The Business Book

115

See also: The value of teams 70–71 ■ Beware the yes-men 74–75 ■ Thinking

outside the box 88–89 ■ Organizational culture 104–09

A

s with most clichés,

it is also a truism that

managers often tend

to recruit in their own image—

males, for example, have a tendency

to employ males. If left unchallenged,

such behavior can lead to companies

staffed with homogenous clones—

people from the same backgrounds

and with the same view of how

the business should be run.

In contrast, when organizations

actively pursue diversity—by

employing people from different

cultures and socio-economic

backgrounds, and of different

genders and ages—the more

dynamic and stimulating they

are as places to work.

The case for diversity

Greater diversity means greater

scope for creativity—the more

varied are the sources of an

organization’s views, the more

likely that out-of-the-box thinking

and problem solving will occur.

Studies have shown that diversity

can also combat groupthink, a

malaise in group dynamics that

can stifle innovation and growth.

In diverse teams, opinions are less

likely to go unchallenged.

Diversity is not confined to

employee demographics. It might

simply involve creating cross-

functional teams that incorporate

the views of people from across

a company—the marketing team,

for example, might benefit from the

insight of operations or finance. But

whatever the context, monochrome

recruitment can lead to stasis—

diversity fights against it. ■

LIGHTING THE FIRE

T H E A R T O F T H I N K I N G

INDEPENDENTLY,

T O G E T H E R

THE VALUE OF DIVERSITY

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS
Work-force diversity

KEY DATES
2005 Car maker Daimler
targets 20 percent of
management roles be filled by
women by 2020. It sets similar
targets for other diversity
measures, such as age mix,
socio-demographic mix, and
nationality mix.

2009 A survey analyzing
the value of female
representation on corporate
boards ranks companies
with more females higher
than male-dominated rivals.

2012 A Harvard Business
Review article by business
consultants Jack Zenger and
Joseph Folkman finds that
women are rated higher in 12
of the 16 competencies that
define outstanding leadership.

2013 New Italian law requires
a third of a company’s board
members be women by 2015.

Diversity management

isn’t merely nice to have,

it’s a business must.

Daimler company statement

(2005)