Diversity brings greater innovation, uniqueness challenges culture to evolve, we share and learn
Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations
Vulcan Philosophy from Star Trek
I am not sure why, but I have always believed that Diversity and Uniqueness are a good thing in humans. I used to think that my thinking had evolved from all the Science Fiction that I read as a Child. Many of the Science fictions books explored racism via different alien races, or that sexuality, gender could be so varied, or that whole civilizations destroyed each other because they could not talk to each other.
Personally I do not look for clones of me or anyone else.
Decades of research by organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists and demographers show that socially diverse groups (that is, those with a diversity of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation) are more innovative than homogeneous groups
Advocates of diversity look for ways to best leverage their asset. They implement new structures and work practices that are radically different from traditionally-minded management approaches..” https://creativityasia.com/workplace-diversity-is-your-asset/
The end of “Culture Fit” and beginning of “Culture Add”
The term cultural fit, has often become a decider in recruitment, but too much Culture fit can lead to a cult, eh? (Sorry I am Canadian). Or a monogamous culture, where everyone looks the same and thinks the same.
For any community to survive it must adapt, it must challenge itself, essentially it must evolve or stagnant. A strong way to keep evolving it is to bring on people who are different i.e. Cultural Add. And those people must be supported not socialized. I am not saying this is comfortable it is not, but an evolving community is not comfortable.
“New ideas come from differences. They come from having different perspectives and juxtaposing different theories.”
— Nicholas Negroponte
How are you supporting people are different?
They may have different communication style or conflict style. What is their understanding of team working. How are you demonstrating values that they should copy?
This is journey of an immigrant and it takes about 18 months? What is it for your company on-boarding process?
People from different parts of the country are surprisingly different..
Thoughts for Diversity
- Are you are all one skin color, sex, gender, sexuality, culture, nationality? How about your leaders, your C-Suite/Directors, your Board?
- Where do you recruiters target?
- Are you still stuck on culture fit rather than culture add?
- What are you doing?, to up your game in communication, negotiation and conflict skills?
- Do people that are different have good internal mentors to help guide them?
- How do you help people that are different, raise their voice? i.e Psychological Safety
- How honest is your on-boarding process, is it about making them a cultural fit i.e. socialization or help them add their uniqueness to the community?
- How do people share their uniquenesses in the organization?
- Do you have a comprehensive Unconscious Bias Training program?
- Are your benefits oriented to to one group or do they exclude another? young men, old men, pregnant woman?
Resources for Diversity
- Blog -> How Diversity Makes Us Smarter
- Guide -> Managing Unconscious Bias
- Blog -> The end of culture fit
- Blog -> How Men & Women See the Workplace Differently
- Blog -> Why we shouldn’t underestimate the power of diversity
- Blog -> Why Doesn’t Silicon Valley Hire Black Coders?
- Blog -> Why Tech Degrees Are Not Putting More Blacks and Hispanics Into Tech Jobs
- Blog -> Two Types of Diversity Training That Really Work
-
Blog -> Google’s Hardest Moonshot: Debugging Its Race Problem
-
Blog -> HOW TECH CAMPUSES HINDER DIVERSITY AND HELP GENTRIFICATION
Eric Brooke's Blog 
1 Comment