Having a diverse workforce and ensuring that diverse perspectives actually shape decision-making are not the same thing.
As DE&I initiatives continue to grow across companies, more organisations are working to increase diversity through recruitment, policies and internal systems. But when we look at everyday meetings, product development and business decisions, are the different experiences and perspectives already present within our organisations truly being reflected?
Take a discussion about a new product, for example.
- Who defines what the “problem” is?
- Who gets to generate ideas?
- And whose voices ultimately shape the final decision?
Even when organisations interview people with lived experience or gather user feedback, those voices can remain simply “voices we listened to” if they never become part of the actual decision-making process.
PROJECT SOLIT recently worked with Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. (“Yamaha Motor”) to deliver a workshop exploring a shift from increasing diversity to bringing diversity into decision-making. Through hands-on experiences of Inclusive Design and Participatory Design, participants examined what changes when different people are not only consulted, but involved in shaping decisions.
In this article, we look at what happened during the workshop, the changes participants experienced, and what those experiences revealed about inclusive leadership.
Perhaps the issue is not that diversity is absent, but that it is not being activated
One of the central themes of the programme was: Rather than assuming that “there is no diversity,” where are the moments when diversity already present in the organisation is not being utilised? And what does that tell us about the elements of inclusive leadership needed within Yamaha Motor?
Fourteen employees from four different business areas took part, including four managers. Participants worked across business planning, marketing, development and design, sales, advanced development and new business development — all roles that involve making decisions in different ways every day.
For some participants, particularly those working in development and design, “diversity” or “DE&I” may not normally be topics they consciously consider as part of their day-to-day work. That is why our goal was not simply to increase participants’ knowledge of DE&I.
Instead, we wanted them to reconsider something they already do every day: decision-making. And to look at it again through the lens of diversity.
To do this, we designed a programme in which participants could experience and compare two approaches in practice: Inclusive Design and Participatory Design.
From “listening to voices” to sharing the responsibility and authority to decide
To explore what meaningful participation actually means, the workshop invited participants to approach the same challenge using two different methods: Inclusive Design and Participatory Design.
At SOLIT, alongside Inclusive Design — which has increasingly been adopted as an advanced design practice — we also advocate for greater use of Participatory Design.
Inclusive Design pays attention to the experiences of people who have historically been insufficiently considered in the design of products, services and environments, or who have had limited opportunities to participate in decision-making. At SOLIT, we understand Inclusive Design as a practice of learning from experiences that are often overlooked and using those perspectives to develop solutions that can benefit a wider range of people. Participatory Design, meanwhile, is an approach in which people with lived experience, decision-makers and specialists participate on more equal terms, helping to create greater fairness within the process itself.
The outcomes of either approach can vary significantly depending on how they are practised. The important question is not simply whether we have asked a diverse group of people for their opinions. It is: Who is participating in decision-making, and how? And: How are the responsibility and authority to make decisions being shared?
The purpose of this workshop was not to determine which method was “better.” Instead, participants explored the same theme through different approaches and compared what changed — both in the discussion and in the way people participated.
What would an office that works well for everyone look like?”
The case study for the workshop began with a simple question:
“What would an office that works well for everyone look like?”
An office is familiar territory for most participants. Three people joined the workshop who brought different experiences of workplaces and office environments, including experiences related to visual impairment, neurodivergence, living in Japan as a non-Japanese resident, and parenting. Rather than including them in the discussion from the very beginning, the workshop was deliberately divided into stages.
STEP 1｜First, think about it on your own
In the first group exercise, Yamaha Motor participants discussed the question: “What would an office that works well for everyone look like?” using only their own experiences and knowledge. They were invited to imagine freely what “ease of use” might mean. At this stage, the three additional participants did not join the discussion. Creating this first stage made it possible to look back later and ask: Who had we imagined as an office user? What had we assumed the “problems” were? And what had not even entered our field of view?
