As we all know, making diversity a priority within our organizations affords us many benefits. We encourage you to share ways supporting diversity has helped you and your company.
Perhaps, the first and most benefit to diversity is that people from different backgrounds, ages, races, and ethnicities can bring new ideas and solutions to your processes. It can also give you a cross-section of your customer base to know and understand their needs. Too often, we hear tenured colleagues revert back to, “how we’ve always done it”, and that can be a cancer for your business.
This segues right into the next point to be made – the fact that a diverse team heightens and fosters creativity. When you have a homogenous think tank of sorts making all decisions, your company or organization can remain stagnant. When that type of culture reigns supreme, people are less likely to interject with fresh, new ideas out of fear of judgment. In fact, studies show that when diversity is a focus, teams see a 60% jump in participation. When participation grows, ownership of the mission and vision grows, and everyone benefits.
Our third and final thought; we don’t know of a business, for-profit or nonprofit, that was not affected by the pandemic over the last year and a half. Building a team of people with diverse opinions and skillsets has proven time and time again to make the re-imagining of many products and services possible in the face of adversity. If it was budgetary restraints, a new platform on which to market, or a technology to streamline a process, watching the creativity out of necessity has been exciting in every industry.
Diversity can bring so many great ideas and skills to the table. “It takes all kinds,” is a cliché for a reason. Whether it’s on a focused team, in company-wide initiatives, or throughout an industry as a whole, each point of view can bring a piece of the puzzle and create a masterpiece.