Does innovation drive diversity?

This month, EY releases its latest Women in Utilities Index, coinciding with International Womens Day. As well as drawing attention to the appallingly slow progress of increasing the number of women in leadership positions within utilities, this year the Index explores the link between diversity and innovation. It prompts a fascinating question - as the world’s energy sector grapples with fundamental transformation, what is the link between the two and which one drives the other? Does innovation drive diversity, or will diversity drive innovation in utilities?

Innovation is the action, or process, of improvement. It’s a concept grasped only as it occurs or as it is shown, and, most importantly, is oblivious to those who came before it. Diversity is not so much an outcome, but a process of regarding each individual as unique across a spectrum of dimensions. It is also a mindset by which the names which shackle us, and on which we are often judged are set aside, in order to allow all to become part of a purer and more sustainable synthesis for society. Asking whether innovation drives diversity, or vice versa, not only links the concepts but asks for a view on causality.

At Best An Enabler - Innovation, Population Shortages and Participation

To link innovation and diversity, we must look at the three industrial revolutions of the 1780s, 1870s and 1960s, and the fourth revolution engulfing us. It is arguable that any of them have led to diversity – indeed we owe a greater debt to war and suffering than we do to innovation for the equality of the society we find ourselves in today. 

The first two industrial revolutions, in particular, transformed society and, through massive increases in productivity and social upheaval, created an awareness of surplus and surplus distribution, the beginning of the welfare state, the standard work week, minimum wage, and the end of child labor. In 1780 we saw a shift from a reliance on animals, human effort and biomass as primary sources of energy to the use of fossil fuels and the mechanical power this enabled. In the 1870s, the second industrial revolution brought electricity distribution, both wireless and wired communication, the synthesis of ammonia and power generation. The period 1870 to 1900 produced some of the greatest innovations in history; automation, transportation infrastructure such as canals, railways and highways, mechanised agriculture, electric motors, internal combustion engines and electricity. It did not however bring us much in the way of societal fairness for minorities.

Third industrial revolution boosted female participation in the workforce

At the turn of the century –the apex of our society’s productivity and innovation boom – it was still illegal for women to vote in most of the world. In the UK, women won the right to vote in 1918 but remained ineligible for the civil service, couldn’t inherit property and – until the mid-1970s – couldn’t apply for a bank loan without a signature from their father.

The third industrial revolution followed the second world war and ushered in digital systems, communication and rapid advances in computing power, which in turn enabled new ways of generating, processing and sharing information. We must not forget however, that by 1947, the world’s female/male ratio had risen from 1.1 in 1940 to 1.54 as a consequence of the second world war, which made female participation in this third industrial revolution economically essential. As the third revolution progressed, workers needed to reskill as the tasks they performed were automated. Typing pools were eliminated, and new occupations emerged which offered opportunities for displaced labour to be employed in other, more productive ways. 

In the world’s major developed economies, the time between 1940 and 1980 was a period of economic boom and innovation. Female participation rates in the workforce rose significantly, climbing from 25% to 50% in the US. But while innovation and diversity had grown, the value that society attached to the latter still lagged. It took until 1970 for the UK to pass the Equal Pay Act requiring males and females in exactly the same jobs to be paid the same. Outside the workforce, diversity was less welcomed. In the UK, it was illegal to be homosexual until 1967; and in the US until 1996. Innovation did very little to assist. 

Fourth industrial revolution brings connectivity and transparency

We are however entering much different times and we have cause to be hopeful. One of the incredible features of the fourth industrial revolution, however, as distinct from previous incarnations, has been the pace of change and connectivity. This provides not only access for people all over the world to other people, but the ability to shine a light on behaviours that lie outside the bounds of what we consider acceptable and to require course correction at pace. Innovation has given us social and new media, the ability to share joy, sadness, guilt, anger and hope from a distance, and the ability to force change through combined efforts, voice and action that has had the power to bring down governments and companies. 

Innovation requires, by its definition, a different view to be taken on an action or process. It requires an idea, a mindset or an experience to be brought from one place to another place, and amended to create something new. A diversity of views, approaches, mindsets and perspectives, whether as a consequence of religious, sexual, gender, racial or life journey, allows a fusion of ideas which in turn challenges and creates. We cannot create different with same. We cannot replicate life experience or struggle with creative thinking alone; we must allow the platform for innovation if we are to achieve it.

In the world of utilities, the challenge has been realised but not yet pulled into the mainstream of industry DNA, with the Women in Utilities Index showing disappointing overall progress. That said, there are some bright spots. More companies are stepping up diversity initiatives and even creating roles – some held by women – charged with driving transformation and increasing diversity and inclusiveness. As we prepared the Index, we interviewed several of these women, including Energy Queensland’s Chief Transformation Officer Belinda Watton who told us that improving the diversity of her company’s people is a critical platform of her plan to fulfil her mandate.

Innovation is an important tool in building a better, more equal world

It would be unfair to say that innovation has done nothing for diversity in our history. Technology has made time-consuming tasks far easier than ever before, opening up the option of better balancing family and work and raising overall and average household income in a way that has provided choice. However, we owe our current societal fabric, not to innovation alone, but to the recognition of inequality across different spectrums, and to the continued drive of some to eliminate the discrimination and prejudice which has held our world back at critical times. Innovation has been a valuable and important tool in their fight for a better world; an enabler to effect change and to remove the barriers which have made the unacceptable possible. May it always remain so. 

#IWD2019 #SheBelongs #WomenFastForward 

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