All In ... On Being Human

For a significant amount of time (even longer than the time we have been talking about BIM) there has been an ongoing question raised - how to increase female participation within the construction industry.

Currently in Australia (and mirrored globally) women actively participating in construction is only around 12 – 18% which varies depending on the source. And when you look specifically at women on the front line in trade roles that number is less than 5%.

With skills shortages impacting the construction industry the world over, an opportunity exists to tap into 50% of the population which traditionally the industry has not addressed. Greater diversity and inclusion also can accelerate a positive transformation in solving the industry’s multitude of system-based symptoms. And from a pure business perspective, there is a multitude of evidence across several well-regarded sources (eg World Economic Forum, BCG, McKinsey) that have published findings highlighting the sound business case for greater diversity.

Don’t Think DE&I… Think Human

So why after so many years with a lot of great effort by many good people has little changed in the numbers? One view is that within many organisations, Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) represents a purely tokenistic approach with a positive result being a ticked box. However token efforts ultimately will only result in token results with the potential for further harm, division, and internal resentment.

Therefore, increasing diversity efforts alone is not the answer. To elaborate further, if you have a manager who already doesn’t listen to their team, chances are any change to that team's makeup will not make that manager change. So, unless leaders see a need to change, not much else will change. You must change the mind of the leader. And you must enable and give the majority population tools that allow them to see alternative worldviews.

Equity and inclusion start with access … and to understand access you need to have a hyper-personalised understanding of each individual and their perspective. And it is not about whether the person you are talking to is female and what access a females need, rather I suggest people consider a less binary approach and throw away gender, age, race, etc., and consider going all-in and choosing a Human-First strategy.

Now think… anytime you interact with someone you have a hierarchy of choices you can pick from, and these choices help determine how you interact with someone. By choosing a human-first approach, it means that you make a choice higher up the hierarchy to each time you interact with someone, you treat them as a fellow human regardless of their characteristics. Alternatively, you can then go further down the hierarchy to characteristics, and this is the choice to treat someone based on their characteristics ie gender, age, race, etc.

So how do you create inclusion - you first treat people as humans and not human characteristics. A human-first strategy looks to create a bias-free environment based on inclusion and consideration for the needs of each individual. And a human-first strategy has the opportunity to solve many other disconnects we encounter more broadly such as generational gaps, race, etc.

Focus on the environment

A recent RMIT study found that 60% of females didn’t feel supported enough when faced with serious issues in the workplace. Without fixing issues internally no amount of recruitment is going to help the industry’s dilemma. All stages of the employment lifecycle need to be considered as a whole because of the potential to impact each other.

As humans, we like to group with people that are ‘like’ us, as a means to avoid conflict. In male-dominated industries such as construction, people have become very comfortable with operating in an environment where everyone is the same. However, this has its drawbacks in unacceptable behaviours, lack of innovative mindsets, and the general status quo where things have become engrained as we have “always done it”.

However, conflict should be encouraged, as it is through productive disagreement where things like innovation can occur. Therefore, we must create a psychologically safe environment within our sector where we encourage debate so that we are both respectful in hearing each participant's views and each participant is willing to take risks in speaking up about your ideas and being wrong. It is also through the sharing of ideas that we can alleviate adversarial conflict through the creation of common understanding. Inside of a shared reality, we divorce the identity of individuals from the topic being debated.

Productive disagreement is a muscle, and it starts with curiosity and humility. Being curious about what alternative perspectives exist. Being humble when we might be wrong is an act of bravery. Finding our shared humanity amidst division is a higher calling.

Consistently Lead by Example

Like with most organisational situations it comes down to leadership and this is no different. As we know with change behaviour, leadership plays a big part, where leaders need to walk the talk. Leadership requires consistency of both what leaders ‘say’ but also ‘what they do’.

Leaders should influence and align stakeholders through non-adversarial communication, consistent and genuine dialogue. Great leaders articulate the purpose and embody role model behaviours and desired culture. Human first leadership provides a solidly anchored reference frame that serves as both a sure foundation and a navigation aid for decision making.

Finally, if you are considering how to become a leader that considers a human-first strategy, I strongly encourage you to consistently challenge your current worldviews. Because within a system where it is dominated by a single cohort such as males within the construction industry, then the amount of inertia to make a change will always be experientially larger than any minority's efforts to change it. So, therefore, for any meaningful change to occur, the majority within the system needs to consider change if a change is to occur. And a perfect mechanism to undertake this challenge is for you and your teams to be involved and participate in programs like the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) Male Ally program, as they will greatly assist in opening up your perspectives and willingness to consider alternative worldviews. 

This article originally was published in the Built Environment Economist - Australia and New Zealand - December 2021 edition · Dec 9 2021https://issuu.com/aiqs_be/docs/bee21dec_digital/12