It is not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It is the manager’s job to make it safe to take them.
—ED CATMULL, CEO, PIXAR1
Not long ago, when people talked about diversity they were referring to a number of visible demographic attributes, such as race, ethnicity, age, and sex. After a while the definition of diversity expanded to include less visible attributes such as sexuality, religion, and even educational attainment. Today diversity has become even broader and now includes intangible characteristics such as upbringing, socioeconomic status, life experiences, and worldviews. Take a look at the following chart, which is a by-no-means-comprehensive list of the many factors that now constitute diversity. Feel free to add your own.
Types of Diversity
Race/Ethnicity: white, Hispanic, African American, Native American, Asian
Education: no schooling, high school diploma, associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s, professional, doctorate
Gender: male, female, nonbinary, transgender, gender fluid
Generation/Age: silent generation, baby boomer, Gen X, millennial, Gen Z
Employment Status: freelance, full-time, part-time, in-office, remote
Religion: Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic
Politics: Republican, Democrat, Independent, Libertarian, Green Party
Sexual Orientation: heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, polysexual, asexual, demi-sexual
Profession: marketing, engineering, operations, finance, accounting, and so on
One might reasonably think that with our ever-expanding definition of diversity and society’s ever-changing demographics (which to a great extent reflect that diversity), our companies would be supporters of inclusiveness. Unfortunately, although many companies—including Facebook, Apple, and others in Silicon Valley, which is home to some of the most innovative companies in the world—say that they value diversity, when we look at their workforce composition, it appears pretty much as homogeneous as it always did. Let me give you a few examples.
• In Silicon Valley, for example, African Americans and Hispanics make up only about 5 percent of the workforce.2 These employees are often stereotyped, discriminated against, and passed over for promotions, which all too often leads them to quit. It’s no wonder half the employees at these companies believe that major improvements need to be made in this area.3
• There is an ongoing global conversation about women’s rights and sexual harassment in the workplace, which has given rise to employee resource groups, events, and conferences. Sheryl Sandberg created the Lean In movement to encourage women to seek challenges and pursue their careers, creating circles to gather in and support one another. Nevertheless, women fill a mere 24 percent of senior business roles globally4 and a paltry 4.2 percent of CEO positions in Fortune 500 companies. Just a few years ago, I spoke at a women’s conference with an attendance of over ten thousand. For once I felt like the minority!
• Over the years countless articles have mocked the millennial generation. We’ve been called lazy, entitled, narcissistic, and unfocused—which is pretty much the way younger generations have always been stereotyped by older ones. The reason we can’t shake these horrible, and mostly untrue, stereotypes is that the media (and social media) amplifies them. A study conducted by Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger found that the most popular articles in the New York Times are those that elicit anger from the reader.5 The more articles published that bash my generation, the more traffic media companies receive and the more advertising money they bring in. Don’t believe the stereotypes! As of 2015 millennials were the largest generation, not to mention the most racially diverse one in history, with 43 percent being nonwhite.6
• The pressure to get a college degree has always been strong and seems to be accelerating. In 2016 nearly a third of all Americans had at least an associate’s degree, 15 percent had a bachelor’s degree, and 6 percent had a master’s.7 By comparison, nearly 8 percent of people age twenty-five and over have a master’s degree, about the same proportion that had a bachelor’s or higher in 1960.8 (This may explain why some people have started to say that a bachelor’s degree is the new high school diploma.) But while most online recruitment tools allow employers to filter out applicants who don’t have at least one degree, a small number of employers have recognized that always hiring people from the same schools who’ve taken the same courses and have the same mind-set results in a homogeneous, less innovative workforce. These more open-minded companies, including EY, PwC, Ogilvy Group, and Apple, have lowered GPA requirements or are interviewing candidates who haven’t attended college at all.
