capacity of any training program.

The critical foundational requirement for any ERG is that there is a clear understanding of, and commitment to, the ERG coming from the organisation’s executive leadership, and ERG sponsors and champions. These people, plus the ERG leads, should participate in a shared experience of mutual discovery, trust building and expectation clarification.

The challenge of running an ERG well isn’t just down to ERG leaders. The welfare of staff is an organisational responsibility, and an ERG is just one manifestation of that responsibility playing out. But an organisation is a community, not an assembly of unrelated parts. The ERG and the organisation’s  leadership are interdependent.

We must think in terms of shared responsibility and collaboration, and not in terms of heroic struggle against uncaring or oppressive forces. Yes, elements of an organisation can most certainly be uncaring and oppressive, but countering them is a shared responsibility.

I have argued elsewhere that inclusive organisations reflect our cultural evolution toward embracing diversity (despite the periodic hiccups). This means that for most organisations their DEI policies and practices are exploratory and experimental. Nobody is expert in making inclusion happen. It is novel and all practitioners are ‘building their airplane while flying it’.

Hence to imagine that ERGs alone need training and developing misses the scope of the challenge and unreasonably places the burden of responsibility upon an ERG. Let’s take a moment to tease out who needs to evolve their thinking and practice:

• An organisation’s senior executive leadership – so it can provide guidance to the organisation on what permissions to give, what resources to allocate, and what expectations to sanction.
• Executive sponsors and champions – who can support ERG leads through coaching and mentoring and develop relationships with ERG leads so they feel confident about putting their reputations on the line to promote the ERG’s cause.
• ERG leaders – their role is complex. In some organisations it is a ‘wildcard’ role that sits outside normal ideas of hierarchy and acknowledged lines of authority. This is especially so if the ERG lead does not have a leadership background or status. The risk of electing ERG leaders is that they may have potential but not experience and so require well thought-through support.

This is the critical triad. When it works well the potential of an ERG is unleashed. This was my experience as an ERG lead. But that was not by design, rather fortune smiling. In my consultancy I have had to ask how to convert good fortune into effective intentional action.

An ideal training model

I think all elements of the critical triad must participate in developmental experiences which reflect the reality that this is all a novel evolutionary situation, and all parties must acquire new insights. But the novelty must be admitted to, as must be the need to learn how to get maximum benefit from setting up an ERG.

I will suggest a few ideas that should be part of a shared learning action:

• The development of an appreciation of how the demand for equity and inclusion has evolved over the past near 70 years. The demand became a movement in the 1960s. It has taken this long to get where we are now. What does that tell us?
• Understand that this is an evolution, not a struggle of good against evil. Not everybody is quickly capable of expressing their innate sense of goodwill in a universal way. Many have cultural and personal disincentives to be inclusive, and these will not be overcome by rational appeals. Habits of thought and feeling are deeply ingrained at an individual psychological level. Change requires significant cognitive effort – so the reason to change must be compelling and aspirational. Action is more potent than argument.
• Managing the politics of changing behaviours requires understanding how persuasion is best engaged in. None of the members of the critical triad are immune from needing this knowledge. We can persuade people to comply but that does not mean that behaviour has changed to conform with new insights, only to appear to meet requirements. Deep learning and behavioural change come only from the authentic engagement of personal emotions. It is hard work, so there must be a compelling reason to undertake it – other than appearing to comply. We are all good at faking it.
• ERG leaders may not be seen as members of the elite leadership in-group if their status in the organisation does not warrant that assumption or extension of membership. That limits the perception of credibility and right of influence. If ERGs are assumed to have the same status as unions, rather than as partners in helping an organisation achieve its equity and inclusion goal, that can place a gulf between the ERG leader and other leaders. The potential for collaboration recedes into unconscious and unintended competition.

The value of mentoring

As an ongoing commitment, ERG leads should be mentored by Executive Sponsors and Executive Champions. This has two advantages. It creates development opportunities for ERG leads who have less developed skills and it ensures that the organisation has insight into the challenges faced by ERG leads. Mentoring primarily builds strength in mentees, but it also is a lens on problems that do require executive intervention or more extensive action. 

Mentoring also minimises the risk of failure. I have noted elsewhere that while organisations do not intentionally set up ERGs to fail, failure is more likely if there is no linkage between ERG leads and executive leadership. Mentoring can be a subtle form of supervision as well as guidance, reflecting an organisation’s concern that the ERG is on track in delivering agreed outcomes.

Mentoring must be predicated upon a sound foundation of understanding of an ERG’s agreed function and purpose – what its value proposition is, and what its standing is within the organisation. Such a foundation is built when the organisation’s Senior Executive Leadership, the ERG’s Executive Sponsor and Executive Champions, the ERG leads, and the DEI team undertake a shared ‘training’ session how to run and support an ERG. Such a session should be revisited periodically to ensure there is ongoing agreement on understandings, insights and commitments. 

Building this foundation is the most critical learning/development experience for all players. Other skill acquisition needs can be identified and addressed via mentoring and accessing other L&D sources. 

I am arguing that there should not be ERG-specific training for ERG leads beyond understanding how ERGs function. The Incredible Power of Staff Networks by Cherron Inko-Tariah was immensely helpful to me. I can definitely see benefit from training of this kind. The unique nature of ERGs must be understood.

ERGs must fit within an organisation’s DEI policy and practice commitments, so any other training and development must be mainstream.

Conclusion

ERGs will have developmental needs. But which of them cannot be satisfied through a program of mentoring and accessing existing L&D resources? In some cases, where ERG leads are elected, rather than selected, and there is no control over a requirement for prerequisite capabilities, a more intensive training need may be apparent. Here mentoring and coaching might have to be more frequent and more intensive.

My aversion to training, having undertaken a huge amount over my public sector career (spanning over 4 decades) is that its not very sticky. The ideal of Life-Long Learning was finally abandoned a few years back as a forlorn cause. You must be a motivated learner to extract maximum benefit from a brief training experience – and that’s not most of us. I have no memory of ever having a follow up or review of my any of training experiences. 

Learning comes from exposure, immersion, commitment and repetition (EICR). This, at least, is true of the things I have become very good at doing. A motivated learner will seek out opportunities for EICR, but unless an organisation is on the same page it is unlikely to provide such opportunities as a matter of course. Coaching and mentoring are still not routine supports offered within organisations to even highly motivated learners.

Its not usual for mangers and executives in general to appreciate the need for EICR, so we can’t assume that any learning experience is going to reinforced with effective follow up.

I think the idea that ERG leads need training in an isolated skill set is flawed – if it is seen as a panacea. Would ERG leads benefit from being supported to enhance their skills? Of course. But that applies to any leader.

What those needs might be will depend upon how the organisation, and the ERG leads understand the ERG’s nature and role. Is it a volunteer staff committee representing the interests of certain staff groups or is it a de facto business unit providing lived experience feedback on how certain policies or procedures are playing out?

It’s not sufficient to assume the spectrum of needs ERG leads may have. We must understand the role of an ERG and then ensure all the players have a shared need for mutual comprehension and trust which is then satisfied. We must keep in mind this is about collaboration in meeting a shared objective.

Introduction

Neuroscientists tell us that the pain of being excluded isn’t different from pain caused by a physical injury. Saying that exclusion ‘hurts us’ isn’t metaphorical. So why do humans cause pain to other humans without seeming to care? Any dive into our history will tell us it was ever thus. The question should be ‘why do humans cause pain to those they should care about and care for?’ 

The key word is ‘should’.  Our widely agreed principles that set the desired tone and character of our communities are aspirational. They are not mandatory. In fact, even ‘should’ is a disguised ’must’ and it is better we express our aspirations as a hope. So, we can reframe that sentence as:

The question should be ‘why do humans cause pain to those we hope they might care about and care for?’ 

While the social model of disability conveys a real need to ensure our communities and infrastructures are accessible and inclusive it is not the entire story. Disability can cause suffering in and of itself – and this often exacerbated by exclusion and inaccessibility. Responding to the social model of disability must be more than obedience to a social justice imperative. It must be a response to real suffering by real people.

It is generally understood that learning doesn’t effectively happen unless our emotions are aroused and engaged. We don’t change how we think or act unless we are motivated. We learn and grow best when our emotions are engaged, and we develop the desire to put in the cognitive effort to evolve how we think and behave.

We are more disposed to be empathic and compassionate when we comprehend that a person who we are aware of, or concerned about, is experiencing pain – physical or emotional. This is especially so if that pain is caused, or exacerbated, by something we have, or have not, done.

A complicating factor is that interpretations of neuroscientific research suggest that people in power positions are less empathic. Indeed, I have read that getting a power position can switch off empathy responses in a way similar to acquiring brain damage can. 

An inverse relationship between power and empathy seems natural and makes sense when you think about it. You don’t want generals overly empathic about their troops. They might decide that combat is a WHS hazard they can eliminate by not fighting – wait, maybe this isn’t as good an argument as I first thought. 

