 Hello everyone, I'm Keith Schreen and I'd like to speak today about creating an inclusive digital community. I am the author of Corporations Compassion Culture, Leading Your Business in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, published by Wiley in March of 2021. Also, I am the host of Refinitiv Sustainability Perspectives where we talk to institutional investors, C-suite leaders, and others in the sustainability ESG and D&I space about how to move our sustainable communities forward. And I am the director of risk and environmental, social and governance partnerships at Refinitiv. So what I know well is partnering, is collaborating to move toward a goal. What I also know well is risk. The damage that risk can do to our businesses, the damage it can do to our marketplaces, and also how can we take risk and build opportunities from them. In today's digital environment, in our remote workplaces where we have days filled with Microsoft Teams meetings and Zoom coffee breaks, there is an overwhelming need for social capital that's primarily gained from one-on-one interaction between colleagues, between manager and employee. Now when we don't get these interactions right, when these interactions don't lead to productivity, there's an inherent risk there to our business, to our profitability, and even to our relationships. An actual digital remote community, which is what we're living in now, it requires deliberate effort toward exemplary treatment of colleagues, of those in our communities. That's what I'm going to speak about today. I'd like to first share with you the ideal, the aspirational goal of what an inclusive digital community can look like. From there, we'll explore the benefits of an inclusive digital community. And finally, we'll commit to a simple four-step plan to build an inclusive digital community. Those steps, we're going to start right now. The first one is committing to introspection and core principles. Now, I first want to talk about the notion of community ship. What does it mean to have a community even before we get to the introspection piece? There was a 2009 Harvard article, Harvard Business Review article, and it talked about the term community ship, and it defined it as the space between leadership and collective citizenship. And at its center, it talks about the need for leadership to not be egocentric, to not focus on a top-down framework. Instead, it's leadership that includes reaching out to employees, not reaching down to them. Leaders welcome. They invite. They engage. What happens when communities feel disengaged versus when they feel engaged? Let's get to the engaged first. According to a Gallup report called What Is Employee Engagement and How Do You Improve It? Engaged employees and teams experience a 17% increase in productivity. And for those of you in sales, this will resonate. Engaged employees in sales experience a 20% increase in sales. So when we talk about productivity levels from engagement with employers, with employees, with our entire business community, business rationale behind this is clear, not to mention the social aspect of it. But this isn't just true in the employee level. And I don't know if you, how many of you have heard of the role model effect, but essentially, it says that when we see someone who looks like us, or is really like us in some way, that it makes us feel validated and that it empowers us to ascend in business careers or in political careers or whatever industry you're interested in. And I can talk from experience there. When I was a young child, I would be so enamored with watching Oprah. 4 o'clock p.m. Eastern Standard Time, 3 Central Time Monday through Friday. And I loved her work. I loved her mission, the people that she brought on. It just seemed fascinating. But what was also fascinating is that Oprah looked so much like me. She was black, like me. She was a woman, like me. And she also lived in a state where I was born. She lived for a time in Tennessee, just like me. And because of that, I felt that I really could achieve some of the things that she achieved in the areas of writing and in the areas of journalism. That's just one example of the role model effect. I've experienced this myself and for many of you have. So if we look at that aspirational goals, particularly those of us who are in our careers and people who might be a bit more junior, looking to senior management, looking to executive teams to understand what they can do, how they can progress. Let's take a laser focused view into that and let's talk about the benefits of that sort of engagement. We find that at the senior levels where we have the impact of the role model effect where junior employees can look at those senior level employees. We see that there is a disconnect. We see that in an environment where senior level employees are that there is unfortunately a lack of a lot of diversity in those senior levels in those business communities. As a matter of fact, a 2019 McKinsey study found that executive teams that were in the top quartile in terms of the numbers of diversity around culture and ethnicity and race, they outperformed those companies that were in the bottom quartile by 36% more profitability. Those teams saw 36% more profitability just based on who they had in their leadership in their community. Now let's look at the role that equity plays in your community in a community building. According to a lean in survey women in the United States make about 18% less than men, but for women of color, women like me, the disparity is even greater. On average, white women make about 79 cents for every $1 a white man makes. Asian women make about 90 cents for every dollar the white man makes. Black women make 62 cents about for every dollar a white man makes. Native American women 57 cents. Latinx women 55 cents for every $1 a white man makes. Now we talk about engagement and employees really showing up enthusiastic about what they do and how that can translate into engagement and sales and productivity. But when we have such a large number of our communities, essentially all women in our communities who are experiencing such a lack of parity. To this extent, this greatly damages our efforts toward community building. It's also a risk to our communities. As I mentioned before, I am a risk professional and one of the key risks that firms and businesses and units and departments communities. The biggest risk they experience is reputational risk. Investors are those individuals who are buying stock into our companies, as well as institutional investors those huge pension funds and, and mutual funds who are buying large amounts of stock into our companies. They are a reputational risk. And if they see those types of behaviors around pay parity around lack of inclusion and lack of engagement and diversity at the senior levels. Sometimes they consider not investing in companies. That's a risk. Also, for those of us who are interested in having the best and brightest in our it departments in our CTO offices. Those prospective employees see those behaviors lack of pay parity lack of inclusion, and they may choose to not become part of our talent pool. That is a risk to our communities. And finally, very importantly, our