As I have noted, diverse workforces tend to be more productive and creative. And encouraging diversity can increase employee engagement and boost the financial health of your organization as a whole. However, it would be impossible to create a workforce made up of a perfect, mathematical representation of every conceivable demographic. That said, there’s one type of diversity that I think is achievable. In a global study, my company asked more than four thousand young workers about the type of workplace diversity they value the most, and they didn’t say gender, age, religion, or ethnicity. Instead, they said, “diverse points of view.” I call that diverse ideas, and I’m a huge fan. Focusing on people’s experiences, mind-sets, and viewpoints effectively incorporates diversity in all its forms.
Achieving diversity of gender, age, and ethnicity is relatively easy, says Charlie Cole, chief digital officer and vice president of Tumi. “I think a team of 10 Harvard MBAs would be less effective than two high school dropout coders, two MBAs from Jakarta, two undergrad varsity athletes from Seattle, two art history majors from Atlanta, and two MIT statisticians. And I frankly don’t think it would be very close.”
The enemy of diverse ideas is groupthink, which is what happens when your team reaches a consensus that disregards any opposing viewpoints. In 2015 the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discovered that Volkswagen had installed software in eleven million cars around the world (including half a million in the United States) that deliberately created the impression they were safer for the environment. The software was designed to activate their emissions controls to meet US standards only during testing. The rest of the time, they were emitting up to forty times more than the allowable limits. As a result of this discovery, Volkswagen had to spend more than $18 billion recalling vehicles and fixing the emissions issues9 (and that doesn’t include the billions in fines the company has had to pay). The root cause of Volkswagen’s dishonesty is its corporate culture, which is dominated by engineers who decided—apparently in the absence of opposing viewpoints—to engage in this scheme. The company operated like an oligarchy, with former chairman Ferdinand Piëch’s brother, Dr. Hans Michel Piëch, on the supervisory board.10 The danger of groupthink is that without diverse ideas, organizations too often make bad decisions that lead to financial loss and harm—not just to the company but to their customers and, in this case, the world’s environment.
“Diverse ideas not only decrease the risk of groupthink but also result in the most innovative solutions and highest productivity over time,” says Vivek Raval, head of performance management at Facebook.
You know when groupthink is occurring when there aren’t many debates, when you find quick solutions to complex problems, and when anyone who disagrees with the consensus is ridiculed or negatively stereotyped. Other red flags to watch out for are teammates who agree on one decision despite alternative evidence and situations in which no one disagrees or encourages others on the team to try something new (or worse, when people seem afraid to take a position that’s contrary to the group’s). If your teammates feel they have to follow your guidance because they’ll be punished if they don’t, you’re inhibiting diverse ideas.
The variety of views that are inherent in diverse ideas can create disagreements and disputes, which—as long as they’re handled respectfully—in turn give rise to creativity and innovation, both of which are important traits in high-performing teams and companies. Although some disagreements can be hostile, most are harmless, and many are actually quite worthwhile. Being exposed to different ideas creates a certain amount of tension that engages employees by making them think about their own behavioral styles and contributions and makes them value those aspects in their teammates and others.
Diverse ideas also help you guard against groupthink and prevent overconfident “experts” from getting their way all the time. When everyone feels comfortable bringing something to the table, there’s a stronger feeling of connection and safety at work, which is what we all want, right? The positive side effect of identifying and hiring different types of employees is that they’ll do the same when they’re in management roles; so will the next generation, and so forth.
Your customers come from a variety of backgrounds, so having people on your team who can better understand their diverse customers’ languages and views can be extremely valuable. By having diverse teams, you can better meet your customers’ needs or even learn what their needs are in the first place. As Facebook’s head of performance management Vivek Raval puts it, “Our customers are not uniform in thoughts and preferences, and thus we cannot afford to be uniform in our ideation and execution.”
Furthermore, when you have a variety of employees who collectively have dissimilar skills and experiences, you can provide more to the organizational culture. This lends itself to more effective execution, in that employees from various backgrounds can come together to perform at a higher level, which benefits everyone’s individual careers and results in higher productivity, profit, and return on investment.