But it just isn’t helpful at all when leadership in improving inclusion and accessibility is expected from executives and managers. Contemporary ideas of leadership see it more as a personal attribute rather than just a positional responsibility. This suggests that leadership in improving inclusion and accessibility may best come from those who are inherently more empathic and compassionate – and this is a compelling argument for ERGs.

We here must also distinguish between power and influence. Power created by positional authority may trigger non-empathic behaviour, but influence created by effective leadership must be empathic. Our organisations are transitioning from reliance on positional or status-based power and authority to influential leadership. But such an evolution is naturally slow. ERGs must understand where they fit into this evolution and create their best opportunities to achieve their goals.

Activating our natural capacity for empathy and compassion

Our potential for empathy and compassion is strongest when we see people as belonging to our in-group. What that in-group is depends upon many things and can be at any scale – from humanity in general down to a select few intimates. We generally accept that the larger that group is the better – for obvious reasons. 

In practical terms the in-group is our wider community (subject to laws and policies at a national or state level), our local community (place-based), our specific cultural/interest community, our family, our friends, and our workplace community. This isn’t intended to be an exhaustive list.

Workplaces have subdivisions which may or may not have associated senses of in-groups – divisions, business areas, work teams, regional or local offices. In-groups can exist among staff at certain grades (executive, managers, non-managerial staff, professional or specialist groups).

Whatever the in-group whether it is empathic and compassionate depends on its culture – and that usually means its leadership. Toxic workplace cultures are not uncommon. It is often said that employees don’t quit organisations, they quit teams (or relevant work group).

There are two important considerations:

• In-groups created by executives and managers can risk keeping their potential for strong empathy and compassion within their own in-group boundaries and not express those qualities as a key aspect of their leadership functions (be reminded above – about how power can reduce empathy).
• Work teams subject to low skill and/or non-empathic management may experience suppression or control of local empathic and compassionate responses. Frustration of efforts to address the inclusion and accessibility needs of team members through a manager’s non-responsiveness or non-compliance with the organisation’s policies is commonly reported.

ERGs are potentially a potent tool for activating and focusing staff’s potential for empathy and compassion. A critical element in realising this potential is engaging with the organisation’s executive leadership to create a positive feedback loop. Sometimes the best initial response from executive leaders is the sanctioning of the establishment of an ERG. The executive can do more, of course – but this is the critical act because it unleashes huge potential – when we understand that it does.

The next phase is the unfolding of the ERG’s potential and its engagement with the executive leadership to complete the circuit through which the potential for empathy and compassion can be activated and generate change through the whole organisation. This requires an ERG to realise its potential as a leader in stimulating empathy and compassion.

Conclusion

What prompted this post was partly a call from a former colleague who told me of their return to work and the lack of empathy and understanding they encountered. It was also partly exploring a theme that arose from a story of poor planning and consultation in relation to several other staff with mobility disabilities.

All the people I spoke with were people for whom I have affection and respect. But then it also struck me that they all had another thing in common. Their disabilities caused them pain and distress regularly, and on bad days even more so. Situations leading to inaccessibility or reduced accessibility added further adversity that reflected in their struggles to work well and to enjoy a personal life that wasn’t dominated by the need to recover because of work-related situations caused by non-empathic decisions. There’s a whole separate story here that I will tackle soon.

Living with a disability that causes pain and psychological distress is bad enough. This reality isn’t spoken of because doing so can seem like complaining – and we mostly prefer people with disability to be heroic. I am writing this just before the 2024 Paralympics start. No medal winning hero is going to say how much pain they experience normally or in the pursuit of their dreams. We witness their passion for excellence with no understanding what must be ensured to achieve it. That’s fine when the pain is self-inflicted in pursuit of a personal goal that is beyond our normal scope of attainment. That’s something many of us know – but not a majority.

Workplaces are meant to be safe and inclusive. Going to work may carry a price of pain and stress because of one’s disability but WHS obligations also require an organisation to minimise hazards at work – physical and psychological. There is a vital distinction between self-inflicted pain and that inflicted or caused by others.

However, awareness of pain imposed won’t happen if staff with disability don’t communicate the human reality of getting to, being at, and returning from the workplace to decision-makers and those they share their workplaces with.

We can’t expect that demands to change or improve a situation will be acceded to on purely rational grounds (abstract and impersonal). We all prioritise how we feel and act on emotional terms. We will usually respond with empathy and compassion when those attributes are activated – and that can’t happen unless we become aware of the true dimension of lived experience of disability (or any other generator of exclusion and inequity).

ERGs have extraordinary potential as situational and role-based leaders to activate and transmit our natural senses of empathy and compassion. This is a natural leadership function. It not about doing what an organisation’s leadership is failing to do but what an ERG’s natural role is. In the evolution of any culture, we cannot focus on perceived failures and assign blame. We must focus on the potential to change through positive action. 

ERGs have a natural leadership role of bringing awareness of the authentic human reality of their membership’s workplace experience to decision-makers and peers. Activation of our capacity for empathy and compassion is the first step. The next is guiding their response toward effective action. That’s also another story.

Introduction

I have been listening to podcasts on training and DEI from the Neuroleadership Instituterecently. Both made the critical point about building habits – learning habits and inclusion habits. As a rule, you build habits through repetition and reinforcement. And you get neither from doing a one-off course.

I am not a fan of e-learning. It has some use when conveying specific skills – so long as you quickly practice them and continue to do so. I did a lot of ‘courses’ when I was working fulltime, including a pilot disability awareness course, which I failed. This pilot required participants to read a section and then get a passing grade on a quiz before they could progress to the next section. One early section had a quiz statement you had to agree or disagree with. The ‘correct’ response was to agree. The statement said something like People with disability are not limited in what they can do because of their disability. I disagreed. I could not progress.

There was no way I was going to agree because this was a bs statement. There are so many jobs I can’t do because of my disabilities. It had no place in any disability awareness training in my view. And I have huge issues about the idea you can ‘train’ anybody to be inclusive. You ‘train’ yourself through intentional repetition and reinforcement, so long as you are motivated to do so. 

Organisations can make available opportunities to engage with the theme of disability awareness and encourage staff to take them up. But nothing like that can be sensibly called training. Sure, you can ‘educate’ – as in providing information and creating opportunities for ‘action learning’. But that’s not training in any sense.

Below I want to reflect on my own efforts to develop a decent degree of disability awareness.

Having a disability isn’t an assurance of inclusivity

I have mobility and manual dexterity disabilities, so I am inclined to be empathic toward people likewise blighted (yes, having a disability can be a blight – something that has a “severely detrimental affect” [OED]). But the idea that having one disability somehow makes you magically sensitive to all is just silly. 

When I became Chair of the DCJ Disability Employee Network (DEN) I was swiftly informed by my blind and deaf colleagues that I had not a clue about what I needed to do to ensure they were effectively included in what the DEN did. We hadn’t even gotten to their workplace experiences. They were trying to be fully included in the ERG set up to support them.

I had to break my exclusive habits, and that took close on 18 months of repetition and reinforcement. I was highly motivated to learn, and as I did learn the scenarios that I encountered became more varied and complex – and this made the depth of my ignorance ever more apparent.

The idea that a manager, no matter how well-motivated, can be ‘trained’ into being inclusive of people with disability with one course is a fantasy we must dispel. The best an e-learning course can do is introduce some basic ideas which then must be employed and developed into a practice via repetition and reinforcement.

I do so wish we can all move on from the fantasy that learning is about only cognitive input (the information silver bullet fallacy). We must engage emotions and excite commitment via a desire for repetition and reinforcement if learning is to stick and evolve as a changed behaviour. 

To become more disability aware, I think you also need engaged empathy. That is, you need to be motivated to be empathic. That’s a personal choice. An organisation can encourage and facilitate the development of empathic response, but it cannot ‘train’ it into being. You can’t mandate empathy.

Some lessons

Toward the end of 2018 I was playing around with ideas that led to the development of the DEN’s Roundtables (structured and facilitated presentations by around 4 staff with disability on their lived experience of having a disability in the workplace to groups up to 20). I asked 4 DEN members to sit down with half a dozen managers for an unstructured chat about being a person with disability in the department. Three managers later told me that they had recently attended a disability awareness training session provided by the NSW Public Sector Commission but found our exercise immensely more rewarding.

Disability awareness isn’t about information, but awareness which triggers a desire to know more and to be more empathically responsive. You can’t ‘train’ for that. It is a personal growth ‘journey’ and not about information harvesting. You can stimulate an empathic response through exposure to lived experience stories. You can encourage staff to be more empathic by modelling behaviour which is inclusive and kind. Workplace cultures are essentially influenced by how leaders behave. They can set an empathic person-centred culture – or they can impede it and even discourage such a culture from emerging.

