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Scroll down or use these links to see examples of Business-Aligned® diversity and inclusion training for senior executive teams, middle managers, corporate diversity councils, entire organizations, or leadership development .

Senior Executive Teams

Situation:
A service provider wanted diversity training to help its executive management team improve its effectiveness working with increasingly diverse customers. The management team needs to further improve its ability to understand and meet the evolving needs of its customers.

Solution:
A diversity training and development session was designed incorporating Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) assessment and developmental feedback, supporting learning exercises, and related theory. IDI was used to assess how the team perceived and worked with people from different cultural backgrounds.

The learning design and action planning was customized to “meet the team” at their current developmental stage. The session dealt with communications, teamwork, and customer focus. Practical exercises and supporting theory helped participants build skills for communicating and working with people of different backgrounds.

The program highlighted how any situation can be seen in many ways and linked this to creating business advantage. In addition to group and individual IDI developmental feedback, experiential learning activities were selected to complement the IDI feedback and help the team in its individual and collective development.

Outcome:
The design and delivery plan were well received and the linkage to business needs was clear. Participants appreciated the business focus. They said that the learning gave them the tools and perspectives they needed to become more effective individually and as a leadership team.

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Middle Managers, Sales District Managers

Situation:
A major pharmaceutical company wanted a diversity training module for newly-promoted sales District Managers. The training had to be focused on helping the District Managers achieve their business results. The program had to be high impact and to provide practical tools the new managers could use in their day-to-day work. It ideally would help the managers in recruiting, managing diverse teams, and selling to increasingly diverse customers (physicians and purchasing organizations of large health care providers).

Solution:
A custom diversity training program was designed that addressed these topics: (a) relationship to the company's core values, (b) distinct yet complementary nature of equal employment opportunity (EEO), affirmative action (AA), diversity, and inclusion, (c) the direct relationship of diversity and inclusion to business results, and (d) the importance and central role of effective communication with people of different cultural backgrounds. Experiential exercises helped participants gain insights and learn practical skills.

Outcome:
The participants felt energized, informed, engaged, and more ready for the challenges of their new position. They felt the understanding of diversity and inclusion as a key business strategy and the communication skills learned better prepared them to effectively recruit and manage a more diverse team, and to understand the needs of and sell to their increasingly diverse customers.

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• Learn leading-edge organizational diversity and inclusion concepts
• Develop the team’s effectiveness
• Determine how best to support their business unit’s business objectives

Solution:
A custom program was designed to provide the council with leading-edge diversity knowledge, team development, and tools to implement Business-Aligned® diversity and inclusion planning.

The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) was used to assess the council’s current effectiveness in working with people of different cultural backgrounds. These results guided program design to maximize learning and minimize backlash. IDI group-based feedback and related experiential exercises provided deep learning and team development.

The program included practical background and perspective about diversity and inclusion, highlighted the connection between business results and intercultural communications effectiveness, and provided learning, tools, and practice in communications and developing Business-Aligned® diversity action plans.

Outcome:
The council achieved a dramatic shift in its thinking about the business potential of diversity and inclusion. They practiced developing action plans that achieve meaningful business results, and linked this to the council’s business planning process. The council also learned new skills to build their operating effectiveness both as a diversity council and individually in their technical work outside the council.

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Organization-Wide Learning

Situation:
A Fortune 100 company needed all its work teams to learn more about diversity and inclusion and the linkage to business success, to see diversity and inclusion at work in their company, and to develop their own action plans.

Solution:
The solution focused on engaging team supervisors and leaders and on distributed learning at the individual team level. A multimedia toolkit was developed that addressed team work processes and annual objectives. The toolkit included background on diversity and inclusion, examples of teams using these concepts to achieve meaningful business results, and an action planning framework.

After distributing the toolkit to managers, supervisors, and team leaders, they were asked to hold a meeting with the people they supported. In the meetings, teams acquired the intended learning and created action plans to incorporate the ideas into their own work.

An accompanying tool was designed to help employees develop their annual objectives and do their work in ways that built inclusion and creativity. This was deployed as part of the performance management process.

Outcome:
The first round of deployment created company-wide action plans and indications of positive impact. A second round was planned to more tightly align the teams’ action plans with strategic business goals.

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Leadership Development

Situation:
A large national fraternity was providing leadership development to all its chapter Presidents, and wanted this done from a perspective of diversity and inclusion.

Solution:
A keynote address was developed that highlighted how to use diversity and inclusion to drive one’s personal leadership style.

Outcome:
The chapter Presidents learned the linkage and acquired specific tools to use diversity and inclusion to shape their individual leadership. They successfully applied this framework to the rest of their developmental work.

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See more about how MDB Group can develop and deliver diversity and inclusion training customized for your employees and leadership.

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