the value in diversity problem solving approach

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter

• Heidi Grant

Research shows they’re more successful in three important ways.

Striving to increase workplace diversity is not an empty slogan — it is a good business decision. A 2015 McKinsey report on 366 public companies found that those in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean, and those in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have returns above the industry mean.

• DR David Rock is a cofounder of the NeuroLeadership Institute and author of  Your Brain at Work .
• Heidi Grant is a social psychologist who researches, writes, and speaks about the science of motivation. Her books include Reinforcements: How to Get People to Help You , Nine Things Successful People Do Differently , and No One Understands You and What to Do About It . She is EY US Director of Learning R&D.

Partner Center

Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

How Diversity Makes Us Smarter

The first thing to acknowledge about diversity is that it can be difficult.

In the U.S., where the dialogue of inclusion is relatively advanced, even the mention of the word “diversity” can lead to anxiety and conflict. Supreme Court justices disagree on the virtues of diversity and the means for achieving it. Corporations spend billions of dollars to attract and manage diversity both internally and externally, yet they still face discrimination lawsuits, and the leadership ranks of the business world remain predominantly white and male.

It is reasonable to ask what good diversity does us. Diversity of  expertise confers benefits that are obvious—you would not think of building a new car without engineers, designers, and quality-control experts—but what about social diversity? What good comes from diversity of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation? Research has shown that social diversity in a group can cause discomfort, rougher interactions, a lack of trust, greater perceived interpersonal conflict, lower communication, less cohesion, more concern about disrespect, and other problems. So, what is the upside?

The fact is that if you want to build teams or organizations capable of innovating, you need diversity. Diversity enhances creativity. It encourages the search for novel information and perspectives, leading to better decision making and problem solving. Diversity can improve the bottom line of companies and lead to unfettered discoveries and breakthrough innovations. Even simply being exposed to diversity can change the way you think.

This is not just wishful thinking: It is the conclusion I draw from decades of research from organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, and demographers.

Informational diversity fuels innovation

The key to understanding the positive influence of diversity is the concept of informational diversity. When people are brought together to solve problems in groups, they bring different information, opinions, and perspectives.

This makes obvious sense when we talk about diversity of disciplinary backgrounds—think again of the interdisciplinary team building a car. The same logic applies to social diversity. People who are different from one another in race, gender, and other dimensions bring unique information and experiences to bear on the task at hand. A male and a female engineer might have perspectives as different from one another as an engineer and a physicist—and that is a good thing.

“We need diversity if we are to change, grow, and innovate”

Research on large, innovative organizations has shown repeatedly that this is the case.

For example, business professors Cristian Deszö of the University of Maryland and David Ross of Columbia University studied the effect of gender diversity on the top firms in Standard & Poor’s Composite 1500 list, a group designed to reflect the overall U.S. equity market. First, they examined the size and gender composition of firms’ top management teams from 1992 through 2006. Then they looked at the financial performance of the firms. In their words, they found that, on average, “female representation in top management leads to an increase of $42 million in firm value.” They also measured the firms’ “innovation intensity” through the ratio of research and development expenses to assets. They found that companies that prioritized innovation saw greater financial gains when women were part of the top leadership ranks.

Racial diversity can deliver the same kinds of benefits. In a study conducted in 2003, Orlando Richard, a professor of management at the University of Texas at Dallas, and his colleagues surveyed executives at 177 national banks in the U.S., then put together a database comparing financial performance, racial diversity, and the emphasis the bank presidents put on innovation. For innovation-focused banks, increases in racial diversity were clearly related to enhanced financial performance.

Of course, not all studies get the same results. Even those that haven’t found benefits for racially diverse firms suggest that there is certainly no negative financial impact—and there are benefits that may go beyond the short-term bottom line. For example, in a paper published in June of this year , researchers examined the financial performance of firms listed in  DiversityInc ’s list of Top 50 Companies for Diversity. They found the companies on the list did outperform the S&P 500 index—but the positive impact disappeared when researchers accounted for the size of the firms. That doesn’t mean diversity isn’t worth pursuing, conclude the authors:

In an age of increasing globalization, a diverse workforce may provide both tangible and intangible benefits to firms over the long run, including increased adaptability in a changing market. Also, as the United States moves towards the point in which no ethnic majority exists, around 2050, companies’ upper management and lower-level workforce should naturally be expected to reflect more diversity. Consequently, diversity initiatives would likely generate positive reputation effects for firms.

Evidence for the benefits of diversity can be found well beyond the U.S. In August 2012, a team of researchers at the Credit Suisse Research Institute issued a report in which they examined 2,360 companies globally from 2005 to 2011, looking for a relationship between gender diversity on corporate management boards and financial performance. Sure enough, the researchers found that companies with one or more women on the board delivered higher average returns on equity, lower gearing (that is, net debt to equity), and better average growth.

How diversity provokes new thinking

More on diversity.

Read about the meaning and benefits of diversity .

Discover how students benefit from school diversity .

Learn about the neuroscience of prejudice .

Explore the top ten strategies for reducing prejudice .

Large data-set studies have an obvious limitation: They only show that diversity is correlated with better performance, not that it causes better performance. Research on racial diversity in small groups, however, makes it possible to draw some causal conclusions. Again, the findings are clear: For groups that value innovation and new ideas, diversity helps.

In 2006, I set out with Margaret Neale of Stanford University and Gregory Northcraft of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to examine the impact of racial diversity on small decision-making groups in an experiment where sharing information was a requirement for success.

Our subjects were undergraduate students taking business courses at the University of Illinois. We put together three-person groups—some consisting of all white members, others with two whites and one nonwhite member—and had them perform a murder mystery exercise. We made sure that all group members shared a common set of information, but we also gave each member important clues that only they knew. To find out who committed the murder, the group members would have to share all the information they collectively possessed during discussion. The groups with racial diversity significantly outperformed the groups with no racial diversity. Being with similar others leads us to think we all hold the same information and share the same perspective. This perspective, which stopped the all-white groups from effectively processing the information, is what hinders creativity and innovation.

Other researchers have found similar results. In 2004, Anthony Lising Antonio, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, collaborated with five colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles, and other institutions to examine the influence of racial and opinion composition in small group discussions. More than 350 students from three universities participated in the study. Group members were asked to discuss a prevailing social issue (either child labor practices or the death penalty) for 15 minutes. The researchers wrote dissenting opinions and had both black and white members deliver them to their groups. When a black person presented a dissenting perspective to a group of whites, the perspective was perceived as more novel and led to broader thinking and consideration of alternatives than when a white person introduced  that same dissenting perspective .

The lesson: When we hear dissent from someone who is different from us, it provokes more thought than when it comes from someone who looks like us. It’s a result echoed by a longitudinal study published last year, which tracked the moral development of students on 17 campuses who took a class on diversity in their freshman year. The analysis led the researchers to a robust conclusion: Students who were trained to negotiate diversity from the beginning showed much more sophisticated moral reasoning by the time they graduated. This was especially true for students who entered with lower academic ability.

Active Listening

Connect with a partner through empathy and understanding.

This effect is not limited to race and gender. For example, last year professors of management Denise Lewin Loyd of the University of Illinois, Cynthia Wang of Oklahoma State University, Robert B. Lount, Jr., of Ohio State University, and I asked 186 people whether they identified as a Democrat or a Republican, then had them read a murder mystery and decide who they thought committed the crime. Next, we asked the subjects to prepare for a meeting with another group member by writing an essay communicating their perspective. More important, in all cases, we told the participants that their partner disagreed with their opinion but that they would need to come to an agreement with the other person. Everyone was told to prepare to convince their meeting partner to come around to their side; half of the subjects, however, were told to prepare to make their case to a member of the opposing political party, and half were told to make their case to a member of their own party.

The result: Democrats who were told that a fellow Democrat disagreed with them prepared less well for the discussion than Democrats who were told that a Republican disagreed with them. Republicans showed the same pattern. When disagreement comes from a socially different person, we are prompted to work harder. Diversity jolts us into cognitive action in ways that homogeneity simply does not.

For this reason, diversity appears to lead to higher-quality scientific research.

In 2014, two Harvard University researchers examined the ethnic identity of the authors of 1.5 million scientific papers written between 1985 and 2008 using Thomson Reuters’s Web of Science, a comprehensive database of published research. They found that papers written by diverse groups receive more citations and have higher impact factors than papers written by people from the same ethnic group. Moreover, they found that stronger papers were associated with a greater number of author addresses; geographical diversity, and a larger number of references, is a reflection of more intellectual diversity.

What we believe makes a difference

Diversity is not only about bringing different perspectives to the table. Simply adding social diversity to a group makes people  believe  that differences of perspective might exist among them and that belief makes people change their behavior.

Members of a homogeneous group rest somewhat assured that they will agree with one another; that they will understand one another’s perspectives and beliefs; that they will be able to easily come to a consensus.

But when members of a group notice that they are socially different from one another, they change their expectations. They anticipate differences of opinion and perspective. They assume they will need to work harder to come to a consensus. This logic helps to explain both the upside and the downside of social diversity: People work harder in diverse environments both cognitively and socially. They might not like it, but the hard work can lead to better outcomes.

In a 2006 study of jury decision making, social psychologist Samuel Sommers of Tufts University found that racially diverse groups exchanged a wider range of information during deliberation about a sexual assault case than all-white groups did. In collaboration with judges and jury administrators in a Michigan courtroom, Sommers conducted mock jury trials with a group of real selected jurors. Although the participants knew the mock jury was a court-sponsored experiment, they did not know that the true purpose of the research was to study the impact of racial diversity on jury decision making.

Sommers composed the six-person juries with either all white jurors or four white and two black jurors. As you might expect, the diverse juries were better at considering case facts, made fewer errors recalling relevant information, and displayed a greater openness to discussing the role of race in the case.

These improvements did not necessarily happen because the black jurors brought new information to the group—they happened because white jurors changed their behavior in the presence of the black jurors. In the presence of diversity, they were more diligent and open-minded.

Consider the following scenario: You are a scientist writing up a section of a paper for presentation at an upcoming conference. You are anticipating some disagreement and potential difficulty communicating because your collaborator is American and you are Chinese. Because of one social distinction, you may focus on other differences between yourself and that person, such as their culture, upbringing and experiences—differences that you would not expect from another Chinese collaborator. How do you prepare for the meeting? In all likelihood, you will work harder on explaining your rationale and anticipating alternatives than you would have otherwise—and you might work harder to reconcile those differences.

This is how diversity works : by promoting hard work and creativity; by encouraging the consideration of alternatives even before any interpersonal interaction takes place. The pain associated with diversity can be thought of as the pain of exercise. You have to push yourself to grow your muscles. The pain, as the old saw goes, produces the gain. In just the same way, we need diversity—in teams, organizations, and society as a whole—if we are to change, grow, and innovate.

This essay was originally published in 2014 by Scientific American. It has been revised and updated to include new research.

About the Author

Katherine W. Phillips

Katherine W. Phillips, Ph.D. , is the Paul Calello Professor of Leadership and Ethics Management at Columbia Business School.

You May Also Enjoy

How to Close the Gap Between Us and Them

How to Help Diverse Students Find Common Ground

Can Diversity Make You a Better Communicator?

Three Lessons from Zootopia to Discuss with Kids

Four Ways Teachers Can Reduce Implicit Bias

Does Neurodiversity Have a Future?

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• J Infect Dis

The Science and Value of Diversity: Closing the Gaps in Our Understanding of Inclusion and Diversity

Talia h swartz.

1 Department of Medicine, New York, New York

2 Department of Medical Education, New York, New York

3 Medical Scientist Training Program, New York, New York

Ann-Gel S Palermo

4 Office for Diversity and Inclusion in Biomedical Education, New York, New York

Sandra K Masur

5 Department of Ophthalmology, New York, New York

6 Office for Women’s Careers, and, New York, New York

Judith A Aberg

7 Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York

Diversity drives excellence. Diversity enhances innovation in biomedical sciences and, as it relates to novel findings and treatment of diverse populations, in the field of infectious diseases. There are many obstacles to achieving diversity in the biomedical workforce, which create challenges at the levels of recruitment, retention, education, and promotion of individuals. Here we present the challenges, opportunities, and suggestions for the field, institutions, and individuals to adopt in mitigating bias and achieving greater levels of equity, representation, and excellence in clinical practice and research. Our findings provide optimism for a bright future of fair and collaborative approaches that will enhance the power of our biomedical workforce.

Diversity enhances excellence and innovation. Including diverse individuals who are also different thinkers because of their lived experiences can increase the breadth and depth of biomedical and clinical inquiries to improve the scope and approach to problems that affect all corners of society. Our goal should be to foster a culture of prioritizing and sustaining diversity at all levels of the biomedical workforce, including the trainee pipeline, trainees, faculty, institutional leadership, committees, national organizations, and government. This article addresses the values of diversity, the data on inclusion and diversity in science, and approaches to improve our effort to foster this diversity.

Here we present data on the benefits of diversity to science and medicine, an extensive list of references on the gaps and paradigms for practices, and specific guidance on how institutions and individuals can promote diversity in their realms. Those who prefer the actionable guidance may read the section “What Are Ways That Our Field Can Foster a Culture of Diversity?”

WHY IS DIVERSITY BENEFICIAL TO SCIENCE?

“Diversity—defined as differences in how we see the world, how we think about the world, how we try and solve problems, the analogies we use, the metaphors, the tools we acquire, the life experiences we have—makes us better at what we do.” Scott E. Page, Robert L. Harris, Jr, ADVANCEments in Science Lecture, Cornell University, 22 April 2015

Diversity has many facets, including background, age, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, geography, disability, socioeconomic status, area of expertise, level of experience, thinking style, and skill set. The benefits of engaging individuals with a wide swath of perspectives have great potential to improve our capacity to innovate. Why? Overwhelming evidence suggests that teams that include different kinds of thinkers outperform homogeneous groups on complex tasks, including improved problem solving, increased innovation, and more-accurate predictions—all of which lead to better performance and results when a diverse team is tasked to approach a given problem [ 1–3 ]. Diverse and inclusive scientific teams can generate new research questions that have yet to be asked by our field, develop methodical and analytical approaches to better understand study populations, and offer approaches to problem solving from multiple and different perspectives. Diverse groups published higher numbers of articles, and these receive more citations per article [ 4 ].

Diverse Groups Publish More Frequently and Are Cited More

A study from 2013 indicated that articles published from the United States and the United Kingdom that included an international author had a significant increase in citations over articles with authors from the same country [ 4 ]. Using surname as a proxy for ethnicity, a 2014 analysis showed that articles with 4 or 5 authors of different ethnicities had 5%–10% more citations than articles with all authors of the same ethnicity [ 2 ]. To probe the patterns of diversity driving collaborative work, AlSheblie, Rahwan, and Woon queried the scholarly database Microsoft Academic Graph [ 3 ]. They ascribed impact to particular papers published between 1958 and 2009, based on 5-year citation counts, and found that increased diversity with regard to ethnicity, age, gender, and affiliation was associated with increased 5-year citation count, with ethnic diversity having the greatest impact.

Diverse Groups Can Have Complementary Skill Sets

The Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) in Japan instituted a mandate that 50% of all researchers be from outside Japan. In 2012, the institute began recruiting from 6 continents and, by 2018, rose in a ranking of academic institutions in Japan based on research output. The recruitment efforts were broad, recognizing diversity of ethnicity, gender, academic background, and field of interest [ 5 ]. Mukhles Sowwan was a researcher from Jerusalem who came to OIST and recruited 10 scientists from around the world. He made 2 broad generalizations about scientific approaches, based on country of origin: researchers from large world-class universities tend to have a more global perspective, while those from countries with less developed infrastructure tend to be more detail oriented. Working together, individuals with both perspectives can complement each other and inform new approaches.

