Diversity Beyond Lip Service

"La'Wana Harris has opened this coach's eyes to the power of coaching practices to create new paths for diversity and inclusion work-whether or not you are formally trained as a coach. Please read this book and help create workplaces with honest engagement and access for all."
-Marshall Goldsmith, Thinkers 50 #1 Executive Coach and two-time #1 Leadership Thinker in the world



The elephant in the room with diversity and inclusion work is that people with privilege must use their privilege to allow others equal access to power. This is often the reason diversity efforts can be stalled--we talk about the benefits, but we don't address the perception that in order for some to gain power, others will have to "lose." Everyone believes in diversity until they have to give something up. How do we talk people through this shift?

This book introduces a new coaching tool, called Inclusion Coaching™, based on cutting-edge research to create the best practices for building a sustainable and actionable culture of inclusion for all businesses and organizations. Harris offers timely solutions and resources to help readers move beyond intentions to actions and behaviors that confront various negative "isms" felt by many who feel that they aren't being supported in the workplace. This book advocates for an innovative coaching platform that takes professional coaching and frames it with an inclusion modality. A valuable addition to the coaching profession, Harris provides managers and diversity coaches with new models to empower employees and CEOs to "do" inclusion and address deep-rooted biases that are often invisible to us. These proven solutions will help empower and inspire any business leader or organization to leverage all its members' talents to drive change through individual and collective action.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction: Diversity and Inclusion Starts from Within
• 1: We Hired Some Minorities, Some Women, and People with Disabilities; Isn’t That Enough?
• 2: The Language of Diversity
• 3: The Problem of Privilege: Does Diversity Mean I Lose Mine?
• 4: Coaching + D&I = Δ Behavior
• 5: Commit to Courageous Action
• 6: Open Your Eyes and Ears
• 7: Move beyond Lip Service (Sharing Power Is Harder—and Easier—Than You Think)
• 8: Make Room for Controversy and Conflict (You Can Talk about This at Work)
• 9: Invite New Perspectives
• 10: Tell the Truth Even When It Hurts
• 11: My Truth, Unfiltered
• Conclusion: What’s in It for Everyone: Where Inclusion Can Take Your Life, Your Career, and Your Company
• Diversity-beyond-Lip-Service Commitment Statement
• COMMIT Self-Assessment: Where Are You in Your Journey?
• Notes
• Glossary
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• About the Author

“Diversity Beyond Lip Service makes a good read for all concerned with the question of human training, leadership development, and organizational change. It challenges us to think about diversity in more concrete ways to ensure transformative change in organizational leadership and within institutional structures. At the heart of diversity is addressing the power and structural issues of critical engagement of ideas, beliefs, practices, and social action. The book's major strength is the focus on concrete and actionable practices to realize the hopes and dreams of genuine inclusion and diversity.”
-George J. Sefa Dei, Professor of Social Justice Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, and Fellow, Royal Society of Canada

“Diversity Beyond Lip Service: A Coaching Guide for Challenging Bias provides a clear, powerful guide through what a growing number of us in the coaching profession believe is imperative to our survival and relevance as a profession. To provide the service to our clients that we claim, we must do our own work to become aware of our personal and organizational blind spots and biases in the complex realm of diversity and inclusion. Through many powerful examples, and with a very calm, incontrovertible voice, La'Wana Harris has made the intersection between coaching and inclusion work crystal clear. Bravo!”
-Halli MacNab, PCC, President, Association of Coach Training Organizations, and C.O.O., Accomplishment Coaching

“La'Wana Harris has opened this coach's eyes to the power of coaching practices to create new paths for diversity and inclusion work-whether or not you are formally trained as a coach. Please read this book and help create workplaces with honest engagement and access for all.”
-Marshall Goldsmith, Thinkers50 #1 Executive Coach and two-time #1 Leadership Thinker in the World

“Diversity Beyond Lip Service is a wonderful guide to diversity and inclusion for intelligent, caring human beings and their organizations. La'Wana Harris wants us to understand that inclusivity is everyone's responsibility. There's no shaming or finger-pointing here. We all have room to improve-because whether we know it or not, we all have biases. No matter who you are, you'll be a better person for reading this book.”
-Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The New One Minute Manager® and Servant Leadership in Action

“Coaching is about expanding people's view of themselves and the world around them. La'Wana Harris demonstrates how we can use a coaching approach in conversations to help people courageously recognize when they have acted out of judgment, power, and privilege. We don't need to be told to be more inclusive; we need people who help make awareness and inclusion a conscious choice, even when the conversations feel uncomfortable. All leaders, coaches, and people who care about healing the divisiveness in the workplace and the world should practice what they learn from this book.”
-Marcia Reynolds, board member and past Global President, International Coach Federation, and author of The Discomfort Zone