Diversity is something I think about a lot. Not just because we should think about diversity and there is a social obligation to promoting diversity but because I think there is a fiscal responsibility in organizations to promote diversity. I was reading this article last week and it spoke of diversity of thought.

So many times, teams or departments, or even entire organizations become homogenous because the organizations are using the same criteria for hiring and promoting. I don’t mean that people doing the same job should have different job descriptions but there is a tendency to take a quick look at skill sets and experience (this is often done by the recruiter before the team even looks at the candidate) and then the focus becomes about “fit.”

While I agree, we need to know if the person is a good fit on the team and can they be successful (and I’ve been a bad fit myself before which is no fun!) I think this opens us up to the danger of making sure we are hiring people like us. People who think like us, work like us, problem-solve like us, etc. This creates a homogenous team which is ever in danger of falling into group-think or just not recognizing all the different opinions and experiences of those we touch. Especially our customers. If we don’t understand what our customer’s want and where they are coming from, there is no way we can effectively meet their needs and they just won’t be our customers for long.

Diversity is not just about culture, it should BE organizations’ culture.