Diverse Groups Are Better Equipped to Address Health Disparities

Diverse and different thinkers can, as physicians and scientists, impact the outer boundaries of healthcare inequity by allowing their practice and research to be informed by broader social contemporary issues [ 6 , 7 ]. Diverse clinical and scientific teams may be better at addressing the disparities in health outcomes observed among patients of certain racial and ethnic groups. They may be able to do so because they are interested in examining the role that nonscientific factors have in health and well being, such as adverse social determinants of health. Thus, diverse teams in academic medicine can contribute to improving the educational infrastructure to provide robust and meaningful content on diverse patient populations and biomedical problems to equip physicians with relevant knowledge to better take care of patients and begin to undo health-outcome disparities. The recruitment of diverse teams to tackle these problems can result in higher quality and meaningful clinical studies that benefit greater numbers of patients [ 8 ].

Intersectionality Allows Us to Highlight and Enrich Our Overlapping Identities

Diversity is complex at the individual or group level when intersectionality is recognized. Intersectionality is the interconnected nature of social categories, such as race, class, disability, and gender, as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. Valuing intersectionality in the training, development, retention, and design of scientific teams can enrich the work of research because it is informed by rich and complex heterogeneity in thinking and practice [ 6 ].

WHAT ARE THE BARRIERS TO INCREASING DIVERSITY?

Moving through the educational pipeline is a challenge for underrepresented applicants.

The educational pipeline poses a challenge for underrepresented students who may not have had sufficient educational exposure or support. Many have to overcome significant barriers to access education. Understanding these obstacles should help medical and biomedical graduate schools develop improved recruitment and retention programs and take an active role in promotion and outreach initiatives. Institutions should not assume that reputation alone is sufficient to recruit the top candidates among applicants from underrepresented groups. It is possible that perceived institutional culture may dissuade applicants of certain backgrounds. Outreach efforts can enforce a commitment to fostering diversity [ 8 , 9 ]. Individuals from underrepresented groups may not have had access to the same resources while growing up as those from other backgrounds, who may have received advice in how to improve their curriculum vitae (CV), application, and test-taking and interview skills [ 10 ]. When students from underrepresented groups matriculate, many may experience imposter syndrome, in which an individual doubts their own achievements and fear being perceived as a fraud. This perpetuates feelings of inadequacy and isolation [ 11 ]. Stereotype threat occurs when individuals feel pressure to conform to preconceived notions about their identity. Many of these circumstances can lead to choices in subspecialty later in training, resulting in lower rates of application to various residency programs and fellowships among students from underrepresented groups [ 12 ]. The choice of advanced training relates to numerous factors, including lifestyle, competitive prerequisite requirements, and level of debt [ 13 ].

Individuals on Selection Committees May Have Biases of Which They Are Unaware

Unconscious (implicit) bias is the automatic impact of attitudes or stereotypes on our on our view of the world, actions, and decisions without our awareness [ 14 ]. Unconscious bias affects judgment and can pose a critical barrier to the recruitment and retention of a diverse biomedical workforce. We all have biases. It is important that we learn them and recognize them in our daily decision-making. The Implicit Association Test [ 15 ] is a good way to gauge individual biases because it measures the automaticity with which our brain makes associations. Biases can impact our perceived competence of applicants, even in the dearth of objective information. A nationwide study of science professors evaluated the application from a female and a male undergraduate student for a laboratory manager position in which the same CV was presented but the applicant’s name was different [ 16 ]. All found the female applicant to be more likeable, less competent, and less hirable than the male applicant, and the female candidate was offered a lower annual salary (by nearly $4000) and less mentoring than the male candidate. Another study found that letters of recommendation for medical school applications had coded language that differed between female and male applicants, including longer reference letters and more references to the applicant’s CV, publications, patients, and colleagues for men, and shorter reference letters, including more “doubt-raising items,” such as irrelevant information and nondefinitive statements, and more references the applicant’s personal life [ 17 ]. Bias can also impact on peer review. Scientists from underrepresented groups receive fewer National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards [ 18 ]. Bias can also lead to trainees, faculty, and staff feeling marginalized and not able to reach their full potential and to disparities in awards and promotions. Selection committees may not be sufficiently diverse to represent the need for recruitment of diverse trainees [ 18–20 ]. Availability bias is the human tendency to think of examples that come to mind readily and may explain why underrepresented individuals are less likely to be selected as speakers, nominated for awards, or recommended for committees [ 21–23 ].

Criteria for Admissions Can Disproportionately Disadvantage Applicants From Educationally and Economically Disadvantaged Backgrounds

Successful outcomes on standardized tests are associated with early exposure to standardized examinations and having access to test-preparation resources to develop a test-taking mind-set. Students from low socioeconomic backgrounds perform worse on standardized tests than other students, and this creates a disadvantage for these students as applicants to graduate and professional education programs. Institutional pressures to maintain status in national rankings may increase their emphasis on standardized testing and may disadvantage students from underrepresented backgrounds; emphasizing a holistic review can yield a more diverse group of incoming students [ 18 , 24 ].

Medical School Curricula Can Be Based on Old Paradigms That Fail to Address Diverse Populations

Traditional medical schools have failed to address such topics as cross-cultural patient-physician interactions, health disparities, and actionable strategies to improve health outcomes for underserved communities [ 25 ]. Furthermore, physiological and genomic paradigms are based on antiquated concepts and often do not represent the patient populations for which physicians will need to care. This is an important area for medical students to reorient to the current needs of disadvantaged patient populations. In addition, evaluative measures during training may be based on subjective measures, leading to bias, rather than on objective measures and competency-based assessments. This can result in great heterogeneity in evaluations and can disadvantage introverted students whose knowledge or skill set may be less evident than that of students who are more extroverted and promote their capabilities [ 26 ]. Based on these subjective criteria, underrepresented students are less likely to be represented in the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society [ 26 ].

Individuals With Disabilities Are Underrepresented in the Academic Medicine Workforce

While almost 20% of the United States population has a disability, a small percentage (only 2.7%) of medical students disclose that they have disabilities [ 27 ]. Individuals with disabilities are at risk for health disparities because healthcare professionals may lack appropriate understanding about the impact of disability on health. Physician education emphasizes a patient’s impairment, rather than actionable approaches to break down barriers and improve a patient’s capabilities. Medical trainees with disabilities should be supported in their desire to conduct research on individuals with disabilities, if this is their area of interest. Physicians with disabilities may be more likely to identify and encounter the structural barriers faced by disabled patients, which include policies, practices, accommodations, support, and technical standards that inhibit the achievement of better care for individuals like themselves.

Salary Discrepancies Disadvantage Physicians From Underrepresented Groups

It is well known that there are salary discrepancies across disciplines [ 27–29 ]. Women, physicians from underrepresented groups, and international physicians are disproportionately affected by this. Some cite unsubstantiated excuses, such as the claim that women have personal and social obligations that take time away from their professional obligations. Unmentored individuals may not negotiate well for salary. Salaries for researchers are further lower than those for clinicians, which disincentivizes individuals from pursuing research when clinical work can yield greater reimbursements or financial rewards [ 30 ]. The magnitude of the salary discrepancy between men and women is greater for women with multiple intersectional identities, such as nonwhite race/ethnicity, graduation from an international medical school, and identification as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ), given the overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage each identity brings. A cross-field survey of 65 000 US physicians found that women are paid significantly less across geographic regions and medical disciplines, even when controlled for work hours, age, and other potential contributors [ 31 ]. Among the lowest-salaried fields were pediatric subspecialties, with pediatric infectious diseases (median annual salary, $186 000) at the bottom. Adult infectious diseases physicians were ranked 18th among the 24 lowest compensated subspecialties. Non–US-trained physicians earned 2.5% less than US-trained physicians [ 32 ]. The low salary for infectious diseases physicians poses a barrier to promising graduates pursuing this field after completion of residency [ 28 , 30 , 31 ]. Within the field of infectious diseases, only 7% of trainees and 4% of Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) members are African American. Similarly, only 12% of trainees and 8% of IDSA members are Hispanic [ 27 , 31 ]. Trotman et al performed the largest survey of infectious diseases physicians and found that African American infectious diseases physicians were paid 7%–13% less than those from most other racial/ethnic groups [ 33 ]. Marcelin et al described more-detailed information on gender, racial, and ethnic salary disparities [ 34 ] and cited Aberg et al, who called for concerted efforts to “to establish a diversity and inclusion committee to generate the data necessary for developing a strategic plan to improve the diversity of our workforce and eliminate disparities” [ 32 ].

The Pipeline of Academic Medicine Is Leaky for Underrepresented Groups

Despite great effort to expand diversity in the biomedical workforce over the past several decades, individuals from underrepresented groups advance in careers at substantially lower rates. Although women are receiving over half of PhD degrees in the United States, they only make up 38% of full-time faculty and of that number, only 22% of tenured full-time professors are women, only 16% are deans, and only 15% are department chairs [ 35 ]. The lack of diversity among leadership makes it difficult to cultivate the careers of individuals who cannot find appropriate role models. Numerous sociocultural factors influence this including perpetual and unconscious bias that affects retention and incentives of underrepresented faculty, challenging work-life policies that preclude life events at early stages after training and creating a sense of isolation [ 36 ]. Timing of life events with critical career development milestones can disproportionately disadvantage women of childbearing age. Female and underrepresented scientists are less likely to hold NIH funding and academic leadership positions, and they experience disparities in promotion [ 37 ]. A study of 50 000 medical school faculty who were assistant or associate professors between 1980 and 1989 indicated that, by 1997, nearly 50% of white junior faculty had been promoted while only 30%–36% of underrepresented junior faculty were promoted, even when adjusted for gender, tenure status, and NIH funding [ 38 ]. This was confirmed in 128 academic medical centers in which black and Hispanic faculty were promoted less frequently than white faculty across nearly 75% of institutions. The consequences of this are clear in that the effects include the reduced ability to recruit promising underrepresented applicants in fields in which young trainees cannot find senior role models with whom they can identify [ 39 ]. “Cultural taxation” or the “minority tax” is a byproduct of this, as individuals who are underrepresented are frequently asked to serve on committees, to fill the need for representation [ 40 ]. This is even more pronounced with intersectionality, in which an individual may represent multiple interests. This can create a career burden, particularly on senior women faculty, owing to the shortage of representation on committees. This type of service is often not recognized through compensation or traditional promotion metrics.

The Approach to Fostering Diversity Permeates All Levels, Including Individuals, Institutions, National Organizations, and Government Policy

The Infectious Diseases Society of American (IDSA) has set strategic priorities to establish state-of-the-art clinical guidelines, advocate for funding for critical prevention and public health activities, lead the way in antimicrobial stewardship and combating resistance, promote the value of infectious diseases physician-scientists who focus on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), bring the best and brightest into our field, and put infectious diseases and HIV research front, center, and into practice. The IDSA Board of Directors has launched the Inclusion, Diversity, Access and Equity Task Force (IDA&E) and recognizes that this mission relates to every level of society. “We are confident these talented professionals will successfully fulfill the task force charge to examine the workings of the Society. We are thankful they have volunteered their talent and time to ensure that diversity, inclusion and equity are reflected throughout the organization including the leadership and the strategies of IDSA,” said IDSA President Paul Auwaerter, MD, MBA, in 2018. This governance task force has been charged specifically to support diversity, inclusion, and equity through improved transparency, communication, and efficiency, and to maximize opportunities for members to engage in volunteer leadership.

HOW CAN OUR FIELD FOSTER A CULTURE OF DIVERSITY?

A key first step involves recruitment of individuals who are classically underrepresented in science. It is important to draw from a broad pool of qualified individuals. This may involve outreach, improving pipelines and marketing initiatives, and expanding the definition of excellence [ 41 ]. Importantly, recruitment efforts are coupled to retention, and therefore a strong system of support and mentoring is critical for cultivating the careers of young scientists, particularly those from underrepresented groups. It is essential to ensure that the level of diversity among admissions leadership and personnel represents the level of diversity among candidates the institution is hoping to attract and is capable of supporting. Pipeline programs to enhance mentorship and diversity have been extremely successful in advancing the career of individuals who might not otherwise have been supported through this training [ 42 ].

Combating Unconscious Bias Requires a Multifaceted Effort

Unconscious bias can be mitigated with data-driven strategies [ 36 ]. A combination of in-person workshop training with regular reminders through committee emphasis and institution-sponsored awareness campaigns have been shown to have sustainable improvement in recruitment of diverse candidates. Ways to systematically mitigate the impact of unconscious bias in recruitment and selection include developing clear criteria and standards for the position prior to recruitment efforts, developing a clear evaluation system in advance, conducting anonymous voting, and ensuring that search committees are diverse. Witteman et al reported on a study of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, which has phased out conventional grant review in which the science and investigator are both evaluated. A new program focused on the research and allowed for the analysis of almost 24 000 grant applications between 2011 and 2016. The authors found that, with a program evaluating research background and qualifications, the gender gap was 4% in favor of male applicants; however, with the new evaluation approach emphasizing the researcher’s science, the gap was closed, resulting in only a 0.9% advantage for male applicants. This study was not randomized, and it is important to note that, in the new review process, reviewers were asked to complete unconscious bias training. which may have had an additional impact on closing the gender gap [ 40 , 41 ]. Still, reviewer training can have a tremendous impact on reducing biased practices. Conference conveners can make efforts to achieve greater equity and diversity in speaker selection by making programs aware of their diversity statistics, by increasing the diversity of the convener teams, and through direct instruction to encourage diversity [ 43 ]. Individuals should promote field experts from underrepresented groups whenever asked for nominations for panels, awards, and speaking opportunities. Creating a database of experts in the field for easy access has been successful in several fields. Social media has also been effective in promoting and disseminating information about oneself and one’s colleagues [ 44 , 45 ].

Leaders in Medical Education Can Aspire to Parse Genetic and Social Determinant of Health

While race has classically been linked with disease as a risk factor, it has become understood that race is more accurately a marker of vulnerability and systemic disadvantage. Our educational systems can better parse genetic predisposition, associated with ancestry, from social determinants of health. There are important differences among individuals of genomic diversity, but this can easily be conflated with social inequalities attributed to determinants such as education, incarceration, and unemployment. Medical students often feel ill equipped to consider race in clinical medicine [ 7 ]. Medical schools are developing curricula that address historical roots of racism and bias and the role that social and genetic determinants of health play in patient care. Sexual and gender minority patient population groups have not historically been emphasized in the undergraduate medical curriculum, and this is important as the LGBTQ population is at increased risk for mental illness, HIV infection, unemployment, poverty, and harassment [ 46 ]. Medical schools have begun implementing curricula that include contexts emphasizing the unique health considerations of LGBTQ and other populations [ 47 ]. Within the medical center, central initiatives can be taken to mitigate racism and bias through change in management strategies [ 47–49 ].

WHAT SHOULD INSTITUTIONS DO TO FOSTER DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION?

Identify and define threats to the promotion of diversity and inclusion.

The first step is to engage in an ongoing systemic review of policies regarding recruitment and retention, including equity in salaries and resources. Being transparent by collecting and publicizing diversity metrics can engage faculty in dialogues and promote a culture of openness and inclusivity. Institutions should conduct regular anonymous climate surveys, disseminate their results, and respond to needed circumstances [ 50 ]. These can be effective for gauging the sentiment of individuals and can provide actionable directions for change on a continuous basis.

Develop and Adhere to Policies That Reflect a Lens of Diversity and Inclusion

Recruitment efforts should include outreach efforts and inclusion initiatives to seek out excellence in numerous settings, including pipeline programs and mentoring networks [ 50 , 51 ]. Standardized testing should be deemphasized for the sake of holistic review [ 10 ] and because of data that standardized testing does not predict success in physician-scientist careers. Safe spaces should be created that encourage equity and recognition of individual needs. These can include networking and support groups for specialized groups that provide education and social events [ 9 ]. Policies focused on diversity and inclusion can be extended to educational settings by using nondiscriminatory language in classrooms, curriculum-development programs, and job announcements and by encouraging trainees, faculty, and staff to participate in diversity training [ 52 ]. On a departmental level, the process of simplifying name changes and records can hold meaning for transgender people [ 53 ]. Mentorship is critical and should be made available to individuals throughout their training trajectory in various forms. Institutions can reward mentoring through incentives such as salary, educational, and research support [ 39 ] and by promoting mentors for winning mentorship awards from and participating in professional networks [ 54 ]. Faculty development programs and onboarding protocols are critical for instilling values around inclusion and unconscious bias. These practices should be included in professional development on an ongoing basis. The human resources department should have a specific diversity strategy that ensures that anyone in a leadership role receives proper diversity training. Educating the existing and future leaders is critical to this mission.

