Diversity Beyond Lip Service: A Coaching Guide for Challenging Bias

by La'Wana Harris, Khalil Smith (Foreword by)

Overview

Discover how to build a sustainable culture of inclusion with a coaching method that shows people that sharing power isn’t the same as losing it.

The elephant in the room with diversity work is that people with privilege must use it to allow others equal access to power. This is often why diversity efforts falter—people believe in diversity until they feel that they must give something up. How do we talk them through this shift?

La’Wana Harris introduces Inclusion Coaching, a new tool based on cutting-edge research that identifies the stages of preparation, implementation, and “self-work” necessary to help individuals, teams, and organizations build a sustainable culture of inclusion. Harris’s six-stage COMMIT model—Commit to courageous action, Open your eyes and ears, Move beyond lip service, Make room for controversy and conflict, Invite new perspectives, and Tell the truth even when it hurts—provides a proven process for making people aware of their own conscious and unconscious biases and concrete steps to make inclusion an embedded reality.

Harris offers managers and diversity coaches new models to empower everyone from employees to CEOs to “do” inclusion and address deep-rooted biases that are often invisible. She addresses the growing need to challenge bias and build authentic cultures where everyone can feel a sense of belonging.

“A good read for all concerned with the question of human training, leadership development, and organizational change. It challenges us to think about diversity in more concrete ways to ensure transformative change in organizational leadership and within institutional structures…. The book’s major strength is the focus on concrete and actionable practices to realize the hopes and dreams of genuine inclusion and diversity.” —George J. Sefa Dei, Professor of Social Justice Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, and Fellow, Royal Society of Canada

“A clear, powerful guide through what a growing number of us in the coaching profession believe is imperative to our survival and relevance as a profession…. Through many powerful examples, and with a very calm, incontrovertible voice, La’Wana Harris has made the intersection between coaching and inclusion work crystal clear. Bravo!” —Halli MacNab, PCC, President, Association of Coach Training Organizations, and C.O.O., Accomplishment Coaching

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781523098712
Publisher:	Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication date:	04/14/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	177
Sales rank:	418,461
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

La’Wana Harris is director of global leadership development with the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi. She is an ICF Certified Professional Coach who has created diversity and inclusion awareness programs, cultural competence programs, and overall integrated management solutions, in addition to being a diversity ambassador at Johnson & Johnson. She has conducted trainings around the world, including the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and South Africa.

Table of Contents

Foreword Khalil Smith ix

Preface xi

Introduction: Diversity and Inclusion Starts from Within 1

1 We Hired Some Minorities, Some Women, and People with Disabilities; Isn't That Enough? 7

2 The Language of Diversity 19

3 The Problem of Privilege: Does Diversity Mean I Lose Mine? 29

4 Coaching + D&I = Δ Behavior 41

5 Commit to Courageous Action 55

6 Open Your Eyes and Ears 65

7 Move beyond Lip Service (Sharing Power Is Harder-and Easier-Than You Think) 81

8 Make Room for Controversy and Conflict (You Can Talk about This at Work) 89

9 Invite New Perspectives 99

10 Tell the Truth Even When It Hurts 111

11 My Truth, Unfiltered 119

Conclusion: What's in It for Everyone: Where Inclusion Can Take Your Life, Your Career, and Your Company 129

Diversity-beyond-Lip-Service Commitment Statement 137

COMMIT Self-Assessment: Where Are You in Your Journey? 138

Notes 139

Glossary 144

Acknowledgments 147

Index 148

About the Author 154

Editorial Reviews

Diversity Beyond Lip Service makes a good read for all concerned with the question of human training, leadership development, and organizational change. It challenges us to think about diversity in more concrete ways to ensure transformative change in organizational leadership and within institutional structures. At the heart of diversity is addressing the power and structural issues of critical engagement of ideas, beliefs, practices, and social action. The book’s major strength is the focus on concrete and actionable practices to realize the hopes and dreams of genuine inclusion and diversity.”
—George J. Sefa Dei, Professor of Social Justice Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, and Fellow, Royal Society of Canada
 
“Diversity Beyond Lip Service: A Coaching Guide for Challenging Bias provides a clear, powerful guide through what a growing number of us in the coaching profession believe is imperative to our survival and relevance as a profession. To provide the service to our clients that we claim, we must do our own work to become aware of our personal and organizational blind spots and biases in the complex realm of diversity and inclusion. Through many powerful examples, and with a very calm, incontrovertible voice, La’Wana Harris has made the intersection between coaching and inclusion work crystal clear. Bravo!”
—Halli MacNab, PCC, President, Association of Coach Training Organizations, and C.O.O., Accomplishment Coaching
 
“La’Wana Harris has opened this coach’s eyes to the power of coaching practices to create new paths for diversity and inclusion work—whether or not you are formally trained as a coach. Please read this book and help create workplaces with honest engagement and access for all.”
—Marshall Goldsmith, Thinkers50 #1 Executive Coach and two-time #1 Leadership Thinker in the World 
 
“Diversity Beyond Lip Service is a wonderful guide to diversity and inclusion for intelligent, caring human beings and their organizations. La’Wana Harris wants us to understand that inclusivity is everyone’s responsibility. There’s no shaming or finger-pointing here. We all have room to improve—because whether we know it or not, we all have biases. No matter who you are, you’ll be a better person for reading this book.”
—Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The New One Minute Manager® and Servant Leadership in Action
 
“Coaching is about expanding people’s view of themselves and the world around them. La’Wana Harris demonstrates how we can use a coaching approach in conversations to help people courageously recognize when they have acted out of judgment, power, and privilege. We don’t need to be told to be more inclusive; we need people who help make awareness and inclusion a conscious choice, even when the conversations feel uncomfortable. All leaders, coaches, and people who care about healing the divisiveness in the workplace and the world should practice what they learn from this book.”
—Marcia Reynolds, board member and past Global President, International Coach Federation, and author of The Discomfort Zone

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