“Consumers buying our client’s services are more diverse than ever, and it’s easy to get pigeonholed into certain campaign ideas, media targets to pitch, etc. when you don’t have people from other backgrounds contributing,” says Emily Kaplan, senior account supervisor of DC Brand at Edelman. Emily gave me a great example of diverse ideas in action. “Most of my Starbucks team are Caucasian females, but Jarryd, an African American man, helped us come up with great pitch ideas for men’s lifestyle media and formed new relationships with reporters we’d never worked with before. He also introduced us to trends like ‘Black Twitter’ and explained what this meant for our client and our work.”
Ten Signs You Lack Diverse Ideas (Checklist)
1. You try to control team conversations rather than influence them.
2. You operate in a silo instead of putting yourself out there.
3. You view vulnerability as weakness in your teammates.
4. You hold back ideas because you don’t want to be judged.
5. You leave a teammate out of a meeting because they don’t share your same opinions.
6. You focus only on your strengths without accounting for your weaknesses.
7. You refuse to challenge traditional ways of doing things.
8. You have an unconscious bias when hiring and working with others.
9. You are too comfortable in your systems and refuse to change.
10. You don’t research and acknowledge the differences and preferences of others.
If you find yourself checking off multiple items on this list, you need to start becoming more aware of and thoughtful about embracing diverse ideas. Think about how you can become more open to others and incorporate their thoughts in your decision-making process. Have them review your checklist and do their own. This could create a meaningful conversation between you, with some potential positive outcomes.
Technology has become the communication platform of choice for most people and in most workplaces. In theory, that’s a wonderful thing. After all, regardless of ethnicity, age, or any other factor, technology gives everyone the same access, rights, and privileges. The hope was that technology would help create more inclusive teams. Although that has definitely happened in some places, technology has also created a digital divide between workers, especially those from different age groups. Because older workers didn’t grow up with the same tools that younger workers did, it’s sometimes more difficult for them to effectively apply those tools. As a result, it may be harder for them to connect with us on a professional, or even personal, level.
Technology was also supposed to put everyone on the same plane and make it easier for people to understand and connect with teammates, regardless of geography, language, or culture. Unfortunately, text messages, status updates, emails, and other types of technology-based communications have caused more problems than they have solved and may actually become a barrier to diverse ideas on your team.
When everyone is relying on all sorts of devices, apps, and messaging services, they’re spending less time understanding where others are coming from, and they never have a chance to experience their emotions. When you’re sending and receiving messages, you lose the tone, language, and expressions that in person help you get a sense of who people are, not just what they say. While technology platforms may make it easier—and more comfortable—for others to share their ideas and thoughts, people are also hesitant to publish something that might be ignored—or even be used against them.
As we know, although words are important, a great deal of communication is nonverbal; body language and tone of voice play important roles. We’ve all had plenty of experiences in which we have misinterpreted something we’ve read or someone else has misinterpreted something we’ve written—and that’s when we’re speaking the same language. In fact, a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that we think we have correctly interpreted the tone of emails 90 percent of the time, but actually we have only done so half the time.11
Imagine how much riskier relying on written communication is when the sender and receiver come from different cultures or one of them is trying to communicate in a non-native language. All too often the result is that teammates misunderstand what’s expected of them, do the wrong projects at the wrong time, or inadvertently convey incorrect information. Feelings can get hurt, relationships can be strained, conflicts can arise, and team and company performance can suffer. Technology isn’t the solution to bridging different cultures and languages, but you can use it to create more in-person meetings and get a better sense of what people are thinking.
In chapter 2, I referenced a study by Mahdi Roghanizad that found face-to-face requests were thirty-four times more effective than email ones.12 Sjoerd Gehring, global vice president of talent acquisition and employee experience at Johnson & Johnson, wasn’t familiar with Roghanizad’s research, but he definitely agrees with its conclusions, particularly in reference to his early career, when he was dealing with direct reports, all of whom were at least ten years older than he. “Getting to know them at a more personal level was key to earning their respect. But not the way I was used to,” he says. “My go-to way of communicating was texting, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but that wasn’t helping me connect with my new team. Then I took someone to lunch, and everything clicked. We talked about their experience, their background, their family, their passions. Nothing like a little face time (as opposed to FaceTime).” Sjoerd’s advice? “It’s essential to see things from others’ perspectives. Double down on forging personal connections, and learn what motivates your team and how they communicate. You’ll become much more effective at leading them.”