Educate and Provide Resources to Uphold Institutional Policies

Individuals working at academic institutions experience life events during their training and work that can take a toll on their wellness and can compromise their ability to succeed. By recognizing the influence of these events on an individual’s wellness and ability to function successfully, institutions can implement initiatives to help support its workforce. These initiatives have been demonstrated to improve profitability and productivity in the business world.

Family Support

For families, institutional resources can include a child development center that provides childcare, childhood education, after school and holiday programs, emergency backup daycare, nursing rooms, changing tables, parent rooms, lactation rooms, professional travel support (ie, support for travel for children and/or childcare providers) while at professional conferences, a stop-the-clock policy (to allow tenure-track faculty to request an extension of their tenure evaluation to accommodate responsibilities related to birth, adoption, illness, and elder care), recruitment packages for dual-career couples, subsidized legal fees for family services (ie, family planning), and elder care [ 55 ].

Mental Health and Wellness

To help ensure mental health and wellness, institutions can provide access to mental health services, culture activities, and a recreation office for low-priced access to concerts, performances, art exhibitions, lectures, and clubs; a robust and centralized wellness program; subsidized health benefits; and physical fitness incentives.

Enforcement of Recruitment and Retention Policy

Institutional leadership can be held accountable for salary equity and diversity at all levels if policies related to recruitment and retention of faculty that emphasize equity in all domains of diversity are enforced.

Language Support

Institutions can offer language classes to those for whom the language of the institution is not the first language, for presentation and writing skill training, for editing support, and for grant writing support.

Credit for Institutional Service

Institutions can provide credit to individuals for institutional service that will contribute to their salary and/or promotion package, so as not to disadvantage those from underrepresented groups who are asked to make contributions in the interest of fostering diversity [ 37 , 56 ].

To address the housing needs of trainees and faculty, institutions can provide resources that help these individuals access affordable residential facilities near campus.

Promote Diversity Publicly

Institutions should implement clear statements to showcase their diversity and nondiscrimination. An inclusion statement should assert that the institution prohibits unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, sex, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, marital status, or any other characteristic protected by law. A statement preventing unlawful harassment, including sexual harassment and sexual violence, is also critical [ 57 ]. Offices of diversity and inclusion should ensure compliance with the Civil Rights Act, particularly titles VI, VII, and IX; the Equal Pay Act; the Americans with Disabilities Act; Sections 503 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and Executive Order 11246; and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act. Outreach and recruitment efforts should ensure that talent searches are broad, wide, and fair. Institutions can demonstrate their commitment to diversity through inclusion in their mission statement and core values. It can also be done by ensuring that inclusion in conveyed in branding materials by being conscious of the faces used in public displays and recipients of honors and awards. In sum, visibility and intersectional innovation should be celebrated, and institutional change arises from embracing an explicit intention to engage stakeholders in moving toward meaningful new directions [ 6 ].

Create a System of Mutual Accountability

There is a need for periodic reassessment of policies to ensure that inclusion efforts are being upheld through recruitment, curriculum, development, and academic affairs [ 58 ]. Annual appraisals and evaluations for trainees and faculty are critical to identifying gaps and should systematically include inclusivity statements to ensure that needs are being met [ 35 , 56 ]. An institutional report card for diversity missions can be created and presented to the dean on an annual or more frequent basis [ 59 ]. A mistreatment or grievance committee [ 60 ], as well as ombuds office, are critical to providing a confidential forum for reporting and accountability. Finally, a policy of zero tolerance for mistreatment and harassment should be developed, with clear consequences outlined in the student and faculty handbook. Departments can be incentivized to reward diversity and inclusion.

CONCLUSIONS

Unconscious bias is a powerful force because it can be unapparent to individuals in leadership positions. Combating unconscious bias on a daily basis is a great challenge of high importance throughout organizations and institutions as they work to overcome the marked challenges that account for underrepresentation in biomedical science and in the field of infectious diseases. Fortunately, there are studies that indicate a positive impact of unconscious bias training, but of greatest importance is the recognition that diversity is everyone’s issue. It is not something that can be left to those who are affected by underrepresentation—it must be imparted to all in leadership, even if they do not understand the affliction of underrepresentation themselves. Individuals have the power to make a difference. Figure 1 outlines steps that any one individual can take to foster diversity and inclusion. Teams are critical to shed light on alternative perspectives and to consider approaches from numerous different angles, to ensure that no one is left out.

Suggested activities to foster diversity and inclusion.

The IDSA is committed to tackling these problems. The IDSA’s first effort involved establishing the Gender Disparity Task Force in 2016 to identify contributors to gender disparities and to make recommendations to address these disparities [ 32 ]. The hopeful outcome will be to increase physicians’ compensation to create equity. There is great optimism for the IDA&E that will hopefully result in a strong future for infectious diseases physicians and researchers. It will be the work of individuals, leadership, institutions, societies, and government agencies to work together to foster a culture of diversity.

Supplement sponsorship. This supplement is sponsored by the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

Disclaimer . It is not the intent of this article to be linked directly to the Infectious Disease Society of America’s Inclusion, Diversity, Access, and Equity Task Force, nor is it the authors’ intentions to discuss the scope of work assigned to this task force. This article is an independent review addressing the gaps in our understanding of the science and value of diversity.

Financial support . This work was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (grant K08AI120806 to T. H. S.).

Potential conflicts of interest . All authors: No reported conflicts. All authors have submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. Conflicts that the editors consider relevant to the content of the manuscript have been disclosed.

• Data, AI, & Machine Learning
• Managing Technology
• Social Responsibility
• Workplace, Teams, & Culture
• AI & Machine Learning
• Diversity & Inclusion
• Big ideas Research Projects
• Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy
• Responsible AI
• Future of the Workforce
• Future of Leadership
• All Research Projects
• AI in Action
• Most Popular
• The Truth Behind the Nursing Crisis
• Coaching for the Future-Forward Leader
• Measuring Culture

Our summer 2024 issue highlights ways to better support customers, partners, and employees, while our special report shows how organizations can advance their AI practice.

• Past Issues
• Upcoming Events
• Video Archive
• Me, Myself, and AI
• Three Big Points

How a Values-Based Approach Advances DEI

A new model for developing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the organization can increase employee satisfaction..

• Workplace, Teams, & Culture
• Leading Change

Camille Chisholm/theispot.com

Many business leaders see diversity, equity, and inclusion as a way to revitalize their organizations. They understand that diversity drives innovation, and they see the potential for engaging the entire workforce in transforming their companies. But they also find that the results of their DEI efforts sometimes fall short of expectations.

Perhaps these efforts are clumsy due to unclear objectives or a lack of know-how. Business leaders may not approach DEI with the same ambition, creativity, and energy that they bring to launching new products or pioneering new markets. Furthermore, some people may not consider a lack of DEI to be holding the organization back — or, if they do, they think it’s not their problem to solve. Meanwhile, experts propose interventions that purport to offer quick fixes to workplaces that have been shaped over decades. No wonder leaders become fatigued: They are uncertain about what to do, and it can be difficult to cut through the noise.

Get Updates on Transformative Leadership

Evidence-based resources that can help you lead your team more effectively, delivered to your inbox monthly.

Please enter a valid email address

Thank you for signing up

Privacy Policy

Clearly, leaders need approaches that frame DEI as an opportunity for their entire organization and provide an avenue for all members to meaningfully engage in it. Through surveys and field studies of companies that have demonstrated significant progress toward DEI, we have identified such an approach: the Values/Principles Model, or VPM. The model is based on four values — representation , participation , application , and appreciation — along with seven guiding principles that drive the achievement of the values. The VPM provides a structured and measurable framework for transforming the workplace through DEI. (See “The Research Behind the Values/Principles Model.”)

About the Authors

Anselm A. Beach is Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army — Equity and Inclusion Agency, with the United States Department of the Army. Albert H. Segars is the PNC Distinguished Professor with the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

1. F. Dobbin and A. Kalev, “Why Diversity Programs Fail,” Harvard Business Review 94, no. 7 (July-August 2016): 52-60.

2. “Diversity in Organizations: New Perspectives for a Changing Workplace,” eds. M.M. Chemers, S. Oskamp, and M.A. Costanzo (Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 1995).

3. J.S. Podoshen, A.E. Ekpo, and O. Abiru, “Diversity, Tokenism, and Comic Books: Crafting Better Strategies,” Business Horizons 64, no. 1 (January-February 2021): 131-140.

4. L. Sherbin and R. Rashid, “Diversity Doesn’t Stick Without Inclusion,” Harvard Business Review, Feb. 1, 2017, https://hbr.org.

5. K.P. Rafferty, “Magic Journey: My Fantastical Walt Disney Imagineering Career” (Los Angeles: Disney Editions, 2019).

6. A.H. Segars, “Ideas and Innovative Organizations: A Tribal Perspective” (New York: Peter Lang, 2020).

7. T. Rose, “The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness” (New York: HarperOne, 2015).

8. K. Holmes, “Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design” (Boston: MIT Press, 2018).

9. M.J. Pham, “This Googler’s Team Is Making Shopping More Inclusive,” Google, Sept. 1, 2021, https://blog.google.

10. A. Grant and S. Sandberg, “Madam CEO, Get Me a Coffee,” The New York Times, Feb. 6, 2015, www.nytimes.com.

11. D.A. Thomas, “Diversity as Strategy,” Harvard Business Review 82, no. 9 (September 2004): 98-108.

12. R.M. Chow, L.T. Phillips, B.S. Lowery, et al., “Fighting Backlash to Racial Equity Efforts,” MIT Sloan Management Review 62, no. 4 (summer 2021): 25-31.

13. D. Pedulla, “Diversity and Inclusion Efforts That Really Work,” Harvard Business Review, May 12, 2020, https://hbr.org.

14. E.J. Kennedy, “Can Data Drive Racial Equity?” MIT Sloan Management Review 62, no. 2 (winter 2021): 9-11.

More Like This

Add a comment cancel reply.

You must sign in to post a comment. First time here? Sign up for a free account : Comment on articles and get access to many more articles.

22 Working in Diverse Teams

Learning Objectives

• Describe how diversity can enhance decision-making and problem-solving
• Identify challenges and best practices for working with multicultural teams
• Discuss divergent cultural characteristics and list several examples of such characteristics in the culture(s) you identify with

Decision-making and problem-solving can be much more dynamic and successful when performed in a diverse team environment. The multiple diverse perspectives can enhance both the understanding of the problem and the quality of the solution. Yet, working in diverse teams can be challenging given different identities, cultures, beliefs, and experiences. In this chapter, we will discuss the effects of team diversity on group decision-making and problem-solving, identify best practices and challenges for working in and with multicultural teams, and dig deeper into divergent cultural characteristics that teams may need to navigate.

Does Team Diversity Enhance Decision Making and Problem Solving?

In the Harvard Business Review article “Why Diverse Teams are Smarter,” David Rock and Heidi Grant (2016) support the idea that increasing workplace diversity is a good business decision. A 2015 McKinsey report on 366 public companies found that those in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean, and those in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have returns above the industry mean. Similarly, in a global analysis conducted by Credit Suisse, organizations with at least one female board member yielded a higher return on equity and higher net income growth than those that did not have any women on the board.

Additional research on diversity has shown that diverse teams are better at decision-making and problem-solving because they tend to focus more on facts, per the Rock and Grant article. A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that people from diverse backgrounds “might actually alter the behavior of a group’s social majority in ways that lead to improved and more accurate group thinking.” It turned out that in the study, the diverse panels raised more facts related to the case than homogeneous panels and made fewer factual errors while discussing available evidence. Another study noted in the article showed that diverse teams are “more likely to constantly reexamine facts and remain objective. They may also encourage greater scrutiny of each member’s actions, keeping their joint cognitive resources sharp and vigilant. By breaking up workforce homogeneity, you can allow your employees to become more aware of their own potential biases—entrenched ways of thinking that can otherwise blind them to key information and even lead them to make errors in decision-making processes.” In other words, when people are among homogeneous and like-minded (non-diverse) teammates, the team is susceptible to groupthink and may be reticent to think about opposing viewpoints since all team members are in alignment. In a more diverse team with a variety of backgrounds and experiences, the opposing viewpoints are more likely to come out and the team members feel obligated to research and address the questions that have been raised. Again, this enables a richer discussion and a more in-depth fact-finding and exploration of opposing ideas and viewpoints in order to solve problems.

Diversity in teams also leads to greater innovation. A Boston Consulting Group article entitled “The Mix that Matters: Innovation through Diversity” explains a study in which they sought to understand the relationship between diversity in managers (all management levels) and innovation (Lorenzo et al., 2017). The key findings of this study show that:

• The positive relationship between management diversity and innovation is statistically significant—and thus companies with higher levels of diversity derive more revenue from new products and services.
• The innovation boost isn’t limited to a single type of diversity. The presence of managers who are either female or are from other countries, industries, or companies can cause an increase in innovation.
• Management diversity seems to have a particularly positive effect on innovation at complex companies—those that have multiple product lines or that operate in multiple industry segments.
• To reach its potential, gender diversity needs to go beyond tokenism. In the study, innovation performance only increased significantly when the workforce included more than 20% women in management positions. Having a high percentage of female employees doesn’t increase innovation if only a small number of women are managers.
• At companies with diverse management teams, openness to contributions from lower-level workers and an environment in which employees feel free to speak their minds are crucial for fostering innovation.

When you consider the impact that diverse teams have on decision-making and problem-solving—through the discussion and incorporation of new perspectives, ideas, and data—it is no wonder that the BCG study shows greater innovation. Team leaders need to reflect upon these findings during the early stages of team selection so that they can reap the benefits of having diverse voices and backgrounds.

Challenges and Best Practices for Working with Multicultural Teams

As globalization has increased over the last decades, workplaces have felt the impact of working within multicultural teams. The earlier section on team diversity outlined some of the highlights and benefits of working on diverse teams, and a multicultural group certainly qualifies as diverse. However, there are some key practices that are recommended to those who are leading multicultural teams so that they can parlay the diversity into an advantage and not be derailed by it.

People may assume that communication is the key factor that can derail multicultural teams, as participants may have different languages and communication styles. In the Harvard Business Review article “Managing Multicultural Teams,” Brett et al. (2006) outline four key cultural differences that can cause destructive conflicts in a team. The first difference is direct versus indirect communication, also known as high-context vs. low-context communication . Some cultures are very direct and explicit in their communication, while others are more indirect and ask questions rather than pointing our problems. This difference can cause conflict because, at the extreme, the direct style may be considered offensive by some, while the indirect style may be perceived as unproductive and passive-aggressive in team interactions.

The second difference that multicultural teams may face is trouble with accents and fluency. When team members don’t speak the same language, there may be one language that dominates the group interaction—and those who don’t speak it may feel left out. The speakers of the primary language may feel that those members don’t contribute as much or are less competent. The next challenge is when there are differing attitudes toward hierarchy. Some cultures are very respectful of the hierarchy and will treat team members based on that hierarchy. Other cultures are more egalitarian and don’t observe hierarchical differences to the same degree. This may lead to clashes if some people feel that they are being disrespected and not treated according to their status. The final difference that may challenge multicultural teams is conflicting decision-making norms. Different cultures make decisions differently, and some will apply a great deal of analysis and preparation beforehand. Those cultures that make decisions more quickly (and need just enough information to make a decision) may be frustrated with the slow response and relatively longer thought process.

