Stop Chasing Diversity Targets - Just Clean Your Fishpond

In a recent conversation I had with a very senior leader of a large organisation, she excitedly told me how, in the last recruitment intake for joiners to the company, they had achieved 30% of people from minority ethnic communities.

Impressive as this sounds, and it is way above the percentage rate of the demography in their communities, it brought into sharp focus why measuring the overall representation of any protected characteristics is not enough unless you also measure your levels of retention and upward movement.?In this organisation, for example, there were no Black, Asian or other minority ethnic staff represented beyond middle management levels.

Consequently, the decisions being made at the higher levels of the organisation did not represent the diversity that existed within or of the communities that the organisation served. One, therefore, has to ask the question, what benefits do we derive from chasing diversity targets simply so that we are able to say that ‘x’ percentage of any characteristic forms part of the workforce.

The deeper question one should ask is ‘what difference does diversity bring to our organisation?’

Many organisations strive to meet quotas and targets to ensure that they are fully representative of society.?Most do it with the best of intentions (some sadly simply seek to tick that box but that’s another story for another day). What do we believe that we are going to achieve by having a demographically diverse workforce??Will it bring about a difference in thinking? Will it transform the culture? In his book, ‘Rebel Ideas,’ Matthew Syed suggests that chasing demographic diversity is not enough and I would tend to agree with that. Recruiting people from one protected characteristic or another does not mean we will become innovative or ‘woke’ as leaders.?

True diversity is about embracing our cognitive difference.?The creation of an environment where the difference in thoughts, ideas, experiences is encouraged and inclusive leadership pervades across the entire organisation at all levels. It is about the creation of emotionally intelligent workplaces and teams, where deeper levels of trust have been established and there is a collective commitment, with healthy conflict at all levels, as described by Patrick Lencioni in his excellent book, ‘The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.” Within this book, Patrick talks of the five common dysfunctions that exist within teams with the foundation of trust being at the very heart of it.

Chasing demographic diversity targets comes from the false belief that all people from within minority communities think alike. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, every single one of us, irrespective of our colour, ethnicity, gender, ability, age or sexual orientation is unique. There is little point in hiring people because of the ‘difference’ if they have come from the same schooling, experience, or social environment as the existing leaders because all we are doing is adding to ‘echo chamber’ of ideas and preventing innovation.?The organisation becomes cyclical in its decision-making and tends to repeat ideas of the past, rebadging them as new and congratulating themselves on their creativity.?

As Matthew Syed correctly puts it, cognitive diversity is where the magic lies.?Creating an organisational culture where everyone feels seen, heard, valued, and appreciated. Where differences in ideas, thoughts, experiences are welcomed and valued.

When seeing the intense focus of organisations to recruit ‘minority’ groups into their organisation, I’m often reminded of the analogy of a fishpond. One can go out and buy the most impressive, or expensive of fish but, if the fishpond remains dirty, they will never thrive to their full potential.?We have seen this in premiership football teams that have spent incredible amounts of money buying the best players in the world based upon their technical ability yet they have suffered defeat after defeat because of a lack of spirit or cohesion within the team.

Compare this to the English national football team, for example, where the focus of the Head Coach, Gareth Southgate, has been clearly on developing a healthy, inclusive and emotionally intelligent culture and we can see the results. Whilst they may not have won the Euro 2020 cup, this team achieved what teams before could not achieve over 5 decades.

I suggest we need to consider looking at the issue from the other end of the telescope.

For too long we have become indoctrinated to believe that the epitome of a healthy organisation depends upon its demography but the truth is that diversity is a by-product of a healthy culture.?As a former senior police officer, I have watched decade after decade as forces across the UK scramble with all sorts of recruitment initiatives to bring more black and brown people into their ranks. Yet, 4 decades after I joined the police service we have still only ever witnessed one black chief police officer.?Why is that??These are the more challenging questions we need to consider.

Our focus on leadership and organisational culture is deeply rooted in emotional intelligence at its very core. The concept of EI is one that many will have an awareness of to varying levels. Most will be aware of the four quadrants of the model: self-awareness, self-management, social (or rather environmental) awareness, and building relationships. But we like to dig deep to unravel the granular detail of all 26 competencies that sit behind the model to see real and lasting improvement.

We have worked with BAME staff from across a number of organisations, developing their leadership and emotional intelligence skills and we have consistently found that within a short time of completing our programmes attendees have gone to experience success in promotions to senior levels as well others who simply wanted to build stronger relationships.?What changed??Their technical skills were largely unaffected but their mindset and ability to read the environment and establish relationships with colleagues had been deeply improved. Teams that undergone our EI programmes felt more solidified and functional.

Imagine if you were to create an emotionally-intelligent culture in your organisation.?What would that look like? How different would it be??My guess would be that everyone would feel that they had a voice. You would have a culture of trust, cognitive diversity, stronger relationships and much-improved communication ready to take on the challenges of this rapidly changing environment in which we exist.?These skillsets that for far too long we have labelled as secondary ‘soft skills’ are in fact the golden thread that hold our organisations together in the most testing of times, as 2020 showed in multiple cases throughout the world.

Healthy, emotionally intelligent cultures result in by-products such as diversity, inclusivity, wellbeing, customer satisfaction and increased productivity.

Culture change requires courageous leadership and will take consistent effort but, in my experience, is much more achievable than most people imagine.

The purpose of this article, therefore, is really to re-consider how your organisations approaches the concept of diversity. Is it under pressure to achieve more demographic diversty or creating a culture that others will recognise as healthy and vibrant and something that they would want to be a part of. Is your fish pond clean?

Kul Mahay is a former police superintendent and now spends all of his time working with leaders and teams to create emotionally intelligent cultures that thrive. His approach is leadership development is unique in its pragmatism and passion. He has worked with a variety of organisations and sectors in reshaping their leadership teams and embedding emotional intelligence in their cultures.

Kul is an author, coach and much sought-after keynote speaker on issues around leadership and culture change.

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