Delivering Dignity: A Guide to Cultivating Culturally Competent Organizations

Book excerpt: Prioritizing cultural competence as an organizational leader is much more than just another initiative to add to your list or just another box to check. When people feel invested in, cared for, and valued authentically, so much is possible. Even more empowering is when these feelings are continually and intentionally reinforced through your organization's decisions and actions, resulting in greater employee engagement and retention, more space for innovation and growth, a strong sense of employee ownership, and so much more. That's important, surely, but so is this: we know this is the right way to treat people, and we know we need to do better. But with cultural competence so full of complexities--and with dignity such an intangible---how do we go from ideas to actions? From conceptual to practical? Delivering Dignity provides a roadmap of strategies to accomplish just that, serving as your guide to understanding not only the why behind this work but also how to deploy its power within your organization. With a combination of personal stories, practical examples, and actionable tools, Dr. Kirsten Brown Persley offers the context and resources you need to start delivering dignity today.