In 2019 I participated in a presentation on disability awareness to a group of Directors and Executive Directors from my department’s Corporate Services division. I was one of 3 speakers, apart from our Executive Champion. We spoke of our experiences of living and working with disability. Later 10 members of the audience volunteered to be Disability Champions. 

The other speakers were a deaf member of staff and a blind staff member. Both spoke of how they struggled to give their best effort because of exclusionary barriers, and their desire to feel included as a staff member with a sense of rightful belonging and an equal opportunity perform at their best.

That experience demonstrated how it was possible to have a potent impact through talking about lived experience of exclusion in an open and non-blaming way. When I left the Chair role in 2020 the DEN had over 30 executives and regional managers as Champions. In 2024 that number stands at 47. That is an impressive number of senior staff who have expressed a willingness to be more engage disability awareness and equity issues. It is a potential yet to be fully explored. I think we have needed to develop a more sophisticated and nuanced appreciation of how influential champions can be. I have explored this in past posts and will be looking more deeply in coming posts.

Attention, effort, and motivation 

These days organisations are squeezed by pressures from all sides. The mantra ‘Do more with less’ is heroically repeated and staff volunteering their time to run ERGs are under especially pressure. They must be genuinely deeply committed to the cause. So, it is important to understand how best to support them. Training isn’t the answer. Improving levels of disability awareness takes a lot more.

Some for-profit enterprises take their DEI commitments seriously because it makes good business sense. DEI is a sophisticated and nuanced aspect of a business model, where seeking and retaining talent is an imperative. In the public sector, where there is no clearly accountable bottom-line, DEI is more often about compliance with law and government policy mandates. It is rarely resourced adequately and even more rarely understood as a legitimate workforce issue. WHS, retention of skilled staff, public sector social obligation to ensure representation of the community in its workforce profile are all relevant to staff with disability.

Development of disability awareness demands attention and commitment. And to have those you also need motivation. Compliance with law and policy excites only minimal and tokenistic responses. The actual benefit of inclusion isn’t usually assessed from the perspective of principles and moral imperatives – but in terms of compliance with law and government priorities. From a public sector position the impact of failing to be inclusive is rendered obscure because there is no accountable bottom line other than reporting in ways that can conceal the realities about failures to meet targets or standards. The resources needed to meet legal, policy and moral obligations are constrained by the constant squeezing of the public purse.

The motive for managers and leaders in a position to influence how disability awareness and disability inclusion efforts are realised comes down to a personal commitment. The effort required to become disability aware is significant. It is unlikely, often, that normal working hours are sufficient to do the work needed.

It is an extra burden to be taken on. Some managers and executives are highly motivated because of their personal experiences (having friends or family with disability, being a carer, or past work experience) to become disability aware in their workplace. For others without that close contact to the reality of disability the transition to disability awareness is more demanding. Something has to substitute for the motivational energy that comes from direct intimate connection with the human reality of disability – and that is sustained intentional effort.

Conclusion

Disability awareness is developed over time and only through repeated exposure at regular intervals. Its not the same thing as having information about disability. Being aware of something is not the same thing as having a relationship with it. The empathy and respect needed to ensure staff with disability have what they need requires ‘awareness’ in the widest meaning we can apply. Having an empathic relationship with them is essential. It acknowledges their lived experience, not just living with disability, but of inaccessibility and exclusion. It is the latter that is the most compelling, but often it’s the former that triggers awareness of how just how damaging the latter is to an individual’s wellbeing. 

What we can do is:

• Create opportunities for authentic conversations between staff with disability and executives, managers, and peers in a way that encourages repetition of empathic responses and reinforcement of insights.
• Stop seeing disability as a separate category that requires special handling and start seeing it one aspect of the spectrum of being human which requires sometimes singular responses to address an inequity.
• Encourage a sense of universal diversity which dignifies every person with an expectation of respectful and empathic response when they need a non-ordinary response to address a short-term or long-term need to ensure their access to equal opportunity to do their best work.
• Discard the myth that we can train for empathy and respect and replace it with active engagement in the creation of an empathic and respectful work culture. This must be expressed at the top of any organisational hierarchy as a model to be followed. Executive leaders must understand that leadership includes intentionally setting cultural norms – as opposed to accidentally doing so.

It isn’t difficult to develop disability awareness, just demanding. Repetition and reinforcement are essential elements. However, it is far easier to achieve this when diversity awareness and inclusion are universal goals. That way you don’t have to believe a person with disability needs something different, or more, than anybody else. Equity isn’t about treating people as the same, but in the same way – with empathy and respect, acknowledging their individual attributes and needs.

We must ask, when we think about developing disability awareness, what is our goal? If it is to comply with law and policy providing training will create the illusion of compliance. If it is to engage with equity and access needs in a respectful and real way no amount of training can deliver that. That requires helping people to be as good as they want to be through authentic stimulation to change and grow.

Disability is complex and multi-faceted. It is neither reasonable nor realistic to imagine any leader or decision-maker can be across the spectrum factors that must be grasped. In many respects the idea of disability awareness is an unreasonable impost.

What is far better is creating a culture of empathic and respectful awareness of the needs of staff. The idea that there is a particular awareness for people with disability is misguided. There is a universal need to address issues of accessibility, inclusion and equity for all staff. That’s a more useful expenditure of effort and attention. But you can’t ‘train’ for this either.

We can intentionally create workplace communities that have a culture of inclusion and respect because it honours the needs of staff and meets the pragmatic needs of organisations to retain skilled staff in a kind and healthy workplace culture. Or we can do no more than is necessary to give the appearance of complying with legal and policy obligations.

We can choose to respond to the imperatives of the heart or stay in our heads. It’s our choice. There are no training shortcuts.

Introduction

The short answer is ‘not intentionally’, but, functionally, often yes. This is because organisations generally have no more of an understanding of how ERGs function than the staff who are moved to set up and support them. 

Some organisations have an insightful, experimental, and empathic executive leadership. Others do not. I mean no criticism, because executive leaders do the best they can with good intent. However, they may be unaware that their good intent isn’t manifesting as they intend. 

There is often a lack of clarity about how the role of ERG Champions are understood. As sponsors and mentors with a brief to nurture the ERG toward success? Or as champions of the ERG cause? It’s often only the latter, and this is where major problems arise.

So much depends on the capacity of people to respond to the best of their ability. Sometimes all the players are limited. Sometimes the executive is keen, but the ERG membership isn’t up to the task. Other times the ERG membership is passionate but lacks the skill to sell its passion to the executive leadership and get them on board. Executive sponsors and champions can make a critical difference, but only if they grasp potential of an ERG, and they have a brief from the organisation’s senior executive leadership to take on a nurturing role.

I was fortunate when I became DCJ DEN Chair in November 2016. The Secretary of my department had a well-merited reputation as an exceptional leader. My executive DEN Champion was deeply principled, empathic, and energetic. Four years after she left, we remain in contact. I also had outstanding support from Managers Inclusion and Diversity. Also, I had the good fortune of a background of engaging with business and organisational leaders over 4 decades.

In my case I came to the DEN Chair role with all the stars aligned. I was able to engage with key players and build relationships of mutual trust and respect. 

Whether an ERG can be successful depends on several factors I will explore below.

What is an ERG?

An ERG is an organisationally authorised body of staff volunteers acting in the interests of a specific interest group. But there is not always an organisational strategy for supporting the ERG’s development and performance – or a clear contract about outputs and outcomes.

The intent is good, but the execution often lacks finesse. The lack of automatic support to ERGs by sponsors and champions raises the question about how an organisation understands what an ERG is. Mostly they are proposed as good ideas by advocates of an interest group, but who may not fully understand what is involved in delivering the desired outcomes. I was a very successful ERG chair for 3.25 years and it’s only been in the past couple of years that I have developed a more mature understanding of what an ERG is. I ceased fulltime work in June 2021 and subsequently spent 18 months in near full-time research. That reflects how complex the challenge is. Here is my current theory:

• An ERG has 3 primary functions:
  • To identify legal and moral imperatives and obligations in relation to diversity groups that an organisation is struggling to honour.
  • To work collaboratively with the organisation to act to meet those imperatives and obligations. This is an evolutionary approach rather than seeing deficits and assigning blame.
  • To represent the concerns of members who are adversely affected by failures to meet these legal and moral obligations. This requires tact and diplomacy and must never become adversarial.
• Some ERGs act to celebrate the diversity their membership brings to the workplace community, and through those celebratory acts increase the spirit of inclusion. Others are primarily problem-solvers. These two functions must be understood as distinct and are in response to membership wishes. It’s not okay to duck problem-solving responsibilities and substitute the celebratory role – but it does happen.

Here I focus on the problem-solving ERGs because they have the most complex and challenging function.

As DEN Chair I intentionally developed the DCJ DEN as a de facto business unit. My rationale was that an ERG had to operate as at least as sophisticated as any other business unit involved in driving change authorised by the organisation. 