These cultural differences are good examples of how everyday team activities (decision-making, communication, interaction among team members) may become points of contention for a multicultural team if there isn’t adequate understanding of everyone’s culture. The authors propose that there are several potential interventions to try if these conflicts arise. One simple intervention is adaptation , which is working with or around differences. This is best used when team members are willing to acknowledge the cultural differences and learn how to work with them. The next intervention technique is structural intervention , or reorganizing to reduce friction on the team. This technique is best used if there are unproductive subgroups or cliques within the team that need to be moved around. Managerial intervention is the technique of making decisions by management and without team involvement. This technique is one that should be used sparingly, as it essentially shows that the team needs guidance and can’t move forward without management getting involved. Finally, exit is an intervention of last resort, and is the voluntary or involuntary removal of a team member. If the differences and challenges have proven to be so great that an individual on the team can no longer work with the team productively, then it may be necessary to remove the team member in question.

Developing Cultural Intelligence

There are some people who seem to be innately aware of and able to work with cultural differences on teams and in their organizations. These individuals might be said to have cultural intelligence . Cultural intelligence  is a competency and a skill that enables individuals to function effectively in cross-cultural environments. It develops as people become more aware of the influence of culture and more capable of adapting their behavior to the norms of other cultures. In the IESE Insight article entitled “Cultural Competence: Why It Matters and How You Can Acquire It,” Lee and Liao (2015) assert that “multicultural leaders may relate better to team members from different cultures and resolve conflicts more easily. Their multiple talents can also be put to good use in international negotiations.” Multicultural leaders don’t have a lot of “baggage” from any one culture, and so are sometimes perceived as being culturally neutral. They are very good at handling diversity, which gives them a great advantage in their relationships with teammates.

In order to help people become better team members in a world that is increasingly multicultural, there are a few best practices that the authors recommend for honing cross-cultural skills. The first is to “broaden your mind”—expand your own cultural channels (travel, movies, books) and surround yourself with people from other cultures. This helps to raise your own awareness of the cultural differences and norms that you may encounter. Another best practice is to “develop your cross-cultural skills through practice” and experiential learning. You may have the opportunity to work or travel abroad—but if you don’t, then getting to know some of your company’s cross-cultural colleagues or foreign visitors will help you to practice your skills. Serving on a cross-cultural project team and taking the time to get to know and bond with your global colleagues is an excellent way to develop skills.

Once you have a sense of the different cultures and have started to work on developing your cross-cultural skills, another good practice is to “boost your cultural metacognition” and monitor your own behavior in multicultural situations. When you are in a situation in which you are interacting with multicultural individuals, you should test yourself and be aware of how you act and feel. Observe both your positive and negative interactions with people, and learn from them. Developing “ cognitive complexity ” is the final best practice for boosting multicultural skills. This is the most advanced, and it requires being able to view situations from more than one cultural framework. In order to see things from another perspective, you need to have a strong sense of emotional intelligence, empathy, and sympathy, and be willing to engage in honest communications.

In the Harvard Business Review article “Cultural Intelligence,” Earley and Mosakowski (2004) describe three sources of cultural intelligence that teams should consider if they are serious about becoming more adept in their cross-cultural skills and understanding. These sources, very simply, are head, body, and heart . One first learns about the beliefs, customs, and taboos of foreign cultures via the head . Training programs are based on providing this type of overview information—which is helpful, but obviously isn’t experiential. This is the cognitive component of cultural intelligence. The second source, the body , involves more commitment and experimentation with the new culture. It is this physical component (demeanor, eye contact, posture, accent) that shows a deeper level of understanding of the new culture and its physical manifestations. The final source, the heart , deals with a person’s own confidence in their ability to adapt to and deal well with cultures outside of their own. Heart really speaks to one’s own level of emotional commitment and motivation to understand the new culture.

The authors have created a quick assessment to diagnose cultural intelligence, based on these cognitive, physical, and emotional/motivational measures (i.e., head, body, heart). Please refer to the table below for a short diagnostic that allows you to assess your cultural intelligence.

Cultural intelligence is an extension of emotional intelligence. An individual must have a level of awareness and understanding of the new culture so that he or she can adapt to the style, pace, language, nonverbal communication, etc. and work together successfully with the new culture. A multicultural team can only find success if its members take the time to understand each other and ensure that everyone feels included. Multiculturalism and cultural intelligence are traits that are taking on increasing importance in the business world today. By following best practices and avoiding the challenges and pitfalls that can derail a multicultural team, a team can find great success and personal fulfillment well beyond the boundaries of the project or work engagement.

Digging in Deeper: Divergent Cultural Dimensions

Let’s dig in deeper by examining several points of divergence across cultures and consider how these dimensions might play out in organizations and in groups or teams.

Low-Power versus High-Power Distance

How comfortable are you with critiquing your boss’s decisions? If you are from a low-power distance culture, your answer might be “no problem.” In low-power distance cultures , according to Dutch researcher Geert Hofstede, people relate to one another more as equals and less as a reflection of dominant or subordinate roles, regardless of their actual formal roles as employee and manager, for example.

In a high-power distance culture , you would probably be much less likely to challenge the decision, to provide an alternative, or to give input. If you are working with people from a high-power distance culture, you may need to take extra care to elicit feedback and involve them in the discussion because their cultural framework may preclude their participation. They may have learned that less powerful people must accept decisions without comment, even if they have a concern or know there is a significant problem. Unless you are sensitive to cultural orientation and power distance, you may lose valuable information.

Individualistic versus Collectivist Cultures

People in individualistic cultures  value individual freedom and personal independence, and cultures always have stories to reflect their values. You may recall the story of Superman, or John McLean in the Diehard series, and note how one person overcomes all obstacles. Through personal ingenuity, in spite of challenges, one person rises successfully to conquer or vanquish those obstacles. Sometimes there is an assist, as in basketball or football, where another person lends a hand, but still the story repeats itself again and again, reflecting the cultural viewpoint.

When Hofstede explored the concepts of individualism and collectivism across diverse cultures (Hofstede, 1982, 2001, 2005), he found that in individualistic cultures like the United States, people perceived their world primarily from their own viewpoint. They perceived themselves as empowered individuals, capable of making their own decisions, and able to make an impact on their own lives.

Cultural viewpoint is not an either/or dichotomy, but rather a continuum or range. You may belong to some communities that express individualistic cultural values, while others place the focus on a collective viewpoint. Collectivist cultures  (Hofstede, 1982), including many in Asia and South America, focus on the needs of the nation, community, family, or group of workers. Ownership and private property is one way to examine this difference. In some cultures, property is almost exclusively private, while others tend toward community ownership. The collectively owned resource returns benefits to the community. Water, for example, has long been viewed as a community resource, much like air, but that has been changing as business and organizations have purchased water rights and gained control over resources. Public lands, such as parks, are often considered public, and individual exploitation of them is restricted. Copper, a metal with a variety of industrial applications, is collectively owned in Chile, with profits deposited in the general government fund. While public and private initiatives exist, the cultural viewpoint is our topic. How does someone raised in a culture that emphasizes the community interact with someone raised in a primarily individualistic culture? How could tensions be expressed and how might interactions be influenced by this point of divergence?

Masculine versus Feminine Orientation

There was a time when many cultures and religions valued a female figurehead, and with the rise of Western cultures we have observed a shift toward a masculine ideal. Each carries with it a set of cultural expectations and norms for gender behavior and gender roles across life, including business.

Hofstede describes the masculine-feminine dichotomy not in terms of whether men or women hold the power in a given culture, but rather the extent to which that culture values certain traits that may be considered masculine or feminine . Thus, “the assertive pole has been called ‘masculine’ and the modest, caring pole ‘feminine.’ The women in feminine countries have the same modest, caring values as the men; in the masculine countries they are somewhat assertive and competitive, but not as much as the men, so that these countries show a gap between men’s values and women’s values” (Hofstede, 2009).

We can observe this difference in where people gather, how they interact, and how they dress. We can see it during business negotiations, where it may make an important difference in the success of the organizations involved. Cultural expectations precede the interaction, so someone who doesn’t match those expectations may experience tension. Business in the United States has a masculine orientation—assertiveness and competition are highly valued. In other cultures, such as Sweden, business values are more attuned to modesty (lack of self-promotion) and taking care of society’s weaker members. This range of difference is one aspect of intercultural communication that requires significant attention when the business communicator enters a new environment.

Uncertainty-Accepting Cultures versus Uncertainty-Rejecting Cultures

When we meet each other for the first time, we often use what we have previously learned to understand our current context. We also do this to reduce our uncertainty. Some cultures, such as the United States and Britain, are highly tolerant of uncertainty , while others go to great lengths to reduce the element of surprise. Cultures in the Arab world, for example, are high in uncertainty avoidance ; they tend to be resistant to change and reluctant to take risks. Whereas a U.S. business negotiator might enthusiastically agree to try a new procedure, the Egyptian counterpart would likely refuse to get involved until all the details are worked out.

Short-Term versus Long-Term Orientation

Do you want your reward right now or can you dedicate yourself to a long-term goal? You may work in a culture whose people value immediate results and grow impatient when those results do not materialize. Geert Hofstede discusses this relationship of time orientation to a culture as a “time horizon,” and it underscores the perspective of the individual within a cultural context. Many countries in Asia, influenced by the teachings of Confucius, value a long-term orientation, whereas other countries, including the United States, have a more short-term approach to life and results. Native American cultures are known for holding a long-term orientation, as illustrated by the proverb attributed to the Iroquois that decisions require contemplation of their impact seven generations removed.

If you work within a culture that has a short-term orientation ,  you may need to place greater emphasis on reciprocation of greetings, gifts, and rewards. For example, if you send a thank-you note the morning after being treated to a business dinner, your host will appreciate your promptness. While there may be a respect for tradition, there is also an emphasis on personal representation and honor, a reflection of identity and integrity. Personal stability and consistency are also valued in a short-term oriented culture, contributing to an overall sense of predictability and familiarity.

Long-term orientation  is often marked by persistence, thrift and frugality, and an order to relationships based on age and status. A sense of shame for the family and community is also observed across generations. What an individual does reflects on the family and is carried by immediate and extended family members.

Time Orientation

Edward T. Hall and Mildred Reed Hall (1987) state that monochronic time-oriented cultures consider one thing at a time, whereas polychronic time-oriented cultures schedule many things at one time, and time is considered in a more fluid sense. In monochromatic time , time is thought of as very linear, interruptions are to be avoided, and everything has its own specific time. Even the multitasker from a monochromatic culture will, for example, recognize the value of work first before play or personal time. The United States, Germany, and Switzerland are often noted as countries that value a monochromatic time orientation.

Polychromatic time  looks a little more complicated, with business and family mixing with dinner and dancing. Greece, Italy, Chile, and Saudi Arabia are countries where one can observe this perception of time; business meetings may be scheduled at a fixed time, but when they actually begin may be another story. Also note that the dinner invitation for 8 p.m. may in reality be more like 9 p.m. If you were to show up on time, you might be the first person to arrive and find that the hosts are not quite ready to receive you.

When in doubt, always ask before the event; many people from polychromatic cultures will be used to foreigner’s tendency to be punctual, even compulsive, about respecting established times for events. The skilled business communicator is aware of this difference and takes steps to anticipate it. The value of time in different cultures is expressed in many ways, and your understanding can help you communicate more effectively.

Review & Reflection Questions

• Why are diverse teams better at decision-making and problem-solving?
• What are some of the challenges that multicultural teams face?
• How might you further cultivate your own cultural intelligence?
• What are some potential points of divergence between cultures?
• Brett, J., Behfar, K., Kern, M. (2006, November). Managing multicultural teams. Harvard Business Review . https://hbr.org/2006/11/managing-multicultural-teams
• Dodd, C. (1998). Dynamics of intercultural communication (5th ed.). New York, NY: Harper & Row.
• Earley, P.C., & Mosakowski, E. (2004, October). Cultural intelligence. Harvard Business Review . https://hbr.org/2004/10/cultural-intelligence
• Hall, M. R., & Hall, E. T. (1987). Hidden differences: Doing business with the Japanese . New York, NY: Doubleday.
• Hofstede, G. (1982). Culture’s consequences (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
• Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Hofstede, G. (2005). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
• Lee, Y-T., & Liao, Y. (2015). Cultural competence: Why it matters and how you can acquire it. IESE Insight . https://www.ieseinsight.com/doc.aspx?id=1733&ar=20
• Lorenzo, R., Yoigt, N., Schetelig, K., Zawadzki, A., Welpe, I., & Brosi, P. (2017). The mix that matters: Innovation through diversity. Boston Consulting Group. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2017/people-organization-leadership-talent-innovation-through-diversity-mix-that-matters.aspx
• Rock, D., & Grant, H. (2016, November 4). Why diverse teams are smarter . Harvard Business Review . https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter

Author & Attribution

This remix comes from Dr. Jasmine Linabary at Emporia State University. This chapter is also available in her book:  Small Group Communication: Forming and Sustaining Teams.

The sections “How Does Team Diversity Enhance Decision Making and Problem Solving?” and “Challenges and Best Practices for Working with Multicultural Teams” are adapted from Black, J.S., & Bright, D.S. (2019). Organizational behavior. OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/organizational-behavior/ . Access the full chapter for free here . The content is available under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 license .

The section “Digging in Deeper: Divergent Cultural Dimensions” is adapted from “ Divergent Cultural Characteristics ” in Business Communication for Success from the University of Minnesota. The book was adapted from a work produced and distributed under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA) by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution. This work is made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license .

A set of negative group-level processes, including illusions of invulnerability, self-censorship, and pressures to conform, that occur when highly cohesive groups seek concurrence when making a decision.

a culture that emphasize nonverbal communication and indirect communication styles

a culture that emphasizes verbal expression and direct communication styles

a competency and a skill that enables individuals to function effectively in cross-cultural environments

cultures in which people relate to one another more as equals and less as a reflection of dominant or subordinate roles, regardless of their actual formal roles

culture tends to accept power differences, encourage hierarchy, and show respect for rank and authority

cultures that place greater importance on individual freedom and personal independence

cultures that place more value on the needs and goals of the group, family, community or nation

cultures that tend to value assertiveness, and concentrate on material achievements and wealth-building

cultures that tend to value nurturing, care and emotion, and are concerned with the quality of life

cultures with a high tolerance for uncertainty, ambiguity, and risk-taking. The unknown is more openly accepted, and rules and regulations tend to be more lax

cultures with a low tolerance for uncertainty, ambiguity, and risk-taking. The unknown is minimized through strict rules and regulations

focus on the near future, involves delivering short-term success or gratification and places a stronger emphasis on the present than the future

cultures that focus on the future and delaying short-term success or gratification in order to achieve long-term success

an orientation to time is considered highly linear, where interruptions are to be avoided, and everything has its own specific time

an orientation to time where multiple things can be done at once and time is viewed more fluidly

Working in Diverse Teams Copyright © 2021 by Cameron W. Piercy, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Why Diversity and Inclusion Are Important for Problem-Solving

Simone Bradley 22 March 2022

Change Management Activate Behavior Change

What happens when we bring in new perspectives? This article explores this and how to activate inclusive problem-solving.

Diversity in our backgrounds equips us with varying mental toolkits. When people with diverse perspectives work inclusively to solve problems, the results are powerful. Take the example of the million-dollar Netflix algorithm challenge : 

In 2006, Netflix's CEO, Reed Hastings, announced an open competition to create an algorithm that would predict customers' movie ratings. The algorithm had to be 10% more efficient than Netflix's algorithm, Cinematch. This task was so difficult that Netflix offered a million dollars to anyone who could achieve this. Of course, this competition attracted thousands of participants from various backgrounds – from math majors at an Ivy League university in the US to Austrian computer programmers and even a British psychologist and his daughter!   Dry erase markers scribbled across whiteboards, notebooks piled up, and brains were tested. It became clear to contestants that this was not going to be solved by one brilliant individual who had all the answers. Early on, teams realized that the most significant improvements came when individuals combined their results. The secret sauce for the eventual winners (a blended team called BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos) was, in the end, the collaboration between people with diverse perspectives. Finally, in 2009, the top two teams combined forces, combined their algorithms, and surpassed the 10% threshold. What happened in this competition is what Scott E. Page refers to as the " diversity bonus ." Diversity improves problem-solving and increases innovation which leads to better performance  and results for your organization. Our objective in this article is to explore the power of diversity in problem-solving and to provide three ways to improve problem-solving in your organization by activating diversity-embracing behaviors in your employees.

