DivErSitY, by Design, Part 2

The great author Max De Pree, former CEO, Herman Miller Furniture and author of “Leadership is an Art” had written that “We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion.”

Across the world, leaders and organisations are realising the value of a diverse workforce, to drive towards greater creativity and innovation, improve understanding of the VUCA world, and improve profits by unleashing latent potential… 

Diversity is found to be a key driver of innovation and critical for success of organizations on a global scale. And a diverse and inclusive workforce, it is noted, is crucial for companies that want to attract and retain top talent.

Very recently, the 2016 McKinsey Global Institute Report stated that $12 trillion could be added to global GDP by 2025 by advancing women’s equality. And India could add $700 billion of additional GDP in 2025, upping the country’s annual GDP growth by 1.4 percentage points. Companies with racial and ethnic diversity and with gender diversity are 35% and 15% more likely respectively to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. In the USA, for every 10% increase in racial and ethnic diversity on the senior-executive team, EBIT rise 0.8%. In the UK, this rise in EBIT is as high as 3.5%. 

Companies with racial and ethnic diversity and with gender diversity are 35% and 15% more likely respectively to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.

Yet, even as the data overwhelmingly shows the need for a diverse culture, organisations are struggling not just to meet their targets, but also to ensure that the workplace is truly inclusive and accepting for diversity to flourish. Workplaces where trust, appreciation and respect for diversity remain rare, and even when the targets are met, the potential remains untapped due to latent mindsets and biases that hinder culture change and growth. As a matter of fact, as it is seen around the world, the Diversity becomes just a number if Inclusiveness is not injected in the organisation’s DNA.

Which is why, after 7 years of running excellent programmes on D&I that tackled issues of empowerment and confronted such biases that created barriers, we are deep diving in a new direction - to identify why inclusiveness is such an uphill task. Why unconscious biases and discriminatory mindsets exist, and then discovering new ways of addressing them. 

Through the process of Design Thinking. 

Design Thinking, a powerful process that focuses on developing Empathy at the core of the innovation processes, helps teams and organisations discover ground realities and then approach the problems with new observations and insights. By focus on the emotions of people at the core of its Human-Centred Design approach, Design Thinking goes farther than any method to bring about transformation and impact, on people and bottom-lines.

Our 2-day ‘Diversity, by Design’ programme reimagines the entire D&I conundrum from this iterative, interactive and impactful process, and comes up with fantastic results. A flyer with a snapshot is attached.

Please reach out to us to know more about this programme that can bring new meaning to your D&I charter and address opportunities and challenges in completely new ways!