Expand Beyond Your Current Culture
Diversity and Inclusion for CEOs and Leadership
Leslie Short’s Expand Beyond Your Current Culture is a practical and authentic guide to implementing diversity and inclusion efforts at work.
Short asserts that, for diversity and inclusion to work within companies, their leaders must begin not with implementation efforts, but by analyzing their own attitudes toward such initiatives; these, she says, are critical when it comes to adopting true change. Concepts of equity, she says, should be built into company cultures; for inclusivity to succeed, leaders must go beyond just meeting legal diversity requirements.
The book progresses in a topical manner, marking its subjects in bold. These include transparency, representation, and acceptance—all signs of a true commitment to creating a diverse culture, Short says. Roadblocks are addressed within each area, and the book suggests correlative solutions. The book asserts that it’s also necessary to consider employees’ mindsets toward their company’s culture, and that leaders will have to do the continual work of standing up for change, creating purposeful committees, including the opinions of their target audiences, and being honest about where they are in the process.
To further illuminate how change might work, the book includes the opinions of people from different industries whose voices represent various cultures, sexual orientations, genders, religions, and physical abilities. They help to reveal the precise challenges that people from different backgrounds face in workplaces. Short’s own anecdotes are also helpful: a Black American woman, she recalls interactions with people from different cultures, the challenges she’s faced, and what she’s learned in the process. Illuminating self-analysis questions make the book’s suggestions more accessible on an individual level.
Expand Beyond Your Current Culture is an eye-opening guide to creating purposefully open workspaces.
Reviewed by
Edith Wairimu
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