Driving change from a voluntary perspective is an even more complex challenge. The ERG sits outside standard hierarchical and cultural norms. In many respects it is entrepreneurial – and that can be an issue in public sector organisations. ERG leads can be highly effective ‘wild card’ disruptors, but that’s a high skill impact that is best intentionally supported by executive leaders. Otherwise, that ‘wild card’ spirit can be mistaken as subversive.

An ERG comprised of well-intentioned amateurs cannot, in my view, achieve what its members most need – genuine equity and inclusion. The ‘amateur’ perspective assumes that good intent is sufficient, and that change is triggered by rational response to data and response to moral imperatives. That’s not how reality works. Often the best that can be achieved is a slow response to a need that can be drawn out over several years. It may not be intentional ‘slow-walking’ but it certainly isn’t prioritising reduction of harm in a timely manner.

Driving attitudinal and behavioural change is complex and difficult. It’s not for amateur efforts, no matter how noble the cause is. There’s a reason why change management is an area of professional expertise. Change is slow in any case for a variety of reasons. This is often despite the efforts of mainstream business units. There are complex structural, cultural and psychological factors to be engaged with and navigated.

We are well beyond any romantic notion of ERGs. Change resistance is fundamental to us as individuals and organisations – which are comprised of the same individuals. Change is best generated when change agents collaborate and act as partners. This assumes that the ERG and the organisation are aligned with a common vision of what to be achieved – and a shared intent to make it happen in a timely manner.

That partnership must understand that what is aspired to by staff in general and intended by executive leadership is often undone by mid-range managers and operatives. This isn’t intentional evil, or even the corruption of self-interest. It has been present in all organisations since the advent of civilisation.  In the 1980s the ‘management guru’, Tom Peters, gave me my first lightbulb moment in comprehending organisational culture. I was a union delegate at the time. He said reality was sloppy and messy. I suddenly grasped why the union and management made such a hash of addressing problems. Aside from egos blundering all over the place neither of us could analyse the problem effectively or propose an effective solution. As a result, we were in constant fruitless and unnecessary conflict.

Messy complexity is not novel or unexpected, but it must be understood. Obstruction of progress by individuals is common but it’s not necessarily malignant ill will. It may simply be that other things have precedence. We do not have unlimited cognitive and emotional capacity to treat every matter requiring our attention with the objective and dispassionate attention others expect us to give it. That’s the human reality of decision making in a complex organisation functioning under a variety of constraints.

Managers are normal people with demanding roles. Over the past few decades, we have changed how organisations are required to behave in relation to their staff. But we haven’t lessened the BAU demands [in many instances they have increased], and we have added a massive additional burden of things managers are expected to know, respond to, and be responsible for. Organisational cultures haven’t adapted sufficiently to the new requirements. Nobody is to blame, but we all have to fix it. Organisational evolution is uneven and messy.

I do not believe you can fully understand what an ERG is, or can do, without a decent grasp of organisational psychology. It’s not a field I am qualified in, but I read in it at every opportunity.

An ERG can be a wildcard with immense transformative and innovative capacity. But it needs the right leadership and the right support before it can realise its potential.

The ERG leader

Whoever leads an ERG sets tone. I was fortunate in that I came into the Chair role with a good level of leadership experience under my belt (but not a lot of management experience). I was okay about taking the responsibility of leadership on, and I had a theory about how to lead well. ERG leads may not have this background, and this creates risks that can be ameliorated by support from the organisation.

As a consultant supporting ERGs, I have worked with ERG leads who have no professional leadership experience. All have had the potential – which is why they volunteered for the role. But they have needed two things:

• The opportunity to go through the psychological adaptation to a leadership role. This is more complex than generally understood and can longer than is ideal.
• An understanding of what is required to lead well. This is where coaching and mentoring by skilled and experienced leaders can make a critical difference.

An organisation can ensure that all ERG leads automatically are assured of leadership mentoring and coaching by ERG Champions and Executive Sponsors. The fact that this doesn’t automatically happen reflects the degree to which organisations don’t fully understand what an ERG is, how it fits with their objectives, and how to best help it be effective.

ERGs typically elect their leaders. This is often a bad idea. The ERG leadership role is a demanding one and a popularity contest doesn’t give us assured good outcomes. Membership elections deliver erratic results – very hit or miss. Given the vital role of ERGs that potential for random results isn’t the best option. A superior alternative may be a formal competitive selection process.

If ERG leads lack leadership experience and standing two problems can arise. The first is deferential reflexes will kick in when they are engaging with more senior staff. The second is that they are not confident in engaging with executive staff in discussions or negotiations. ERG leads must see themselves as legitimate leaders with equal standing when they represent their ERG members, and the organisation must support this. But if ERGs are elected with no pre-requisites on experience and standing (which is often the case) they can become ineffectual and intimidated.

Recently I attended a webinar at which representatives from the HSBC Bank spoke of how ERGs in their organisation operated. Leads were selected by a highly competitive interview process. This is an excellent idea. It acknowledges that being an ERG lead is a skilled role and getting the best person for the job is paramount. The crucial insight for me was that the ERGs had high standing in the organisation and being an ERG lead carried status and credibility – enhancing one’s professional profile.

Who gets to be ERG lead and how they are selected matters. So too does how an organisation supports the leaders to do the best job they can.

How organisations can avoid failure of their ERGs.

ERGs are composed of volunteers on a mission. They are not, however, necessarily run by skilled or experienced staff. Not all organisations set minimum criteria for ERG leaders (standing, seniority, relevant experience or skills). Arguably an organisation has a responsibility to support an ERG to be as effective as it can be, rather than leave things to chance.

Its one thing to assent to the establishment of an ERG, and another to actively ensure that the ERG understands that it is accountable to its members and to the organisation. It’s not unreasonable that an organisation should impose upon an ERG and require it to be accountable and meet an acceptable professional standard. In this way an organisation honours its obligation to ensure that staff members seeking to improve equity and inclusion outcomes are competently represented.

I have encountered push back against this attitude from some disability ERG leads. I think the best response is a comparison between the outcomes my recommended approach has delivered compared to what outcomes those who have pushed back can boast of. This isn’t the place to make a detailed comparison, but I am sure the reader will understand my intended meaning. ERGs must be professional and must be integrated into the organisation’s operational culture if they want the evolutionary changes that benefit their members to manifest sooner rather than later – if at all.

Here are some things an organisation can do to reduce the risk of ERG failures:

1. Ensure the ERG and the organisation have a shared vision for the ERG’s purpose, what outcomes are desired and what outputs are required.
2. Require an ERG to develop a compelling value argument which justifies why its demand for resources [time, funds, attention etc] makes good sense as an investment. 
3. Understand that an ERG, although run by volunteers, is still performing a professional and an accountable role. That role is advocating for, and seeking to assure, the welfare and wellbeing of a sub-set of staff members.
4. Understand that this role is complex and difficult. The calibre of ERG leadership is a critical factor for success. So is the nature and level of support the organisation provides. Training, mentoring, and coaching must be available to ERG leads as a matter of course.
5. Formally recognise ERG leadership roles as high-status skilled roles and require them to be competed for like any other formal role. These roles must also be acknowledged as valid professional roles – and celebrated as such.
6. Celebrate ERGs as valued bodies delivering professional standard services to their membership.

Conclusion

An ERG can be a tokenistic response to pressures upon an organisation to conform to social expectations. But it can also be a canny partnership between an organisation’s executive leadership and its staff in an understanding that cultural evolution toward inclusive values is naturally slow. A reason for that slowness is the resistance by middle management which is caused by various reasons:

• Middle management can be poorly trained in contemporary management and leadership approaches and is consequently ill-equipped to deal with the more subtle issues of inclusion and equity. Some organisations are still operating on a 20^th Century model of management which saw staff as disposable ‘wetware’ in the process of producing required outputs.
• Middle management is under intense demands to respond to business as usual. Issues related to inclusion, diversity and equity concerns are not routinely encountered, and often require immediate knowledge that isn’t easily available. Staff welfare still remains a secondary consideration relative to the primary business focus. We have increased expectations about staff welfare but not yet the means to meet them in a systemic and effective way.
• Our understanding of how organisational cultures work seems to me to be universally poor. The science of management and leadership has progressed immensely in the past 3 decades. But the extent to which current managers are up to date with contemporary thinking is not high. We mostly think that management/leadership is an art. But art without the science of what is manipulated is rarely successful. This applies to ERG leads even more so. There is a distinct disadvantage in taking up a leadership role with no understanding of contemporary leadership approaches.

In essence an ERG is a critical part of a feedback loop. Policies, strategies and programs are developed and implemented in response to evolving values about staff experiences in the workplace. But they don’t necessarily work out as intended or anticipated. An ERG communicates to the organisation what must be fixed, amended or evolved. Resistance to that message is natural and normal. An ERG must overcome that resistance skilfully – and with respect and compassion.

