My most important learning so far is to accept otherness. Learning different communication skills expanded my horizons and boosted my empathy.

What is your personal understanding of diversity and inclusion?
For me, diversity and inclusion mean letting every person be who they want to be. This is simple and complicated at the same time. We are all different people with different histories and backgrounds, so we bring an exceptional and unique diversity of thoughts that enriches our everyday world and the workplace. Inclusion allows this richness to grow. I believe that striving to create an inclusive culture is the responsibility of each company. We cannot allow ourselves to waste the potential of the people. 

What does it mean to you to work in a diverse environment?
I work with different cultural backgrounds on a daily basis, which allows me to look at the same problems with different perspectives. This creates and enables innovation, ideas and solutions that help our clients be more successful. However, this is also important from the employees’ perspective. Thanks to the fact that we work in a company that appreciates diversity and fosters inclusion, we can really be ourselves. We engage more because we know our firm fully accepts us. I personally experienced this. For me, it was incredible that I could take parental leave and spend valuable time with my little daughter. As a father, I am glad I did not have to give this up out of fear that my decision would not be accepted. Unfortunately, it is still rare that fathers go on parental leave. I would not trade this time for anything in the world, and I would recommend it to all fathers. We can have great careers and great private lives at the same time. 

How do you make a personal impact on diversity and inclusion?
Diversity and inclusion are something I truly believe in. I am sure each of us remembers a time when we were excluded, shamed or dismissed. It is not a good feeling, and I think we all learned our lessons from it. For me it led to empathy, to personally living diversity and inclusion and advocating the same approach to others. The first aspect I started working on was communication. Our words can sometimes express wrong intentions or create misunderstandings. I also realised that it is important to avoid assumptions and prejudices. Now, I try to understand other people’s opinions and actions in all situations. I proactively educate myself on any topic by reading a lot of different articles and reports as well as by simply talking to different people. This led to my level of awareness and openness rising considerably. Today, living diversity and inclusion is an important part of my everyday life – both at Deloitte and in my private life. 

How is your experience working with diverse colleagues? What did you learn from it? 
I always enjoy working with new colleagues with different cultural backgrounds because I learn a lot from them. My most important learning so far has been to accept otherness. Learning different communication skills expanded my horizons and boosted my empathy. Both are very beneficial for my everyday work: better decision making, considering the variety of different perspectives and more innovation. Working with diverse colleagues also makes me feel like I can be myself, which results in greater engagement and creativity. I realised it is not only about the people or about the atmosphere in the workplace, but also about the values that I share with my colleagues. This is what unites us.

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