Diversity and inclusion are instrumental for any organization that seeks innovation, creativity, and engaged employees. We don't need to make the business case for it; it is well accepted that a diverse workforce is essential to staying competitive in the global marketplace. In today's world, problems are complex, communication is global, and the environment is constantly changing. Diversity is no longer a luxury; it is a necessity.
The real question is, "Are we actually reaping the benefits of our diversity efforts?" By the benefits, I mean the advantage of capturing the differing ways people think about issues and experiences and creation of a truly level playing field. Without an even playing field, a real meritocracy that neither subtly advantages some nor disadvantages others, it is my opinion that organizations will never obtain the benefits they seek from their diversity initiatives.
A precondition to obtaining the advantage of diversity is skilled and aware leadership. Awareness means understanding that we all bring our unconscious self to the workplace. And if there is diversity, even a limited amount, that unconscious is the true gatekeeper preventing our ability to unlock the benefits of diversity within an organization.
Our unconscious perspectives, roles, associations, preferences, and archetypes are with us constantly, and we have learned them in a slow and subtle way. So slow and subtle in fact, we are not aware of what has happened to our world view.
Who teaches us about ourselves? Our hidden teachers include our parents, school teachers, peers, religion, the media, our daily experiences and the very myths, fairy tales and fables that were read to us at bedtime. Each whispers silently in our ear about what we 'know' about others and what we deem right and wrong.
In my book, The Loudest Duck (Wiley & Sons, 2010), I reference the old lessons that we learn from our 'hidden teachers' and how these lessons continue to have repercussions and legacies in the workplace. Many Americans, particularly boys, are taught that 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease' which means speak up and you get what you want. The Japanese may be taught that 'the nail that sticks out gets hit on the head' which is completely opposite in its intent. Women around the world hear 'if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all' and the Chinese are engrained to know that 'the loudest duck gets shot'. The last three are completely and diametrically opposite from the first aphorism, and each is brought to the table in a diverse workforce.
Unfortunately for our diversity efforts in the example above, only one group is easily comfortable raising their hand, speaking out, getting seen as having the knowledge, facts and ideas. The wheel gets the advantage; the nail, duck, and nice are at a disadvantage and the organization doesn't learn much about the ideas of the latter groups.
Obviously, diversity is needed, but so are the tools that unlock that diversity. Let me give you an example. All of us have been on conference calls. You hear the manager of the call say "Anyone out there have any comments?" Most of the time all you get is silence (or clicking of computer keys). What happened to all that cognitive diversity we wanted? We hear mainly from the people who are in the room with the manager. No one else speaks and all of those good ideas, fresh perspectives, and differing global awareness are gone. An easy solution would be to let people on the call know they will be called on and then by name, ask them for their comments. This is not rocket science, but it does require a far greater consciousness about who gets heard and how to ensure that all are included. How we unconsciously react to diversity is the key step that often gets skipped.
Most organizations have realized the business case for diversity and have made good faith attempts to hire people who reflect that business case. But once we get the diversity, we have not yet learned how to create an organization that fully obtains the benefits of it. Often this can be diagnosed by looking at the hierarchy and the numbers of individuals at various levels. In many companies today, it is not an intake problem, it is an upgrade problem. We get people in the door at the lower levels in the pyramid but they do not make it to the top. The heterogeneity gives way to homogeneity. Why? My belief is that we need to move now to Diversity 2.0 and give managers and leaders the training, awareness, skill sets, tools that ensure we engage and capture the full benefit of the diversity we say we are so committed to.
Follow Laura Liswood on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LauraLiswood
Glenn Llopis: How Diversity Will Drive Business Growth
Natalie Holder-Winfield: Workplace Diversity: What Happens When White Men Don't Want It
Laura Liswood: The Loudest Duck
This reads like typical university professor gibberish.
Diversity is a code word for obtaining employment for people who are superficially different but philosophically identical, i.e. uber-liberal, socialist, communist.
It is another form of the so-called affirmative action, which is merely discrimination based upon appearance. As opposed to what AA was created to do away with, discrimination based upon appearance. Oops!
Diversity is often the polar opposite of "quality." Quality means you find the very best people, no matter what they look like.
Diversity means you find different-appearing people who don't necessarily bring skill or quality or creative thinking to the organization. But their appearance makes you feel good.
Diversity means telling people they can be rewarded for their appearance. Like welfare, it kills the need, or the will, to work hard, excel, and develop your own thoughts.
This piece is typical of what passes for "intellectual thought" today.
I see the writer works for Goldman Sachs. I rest my case.
Everyone is happy, happy, happy and feeling good about how "understanding" they are while our government falls apart and children are told its bad to win and make another person lose and feel bad. But, just so everyone "feels good" about themselves and has lots of unearned self esteem, all is well.
I'm sorry, but you do need to make the business case for this. If it was such a strength, it would not have to be enforced with the full weight of the state plus the threat of lawsuits if your organizatiÂon does not have the approved mixture of various grievance groups at each and every level. You seem to think the strength is being able to better manage global communicatÂion and problems- but that ignores that the vast majority of organizatiÂons are much smaller in scale and do not need to be able to deal with internatioÂnal (and sometimes even national) problems. The organizatiÂons that need diversity will get it when and in whatever measure they personally need it. The religious devotion to going all in on "the strengths of diversity" is just sad.
You actually do allude to the one type of diversity that is a strength- cognitive diversity or people who think differentlÂy. UnfortunatÂely, this is nowhere to be found in modern western civilizatiÂon as deviating from approved ideas can get you arrested (most of Europe, Canada) or simply fired (the US). Even online, comments such as this are routinely censored for deviating from the approved party line.
These aphorisms say more about what people learn in a totalitarian regime as opposed to a constitutional democracy then they do about the value of diversity.