STEP 2｜Inclusive Design ― Learning from lived experience
Next, following an introduction from SOLIT on DE&I and Inclusive Design, the three participants with different lived experiences joined the groups.
Importantly, they were not there as “representatives” of a particular identity — not as a “representative of visually impaired people,” a “representative of neurodivergent people,” or a “representative of foreign residents.” Each person brought their own experiences and expertise, but participated just like everyone else: thinking about the question, offering ideas and joining the discussion as an individual member of the group.
Participants then returned to the question: “What would an office that works well for everyone look like?” What issues had not been visible when they discussed it among themselves? Who had they unconsciously imagined when they pictured “people who use the office”? Through dialogue with people whose experiences differed from their own, participants began to reconsider the assumptions underlying the question itself.
STEP 3｜Participatory Design ― People with lived experience become part of “the deciding side”
In STEP 2, the three participants were primarily asked about their own experiences, which then became a starting point for broader discussion. In STEP 3, their role changed. They participated on the same terms as everyone else: framing questions, offering ideas, selecting proposals and taking part in decision-making. There is a difference between participating as someone who provides experience and participating as someone who helps decide. This step gave participants an opportunity to experience what changes in both the process and the outcome when that distinction shifts.
At the end, participants used a worksheet to reflect on what had changed between:
- thinking only among themselves
- incorporating the experiences of people with different lived experiences
- involving those people directly in decision-making
What changed was not only the answer, but the question itself
One of the most striking reflections from participants was not simply that involving people with different lived experiences led to new solutions. More importantly, it changed what participants understood the problem itself to be. One participant reflected:
Even when discussing the same topic of “improving the office,” I realised that depending on when people with lived experience become involved, not only the solutions but even what we consider to be the problem can change.
For example, when participants initially discussed the office among themselves, the conversation focused on areas such as seating and communication. But through dialogue with a visually impaired participant, entirely different issues came into view: objects being placed along circulation routes, the positions of things changing unexpectedly, and how spaces are zoned. This is slightly different from simply “learning something we did not know.”
When we were thinking among ourselves, some issues did not exist for us as questions at all. It was only by thinking together with someone else that those questions became visible. That is one of the reasons co-creation matters.
From “accommodation” to “creating value together”
Participants’ reflections also revealed a shift in how some people understood DE&I. Before the workshop, one participant had associated DE&I with: “the majority making accommodations for the minority.” Afterwards, they described it instead as: “different perspectives and voices creating new value.”
Another participant reflected:
Challenges experienced by a small number of people do not necessarily require special treatment. Addressing them can lead to greater usability for many people and may even create entirely new forms of value.
This is one of the ideas SOLIT considers fundamental to Inclusive Design. Inclusion is not about being especially kind to someone.
It is about designing conditions in which people who have previously found it difficult to participate can participate.
And when experiences that have previously been excluded from decision-making enter the process, they can reveal problems and possibilities that an organisation or product has overlooked. DE&I is fundamentally connected to human rights. At the same time, it is also connected to the way organisations and businesses operate: Who can participate? Whose perspectives are reflected? And whose experiences actually influence the decisions being made?
Inclusive leadership means continually asking: “Whose voices are shaping our decisions?”
One of the most interesting things for us during this workshop was seeing participants begin to connect their experience of Inclusive Design with their own leadership and everyday decision-making.
One participant reflected:
I had always thought leadership meant “looking from above” or “seeing the whole picture.” But perhaps there is also a way of leading by “stepping inside” and “being involved.”
Other questions emerged too:
Whose perspective are we using when we frame the question, and whose voices are we using to make decisions?
When we decide that something is “right” or “efficient,” whose assumptions define that version of rightness or efficiency?
Inclusive leadership is not simply about being a leader who is kind to diverse people. At SOLIT, we believe one important element of inclusive leadership is continually asking:
- Who is able to participate?
- Whose voices are we not hearing?
- And how much influence do those voices actually have over the final decision?
