Can Diversity Be Tech’s Moneyball?

Did you ever hear the story of Asafa Powell?

You know, Asafa Powell? You know that great Jamaican sprinter? That one-in-a-generation kind of athlete? Yeah, him. Asafa was before him. He held the record before Bolt came along like lightening in the sky.

Why is his story important? Well, I’ll come to that later, but let me share this unknown story for anyone reading. The story is told in one of my favourite business books in recent years; Rasmus Ankerson’s 2012 “The Gold Mine Effect”, a book dedicated to the study of how certain countries develop a disproportionate number of high performing athletes in places where few expect.

One of the reasons why Asafa’s initial rise to breaking the world record was so surprising to even Jamaicans is because almost nobody saw him coming (pretty sure there’s a pun in there somewhere). He was quite simply off the radar. A relative nobody in the hotbed that is the Jamaican High School Athletics scene, Asafa had never shown the numbers to prove he was a future star. For that reason, he was often overlooked and left unaccounted for. No one considered him of significant athletic value or with the potential to be a world class sprinter. Well not until a coach took a closer look. Rather than just look at the numbers and results, much as you would a resume, he delved deeper into the world and life of Asafa Powell. From there, he noticed things of particular interest, mainly that though Asafa was just below the elites for his age, unlike them, he wasn’t training full time (barely training at all, it seemed). This was because he took on extra responsibilities to help his mother and family. He didn’t have a coach, wasn’t part of a club and didn’t really train like the others. On the surface, what looked like a kid with decent but not special numbers, was in fact someone his coach realised that if he could take him under his wing, stabilise his life, reduce his external commitments, and actually got him to train like the others he was competing with, he should in theory be up there and fulfil his potential. Lo and behold, that’s exactly happened. Within a few years, Powell exploded on the world stage and ended up breaking the world record in the 100m, putting his name as the world’s fastest man….well, until that other man came on the scene.

Now you might be wondering what any of this has to do with diversity? Well, diversity has become quite a hot topic in the world of tech, and rightly so. Whether it be a wider inclusion of women, race, and/or class, many of recent studies have shown the long-term value of having a more diverse working environment, and in particular a more diverse board. You would figure that all the evidence would lead to a greater inclusion and acceptance of diversity in tech, yet changes are still often more than not, very slow to change. But why?

Why Diversify?

There are many reasons for the slow uptake, most of which I won’t touch on in this blog (I’ll leave you to figure those out, though I suspect you already know), well except one. I see similarities between the push for greater diversity in tech and healthy eating for children. I’m sure many young people know of the long term benefits of eating well and the positive effects on their health. The problem that’s often the case is…..young people don’t care about the long term, only caring about the short term effects. Modern Western society in general, sadly doesn’t pay attention to the long term, as we can see in everything from the environment, to the stock market. So maybe it’s time to relay the power of the immediate advantage of seeking quality in diversity, in looking in the corners and areas that many tech companies seldom look at.

Here are Precision Sports, we know what we are and what we’re not. What we’re not is a large tech start up full of capital. Like many early-stage start ups, we have to compete against many other tech upstarts to recruit talent, which becomes even more difficult when you’re already competing against the Googles of this world. But as a Sports Tech company, we take our inspirations from ideas of similar situation in sports. What do many sports teams do when competing against other teams with larger budgets and an ability to recruit the best players? Well, they focus hard on scouting, looking into areas to unearth gems where all the big boys seldom look into. Arsene Wenger, a pioneer of modern football, during his early days at Arsenal, used his deep knowledge of the French football market to unearth gems where others hadn’t yet looked. Now you can see certain European clubs have built themselves on smart scouting; from Dortmund and Atletico, to Tottenham Hotspurs FC (as an Arsenal fan, took a lot to admit that).

Maybe it’s time to look beyond the CV/resume and dig a little deeper. Maybe it’s time to “moneyball” the tech world. And at PST, we decided to give it a try.

“Moneyballing” the hell out of diversity.

For us, we decided to look into the corners often overlooked by the tech world. Rather than follow the same path most take, we decided to look elsewhere (largely because we couldn’t afford the path anyways); lower-rated universities, immigrant communities, and yes, women as well. Much like finding Asafa Powell, we figured if we looked hard enough, there is bound to be quality talent that will be often overlooked by the normal tech recruitment processes. After all, I believe I tick those boxes if I should say so myself. Sure the pool is probably smaller, but the competition is significantly less. And in recruiting from these overlooked corners, there’s two things I’ve come to learn;

1. Seeking in diversity brings greater loyalty. One of the things I’ve experienced is that when you look into these diverse backgrounds were people of talent are commonly overlooked, there is a greater sense of gratitude and loyalty from finding the right people in those areas. These people are often overlooked for opportunities due to a multitude of reasons, so when an organisation, regardless of its size, takes serious time to look into and recruit from these areas, you’re far more likely to build a team of people with greater loyalty and affinity to the company.
2. Tribulation Builds Character. There are very few traits in the world more valuable than those with an insatiable ability to overcome. I mean no offence to anyone at all, but one thing I have noticed anecdotally both in my life and in the world of business, is that those who have had a somewhat clearer path to success, talented as they may be, seldom have that downright irrational drive to overcome, likely due to not having to face many obstacles to get to where they are (I’m aware life obstacles can come in many forms, and being from a well off background does not exclude one from hardship). However those from a more diverse background, whether it be gender, race, or class, from my experience are more likely to have had to experience a lot more obstacles to get to where they are. These kind of characteristics and people are absolutely pivotal in the early stage of a start up, because all you’ll be facing will be obstacles, and you’ll need to build a team and a company culture on being able to overcome and drive things through sheer force of will, when the obstacle seems insurmountable. This can still be applied even if you look in the “usual” places, such as high-ranked universities, as you can bet there’s a small few in there who have taken a more difficult path to get there compared to their peers. It creates a chip on one’s shoulder at times. There can be an issue with people with chips on their shoulder, but sometimes heavy chips build broad shoulders.

Inside our DNA.

Now I can’t profess to claim we have mastered this method of recruitment, and somehow turned it into a successful and repeatable process quite yet. We’ve made many recruiting mistakes along the way, and if we choose to stay to this path, we will probably make more. But we WILL choose to stay to this path, because it is part of our company DNA, our culture and our ethos. To give chances or even second chances to those who normally wouldn’t get any. And sure it has its costs, but it’s rewards are greater. There are few joys in the start up journey than seeing potential in an individual, giving them the platform to express and develop it, seeing it nurture, and watching it manifest. It’s not all about technology and funding rounds, it’s as much about the people you meet along the way, those who help you, and those you’re able to help. Finding potential is as much part of the journey as a successful pivot, and if you’re still not convinced of the long term benefits of diversity in the work place, then maybe consider these other reasons as why you really should look to diversity for your company. These are learnings I’m looking to apply in my new venture.