Understanding & Embracing Diversity on Teams
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Workplace diversity creates stronger teams. Embracing and celebrating that the things that make us different are vital, and some of the most important ingredients to any organization and being successful in business.
First: A little experiment
Alright, let’s start this topic off with a thought experiment for you:
You get stranded and stuck on a deserted island. Which group below would you rather be stuck on this island with?
1. A group of people who all know how to forage for food, but nobody knows how to build any kind of shelter or structure, or build really anything at all.
2. A group of people who are doctors and understand medicine, but none of them know a thing about surviving in the wild.
3. A group comprised of one person that knows how to build things (like a shelter), and someone else that knows how to forage for food, someone who’s a doctor and understands medicine, someone that knows how to find fresh drinking water and make water drinkable, someone that understands search and rescue and the best way to be found and to be seen, and somebody who is a connector and a morale builder to encourage and lift people's spirits.
(Obviously group #3)
Obviously the best choice is a group that is diverse. A mix of strengths and abilities is more valuable than a group that lacks diversity.
Having a doctor is important, but a group of people with only doctor skills? Hard pass.
Okay, so you get my very obvious point:
Diversity makes you stronger as a team and stronger as an organization.
Diversity is valuable, there’s no question. Roles and functions inside teams and organizations are diverse and require a cross section of talents, perspectives, and abilities.
Before we get into that, I want to talk first about broadening an understanding of diversity on a bit deeper level. Generally, when we think of diversity we think of the most obvious and visible things like race, gender, age, and the factors that are typically the easiest to spot on the surface about someone else.
However, along with those more visible factors, there are a whole heap of things that are less apparent and also really important elements to diversity and the differences between human beings.
Diversity goes beyond the most obvious, visible things.
To name some, there are many different personality types, working styles, communication styles, skill sets, personal beliefs, experience levels, generational differences, neurodiversity, learning styles, sexual orientation, physical ability, lived experiences, different perspectives and all the different ways that people view the world, operate, and behave.
All of these things are foundational elements of people’s identities, and vary greatly from person to person.
The benefit to teams
One of the most obvious ways that diversity benefits teams and creates stronger organizations is that we need different personalities, skill sets, and communication styles to fill different roles inside an organization.
Generally, different communication styles or personality types are drawn towards or are more successful in specific roles inside an organization. For example, someone who's an extrovert and gets charged up by interacting with others, building rapport, and making connection through small talk will likely be more successful in a sales role, or a client-facing job.
And someone who is a little bit more introverted, or analytical-minded might be more drawn to an engineer or accountant type position.
There are no hard or fast “rules” about this at all. Yes, introverts make brilliant salespeople, and extroverts can be engineers. The point is that having a lot of diversity inside an organization, gives teams a higher chance of successfully filling roles, because there are so many different types of roles and functions to fill inside any company.
“None of these types of diversity are less than or better than, they’re just different, and those differences give you strength as a whole team.”
There’s a reason all of your sales people don’t run your accounting department, and that you don't send all your engineers on sales calls. Not to disparage either of those groups, but it is ok that people are different and skilled in different areas. In fact, it’s absolutely necessary.
None of these types of diversity are less than or better than, they're just different, and those differences give you strength as a whole team.
It can be easy for humans to get caught up in thinking that one is better or worse than the other. You have to really shut that down and move away from that kind of thinking, and realize that those differences are your power.
To be really successful as an organization, you have to be intentional and deliberate about embracing, honoring, seeking out, and celebrating diversity and those differences.
Seeing from many different angles
A huge benefit of diversity and having a variety of perspectives, lived experience, and understanding is that it allows us to address and solve problems in a more creative, innovative way by seeing things from different angles. Marketing is a great concrete example of this.
Do a group of 60 year old people know how to market to 20 year olds?
Maybe, but it sure would help to have some 20 year olds in that room.
Understanding diversity also helps us interpret the behavior of coworkers and extend grace to others.
“Differences in lived experiences are something that we need to be conscious and aware of, and extend more grace about why people operate the way they do.”
Another crucial factor of understanding diversity as a co-worker and colleague is being aware that other people’s lived experiences are much different than yours. It’s important to be personally conscious of this, and to extend more grace about why people operate the way that they do.
To give you a very real-life example, you might work with someone who avoids conflict at all costs, or is terrible at navigating conflict.
There is a possibility that that person maybe grew up in, or goes home to, a really toxic or abusive environment where conflict is terrifying and unsafe due to the behavior of other people. As a result, any form of conflict may be a very scary, triggering place for someone. You don’t necessarily know if that’s true or not, you just know that they aren’t very skilled at navigating conflict or avoid it at all costs.
As a colleague, choose to extend a little bit more grace and patience for why people show up and operate the way that they do. It’s a pretty human thing to make negative assumptions about people if they're different which is one way that diversity can lead to a lot of unnecessary conflict, misunderstandings, and static on teams,
Strive to adopt an attitude of “This person has very different lived experiences and elements of their identity than I do, including different skill sets, talents, abilities, and communication style.” Yes, if a specific behavior needs to be talked about or addressed, then address it.
Also, acknowledge and embrace that differences in others are often incredibly valuable to the team as a whole.
There is so much research and data that supports the fact that more diverse organizations outperform organizations that are less diverse. Embrace diversity, seek it out, honor it, celebrate it, revere it, it is vital to success.
When faced with your own relationship and perspective about diversity, remember the deserted island scenario; you need diversity to survive and thrive.
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This article was created by Galen Emanuele for the #culturedrop. Free leadership and team culture content in less than 5 minutes a week. Check out the rest of this month's content and subscribe to the Culture Drop at https://bit.ly/culturedrop
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