I am unique and so are you. We carry our heritage, our experiences, our ideas that make us unique, and our own vision of what the world is. I also share many things with different human groups, just like you. Some of them because of where I was born, others because of my hobbies, others because of my interests. That is, I am unique, but at the same time, I also belong to many human groups. Why do statistics of human populations and categories exist? Because it is a way to organize society. For example, the government can put policies in place so that those who are socially less privileged can have opportunities, or it can create support programs so that people with disabilities can be included in society. But categories also help us in our day-to-day life in our societies. For example, imagine someone's shoe size is 37. It's great that categories exist because every time they go to a shoe store, they just need to say 37, and usually, they find a shoe in his or her size, and that's fantastic. Otherwise, all shoes would be the same. However, having a Size 37 does not impose any difficulties in someone's life. No one expects a particular behavior or a social role because I have a 37 as a shoe size. But this is not always the same for other categories. For example, I'm a woman, a certain role in society can be expected of me. Or maybe some people may expect from me a particular behavior due to my skin color, whether it is really my behavior or not. That is, whether I identify with those types of behaviors, expectations, or roles in society or not. This is what we call essentialized categories. This is what explains why categories in themselves are not a problem. What can be a problem is that some of these categories have a weight in society that can limit my role and the way I behave, and therefore also limit the possibility of fully being myself in any organization. How can you and I be accepted in any organization with all our identities so that we can give our best for the common good of the organization? By taking the journey of diversity, inclusion, and belonging. Now, close your eyes. Imagine that our organization is like a boat, and I invite you to come aboard and join me in this journey. The first step before setting sail is to achieve the diversity among our crew members and understand this diversity in full. Some diversity is maybe more obvious. For example, physical appearances and others like skills and experience may be less obvious. It might be that due to underlying assumptions of some essentialized categories, we do not have the necessary crew members, and we need to include different people. In short, before we weigh the anchor, we will have the diversity that organization needs for the journey. The second step in our voyage when we anchor, is making sure that no one is excluded. That means eliminating possible barriers caused mostly by our essentialized categories. Those that for some people are associated with certain behaviors or normative roles. Therefore, the second step in our voyage is achieving inclusion, meaning that we have created an equal playing field. Therefore, everyone is valued without being expected to fulfill a certain role or exhibit a stereotypical behavior for being a part of a particular human group. Next, we need to set the course, and for that, we need everyone to contribute to the common good. Now, it's no longer about where you come from, but where you're going. For that, we need to have a safe space to feel free to be different among equals. That means we can all express our ideas and that we will be accepted for who we are and how we create new projects that will benefit all members of the organization. We're all different. In the end, if inclusion is achieved, the first and last step in achieving belonging will make us work as one to get the ship to port. Welcome. In this specialization, you'll be traveling the main ports of the diversity, inclusion, and belonging journey. We will first stop at the fundamentals of diversity. There we will learn what is diversity. In concrete, we will be learning the demographic diversity. Those that are highly centralized, including gender, ethnicity, race, disability, or age. We then will continue our sailing up to the port of the experiential and cognitive diversity. It is a fundamental port to understand the best we can all bring of ourselves to the common goals with our ideas and our experiences. We will continue then and arrive to the port of inclusion. There, we will learn why people are excluded and how we can include them into our sail. Finally, we will be arriving to the port of belonging, where we will learn how organizations can create learning spaces that everybody can bring their best, feel that they belong to the organization, and what are the benefits of having an organization in which people feel that they belong. Anchors away, I welcome you to our sailing trip.
