We have launched, with our partners DLA Piper and One to One Coaches, a new programme called Pegasus. It’s a programme with a new approach to diversity that emphasises the link to successful business performance.
The approach
Why are there so many statutory obligations around diversity, and none around business performance?
Of course there are many laws relating to contracts and employment, but none to enforce the most basic obligation on all organisations: the requirement to perform. Clearly, no legislation is needed: high performance is more rewarding than low performance, and success is better than failure.
If we established a clear and direct link between increased diversity and increased performance, how many regulations would we need around diversity?
The need for compliance is very effective at driving changes in behaviour, but its real objective is to change attitudes. The fact is that compliance alone takes a long time to have any impact on the cultural mindset.
There is a much faster way to change our mindset. It’s called revelation: the sudden insight that there is another way to see diversity and a compelling reason to embrace it. It is the revelation that when we embrace diversity we open ourselves to the full potential of the people we work with, the customers we work for, the communities we serve, and ourselves.
The revelation is that diversity drives performance.
The Pegasus Programme
The Pegasus Programme is designed to change the mindset around diversity and link it directly to performance, by focusing on a simple, powerful principle: there is no difference between the limiting beliefs that flourish around diversity, and the limiting beliefs that hold back individual and team performance.
By targeting this mindset and these limiting beliefs, Pegasus aims to build an organisational culture that fully embraces diversity, by rewarding it with increased individual and team performance.
In this way, the performance imperative takes over from the need for compliance, because diversity becomes a self-rewarding strategy.
Pegasus treats diversity as a cultural gear lever with three positions:
Reverse (D-Minus)
Neutral (D-Compliant)
Forward (D-Plus)
A D-Plus organisation is not only compliant with its statutory obligations, it has a D-Plus mindset that uses diversity to drive performance. The goal of Pegasus is to help organisations create a D-Plus mindset and a high-performance D-plus culture.
Compliance, Systems, Performance
The Pegasus Programme has three interlinked strands – Legal, Systems and Performance – each of them delivered by specialists in the field. With each of these strands the first stage is diagnostic, to understand where your organisation is today; the second is to build a programme that will take you into D-Plus.
1. D-Plus Legal Framework: ensures that you are not only legally compliant, avoiding potentially expensive claims and negative publicity, but that your legal framework supports a D-Plus mindset and culture.
2. D-Plus Systems and Processes: ensures that D-Plus systems are in place, that staff understand the value of diversity to the organisation, and that they are trained to use tools and processes that support a D-Plus mindset and culture.
3. D-Plus Mindset and Performance: reduces the limiting beliefs around diversity with a structured programme of teamwork and coaching, and uses this process to build a D-Plus mindset and to increase individual and team performance.
These three strands work together to develop and consolidate a D-Plus culture, in which diversity is embraced, valued and actively managed as a performance driver. The benefits delivered by such a culture include:
• A richer talent pool
• Greater staff engagement
• More customers, new markets
• Increased innovation
• Better teamwork, increased trust
• More effective performance management
• Improved outcomes / increased profitability
Explore The Pegasus Programme: Introductory Workshop
Pegasus is a structured framework designed to generate tailored solutions. Please ask us to explain in more detail how it works, and how it could work for you.
We will be pleased to run an introductory presentation and workshop, without charge, to enable you to introduce the concept to your colleagues. Also please contact us if you want any further information: Becky King: beckyking@mdaglobal.net T: 01986 895604
The Pegasus Team
The Pegasus Team is made up of three organisations that have pooled their extensive knowledge and experience to develop the Pegasus Programme. They include us, MDA Global, along with DLA Piper and One to One Coaches.
DLA Piper: is a leading international law firm with over 3,500 lawyers in 65 offices across the world. In the UK it includes the employment team who specialise in the management and organisation of people resources. Integral to this is their work on diversity. The team have over 90 lawyers and consultants, and is one of the largest groups in the UK, with further resources extending across the world in all major jurisdictions.
One to One Coaches: specialises in the performance coaching of business teams, with a unique two-stage programme of individual coaching, teamwork, and a self-managed performance system. Firstly, it helps people to connect their personal goals more effectively with their job, their team, and the goals of their organisation. Then it helps them to work on the skills that will deliver their goals.
Go to our links if you would like more information about these organisations.