Becoming Inclusive From The Kaleidoscope Group

The Kaleidoscope Group
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Becoming Inclusive is powered by The Kaleidoscope Group, where we’re thinking differently about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for more empowered people at work. We’re committed to real change, and that begins with real conversations.The Kaleidoscope Group is your full service Diversity, Equity and Inclusion partner serving clients world-wide. We can help you develop organizational change that actively engages everybody in your organization, turning resistance into energy and motivation for change. Let’s talk about where you’d like to go and how to get there - start with a visit to kgdiversity.com

  1. 11/01/2022

    Staying The Course On Your DEI Journey

    When it comes to an organization’s DEI journey sustaining efforts is critical. It’s easy to hit a benchmark, check a box, and pat ourselves on the back. But rarely can we confidently declare “Mission Accomplished.” After hitting a milestone some will lose interest fallaciously believing that initial efforts will be sustained not through rigor and consistency, but through a sense of hope that foundational DEI strategies will simply pay off without additional action. And of course, that wouldn’t be realistic since we know that diversity, equity, and inclusion have to be considered holistically and embedded in a long-term strategy.  As someone once said, “Hope is not a strategy.” That’s the point made by co-hosts Reggie Ponder and Kat Potts in the final episode of Becoming Inclusive Podcast for 2022 with featured guest Mitch Brown, a senior consultant and master facilitator for the Kaleidoscope Group. During the podcast, Brown stressed the importance of staying the course and keeping our eyes on the prize—the prize being a definitively diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace and society.  Does your organization truly commit to the long-term vision and journey required to achieve success in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion? If so, let us know how by leaving a comment below, and adding your voice and opinions to the conversation. And be sure to like us, share our content and subscribe for future episodes of Becoming Inclusive with Kat Potts and Reggie Ponder.  The Kaleidoscope Group is a full service Diversity, Equity & Inclusion firm in Chicago serving clients world-wide. We can help you develop organizational change that actively engages everybody in your organization, turning resistance into energy and motivation for change. Let’s talk about where you’d like to go and how to get there. Visit us at https://kgdiversity.com

  2. 10/19/2022

    I'm In Business, Why Should I Say Anything About Social Issues?

    Sarah Black, Global Communications Consultant for The Kaleidoscope Group’s Global Practice, outlined the dilemma in an episode of the company’s Becoming Inclusive Podcast, hosted by Kat Potts and Reggie Ponder. In the podcast, Black outlines what she refers to as the “Five C’s framework” which reflects: Culture, Cause, Community, Care, and Consequences.  Companies are increasingly expected to take a stand on social issues, particularly if they have committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. More and more companies are pressured to take sides and issue position statements to address social issues.  While employees and stakeholders increasingly expect leaders to use their voices to address what is happening in the world around them, there are risks in saying nothing, commenting on everything, or commenting without fully appreciating what might be involved. The impact on employee relations and stakeholders can be considerable. The Kaleidoscope Group is a full service Diversity, Equity & Inclusion firm in Chicago serving clients world-wide. We can help you develop organizational change that actively engages everybody in your organization, turning resistance into energy and motivation for change. Let’s talk about where you’d like to go and how to get there. Visit us at https://kgdiversity.com

  3. 10/04/2022

    Please, Micromanage Me!...(Said No One Ever)

    “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” ― Steve Jobs There’s a buzz going around among hybrid and remote workers and it’s not reached a boiling point yet, but it’s simmering just under the surface. It’s about micromanagement and its impact on the employer-employee relationship—especially among hybrid and remote workers.  The Steve Jobs quote above, is just one example of a savvy leadership approach when it comes to hiring and retaining good talent. Micromanaging that talent is a sure way to push them toward the exit doors, but there’s still a challenge in ensuring that remote and hybrid workers remain productive without the watchful eye of their managers hovering over their desks—whether in person or virtually.  The cohosts of the Kaleidoscope Group’s Becoming Inclusive Podcast, Kat Potts and Reggie Ponder, tackled this topic head-on in this recent episode and the generational divides are stark, but not unbridgeable. Listen now! And remember to subscribe, like us, and leave a comment to join the conversation.  The Kaleidoscope Group is a full service Diversity, Equity & Inclusion firm in Chicago serving clients world-wide. We can help you develop organizational change that actively engages everybody in your organization, turning resistance into energy and motivation for change. Let’s talk about where you’d like to go and how to get there. Visit us at https://kgdiversity.com

  4. 09/28/2022

    Beyond the Numbers: Why Metrics Don’t Tell The Whole Story About Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

    Measuring diversity, equity and inclusion is an important, vital, part of implementing a robust strategy that delivers desired outcomes. But as organizations accrue data to qualify and quantify their efforts, they need to think beyond the organizational data points to ensure that their efforts not only focus on the business in the macro sense but also at the micro level to understand better the impact DEI has on the team level. At least that’s the point made by two senior DEI experts with the Kaleidoscope Group. In an episode of the firm’s Becoming Inclusive Podcast, host Reggie Ponder welcomed The Kaleidoscope Group’s COO Chris Georgas and Juan Luis Betancourt, CEO of Humantelligence, a software provider and culture management platform that helps organizations operationalize culture, improve collaboration, and drive team performance. The Kaleidoscope Group is a full service Diversity, Equity & Inclusion firm in Chicago serving clients world-wide. We can help you develop organizational change that actively engages everybody in your organization, turning resistance into energy and motivation for change. Let’s talk about where you’d like to go and how to get there. Visit us at https://kgdiversity.com

