Читать книгу Inclusion, Inc. - Sara Sanford - Страница 41

“I don't know how the world's going to progress.”

When I think back to my first conversation with Sanaika, the challenge in those words still resonates.

Inclusion-minded businesses are rising to meet the challenge by showing us that progress is possible. An analysis of the S&P Composite 1500 found that companies that embrace gender-balanced leadership teams have been evaluated as more innovative, and the returns on their innovations outpace those of their less gender-balanced competitors. Scientific American has published research demonstrating that racial diversity delivers similar benefits.²⁵ Another study from North Carolina State University found that firms that have embraced pro-DEI policies are producing more products and registering more patents per year than firms that haven't implemented inclusion-minded practices.²⁶

As some business leaders have experienced, though, a diverse workplace alone does not automatically yield these benefits. In his book, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking, Matthew Syed notes that diversity can actually lead to greater conflict, friction, and stagnation.²⁷ Leaders are often disappointed when they put in the work to build diverse teams, wait for collective intelligence to “happen,” and instead see groupthink or tokenism persist.

This doesn't mean that diversity isn't worth pursuing. It just means that diversity is the first step.

Billy Beane didn't recruit undervalued players and let them sit on the bench. Coates's experiment didn't include female traders but deny them access to high-value accounts. The businesses that benefit from diversity take steps to ensure that voices like Sanaika's aren't just in the room—they're included.

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These companies have gone beyond diversity to inclusion by embracing one key perspective shift: They've ditched outdated approaches to DEI, and instead, they've adjusted their cultural levers. In the next chapter, we'll start to explore the promise of this design-based approach.