[cluse]

An inclusive culture is one where you feel like you belong, and you don't feel a pervasive sense of being alienated, a sense that other people don't want you to be there. The sense that your contributions aren't valuable to the team.

If you don't know what this feels like, good. Over time it really wears you down.

[dx87]

I wonder what their criteria is for "inclusive". My current company has a lot of surface level diversity that most people look for, but I feel isolated because I went to the military while the vast majority of other employees went to college. Our life experienes as adults are so different, that it's hard to connect to anyone.

[hellisothers]

I feel you, there was a book I can’t find at the moment that a coworker recommended to me on the subject of people from poorer/rougher backgrounds in tech/white color jobs and how their learned experience can isolate them in ways they don’t even realize. You could be told you’re argumentative or uncomfortable to talk to because of intense eye contact but growing up you were told that is important to maintain.

On the one hand this saddens me as I realize a level of inclusivity where people don’t feel these little micro-exclusions is essentially impossible. On the other being aware of them in others broadens empathy and aware of them in yourself can help you select better.

[bradlys]

I hope you can find this book because I'm one of those people who came from the rougher background and live in SV. I'd be interested to at least read a book summary! I have a peer who also came from a rougher background and she says I'm fucked because I still act like someone from that background on certain behaviors... and people from that background are looked down upon quite heavily here.

I have almost nothing in common in terms of background with the SV tech people. They're almost all rich kids.

[hellisothers]

Pretty sure this was what I read https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/46074.Limbo

[collyw]

>I wonder what their criteria is for "inclusive".

less white men

[throw2021_01]

Wow, that sounds so good! As a man I would love to join such a culture. At the moment I have no other choice but to simply be good at what I do and thus earn the respect of peers.

[evgen]

Well you do get to start at the baseline of your peers assuming that you are competent and have some right to be there, which is frequently not the case with regard to women and other minorities in tech. It is easier to 'be good' and earn this respect when you have to spend less time justifying your presence. Of course, you are clearly someone who would be oblivious to this.

[danmur]

It's only an inclusive culture if everyone feels like that, though.

[collyw]

What does it mean to "build" one?

Every places where I have worked people have been treated respectfully by the company, though certain individuals can be arseholes. The main place I am thinking of was a female boss who treated the mainly females team below her like shit. Plenty of them left and why wouldn't they? (Those wouldn't be classed as "tech jobs" though, it was wet lab biologists).

[kube-system]

> What does it mean to "build" one?

It goes beyond institutional policy -- it is social in nature.

Don't hire assholes. Guide your subordinates away from doing things that might isolate others. Organize interactions that encourage different groups of people to interact and build rapport with each other. Demonstrate to your employees that it is valuable to be inclusive.

The only people with the power to build an inclusive culture are the people with institutional power.

[collyw]

> Don't hire assholes.

So you become more inclusive by excluding people? Do you see the inherent contradiction in this?

And who gets to decide who is an asshole?

> Organize interactions that encourage different groups of people to interact and build rapport with each other.

But you have just avoided hiring one very poorly defined group.

> Demonstrate to your employees that it is valuable to be inclusive.

Sound like virtue signalling to me.

Out of interest would my opinions be welcome in your "inclusive" workplace? Would you build rapport with me and respect these opinions? I have a hunch that I wouldn't feel very included.

[kube-system]

> And who gets to decide who is an asshole?

These things are not as ill-defined as you assert. I think we can all come up with a generally agreed upon description of what it means to be an asshole. Someone who does not treat others with respect, is cruel, demeaning, etc.

> So you become more inclusive by excluding people?

An "inclusive culture" is referring specifically to the culture among the people working at an organization. The population at large includes many people who are insistent on intentionally excluding others. An "inclusive culture" has never meant "hire anyone no matter what they do!".

Don't confuse "inclusive culture" with "a culture that results from including everyone". Those are two different things.

>> Demonstrate to your employees that it is valuable to be inclusive.

> Sound like virtue signalling to me.

One of the primary roles of a leader is to signal expectations, some explicit, and some implicit. Call it what you want, the point is: a leader's subordinates will learn the bounds of acceptable and unacceptable behavior from the norms that you set.