Fostering a Culture of Inclusivity in the Workplace with Sheree Knowles

**Mike Liwski** (0:00)
I love about the game.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:03)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:17)
All right, when we had Artie on the show, she was trash talking Mike on some pickleball. Sheree, I understand you're pro pickleball?

**Sheree Knowles** (0:25)
I am pro pickleball, but I am not a pickleball pro. How about that?

**Stephen Sakach** (0:30)
Very nice, very nice. Welcome back to The Bliss Business Podcast, everyone, where we explore how empathy, connection and purpose can transform business from the inside out. I'm Stephen Sakach, joined by my co-host, Mike Liwski, and today's conversation shines a spotlight on inclusion, a vital yet often misunderstood aspect of modern leadership. Some stats here. According to McKinsey, companies in the top quartile for ethnic and cultural diversity are 36% more profitable than those in the bottom quartile. Yet, only 31% of employees feel their company is meaningfully committed to these efforts according to the Harvard Business Review. And our guest today is here to shift that narrative. Mike introduced our guest today.

**Mike Liwski** (1:16)
Oh, thanks, Stephen. And yes, we are super excited to welcome Sheree Knowles. She's the CEO of HR Knowledge Source, and actually the co-founder as well of the Human Capital Consortium. Sheree is a powerhouse, as many of our listeners already know, in the field of human capital strategy. With over 20 years of executive level HR experience, she's led both enterprise level transformations and grassroots organizational development. And her companies provide strategic consulting, training and DEI guidance to businesses across the country. She is well named one of Atlanta's 100 most powerful and influential women. Sheree is known for helping companies foster workplace cultures rooted in dignity, inclusion and innovation, which we love to discuss here on this show. So Sheree, welcome to our show. We're so happy to have you with us.

**Sheree Knowles** (2:20)
Hey, thank you both and your team for having me. I'm excited to be here.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:25)
Sheree, many organizations, I think, sometimes treat inclusivity as maybe like a compliance checkbox or something like that. But you've built your career helping companies reframe it as a strategic asset. What does inclusivity actually mean at its core, and what does it look like when it's done well?

**Sheree Knowles** (2:47)
Yeah. So starting my career in HR like a very long time ago, there was just the D, the diversity, right? And so it was all about the quantity of the representation. And as we started to learn more and started to really expand the narrative around it, inclusion then became a hot topic because inclusion is really about the quality of the representation, the experience. And so you can have all the diversity, you can check off, you can count all the marbles. But if you don't create an ecosystem or a culture that supports the diversity, then you're really not doing very well. And so you're just going to have a bunch of people who might look different, think differently, but they're not acting in one accord and really pushing the business agenda forward.

**Mike Liwski** (3:40)
I really like that.

**Stephen Sakach** (3:41)
I'm nodding the whole time when you're saying all that. For sure, it's like, I agree, you want to understand, it's a great explanation.

**Mike Liwski** (3:48)
Yeah. Yeah, I would say too, I really love that point about the quality of the inclusion, right? Because saying, hey, we're diverse because we have these sorts of individuals, of people in our organization, but are they really, really included? That's a different way to really think about it, Sheree.
So question for you as well. So you've worked in a number of different industries, and as we said in the intro, different size companies from transforming enterprises to even some of the startups and grassroots efforts. So I'm curious, what are some of the most common barriers, would you say, when you see organizations trying to move into, say, a more inclusive culture? What are some of those barriers?

**Sheree Knowles** (4:37)
Yeah, I think for me, what I've seen two things primarily, one is that organizations are looking for like a quick fix. So they're looking for, I'm going to do these five things, and in two weeks, I'm going to have this amazing transformative organization. And so they're kind of thinking from a checker's perspective versus a chess perspective, and they're not really leaning into the long run.
And understanding that organization, you know, you can change a policy, you can do this kind of stuff in two weeks, but you can't really change a human in two weeks. And so it takes more than just one time, two times, even three times of a conversation. So I think that's number one. The other thing is that a lot of people who are in leadership kind of feel like, like I want to support this effort, but it really doesn't impact me. So there's this level of cognizant dissonance there. Like I'm supportive, but I'm not really involved. And what they feel to miss is that everyone, no matter who you are, you have a role, you have a voice, you have a place on the spectrum. And so if you think it's not about you, that you're just helping other people, you're not really as invested as you could be. So those are things that we see.