  5. 09/21/2022

    The Danger Lurking Behind External Benchmarks

    Embracing DEI is now a common organizational value shared across most sectors and industries. But how do organizations measure and benchmark their efforts? Truth be told, it’s a lot more difficult than people often think—particularly when we’re talking about external benchmarking. Measuring culture internally is challenging enough, but measuring and benchmarking competitors is fraught with all kinds of obstacles and misperceptions. At least, that’s the position of Mary Hunter, Senior Vice President, Assessment Practice, for The Kaleidoscope Group.  Hunter joins Reggie Ponder and Kat Potts, for a discussion about benchmarking in this episode of Becoming Inclusive, saying “benchmarking serves a really great purpose, in certain business instances, but not within employee perceptions around culture and organizational practice.” She contends that external benchmarking is complicated by the relevance of the competitor organizations you are measuring against. The Kaleidoscope Group is a full service Diversity, Equity & Inclusion firm in Chicago serving clients world-wide. We can help you develop organizational change that actively engages everybody in your organization, turning resistance into energy and motivation for change. Let’s talk about where you’d like to go and how to get there. Visit us at https://kgdiversity.com

  6. 09/08/2022

    Managing Change: Stakeholder Alignment

    Managing change is a complex process that entails engaging diverse and disparate groups of stakeholders. Often these various stakeholders have different priorities within the workplace despite everyone working toward a supposedly common goal of organizational success in one way or the other. However, when it comes to engaging these individuals and groups the process can be a bit sticky, given the degrees of buy-in expressed by stakeholders of the changes they are being asked to accept.  Hanlie van Wyk, Kat Potts, and Reggie Ponder discuss this hot topic in this episode of Becoming Inclusive. Hosted by Potts and Ponder, Van Wyk, a native South African, joins the podcast co-hosts as a guest, sharing her expertise as a global engagement leader and consultant—working across borders and cultures to help organizations manage the change process.  The Kaleidoscope Group is a full service Diversity, Equity & Inclusion firm in Chicago serving clients world-wide. We can help you develop organizational change that actively engages everybody in your organization, turning resistance into energy and motivation for change. Let’s talk about where you’d like to go and how to get there. Visit us at https://kgdiversity.com

  7. 08/31/2022

    What is Cross-Cultural Management And How Does It Intersect With DEI?

    To understand organizational culture, consider this analogy from the late author and novelist David Foster Wallace. Here’s how it goes: A big fish meets a little fish and asks “how’s the water?” In response, the little fish say’s “what’s water?” The water is like organizational culture, which is slightly different than how we talk about culture in a broader sense.  So in the fish and water analogy, organizational culture is the water we swim in. If we apply this to the workplace, it's common that we don’t truly appreciate or understand our organizational cultures until we leave them and enter a new job with an entirely different workplace environment with unfamiliar work styles, values, and systems.  Quite simply, workplace cultures matter greatly for organizations that want a competitive advantage. We’ve come to understand that 360-degree perspective provided by people from different backgrounds and walks of life stoke innovation. When organizations are homogenous, the perspectives tend to be homogenous as well. We invite you to listen to this episode of Becoming Inclusive with special guests DEI experts Gradiola Kapaj and Trisha Carter now. You can also subscribe to the podcast, which airs weekly, and offers a wide array of diverse voices and perspectives offered by leading-edge DEI subject matter experts. To join the conversation, leave a comment and share the link with colleagues who might also enjoy learning more about this and other timely topics.  The Kaleidoscope Group is a full service Diversity, Equity & Inclusion firm in Chicago serving clients world-wide. We can help you develop organizational change that actively engages everybody in your organization, turning resistance into energy and motivation for change. Let’s talk about where you’d like to go and how to get there. Visit us at https://kgdiversity.com

  8. 08/25/2022

    Employer & Employee Loyalty. Does It Still Exist?

    Ask people about company loyalty today, and you’re likely to get a lot of different responses—especially generationally. The days of working for a single employer over the course of a career, earning a pension, and retiring at a relatively young age are gone. And they’ve been gone for quite a while. But that doesn’t mean that loyalty doesn’t exist at all because it does. It just manifests in a completely different way.   Billionaire Richard Branson puts it this way saying, “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” This presents a real challenge for both employers and employees, especially since they have disparate perspectives on loyalty and what it means in real terms. Reggie Ponder and Kat Potts, hosts of the Kaleidoscope Group’s weekly Becoming Inclusive podcast, dug into the topic sharing their experiences and ideas on how loyalty impacts work and career.  Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion play a major role in making employees feel valued and loyal to an employer. The ability to contribute and be heard greatly impacts employee engagement and as a result employee loyalty. Building real employee loyalty beyond simple retention requires a real and meaningful DEI strategy.  The Kaleidoscope Group is a full service Diversity, Equity & Inclusion firm in Chicago serving clients world-wide. We can help you develop organizational change that actively engages everybody in your organization, turning resistance into energy and motivation for change. Let’s talk about where you’d like to go and how to get there. Visit us at https://kgdiversity.com

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Becoming Inclusive is powered by The Kaleidoscope Group, where we’re thinking differently about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for more empowered people at work. We’re committed to real change, and that begins with real conversations.The Kaleidoscope Group is your full service Diversity, Equity and Inclusion partner serving clients world-wide. We can help you develop organizational change that actively engages everybody in your organization, turning resistance into energy and motivation for change. Let’s talk about where you’d like to go and how to get there - start with a visit to kgdiversity.com

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