In far too many organizations, executive teams and Diversity Councils feel stuck and unsure of how to manifest meaningful, sustainable culture change. All too often, they invest significant time and energy into professional development trainings designed to shift the awareness and skills of individuals with little to no measurable progress or impact on retention, engagement or culture change. While highly motivated individuals may create innovative programs and services to achieve Inclusion Strategic Goals, these efforts stagnate or are dismantled once these high performers leave the organization. It is critical that leaders commit to going to take it to the next level and create the critical infrastructure changes necessary to ensure meaningful, sustainable change over the long haul. On this Show I will talk about ways to create an Inclusion Partners Program, an innovative process to create the critical organizational infrastructure to increase the capacity of leaders and all employees to accelerate institutional change as they infuse equity and inclusion into daily practices and use an Inclusion Lens to develop and revise policies, programs, practices, and services.

We will explore:

• Organizational benefits of skilled SMEs, subject matter experts, as thought-partners to department and divisional leaders

• Key steps for implementing a successful Inclusion Partner Program

• Core training & development elements for Inclusion Partners and their respective leaders

• Common traps and pitfalls to anticipate and mitigate during this organization change process

• Strategies to advance organizational change