Margaret SpenceFounder, The Inclusion Learning Lab · AI Governance Strategy for CHROs | Author, When AI Breaks the Law | SXSW Speaker: Human+AI CoLab and AI Skills Gap for Women | Substack: AI Governance for HR & The Undisruptable Woman

Heart Space Work: The Key to Effective Diversity and Inclusion

1 Feb 2024 · 1 min

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In this brief monologue, the speaker argues that diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives should be rooted in the "heart space" rather than the "head space." She defines heart space work as the emotional, personal engagement that allows individuals to internalize processes and bring them into their own lived experience. Conversely, head space work—focused solely on cognitive understanding or knowledge transfer—is portrayed as insufficient for genuine D&I impact. The speaker calls on D&I leaders to shift their approach to prioritize heart‑centered practices to achieve authentic inclusion.

Chapters

I said on a meeting earlier this week, and I said it on the webinar that I did earlier today, diversity and inclusion is not head work. It's not work that we do in our knowledge base of work. Diversity and inclusion work is heart space work. It's the work that we do from the heart. It is how we take our processes and allow people to take it in, but also to take it into their own heart space. And we, as diversity and inclusion leaders, we do heart space work. And if you're still doing head space work, where you're trying to get into the minds of people, then you're not effectively doing the work of diversity and inclusion.