Valid points. I have used the example of a lone vegetarian joining a team with a tradition of eating together at a steak house. In my mind, it would be a reason

Valid points. I have used the example of a lone vegetarian joining a team with a tradition of eating together at a steak house. In my mind, it would be a reasonable accommodation to stop doing that once a vegetarian is hired -- low cost to switch, highly obnoxious not to. I find your example of communication style to be trickier. It feels in-between to me. I would agree that some elements of communication style should not be changed to accommodate an inflexible newcomer. On the other hand, when people talk about the benefits of diversity, communication style is a really large element! You know what you enjoy about your current boys' club style -- but it might very well be better if you switched to something more professional even in the absence of onboarding someone new. You won't know until forced to by the introduction of diversity, and that's true in many different subtle areas, not all of which you're going to have any chance of spotting in advance. The same argument could be applied to just about anything. Perhaps GWT would be a really great fit for what you're working on, but you won't know until you try it. That's far less likely than a communication style change, though, so it's probably one of the costlier and less likely things to try to accommodate. I agree that the question of whether or not to accommodate a difference is not always answered with "yes!" It depends on the accommodation required.