Imagine this: you and a colleague have been texting back and forth for days, trying to finish a particularly challenging project. But you can’t quite get there, and you keep getting pushback from your boss. Probably without realizing it, you’ve made a conscious choice to not incorporate diverse ideas. Clearly your digital dialogue isn’t working, and all you’ve done is figure out a lot of different ways to not solve the problem. Bringing in a new perspective or two might have been all you needed to succeed. By holding an in-person meeting instead of sending texts, you open yourself up to the opinions of different employees, who have various viewpoints that should be taken into account before you make a business decision that could affect your entire team. Avoid being confined by technology by using in-person meetings or conference calls to incorporate the views of others for a more refined solution.
Technology can be a major barrier to diverse ideas in the workplace, but there are others:
• Communication issues. People may speak different languages or be from different parts of the same country, where the same words might mean something completely different. If you say something to one of your teammates that is misinterpreted, it will take a lot longer for you to get your point across. There are major differences between cultures in how people do everything from handling deadlines and delegating authority to communicating with teammates and resolving conflict. You need to create a safe environment for everyone and take the time to get to know each teammate and their specific needs and styles to effectively communicate with all of them.
• External resistance. Your superiors and even your teammates may not support your efforts to implement diverse ideas.
• Internal resistance to risk taking. Author Steven Pressfield calls this “the resistance,” or the voice in our heads that tells us to be careful. It’s much easier to accept the status quo and be complacent than to put your heart, feelings, and reputation on the line.13 However, by doing the latter you actually gain more confidence and have an opportunity to make positive change. We sometimes suffer from the “we’ve-always-done-it-this-way” mentality, which makes it impossible to ever do things better.
• Unconscious bias. Like it or not, we’re all influenced by events, people, the media, and other factors. A Korn Ferry study found that 42 percent of workers believe there’s an element of unconscious bias in their workforce when it comes to diversity.14 Our own biases can turn bridges into walls and harm our work relationships.
We can all do a better job of incorporating the ideas of others and making people feel more comfortable at work. To manage diversity effectively, you need to be more open to unconventional candidates, get to know people on an individual basis, create a safe space where people are supported, and reward and recognize diversity when you see it.
1. Hire unconventional candidates. To get the right level of diversity in your team, you must change your hiring criteria. Don’t just look at candidates’ accomplishments and where they went to school. Ask about their passions, who and what most influenced them, and their interests outside of work. From the job description to the interview process, your qualifications should be looser, and you should account for unconscious bias so that you don’t end up passing on someone because of what they look like. Just because someone doesn’t have a degree, or grew up in a part of the country you’ve never heard of before, doesn’t mean that they couldn’t add something special to your team.
2. Understand individual needs. Instead of just observing your team from a distance, set up one-on-one, in-person meetings to get to know your teammates better. Don’t bother texting or instant messaging them; that won’t give you a sense of their emotions, views, and creativity. Sometimes you need to look inward to get an outward, more general view of things. For instance, one of your employees might be interested in time management, while another couldn’t care less. One could be more introverted, while another one could be the life of the party and want to plan every social event. Another may prefer running things by the team before making decisions, while yet another may act first and then ask for feedback afterward. You need to get to know the people you work with and their habits so you can lead them in the most effective way.
3. Create a safe space. When Google managers embarked on a quest to build a more productive team, a project known as Project Aristotle, they interviewed hundreds of employees from throughout the company. They wanted to use data to find the proper mix of employees to identify leaders. What they found was that the best teams respect one another’s emotions and are mindful that all members should contribute equally to the conversation. Having a safe environment in which people feel comfortable interacting and sharing their perspectives is what makes a team successful and more productive than others.15 Those feelings of safety and security reduce employees’ stress and encourage them to share their ideas instead of keeping them to themselves.