Organisations operate under resource constraints as a matter of course. There’s often barely enough means to achieve an organisation’s core business let alone embrace the additional attention and effort to meet employee welfare and wellbeing obligations. Some large enterprises are all in on DEI because they recognise that it has a business benefit worth investing in. But for many others it’s an added compliance pressure nobody has had time to fully appreciate. Its not resourced or supported as a human-centred priority. It’s more a cost to be controlled than an investment that generates a benefit.

Its in everybody’s interests to have an ERG skilfully exerting respectful pressure on a workplace culture to evolve a little bit faster. Inclusive workplaces retain skilled and experienced staff and perform better. There is no downside to an effective ERG. But they require focused effort from an organisation’s senior leadership to ensure they can meet their potential as change agents in support of commonly agreed and valued goals.

Introduction

Attracting and retaining energetic volunteer members of an ERG leadership team can be a challenge. Members are often time poor at work and in their private lives.

As an ERG establishes itself and becomes effective leaders must ensure that they are able to call upon a pool of members to support leadership functions.

The NSW Department of Communities and Justice’s Disability Employee Network [DCJ DEN] created a Guidance and Action Team [GAT] in September 2018. The GAT was a group of 15 members who volunteered to get involved. Two years later three specialist Deputy Chair roles were created [business, projects, communications]. These innovations laid the foundation for the DEN’s ongoing success.

A broad foundation of support can be critical for success.

The benefits of a strong support team

• When the need arises, there is the ability to quickly replace any leadership team member with a person familiar with the ERG’s operations.
• The ability to ensure any project can be supported by one or more people as the need arises.
• Creates a talent pool from which new ERG chairs/coordinators can be selected. This ensures that new leaders know what they are getting themselves into, and that they are well-grounded in the ERG’s operations. The support team is also best positioned to ensure that new leaders are selected on known capability.
• The creation of a community with diverse experiences and perspectives. Depending on the size and complexity of the organisation this diversity may also be critical representation from business areas.
• The support team can work more effectively with engaged champions and executive sponsor/s.

Co-roles

An ERG can follow the DCJ DEN model and create several deputy chairs on the understanding that any may sub for the chair when necessary. Other ERGs prefer a co-chair model. This has advantages and disadvantages that an ERG should think through. 

Beyond co-chairs co-roles can be useful anytime a function or task has been identified – whether short-term or long-term. In any co-role each person should be closely matched to the other in competence and commitment. Monitoring to ensure this balance is working is critical.

An alternative to a co-role approach is to set up a small team with an identified co-ordinator. 

There are several options that are effective only if there is a pool of people who know the ERG’s culture, operations, and challenges.

Benefits from volunteering

ERG members who volunteer to join the leadership team will have to donate personal time. That time can and should be seen as a professional development opportunity as well as a willingness to participate in the ERG as a professional entity in its own right.

Some argue that volunteers should not be subject to obligations and standards that require them to be accountable to the ERG leadership. But no volunteer organisation can function without a requirement that all members – volunteer or otherwise – conform to standards of conduct and are held accountable.

The DCJ DEN was developed on a business unit model with a commitment to strict professionalism. This ensured GAT members understood the standards required of them. It was also the primary reason for the DEN’s subsequent success and high standing.

ERGs can and should negotiate with their organisation to ensure that their professionalism is recognised and that members of the leadership team are acknowledged as engaging in professional activity – and this is recognised in their CVs and when they are competing for roles in the organisation. This may also be backed up with a communications strategy that reinforces the professionalism of the ERG on a regular basis. Repetition of such a message is necessary to ensure that it received, understood and valued across the organisation.

It is reasonable that an ERG leadership participant seeks recognition for their professionalism as a volunteer in the complex and demanding roles required of the ERG leadership team.

How to establish a leadership team

ERGs are often set up under a traditional management committee model which does not convey contemporary values. 

The DCJ DEN GAT was established as a collaborative model of peers rather than a management committee. It is a more complex leadership approach which requires a more sophisticated chair/co-ordinator. Whoever is in that role will set a tone that will shape how the leadership team is established and operates. It isn’t necessarily the best option in all cases.

There are some critical steps in creating a leadership team comprising members who know in advance what they are getting into in advance – in terms of time, effort and expectations. These are:

1. Contact ERG members asking for expressions of interest from all who wish to participate in a larger ERG leadership team.
2. Invite all to a discussion [via Teams or Zoom if face-to-face is not practical] about what to expect and what will be required. Invite those still interested to submit a final expression of interest with a brief statement of their capabilities [an EOI form may be created].
3. Decide on who will be in the leadership team. The original DCJ DEN had 15 members, including the chair and deputy chair. This the upper limit of a manageable group.
4. Decision-making is not membership voting. Existing leaders can decide who is on an advisory body. Elections by ERG members are over-rated simply because members are not well-positioned to make choices about who is best suited. The DCJ DEN invited EOIs from members keen to be more involved – and that keenness was the critical factor. How the leadership subsequently performed was rightly subject to membership scrutiny.
5. Run relationship building events. These are important to ensure all team members can mesh as an effective team. The DCJ DEN GAT met in person quarterly for 6 hours and then shared a restaurant meal. This was the day before the quarterly DEN meeting. The GAT also was funded for a 2-day planning workshop, which was an intense experience. In between these meetings there was a high volume of emails on particular themes, and a lot of phone calls. These were pre-Teams days – before 2020 and COVID. Depending on the organisation and geographic distribution of members get-togethers can be tailored to meet needs.
6. Avoid purely transactional interactions as the dominant mode of relating – among leadership team members and champions and executive sponsors. Champions and executive sponsors are most effective when they are confident about the focus and culture of the ERG. Their open support for the ERG is a risk to their reputation and standing. They must, therefore, get to know and like the ERG’s leadership team and be able to establish a relationship which enables confident and empathic frank conversations.

Conclusion

Building an ERG’s leadership team is fundamental to its success. So much depends upon the organisation’s size and culture. DCJ, for example, is a complex public sector entity with over 20,000 staff. It has a mix of challenging front line and more routine back-office roles. This requires a variety of perspectives which can inform how the DEN is best able to focus its energy.

Some ERGS may have less of a focus on problem solving and may be more focused on celebration. It is important that ERGs understand their primary function and do not attempt to replicate the style and structure of ERGs with a different focus.

But the principles of success are shared across all ERGs. They are scaled to size, complexity, function and focus. ERG leaders must understand their own organisations to a deep degree – so they can establish empathic and insightful relations which staff and executive leaders.

Time pressures are real, and this creates a risk that interactions are reduced to functional transactional concerns. That’s not how leadership works. We see leaders engaging in transactional interactions with subordinates, but we miss the relationship building among leadership peers. 

ERG leaders are not necessarily drawn from the manager and executive ranks, so their understanding of how to build and sustain effective leadership teams is often lacking. I hope this exploration of thinking about building effective leadership teams may help strengthen your ERG and make it more effective.

Introduction

Introverts like me loathe job interviews for a variety of reasons. The questions often aren’t clear. They can be ambiguous or overly complex. The rushed opportunity to review them ahead of the interview triggers anxiety and brain fog. 

I have been involved in recruitment (5 years as a fulltime job and as a panel member and an independent) for many years and I have applying for jobs long enough to remember when we didn’t get the questions ahead of time. And then we did. We were advised to arrive 15 minutes in advance of our interview time and suddenly that set a rule about how long we had to look at the questions. There was no thought-through rationale that said, ‘This long and no more’. It has been thus until we started asking questions.

Then we started to develop rules that said the questions were secret and you had to hand them in, and definitely not give them to anybody else. Though why you would wasn’t really thought through – and certainly not in the age of smart phones. We accepted the mythos as though it was gospel and not habit. Now change is hard to make happen, despite the flagrant advantage of doing so.

The advent of equity principles meant we had to adjust the recruitment process to accommodate accessibility needs of applicants. I had gone along with these developments without too much thought until a friend and former colleague started asking more questions – really sensible ones.

He experienced severe anxiety reactions when he got to an interview and read the questions. Even when it was patently evident that he knew his stuff he had no control over what happened – he made a mess of the interview and that reliably tanked his chances.

There is an intended rationale to having interview questions ahead of the interview, but that has nothing to do with the time allowed. The reality is that few recruitment panels think about this. Its just the way we have done things for ages.

But we can do far better.

Why not change?

My friend’s questions were penetrating. What were we assessing with our 15-20-minute review period? What work-related function matched being asked to respond to 4-6 questions which may or may not be clear after such a short preparation time? Why could the review time not be hours or even days? The reflexive responses to these questions made it clear that nobody had really thought about this, and now folks were scrambling to defend the status quo – but with unconvincing arguments.

There is a bunch of people who find the intense short period of review problematic. Here’s a short list: people (like me) who write very slowly because of motor impairments; various expressions of neurodiversity which may struggle with how questions are expressed; people with anxiety (like my friend); people with vision impairments; people recovering from illness; people who have recently experienced trauma; a new parent after a sleepless night. You get my point – almost anybody. You will note that not every instance of need would fit the description of a disability – and hence would not fit most people’s notion of being entitled to an adjustment.