The Power of Activating Diversity of Thought

People tend to solve problems by first looking at their own experiences, habits, culture, and understanding. The brain does this to determine whether we have faced a similar situation before and if we know how to solve it. Psychologists refer to this as a " mental set. "

Mental sets save us time and energy in the decision-making process but can hamper our problem-solving abilities. Different perspectives lead to different kinds of solutions. For example, an obvious solution to one person may seem abstract or irrelevant to someone else. The more perspectives you have when analyzing a problem, the more likely you will consider a broader range of solutions. How can you show your employees how to embrace different perspectives in your organization?  To activate diversity , you need to create an environment that embraces the different ways individuals think, feel, and act. This is achieved by taking small actions over time to make inclusive behaviors a habit. Below we'll discuss three ways to help your team encourage diversity and inclusion when problem-solving. 

1. Make All Voices Count 

True diversity and inclusion mean that everyone in your team gets the opportunity to be heard. Sometimes though, we aren't conscious of who doesn't have a voice in a meeting or event. So, in many situations, the opinions of the most assertive people often carry the most weight. On the opposite side, women of color and other marginalized groups often don’t feel empowered to speak up. In your organization, do you currently have a balance between who gets to talk in meetings and who doesn't? 

In your next conference call or in-person meeting, take a back seat and mostly observe while still making sure that you participate when called upon. 

After your call, reflect on what stood out for you. Also, consider what strategies you can create to ensure that the only time people on your team aren't heard is because they are on mute! 

2. Welcome All Ideas

Organizations that embrace diversity solve problems by fostering an environment where all ideas are welcome. Embracing everyone's thoughts gives your team members the freedom to get creative without worrying about someone else's opinion. Don't miss out on your next great idea because someone was too embarrassed to share it. The next time you have a brainstorming session, encourage your team to share their thoughts, no matter how out of the box they are.  Afterward, reflect on what happened in the session: 

• What stood out for you when you encouraged all ideas?
• What can you leverage from what you have learned to enable your teams to share their ideas regularly?

3. Normalize Disagreements 

A team can only be truly inclusive and allow a wide diversity of thoughts and ideas if it’s possible for members to disagree with each other in an empathetic and considerate way.

Diverse perspectives continue to flow when we normalize disagreements. If your team doesn't have a good strategy for dealing with conflict, only the most forceful personalities will be the ones who get their way. 

Prepare yourself and your team for conflict with the following steps: 

• Don't make it personal
• Avoid putting down the other person's ideas and beliefs
• Instead of saying "you", use "I" statements to communicate how you feel, what you think, and what you want or need
• Listen to the other point of view without interrupting
• Avoid absolute statements

Final Thoughts 

The Netflix algorithm challenge is a perfect illustration of the importance of diversity in problem-solving. The contestants understood that combining different ideas and perspectives was the only way to progress forward. Likewise, organizations need to take this approach too. In this article, we explored how to activate behavior change in your employees by giving them small actions that they can use to be more inclusive when problem-solving. There are many other steps that organizations can take to embrace diversity.

If you are interested in other ways to activate inclusivity,  book a consultation to discuss creating a custom D&I program.

Related Articles

23 February 2024

How do you shape a GenAI mindset?

To realise the value of GenAI it's not enough to create experiences that build adoption. Organizations should also focus on...

19 October 2023

ChatGPT - What you should do next

There's so much buzz about ChatGPT, but how can you assist your organization in adopting it safely and ethically? Chief Strategy...

18 July 2023

Change Made Easy

Why is change so hard? And how can it be made easy? In this thought-provoking blog post, our Chief Strategy Officer, Colin...

Cognician’s founding belief is that people are capable of great things when their behavior is driven by meaningful conversations, great questions, powerful ideas, and deeply felt emotions. Our core capability is enabling large organizations to activate behavior change at scale. We achieve this by creating personalized, data-driven digital experiences that are grounded in action, follow-through, reflection, and social engagement. With our multi-day challenges, you can drive measurable change in 30 days or less.

• ACTIVATION VIDEOS
• Book a Call

October 1, 2014

How Diversity Makes Us Smarter

Being around people who are different from us makes us more creative, more diligent and harder-working

By Katherine W. Phillips

Edel Rodriguez

The first thing to acknowledge about diversity is that it can be difficult. In the U.S., where the dialogue of inclusion is relatively advanced, even the mention of the word “diversity” can lead to anxiety and conflict. Supreme Court justices disagree on the virtues of diversity and the means for achieving it. Corporations spend billions of dollars to attract and manage diversity both internally and externally, yet they still face discrimination lawsuits, and the leadership ranks of the business world remain predominantly white and male.

It is reasonable to ask what good diversity does us. Diversity of expertise confers benefits that are obvious—you would not think of building a new car without engineers, designers and quality-control experts—but what about social diversity? What good comes from diversity of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation? Research has shown that social diversity in a group can cause discomfort, rougher interactions, a lack of trust, greater perceived interpersonal conflict, lower communication, less cohesion, more concern about disrespect, and other problems. So what is the upside?

The fact is that if you want to build teams or organizations capable of innovating, you need diversity. Diversity enhances creativity. It encourages the search for novel information and perspectives, leading to better decision-making and problem-solving. Diversity can improve the bottom line of companies and lead to unfettered discoveries and breakthrough innovations. Even simply being exposed to diversity can change the way you think. This is not just wishful thinking: it is the conclusion I draw from decades of research from organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists and demographers.

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing . By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

Information and Innovation

The key to understanding the positive influence of diversity is the concept of informational diversity. When people are brought together to solve problems in groups, they bring different information, opinions and perspectives. This makes obvious sense when we talk about diversity of disciplinary backgrounds—think again of the interdisciplinary team building a car. The same logic applies to social diversity. People who are different from one another in race, gender and other dimensions bring unique information and experiences to bear on the task at hand. A male and a female engineer might have perspectives as different from each other as an engineer and a physicist—and that is a good thing.

Research on large, innovative organizations has shown repeatedly that this is the case. For example, business professors Cristian Dezsö of the University of Maryland and David Gaddis Ross of the University of Florida studied the effect of gender diversity on the top firms in Standard & Poor’s Composite 1500 list, a group designed to reflect the overall U.S. equity market. First, they examined the size and gender composition of firms’ top management teams from 1992 through 2006. Then they looked at the financial performance of the firms. In their words, they found that, on average, “female representation in top management leads to an increase of $42 million in firm value.” They also measured the firms’ “innovation intensity” through the ratio of research and development expenses to assets. They found that companies that prioritized innovation saw greater financial gains when women were part of the top leadership ranks.

Racial diversity can deliver the same kinds of benefits. In a study conducted in 2003, Orlando Richard, now at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and his colleagues surveyed executives at 177 national banks in the U.S., then put together a database comparing financial performance, racial diversity and the emphasis the bank presidents put on innovation. For innovation-focused banks, increases in racial diversity were clearly related to enhanced financial performance.

Evidence for the benefits of diversity can be found well beyond the U.S. In August 2012 a team of researchers at the Credit Suisse Research Institute issued a report in which they examined 2,360 companies globally from 2005 to 2011, looking for a relation between gender diversity on corporate management boards and financial performance. Sure enough, the researchers found that companies with one or more women on the board delivered higher average returns on equity, lower gearing (that is, net debt to equity) and better average growth.

How Diversity Provokes Thought

Large data-set studies have an obvious limitation: they can show only that diversity is correlated with better performance, not that it causes better performance. Research on racial diversity in small groups, however, makes it possible to draw some causal conclusions. Again, the findings are clear: for groups that value innovation and new ideas, diversity helps.

In 2006 Margaret Neale of Stanford University, Gregory Northcraft of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and I set out to examine the impact of racial diversity on small decision-making groups in an experiment where sharing information was a requirement for success. Our subjects were undergraduate students taking business courses at the University of Illinois. We put together three-person groups—some consisting of all white members, others with two white members and one nonwhite member—and had them perform a murder mystery exercise. We made sure that all group members shared a common set of information, but we also gave each member important clues that only he or she knew. To find out who committed the murder, the group members would have to share all the information they collectively possessed during discussion. The groups with racial diversity significantly outperformed the groups with no racial diversity. Being with similar others leads us to think we all hold the same information and share the same perspective. This perspective, which stopped the all-white groups from effectively processing the information, is what hinders creativity and innovation.

Credit: Edel Rodriguez

Other researchers have found similar results. In 2004 Anthony Lising Antonio, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, collaborated with five colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles, and other institutions to examine the influence of racial and opinion composition in small group discussions. More than 350 students from three universities participated in the study. Group members were asked to discuss a prevailing social issue (either child labor practices or the death penalty) for 15 minutes. The researchers wrote dissenting opinions and had both Black and white members deliver them to their groups. When a Black person presented a dissenting perspective to a group of white people, the perspective was perceived as more novel and led to broader thinking and consideration of alternatives than when a white person introduced that same dissenting perspective . The lesson: when we hear dissent from someone who is different from us, it provokes more thought than when it comes from someone who looks like us.

This effect is not limited to race. For example, in 2013 professors of management Denise Lewin Loyd of the University of Illinois, Cynthia Wang of Northwestern University, Robert B. Lount, Jr., of the Ohio State University and I asked 186 people whether they identified as a Democrat or a Republican, then had them read a murder mystery and decide who they thought committed the crime. Next, we asked the subjects to prepare for a meeting with another group member by writing an essay communicating their perspective. More important, in all cases, we told the participants that their partner disagreed with their opinion but that they would need to come to an agreement with the other person. Everyone was told to prepare to convince their meeting partner to come around to their side; half of the subjects, however, were told to prepare to make their case to a member of the opposing political party, and half were told to make their case to a member of their own party.

The result: Democrats who were told that a fellow Democrat disagreed with them prepared less well for the discussion than Democrats who were told that a Republican disagreed with them. Republicans showed the same pattern. When disagreement comes from a socially different person, we are prompted to work harder. Diversity jolts us into cognitive action in ways that homogeneity simply does not.

For this reason, diversity appears to lead to higher-quality scientific research. In 2014 Richard Freeman, an economics professor at Harvard University and director of the Science and Engineering Workforce Project at the National Bureau of Economic Research, along with Wei Huang, then a Harvard economics Ph.D. candidate, examined the ethnic identity of the authors of 1.5 million scientific papers written between 1985 and 2008 using Thomson Reuters’s Web of Science, a comprehensive database of published research. They found that papers written by diverse groups receive more citations and have higher impact factors than papers written by people from the same ethnic group. Moreover, they found that stronger papers are associated with greater numbers of not only references but also author addresses—geographical diversity is a reflection of more intellectual diversity.

The Power of Anticipation

Diversity is not only about bringing different perspectives to the table. Simply adding social diversity to a group makes people believe that differences of perspective might exist among them, and that belief makes people change their behavior.

Members of a homogeneous group rest somewhat assured that they will agree with one another, understand one another’s perspectives and beliefs, and be able to easily come to a consensus. But when members of a group notice that they are socially different from one another, they change their expectations. They anticipate differences of opinion and perspective. They assume they will need to work harder to come to a consensus. This logic helps to explain both the upside and the downside of social diversity: people work harder in diverse environments both cognitively and socially. They might not like it, but the hard work can lead to better outcomes.

In a 2006 study of jury decision-making, social psychologist Samuel Sommers of Tufts University found that racially diverse groups exchanged a wider range of information during deliberation about a sexual assault case than all-white groups did. In collaboration with judges and jury administrators in a Michigan courtroom, Sommers conducted mock jury trials with a group of real selected jurors. Although the participants knew the mock jury was a court-sponsored experiment, they did not know that the true purpose of the research was to study the impact of racial diversity on jury decision-making.

Sommers composed the six-person juries with either all white jurors or four white and two Black jurors. As you might expect, the diverse juries were better at considering case facts, made fewer errors recalling relevant information and displayed a greater openness to discussing the role of race in the case. These improvements did not necessarily happen because the Black jurors brought new information to the group—they happened because white jurors changed their behavior in the presence of the Black jurors. In the presence of diversity, they were more diligent and open-minded.

Group Exercise

Consider the following scenario: You are writing up a section of a paper for presentation at an upcoming conference. You are anticipating some disagreement and potential difficulty communicating because your collaborator is American and you are Chinese. Because of one social distinction, you may focus on other differences between yourself and that person, such as their culture, upbringing and experiences—differences that you would not expect from another Chinese collaborator. How do you prepare for the meeting? In all likelihood, you will work harder on explaining your rationale and anticipating alternatives than you would have otherwise.

This is how diversity works: by promoting hard work and creativity; by encouraging the consideration of alternatives even before any interpersonal interaction takes place. The pain associated with diversity can be thought of as the pain of exercise. You have to push yourself to grow your muscles. The pain, as the old saw goes, produces the gain. In just the same way, we need diversity—in teams, organizations and society as a whole—if we are to change, grow and innovate.

Why diversity is the secret to solving complex problems

U-m professor scott page explains why diverse groups consistently outperform teams of like-minded experts..

The effort to make our workplaces and institutions more diverse is typically framed as a moral issue or an opportunity to make society more just. Given the many aspects of our society that advantage certain groups of people and disadvantage others, this is a worthwhile pursuit — and a fair way of framing the challenge. But what if it wasn’t the only way of establishing a value proposition for diversity and inclusion? For years, Scott Page, the John Seely Brown distinguished university professor of complexity, social science and management at UM-Ann Arbor, has been making a numbers case for diversity. His basic thesis: If you want innovation, or to solve complex 21st-century problems like income inequality or climate change, then groups of experts, at least as we’re accustomed to thinking about them, are going to have a hard time competing with talented teams of people with relevant diverse perspectives. 

Page recently laid out his argument in an entertaining lecture in UM-Dearborn’s Thought Leaders series, which brings experts to campus to talk about big ideas relating to our strategic plan priorities. A key point in Page’s case is distinguishing between simple and complex tasks. For example, he says if you’re looking to maximize output for your logging business in northern Michigan in the 1820s, then a straightforward measure of how many trees a person can cut down in a day may be a good hiring metric. By assembling a team of the most productive loggers and aggregating their effort, you reap the most profit — simple as that. But Page says group dynamics work differently for more complex tasks. For example, say you want to make forecasts about the economy, and you ask 40 really good economists to make predictions and then average them. (This, by the way, is a common method for producing economic forecasts in the U.S. and European Union.) Page says when you crunch the numbers, a couple interesting phenomena emerge. One, the group’s average prediction is better than any of the predictions of the individual economists. Even more interesting, the group’s prediction actually has less error than the average error of the individual members, and the size of the extra benefit from this group average actually corresponds to how different their predictions were. In other words, diversity yields a “bonus.”

So why is this the case? “Once you have something that’s really high-dimensional, by definition, people are going to go about it in different ways, and when they go about it in different ways, you get this benefit,” Page said. Stated a little differently, when something is very complex, it’s hard to figure out, which means no one is going to get it exactly right. So “you want people getting it wrong in different ways” so you’re accounting for a greater degree of the complexity. Needless to say, this is a different approach than many institutions take to solving problems. Typically, Page says, our inclination is to assemble a team of the best experts on a particular topic, as measured by an accepted set of credentials. But in doing so, we’re missing an opportunity to reap a diversity bonus. “For example, when I go to the New York Fed, they’ll have 60 people with PhDs in economics and no sociologists and no psychologists,” Page said. “They’re all trained to see the world in the same way, through the exact same categories, the exact same models.” Page is quick to point out, however, that diversity doesn’t mean random difference. If you’re trying to solve a complex physics problem, the solution isn’t to “bring Tony Hawk in to CERN.” The people on your team have to have knowledge or skills that are germane to the task. But if you’re trying to come up with policy solutions to, say, income inequality or inflation, it’s going to help to have economists working alongside sociologists or psychologists, because they’ll all approach the problem a little differently and the group’s solution will capture more complexity.