4. Recognize thoughtfulness. When you see employees being courageous and open, tell them they’re doing a great job. Let them know that idea sharing is encouraged and that the more they share, the better off the team will be. Find a small way to reward this type of behavior—and be sure to tailor the reward to the individual. (Some would prefer public recognition; others would be much happier with a Starbucks gift card.) Incentivizing employees in this way will make them do the same for their employees in the future when they’re in leadership roles. But keep these rewards separate from performance-based incentives that reward innovation, process improvement, creativity, or innovations that produce measurable bottom-line results. In a conversation I had with Wharton professor Adam Grant, he advised me to “recognize that dissenting opinions are useful even when they’re wrong, and go out of your way to reward them. Promote and celebrate the people who openly disagree with you and criticize you.”16
5. Communicate relentlessly. J&J’s Gehring told me that one of his first acts in his current job was to hang a big poster outside his office that said, “Ideas over Titles.” It sent a message that ideas count more than anything else, regardless of pedigree or seniority. But hanging a poster wasn’t enough. “I worked hard to draw those ideas from my team and tap into their vast experience. I reached out relentlessly, early, and often. I created weekly videos to introduce my leadership style and set the tone. I got serious about using social media as a management tool, both internally and externally. Transparent and direct communication will help you earn the respect of your team, especially when combined with a clear vision and sense of purpose.”
6. Encourage people to share their ideas. Successful leaders around the world do this in a variety of ways. Patricia Rollins, senior director of marketing at CA, dedicates a few minutes of every team call to thinking through what’s working and what’s not. “I encourage one ‘get fired’ idea (something that’s really out-of-the-box thinking) to help transform our roles. I then assign a lead to that idea to get it executed.” Sam Worobec, director of training at Chipotle Mexican Grill, encourages his team to try out new projects on their own time. “So long as the idea is tied to a problem we are all trying to solve, they are wide open to attempting to solve the issue and bringing it to the team. From this, some of our most transformational ideas have emerged.” Ross Feinberg, senior director of strategy and operations at Akamai, has a different approach: “My favorite thing to ask is, ‘What do you think?’ and I make sure to go around the room to get everyone to chime in. Some people will not be forward with their thoughts, so they need to be directly asked, but often these people have the best ideas.” At Liberty Mutual, everyone on Jenna Lebel’s team is empowered to take smart risks—even if they end up failing. “We believe that sometimes you win and sometimes you learn, but both are equally valuable to us,” says Lebel, who’s the vice president of brand and integrated marketing. “And we reward the team accordingly—we reward for successful ideas and for ideas that never make it off the ground. The team takes comfort knowing that they can try new things and creatively tackle business challenges without fear of consequences if things don’t go well. We all know that it’s okay to fail, but we need to fail fast and take the learnings with us as we go forward.”
Aside from the leadership techniques just discussed, think about how to foster an overall culture that promotes diverse ideas. Focusing on your culture can have a long-term positive impact on hiring, managing, and promoting. It can also set up future leaders for success, because the company’s DNA contributes not only to the makeup of your employee base but also to the ways people behave toward and think about one another. The following are some steps that will help you create a culture that will support your organization right now and in the future.
1. Assess your current situation. Take a long, hard look at your recruitment processes and how (whether) your team and your company support differing perspectives. Conduct an employee satisfaction survey to identify your current diversity challenges and opportunities. Are people supported when they share new ideas? Do they feel that their voices are heard and their ideas are incorporated into new processes and projects? This will give you an idea of the new policies, guidelines, and conversations you’ll need to implement to fully embrace diverse ideas.
2. Seek executive commitment. Once you discover the obstacles and issues you’re facing, write them down and use the data from your survey to make a case to management that things need to change. Once the managers are convinced that there’s a problem, get them to commit to supporting your attempt to resolve that problem.
3. Create an action plan. After determining the attitudes toward diversity and the issues that your teammates face, it’s time to develop a plan. The plan should include your recommendations for solving the problem and a timeline that you can be accountable for. For instance, during the first week you should have a kickoff meeting at which you present the results from the engagement survey and solicit people’s opinions.
4. Measure the results. After implementing your action plan, issue the same survey to your team to see whether there’s been any improvement. Hopefully you’ll be able to use the new data to support the case you’re making to your executive team: that tackling this problem was worth your time and has benefited the team and organization.
