KEY POINTS:
Q. What does diversity bring to a business, and how can it make money?
A. Diversity brings the possibility to leapfrog competitors. By leveraging different perspectives, a company can create "Medici Effect", an explosion of groundbreaking ideas. A corporation must first understand the need for diversity and
then how to use it. With those two pieces in place, however, it will outperform. This is ultimately reflected in shareholder value. Diversity can make money in several ways. The most fundamental is in how it drives innovation. When Volvo Cars decided to create an all-female engineering team it came up with hundreds of ideas, most of them never suggested before - and many were brilliant. In addition, diversity can help us find unique market opportunities. When the Hispanic networking group at Frito-Lay in the US (part of PepsiCo) suggested the company develop a "Guacamole Chip", the company went for it and made $100 million in its first year of sales.
Q. Does it mean hiring people who are not as well-qualified?
A. Hiring well-qualified people is the baseline. But diversity means we need to question our assumptions about those qualifications. When L'Oreal acquired Maybelline it changed the make-up of the company's staff by bringing in people of different ethnicities and countries ). Many may have been traditionally "not right" for the job, but five years later Maybelline had become the number one cosmetics brand in the world - a result of innovation from diversity.
Q. Does it have to mean age, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation?
A. Not necessarily but those attributes increase the chances in bringing together different perspectives. It can also mean different fields, experiences and expertise.
Q. What if my occupation happens to attract a particular type, such as men, women, straight...?
A. If everyone around you is the same, you've got some serious problems. Every industry today is under intense pressure to innovate and change, and they should seek diversity anywhere possible. Seek out organisations that try to hire people different from yourself.
Q. How do I make a workplace more attractive to different types of people?
A. The first step is to ensure it is diverse to begin with. If your competitor is further along than you, get moving. To get a diverse workplace to begin with, though, you must breed openness, respect and tolerance. Only then can team members feel comfortable providing, championing and challenging ideas. In addition, you have to ensure people are evaluated more on their ideas than on how well you know them, since diverse teams tend to consist of people who may only have worked together for a short period of time. Things work pretty well when we're all from the same backgrounds.
Q. Wouldn't changing the make-up mean conflict and inefficiency?
A. It's all about leadership and management. The most important quality for a global leader is understanding how to manage diversity. That bit of extra time dwarfs in comparison to the benefits in revenue, market share or profit margin that results from the team's composition.
Q. Surely we're going to have to spend more time on training?
A. We have developed a workshop which trains executives and managers to use existing diversity in their company to generate new innovations in products, services, supply chain, marketing, hiring... everywhere. With these skills, a corporation not only understands the value of diversity - it accomplishs breakthroughs because of it.
- Frans Johansson will be speaking at the EEO Trust Symposium at the Hyatt Regency Auckland on Thursday. Visit www.eeotrust.org.nz
