Inclusive Innovation Is How You Win
- Raj Hayer
- 3 days ago
- 8 min read
Reframing DEI from Checkbox to Company Imperative
Inclusive Innovation is not a slogan. It is a way of leading, building and delivering that unlocks better ideas, stronger teams and measurable results.
In our Founder and CEO, Raj Hayer's conversation with BOLD Advice, she explored why diversity equity and inclusion must move from a checkbox to the core of how we manage projects and grow businesses.
As she said on the podcast: “I am glad we did not call this a DEI episode because you would have lost half the audience at the title.”
What matters is what Inclusive Innovation does in practice and how leaders embed it into the DNA of their organisations.
Corporations are still learning
Raj's background is business and finance. She learned leadership young on busy shifts at McDonalds, delivered multi million projects in her thirties, and today she coaches C level executives, facilitate transformation for global brands and speak on social leadership, cognitive diversity and business strategy.
Her passion is simple to say and rigorous to accomplish. She helps companies build cultures that value people, elevate advocacy and turn engagement into unforgettable customer experience. She also runs an education venture focused on helping women build wealth for freedom and security. All of this informs how she thinks about Inclusive Innovation. It is not a side programme. It is how you win.
What DEI is not
It is not an HR initiative.
We made a structural mistake when we parked DEI inside one function and asked that function to solve a company wide challenge with a set of programmes. When digital transformation began many organisations tried a centralised digital team. The ones that actually changed built digital capability across the culture, not in a corner, in a single division. DEI is the same. It is a company imperative that touches strategy, operations, talent, design, risk and customer.
DEI is not an HR initiative. It is a company imperative.
It is not a zero sum game.
When people think if you win I lose, collaboration dies and innovation with it. And it is absolutely not a narrow conversation about gender, race or LGBTQ only. Diversity is any differing experience, culture, perspective or need. Humans are complex. Diversity is complex. Leadership is the work of meeting that complexity with clarity. If leading were easy everyone would be winning.
Here is the positive truth.
When companies get this right and embed real representation and inclusion, performance follows.
The research has been consistent for more than a decade. Diverse leadership teams and boards are more likely to outperform financially, deliver higher margins and generate more innovation revenue. The point is not to chase a metric for its own sake. The point is to build teams that actually see more, solve better and move faster because they are cognitively diverse and psychologically safe.
From Brief to Breakthrough
In project management the case is especially clear. Projects live or die on decision making, problem framing and the quality of execution across functions. You bring finance, legal, product, technology, operations and compliance to the table. That mix will either challenge assumptions or reinforce blind spots. Inclusive Innovation increases the odds you will work on the right problem and design the right solution.
Raj learned this lesson repeatedly.
Communications
In one retail banking programme her team was tasked to deliver real time Net Promoter Score to branches, she was tasked with creating a mystery shop program and delivering results for coaching the teams in the branches.
Convergent thinking said the platform must deliver NPS in real time.
Divergent thinking asked a better question. What is the real problem?
The answer was communication. Rather than building multiple tools for multiple initiatives they created one front line platform for insights tips and analysis that put what mattered in the hands of people who served customers every day. That choice saved millions and it happened because different thinkers were in the room and felt safe to challenge the brief.
Stakeholders
Design is where inclusion becomes visible fast. On a real estate secured lending project she had legal, risk, IT and finance reviewing our mortgage application. They forgot two vital people.
The person across the desk who has to input the information
The customer who must provide that information.
Bring the people you are building for into the room from the start.
When she brought them into the session, everything changed. The front line asked for five clean screens assets, liabilities, credit bureau, regulatory check and approval/results. The customers asked her to create a easily readable screen that could be turned around. They wanted to see and understand in the moment, not guess what was happening in a black box. That single inclusive move built trust, speed and accuracy.
Decision making
Consider differing approaches to decision-making, neither is wrong, but we need to understand them:
Men on average may emphasise efficiency and competitive growth.
Women on average are known for customer retention and relationship strength.
You need both. In banking, retail client acquisition is expensive. It is astonishing how often a team spends heavily to acquire a prospect only to lose a half million mortgage because no one returned a call. When you seat only one kind of thinking, you get only half a solution. When you seat different perspectives and value them, your choices get rounder and your outcomes get better.
Overcoming Bias and Designing for Psychological Safety
We also need to talk about bias because it is present in every project room.
Affinity bias pushes us to hire and favour people like ourselves because it feels easier.
Confirmation bias pulls us to seek agreement rather than the truth.
Anchoring bias lets the first loud voice steer the entire conversation.
Groupthink values harmony over critical thinking.
None of these are moral failings. They are human defaults. Leadership is the discipline of designing against them.
Make dissent a step, not a surprise.
