Do you have a diversity strategy? If so, maybe it’s time to think again.
Not because we don’t believe wholeheartedly in the creative and financial benefits of a multicultural, diverse workforce.
It’s just that too many organisations focus only on having a diversity strategy, instead of a strategy for a diverse world.
The difference is fundamental.
For example, successful organisations no longer talk about having a digital strategy, they just embrace digital as an integral means of doing business.
You should take the same approach with diversity. Attempting to tackle it as a separate entity is out-dated and puts you in danger of being out of touch.
In our view, inclusion of all types of values is what your diversity strategy should really be about, and we’ll talk about that later in this blog.
But first, how did we get to where we are now?
The problem, in our view, is that the diversity agenda has been hijacked. Too many organisations have felt a need to pay lip service to diversity (usually when under pressure to hit recruitment targets).
Too often diversity has become a box-ticking exercise, highlighted in the annual stakeholder report but rarely practised otherwise. As a result, the strategy lacks substance. This, in turn, filters through to the way employees behave – stifling creativity, jeopardising teamwork and leading to diversity fatigue.
The consequence is that HR teams are starting to react negatively to the D-word – a proactive strategy has had the opposite effect to the one intended. HR teams are tending to perceive diversity as a burden, rather than a potentially rich source of development and improvement.
So how do we change the game and ensure we create truly diverse organisations? Ones where you and your teams recognise that different values are just as important as what a person looks like or believes in.
Your first priority should be to focus on staffing and leadership decisions.
Having a smorgasbord of personalities will result in a healthy mixture of people with varying values.
Some may be keener to get ahead, thinking of the bigger picture strategy; others will have stronger skillsets in affiliation and ensuring that people get along together. The diversity and inclusion of these values is just as important as keeping a balanced representation of gender, skin colour and religion.
One approach that has worked for us is helping clients attack the issue from a different direction: “I am different like you, not different from you.”
Just as you should be prepared to accept and learn from people from different cultural backgrounds, so you should do the same with people whose opinions and values are different from yours’. As this article from The Economist shows, it’s easier to work with someone you have more in common with. That means leaders of more diverse teams need to work harder to establish bonds of trust.
In the same way that ‘training and development’ is now more about ‘learning and development’ – shifting the emphasis from teacher to student – your approach to diversity also needs to evolve, so it emphasises your employees’ values.
You may not be able to measure diversity, but psychometric testing will help you assess and appreciate people’s value systems.
Get people with a wide range of values in your organisation – and you’ll have gone a long way to becoming genuinely inclusive and diverse.
Who knows, maybe you won’t need a diversity strategy at all?