Making Room for New Voices: How to Foster Inclusive Discussions

All too often, new and creative, even ground-breaking, ideas are drowned out by the loudest voices in the room. Whether in meetings, leadership decisions, or community conversations, many people - introverts, emerging leaders, and those from historically excluded groups - struggle to be heard. But making space for new voices is critical to breaking old patterns, instrumental in finding innovative solutions, important for retaining future leaders, and paramount for serving everyone in our communities in the most meaningful ways. This blog explores why this happens, why it matters, and practical ways to create space for diverse voices.

In many discussions, a few dominant voices tend to take over. Whether that’s due to confidence, hierarchy, or social norms, this often results in the same ideas being heard and recycled, again and again. An echo chamber of sorts. Who are the people who tend to speak up less?

• A study titled "Women's visibility in academic seminars" found that women asked fewer questions than men in academic settings, and research from Brigham Young University and Princeton revealed that in group settings, women speak 25% less than men. 

• In a study done with NHS employees in the UK, more racialized and underrepresented employees chose to not raise their concerns than their white colleagues. 

• Some studies have shown that women of colour may use self-silencing as a coping strategy to preserve their mental and physical well-being.

• For people who identify as introverts, it may be easier to craft thoughts in their heads than to express those same ideas aloud in the moment. They may also be easily worn out by social interactions, or just be better skilled at listening than speaking. Studies show that 30-50% of us are introverts.

These people don’t have fewer ideas or less to contribute. On the contrary, they often have new perspectives that would be really valuable to the conversation. It’s just that parts of the world - especially workplaces - seem unfavourably biased towards certain groups of people. And these people get heard the most. 

Many nonprofit spaces claim to be inclusive but unintentionally silence certain perspectives. You might not be thinking it but your workplace could be one of them. Here’s a thought-provoking set of questions for you: Who in your organization speaks the most? Who speaks the least? Why?  

The impact is significant for non-profit organizations and their people. When only a few voices dominate, it risks leading to echo chambers and groupthink. This can lead to potentially flawed decisions due the, usually unintentional, suppression of diverse options. Organizations who encourage everyone to be heard are better at decision-making. In fact, a 2022 Harvard Business Review study found that teams that actively include diverse perspectives make better decisions 87% of the time.

Organizations also miss out on new ideas and opportunities for innovation when some voices aren’t heard. When the same voices speak time and again, the same ideas are used to solve problems - even if a better idea is within reach, sitting inside one of your colleagues that feels, for whatever reason, unable to speak up. The non-profit sector, and the survival of many organizations, relies and thrives on collaboration, but true impact requires diverse perspectives too.  

For individuals, people who don’t feel heard often disengage, which leads to lower morale and lost potential. This of course can lead to turnover and retention issues. And for your beneficiaries, only hearing from majority voices inside the organization can mean you only reach a limited group outside it. It might also mean that the diverse groups of people who do come into contact with your organization are not benefiting from your mission in ways that matter most to them.  

So if the silencing of some voices is unintentional and the amplifying of others happens because of habit, confidence, hierarchy, or social norms - how do we encourage new voices to speak up?

🗣️ Make changes to hiring practices 

Studies have shown that women speak less when they’re outnumbered. This is likely to be true for all minority groups, so changing the makeup of your workplace can help ensure that everyone feels more confident voicing their opinion. Sometimes that’s not always possible - for example, if you work in a non-profit where staff numbers are lower, it might be harder to ensure that you’re hiring from every category of personal identity, if you’re even hiring at all. 

It’s also true that some sectors and roles may attract certain people over others, but hiring often makes this bias even stronger. For example, hiring managers often base their decisions about who to recruit based on past experiences and qualifications - rather than potential. But this can have the unintentional consequence of excluding people in minority groups, who probably haven’t been given the same opportunities as their white and male colleagues. One way to overcome this is to include an assessment of potential alongside a review of past experience. 

Egon Zehnder, a global management consulting and executive search firm, has created a model that provides organizations with a systematic and objective way to evaluate potential - by looking at curiosity, insight, engagement and determination. They believe these are the most important indicators when it comes to assessing future competence. Regardless of how you go about it, introducing some measure of assessing potential in your recruitment practices could ensure that you have a more diverse set of voices around the table in the first place.      