One practical move she uses often is to make dissent a step, not a surprise. After a team converges on a great idea, they must identify five reasons it will not work. Naming failure modes together makes solutions stronger and normalises healthy conflict. Another move is assigning a rotating devil’s advocate so no one person always carries the burden of pushback.
And the most important move of all is building psychological safety so people can challenge, share, test and fail without being punished.
As she said on the show, nothing beats a great leader who is transparent, inspires trust and creates a psychologically safe environment.
Inclusion is not only welcoming people to the room. It is welcoming their ideas and their failures.
Inclusivity must run from planning through execution. Start as you mean to go on.
Build teams with diverse backgrounds and lived experiences.
Bring stakeholders into the room early.
Make tools and processes accessible.
Offer flexible work options so people can contribute at their best.
Monitor outcomes and dynamics for equity and adjust.
None of this is new in theory. The difference is whether senior leadership actually rewards these behaviours.
What gets paid gets done. If you only incentivise short term cuts and the latest quarter’s efficiency, you will miss the compounding value of inclusive innovation. Delegate to people, not to the ladder. Give growth opportunities to the employees who live closest to the work, not only to their leaders. Their voices are often the missing intelligence you need.
Treat Teams Like Algorithms
Raj's upcoming book Every Voice Matters argues that we need every human voice online and in the room influencing how systems learn. If only a narrow set of people contribute, we get narrow intelligence and narrow outcomes.
Teams work the same way. When you bring many perspectives together and let them learn from each other you get creativity at its best. You also get something quieter and just as important. People feel seen. They contribute more. They stay.
Inclusive Innovation does not ignore performance. It produces it.
Inclusive innovation asks leaders to replace posture with practice. It asks managers to create time for one to ones so quieter voices can raise real risks. It asks all of us to separate feedback on the work from judgment of the person and to deliver it with respect and kindness. Direct truth is welcome when it is delivered with care and when everyone understands we are attacking the problem, not each other.
Let us close where we began. DEI is not about blame or guilt or preference. It is about creating a better future for everyone.
When organisations embed inclusion into culture and operations they increase profitability, attract and keep talent, strengthen loyalty and trust and build products customers love. When they reduce DEI to a department or a trend they create polarisation, miss ideas and lose speed.
Inclusive innovation is only possible with cognitive diversity and equitable leadership. Those are the companies that will win.
Every voice matters. It is up to you to listen.
What to do next
Senior leaders
If you are a senior leader, make Inclusive Innovation the standard you lead by, not the slogan you repeat. Commit to three moves that change behaviour immediately.
First, move DEI out of a silo and into operating rhythms. Add an inclusion checkpoint to your quarterly business reviews that examines who is in the room, who is impacted by decisions and which stakeholder voices are missing. Ask for evidence that dissent was invited and captured before you approve significant investments.
Second, fund psychological safety like a capability. Require every people leader to demonstrate how they build trust, run equitable meetings and separate critique of the work from criticism of the person. Hold them to account with upward feedback as part of performance reviews and link a portion of their bonus to team health metrics alongside delivery.
Third, redesign project governance for cognitive diversity. At project kickoff, include front line employees and end users alongside legal, risk, finance and technology. Make the devil’s advocate role a rotating assignment and require teams to document five reasons a preferred solution could fail before you green light it. This is how you reduce rework, uncover risk early and direct capital to the right problems.
Project leaders
If you are a project leader, set the tone from day one. Begin with a working agreement that states how your team will disagree, how you will make decisions and how you will learn from failures without blame. Schedule short one to one check ins so quieter voices can surface risks they may not raise in a group. Close every major milestone meeting by asking what did we miss, who have we not heard from and what data would change our minds.
Individuals
If you are an individual contributor, claim your influence. Prepare your point of view before meetings so you can articulate a different angle with confidence. When you disagree, pair your concern with a proposal so you are known as a builder, not just a critic. Invite a colleague who is often overlooked to share their perspective and back them in the moment. Culture shifts when everyday moments shift.
The measure of your commitment is not the number of programmes you announce but the quality of decisions your teams make together.
Inclusive Innovation is the competitive advantage hiding in plain sight.
Every voice matters. It is up to you to listen.
Taken from Raj Hayers book 'Every Voice Matters: Social Leadership for Inclusive Innovation, get the book here.
References:
Bold Podcast 2025: Part 1: A candid conversation about Inclusive Innovation
Bold Podcast 2025: Part 2: A candid conversation about Inclusive Innovation
McKinsey and Company. Diversity Wins How Inclusion Matters.
Boston Consulting Group. How Diverse Leadership Teams Boost Innovation.
Credit Suisse Research Institute. The CS Gender 3000 The Reward for Change.
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