When I first started arguing for a universal entitlement to access to interview questions days in advance of the interview, I was initially concerned that there might be a justly perceived advantage unintentionally conferred upon applicants with disability. The obvious solution was to offer this advantage to everybody. For reasons whose logic still eludes me this was firmly resisted by the NSW public sector.

I am an advocate of inclusive design which eliminates the need for adjustments and accommodations. Giving everyone access to interview questions days in advance of the interview eliminates actual disadvantages and actual unintended advantages conferred by allowing only a select minority to seek adjustments. This situation also addresses the accidental injustice visited upon those whose attributes should render them eligible for an adjustment but who don’t ask because they see their disadvantage as just a part of life – and not a disability.

I am unaware of any rationale other than habit that defends giving access to interview questions ahead of the interview. There was an original good idea defended by reasoned argument that triggered the change. But that was maybe 30 years ago, and we need to revisit. A lot of things have changed since then, including our values and expectations.

Breaking habits isn’t easy

In the NSW public sector interviews should no longer be determining factor of a recruitment process. But old habits die hard. Regardless of how suitable a candidate is based on their CV and other criteria their prospects will live or die on the interview often enough to still make it a rule.

The object of any recruitment exercise should be to get the best person for the role, but this can’t happen if we unintentionally make it difficult for candidates to demonstrate their best attributes. Interview questions seek responses that demonstrate an applicant’s suitability via capabilities or knowledge, so the applicant’s ability to give their best answer would, you’d think, enhanced by time to read the questions, reflect on what is being sought, and time to prepare a considered response.

In the NSW public sector there may be 4-6 focus capabilities as well as other desired capabilities for a given role. Applicants may be new to the sector and unfamiliar with the capability framework. An interview may have 4 questions which may or may not have multiple elements which may or may not clearly relate to a focus capability, or two.

An applicant has no way of knowing whether the recruiters are disciplined in their adherence to assessing against the specified focus capabilities – which they are often not. Consequently, the challenge of interpreting 4 questions in relation to 4-6 focus capabilities and preparing thoughtful responses in 15 to 20 minutes is an impossible task. And nobody attempts it, not really. They scramble to write down thoughts as they randomly arise, sometimes in legible handwriting {something I was never good at). Who would be great at this? Probably only people with psychopathic inclinations.

Recruitment panels often aren’t as disciplined as they might be and base their selection on whoever they most liked at the interview. This creates bias toward extroverts and may explain the frequent disastrous selection decisions. I am not asserting that getting interview questions well in advance will put a stop to disastrous recruitment decisions. Other mechanisms must be in place to further reduce that risk. But allowing introverts and people with other diverse attributes to perform at their best will give a better array of credible choices.

I have heard arguments against providing interview questions in advance, but none are plausible. A popular one is that the applicant might research their response – as if this was a form of cheating. I can’t tell you how many times I would have been grateful if a team member had researched their response to a task, instead of relying on hearsay, or their less than well-informed opinion. You can frame questions to assess for insight and values as well as knowledge. If you can’t pick when you are being manipulated and lied to, maybe recruitment isn’t something you should be doing.

A recent example of how getting questions in advance works to improve equal access to opportunity 

I asked my former colleague several questions about their experience. Their responses are below.

Q 1 – Describe how your anxiety affects you and what happens when you go to an interview under normal circumstances.

I have been diagnosed with high functioning anxiety. This condition is activated only under fairly rare circumstances and does not influence my normal work experience. Job interviews are one of the rare instances when my anxiety is activated. Interviews generate extreme anxiety responses that disable my ability to comprehend interview questions. This triggers a complete panic attack which manifests in severe emotional disturbance and cognitive incapacity – I simply shut down and become a bumbling, nervous mess. 

Q 2 – How does having the questions in advance help you? Can you describe your initial reaction and how that changes as you prepare?

Getting questions in advance creates a feeling of distance from the sense of threat the interview environment creates. My panic responses are greatly reduced and are progressively eliminated. This gives me time to process my emotions and create an opportunity to provide coherent responses to the questions, almost as effectively as I do in my day-to-day work environment. I still feel a residual anxiety, but it isn’t disabling.

Q 3 – Describe how you have performed in the last 2 interviews? What feedback did you get?

In both interviews I presented as composed and was able to articulate my responses in a coherent and professional manner. I received positive acknowledgment from both interview panels. After the first interview I was offered a substantive role. I was unsuccessful at the second interview, despite an equally competent presentation. I should note that at the second interview I was also told I had to provide the reason for my workplace adjustment request, so I was honest and told of my anxiety condition. I wasn’t aware that this was something a panel might demand. On reflection I fear that this may have placed me at a disadvantage in being considered for the role as I did not feel it appropriate to go into detail, and neither did I think the panel was qualified to interpret what I told them.

Q 4 – Why do you think having interview questions in advance helps? Would you recommend this for everybody?

Having questions well in advance of the interview allows one time to prepare responses as one would in a day-to-day work environment. Interview questions can often be complex or unclear at first glance. This is pressure enough for most people, but it makes developing responses harder for those that are more complex thinkers who feel the need to take the time to consider their responses. This is more about types of neurodiversity than anything else. Being neurodiverse isn’t necessarily a disability. Its just being different. It isn’t fair that an interview format should be a one-size-fits-all approach with such a limited response time.

In over 35 years working in the service sector, I have never been in a position where I have been allocated 3-5 maybe complex questions, with a demand that I develop answers to all those questions within 15 to 20 minutes. 

Would I recommend this to everybody? Absolutely! My question is “Why are we still using such an exclusionary, intimidating and impractical recruitment method? What is it we are testing for?”

Conclusion

There are other fundamental issues with recruitment practices I can’t explore here because they are universal and not related to inclusion. I am concerned with equity of opportunity for people with disability, and the best solution to ensure such equity, without also causing unintended unfair advantages is to ensure all applicants have interview questions well in advance. There are no downsides to this. It may mean that key decision makers will have to think more deeply about recruitment practices and be less resistant to adaptive change.

This should be a no-brainer. We can improve the overall quality of responses to interview questions and create a level playing field for almost all applicants. We will get better and fairer outcomes.

Recruitment is complex. It concerns judgement about whether others are best suited to a role using contrived methods that may or may not be the best way of illuminating decision-making. Many on recruitment panels lack the experience to develop a high level of competence. Most applicants aren’t expert at showing their suitability in the best light. 

There’s a lot we can do to improve how recruitment decisions are made.

Introduction

For a little over 9 months, I have been working with a public sector agency proving periodic support to a number of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) leadership teams. The groups have been at various levels of development and the leads have had a range of experience in running their ERG and supporting its membership.

Things have changed since I led an ERG – even though it wasn’t that long go (2016 – 2022). Mostly the time available to devote to working on the demands of leading a network has reduced. This has led to a disconnect between the rationale for, and value of, an ERG. There is little time in a working day to do what should be done as part of core business, let alone the voluntary work of an ERG. 

I was a member of my disability ERG for over a decade, a deputy chair for just over a year, and the chair for 3.25 years. I also had the advantage of 2.5 years working my agency’s internal responses to disability inclusion. I was able to see how the disability ERG and the agency’s policies and practices intersected and could generate mutual (shared) benefit.

The past 9 months have given me the opportunity to reflect more deeply on the foundations of my success and how the ERGs I have been working with might find their own success in their own specific situations.

Here I want to focus on ERGs formed to address inclusion and equity concerns. Not all ERGs have a problem-solving mission. That noted, even those who are not may find some useful thoughts below.

The defining the relationship

Back in July 2010 when my disability ERG was formed there weren’t many policies or practices supportive of staff with disability. The ERG’s role was to identify the pain points and unmet needs of staff with disability and consult with the agency on what solutions we wanted.

By the time I became the ERG Chair in November 2016 there were policies in place. But knowledge of them and adherence to them wasn’t common among those who were expected to know. In any case some of the policies and resultant practices left a lot to be desired.

I progressively shifted the ERG from being a passive participant in consultation to a pro-active advocate for making the policies work. We were a kind of canary in the coal mine. When the intent articulated by a policy didn’t translate into an inclusive or accessible practice we spoke up. But we were not adversarial. Our approach was collaborative – how can we help you turn intent into practice?

Part of that approach was to increase awareness among key staff of the lived experience of having a disability at work and experiencing exclusion and inaccessibility. We fed back to peers and leaders how we experienced their policies and programs. There was abundant good intent, but it often didn’t translate into effective remedies.

That feedback established a central function of the ERG – asking how well-intended policies and programs played out in the ‘real world’ of the lived experience of staff with disability. This feedback function is half of the yin/yang balance of an ERG. The other half is creative – initiating innovative responses based on lived experience insights.

