Why Inclusion Needs the Same Language and Discipline as Safety

Inclusion Needs the Same Language as Safety

One of the reasons safety works so well in the energy sector is clarity.

👍 We don’t debate what safety means.
👍 We don’t personalise it.
👍 We don’t leave it to individual interpretation.

We have shared language, simple rules, and clear expectations.

🦺 Stop the job.
🦺 No job is so important it can’t be done safely.
🦺 If in doubt, stop.

Everyone understands what “good” looks like.

Inclusion, by contrast, often fails because it’s vague. Abstract. Open to interpretation. Leaders may believe they are inclusive, while the lived experience of their teams tells a very different story.

💡 So what if we treated inclusion the same way we treat safety?

💡 What if inclusion had clear, everyday language that guided behaviour?

A simple inclusion principle I keep coming back to is this:

👁️ Being seen.
🙉 Being heard.
💙 Being considered.

Not slogans for a poster, but practical tests we can apply every day.

Being seen
❓ Do I know the people in my team beyond their job titles?
❓ Do I notice who is always present but rarely acknowledged?
❓ Do I see potential not just familiarity?

Being heard
😇 Whose voices dominate meetings?
🥺 Who gets interrupted, talked over, or ignored until someone else repeats their idea?
😎 Do I actively create space for different perspectives?

Being considered
❓ Who gets stretch opportunities, visibility, and sponsorship?
❓ Who gets the “glue work”?
❓ Who is assumed to be ready and who has to prove it again and again?

These are not soft questions.
They are leadership questions.

And just like safety, inclusion isn’t about intent, it’s about impact.
No one intends to create unsafe environments either. Yet we still have rules, checks, interventions and consequences because relying on good intentions isn’t enough.

Inclusion should be no different.
If someone isn’t seen, heard, or considered, they will disengage.
If they disengage, they will leave.
And when they leave, we don’t just lose talent, we lose perspective, capability and trust.

The energy sector already knows how to change culture at scale. We’ve done it before.

The question isn’t whether inclusion matters.

It’s whether we’re prepared to make it non-negotiable.
Safety is in our DNA because we chose to put it there.
Inclusion won’t happen by accident.
It has to be designed, led, measured and lived.

Inclusion starts with you.