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Discovering the 5 INs of Inclusive Speaking
In our previous post, I introduced the idea that the path to becoming an inclusive speaker had to go through five very distinct phases, or stages, which I’ve identified as the 5INs of inclusive speaking.
After all these years of tinkering with that idea, I’ve grown very confident in believing that every speaking professional not only sits somewhere on a spectrum ranging from clueless to cognizant when it comes to inclusion but also fits mostly within one of the five categories at any moment in their development or career.
I’ve labeled these stages, the instinctive, inspired, informed, involved, and inclusive phases, based on how aware speaking professionals are about inclusion when it comes to audience members who have disabilities, are older or are somehow marginalized by our use of technology.
This determination is rooted in two main driving forces: the speakers’ perceived level of connectedness with their audience, and their perceived level of consciousness about their audience member’s different sets of needs, biases, and expectations. Combined, these two forces make up a profile for each and every speaker that ever walked up on a stage, whether it is an in-person or virtual one.
Graphic showing the 5 quadrants of the inclusive speaking model with INSTINCTIVE going across the entire graph…
