“The more senior you go in an organisation, there will be an action bias. They say: ‘Just tell me what I should do.’ My answer is that I could give them a million things to do to improve diversity and inclusion, but it isn’t going to be sustainable if they don’t understand the foundations of the why and how.”

Stephen Frost is frustrated but also optimistic about the state of diversity and inclusion in organisations around the world. Increasingly, there is good practice out there, he says, but these examples are too few.

And a big part of the problem is that leaders still have a deficit model - asking “where have we gone wrong?”, rather than “how can diversity and inclusion help us be better?” - that lacks intellectual curiosity, he says.

“If you are dismissing diversity and inclusion…as something not worthy of your intellect or strategic insight, then you are never going to give it the credibility it deserves,” he stresses.

Diversity and inclusion: a ‘method, not a task’

Frost designed, led and implemented the inclusion programme for the London Olympics and Paralympics, has worked with clients including the BBC, AstraZeneca, BAE Systems, Shell and the World Economic Forum, and has advised the UK government and taught at Harvard University. He’s also the author of the book The Key to Inclusion.

In this webinar, he talks to host Paul Spiers, founder of the New P&L, about how schools and trusts can put diversity and inclusion at the heart of what they do as a “method, not a task”, how to tackle differences in beliefs and opinions respectfully within an organisation and how to benchmark your diversity and inclusion over time.

You can watch the webinar below. If you can’t see the video, you can also find it here.

• Related article: How to create a robust DEI policy - and why it matters