Washington, DC is home to countless nonprofits and think tanks serving communities around the world through policy and a variety of direct programs. One such think tank focused on financial inclusion engaged us to help them look internally, to explore the inclusivity of their own culture. We dug in, helping them assess beyond the common symptoms of culture challenges to uncover the keys to building a more supportive workplace.
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As challenges are posed to the business case for diversity, equity and inclusion, organizations truly committed to values of belonging and respect prioritize inclusion as a non-negotiable element of workplace culture. In fact, many of us who have been working in the DEI space for some time actually reorder the acronym to reflect how the work starts with inclusion. An international development think tank dedicated to improving the lives of people living in poverty recognized that to improve their work, they had to strengthen their own team culture. They asked The Collective Good to help them develop a clearer picture of their current culture and identify specific opportunities to grow into the culture they wanted.
Future Caucus has an audacious mission to activate young leaders, bridge the partisan divide, and transform American politics. Entering the pandemic, they welcomed a new leader and new team members. With this in mind and the increasing polarization of policymaking, Future Caucus had an opportunity to engage and grow its membership.
TCG’s work was to test the organization's hypothesis that issues surrounding psychological safety, workload and DEI were the primary cause of culture challenges. After a series of conversations to better understand the connections that had been drawn between these issues by leadership and a culture committee, we developed a process that included both qualitative and quantitative data gathering directly from the team, through interviews, a robust survey, and focus groups.
Culture is what people perceive it to be, so the only way to figure out what is and isn't working is to ask team members directly and then combine multiple perspectives into one story. With a team of nearly 100 people spread around the globe, where this organization needed our help most was in lifting up the most common and most urgent initiatives.
Given that several of the narratives that emerged revolved around not understanding the "why" behind decisions and inconsistent follow-through, we recommended that leadership start with conversations about the findings from this process. Specifically, we suggested they demonstrate inclusivity by considering the following:
Most importantly, TCG urged leadership to start right away, showing the team that they were heard and engaging with them before changing policies and structures. We also suggested they spend more time linking their own inclusive culture to their work, showing the team that these internal efforts not only make for a better workplace for the team but also support the work they do for communities around the world.
Our Partnership:
From this process, Future Caucus gained a clearer focus on building a constituency for inclusive governing and amplifying new narratives.
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