Diversity and Inclusion Notes

I have been extremely lucky to have so many active advocates of D&I in my network and quite honestly I learned a lot in the last few years. I would like to share some of my notes and share my "geeky" view of this subject. There is no universal view on this subject and this is alright! That is how we progress, leveraging on our differences. The important point is to have heart in the right place and flexibility to listen and argue. So if you have a different opinion or see my comments too conservative/progressive please feel free to comment and keep in mind that I am only talking about D&I in an enterprise not in a general society. It is a long text, so take your time :)

Invisible Diversity, Hah!? Diversity can include visible dimensions like age, race, gender etc. as well as cognitive and personality trait differences. There is a correlation between visible and invisible diversity (on average) e.g. average of people in certain age tend to act different that average population on a different age group. That is why the visible diversity is recommended. I do believe that in future, we will mainly focus on invisible diversity as our basic problems as already resolved (a bit of wishful thinking considering the history of race and gender issues in the last centuries).

My favorite (and deeply tragic) story of invisible diversity is story of Alan Turing (basis of the movie: The Imitation Game 2014). "Historians estimate that breaking Enigma (Alan's Work) shortened the WWII by more than two years, saving over 14 million lives. Turing's work inspired generations of research into what we call them computers, today." However "After a year of government-mandated hormonal therapy, Turing committed suicide on June 7th, 1954. He was 41 years old. Between 1885 and 1967, approximately 49,000 homosexual men were convicted of gross indecency under British law." But he had another dimension in his character as well, he did not like carrots and green beans to be mixed.

The problem began, of course, with the carrots...

Stand above the issue: I use this technique when trying to have a fair view of a subject and I believe it can work here as well. The concept is that you have harder time to resolve an issue from inside; when you mentally belong to one part the issue. To resolve the issue you need to see it from above (a bird view you may call it).

Do we need diversity? I had this extreme question sometimes, let's answer it as if we need even a bit of diversity. Do you like to see 10 exact copy of yourself in a team? I do not, it would be a disaster. Even same type of personalities (check 16 Personalities) might not be able to work together effectively.

We are all minorities/majorities, but it is important how we react: Some visible some invisible, but we are all on our daily basis part of minority groups. The important point is how you react when you are part of each groups. If you are part of main stream and see prejudice that works in your favor; do you take advantage of it and run? When you see an unfair action that works in your favor, what do you do? When you are part of minorities and biases work against you, do you accept? do you speak up? Do you avoid the conflict? remember: friction is part of movement and healthy when limited, if you do not feel the heat you are not moving.

But wait! Statistically people in that group are more ...: I have heard this sentence a lot. Again back to how our brain works; we love instant categorizing of everything as if all data points are averaged. This is much simpler to understand and of course removes complexities. On average, some of these statements might be correct but is it related to your objective? e.g. you are not recruiting the entire population of people from that group so the average attributes does not matter! Evaluate each person as if you do not know anything about their background. Do not ask for information that you do not need: picture on CV, marital status, where are you from, do you have kids. We need some of these info to relate to each others, of course, but do we need it for another purpose like recruitment?

Release energy from individuality: I deeply believe we can get much further if we focus on individuals rather than groups. We have many many rules that make it difficult to act as individuals. Building a system based on individuality is costly and sometimes chaotic! But remember innovation happens "at the edge of chaos". The most energy can be extracted from a system in a controlled chaotic way. Listen to Kathleen from Stanford.

We are all biased: Our unconscious mind is designed to make simple models (categorizing) of big population. We soak in pool of data and absorb it. The data around us is biased; , so as we! If you do not believe me, search for "doctor" "manager" "Immigrant" on google image.

Do not forget the bigger environment: Enterprises are within bigger environments like cities, states and countries. All D&I efforts eventually will be affected by the bigger environmental norms, both in positive and negative ways.

Endless micro battels kills the motivation: how does it feel to be in an environment with even a mild bias? Imagine swimming in a river upstream with a low current that cannot be recognized from outside, that is how it feels. As soon as you stop moving your hands and legs you will be slowly moved to the sides. It is a constant struggle.

This is how you fight against biases: Bring best of its kind to break the prejudice. A living example! This method, I believe is much more effective than theoretical discussions.

Education is the key: We are fighting our unconscious mind, it is important to understand how that can affect our decisions! There are many examples around us that happen only because people, which have good intentions, do not consider their acts as harmful or unfair; so education is the key! And remember, we have a chance to educate the next generation about D&I and create a less biased society.

It is chicken and egg problem: Have you heard these concepts: " companies invest more on people that they are already investing", "sunk cost" "money brings money". If you have 1% bias in the company after 50 rounds of recruitment what will happen to the organization? I think it is close to (1+0.01)^50. They explain it much better here:

Jump 6 feet to cross a 2 feet barrier: Let's face the reality, no one is perfect! There is no prejudice-free environment. You can choose to waste your energy on side tracks, unimportant conflicts, endless discussions or focus your energy on what you are supposed to do! Focus on jumping the barriers. Be a living example of what you would like to present, both in terms of providing value and providing a good example that breaks built-in stereotypes.

Representation is important: I see more and more of this topic in organizations. Who is presenting D&I and a genuine representation is important.

Aim for equality: Sorry for this nerdy example but in the control theory, there is a PID controller topic that I feel is a simplified form of this topic. We want equality; fast and now (the blue line) but it is not physically possible. The fastest way (green line) to come to the desired stage is with no (or very limited) overshoot and red one takes for ever! Purple line has many kick-back periods. My point is to aim for equality, not positive discrimination, independent of history of past discrimination.

Artificial Intelligence will revolutionize our understanding: AI is going to help us more and more in understanding how our brain works and provide solutions that can be useful for niche applications. There are solutions for example for unbiased interviews already in the market, specifically there is a Swedish Startup in this field.

Listen to Morty Smith: There is a science fiction animation which revolves around adventures of a scientist and his grandson, Morty. He does not have a lot of wise advice but this one is particularly interesting

Nobody belongs anywhere, nobody exists on purpose, everybody's going to nonexistence.

So be kind to each other!