How to get results from your diversity initiatives
In many organizations, the conversation around diversity focuses upon words like "inclusion," "values," "perspectives" and "representation."
How about "results?"
My colleagues and I at Leading Edge Associates have decades of diversity experience for, collectively, corporations, not-for-profits, churches and the federal government. This experience has left us passionate about at least two things:
Diversity is simply the right thing to do.
Diversity needs to be linked to concrete results if it is to earn its place as part of an organization's operational reality.
Lacking visible and concrete results, diversity will always take a back seat to more pressing business that can help a company—and more specifically, its managers—achieve short-term goals. Lacking visible and concrete results, diversity champions will always struggle to win over naysayers, and even to maintain the focus and support of allies.
Indeed, lacking results, what is the purpose of, and justification for, diversity efforts in any organization?
Best-practice companies have moved beyond moral arguments and embraced a "business-case" approach to diversity work. They preach that creating an inclusive workplace should—and will— translate into improved business results, through creation of products and services that appeal to different groups.
This approach generally faces at least two significant challenges. First, how do you define appropriate diversity goals and measure the results? Second, how do you get the organization, its leaders and its employees to act in ways that produce those results?
At Leading Edge, we believe that focusing on the second challenge is the best way to meet the first. In other words, if a company's culture supports inclusion, its leaders will act to create business goals that are naturally informed by principles of diversity.
To help companies meet that second challenge, Leading Edge—based on our research and experience—suggests activities around four areas where diversity/inclusion work can create concrete results:
View — gaining wider perspective; seeing new markets, new customers and new partners; gaining input from more diverse sources.
Innovation — creating an environment where new ideas flourish, with those ideas coming from a diverse group of people.
Communications — developing skills that allow for effective communications to a wide variety of audiences.
Selection — getting the right people into the right roles.
Five years ago, "innovation" probably would not have made this list. But today's global, fast-paced, digitally-charged competitive environment has spotlighted innovation as a differentiating competitive skill. Frans Johansson's excellent book, "The Medici Effect," (Harvard Business School Press, 2006) is part of a growing body of evidence linking strong diversity performance with highly innovative cultures.
Companies looking to drive results with diversity can start by asking: How strong are we in these four areas? What are the opportunities for making concrete advances in these four areas? And how can we improve our managers' skills in these areas—and hold them accountable for results?
Larry Olmstead, president and executive consultant for Leading Edge Associates, twice served as diversity officer for Knight Ridder, a Top 50 diversity company for DiversityInc. and Fortune magazines.