customers who hear about perhaps lack of engagement from employees hear about pay disparities lack of pay parity. And those customers who choose to disengage because their values are not aligned with the values of a company that considers to continues to condone these unfair practices, those customers can disengage. We're hearing a lot about those customer groups and the values that we're seeing now of millennials of Gen Z of some Gen X. And as these people these demographics continue to grow continue to purchase continue to invest with a value with their values heart placed with that sort of inclusion. That presents a risk to our business when we have demographics of people who have different values than our business that have particularly as it relates to inclusion and diversity and equity businesses must get this right. And the way they can get this right is through their communities. So now we're going to talk about introspection I hope I've clarified goals around what a digital community can be the aspirational goal. As well as the business case for why there are benefits for an inclusive community. And now we want to talk about introspection. First we have to do the introspective work that's the first step to get to those inclusive communities. Leaders have responsibility to serve and support their employees and to do so effectively will acquire some introspective work. And this means examining our own biases are motives are agendas why do we do what we do why do we behave in the way that we behave. Now this step is often overlooked. In paper of what I call the more practical questions we ask ourselves and that could be how can I enhance this product. What type of integration do I need for this new product. How can I build out this API. Those are questions that many tech leaders CTO officers IT officers ask themselves and whereas they are important questions. We also need to analyze our actions in the same way that we analyze our products as leaders were often asked to analyze and think about how other people can improve how processes can improve. This step asked us to ask ourselves how can we improve. Successful leadership requires this analysis of our behaviors and it's important to take a judicious approach whether we're talking about looking at our products or whether we're talking about looking at ourselves. Regular introspection helps us align our actions with our personal truths and helps to reinforce confidence in our abilities to innovate and to make decisions and to execute ideas. We're able to do that because we're clear on what our agenda is and we can align that to the company's agenda. In 2017 Boston Consulting Group article explained that critical thinking lead CEOs and addressing immediate challenges, but reflective thinking introspective thinking that helps leaders clarify the big picture. And isn't that what we really want to focus on as leaders, as the ones who are building our communities, the big picture of where our communities can be the aspirations of where they can go. Regardless of the size of your community. And of course, in this context I'm talking about communities as in our teams, our business units our departments regardless of the size. We're still leaders and we still have to act like leaders and think like leaders. Doing this introspective work allows us to think about fairness and equality and how we treat those in our communities. Whether we're supervising two people are the managing director of 200 people, we have to understand what we're doing well where we are really showing up for that equality and treatment and equitable treatment. And where we're challenged where we need help. Now how can we do this, we can do this one way to do this is by asking our colleagues, asking our leaders are executives even asking our direct approach, direct reports, how are we showing up. For example, we can ask, send a survey of examples of when we made other members of the community feel valuable. When we were willing to share our roles share our power in terms of our roles as leaders. When did we show up and treat something equitably are make a decision that showed that we were focused on fairness. Now conversely, we can also ask our colleagues and direct reports and leaders, where are we challenged, where have we made decisions that just didn't seem fair. When did we treat members of our communities in a way that was not equitable or in the way that maybe led them to believe that they weren't valuable. This introspective work. No, it's not easy hearing feedback that shows that there may have been times we weren't entirely fair. Of course that's not easy to hear. But this is the work that we have to do to create our inclusive communities introspection. That's number one, the first step. The second step is collaborating on our goals. That's the second step in reaching an inclusive community. After introspection, we have to focus on achieving our goals to really build a community. And the first step here is to constantly review what you want to achieve. For example, what are your goals is your goal to build a community that ensures that pay parity is there for everyone who does the same job. Or is your goal to retain an increased number of people of color in your business community. Or is your goal to start a mentorship or a sponsorship program. And I just want to pause there for one moment because I know in some cases, some of us are confused or just don't quite understand the difference between mentorship and sponsorship. And in order to have a successful community, it's really important to know the differences in the nuances. So with mentorship, mentors provide their mentees with guidance and day to day advice about reaching goals or reaching ambitions. There's someone that you can talk to that you can confide in. They're considered an advisor. Sponsors on the other hand, now they take a more active role in advancing the professional careers of those that they sponsor. So the sponsors and the sponsors who they support, the sponsors are generally senior level people, perhaps at the same firm as the sponsor. And they use their networks and their professional connections to advance the sponsor through helping them get access to high visibility roles to big projects, as well as helping them secure promotions and secure new jobs. So just wanted to give that difference between sponsors and mentors, but let's get back to our point about goals. So clarifying the goals and really understanding what the success look like to you. How will you know when your objective has been achieved. One way to do this is to bring in your colleagues bring in other senior leaders. Share your goals with them. Get their feedback on the goals. Remember, we're talking about inclusivity and the way to be inclusive is to ensure that you get others feedback so get their feedback on the goals. And you know what, being open to tweaking those goals based on the feedback of others. That is a sure sign of inclusivity, and it's definitely a way to really get those goals accomplished. It takes a community success is not a solo sport and that's why it's important to have an inclusive one an inclusive community that is. Our third step in building an inclusive community is moving with deliberate