4 ms·

'If a company sees diversity as important' Maybe they seek success as important. How does a focus on diversity help a company succeed?

• Mz 16y ago
  I work for a large company. They think it's important. The framing is along the lines of "How can we sell to everyone if we don't hire everyone?" If you are dominated by white males, you may be making wording choices and other decisions which subtly exclude women, blacks, hispanics, etc and you probably have no idea you are doing it. (Subtle does not necessarily mean the effect is small either.)
  • jdp23 16y ago
    Exactly. Also, diverse teams outperform -- Scott Page's book The Difference presents the underlying cognitive diversity model for why, and there's been some great recent empirical work as well. Conversely a lot of white guys don't believe that diversity leads to success -- and many of them talk primarily to other white guys who reinforce their views (or to women and people of color who agree with them). So, companies they run wind up with mostly male and mostly white development teams, building products optimized for white guys. It's a crowded market space ...
    • Mz 16y ago
      Anecdotally, my recollection is that the most successful organized crime group ever was successful in part because they would work with anyone, so long as they had the necessary skills. Prior to that, the Irish stuck with the Irish, the Italians stuck with the Italians, etc. Inclusiveness of people = not excluding skills/talent based on some arbitrary, irrelevant detail (like skin color, gender, etc).