I was committed to ensuring the disability ERG wasn’t seen as a union. Other disability ERGs in the sector had unionist members and this led to a degree of confusion. That was understandable. There was a shared commitment to justice and equity. But I had a substantial background as a union rep and I could imagine nothing more catastrophic than an ERG replicating the tactics of unions. 

Unions have a role when a situation, for whatever reason, escalates into a dispute. An ERG must be a partner and a collaborator, and never an adversary. 

ERGs must have a clear sense of where they sit in the arena of employee-led activism. ERGs are committed to the ‘interests’ of staff rather than their ‘rights’. This is a nuanced distinction to be sure, but it conveys a fundamental difference in style – co-creative versus adversarial. The ERG style cannot be confrontational.

That function and distinction isn’t necessarily understood and agreed to by an agency’s executive leadership team. Hence the relationship between the ERG and the agency must be thought through, explored, negotiated, and agreed upon. It must be clear and unambiguous.

I also have a substantial background in compliance monitoring (licenses and contracts). I achieved far more by building relationships and collaborating on solutions than my more confrontational colleagues were able to do. I got better, sometimes radically improved, outcomes by getting to know the key people and understanding their business or service. I also shared insights into why regulatory functions are necessary – and where we could do better.

If I could succinctly define an ERG, I would say it is an organised and intentional part of a feedback loop characterised by respectful relationship building and positive collaboration on closing the gap between intent and actuality. 

Feedback

ERGs have the potential to be recognised as a key source of invaluable feedback on how policies and programs are playing out in the experience of employees. This is a proactive and collaborative role which communicates how policies and programs are working out relative to what is intended and hoped for.

The ability to feedback effectively is critical. For staff an ERG can be seen as a trusted voice to articulate issues and deal with delicate personal matters in a diplomatic and effective way. For the agency the ERG can be recognised as professional source of vital insight into how policies and programs are being responded to.

Innovation

An essential aspect of giving feedback is proposing solutions and remedies when well-intended actions by an agency fail to deliver. What can be done better or differently?

An ERG able to offer high quality insight into the lived experience of staff with access and inclusion needs can work with an agency to refine policies and programs and collaborate on problem solving. This is an opportunity to drive genuine innovation via authentic shared commitments to co-creation. But for this to happen the relationship between ERG and agency leadership must be negotiated and settled.

The unreasonable burden on managers

For the past 9 months I have been talking with a range of ERG representatives about their experiences. A huge level of expectation is placed on managers – in terms of what they should know and how they should act. This used to be a perfectly reasonable expectation, but times have changed. 

Several years ago, the NSW government kicked off the Age of Inclusion campaign. It had a manifesto which said, “Today leaders inspire with self-awareness and empathy.” Nice idea, except for a huge problem. Self-awareness and empathy are hardly attributes that would be assigned to managers and executives on the whole. How those highly desirable attributes would be developed or fostered was nowhere explored. They are not part of any recruitment process even now.

There is no doubt that the best leaders are self-aware and empathic. But they are scarce. There is no doubt that these qualities should a minimal requirement for leaders in conformity with our contemporary values and expectations. But who is going to make that happen, and how are they going to do it?

The point I want to stress here is that many policies and programs are developed with an entirely imaginary leader in mind. And when real leaders fail to exhibit their fantasised virtues and skills they are blamed – from above and below. 

Contemporary legal and social value realities place a burden of responsibility upon leaders that did not exist 25 years ago. But in that intervening time little has been done to prepare organisational leadership for the realities of implementing the new demands on/obligations of leaders in relation to how they relate to their teams.

ERGs have been developed in that time to meet a need within an organisation’s workforce culture. But that need is rarely frankly articulated. That need is a critical role – to act in partnership, from the perspective of a staff member with access and inclusion needs, with the agency to realise its policy objectives on staff wellbeing. 

Leaders, at manager level especially, play a critical role in realising those objectives. But they are often neither well-suited nor well-equipped to deliver. That’s not their fault. There is little opportunity for leaders to explore just how much expectations upon them have changed. For some, managing is a task focused and transactional role, and that is what they signed on for. Others see it as a facilitative and developmental role. They are in a minority.

As is so often the case operational realities lag behind aspirations and ideals, and that lag is rarely discussed as a solvable problem to be addressed with a realistic appreciation of just what is involved.

ERGs must shift any disposition toward passively expecting managers to deliver on the full range of expectations current policy making practices impose. This is unreasonable and unfair.

Instead of seeing managers as singularly responsible, ERGs must see them as key administrative players in a shared burden of responding to changing expectations and demands. It is true that some managers will be so out of synch with the evolving values that they will resist collaboration. That resistance can’t be tolerated, and more assertive action will be required.

I learned from my compliance monitoring days that taking the time to build respectful relationships with key people created mutually respectful insight into the complexities and difficulties that arise in owning and running a business, managing a service organisation, or performing in a compliance enforcement role.

We can have completely just expectations about what is needed, but utterly unrealistic expectations about how that need can be satisfied. Those charged with delivering an outcome may not be able to do so without cooperation and support. ERGs don’t represent passive recipients of policies and programs but engaged participants in a workplace environment.

The thing about the idea of inclusion is that you shouldn’t/can’t exclude managers or leaders because they aren’t doing what you think they should be doing. Inclusion is about building a respectful understanding of what impedes well-intended aspirations. 

The problem of the lack of accountability

Public sector agencies are plagued by a lack of accountability at leadership levels. It’s a problem in the private sector as well, but there, there is remedy. A clear bottom line accommodates drastic remedial action when that is threatened.

Accountability becomes a problem when there’s pressure to adapt and change, but the needed insight and resources are often not sufficient to deliver an effective response. The burden of change becomes a backlog on managers who often struggle to keep abreast of business-as-usual demands, let alone undergo a significant psychological change that will enable them to lead and inspire with self-awareness and empathy.

There’s a kind of magical thinking that permeates our traditional hierarchical organisations. A good idea is conceived with genuine good intent but the command, “So let it be!” is utter more as an incantation than a genuine strategic intent. The business of manifesting that expression of semi-divine will is enthusiastically delegated to those who may not have the knowledge, time, resources, or passion to do the job needed at the standard required. The result is often a pale shadow of the original noble vision, despite earnest good will being expended.

Inclusion is a far more complex affair than politicians and their policy wonks imagine. Good ideas are rarely resourced to the extent they should be in an ideal world. Nobody is to blame about this. This is normal. What is different in we are now ineptly trying to do good and important things rather than nothing at all.

Organisations don’t create ERGs unless they implicitly acknowledge that they need help to align organisational cultures to match expected/desired operational changes in conformity with legislative and policy requirements. What is missing is an explicit acknowledgement of this and the coalition building that indicates that there is a shared acknowledgement that the normal approach isn’t sufficient.

Accountability is an embedded problem in the public sector for a host of reasons not relevant to this discussion. But I want to quickly say it is also universal in our culture – and maybe our psychology. It is also reflected in an ERG’s passivity and willingness to blame the organisation’s leadership for failing to honour their obligations and meet their expectations.

It is in ERGs that inspiring “with self-awareness and empathy” should be found because ERGs can self-select for these qualities in a more adaptive way than organisations currently can. ERGs are anomalous in important respects. As noted earlier, they are not unions. They are a novel development filling a vital role that simply has not been clearly articulated. They are an expression of good intent, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the creators know all the answers. Its all a work in progress – an experiment – and an important one at that.

In a sense accountability sits with an ERG to be up to the job it has taken on – and that should be its focus. This means it should be aware of the reasons it was created. An ERG sits outside the normal hierarchy, and this gives it potential for great, but unconventional, influence. It must establish a clear contract with the agency for this influence to be fruitful.

The shock of the new

Finally, it is essential to appreciate how new all this is to everyone involved. Our workplaces are evolving to meet emerging ideals and values. For example, in NSW the Disability Inclusion Act was introduced in 2014 – a scant decade ago. Its requirements are an add on that have required adjustment on the fly. 

The Disability Inclusion Act created a requirement for NSW public sector agencies to have Disability Inclusion Action Plans (DIAPs). They are great ideas but they have been often more about compliance with the act than a passion. The intents expressed in the DIAP requirements can be seen as a great potential to drive change or signs of failures of agencies to really give a damn. We can choose.

We routinely underestimate what is required to become aware of, committed to, and then conform to new expectations – even when we are strongly sympathetic to them. The myth that mere cognitive stimulus is all that is required to trigger a cascade of rational changes persists. Advances in psychology and neuroscience tell us otherwise. 

There’s a science and an art to working with individuals, teams, and workplace cultures to manifest the changes our emerging values want. But when two parties want a common outcome but lack a shared understanding of either needed art or science progress toward that outcome will necessarily be slower than it might otherwise be.

