3 must do’s when trying “diversity”

Photo by Don Ross III on Unsplash

If our current moment is anything its a call for inclusion. Invisible communities are demanding visibility and a seat at the table. As society demands inclusion our workplaces, schools and institutions must keep up. The future needs to include the millions of people currently being ignored in every level of our economy from producing to consuming. While everyone says they want diversity it’s hard to figure out where to start. Many well intentioned efforts end up being inauthentic and deepen resentments

A 2015 McKinsey report on 366 public companies found that the most diverse companies in management were 35% more likely to have returns above their industry and those in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have returns above the industry mean and according to new studies diverse teams seem to be smarter. Why? According to Harvard Business Review working with people different than you challenges your brain to reject stale thinking.

Why do so many diversity efforts not have long term impact? Often some key pre steps are missed, which ends up leading to diversity efforts being uncomfortable.

Here are three things you should do before you start thinking about diversifying

1. Get buy in early- Diversity efforts are often seen as an additional “to do” and many employees feel put upon If you need a diversity effort that is a good indication you have some bias in your culture. Not being able to find or retain people of color or women is not an outside problem, its an internal one, so it’s good to get feedback and ideas from inside. Asking questions to help identify some cultural pain points will help everyone feel bought in and set realistic expectations. Questions like “why do we want diversity?” and “ why do we lack diversity in this department or campaign?”will help you reflect on what you have control over, your culutre. Hiring a good facilitator can help identify bias and work towards eliminating it.
2. Identify why it makes sense for your bottom line- For many people diversity is something you hope to do and if you do not reach it business continues. This is becoming less true as America becomes more diverse. The lack of diversity can leave you creating tone deaf campaigns and alienating the 21st century employee or consumer. Black Panther isn’t the only billion dollar diverse idea, understanding that diverse teams will make and save you money helps drive support for any diversity effort.
3. Tokenism will never help…never- Tokenism, or when people are perceived to be hired to represent the solution to diversity problems and not for ”merit”, is never the answer when trying to figure out how to start building diverse teams. Hiring practices and workplace culture must expand to ensure authentic inclusion. Digiday has a great article here on the prospect of tokenism. The fact of the matter is if your diversity plan is about hiring one person, you should probably scrap the idea. Change cannot come from one person and will end up building resentment for both the token and the other employees. If you are making a commitment to build a diverse team, figure out where are all the opportunities to diversify and create an ally program to help team members build relationships and check in on culture norms.

Building teams of different people with different experiences can be fun and you can build a plan to avoid the normal pitfalls that lead to resentment. Diverse teams get higher returns, are smarter and can introduce you to new traditions. It’s worth taking the time to get it right.