action I like to say swift action to in here, I want to talk about the re learning process. And the deliberate action that comes with re learning specifically re learning and replacing divisive behaviors. Now there are some biases and conduct that some of us have seen in the workplace that we want to root out that we need to root out to have an inclusive environment. In the past, some of us maybe have even participated in behavior that did not belong in the workplace. Now this behavior might include using inappropriate language when speaking about colleagues are speaking to colleagues. There are unfair performance assessments that don't reflect an employee's work, but rather reflect their physical appearance, for instance. It can also be knowingly paying an employee less money than someone else, even though they do the exact same job. These behaviors are divisive. These behaviors promote exclusion and communities. These behaviors are big risks to the sustainability of our businesses and our profitability. And this step with deliberate action, we've got to commit to removing this behavior from our communities from our culture. This is where we can commit to holding people accountable. When they persist in behaviors or conduct or language that doesn't promote inclusive community. This is where we commit to deliberate action. So holding folks accountable means really to outline what is acceptable behavior based on your introspective work based on your collaborative work with colleagues, direct reports and employees coming to an understanding of what inclusive behavior looks like. And also understanding what it doesn't look like. Sharing that across the community and forcing it and really ensuring that people who do not have the same level of focus on these inclusive behaviors and people who continue and persist in those exclusive and divisive behaviors holding them accountable. That's what moving with deliberate action means. One additional point here, if you are unsure about what actions or behaviors are inappropriate. What actions or behaviors are divisive or exclusive. What actions and behaviors don't belong in your community. Did you have any doubt about that. Look to from the perspective of the person who is the recipient of the behavior of the language of the divisiveness look from their perspective. Let that be your guide. Determining whether the person who's received this behavior considers it inappropriate. Let that be your guide as to what behavior belongs in community. And getting the feedback of people in your community who may not have the high representation level is crucial. Let that guide you. And our last key factor in building an inclusive digital community is measuring progress. We've all heard the saying what doesn't get measured doesn't get done right or doesn't get managed. For instance, measuring your progress and horse correcting if you miss the mark. This is the only way to ensure that we're building inclusive communities, inclusive communities that can grow and that can really prosper and become profitable even more profitable. The tools can be as simple as a survey we're on the scale of one to five employees can answer questions like, has your firm improved on offensive gendered language are, do you see subtle discriminatory behaviors toward people of color are, do you see instances where the second guest more than men. Another option is to give your community members, your employees at your organization, the opportunity to answer these questions in a long form file. This really allows them to give examples of what the issue was of when they experienced the issue and how it made them feel who want to be inclusive, we need to understand the importance of the person who experienced this. How did it make them feel, including those sorts of things on the survey whether it be a short one to five ranking or whether it be a long form, we really need to understand where we stand there. Now measurement can also take the form of outlining the percentage of say women senior leaders that you want to have in your organization over the next 12 months, 18 months, five years, doing that as well for people of color. We can also talk to firms who have accomplished these goals. There are loads of firms who speak about how they were able to accomplish a certain number of women in the executive roles are numbers of people of color in the executive roles, really getting insight from the folks who've accomplished it and letting them support you in building the goals and really understanding what success looks like and understanding how they measure the goals is another way to get to this inclusive digital community. So there are vendors who can support this type of measurements, they're been these types of measurements, there are vendors who create environmental, social and governance ratings of companies. They also build out diversity, equity and inclusion ratings. So these vendors can really help you understand where your firm is now. And obviously that can help you build on to a plan for where you need to be. And also you can look at competitors in your space and see where they are. See where other firms outside of your industry are. Give an understanding of what makes a good firm in terms of their social engagement in terms of their environmental engagement and even in terms of how they govern getting that type of insight that type of data from vendors can help you tremendously understanding where you are now, setting a goal for where you want to be, and then taking the steps talking to people externally talking to people who've already accomplished this goal, letting them help you and support you in getting to your ultimate goal. Now, these are steps that you can do today right now as soon as you in this webinar in fact understanding where your community is now and understanding what's needed to progress the goal. It's that simple understanding those things help you get to your inclusive digital community. Now, we know that measuring evaluating and evolving is the way that we enhance our products, our services, our tech deliverables. Why aren't we letting those tools that measure and evaluate and evolve also help us and support us in reaching our goals toward an inclusive community. The way that we do it and the way that we accomplish it in terms of our business should be the way that we accomplish it in terms of building our communities. As I mentioned, I am a risk and environmental, social and governance partnership professional building and maintaining maintaining is really important. Inclusive communities that are now digital communities is what helps me drive my business forward understanding risks and how I can create opportunities from those risks. It's what helps me grow my business. The four steps to get to the inclusive digital community are doing the introspective work, collaborating on gold, moving with deliberate action and measuring progress. These four steps represent how we can successfully build and grow our inclusive digital communities. I welcome you, your comments, your responses, as well as your questions and overall outreach on social media. Please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram. Thank you for joining me. I'm Kisa Schreen.