Embracing diversity is an entrepreneurial competency

A competency is the ability to do something successfully. There are many entrepreneurial competencies. One of them is interdisciplinary teamwork and collaboration i.e. the ability of individuals to form partnerships with a team of professionally diverse individuals in a participatory, collaborative, and coordinated approach to share decision making around issues as the means to achieving improved health outcomes .

In the public health world, D & I means dissemination and implementation i.e. how does a intervention come into common use or become the standard of care. Here is what you need to know about it.

In the education and student success world, D, E & I means diversity, equity and inclusion. Here is the case for it.

Recently, DEI has come under fire and is being renamed MEI. It’s known as MEI, short for merit, excellence and intelligence. As described by Scale AI Chief Executive Alexandr Wang, who helped popularize the term, MEI means hiring the best candidates for open roles without considering demographics.

Here are some ways medical educators leads can be held accountable for doing it.

In the entrepreneurial world, D, E & I is even more expansive and is measured by:

1. Your ability to lead high performance teams both face to face and virtually
2. How you create psychological safety Here are four ways to boost psychological safe ty.
3. The composition of your teams
4. International representation
5. Demographic representation
6. Functional representation (marketing, engineering, finance, etc)
7. Results
8. Persona representation: coaches, teachers, cynics, mentors, etc
9. Listening to both good rebels and bad rebels
10. The people on your leadership team, advisory board and board of directors
11. How you incorporate ideas from industries outside of your own. Sickcare cannot be fixed from inside.
12. How you avoid bias and noise to influence outcomes and variability in decision making.
13. How you avoid colorism in your sales and marketing approach.
14. Ownership, not just fairness
15. Improving your emotional intelligence along the narcissistic-empathy spectrum

In recent decades, women’s labor force participation has leveled off, men and women remain concentrated into different occupations, and women continue to shoulder significantly more housework and childcare than men. This slow — even stagnant — pace of change is a key finding from the new 2024 Women in the Workplace 10th anniversary report by LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company. The report highlights that there’s been even less progress when it comes to women’s lived experiences in the workplace. And most concerningly, there have been almost no improvements across generations. In fact, not only are the experiences of women under 30 similar to those of women 50 and older —?in some ways, they’re worse. Companies must do more to address the distinct obstacles that stall women’s progress early in their careers. The authors present some troubling findings from the research, as well as specific actions companies can take to better support the next generation of women leaders.

Measuring the results or your efforts requires people analytics.

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I'm a privileged, old white guy who won the ovary lottery. My child of immigrant, first generation to college father got an advanced degrees. Consequently, I was able to grow up in the right ZIP code and take advantage of the opportunities afforded to me by sheer dumb luck . As a result, I wound up being an academic surgeon and worked at the same place for 40 years until I retired as an emeritus professor to pursue my next encore side gig, including working with several non-profits that sit at the intersection of sick care, higher education, biomedical and clinical entrepreneurship and diversity, equity and inclusion.

Four key arguments make the case for diversity, equity, and inclusion .

What are the barriers to leading DEI?

Rather than making leaders solely responsible for their own effectiveness, these researchers allow a balance between managerial competences and the many constraints that limit leaders. With bounded leadership, they look past the leader’s characteristics and consider the many constraints they encounter at the individual, team, organizational and stakeholder levels.

In bounded leadership, there are five distinct abilities leaders require to be effective:

• Anticipation competence: The ability to predict market patterns and conditions, which are essential to the organization, such as future trends or customer needs
• Mobilization competence: The ability to inspire employees to put an extraordinary effort into their work
• Self-reflection competence: The ability to analyse past experiences and draw useful conclusions
• Values-creation competence: The ability to promote a leader’s values in the organisation
• Visionary competence: The ability to create an attractive vision of the organisation, communicate this vision to followers and empower them to implement it

Each of these competencies presents several hurdles: cultural (difficulties in changing values and norms), emotional (strong negative emotions that prevent rational behavior), entitlement (formalized organizational responsibilities and hierarchy), ethical (leaders’ dilemmas), informational (difficulties in processing or collecting data), motivational (problems with inspiring others) and political (office politics and power plays).

Competencies are measured by entrustable professional activities defined by a performance rubric. Creating diverse, equitable, inclusive teams that deliver expected results is one of them. But, getting from said to done takes more than education, training and policy changes.

Inherent diversity, however, is only half of the equation. Leaders also need acquired diversity to establish a culture in which all employees feel free to contribute ideas. Six behaviors, we have found, unlock innovation across the board: ensuring that everyone is heard; making it safe to propose novel ideas; giving team members decision-making authority; sharing credit for success; giving actionable feedback; and implementing feedback from the team. Leaders who give diverse voices equal airtime are nearly twice as likely as others to unleash value-driving insights, and employees in a “speak up” culture are 3.5 times as likely to contribute their full innovative potential

Here are some effective ways to leverage AI for DEI:

1. Data Analysis: Use AI to analyze demographic data within your organization. Identify gaps in representation, hiring practices, and promotion patterns. This can help highlight areas needing improvement.
2. Bias Detection in Hiring: Implement AI-driven tools that analyze job descriptions and recruitment processes for biased language. Tools can also assess candidate resumes while minimizing human bias, ensuring a fairer evaluation process.
3. Employee Surveys and Sentiment Analysis: AI can analyze employee feedback and surveys to gauge sentiments related to diversity and inclusion. This helps in understanding the workplace climate and identifying areas for improvement.
4. Training and Development: AI can personalize training programs based on individual learning needs, helping employees understand DEI concepts better. Virtual training platforms can also simulate diverse scenarios to foster empathy.
5. Predictive Analytics: Use AI to predict potential diversity issues or attrition rates among underrepresented groups. This proactive approach allows organizations to address concerns before they escalate.
6. Accessibility Enhancements: AI can help create more accessible tools and platforms for individuals with disabilities, ensuring that all employees have equal access to resources and opportunities.
7. Monitoring and Reporting: Implement AI tools for ongoing monitoring of DEI metrics, providing real-time insights into progress and areas needing attention. Regular reporting can help keep DEI initiatives on track.
8. Inclusive Leadership Support: AI can provide insights and recommendations for leaders on how to foster an inclusive culture, tailoring advice based on organizational dynamics and employee feedback.
9. Community Engagement: AI can analyze community demographics and needs, helping organizations align their DEI efforts with external communities and create meaningful partnerships.
10. Feedback Loops: Establish AI systems that allow for continuous feedback from employees regarding DEI initiatives, ensuring that strategies remain relevant and effective.

Being DEI competent is not about changing your mind. It requires changing your mindset.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneneurs on Substack