Rose Bryant-Smith says research has shown the more diverse your team, the better it performs.
Diversity in the workplace and inclusion are often discussed from an ethical or rights standpoint.
What many business decision makers ignore are the risks that can be reduced, and the competitive advantage that can be gained, from building diverse and inclusive teams.
When we interact with similar people to ourselves, we prepare less thoroughly, fail to anticipate alternative viewpoints, and apply less effort in reaching consensus, according to Katherine Phillips’ 2014 research in Scientific American.
Teams that are homogenous in their demographic make-up are more likely to engage in ‘group think’, repeatedly approaching strategic discussions, problems and key decisions in the same way.
In such teams, decision making can lack nuance and richness, as the same things are always ‘front of mind’.
Often, risks are miscalculated, competitive opportunities are missed and innovation is poor.
This is because the team lacks a variety of life experiences, information, political views, ways of thinking and observations on the outside environment.
Conversely, being around people who are different makes people more creative, and better at solving complex, non-routine problems.
Diverse teams are more likely to re-examine facts and remain objective, scrutinise each other’s actions, and be aware of their own potential biases.
A lack of diversity and inclusion can also damage productivity, as those individuals who do not fit the mould cannot bring the full benefit of their ideas and productive effort.
They feel unsupported, are offered less guidance and training, and are less likely to be included in social interactions.
Every time a Muslim employee who does not drink alcohol feels excluded from drinks with clients, a young employee is prevented from sharing her product ideas, or a transgender employee is overlooked for a secondment for fear she might not ‘fit in’, that employee’s contribution is missed.
The employee loses out, and so does the organisation.
Employees who are negatively targeted or overlooked can feel isolated and disengaged.
Exposure to direct discrimination has a significant negative impact on the individual employee’s mental health, physical health, job attitudes, organisational behaviour and productivity.
The business case is clear: Better diversity and inclusion can augment innovation, employee satisfaction, productivity and financial performance.
Employees in inclusive teams are 19 times more likely to be ‘very satisfied’ with their job.
Organisations with diverse leaders are more innovative and perform better.
Those organisations were 45 per cent more likely to report that their market share had grown over the previous year, and 70 per cent more likely to report that they had captured a new market.
Consider your own team.
Homogeneity — in gender, age, racial background, religion and education and other factors — can fly under the radar, particularly where the make-up and composition of staff has not changed in decades.
What proportion of your colleagues share the same skin colour, age, cultural background, sexuality and gender?
Does a certain type of person lead and succeed?
What opportunities could you seize by building diversity and inclusion in your team?
*Rose Bryant-Smith is a partner in workplace advisory firm, Worklogic and co-author of a new book, Fix Your Team. She works with Australian employers to address workplace misconduct, investigate complaints, resolve conflict, and fix dysfunctional teams.
This article first appeared at www.fix-your-team.com
