Philip Berry Associates LLC

An organization built on an inclusive culture stands a chance to not only lead the market but also sustain its leadership position in the market. To foster an inclusive culture, they need an efficient diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) strategy that allows individuals and teams to understand each other and grow together as a combined force. However, most firms employ a formulaic approach to DEI that hardly considers the unique aspects that are key to build relationships, satisfaction, and competencies. A DEI strategy that spans the entire organization in a clear, consistent way, providing every employee with a level-playing field to open up, exchange ideas, and grow individually and as a team, leads to organizational growth.

Since its inception, Philip Berry Associates has been helping companies build a culture that fosters an understanding of each other and encourages the meeting of minds. Philip Berry Associates approaches DEI through the lens of developing global cross-cultural competencies, talent development, and leadership coaching. Such a systemic and holistic DEI strategy empowers individuals, teams, and organizations to transition to increased levels of effectiveness and impact from their current situation.

Many companies struggle to crack the code when it comes to mastering DEI in order to drive business growth. With years of experience in executive coaching, team building, and global business development and DEI consulting, Philip Berry Associates LLC has aced the art of driving growth and innovation for its clients through cross-cultural competency development. Leading from the front, Philip Berry, the president of the company, has developed holistic strategies that approach talent management, personal branding, leadership training, and global diversity in a systematic manner.

Berry and his team work closely with people across the hierarchy in the client environment to enable individuals, teams, and organizations to plug all the gaps and elevate their performance. The intent is to help the clients’ leadership value DEI, not as a nice to have but an inseparable part of business administration. To that end, he brings to the table long-term strategies broken down into an array of tactics to empower clients’ teams with necessary tools and skills that will help them improve their understanding of each other and achieve more. A certified executive coach, Berry teaches everything from the perspectives of practical, strategic, and long-term value so that they can carry on their own, without him being there forever.

A Results-Oriented DEI Strategy

Rather than taking a quick-fix approach to improving organizational culture, Berry follows a long-term strategy broken down into tactics. The sequential steps traverse through interacting with the clients’ leadership, workforce, competitors, and their customers. This 360-degree understanding of the clients’ business world puts him in a better position to comprehend the gaps in their culture. He intends to build employee groups and DEI councils whose purpose is to ensure employees from across the organizational hierarchy value team collaboration and believe in achieving more as a team. Part of his responsibility is to improve leadership skills and competence in the senior executives.

This journey begins with understanding clients’: goals, mission, and vision at the high level, products and services, employees, and their customers. During the discussions, he strives to understand where the client organization is currently and where it wants to reach from a DEI perspective. Berry interacts with employees across the hierarchy, notes down the barriers in DEI and areas of friction in talent management. Specifically, he observes if there is buy-in from every employee to the organizational policies and business process strategies.

Post employee interactions, Berry moves to analyzing the leadership’s impact in steering the company ahead. He brings to bear his years of experience and knowledge in delivering executive coaching services to get the leadership through unlearning and relearning processes as required to fill the gaps. These gaps can be related to communication, knowledge, interpersonal skills, or other aspects. “The leadership is the vehicle for change so I ensure they have all that it takes to build a formidable organization,” says Berry.

Unlike other DEI consultants, Berry stresses understanding the clients’ competitors and the community (target audience) they serve. What are the unique attributes of the competitors and customers? Is the company involved in any philanthropic activity? With this truckload of valuable insights, Berry sits down to postulate the roadmap to organizational growth through enhanced DEI measures. The mechanism includes: developing DEI councils and employee resource groups; allied groups to support the function of the organization. These groups help an organization be more inclusive and create a maximum impact on individuals in order to gain the maximum performance out of them. The councils also focus externally, exploring avenues to improve products and services.

Achieve the Unthinkable

Berry has lived and worked in more than 60 countries across an array of diverse organizations, from large technology companies to service-based firms to NGOs. As a result, he is witness to the immense difficulty in building bridges between people coming from different ethnic backgrounds. He also brings in-depth knowledge of the various business and technical processes across diverse industries, including supply chain, IT, and others. Berry holds several accomplishments in the area of behavioral science, which enables him to look at the bigger picture steering the clients away from bureaucracy and politics.

Author of ‘Being Better Than You Believe: 8 Steps to Ultimate Success,’ Berry believes that communication is equally about listening as it is about speaking. Believing DEI transformation as a team game, he also remains in action mode to connect with the stakeholders and get the changes in place to take the client organization forward.

A case in point, an industrial organization wanted to put in place a diversity council and develop leaders across a section of employees who will be responsible for strategically and tactically executing DEI across the organization’s different areas. Berry not only played an active role in selecting the right employees for the task but also guided the new team to develop practical DEI initiatives. The new programs were built after interacting and understanding clients’ employees, competitor landscape, and customers. A definitive action plan, clearly defined goals, and mechanism to measure the impact of change helped the client take an informed approach where the internal and external stakeholders were consistently apprised of the ongoing developments and achievements.

Currently, Berry is busy helping new clients rehash their DEI strategy in the backdrop of events such as COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter campaign. He is also working closely with Asian and Hispanic business leaders to help them chart an efficient DEI strategy for their businesses. “I work with them to make DEI simple, digestible, and make them confident and competent so that they can achieve the unthinkable,” concludes Berry.