Even if we formally ask, “Does anyone have an opinion?”, diverse perspectives will not enter decision-making if the environment does not make it possible for people to speak. The question, then, is how to create conditions in which people with different positions and experiences are able to participate in decision-making with their own perspectives intact. That is a different challenge from simply having a diverse workforce.
And then came the next question: “So what does this look like in practice?”
Of course, a four-hour workshop did not provide answers to everything. In fact, the more participants understood, the more new questions emerged.
“Won’t decision-making become slower if we try to incorporate everyone’s voice?”
“How do we balance this with time, cost and speed?”
“At what stage should people with lived experience become involved?”
“In practice, how far are we expected to go?”
One participant reflected candidly:
At this stage, I understand DE&I not as a “kindness initiative,” but as a management practice for making sure we do not overlook the strengths already present in the workplace. At the same time, when I try to translate “What is DE&I for?” into the reality of day-to-day work, my understanding still feels somewhat textbook-like and has not fully clicked yet.
We do not see the fact that these questions remained as a failure of the workshop. Quite the opposite. It suggests a shift from the abstract understanding that “DE&I is important” toward a much more concrete question: “What does this actually mean in our own work?”
Inclusive Design does not mean accepting every person’s needs without question. Nor does it mean slowing decision-making indefinitely. Every organisation operates within constraints of time, budget and business requirements. The practice lies in continually considering: Whose voices should be involved? At what point? In what way? And how can those perspectives meaningfully enter the decisions being made? That process of questioning is itself part of the work.
Avoiding the feeling that “we understand now” simply because we attended training
The participants who joined the workshop with different lived experiences also offered important feedback. For example, when someone has almost no knowledge of neurodiversity, they may find themselves in a situation where they simply do not know what questions to ask.
But no workshop of limited duration can comprehensively teach participants about every possible experience — disability, neurodiversity, nationality, parenting, gender and beyond. Nor was that the goal of this workshop. These four hours were not intended to help participants understand everything. They were intended as an entry point: a chance to recognise that there are things we cannot see from our own positions, and to begin the process of continuing dialogue.
There are things I do not know.
There are questions I cannot even formulate based on my experience alone.
And that is precisely why we need to think together with people whose experiences differ from our own.
Inclusive Design is not simply a method for becoming knowledgeable about diverse people. For us, it is a practice grounded in recognising that we cannot know everything ourselves — and still finding ways to make decisions together with people whose experiences differ from our own.
Training is an entry point into practice
What participants experienced during this workshop was only an entry point into Inclusive Design. Actually transforming an organisation or business requires continuing beyond training.
Understanding / Training
↓
Research with people with lived experience / User Research
↓
Inclusive Design / Participatory Design
↓
Co-creation / Idea Development
↓
Prototyping
↓
User Testing / Validation
↓
Implementation in Products / Services / Organisations
A single workshop cannot make an organisation or product inclusive. But it can create a starting point for asking: “Who might be missing from this decision?” The next step is to embed that question into actual processes — product development, service design, meetings, organisational management and beyond.
From organisations that “have diversity” to organisations that make use of it
Companies already consist of many different people. Different expertise. Different experiences. Different cultures. Different bodies. Different ways of working. Different lives. What is needed now is not only to increase diversity. It is to create structures that allow the diversity already present to participate in everyday decision-making.
At SOLIT, we work alongside organisations at different stages and with different challenges, supporting areas including:
- DE&I and Inclusive Leadership training
- research with people with lived experience and users
- Inclusive Design
- Participatory Design
- co-creation workshops
- prototype development
- user testing
- implementation into products, services and organisational systems
Our work can begin beyond the training stage — but it can also begin with a simple question such as: “We want to understand DE&I better.” Or: “We have diverse perspectives around us, but we do not know how to bring them into product development or decision-making.” We would be very happy to explore those questions together.
At SOLIT, we do not believe our role is to provide a single correct answer. What matters to us is discovering questions we have not yet been able to see, thinking about them together with people with different experiences, and turning that process into practice.
We believe that is where more inclusive organisations and businesses begin.