"Diversity of background equals diversity of thought equals better organizational performance, and this is a proven fact." Raise your arm if you've heard this before, either at your own company or elsewhere. Google is ripe with blog posts about benefits of diversity in the workplace. But I can find very little actual research on the topic. There seems to be some research into how diverse *leadership* correlates with higher revenue (a whole $700 more per employee per year!), which if you're a believer might be enough. However, approached skeptically, this neither proves causation, nor necessarily applies to diversity at individual contributor level, nor necessarily applies uniformly across different sectors. What resources convinced you that diversity improves performance? Are there gaps in the narrative I shared above? Anecdotes are welcome, studies and statistics preferred. For the lovers of polls:
Why would diversity provide anything but additional strife? When two cultures that are diverse get along together long enough, it becomes one culture. Diversity gone?
Lol.. like in marriage two individuals become one? Getting alone doesn't mean you left your individuality, your ideas or your culture.
Over time it does
Those who are constantly demanding that we hire more based on diversity are dumb as shit. People should be hired ONLY on their merits....PERIOD.
I believe in giving more chances to people who typically have fewer chances in life, more chances than they currently have. This does NOT require accepting people who do not meet the standards required for the job.
I don't. Some win, some lose. Work hard enough, earn it, and the position is yours.
I think diversity of thought makes for a more fun company and can lead to better cultures and more critical thinking. My problem with diversity quotas is that we pretend that race equals diversity of thought, which I don't believe is true.
I am a white male and truly believe diversity and inclusion (race, gender, age, etc) improves the overall organization, people from different backgrounds bring different perspectives and if applied correctly output and performances improve. My problem is some organizations (like amex in 2020/21) that pretty much basically said that they would hire someone from a minority before a well qualified from the majority, I think this has calmed down a bit in the last year or so…
Customer and product teams do benefit from diversity since it brings different perspective. I was once part of a leadership review where A team presented their work with all the success metrics etc for a product launch in a different culture but had no one from that culture in their team. During the review someone from that culture pointed out basic flaws in their thinking. It was an eye opener. They had not even thought about those things because they had no experience from that perspective. So yea, diversity helps.
The only people who don’t grasp the value of diversity are white, straight, cis , Christian rooted men who are so used to being the majority that the entire world is designed for and whose opinions are reflected in literally everything that they don’t have an ounce of comprehension how their business doesn’t remotely cater to people who have a different life experience than them. Ask this question again and make the people responding also indicate their race, gender and religion- it’s only the white dudes who don’t grasp the value
Every marketing major right here
You sound like the kind of person who, had you been birthed a white cis Christian, would've been bashing bibles on gay people's heads. No argumentation, no evidence, only authoritative claims against a specific group. Which is unfortunate, because if your message is essentially "an all-white team from Stanford will likely fail to cater to below poverty line single Black mothers in Atlanta", few people would disagree. But would perhaps a black PM from Atlanta who belongs to relevant advocacy groups be enough? Do you need to have Black people build software infrastructure, handle payroll, and finance integrations?
In my experience, the real drivers of success in a team are radical tolerance, trust and a variety of mindsets with a bias towards growth. Diversity, as termed in the US corporate life, is way too much synonymous with US culture war. This is detrimental to the initial objectives. I have seen examples where it resulted in actual team failures. For instance people hired specifically to meet diversity targets despite low interview feedback, ending up with a layoff less than a year later because the performance was not there. I have also seen examples where all the “diverse” people in a team were actually from really rich families and were in practice much more privileged than everyone else.
There's also the idea of pushing people to failure in a desire to "increase diversity". For example, decreased standards for black people applying for Ivy League schools lets them enter more easily, but if they don't have the background of scholastic success that other races are required to have, they are more likely to drop-out while incurring hundreds in thousands of student debt. If they instead went to a lower caliber school, they could pass and get a job to pay off the debt.
Dont they get free ride scholarships (if they are underprivileged?)?
As long as the diversity is accompanied by performance, it's fine. But if it's not is detrimental
There was a large study, published in the past year that showed significantly improved performance at more diverse companies .. but only in like .. 40% of them .. so .. there's definitely that potential imho but its rarely achieved or done right .. I'll try to dig it up but that's pretty unlikely .. at any rate .. it was encouraging in some respects but it's poorly done more than half the time
Could you pls elaborate
Apple is a racist who thinks IQ is all about coming from a "superior race" much more so than environment, despite the fact that being adopted into a high-status household from a low-status one increases IQ by 12 to 18 points, the fact that heat has substantial effects on IQ, etc.