“Making D&I Real” is a repost of a Court Leader blog created by my court leader colleague and friend Norman Meyer. I was honored to co-present with Norman on D&I and we invite you to our virtual session.

Making D&I Real:

Last summer, NACM supplemented its annual conference education program with a set of recorded “bonus sessions” for both in-person and virtual attendees. I am happy to report that these sessions, along with those that were live-streamed, are available to anyone on NACM’s website: Video Gallery – National Association for Court Management (nacmnet.org). In particular, it pleases me greatly that the session I partnered with Zenell Brown on, “Making Diversity & Inclusion REAL: a How-To Primer for Court Administrators,” is now available to anyone at this link: https://youtu.be/nAqqzkJ2ROU. I encourage everyone to check out our video session, but also the many other valuable sessions on a wide range of important topics.

Our session started with explaining why diversity and inclusion (D&I) is a critical element of good court governance and administration, and how a robust D&I environment is a critical factor to fulfill the judiciary’s fundamental purposes.  Not only that, but D&I enhances key performance areas like accountability, public access and transparency, and public trust and confidence.  After this introduction, the session focused on how court administrators can make D&I a day-to-day occurrence in the courts – in other words, “making it real.”

The session used the NACM CORE Competencies as a basis (CORE®: What Court Professionals Need to Know (nacmcore.org), giving practical examples of actions court administrators can (and should!) take to enhance D&I in their organizations.  For example, in the area of Workforce Management, how can one overcome the “pipeline problem” in recruiting and promoting staff?  How can one eliminate bias in performance management? In the critical CORE area of Strategic Planning, the session includes examples of D&I metrics like self-assessment frameworks. The tools are jump start for individuals to assess where they currently are in their D&I journey and to determine what needs to be accomplished. 

Another CORE example is employee Education and Development; we encouraged court managers to include topics and trainings like implicit bias, effective interpersonal communication strategies/techniques, and how management staff can implement D&I in their roles/actions. Other CORE areas covered were Operations Management, Information Technology, and Budget and Resources.

As you can see, the session has a lot of useful content presented by court managers for court managers. If you have not seen the session, Zenell and I urge you to take the time to view it and see how you can improve your professional (and personal) commitment to a workplace that values diversity and inclusion and puts it into action every day.