I had a colleague the other day call me a disruptor. It stung for a little bit but after further thought, I started wearing it like a badge of courage. Of course, I am a disruptor. That is what inclusion practitioners do-they disrupt.

The first rule of disruption for inclusion is to disrupt yourself. You must take a long and deep look at who you are to identify your biases, beliefs and behaviors that make you exclusive. You build a 24-hour habit of self-awareness through emotional intelligence as you constantly ask yourself how you are showing up to a workplace and marketplace full of people and things that do not look like you, talk like you or act like you.

You become a change architect for inclusion because you know that embracing and recognizing differences at work requires resiliency, adaptation and grit. You understand that being inclusive is a matter of transitioning change as you convince your heart, head and hands that building   workplaces that work for others and not just yourself are the name of the game in the 21st Century.

The second rule of disruption for inclusion in places where we spend most of adult life is to build urgency around the implementation of fair, just and equitable cultures in our organizations. You must make hay while the sun is shining and strike when the iron is hot. Today’s opening for inclusion may be unavailable tomorrow.

The volatility, uncertainty, constant change and ambiguity of the public sector create a haven for opportunity costs when it comes to inclusion. Yesterday’s possibilities for inclusion are today’s regret for not having that courageous conversation about a negative micro-message you received or failure to stand up for a colleague or customer whose differences were being cast aside.

The third rule of disruption is the toughest as you must bring clarity to the fog and difficulty of embedding inclusion as a core value of your organization. What is the pathway to inclusion? How do we get there? Who is going to lead us? How will we know if we are inclusive?

Bringing clarity to inclusion in the public sector is difficult due to the compliance nature of most federal work. We know that people want to be inclusive in their federal careers. The problem is the culture of their workplace pushes back against these touchy-feely principles.

I know many federal agencies that have the best inclusion plans on paper but get eaten alive when the culture of their federal enclaves raise their ugly head. Few federal workplaces have a Plan B for inclusion when their workplaces slap them in the face with traditions that say “that isn’t the way we do things around here.”

Once this happens all bets are off when it comes to inclusion. The incentives and safety for frontline employees to be inclusive are nowhere to be found as they run for the cheap cover of toleration and sensitivity; avoiding the hard work of valuing differences. Without support from their leadership, employees bunkered down in a transactional mode where they just try to get the work done. Even though they know deep in their hearts, they could get more work done through inclusion by concentrating on how they treat their colleague as they do the work.

Know yourself, be quick but not in a hurry and make it plain if you want to reap the benefits of inclusion. It is the Holy Trinity of inclusion that gets us on the path to creating workplaces where everyone counts-even you.