One lesson I quickly learned as an ERG Chair was that despite my good intent, I lacked key skills and critical knowledge. I was fortunate to attend the Australian Network on Disability’s 2018 Annual National Conference, where Kate Nash was the keynote speaker. Kate is the founder and CEO of PurpleSpace. The day after the conference I attended a Networkologyworkshop run by Kate.

That experience transformed how I ran the ERG. I routinely remind Kate how grateful I am for that experience. There is a science to running an effective network, which can be learned. There is also an art which can be developed.

The changes impacting our workplaces seem relentless and even though they are moving us in the right direction – toward being more inclusive, more compassionate, and empathic – it’s still hard work even when we are intentional and willing participants.

This is a vital point. ERG leaders uniquely sign on to drive that change in an intentional way. It’s their sole business. For everyone else it’s an add on. We need to remember that.

Conclusion

I have been obliged to revisit my time as an ERG lead and understand that times and people have changed. I can’t simply encourage ERG leads to do what I did as an act of mimicry. This has meant I have had to reimagine the circumstances I worked in. They were hugely helpful to me. But does this mean the present environment is inherently less favourable, or just unfavourable to replicating what I did the way it did it?

It’s a bit of both – but still not all of what can be. What is now is what has to be worked with, so we need to evolve how we see things. I shaped the disability ERG as a de facto business unit working with mainstream business units to achieve a considerable level of success. It took the lead in collaborating with formal business units to feedback how staff with disability were experiencing the agency’s intent to be more accessible and inclusive.

Change toward greater accessibility and inclusion demands attention and engagement. It competes for that cognitive and emotional energy required against other demands that are considered core business. Staff wellbeing has traditionally been either a low priority or entirely transactional. But changes in our social and cultural values have been driving a radically different approach. The welfare of staff members is seen as a high priority. How that expresses itself in organisational practice and culture will depend on how much attention can be attracted and effectively applied.

Eventually we will evolve a work culture in which staff wellbeing is understood to be core business. But that is a huge step, despite the flow in that direction. We have add-ons, but at least we have them.

ERGs are a novel response to a novel situation – the evolving values that govern how workplaces should function. We need to understand that. There are no cultural rules about how they function. Developing them is a challenge to be welcomed. But there are rules in organisational, social, and individual psychology that will determine success or failure. It is important to understand them, and work with them to create benefits for all. There is no ‘them vs us’. Rather there is a dynamic tension between required actions and desired actions and intended outcomes and actual outcomes. 

The interplay between ERGs and their agencies is a zone of potential for considerable and rapid positive change. But both ERG and agency must have a mutual understanding of, and commitment to, exploiting that potential.

Ultimately an ERG is an expression of a staffs’ desires to achieve the satisfaction of essential, even fundamental, needs through respectful relationships with the people charged with ensuring they are delivered. The intent of all parties is good, but the performance (delivery and feedback) is still evolving toward what is mutually desired. There are exceptions to this, but such situations need more than an ERG to trigger the needed changes.

ERG operate in a unique creative space and have extraordinary potential to be a partner in driving desired changes in inclusion and equity in unprecedented ways.

Introduction

Let’s understand that the reason we are biased and prejudiced is because being so was once a really good thing. This is a topic I come back to often because it is so important that we don’t misunderstand it. If we get it wrong many of the remedies countering exclusion that we put in place won’t work. When that happens, we waste the precious and scarce resources of time, attention, and commitment.

At the time of drafting I had just finished reading Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson. It’s a sobering survey of our impulses to respond to cognitive dissonance in self-justifying ways.

Here’s what the Amazon blurb for the book says: Renowned social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson take a compelling look into how the brain is wired for self-justification. When we make mistakes, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right – a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong.

Things have changed since our brains were hard-wired for impulses that served tribes well, but let individuals be sacrificed in the interest of the tribe. A male who over-estimated his strength and speed may die miscalculating a mammoth’s reaction, but maybe only after a run of successes that kept the tribe in food and other mammoth generated resources – like hide and bones.

Young males today perpetuate that same habit, which is fine in sport and military service – once disciplined – but tragic on our roads and in pub fights.

The fact that we are hard-wired to imagine we are smarter and more capable than we really are isn’t an inherent problem. It just becomes a problem in the wrong context. 

Likewise, our reflex to be biased and prejudiced was a positive survival mechanism that favoured family or tribe for good reasons. These days bias and prejudice operate in ways that sustain bonds and relationships on a private level – and about which we usually give no thought. I have family members who now and then struggle financially, and I help them even though there are unrelated others who may have an even harder time and also need help.

I have noted elsewhere that we have shortened ‘inappropriate discrimination’ to just ‘discrimination’. We now have ‘anti-discrimination’ legislation because, apparently, ‘anti-inappropriate discrimination’ is too cognitively taxing for legislators and policy makers.

Being a ‘discriminating’ person was once a good thing to be. It meant that you chose carefully and wisely with an eye to quality. But no more.

So many of our impulses have gone the same way. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being biased. Its just not appropriate in some situations. This is what we need to understand.

Dealing with human nature

My suspicion is that self-justification is also a default survival reflex. We do better if we over-estimate our ability than under-estimate it. In short, confidence is better than self-reflective honesty in many cases. This is especially so when you must act boldly and quickly. There are many instances when over-estimating our abilities can be beneficial, but it can also be catastrophic. But like so many hard-wired reflexes we must modify them to match our reality.

Our brains were hard-wired 10s of thousands of years ago and the culture we live in now is around 250 years old at the most.

If we look at reflexes and impulses that were developed at our origins and see that they now cause problems its only because our social environment has evolved rapidly and radically. Now we find ourselves in work and social situations where being unself-reflective, biased, and prejudiced aren’t desirable traits.

The interests of corporations, NGOs and government agencies in sophisticated western communities are not advanced by permitting biased and prejudiced behaviour to prevail. These organisations respond to our increasingly complex, diverse, and pluralistic communities which have an expectation of equity by making policies consistent with those expectations – but not with our habits or reflexes. We are living in an aspirational reality.

Whether this expectation is a good thing or not has been mostly decided in favour. We have collectively agreed we are aspirational. We now have laws and policies to back up that popular position. But not everyone agrees or is keen on complying.

Our cultural reality has evolved to a point where once useful and even necessary reflexes contradict the present social intention. Where exclusion was once a necessary survival reflex it can now be a cultural deficit. And the more specific the culture the more that deficit becomes problematic.

Our cultural and social evolution has outpaced our biological ability to adapt. We are playing catch up – all of us are.

There is intentional work to be done

The reason The Ten Commandments is a thing is that humans require constant reminders that they must modify instincts and impulses to conform to the aspirations of the community in which they live.

We have imposed a moral value upon conduct which is natural to us, but which is no longer appropriate to the community we live in. This can lead us to imagine that inappropriate conduct is inherently wrong rather than simply out of place.

How we respond to demands to change our values and behaviour in conformity with relatively new ideas varies widely. A minority will change rapidly to conform to the new ideas, ideals, and values. A minority will not comply and do so with strongly articulated determination. The majority will change with varying degrees of enthusiasm and capacity.

Altering reflexive behaviour requires effort. We may or may not have the cognitive and emotional resources to change our reflexive behaviour quickly, even when we want to. This is true of all of us.

Switching on and off doesn’t work

It isn’t easy to be highly inclusive at work and return to being very biased and prejudiced out of hours. For some this may, however, be a necessary balancing act to cater to work and personal realities.

Leaders of organisations understandably don’t feel an obligation to be overly concerned about an employee’s private life. But how they are able to comply with work-based inclusion policies will be powerfully influenced by their personal life circumstances. Sometimes those circumstances can cause a tension.

I grew up in a family steeped in Northern Irish Protestantism. We had migrated from Northern Ireland to Australia, but my father expected I would obey his injunction to despise Catholics. At the time I was in a small rural primary school and excluding kids who were Catholic wasn’t anything I was about to do. It would have meant excluding kids I really liked and getting into fights I had no desire to have. My father didn’t understand this. Neither did he understand that conflict with him was more in my interests than obedience. For some, however, conflict with inclusion policies can be more in their interests.

Working for an organisation with inclusion policies can place tensions on people whose private situation may be dominated by historic, cultural, and religious pressures to behave in exclusionary ways.

It’s hard enough to be consistently inclusive intentionally when you want to be and when the only real impediment is a lack of practice and an established habit. Its far far harder when there are strong influences that are anti-inclusion at play in your life.

Conclusion

Inclusion is everyone’s business. It always has been. There is evidence our ancient ancestors cared for their severely disabled family members. But between now and then we also responded to necessary us vs them imperatives.

In contemporary organisations we still find layers of power and privilege that trigger us vs them responses, but our goal – for our shared wellbeing – is to expand the embrace of our sense of us through acts of inclusion to encompass the whole workforce as a community – and beyond to include customers, service users and service providers.

This is a huge endeavour. It has been a work in progress of decades, and there is much work yet to be done. We will achieve our desired goals faster if we understand the challenge clearly.