In addition, Page says we shouldn’t assume that traditional metrics, like what academic discipline a person got their doctorate in, are the only ways to measure or predict this advantageous “cognitive diversity” of the group. The amalgam of someone's life experiences is also very important in what they bring to the table, which is why diversity of identity can also matter. People of different races, genders, social classes, national origins, etc. will inherently have had different life experiences, which inform how they see the world and thus their approach to problems. When this kind of identity diversity contributes to more cognitive diversity, Page says it can boost diversity bonuses.

Page also notes that environmental conditions must be favorable to maximize this benefit you get from diverse teams. Most importantly, institutions have to create environments where people feel trusted and validated, so there’s no holding back when they’re working as a group. Under these conditions, Page says you can often reap even more benefits through “synergy” — moments when ideas combine in unexpected ways to create especially great solutions. Viewed this way, creating an inclusive environment where everyone has a seat at the table becomes an “amazing opportunity” to create solutions for today’s complex problems — in addition to being the right thing to do.

Want to learn more about Scott Page’s work on diversity and innovation? Check out his book " The Diversity Bonus: How Great Teams Pay Off in the Knowledge Economy ." Also, look out for the next installment in our Thought Leaders series on Nov 10 : “How Technology Developers and Social Scientists Can Work Together to Combat Bias in the Metaverse” with the University of Pennsylvania’s Desmond Patton. Register for the event .

Related News

‘Education is the equalizer’

The new comprehensive campus plan is really taking shape

Can we still find a path to civil discourse?

Current news.

Office of Research update for September 2024

UM-Dearborn bolsters battery engineering curriculum with new courses this fall

Get 'Verified' with UM-Dearborn's Community Read

Diversity wins: How inclusion matters

Diversity wins is the third report in a McKinsey series investigating the business case for diversity, following Why diversity matters (2015) and Delivering through diversity (2018). Our latest report shows not only that the business case remains robust but also that the relationship between diversity on executive teams and the likelihood of financial outperformance has strengthened over time. These findings emerge from our largest data set so far, encompassing 15 countries and more than 1,000 large companies. By incorporating a “social listening” analysis of employee sentiment in online reviews, the report also provides new insights into how inclusion matters. It shows that companies should pay much greater attention to inclusion, even when they are relatively diverse.

In the COVID-19 crisis, inclusion and diversity matter more than ever

For business executives the world over, the COVID-19 pandemic  is proving to be one of the greatest leadership tests of their careers. Not only must they protect the health of their employees and customers, they must also navigate far-reaching disruption to their operations, plan for recovery, and prepare to reimagine their business models for the next normal.

In this challenging context, the task of fostering inclusion and diversity (I&D) could easily take a back seat—and the painstaking progress made by many firms in recent years could be reversed. As this report shows, however, I&D is a powerful enabler of business performance. Companies whose leaders welcome diverse talents and include multiple perspectives are likely to emerge from the crisis stronger. As the CEO of a European consumer-goods company told us: “I know we have to deal with COVID-19, but inclusion and diversity is a topic too important to put onto the back burner.”

On the other hand, some companies appear to be viewing I&D as a “luxury we cannot afford” during the crisis. We believe such companies risk tarnishing their license to operate in the long term and will lose out on opportunities to innovate their business models and strengthen their recovery.

If companies deprioritize I&D during the crisis, the impact will be felt not just on the bottom line but in people’s lives. Research and experience warn that diverse talent can be at risk during a downturn for several reasons—for example, downsizing can have a disproportionate impact on the roles typically held by diverse talent. As companies send staff home to work, this could reinforce existing exclusive behaviors and unconscious biases and undermine inclusion. In addition, inequality with regard to sharing childcare and homeschooling responsibilities, as well as the quality of home workspace (including broadband access), could put women and minorities at a disadvantage during this time of working remotely.

Companies need to seize this moment—both to protect the gains they have already made and to leverage I&D to position themselves to prosper in the future.

There is ample evidence that diverse and inclusive companies are more likely to make better, bolder decisions—a critical capability in the crisis. For example, diverse teams have been shown to be better able to radically innovate and anticipate shifts in consumer needs and consumption patterns. Moreover, the shift to technology-enabled remote working presents an opportunity for companies to accelerate building inclusive and agile cultures—further challenging existing management routines. Not least, a visible commitment to I&D during the crisis is likely to strengthen companies’ global image and license to operate.

By following the trajectories of hundreds of companies in our data set since 2014, we find that the overall slow growth in diversity often observed in fact masks a growing polarization among these organizations. While most have made little progress, are stalled or even slipping backward, some are making impressive gains in diversity, particularly in executive teams. We show that these diversity winners are adopting systematic, business-led approaches to inclusion and diversity (I&D) . And, with a special focus on inclusion, we highlight the areas where companies should take far bolder action to create a long-lasting inclusive culture and to promote inclusive behavior.

(Our research predates the outbreak of the global pandemic, but we believe these findings remain highly relevant. See the sidebar, “In the COVID-19 crisis, inclusion and diversity matter more than ever,” for more on why I&D must remain a priority even as the context shifts, or read “ Diversity still matters ” for an even deeper dive. You can also explore a related interactive  for another lens on the issues.)

A stronger business case for diversity, but slow progress overall

Our latest analysis reaffirms the strong business case for both gender diversity and ethnic and cultural diversity in corporate leadership—and shows that this business case continues to strengthen. The most diverse companies are now more likely than ever to outperform less diverse peers on profitability.

Our 2019 analysis finds that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25 percent more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile—up from 21 percent in 2017 and 15 percent in 2014 (Exhibit 1).

Moreover, we found that the greater the representation, the higher the likelihood of outperformance. Companies with more than 30 percent women executives were more likely to outperform companies where this percentage ranged from 10 to 30, and in turn these companies were more likely to outperform those with even fewer women executives, or none at all. A substantial differential likelihood of outperformance—48 percent—separates the most from the least gender-diverse companies.

In the case of ethnic and cultural diversity, our business-case findings are equally compelling: in 2019, top-quartile companies outperformed those in the fourth one by 36 percent in profitability, slightly up from 33 percent in 2017 and 35 percent in 2014. As we have previously found, the likelihood of outperformance continues to be higher for diversity in ethnicity than for gender.

A McKinsey Live event on 'Creating an inclusive environment for transgender employees'

A McKinsey Live event on 'Women in the Workplace 2021: The state of women hangs in the balance'

Yet progress, overall, has been slow. In the companies in our original 2014 data set, based in the United States and the United Kingdom, female representation on executive teams rose from 15 percent in 2014 to 20 percent in 2019. Across our global data set, for which our data starts in 2017, gender diversity moved up just one percentage point—to 15 percent, from 14—in 2019. More than a third of the companies in our data set still have no women at all on their executive teams. This lack of material progress is evident across all industries and in most countries. Similarly, the representation of ethnic-minorities on UK and US executive teams stood at only 13 percent in 2019, up from just 7 percent in 2014. For our global data set, this proportion was 14 percent in 2019, up from 12 percent in 2017 (Exhibit 2).

The widening gap between winners and laggards

While overall progress on gender and cultural representation has been slow, this is not consistent across all organizations. Our research clearly shows that there is a widening gap between I&D leaders and companies that have yet to embrace diversity. A third of the companies we analyzed have achieved real gains in top-team diversity over the five-year period. But most have made little or no progress, and some have even gone backward.

This growing polarization between high and low performers is reflected in an increased likelihood of a performance penalty. In 2019, fourth-quartile companies for gender diversity on executive teams were 19 percent more likely than companies in the other three quartiles to underperform on profitability—up from 15 percent in 2017 and 9 percent in 2015. At companies in the fourth quartile for both gender and ethnic diversity, the penalty was even steeper in 2019: they were 27 percent more likely to underperform on profitability than all other companies in our data set.

Learn more about delivering through diversity

We sought to understand how companies in our original 2014 data set have been progressing, and in doing so we identified five cohorts. These were based on their starting points and speed of progress on executive team gender representation and, separately, ethnic-minority representation (Exhibit 3). In the first two cohorts, Diversity Leaders and Fast Movers, diverse representation improved strongly over the past five years: for example, gender Fast Movers have almost quadrupled the representation of women on executive teams, to 27 percent, in 2019; for ethnicity, companies in the equivalent cohort have increased their level of diversity from just 1 percent in 2014 to 18 percent in 2019.

At the other end of the spectrum, the already poor diversity performance of the Laggards has declined further. In 2019, an average of 8 percent of executive team members at these companies were female—and they had no ethnic-minority representation at all. The two other cohorts are Moderate Movers, which have on average experienced a slower improvement in diversity, and Resting on Laurels, which started with higher levels of diversity than Laggards did, but have similarly become less diverse since 2014.

We also found that the average likelihood of financial outperformance in these cohorts is consistent with our findings in the quartile analysis above. For example, in 2019, companies in the Resting on Laurels cohort on average had the highest likelihood of outperformance on profitability, at almost 62 percent—likely reflecting their historically high levels of diversity on executive teams. Laggards, on the other hand, are more likely to underperform their national industry median in profitability, at 40 percent.

How inclusion matters

By analyzing surveys and company research, we explored how different approaches to I&D could have shaped the trajectories of the companies in our data set. Our work suggested two critical factors: a systematic business-led approach to I&D, and bold action on inclusion. On the former we have previously advocated for an I&D approach based on a robust business case tailored to the needs of individual companies, evidenced-based targets, and core-business leadership accountability.

To further understand how inclusion matters—and which aspects of it employees regard as significant—we conducted our first analysis of inclusion-related indicators. We conducted this outside-in using “social listening,” focusing on sentiment in employee reviews of their employers posted on US-based online platforms.

While this approach is indicative, rather than conclusive, it could provide a more candid read on inclusion than internal employee-satisfaction surveys do—and makes it possible to analyze data across dozens of companies rapidly and simultaneously. We focused on three industries with the highest levels of executive-team diversity in our data set: financial services , technology , and healthcare . In these sectors, comments directly pertaining to I&D accounted for around one-third of total comments made, suggesting that this topic is high on employees’ minds.

We analyzed comments relating to five indicators. The first two—diverse representation and leadership accountability for I&D—are evidence of a systematic approach to I&D. The other three—equality, openness, and belonging—are core components of inclusion. For several of these indicators, our findings suggest “pain points” in the experience of employees:

• While overall sentiment on diversity was 52 percent positive and 31 percent negative, sentiment on inclusion was markedly worse, at only 29 percent positive and 61 percent negative. This encapsulates the challenge that even the more diverse companies still face in tackling inclusion (Exhibit 4). Hiring diverse talent isn’t enough—it’s the workplace experience that shapes whether people remain and thrive.
• Opinions about leadership and accountability in I&D accounted for the highest number of mentions and were strongly negative. On average, across industries, 51 percent of the total mentions related to leadership, and 56 percent of those were negative. This finding underscores the increasingly recognized need for companies to improve their I&D engagement with core-business managers.
• For the three indicators of inclusion—equality, openness, and belonging—we found particularly high levels of negative sentiment about equality and fairness of opportunity. Negative sentiment about equality ranged from 63 to 80 percent across the industries analyzed. The work environment’s openness, which encompasses bias and discrimination, was also a significant concern—negative sentiment across industries ranged from 38 to 56 percent. Belonging elicited overall positive sentiment, but from a relatively small number of mentions.

These findings highlight the importance not just of inclusion overall but also of specific aspects of inclusion. Even relatively diverse companies face significant challenges in creating work environments characterized by inclusive leadership and accountability among managers, equality and fairness of opportunity, and openness and freedom from bias and discrimination.

Winning through inclusion and diversity: Taking bold action

We took a close look at our data set’s more diverse companies, which as we have seen are more likely to outperform financially. The common thread for these diversity leaders is a systematic approach and bold steps to strengthen inclusion. Drawing on best practices from these companies, this report highlights five areas of action (Exhibit 5):

• Ensure the representation of diverse talent. This is still an essential driver of inclusion. Companies should focus on advancing diverse talent into executive, management, technical, and board roles. They should ensure that a robust I&D business case designed for individual companies is well accepted and think seriously about which forms of multivariate diversity to prioritize (for example, going beyond gender and ethnicity). They also need to set the right data-driven targets for the representation of diverse talent.
• Strengthen leadership accountability and capabilities for I&D. Companies should place their core-business leaders and managers at the heart of the I&D effort—beyond the HR function or employee resource-group leaders. In addition, they should not only strengthen the inclusive-leadership capabilities of their managers and executives but also more emphatically hold all leaders to account for progress on I&D.
• Enable equality of opportunity through fairness and transparency. To advance toward a true meritocracy, it is critical that companies ensure a level playing field in advancement and opportunity. They should deploy analytics tools to show that promotions, pay processes, and the criteria behind them, are transparent and fair; debias these processes ; and strive to meet diversity targets in their long-term workforce plans.
• Promote openness and tackle microaggressions. Companies should uphold a zero-tolerance policy for discriminatory behavior, such as bullying and harassment, and actively help managers and staff to identify and address microaggressions. They should also establish norms for open, welcoming behavior and ask leaders and employees to assess each other on how they are living up to that standard.
• Foster belonging through unequivocal support for multivariate diversity. Companies should build a culture where all employees feel they can bring their whole selves to work. Managers should communicate and visibly embrace their commitment to multivariate forms of diversity, building a connection to a wide range of people and supporting employee resource groups to foster a sense of community and belonging. Companies should explicitly assess belonging in internal surveys.

For deeper insights, download Diversity wins: How inclusion matters , the full report on which this article is based (PDF–10.6MB).

Explore a career with us

Related articles.

Diversity still matters

How it works

Transform your enterprise with the scalable mindsets, skills, & behavior change that drive performance.

Explore how BetterUp connects to your core business systems.

We pair AI with the latest in human-centered coaching to drive powerful, lasting learning and behavior change.

Build leaders that accelerate team performance and engagement.

Unlock performance potential at scale with AI-powered curated growth journeys.

Build resilience, well-being and agility to drive performance across your entire enterprise.

Transform your business, starting with your sales leaders.

Unlock business impact from the top with executive coaching.

Foster a culture of inclusion and belonging.

Accelerate the performance and potential of your agencies and employees.

See how innovative organizations use BetterUp to build a thriving workforce.

Discover how BetterUp measurably impacts key business outcomes for organizations like yours.

Daring Leadership Institute: a groundbreaking partnership that amplifies Brené Brown's empirically based, courage-building curriculum with BetterUp’s human transformation platform.

• What is coaching?

Learn how 1:1 coaching works, who its for, and if it's right for you.

Accelerate your personal and professional growth with the expert guidance of a BetterUp Coach.

Types of Coaching

Navigate career transitions, accelerate your professional growth, and achieve your career goals with expert coaching.

Enhance your communication skills for better personal and professional relationships, with tailored coaching that focuses on your needs.

Find balance, resilience, and well-being in all areas of your life with holistic coaching designed to empower you.

Discover your perfect match : Take our 5-minute assessment and let us pair you with one of our top Coaches tailored just for you.

Find your coach

Research, expert insights, and resources to develop courageous leaders within your organization.

Best practices, research, and tools to fuel individual and business growth.

View on-demand BetterUp events and learn about upcoming live discussions.

The latest insights and ideas for building a high-performing workplace.

• BetterUp Briefing

The online magazine that helps you understand tomorrow's workforce trends, today.

Innovative research featured in peer-reviewed journals, press, and more.

Founded in 2022 to deepen the understanding of the intersection of well-being, purpose, and performance

We're on a mission to help everyone live with clarity, purpose, and passion.

