Diversity Beyond Lip Service

Praise

“Diversity Beyond Lip Service makes a good read for all concerned with the question of human training, leadership development, and organizational change. It challenges us to think about diversity in more concrete ways to ensure transformative change in organizational leadership and within institutional structures. At the heart of diversity is addressing the power and structural issues of critical engagement of ideas, beliefs, practices, and social action. The book’s major strength is the focus on concrete and actionable practices to realize the hopes and dreams of genuine inclusion and diversity.”
—George J. Sefa Dei, Professor of Social Justice Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, and Fellow, Royal Society of Canada
 
“Diversity Beyond Lip Service: A Coaching Guide for Challenging Bias provides a clear, powerful guide through what a growing number of us in the coaching profession believe is imperative to our survival and relevance as a profession. To provide the service to our clients that we claim, we must do our own work to become aware of our personal and organizational blind spots and biases in the complex realm of diversity and inclusion. Through many powerful examples, and with a very calm, incontrovertible voice, La’Wana Harris has made the intersection between coaching and inclusion work crystal clear. Bravo!”
—Halli MacNab, PCC, President, Association of Coach Training Organizations, and C.O.O., Accomplishment Coaching
 
“La’Wana Harris has opened this coach’s eyes to the power of coaching practices to create new paths for diversity and inclusion work—whether or not you are formally trained as a coach. Please read this book and help create workplaces with honest engagement and access for all.”
—Marshall Goldsmith, Thinkers50 #1 Executive Coach and two-time #1 Leadership Thinker in the World 
 
“Diversity Beyond Lip Service is a wonderful guide to diversity and inclusion for intelligent, caring human beings and their organizations. La’Wana Harris wants us to understand that inclusivity is everyone’s responsibility. There’s no shaming or finger-pointing here. We all have room to improve—because whether we know it or not, we all have biases. No matter who you are, you’ll be a better person for reading this book.”
—Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The New One Minute Manager® and Servant Leadership in Action
 
“Coaching is about expanding people’s view of themselves and the world around them. La’Wana Harris demonstrates how we can use a coaching approach in conversations to help people courageously recognize when they have acted out of judgment, power, and privilege. We don’t need to be told to be more inclusive; we need people who help make awareness and inclusion a conscious choice, even when the conversations feel uncomfortable. All leaders, coaches, and people who care about healing the divisiveness in the workplace and the world should practice what they learn from this book.”
—Marcia Reynolds, board member and past Global President, International Coach Federation, and author of The Discomfort Zone