🗣️  Rethink meeting culture

Let’s assume that the voices you have in your organization are diverse, and the problem is that not everyone is being heard. Meetings were designed for group communication, collaboration, and decision-making - however, we’ve seen both in research and in real life that equal contribution doesn’t often happen. The loudest, most confident voices tend to win more air time - and that pattern tends to intensify as the voices being exercised more often grow more confident.    

Here are a few techniques that might challenge the normal way you run your meetings - and give more opportunity to hear from everyone:

• Use structured turns to ensure everyone has a chance to contribute. Be considerate, however, that not all people feel comfortable speaking up in all settings.  

• For introverts, group decision-making might feel like a competition for attention that they can never win. Try silent brainstorming before discussions, where people have to write ideas first before speaking. You can collect the written ideas after the meeting, so even if someone hasn’t spoken up in the group setting, there is still the chance to include their thoughts. 

• Assign a conversation facilitator to notice who is speaking too much or too little and to direct the conversation towards those who haven’t yet had a chance to speak.

• Consider introducing decision making by unanimous vote instead of majority rule. Studies have shown that women in particular feel empowered to speak more when using a consensus-building approach, even if they are outnumbered by men in their group. 

• Vary the sizes of meetings and who is included. Consider how different group dynamics might lead you to different outcomes to the same problems. 

🗣️ Empower Emerging Leaders

There is probably a wealth of hidden knowledge, talent and ideas lying dormant within your team. All you have to do is find ways of making space and bringing them out into the open, where they are most useful and rewarding for everyone. Of course, not everyone is meant to be a leader, but everyone has the potential to contribute. Consider the following ideas for not only supporting everyone to feel more heard and seen, but also for empowering emerging leaders:

• Offer leadership shadowing so newer team members have the chance to observe and contribute.

• Create mentorship programs to build confidence in newer voices and give them another platform in which to share their ideas.

• Assign and rotate facilitation roles to ensure different people lead discussions.

🗣️  Be Actively and Intentionally Inclusive

We have a much greater knowledge and acceptance of different learning styles - what we now need is a greater understanding of different communication styles. More and more we hear about how schools are designing different kinds of activities to ensure that visual, auditory, kinesthetic and those who learn best through reading and writing are all given the opportunity to succeed through the design of different activities. What if in the workplace, we started designing more diverse ways to ensure everyone can contribute comfortably? What if we held both big team meetings AND smaller sub-group sessions? What if we had in-person feedback AND anonymous suggestion boxes? Think intentionally about all the ways you can garner ideas and actively encourage contribution from everyone on the team, regardless of their communication style.       

Being the only person of a particular identity, or in a particular role, on a team can be extremely taxing. You’re torn between authenticity and assimilating - and you’re often the one left responsible for training others on how to be more inclusive. With all this pressure, people who feel isolated often opt out of opportunities - both to contribute their ideas and to participate in activities. Managers and leaders in non-profit oganizations can help by intentionally extending personal invitations to participate in both work-based and social activities.   

🗣️ Check Your Biases

No one likes to admit it, but generally, everyone has biases. Being bias free might not be possible, because they can grow, shrink or change as we travel through life. The important thing is that we are actively, continuously and conscientiously checking ourselves for the biases that creep up and striving to overcome them. Because eliminating your biases is only possible if you are able to recognize and understand them.

Bias can lead to certain voices carrying more weight in organizations. Or the assumption the ‘quiet’ members of the team are disengaged or lacking leadership potential. And some historically excluded groups might be given less time to contribute. Managers should make themselves, and help other people in the organization, become more aware of this unconscious bias and openly call out instances where good work is being underappreciated or ignored.

Making space for new voices in your organization, whether these people are already in-house or coming in through new hiring practices, isn’t just about kindness, it’s a necessity for non-profits to improve, grow and be truly representative of the people they serve. 

It’s important for leaders in the non-profit space to ask themselves ‘who haven’t I heard from today?’ and consider how they can change that. As leaders, get your teams involved and ask them what changes you can make to foster more inclusive discussions. However, even if you’re not in a leadership position, making space for new voices is everyone’s job. Everyone on the team needs to be asking these same questions and challenging themselves to allow new voices to be heard.