Establishing a Solid Foundation for Understanding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Pivoting from Confrontation to Discovery to Action

Anyone attempting to discern the current climate of business operations in a rapidly changing, highly technological, and global world must first recognize how critical the understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion is as part of the equation. In order to make sustainable changes that go beyond benefits to the bottom line, there must be a grasp of the historical and contemporary components of diversity, equity, and inclusion. When employees transition from feeling marginalized to feeling safe, valued, respected, and empowered, businesses transform into innovative environments where mutual respect and authenticity yield financial profits and increased productivity. There is no formula that offers the exact combination on how to successfully create a perfect work environment. The best solution is to design a workable template to understand the management issue of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The template combines two universal principles, which permit a reasonable degree of analysis of the complex factors that significantly impact the current situation. The welcomed flexibility of the template is that it escapes the limitations of time, location, customs, religious or political ideologies - it can literally be applied to any society, and what emerges is a portrait unique to that society yet one that follows certain established patterns.