Most companies make a big thing about their apparent diversity. The recruitment process typically requests applicants reveal their ethnic makeup, their gender, age and so on, all with the aim of ensuring that everyone gets a fair crack of the whip.
Noble indeed. The problem is that organisations are not going far enough. It’s not enough to try and get superficial diversity into our organisations if the bulk of our decisions are still made by a small number of executives.
Evolution has given us a rich lesson in the value of diversity in securing species from disease and so on, yet so many of our organisations persist with the intellectual incest that sees the same people making decisions over and over again.
So don’t leave your diversity agenda at HRs door, bring it into the boardroom and try and get as many people involved in making decisions as possible. Get people with frontline knowledge of the things customers want (and don’t want). Heck, get the customers themselves involved.
No one will think less of your leadership if you accept you don’t have all of the answers. Just remember, diversity is healthy.
Most organisations still operate like a fiefdom or royalty, where senior managers are treated like kings. Not exactly great for encouraging staff to think for themselves.
Very much this. Hard enough getting gender diversity into boardrooms, let alone idea diversity.