Inclusion is not a faraway place.

Inclusion is not in the future or the past.

In the past is data. That which we discarded, left behind, departed from. It greatly influences us, and while it seems impossible, it’s mutable.

Suppose your past is determining your now. If so, you can pivot. You can change your angle of gaze. If we are past-driven, it’s because we don’t believe it can be changed. Many still believe that the past determines choice in the present. “That’s the way it is, and that’s how it will be when I die.” And that is a lie.

A year like 2020 could definitely reinforce the notion of past data predicting future performance. While the influence of 2020 will be with us, it doesn’t determine destiny, and it doesn’t create a fixed destiny despite the adversity created in its wake.

For example, ask many a hiring manager about hires for which they had high expectations based on what they did in the past.

When they interviewed the candidate and listened to all they did in their last role(s), it sounds amazing. There is hope that those results (not considering the relevance of past context) can be duplicated in your current organization. We know how (un)likely this is to happen.

The results might be similar, but the path to making them happen could be longer, shorter, harder, less efficient, or more likely, depending on a variety of contextual elements that are both known and completely unpredictable—the perception of what was done in the past changes in…