Diversity is a bit of a hot word these days. So much so that it’s become ab it bleached of its meaning, maybe. We all know what diversity means, and we live in increasingly diverse communities. But we still often get stuck in the mindset of viewing any talk of “diversity” as being some kind of compromise that we have to make between political correctness and efficiency. Well, that simply isn’t true. Diversity is not only a good thing morally, as it represents an attempt to prevent particular ethnic or social groups from gaining an entrenched and unfair advantage over others, but it is also a good thing for business. Diversity makes sense. Here’s why.
Different Perspectives Offer Broader Insights
The primary purpose of any business is to generate profits. This invariably requires innovation, creativity, and inventiveness. No cultural, ethnic, or social group has the market cornered on creativity. But, different people who have had different life experiences certainly have the potential to see problems differently and to envision different solutions.
As an employer, it makes sense to hire employees with different sets of skills in order to perform a variety of tasks. That goes without saying. For a similar reason, it’s desirable to have an employee base with different sets of lived experience. If everyone on your team went to the same school, was raised in the same kind of family, played the same sports growing up, and live in the same neighborhoods, well, they’re more likely to come up with similar kinds of ideas. And those ideas might be great. But innovation flourishes best the wider the range of ideas there are.
Increasing Market Share
One of the most effective ways to increase revenue is to increase market share. Increasing market share means reaching out to new, untapped consumer demographics. Having a diverse team can be helpful in coming up with strategies of which consumer subsets to reach out to and, critically, how best to go about doing it. Marketing campaigns can sometimes go terribly awry when out-of-touch marketers try to reach out to a community they don’t understand. These gaffs are less likely your team is more diverse.
The main purpose of any business is profit and growth. That’s great. When we talk about diversity, what we’re talking about is the actual reality of our society. It’s not about idealism, it’s about the way things actually are. And diversity doesn’t just mean different skin colors, accents, or genders. It means different ages, different socio-economic backgrounds, and different lived experiences. These are things that help a business, and round it out.
If a business is not diverse — if it’s employee culture is demographically homogenous and not reflective of the actual diversity of our communities — there has to be a reason for why that is. Of course, many people would suggest that certain kinds of people simply aren’t interested in pursuing certain types of work — take, for example, the heavily male-dominated entertainment or gaming industries. This simplistic explanation represents a missed opportunity for an organization to identify problems with its own branding or internal culture — problems that can be hurting sales, and limiting the scope of innovation.
If you have a pond that is full of only one type of fish, there’s a problem with that pond. Identifying what that problem is and fixing it can lead to more biodiversity and greater productivity. The benefits of diversity in business include better solutions and stronger teams.
Opportunities to Learn and Grow
Working with different people is not a bad idea at all. In fact, the different experiences and background of the employees would provide an effective means in to make clear decisions in performing business matters. Brainstorming sessions, strategy meetings, marketing plans — all of these things benefit from multiple perspectives.
Diverse workplaces also create more positive work environments. This makes it easier to recruit and hold on to talent. This can be a tremendous advantage when it comes to landing highly-skilled and sought after candidate.
Gaining a Competitive Edge
Being able to communicate authentically with customers is really the ultimate goal of any marketing campaign. Designing products that actually respond to user needs is, of course, the aim of product design. In order to develop the kinds of authentic relationships with consumers that this requires, you need to be able to foster those kinds of relationships within your organization.
It’s important that members of your team be comfortable enough in their work environment not only to express the ways in which they are similar, but to express the ways in which they are different. This kind of openness and genuine communication is a major driver of innovation. Fostering diversity and inclusiveness leads to more comfortable and open working environments, which promotes more creative and out-of-the-box thinking, which in turn produces better products and better solutions. Even something as simple as having a plurailty of languages in your team can lead to better opportunities for connecting with clients, investors, or other stakeholders. Business, after all, is all about connections
Just as diversity and inclusion can help you connect with clients and customers, it can also help you to connect more strongly with investors. Investors will often want to see innovative, responsive, and dynamic companies, and these are all qualities that are enhanced by inclusive and diverse business management.
The Future: Business in Diversity
The demographic trends are pretty clear. Our society is becoming increasingly diverse. Sadly, the business world is lagging behind. Leadership positions across the board are still dominated by white men. This is unfair, and it’s also bad for business. As technology continues to develop at breakneck speeds and demographics continue to shift, companies need to be flexible, creative, and courageous. Everyone is looking for the next major market disruption. By definition, these revolutionary innovations do not come about through conventional and conservative thinking. It takes a fresh approach, which means a fresh perspective.
Instead of conformity and thinking alike, diversity is all about encouraging difference. And doing things differently is what leads to progress, creativity, and real innovation.
As we continue to become more diverse as a society, consumers will also become increasingly wary of brands and businesses that don’t reflect the diversity they see around them in their daily lives. Unfortunately, this is exactly the situation we are seeing now, as tensions grow between an increasingly diverse public and a business elite which still looks quite a lot now like it did in the 1960s. Of course, things are getting better, and the firms that are challenging this homogeneity are often at the forefront of innovation and change.