Adopting a Conscious Culture

Shari Slate is chief inclusion and collaboration officer and senior VP of inclusive future and strategy at Cisco. She cited Chuck Robbins’ speech at Davos in 2019. He said a 21st century company must care about all of its stakeholders, not just the majority, and know that it’s good for business.

“When you strike that tone, it fundamentally changes the who, and the how a company thinks about delivering on their promise or purpose. For us it’s to power an inclusive future for all,” she said.

“From a culture standpoint, we say that we have a conscious culture. [It] is one that is built on full spectrum diversity; it is free from bias, harassment and discrimination. It is one where we empower our employees to take care of each other and the environment. And it’s one where we expect them if they see something, they must say something, if it’s counter to who and what we say we are as a company.

“The focus is really about value creation for all of our stakeholders, employees, customers, our partners, suppliers. But from the intersection of inclusion, diversity, collaboration and technology, it fundamentally changes the way in which you think about the integration of inclusion into every system, policy and practice of the company, both short term and long term.”