On the special day that we celebrate the achievements of women and embrace a culture of inclusion, we think it's a great time to reflect on the value and power of inclusivity.
We believe that a diverse workplace creates an environment where people feel safe expressing themselves freely and creates a feeling of empathy. We know that empathy builds trust and cooperation with stakeholders. Trust is often an undervalued ingredient in business dealings, and it is even more critical in a time of crisis.
Diversity makes for flexible and creative solutions: Diverse thoughts, minds, and experiences allow us to draw on our personal experiences to better connect, empathize, and understand stakeholders. This helps us to truly connect to stakeholders and understand complexities that may not be evident on the surface or in words. Understanding is critical to devising innovative solutions.
The ability to draw from our diverse personal experiences creates empathy. Empathy can foster psychological safety, which, in turn, leads to greater communication with stakeholders, problem-solving, and innovation, because people feel comfortable about taking risks and trying new things without fear. Taking risks leads to innovative solutions. An empathetic approach drawn from diverse life experiences helps keep distressed situations calmer. Understanding each other’s feelings and perspectives helps take out some of the stress and emotion. Eliminating some of the unhelpful emotion helps to cut to the real issues more efficiently.
We embrace diversity and inclusion in our everyday life at Olvera because we understand and value diversity of mind and thought. As a high-performing team, we are always looking to improve. What are your plans this year to #embraceequity?
Kind regards,
Kate Barnet
Principal
Olvera Advisors
