Joe Gerstandt | keynote speaker, freedom fighter, freak-flag flier

In my experience, one of the greatest challenges in moving diversity and inclusion work forward is that it is horribly misunderstood.  People and organizations are all over the place when it comes to what diversity and inclusion actually are and there tends to be a lot of confusion and disagreement around why (or if) diversity and inclusion represent real value to the organization.  But even when there is clarity around what diversity is and why (and how) it matters there can still be confusion.

For example…

Sometimes those of us that are advocates of diversity and inclusion just talk about the benefits.  It is easy to talk about the good stuff.  And there is a lot of good stuff to talk about.  Contrary to a lot of the absolute garbage that is said about diversity, the case for diversity and inclusion is very robust…and there are numerous components to it.  There is a big and strong business case for diversity and inclusion; there is both research and real work examples to support this business case and just because you have not seen it does not mean that it does not exist.

But there is always a cost involved with diversity as well, and sometimes that gets left out of the conversation.  I am not talking here about the direct financial costs of a training program or developing a targeted recruiting program…I am talking about the social costs of bringing more or new difference into a social group.

If you want the value that diversity can provide you have got to be willing to pay that cost.  When you introduce additional diversity into a family or team or neighborhood you are also going to activate additional tension, which influences patterns of behavior.  Tension and relational friction always travel with difference. Always.  Groups that have more diversity  under-perform or over-perform groups with less diversity and the difference lies in how those groups respond to that tension.

Again, diversity can deliver a great deal of value, but it is important in making decisions about where to focus your energies to have some idea of the potential cost in comparison to the the potential value.  You have to be able to make a decision as to whether or not the juice is worth the squeeze.

For example…

There is a growing body of research and a growing number of real world examples demonstrating that diversity can drive better decision making and better problem solving, especially when talking specifically about cognitive diversity.  This is especially true for complex problems.  So, if you are struggling with something complex it is more likely that the cost of bringing a lot of different perspectives together is going to be worth the outcome.  Procter and Gamble and Netflix are both finding ways to tap into a greater diversity of perspectives for product design and delivery by actually reaching outside of their respective organizations.  They are also working to solve complex and potentially very valuable challenges, and they are getting results that are worth the cost.

If you are, on the other hand, trying to decide where your team should go for happy hour at the end of the day, it is probably not worth trying to bring a lot of different perspectives to bear. The outcome is not of great importance, it has little measurable value and a lot of different opinions on where to go are just going to make it more difficult to make a decision.  You may benefit from a potentially larger group of options to consider than if you just left it up to one or two people, but considering the significance of the outcome it is probably still not worth the trouble.

Unfortunately, in my experience, most organizations and organizational leaders do not fully understand the juice or the squeeze…they find themselves paying attention to diversity and inclusion because they know they that are expected to do so.  Their efforts are not built on any real logic and they are usually doomed to failure.    If we are to make well informed decisions around issues of diversity and inclusion we must consider both the juice and the squeeze, even in situations where it is difficult or impossible to measure either one of them.

Be good to each other.