As a leader, you’ll undoubtedly have to deal with a variety of situations in which you need to manage diversity. Before you jump in, it’s important to step back and get a clear view of what’s really going on, understand where the individuals involved are coming from, and figure out the best way to work with them to come to a resolution. This section discusses some situations that may arise and how to resolve them. Remember, there are two types of disagreements: those that create stronger bonds and those that cause harm, either to the team or to your customers. I focus here on the second category.
As a young leader, you may find yourself managing someone who’s older than you. Some older employees are okay with that, while others may feel that they should be the ones doing the managing. In my research I have found that 83 percent of people have seen younger employees managing older ones.17 Nearly half of older employees feel that younger ones lack managerial experience, an attitude that can have a negative impact on company culture. At the same time, over a third of younger employees believe that managing older employees is difficult.
When Amit Trivedi, CP infrastructure and analysis manager at Xerox, was a new manager, he had an experience with an older teammate that got him thinking differently about the generation gap. The teammate told Amit, “We have never had to change this process and it has always worked.” Amit was interested in improving the process and asked a number of questions, including, “What problems would arise if the process were changed?” and “Is there any possible way to make the current process more efficient?” The resulting discussion gave Amit and his colleague a chance to explore each other’s perspectives and to find a way to collaborate on ideas.
Let’s imagine that one of your older direct reports is frustrated with you because you always think you’re right and you never take into consideration their opinions—which are based (in their view) on a lot more experience than you have. What do you do?
First, you need to gain insight into the employee’s point of view before drawing any conclusions or pushing your view on them. Second, adapt your communication style to their preferences. If they want a face-to-face meeting, don’t force them to email you. Older workers are often more “traditional,” and you need to speak their “language” to get on the same page and show them the respect they desire. Finally, keep an open mind and don’t make assumptions about how their age might influence their thinking or abilities. Make them feel involved and valued by incorporating their ideas into your final decisions.
Everyone I spoke with agreed that most employees—regardless of age or job title—want the same thing: to improve their company and its products and services. No generation has a monopoly on the “right” way to achieve that goal. Nim De Swardt, chief next generation officer at Bacardi, put it nicely when she told me, “All generations need to understand that in this new world of work we are less bound by convention, structure, and hierarchy, and that experimentation is essential for innovation.”
As discussed, the workplace is becoming more diverse by the day, and sooner or later you’re going to be working with people with whom you don’t share an ethnic or geographic background. Let’s say that you’re Chinese and that you and an American colleague are putting together a bunch of slides for a presentation that you are to jointly deliver at an upcoming conference. Because of your differences, you find yourself spending a huge amount of time talking about how to divide the work and presentation time and dealing with a bunch of other issues that you’re pretty sure would never have come up if your copresenter were more like you. What do you do?
First, sit down with your copresenter and ask them how they think the presentation should be organized and how to divide up the responsibilities. After they’ve given their opinions, share yours. This way you’re showing respect and conveying that you care about what they have to say and the role they want to play. If there are any language barriers or you don’t feel comfortable with how certain words or phrases might translate for your audience, ask them to help revise them. Finally, you should both agree on who’s responsible for which slides and what the timeline is for preparing the final presentation.
Despite the power of human connection, we’re still going to need hard metrics to prove the value of our hard work. The good news is that it’s possible to measure diverse ideas in many ways that provide value to your team, company, and customers. By conducting a 5-point employee satisfaction survey every quarter, you can measure how diversity is impacting employee happiness, well-being, and productivity. If you move from a 3 to a 5 on overall employee satisfaction, you’re doing a great job. In the survey, ask specific questions about diverse ideas, such as, “How have you benefited from a diverse team?” and “How much has diversity impacted your overall performance?” If the answers are positive, your team could be a model for other teams or your company as a whole. You can have a major impact by influencing other teams through the decisions you make about diverse ideas.
Another way to measure diverse ideas is the number and quality of the ideas your team generates. If the team’s ideas result in a successful project, it should be easy to measure the resulting cost reductions, revenue generation, or productivity increases.