Duncan Smith & ADC Associates

Duncan Smith helps people work together, better. A highly experienced organisational consultant, he is regarded internationally as one of the Asia-Pacific region’s leading practitioners in the area of Diversity and Inclusion. Over his nearly thirty-year career he has become a trusted advisor to organizations, teams, and individuals in the United States, Europe, Australia, and the Asia-Pacific region.

Full Bio

What We Do

LEADERSHIP & CULTURE

How do we make decisions? What’s our impact on others? How do we do things? How do we express our values?

Overview

Duncan’s core business is helping leaders work more effectively and make better decisions and creating more inclusive cultures. Our methods are especially useful for handling challenging topics or emotionally charged situations, for gaining clarity and awareness, and for team and organisational alignment.

Leadership

We help leaders increase their capacity to build trust, hold open and honest conversations, make more inclusive decisions, build high functioning teams, use the power of diversity to solve problems, and build stronger working relationships across lines of difference.

Culture

We support clients to build positive, effective cultures that respond well to issues including globalization; sustainability, equity, and social responsibility; productivity; attracting and retaining talent; creativity, innovation, and problem solving; and service delivery.

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION

Who are we working with, and how? How conscious are we of the impacts of diversity, and how skilful are we at creating and sustaining positive, inclusive cultures in our teams and organizations? Duncan brings deep experience in helping clients to overcome barriers in the areas of bias and diversity, and in designing and implementing culturally effective Diversity and Inclusion solutions.

Foundations of Diversity

There are 5 basic elements that we all need to keep fresh and current in order to be effective working with Diversity and Inclusion. We help you to define and clarify your specific situation, decide where to focus, and learn how to improve. This is an approach that is equally effective for newcomers and experienced practitioners, tested and refined with a wide range of corporate, government, and non-profit clients across multiple cultures.

Strategy

We help you get a sense of where you are though organisational assessment, including Benchmarking using the Global Diversity and Inclusions Benchmarks, and Culture Audits, using surveys, focus groups, and interviews. We then help you to develop and implement a practical D&I Strategy linked to your business goals.

Global D&I

Duncan brings his own professional experience in 24 countries on 4 continents (North America, Europe, Australia, Asia and the Pacific), and through ADC Associates a global network of D&I practitioners in 19 countries (in South America, Europe, the UK, North America South Asia, East Asia, and Africa).  Having worked successfully with a wide range of clients across industries and governments since 1991, we can support you to make sure your D&I initiatives are pragmatic and sensitive to suit multiple cultural contexts.

Awareness to Action

Have you done D&I awareness training? Want to go deeper? We facilitate conversations, coaching and workshops based on your workplace situations to tap into the realities of D&I in the areas most relevant to you. These may include (but are not limited to) differences in gender, culture, race and ethnicity, age, flexibility, thinking and work style, sexuality and gender identity, religion, disability and mental health, and company culture or subculture.

D&I for Practitioners

Those of us who work in the D&I field are subject to the same issues of unconscious bias and limited perspective, and are as influenced by our background and experiences, as are any of our clients. Having started in the D&I field in 1988, we bring our accumulated experience and knowledge to offer D&I practitioners the opportunity to reflect, refresh, recharge, and engage with your own experience, so that you can better help others.

Publications

Foundations of Diversity

Diversity and leadership consultant Duncan Smith, interviewed by Hala Abdelnour, sees five “Foundations of Diversity” as essential guides for both newcomers to the field and experienced practitioners. Listen in as the two practitioners, informed by very different backgrounds and experiences, explore this concept.
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How to Attract and Retain a Diverse Workforce

The ability to attract and retain a diverse workforce requires strong motivation, systemic thinking, and practical tools. 
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The Business Case for Diversity

As you read this sentence, human diversity is having an impact the bottom line of your business. Whether that impact is positive or negative depends on how well you understand and manage that diversity. 
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Podcasts

Some of Our Clients

All Clients
… Duncan Smith [has] helped us make a meaningful step-change in how we understand and talk about diversity and inclusion within the firm. The Unconscious Bias and Inclusive Leadership sessions facilitated by Duncan have led to some powerful conversations and real insights for many of our people around their own leadership behaviour and its impact. The sessions have also provided us with some practical tools to support us (individually and collectively) build a more inclusive culture. Duncan has an authentic, engaging facilitation style that helps people progress their own thinking on D&I whatever their starting point.
— Leo Foliaki, Senior Assurance Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers New Zealand
It is especially nice to see your contribution to this work.
I appreciate the knowledge you have developed and strong mastery in our field.
Calling you a colleague is an honor.
— V. Robert Hayles Ph.D., Emeritus Member, Diversity Collegium
I have had some very positive feedback following the session –
our team members found it thought provoking, very interesting and of course challenging!
Pleasingly, they are all committed to taking pro-active steps to become more inclusive.
— Group General Counsel & Company Secretary, Multinational Manufacturing Company
Over a number of years, Duncan has been my go to facilitator for unconscious bias education.
Without exception, Duncan’s sessions have been engaging, informative and entertaining.
I couldn’t have been happier with how they were delivered and he has always left the audience not only well informed but with food for thought as a result.
— Shaneen Argall, Director of Human Resources
I just wanted to say a HUGE thank you for our session yesterday.
The feedback has been fantastic and quite overwhelming –
both on the Studio itself (many people saying it’s the best Studio they’ve attended)
and Duncan’s facilitating – again many saying the best facilitator we’ve had.
— Catherine Brown | Director Capability and Talent 
I’ve been using Duncan Smith for over a year to develop and facilitate diversity and inclusion workshops.
I have to say that he is an exceptional facilitator, providing clear instruction and deeper dives into his personal stories,
experience and knowledge that validate his credibility as a subject matter expert.
He has exceptional communication skills and clients are always impressed with his intuitive sense for what is needed in the moment.
He is reliable and flexible, always ready ahead of time.  I’m grateful for the time we have been working together.
— Kathy Finckh, Director Leadership Development

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