Join us and create impactful change.

Read the buzz about BetterUp.

Meet the leadership that's passionate about empowering your workforce.

For Business

For Individuals

What diversity really means, and why it’s crucial in the workplace

Diversity has become something of a buzzword. However, organizations that simply look at diversity as a trend are missing out on the depth and value that a truly diverse and inclusive organization brings.

Diverse organizations are inherently happier, more productive, and more competitive in their industries.

But what does diversity actually mean?

It can seem like diversity means different things to different people to the extent that you might wonder, what is diversity, and does it have the same meaning at work? This article explains the concepts of diversity and inclusion in the workplace, including the types of diversity, why they're important, and how to promote a truly inclusive environment.

What exactly are diversity and inclusion?

Diversity is a term that refers to the variety of different perspectives represented on a team. While diversity is related to race and social justice issues, they are facets of a larger conversation. The term represents a broad range of experiences, including gender, sex, socioeconomic background, upbringing, religion, education, sexual orientation, gender identity , ethnicity, neurodiversity , and life experience.

Inclusion, on the other hand, means that every individual should have an equal opportunity to access education, resources, opportunities, or any other treatment based on the qualities that make them unique. 

Essentially, diversity and inclusion is a conversation about rewriting implicit bias — rooting it out wherever it exists and challenging the idea that different means inferior.

4 common types of diversity

The United Nations recognizes over thirty characteristics that represent diversity, but in truth, there are many more than that. Some are visible and some are not. Still, others are immutable parts of who we are, while some change many times over the course of our lives.  

Broadly speaking, there are four types of diversity: internal, external, organizational, and worldview. 

• Internal diversity: Internal diversity refers to any trait or characteristic that a person is born with. These might include sex, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, or physical ability. You may recognize many of these as protected characteristics — that is, attributes specifically covered under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights .
• External diversity: External diversity includes any attribute, experience, or circumstance that helps to define a person’s identity — but is not something that they were born with. Examples include socioeconomic status, education, marital status, religion, appearance, or location. These characteristics are often influenced by others and may change over time. They’re considered external since they can be consciously changed.
• Organizational diversity: Differences in job function, work experience, seniority, department, or management level are referred to as organizational diversity. Often, entire departments or levels of a company can be homogeneous — that is, everyone looks the same, comes from the same background, or has the same experience. 
• Worldview diversity: Finally, worldview diversity encompasses a broad range of beliefs, political affiliations, culture, and travel experiences. Our worldview, or our perspectives, contributes to an innovative, inclusive work environment that is forward-focused. Anything that influences the way we interpret and view the world is part of worldview diversity.

What is diversity in the workplace?

The definition of diversity in the workplace goes further than having representation from different races. While it is crucial for any organization to develop a team with ethnic diversity, focusing on just one characteristic can quickly begin to seem inauthentic . In fact, it may further isolate members of that community, especially when that diversity is thought of only as a visible or superficial identifier. 

Truly diverse and inclusive leaders and organizations don’t just have people that “look like” members of an underrepresented group. They pay attention to — and value — the differences that we can’t see, like economic background, immigration status, neurodiversity, and education.

Diversity in the workplace means having a workforce inclusive of different backgrounds and national origins. It means gender, socioeconomic, and cultural diversity — and beyond. It also means that the organization fosters a sense of belonging that makes everyone feel like they are part of the team.

Examples of diversity in the workplace

There are many examples of diversity (and lack of) in the workplace. Homogeneity can be in the eye of the beholder. It’s worth taking a moment and asking: what does diversity mean to you in a given situation? 

People often fall into an unconscious habit of thinking of diversity in only one or two dimensions. But depending on the situation, you can almost always find a way to increase the level of diversity on a team, on a decision, in planning, or in a conversation.

Here are some examples of all the different levels of diversity you can see at work:

• Cross-functional representation: The first level of diversity (that we almost take for granted now) is cross-functional representation. If you look around and only see engineers, you know that is a problem. 
• Racial and gender diversity: The team is tasked with developing a product for a national market. That’s tough to do if, on the next level, there’s a lack of gender and racial diversity.
• S ocioeconomic status: In most professional situations, everyone has achieved a similar band of income and economic security which can lead to a loss of perspective on value, pricing, and relevance. 
• Educational background: Does everyone come from one or two schools? Has anyone worked their way up through a community college or other means? 
• Work experience: This is particularly an issue in large firms that have very structured career tracks.
• Location/background: Did they all grow up in similar environments despite coming from across the globe? Different groups from different geographic areas are important, even if everyone is from the same country.

Why is diversity so important?

The data show that diversity is good for business. The truth is a little more complicated. Diversity is good for business when the organization knows how to truly embrace, value, and make use of diversity in its leadership and workforce. Why? 

Because when managers and leaders know how to draw out diverse perspectives, build on them, and be inclusive of all the perspectives available on their teams, they get better ideas, question assumptions, identify blind spots, develop new approaches, and create better solutions. As a result, they see massive team innovation, performance, and growth.

10 benefits of diversity in the workplace

Diversity benefits organizations at all levels. Beyond the moral imperative or a sense of fairness, the business case for investing in diversity is clear. Studies have shown that groups of people that are diverse in gender, race, and age perform better , make better decisions, and experience more profitability. 

Here are a few more ways that diversity benefits the workplace:

1. Decreased groupthink at work

Avoiding groupthink is one of the biggest benefits of workplace diversity.

First documented in 1971, groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs when individuals avoid disagreeing with a group or expressing doubt. The larger and more similar the group, the less likely individuals are to dissent. 

Even groups with the best intentions can fall prey to groupthink.

But a diverse team provides access to a wider range of skill sets and experiences and different ways of thinking, behaving, and communicating. This facilitates the growth of new ideas and reduces groupthink.

2. Increased creativity and innovation

According to a study by Josh Bersin and Deloitte, inclusive companies are almost twice as likely to be considered innovation leaders in their market. 

A diverse workforce brings together individuals with different backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and problem-solving approaches. This diversity of thought fosters creativity and leads to innovative solutions. Diverse teams are more likely to generate fresh ideas and develop unique approaches to challenges.

3. Broader range of skills and knowledge

Employees from diverse backgrounds often possess a wide array of skills, knowledge, and expertise. This diversity of talents allows organizations to tap into a broader range of capabilities, enhancing their ability to adapt, learn, and excel in different areas.

4. Improved decision-making

When teams consist of diverse individuals, decision-making processes are enriched. Diverse perspectives enable a more comprehensive analysis of problems and a consideration of different viewpoints. This can lead to better-informed decisions and minimize the potential for groupthink.

5. Enhanced problem-solving

Diverse teams can effectively tackle complex problems. Different backgrounds and experiences offer alternative approaches to problem-solving, resulting in more robust and effective solutions. Diverse perspectives challenge assumptions and encourage critical thinking.

6. Expanded market reach

A diverse workforce can better understand and cater to diverse customer bases. When employees reflect the diversity of customers, they can offer insights into different cultural preferences, needs, and expectations, leading to improved products, services, and customer experiences.

7. Increased employee engagement and retention

Inclusive workplaces that value diversity foster a sense of belonging and create an environment where employees feel respected and valued for their unique contributions. This inclusivity boosts employee morale, satisfaction, and engagement, ultimately increasing retention rates and reducing turnover.

The Diversity and Inclusion Study conducted by Glassdoor found that 76% of job seekers consider diversity an important factor when considering job offers .

8. Enhanced employer brand reputation

According to LinkedIn's Global Recruiting Trends 2018 report, 78% of companies surveyed cited diversity as a key driver of their employer brand . Organizations that prioritize diversity and inclusion cultivate a positive reputation, both internally and externally. They become more appealing to potential employees who seek inclusive work environments, and customers often prefer to support companies that demonstrate a commitment to diversity and equality.

9. Global perspective and cultural competence

Diverse workplaces provide exposure to different cultures, languages, customs, and perspectives. This exposure nurtures cultural competence, expanding employees' understanding of global markets and facilitating collaboration in an increasingly interconnected world.

10. Improved financial performance

A large study of European firms found that those with a larger share of women in senior positions have significantly higher financial performance , especially in high-tech and other sectors where critical thinking, creativity, and knowledge work matter.

7 ways to promote diversity and inclusion

Changing the culture of a workplace is challenging but rewarding work. Many shy away from it because they don’t know where to start or aren’t sure that they’re doing it right. If an organization has previously tried — and failed — to implement a diversity initiative , they may decide that such initiatives don’t work or that the benefits are no longer worth the effort.

However, there will always be a demand for inclusive and diverse workplaces. Now is always a good time to start, but if previous efforts failed, the organization needs to take a different approach. 

Here are seven ways to start examining — and shifting — your workplace to a more inclusive one:

1. Hiring practices 

Ensure diversity in your hiring and recruiting practices by making sure that you are looking at talent from all backgrounds. Don't needlessly apply barriers to entry in the hiring process, like advanced degrees, expensive certifications, or experience with certain firms. 

Restate your organization's commitment to inclusive hiring, regardless of background and disability, in the job description. Make sure that when conducting interviews, you represent diversity among the panel of interviewers as well as in potential employees. 

2. Employee groups

Your employees are whole people, and they bring their entire selves to work every day. There is no way to separate work you and home you . Providing spaces where employees can gather with other people of their background, ethnicity, and/or who share certain interests are a way to make sure that people feel included and represented at work. 

For example, you could create employee resource groups centered around being a female engineer or LGBTQ+ representation in the tech world . This creates a specific, safe place for people from underrepresented groups to feel less alone at work.

3. Inclusive leadership

Leaders set the pace for their organizations in more ways than one. Inclusive leadership boards make better decisions and are a powerful reminder to the rest of the company of the values the organization embodies . 

Many people from underrepresented backgrounds are concerned about their ability to progress in their careers (that ever-present glass ceiling), so seeing someone they can relate to in the C-suite reassures them that your organization is a place where they can thrive.

4. Transparency 

Don't try to build diversity on your own. Be transparent about your efforts and ask your teams for help. One person can't see or fix everything by themselves. 

Consider implementing regular meetings and feedback devices where your team can report on what they see, and what needs to be improved. They can then discuss in a neutral space any concerns they may have. Be sure you follow up by acknowledging their concerns and implementing meaningful changes.

5. Allyship

Social justice issues are prevalent, and organizations can’t be quiet about where they stand . There's possibly no faster way to lose the trust of your people than by putting out a statement that isn't reflected in their day-to-day experience. 

Take an unequivocal stance against racism, discrimination, sexism, prejudice, and harassment. These are human rights issues , not limited to special interest groups. Building an environment where people feel safe and valued means standing up for their rights. 

6. Be vulnerable

A diverse workforce means diversity of thought. Ask people to contribute to the discussion, especially if they haven't spoken up before. Remember, when a conversation becomes too homogeneous (in other words, when there is groupthink) it becomes harder for people to speak up with dissenting opinions. 

Play your own devil's advocate and discuss the pros and cons of your own ideas. This will demonstrate that you are interested in the best idea, not just the most popular one.

7. Do the research

Share the benefits of diversity with your team. Research continues to be done on the benefits of a diverse workplace. Across the board, employees are happier, healthier, stay longer, and produce more when they feel respected, valued, and included. Inclusivity builds trust within an organization.

Fostering diversity long term

Diversity isn’t just a conversation for others. Everyone has something that makes them different. Whether it's a unique upbringing, educational background, way of thinking, or perspective on the world, we all bring our own strengths to the table. A diverse and inclusive organization is one that is at the forefront of innovation and social change.

Understand Yourself Better:

Big 5 Personality Test

Allaya Cooks-Campbell

With over 15 years of content experience, Allaya Cooks Campbell has written for outlets such as ScaryMommy, HRzone, and HuffPost. She holds a B.A. in Psychology and is a certified yoga instructor as well as a certified Integrative Wellness & Life Coach. Allaya is passionate about whole-person wellness, yoga, and mental health.

Diversity versus inclusion: Why the difference matters

Surface-level diversity isn’t enough: why you should dig deeper, diversity in tech: closing the gap in the modern industry, 5 ways to embrace cultural diversity in the workplace, disability inclusion in the workplace: the what, why and how, hard but meaningful: creating an inclusive workplace through radical empathy, think your employees feel equally comfortable at work think again, affirming deep diversity at bain & company, what a diversity recruiting strategy is — and how to improve it, what is groupthink and how do you avoid it, what does “dominant culture” mean in the workplace, the difference between diversity hiring and a 'diversity hire', one reason your diversity initiative isn’t moving numbers, 7 effective diversity training strategies — and why it matters, inclusive leadership: a strategic competitive advantage, stay connected with betterup, get our newsletter, event invites, plus product insights and research..

3100 E 5th Street, Suite 350 Austin, TX 78702

• Platform Overview
• Integrations
• Powered by AI
• BetterUp Lead™
• BetterUp Manage™
• BetterUp Care®
• Sales Performance
• Diversity & Inclusion
• Case Studies
• Why BetterUp?
• About Coaching
• Find your Coach
• Career Coaching
• Communication Coaching
• Personal Coaching
• News and Press
• Leadership Team
• Become a BetterUp Coach
• BetterUp Labs
• Center for Purpose & Performance
• Leadership Training
• Business Coaching
• Contact Support
• Contact Sales
• Privacy Policy
• Acceptable Use Policy
• Trust & Security
• Cookie Preferences

The Power of Cognitive Diversity in Team Problem-Solving

In the realm of team problem-solving, cognitive diversity holds significant potential. This concept encapsulates the presence of distinct thinking styles, perspectives, and approaches within a team. By amalgamating various skills, knowledge, and experiences, teams with cognitive diversity can effectively solve problems at a faster pace. Moreover, cognitive diversity fosters creativity, innovation, critical thinking, and a broader range of ideas and perspectives. This essay delves into the importance of cognitive diversity in team problem-solving, the benefits it brings, the challenges it poses, and strategies to cultivate it within teams.

Table of Contents

Key Takeaways

• Teams with cognitive diversity solve problems faster.
• Cognitive diversity enhances creativity and innovation.
• Cognitive diversity helps teams consider multiple viewpoints and find better solutions.
• Strategies to foster cognitive diversity in teams include actively seeking out diverse perspectives, creating a culture of psychological safety, implementing inclusive hiring practices, and providing training on unconscious biases and cognitive diversity.

Importance of Cognitive Diversity in Team Problem-Solving

The importance of cognitive diversity in team problem-solving lies in its ability to stimulate critical thinking, promote a wider range of ideas and perspectives, and encourage creative solutions and out-of-the-box thinking. Teams with cognitive diversity are more adept at enhancing problem-solving speed through their varied thinking styles, approaches, and experiences. By incorporating diverse perspectives, teams can better understand the concept at hand and consider multiple viewpoints, leading to more comprehensive and effective problem-solving outcomes. Different cognitive styles complement each other, filling in knowledge gaps and avoiding groupthink and biases. This diversity of thought not only enhances problem-solving abilities but also fosters innovation and creativity. Therefore, recognizing and valuing cognitive diversity in teams is crucial for organizations seeking to optimize their problem-solving processes.

Impact of Diversity on Team Composition

Increased diversity of gender, ethnicity, and age in executive teams has been observed in efforts to achieve a more representative workforce. These efforts have shown progress in increasing the representation of diverse individuals in team compositions. The presence of diversity in executive teams and classrooms is becoming more visible, indicating a positive shift in achieving progress towards a more inclusive environment. However, it is important to note that more work needs to be done to further enhance diversity in team compositions. The benefits of increased representation include better decision-making and problem-solving, as diverse perspectives bring a wider range of ideas and viewpoints to the table. By actively seeking out diverse talent, implementing inclusive hiring practices, and fostering a culture that embraces different viewpoints, organizations can continue to make strides in achieving greater cognitive diversity in teams.

