Want diversity? Don't go after strength and ability
It is nothing new that fundamental diversity is beneficial, economically and socially.
For instance, in his 2007 book The Difference and in his papers, author Scott Page has clearly articulated and even mathematically proved how diversity and diverse groups yield better outcomes, explaining why diversity beats homogeneity. In a 2013 HBR article, Hewlett, Marshall, and Sherbin showed how companies managed by leaders with inherited and acquired diversity outinnovate and outperform their competitors. In her recent TED talk my colleague Rocio Lorenzo clearly showed how diverse companies are more innovative.
If it is theoretically and empirically proven that diversity is good, how come we aren’t yet broadly embracing it? Why are many of the ongoing, mostly compositional diversity-oriented efforts struggling? Why aren’t we broadly seeking and employing diversity to yield better outcomes?
Strength and Ability Undermine Diversity
I certainly don’t pretend to have the answers to those questions, but it strikes me that two concepts at the core of our society, strength and ability, play an important role in preventing the adoption and spread of diversity.
For centuries, we have celebrated strength as a virtue, something to strive for, something to build on. Much has been geared toward accumulating strength—the more, the better. Companies, for instance, work hard to “strengthen” their competitive position by creating structure and infrastructure.
Similarly, ability has always been seen as a worthy aspiration. The best way to solve problems and master challenges has been to increase the total amount of ability at our disposal. The more, the better.
Both strength and ability made a lot of sense in a linear and predictable world, a world where mechanical cause and effect were clear, where the pace of change was not exponentially accelerated by Moore’s law, and where the level of entanglement across systems (economic and social) was low. In such a world, the more strength and ability I have, the better positioned I am to solve problems, overcome challenges, and be successful.
But this world does not exist anymore. As a result of exponential technological advances and the rise of globalization, the world has become the sum of several big and small complex adaptive systems, with an extremely high level of entanglement, interconnectedness, complexity, and an incredible pace of (technological) change.
From Mechanical to Biological Thinking
The only way to make sense of this world is to look at biology and nature, which have been successfully mastering complex adaptive systems for millions of years. While doing so, we need to replace our linear and mechanical thinking and view of the world with an organic and biological one.
Biological thinking is characterized in part by the fact that it is not linear. It involves ecosystems in which everything interacts and the effects of interventions are path dependent, requiring multiple iterations to succeed. Instead of managing a process to produce a certain effect, biological thinking focuses on managing outcomes, and it emphasizes enabling instead of controlling.
In a world inspired by organic and biological thinking, diversity plays a key role, and only by embracing it we can succeed. But what has this to do with strength and ability?
Let’s take strength: in this world, resilience becomes more important than strength. As my colleague Martin Reeves noted in his 2016 TED talk, the declining lifespan of companies and the incredible uncertainty in the business environment have raised a new question. Traditionally, we’ve asked, "How good is my game? What’s my strength?" Now we need to ask, "How long will this game last?" This is a question about the organization’s resilience, and its resilience has a great deal to do with its diversity.
Organizations today are themselves examples of complex adaptive systems. Resilient complex adaptive systems display six characteristics, one of which is diversity. One way to bring down a system—be it a company or a business system—is for the whole system to respond in one way (and often the wrong way) to a change in events. If instead the system responds in multiple, diverse ways (some right, some wrong), it will be more resilient in the face of change. Diversity also contributes to resilience by providing grist for learning. If a biological system doesn’t have genetic diversity, it won’t be able to adapt and survive. If a business doesn’t have cognitive diversity, it will not learn.
Let’s consider ability. In a world dominated by complex adaptive systems, problems and challenges become more complex. As shown by Page in his work, these problems are not better solved by adding more ability with the same background to the mix, as this added ability, coming from the same background, will get stuck in the same places. Rather, these problems are better solved by increasing cognitive diversity to come up with new solutions. The success of Kaggle and InnoCentive are good examples of this.
Ultimately, it is only by shifting our thinking from mechanical to biological that we will be able to create the preconditions for a broad adoption of diversity. If we continue to think mechanically, in terms of cause and effect, diversity will never become our first choice. We’ll continue to rely only on strength and ability, qualities that are still important but are no longer sufficient for success.
But if we think biologically, in terms of complex adaptive systems, we will choose diversity spontaneously. Doing so becomes a matter of survival.
The road to the broad embrace of diversity (also) goes through the adoption of biological thinking.