Core Values – 5. Inclusivity

… And so we reach the 5th of 8 posts about Core Values in the workplace. So far, we have looked at the values of Altruism, Integrity and Co-Creation. This post looks at Inclusivity.

From the first Impact Report on our work, there was the recognition that ensuring people are involved and included
is a key aspect of our work. This core value complements the previous value of co-creation. To enable co-creation it is important to be inclusive.

Working in the world of health research, this value is not without controversy. It sits at the heart of the conflict between approaches to research that strive at excellence and those that set out to see a thousand flowers bloom. Whilst I appreciate the importance of excellence in achieving high quality, it is vital to ensure that work is inclusive. Instinctively it feels right to include people wherever possible in things that we do. The default when asking whether someone should be in the room, is to say yes. There have to be really good reasons to leave someone out!

As I have said, this can make us at odds with those that set out to achieve centres of high excellence and work with exclusivity.

Still, if we are to build excellence into all that we do, we need to draw on the expertise of others. If we exclude people, we limit the ability to draw on wide areas of expertise.

This is why this core value drives what we do. Again, if we look at the way in which the values complement each other, if we work from an understanding that all of the expertise is not held within the team, and that we need to draw on skills from others – by being inclusive, we increase the chances that we will succeed.

Thus, as we look across the health professionals and look at the ways in which research is conducted in healthcare – there is far too much emphasis on trials led by medics. This is the outcome of exclusivity. As a result we miss out on the wider perspectives that research needs which can be brought to the agenda by the other professions that work in healthcare. By being inclusive and working particularly to include those professions that are very under-represented in research, we can create an environment where the richness of research is much much deeper.

The next post on Core Values will look at Humility – a value that is being challenged in the changing organisational climate in which we are working.