The Wall Street Journal and New York Times agree: Dukkah is delicious.

It’s a Middle Eastern condiment made from a complex mixture of nuts, spices and seeds, with savory and sweet options. Apparently it’s delicious. And apparently it’s a thing. Both the WSJ Food & Cooking and NYT Cooking recently ran features on dukkah within days of each other.

Their Midtown Manhattan HQs are separated only by a few blocks, but these two venerable media outlets typically skew distances far, far apart in opinion and position. So, I chuckled when I saw the convergence on dukkah. Sure, It’s just a condiment. But in dukkah, the WSJ and NYT had actually found some common ground.

I needed to know more about this synchronicity.

Reaching across borders

WSJ food writer Aleksandra Crapanzano, a James Beard award-winning food writer, columnist, consultant, author and screenwriter, very graciously responded to my out-of-the-blue LinkedIn message request for a few minutes of her time to discuss the dukkah trend.

“I started the article for The Wall Street Journal five months ago,” she shared as she spoke to me from her New York City home. She discovered the dukkah recipe while reviewing the new cookbook “Comfort and Joy” by Ravinder Bhogal, the chef of London’s Jikoni restaurant.

I learned from Aleksandra that the word dukkah means “to pound”, which is exactly the process used to incorporate a somewhat lengthy and quite diverse list of ingredients into the condiment.

Aleksandra noted that Ravinder, who was born in Kenya to Indian parents and now lives in London, is a fine example of the latest generation of chefs adept at artfully mixing spices and other ingredients from the so-called global pantry into innovative “flavor bombs.”

“The global pantry helps us cross borders at an organic, intrinsic level,” she explained. “Today’s chefs have access to spices that they didn’t learn about 10 or 15 years ago in culinary school. It’s changing the way that chefs conceive recipes.”

Aleksandra reflected on how the trend plays out in her featured dukkah recipe: Perfectly summer-ripened American stone fruits, layered with the mix of Middle Eastern nuts, spices, seeds and honey, drizzled with French or Italian olive oil. (Her lyrical descriptions of food are mesmerizing; I quickly understood her James Beard Distinguished Writing award.)

“I don’t like to use the word fusion cuisine,” she said of it. “That sounds like something from physics class. This is more about the confidence of reaching across borders.”

We skew at work, too.

I had my answer: It was pure coincidence.

Aleksandra told me she and one of her peers at the NYT have occasionally and unknowingly twinned on other food topics. Moments of convergence happen. In the DEI world I professionally occupy, those moments of convergence, where people come together, are the cornerstone of inclusion.

Every day, millions of us show up to our place of work in a vast array of identity, background and experience. Our diversity skews in countless directions. According to recent NBC News polling, our points of view on core political beliefs are also skewing more dramatically. A Pew study suggests that even among what we might think of as more homogenous groups, opinions are increasingly diverse.

Our tremendous diversity of identity and belief enriches the U.S. workforce. It also creates a tough environment for workplace inclusion — and significant challenges for our employers.

Within the past several years, U.S. companies have suddenly found themselves (many unpreparedly) navigating both emerging and often highly polarizing inclusion challenges. Companies have scrambled to make policies on MAGA hats and BLM T-shirts. #MeToo substantially raised the bar on expectations for workplace conduct. Pronouns and bathroom policy have come into play. I could list more.

There’s been a broad range of well-meaning responses. Progressive companies have rolled out aggressive DEI programs; other companies have stayed out mostly or entirely of what is often viewed as a potentially divisive endeavor.

In both cases, true inclusion has lost out. Sometimes that has been the result of the DEI programs that alienated segments of the workforce. The lack of DEI programs has alienated plenty of others. When its talent suffers, ultimately, so does the business.

Inclusion starts with reaching across borders and finding common ground.

Our workforce is becoming more diverse and expectations for an increasingly inclusive workplace culture will only heighten as we onboard our younger generation of talent. Whatever inclusion challenges employers have faced to date, they are set to intensify.

The future of workplace inclusion will start with finding common ground. That will mean doing DEI differently from what we’ve been doing and certainly doing something versus nothing at all.

Doing it right will mean many things. Adopting more sophisticated, multi-dimensional metrics to measure inclusion. Recognizing that inclusion is grounded in equitable pay and career opportunities. It means experimenting with new models of Employee and Business Resource Groups that focus on cross-sectional communities (much like the global pantry, crossing borders and trying new combinations that yield surprising and successful results).

Foremost, it will require pivoting our shared perspectives to a point where we can agree that in many instances, there is value in, well, agreement. That may sound ridiculously simple. But in today’s complex and often acrimonious DEI landscape, it’s an almost radical proposition. And unlike the WSJ and NYT agreement on dukkah, not likely to happen by chance.

Let’s bring everyone to the table.

In the Middle East, dukkah is used as a seasoning in cooking and also commonly offered on the table at meals. Meals where family, friends and colleagues can gather together to enjoy food, share stories, debate current events. It’s a communal experience focused on passing and sharing from the same bowl.

Sure, it’s just a condiment, but let’s consider dukkah as we seek common ground in workplace inclusion. Let’s embrace alternative approaches that gather the rich diversity of our talent together at the table for authentically shared experience and conversation — as well as healthy and respectful debate. Let’s commit to forging paths that lead to productive agreement and consensus.

I suspect this is a starting point to inclusion that most of us can agree on.