The DICE Approach For Inclusion Of Marginalised Groups

When we talk about inclusion, a famous story comes to our mind from a Mercedes Benz plant in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. That plant had an abysmal performance in 1987 as it was taking 14 days to build a car, and that too with 68 faults. In Germany, the time was nine days and 14 defects. The company sent a top executive from Germany to revive the plant. The executive said that it was impossible to make a turnaround as the conditions in which the apartheid people were working at the plant were pathetic.

Soon the news of Nelson Mandela getting released gained momentum, and the executive decided to give these workers a purpose. He asked them to build a car for Nelson Mandela. This cheered the workers, and they built a card in record four days with just six faults. To date, that plant has not closed down.

Niru Kumar, Founder and CEO of Ask Insights, says that this story shows that we have to give people a purpose, include them in society, treat them with dignity, and they can do wonders. She believes that until we take care of the specific needs of the people and until we take into account the backlog of the past, we cannot have an inclusive society.

She says that more and more leaders should have conversations on sensitive issues in a broader sense of inclusion. “If people of privilege don’t talk about it, the underprivileged will never get that fairness,” says Kumar. She adopts a DICE approach, which stands for Diversity, Inclusion, Collaboration and Equity.

Watch her elaborate on this DICE approach and how it can be deployed to remove systemic barriers to the inclusion of marginalised groups.