If you’re in the process of planning, designing or delivering any kind of intervention on diversity and inclusion in your organisation, then you may find the following useful.  It’s a checklist of ten success factors: the things you need to pay attention to on design and delivery, in order to maximise the likelihood of any intervention making a positive difference.

Fellow consultant Gilly Shapiro and I have developed this list based on our collective experience of working with clients across the sectors on organisational development and change, diversity and inclusion.  We’ve also drawn on insights from others, including two recent resources: Why Diversity Programs Fail And what works better, HBR, July-August 2016; What Works: Gender Equality by Design, Iris Bohnet, 2016.

It’s a simple checklist.  You’ll find it quick to read and – we hope – intuitive.  But in our experience of working with and observing organisational approaches on diversity and inclusion, it’s a list that’s definitely easier read than done.

We’d love to know what you think of it.  It is useful to you?  And what have we missed?  You can download a printable pdf of the list here: Checklist for successful interventions

CHECKLIST FOR SUCCESSFUL INTERVENTIONS ON DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

• Successful interventions have influential sponsorship (most likely senior leaders who are active, visible, and want to see things change)
• There is an appetite for the intervention (there’s a business case or some other motivation/ diagnostic/ insight which provides evidence of the need for change)
• The intervention is resourced for success and sustainability (time, budget, people)
• It’s understood as part of a broader organisational system (interconnections and impact on other organisational practices are explored, the intervention targets system and process change not just individual behaviour)
• Target populations are involved in designing the intervention (the ‘nothing about me without me’ principle)
• Managers are engaged in solving the problem (in designing the intervention and in its implementation)
• The intervention creates alliances between different groups (reducing the power of homogenous networks, encouraging contact between different groups)
• The intervention is sector and organisation-specific, inspired by but not copied from good practice in other organisations
• There is accountability and responsibility (both for taking action, and for impact)
• There is transparency about success and failure, and learning from both