Group Presentation & Fostering Inclusion Notes

Group Presentation Instructions

• Refer to the group presentation/project instructions for detailed guidelines and grading components.
• Duration: At least 6 minutes, maximum 8 minutes.
• A timekeeper will provide a one-minute warning.
• Everyone in the group must participate in the presentation. Divide the presentation among group members, ensuring everyone has a role (intro, strategy, etc.).
• Provide references to support your claims. Ideally, include citations below the information drawn from articles. Alternatively, provide a reference page at the end. The goal is to show evidence-based research supporting your strategy.

Grading Components

• Command of course concepts.
• Clarity of communication.
• Presentation quality (interesting and engaging).
• Adherence to presentation guidelines (time limits).
• Notes on phones are permissible but discouraged to avoid detracting from engagement.

Presentation Tips

• Beginning slides: State the issue the company faces and why it matters. Connect the issue to broader impacts (e.g., social mobility).
• Middle slides: Present the strategy based on course concepts. Aim to go beyond what was covered in class by teaching something new. Explain how the strategy will be implemented in the organization.
• Earn higher scores by delving deeper into the organization and adapting learned concepts to its specific context.
• Plan for evaluating the strategy's effectiveness. Avoid simply implementing without assessing the results.
• Concluding slides: Key takeaways for the audience.

Engaging the Audience

• Capture attention early by highlighting the importance of the topic.
• Use storytelling to create an emotional connection and illustrate the problem's impact (e.g., Walgreens example).

Clarity and Conciseness

• Prioritize clarity, aiming for a concise presentation within the time limit.
• Focus on depth rather than covering everything superficially.
• Avoid redundancy; make each point effectively and move on.
• Ensure the presentation is understandable to those outside the classroom.

Practice

• Practice out loud, not just mentally, to identify areas of difficulty.
• Avoid strict adherence to a script to maintain natural delivery.
• Anticipate questions and use them to clarify the slides contents.

PowerPoint Slides

• Slides should keep the audience focused, not distracted.
• Avoid excessive text; complement verbal presentation, rather than compete.
• Maintain consistency in font and style.
• Use animations sparingly to avoid distraction.
• Keep it simple and aim for quality.
• Stick to a color scheme to prevent distraction.

Strategy for Fostering Inclusion

• Inclusion is hard because you can't please everyone, aim to broaden policies to consider multiple perspectives.
• Challenge your own perspective.
• Diversity: The mix, dimensions of difference (race, gender, age, etc.). Diversity = Mix
• Inclusion: How you engage the mix; fostering a collaborative culture. Inclusion = Engagement
• Diversity is who's at the party; inclusion is who gets to dance.
• Diversity is counting heads; inclusion is making heads count.
• Critical to treat others how they want to be treated when diversity is present.

Elements of Inclusion

• Belonging: Feeling part of the community.
• Uniqueness: Valuing individual differences and intersectional identities.

Poll Everywhere Feedback

• Share experiences/practices that led to greater inclusion.

Principles for Fostering Inclusion

• Focus on both belonging and uniqueness.

Belonging

• Building relationships and a sense of community (beyond just drinking/sports events). Activities and timing need to accessible to everyone; consider events during work hours and ask for feedback.
• Working together: Create tasks that foster collaboration rather than self-focus and competition.
• Affinity groups: Spaces for underrepresented groups to connect, including interested allies.
• Policies that enable all voices to be heard: Address power dynamics in meetings, ensure credit is given, counter interruptions, and amplify marginalized voices.
• Amplification: Publicly endorsing a speaker's idea while giving credit.

Uniqueness

• Acknowledge and value diversity. There's a difference between stereotyping (assuming characteristics based on social group) and valuing diversity (recognizing different perspectives).
• Recognize/celebrate differences and acknowledge the difficulties it may bring. Rationalize the importance of diversity and incorporate the moral case as well, not exclusively using the business case.

Diversifying the Rules and Norms

• Organizational culture shapes default norms that are not always neutral.
• Defaults reflect power dynamics and can disadvantage some groups.
• The example of office temperature illustrates how norms based on the male standard can negatively impact women.
• Good Employees are Competent, Professional, and High Achieving
• Question assumptions about competence:
  • Confidence isn't the same as comppentence and can disadvantage women because men are more likely to be overconfident and promote themselves than women are even given equal performance
  • Bamboo ceiling: Asian Americans in leadership positions. Stereotypes about Asian Americans incongruent with leadership expectations
  • Organizations that are failing are more likely to have Asian-Americans in leadership positions because of the belief that they will self sacrifice
• What about Professionalism?
  • Professionalism and specifically appearance and attire are often guided by Eurocentric or white norms
  • Companies often have these personal appearance standards, formal or informal expectations about how employees should appear at work
  • Black women who wear wear their hair in natural styles are then perceived to be less professional
• High achievers:
  • Assumed to be individual achievement, but there could also be collectivist achievement. Individual achievement is generally for middle class and collective for working class citizens.
  • People who from working class excel in groups. Better at turn taking and listening.
    Diversifying the Rules and Norms: Default norms (competence, professionalism, achievement) often reflect those with the most power and can disadvantage certain groups.
  • Diversifying development and recruiting: Job ads sometimes include stereotypically masculine or feminine language, and it affects who applies to the job