Benefits of Cognitive Diversity in Problem-Solving

An enhanced range of perspectives and ideas are fostered through the inclusion of diverse thinking styles, leading to more creative and innovative solutions. The benefits of cognitive diversity in problem-solving can be summarized as follows:

Promoting collaboration: Cognitive diversity stimulates critical thinking and analysis, encouraging individuals to work together and leverage their unique perspectives. This collaborative environment allows for the exploration of different ideas and the development of more comprehensive solutions.

Embracing different perspectives: Cognitive diversity brings together individuals with varying backgrounds, experiences, and knowledge. This diversity of perspectives helps to avoid groupthink and biases, enabling teams to consider multiple viewpoints and find more effective solutions to complex problems.

Encouraging creative solutions: Different cognitive styles complement each other and fill in knowledge gaps. This diversity of thinking encourages out-of-the-box thinking and sparks innovative ideas, leading to creative problem-solving approaches.

Challenges and Barriers to Achieving Cognitive Diversity

Challenges and barriers to achieving cognitive diversity include unconscious biases, limited access to diverse talent pools, and resistance to change. Unconscious biases in team dynamics can hinder the inclusion of diverse perspectives, as individuals may unknowingly favor those who think and behave in a similar manner. These biases can perpetuate homogeneity and make it difficult for different perspectives to be heard and valued. Limited access to diverse talent pools further exacerbates the issue, as organizations may struggle to attract and retain individuals with diverse backgrounds and ways of thinking. Additionally, resistance to change and a reluctance to embrace different viewpoints can impede efforts to foster cognitive diversity. Overcoming these challenges requires raising awareness about unconscious biases, creating inclusive hiring practices, and fostering a culture that values and embraces cognitive diversity.

Strategies to Foster Cognitive Diversity in Teams

One approach to promoting cognitive diversity within teams is to actively seek out and incorporate a wide range of perspectives and opinions. This can be achieved by creating diverse teams that bring together individuals with different backgrounds, experiences, and ways of thinking. By creating such teams, organizations can promote open dialogue and foster an environment where diverse perspectives are valued and encouraged.

Strategies to foster cognitive diversity in teams include:

Actively seeking out diverse perspectives and opinions: This involves actively recruiting individuals from diverse backgrounds and ensuring that their voices are heard and valued within the team.

Promoting open dialogue: Creating an environment where team members feel comfortable expressing their opinions and engaging in constructive discussions is crucial for promoting cognitive diversity.

Implementing inclusive hiring practices: By adopting inclusive hiring practices, organizations can attract a diverse pool of talent, ensuring that different perspectives and experiences are represented within the team.

Enhancing Problem-Solving Speed With Cognitive Diversity

Enhancing the speed of problem-solving can be achieved through the incorporation of diverse perspectives and opinions within teams. Cognitive diversity, which refers to differences in thinking styles, perspectives, and approaches, plays a crucial role in increasing efficiency and enhancing collaboration. By bringing together a variety of skills, knowledge, and experiences, cognitive diversity stimulates critical thinking and analysis, promoting a wider range of ideas and perspectives. Different cognitive styles complement each other and fill in knowledge gaps, leading to better decision-making and problem-solving. Moreover, cognitive diversity helps to avoid groupthink and biases, encouraging creative solutions and out-of-the-box thinking. To foster cognitive diversity in teams, organizations should actively seek out diverse perspectives, create a culture of psychological safety that encourages open dialogue, implement inclusive hiring practices, provide training on unconscious biases and cognitive diversity, and foster collaboration and teamwork to leverage its benefits.

Understanding the Concept of Cognitive Diversity

Different perspectives, thinking styles, and approaches contribute to cognitive diversity within teams. Cognitive diversity refers to the differences in how individuals perceive, think, and solve problems. It encompasses a range of characteristics such as educational background, professional experience, cultural upbringing, and personality traits. Here are some examples of cognitive diversity:

Analytical Thinkers: These individuals excel at breaking down complex problems into smaller, manageable components. They rely on data and evidence to make decisions and tend to be detail-oriented.

Creative Thinkers: These individuals thrive in generating new and innovative ideas. They approach problems from unconventional angles, often thinking outside the box and challenging the status quo.

Collaborative Thinkers: These individuals excel at building relationships and working in teams. They value cooperation and seek to integrate diverse perspectives to find optimal solutions.

The benefits of cognitive diversity in team problem-solving are numerous. It enhances collective intelligence by bringing together a variety of skills, knowledge, and experiences. It enables teams to consider multiple viewpoints, leading to more comprehensive and well-rounded solutions. Cognitive diversity stimulates critical thinking and analysis, promoting a wider range of ideas and perspectives. By complementing each other’s cognitive styles and filling in knowledge gaps, teams can avoid groupthink and biases. This encourages creative solutions and out-of-the-box thinking, ultimately leading to more innovative outcomes.

Leveraging Cognitive Diversity for Creativity and Innovation

By leveraging the varied perspectives and thinking styles within a team, opportunities for creativity and innovation can be maximized. Fostering collaboration and embracing different perspectives are key strategies in leveraging cognitive diversity. Collaboration allows team members to share ideas, challenge assumptions, and build on each other’s strengths. Embracing different perspectives encourages individuals to bring their unique insights and experiences to the table. This diversity of thought stimulates creativity and innovation by providing a wider range of ideas and approaches to problem-solving. When team members with different perspectives collaborate effectively, they can overcome biases and avoid groupthink, leading to more robust and innovative solutions. This approach fosters an environment that values diversity and creates space for creative thinking, ultimately enhancing the team’s ability to generate innovative ideas and solutions.

Overcoming Unconscious Biases for Inclusive Problem-Solving

Unconscious biases pose a challenge to achieving inclusion and diverse perspectives in the problem-solving process. To overcome this challenge, it is essential to raise awareness of unconscious biases and implement strategies that promote a more inclusive problem-solving environment.

Unconscious bias awareness: Organizations should provide training and education on unconscious biases to help individuals recognize and mitigate their biases. This awareness can help create a more inclusive and equitable problem-solving process.

Diversity talent pools: To overcome unconscious biases, organizations should actively seek out diverse talent pools. By expanding recruitment efforts and implementing inclusive hiring practices, organizations can ensure a broader range of perspectives and experiences are included in the problem-solving process.

Inclusive problem-solving practices: Encouraging open dialogue and creating a culture of psychological safety can foster an environment where diverse perspectives are valued and included. By leveraging the power of cognitive diversity, teams can overcome unconscious biases and achieve more effective and innovative problem-solving outcomes.

Building a Culture of Psychological Safety for Cognitive Diversity

Creating an inclusive and supportive environment that fosters open dialogue and psychological safety is crucial for promoting a culture that values and embraces diverse perspectives and thinking styles. This environment encourages individuals to express their unique viewpoints and ideas without fear of judgement or reprisal. It allows for the exploration of different perspectives, which can lead to more innovative and effective problem-solving. By encouraging diverse perspectives, teams can tap into a wider range of knowledge, experiences, and approaches, ultimately enhancing their ability to find creative solutions. Furthermore, creating an inclusive environment not only promotes cognitive diversity but also helps to break down barriers and biases that may hinder the inclusion of diverse perspectives. Therefore, organizations should prioritize the development of a culture of psychological safety that encourages open dialogue and values diverse perspectives.

The Role of Inclusive Hiring Practices in Promoting Cognitive Diversity

Implementing inclusive hiring practices is essential for fostering cognitive diversity within teams and organizations. By actively seeking out diverse talent pools, organizations can tap into a wider range of perspectives, experiences, and thinking styles. This can lead to enhanced problem-solving abilities and increased innovation within teams. Inclusive hiring practices can be implemented by:

Broadening recruitment channels: Organizations can reach out to a diverse range of candidates by utilizing various platforms and networks, including those specifically focused on underrepresented groups.

Removing bias from the hiring process: Implementing structured interviews and blind resume reviews can help reduce unconscious biases and ensure fair evaluation of candidates based on their qualifications and capabilities.

Promoting diversity and inclusion from within: Organizations can create a culture that values and celebrates diversity, ensuring that employees from all backgrounds feel welcome and supported.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does cognitive diversity enhance problem-solving speed in teams.

Cognitive diversity enhances problem-solving speed in teams by enhancing collaboration and decision-making efficiency. It allows for a wider range of ideas and perspectives, stimulates critical thinking, and encourages creative solutions, thus avoiding groupthink and biases.

What Are Some Examples of Unconscious Biases That Can Hinder the Inclusion of Diverse Perspectives?

Unconscious biases, such as affinity biases and confirmation biases, can hinder the inclusion of diverse perspectives in teams. Overcoming resistance to cognitive diversity requires awareness, education, and creating a culture that values and embraces different viewpoints.

How Can Organizations Overcome Resistance to Change and Encourage the Embrace of Different Viewpoints?

To overcome resistance to change and encourage the embrace of different viewpoints, organizations can implement strategies such as creating a culture of openness, providing education on the value of diversity, and fostering collaboration to leverage the benefits of cognitive diversity.

What Are Some Strategies for Actively Seeking Out Diverse Perspectives and Opinions?

Strategies for seeking diverse perspectives and fostering inclusion include actively soliciting input from individuals with different backgrounds and experiences, creating a safe environment for open dialogue, implementing inclusive hiring practices, providing education on unconscious biases, and promoting collaboration.

How Can Organizations Create a Culture of Psychological Safety That Encourages Open Dialogue and Diverse Thinking?

To create a culture of psychological safety that encourages open dialogue and diverse thinking, organizations can build trust by promoting transparency, actively listening to employee perspectives, and valuing diverse contributions. Additionally, empowering individuals through training and recognition can motivate them to share their unique viewpoints openly.

UNLOCK YOUR COPY

More From Forbes

5 clues to determine if your team has an inclusion problem.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

Detective board with fingerprints, photos, map and clues connected by red string on white brick wall

“We don’t have a diversity or inclusion problem here.”

I hear this sentiment a lot from well-intentioned corporate leaders. Although most people don't want to think their organization struggles with diversity-and-inclusion issues, nearly every organization has a problem with diversity and inclusion. Inclusive and diverse work environments are rare. Even those that have worked on diversity and inclusion for decades are not where they want to be with their DEI efforts.

Just because you can't see a diversity-and-inclusion problem doesn't mean it doesn't exist, especially for those in the dominant group (men, white, straight, cisgender and able-bodied people) who are less likely to experience microaggressions. Microaggressions are non-inclusive behaviors such as statements, actions or incidents regarded as instances of indirect, subtle or unintentional discrimination against members of historically marginalized groups. Some examples include interruptions, taking credit for others’ ideas and assumptions about others based on their association with a diverse group (women, people of color, people with disabilities or LGBTQ+ folks).

How Do You Know If You Have An Inclusion Problem?

• The same people speak in meetings and make decisions
• Social outings are dominated by dominant group members
• People do not share their ideas for fear of being judged unfairly
• Historically marginalized folks do not feel the workplace is as fair as the dominant group does
• Leadership does not reflect the communities the organization serves

Best High-Yield Savings Accounts Of 2024

Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024, clue #1: the same people speak in meetings and make decisions.

In many organizations, there is a tendency for the same individuals to dominate meetings and decision-making processes. This can be problematic for several reasons.

When a small group of people consistently controls the conversation, it limits the diversity of ideas and perspectives that can be considered. This can lead to decisions that are not well-rounded or representative of the communities the organization hopes to serve. New ideas and approaches may be stifled, leading to a lack of innovation.

To combat this, actively seek input from a wide range of employees, including those who may not typically speak up in meetings (introverts, for example). Rotate leadership and note-taking roles and set a ground rule that everyone will participate, even if it to agree or say they have nothing new to add.

Clue #2: Social Outings Are Dominated By Dominant Group Members

In group settings, a recurring pattern is often observed: social outings and activities are frequently dominated by a particular set of individuals, typically those who belong to the dominant group within the setting. This phenomenon perpetuates a dynamic where certain voices and perspectives are privileged, while others are marginalized.

Those who enjoy higher levels of social capital tend to have greater access to opportunities for social engagement and leadership, allowing them to exert a stronger influence on group dynamics. Dominant group members often feel more confident and assertive in organizing and participating in social outings, while those who are less confident may shy away from such activities. This can lead to the exclusion and marginalization of individuals who do not belong to the dominant group, fostering a sense of isolation and alienation.

Addressing this issue necessitates a proactive approach, such as encouraging historically marginalized groups to share ideas and welcoming new perspectives on social outings. For instance, if the team regularly does golf outings or happy hours, consider how they could rotate activities to include more people who might not drink or be familiar with the game of golf. There is nothing wrong with happy hours or golf, yet if the same small group of people is the only one participating, you risk leaving out those with other interests.

Clue #3: People Are Not Sharing Their Ideas For Fear Of Being Judged Unfairly

This fear of judgment can create a significant barrier to innovation and creativity. When people are afraid to share their ideas, they may be less likely to take risks or to challenge the status quo. People fear sharing their ideas, especially if they are different, because they may be worried about being ridiculed or criticized by their peers, or they may simply be concerned about the potential consequences of sharing their ideas, such as being ostracized or losing their jobs.

This prevents the team from achieving their full potential and hinders innovation. It's important to model inclusive psychological safety by proactively asking for different ideas. For instance, people could ask, “Who has a different idea to offer?” or “Who has a wild idea that we haven't thought of yet?” These types of questions—especially when you pause and let people think—invite diverse perspectives into the brainstorm and improve chances of innovation and better decision making.

Clue #4: Historically Marginalized Folks Do Not Feel the Workplace is as Fair as the Dominant Group

Women and people of color are more likely to see the workplace as less fair. These challenges often lead to increased stress and higher turnover rates for historically marginalized groups. There are often fewer people who look like them represented in leadership roles; when that’s the case, it's hard to see yourself growing at the organization.

While this is a chicken-and-egg problem, there are steps organizations can take to be more inclusive and address fairness discrepancies. By making an intentional effort toward diversity-and-inclusion metrics and creating programs that address stereotypes and biases, people can see the importance of diversity and inclusion. Also, people often need access to education and resources to better understand the challenges that people of diverse groups face that they may not face themselves.

Clue #5: Leadership Does Not Reflect The Communities The Organization Serves

Various systemic issues have adversely hindered historically marginalized groups, leading to leadership roles remaining over-represented by the dominant group. Currently, fewer than 20% of Fortune 500 CEOs are from diverse groups and boards, and C-suites are overwhelmingly populated by the dominant group. This is a problem if you're hoping to serve a broader and more diverse audience. Organizations risk being irrelevant to those they hope to serve.

To address this gap, consider broadening recruiting-and-hiring efforts and working on inclusive culture building. Review your succession-planning and performance-management processes to ensure people are being promoted and paid equitably. Beware of the zero-sum-game mentality where people believe that the organization is promoting or hiring people because they're from a diverse group instead of ensuring that the person is the best candidate for the role while also prioritizing that we want more diversity in representation.

For organizations that want to be apathetic about diversity and inclusion, good luck staying relevant. Diversity-and-inclusion problems cost organizations in higher turnover and less innovation, and they lose the competitive advantage of having talent that mirrors the communities they hope to serve.

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

Join The Conversation

One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts. 

Forbes Community Guidelines

Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.

In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site's  Terms of Service.   We've summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.

Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:

• False or intentionally out-of-context or misleading information
• Insults, profanity, incoherent, obscene or inflammatory language or threats of any kind
• Attacks on the identity of other commenters or the article's author
• Content that otherwise violates our site's  terms.

User accounts will be blocked if we notice or believe that users are engaged in:

• Continuous attempts to re-post comments that have been previously moderated/rejected
• Racist, sexist, homophobic or other discriminatory comments
• Attempts or tactics that put the site security at risk
• Actions that otherwise violate our site's  terms.

So, how can you be a power user?

• Stay on topic and share your insights
• Feel free to be clear and thoughtful to get your point across
• ‘Like’ or ‘Dislike’ to show your point of view.
• Protect your community.
• Use the report tool to alert us when someone breaks the rules.

Thanks for reading our community guidelines. Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site's  Terms of Service.