New corporate mantra–‘DEI or DIE’

“Strength lies in differences”. Stephen Covey. Agreed; why then are we always searching for similarities. We look for similar backgrounds, cadre, style, ideas and behaviour. We become uncomfortable with people from different cultures, wary of people with different dress patterns and shocked at certain “behaviours”.

This reluctance to accept differing people without being averse or recoiling is commonplace in social as well as professional circles. This instinct to find “commonalities” is good for quick connectivity but is not conducive to discovering new avenues, ideas, concepts, etc. This is a widely understood reality that is narrowly practiced in reality. The obstacles that hinder this reality that bites are:

Diversity Blindness- The mental blocks that are formed due to backgrounds, personality and culture become resistance weapons. These are multiplied when organisational and country cultural norms are neither known or even if known not accepted.

The simplest example of this is the handshaking ritual. While in the West, and in many modern companies in Pakistan, men do extend their hands to both men and women, it can have both a negative and a positive connotation and result.

Similarly, the first- come-first-seated ritual in meetings may become offensive for a place like Pakistan where no matter how late a woman is, the man has to vacate his seat to accommodate her. The West may classify this as undue privilege.

If not practiced the more eastern cultures may classify it as rude and offensive behaviour. This all may happen due to ignorance of the value of finer things like gestures, body language, etc. Companies and people may have functional ability but may have a diversity disability.

Visual preconception— First impressions are last impressions. This cliché is unfortunately true. Most people are taken in and remain taken in for a long time. Even before meeting somebody, in places like Pakistan, people form a bias.

People read a name on business card and start connecting you to a particular family, birth, status that colours the judgement. There are clear age preconceptions. The oldies versus the no-gooders are terms we commonly hear in offices where two generations work.

Ageism is a common bias. The minute you see somebody old, you start making assumptions on his abilities and mindset. Similarly, the older people feel that Generation Z is just too “endowed” to go through the drill of life. This creates distance and communication issues.

Good looks earn on the average a 15% bonus in acceptability, etc. On the other hand, female good looks earning more may invite sexist remarks of “just a pretty face”, etc. Similarly, clothes can give all the wrong signals.

Predator culture— Organisations that are on high speed growth sometimes develop predator cultures where exclusion becomes the way for moving ahead. Such organisations put pressure on employees to achieve success bigger than ever. This gives rise to predator cultures. The high speed, high performing employee becomes the star that outshines others. These employees then get a performance license to create toxicity for lesser performers.

They get away with sarcasm, sexism, arrogance as the company needs the numbers they are producing.

This gives rise to a culture where respect for the lesser successful, lesser placed, lesser protected depends on the mood of the super doer- a classic case of exclusion rather than inclusion. The power figures in a company also abuse their position to get away with harassment and indiscipline.

The MeToo movement clearly exposed the prevalence of the Harvey Weinstein copies in almost all industries. This power abuse is unfortunately more prevalent than we would like to believe. Power corridors’ privileges also include the “perk” of making perkless staff feel small and unworthy.

Pakistan is at an infancy stage of realizing the real value of embedding the culture of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) where many organizations are more focused on talking the talk rather than walking the talk. In a recent study Dr Sadia Nadeem of FAST School of Management on Gender DEI Toolkit, says the slow development in Pakistan is due to many reasons. One of the many reasons is that top stakeholders treat DEI with ownership discrimination. Some solutions to create more top level ownership are:

Create alignment with the top and bottom line— In most organizations DEI is treated as “another” project, something slightly more extensive than international woman’s day.

In other more progressive companies DEI is an HR initiative that is preached more than practiced. In very few organizations, it is the core of top level policy making.

The reason for this discrimination against DEI is the lack of awareness of its “business importance”. For Board members it is something charitable to be considered part of its corporate social responsibility and not a critical revenue avenue.

Solution-- Create Board level ownership by factual presentations of DEI’s contribution to productivity and profitability. An earlier study published in Forbes magazine on Sept 21st 2017 on diversity and inclusion states that diverse teams delivered 60% better results and inclusive teams make more accurate and result-focused business decisions up to 87% of the time.

Such facts are the converters for the top stakeholders/shareholders. Every financial statement presented to the top management needs to show this correlation.

Create accountability with performance assessment KPIs— While many companies hold ‘diversity’ days and weeks, corporate culture resistance persists to hinder it from becoming a way of living. It is heartening to see that multiple trainings are being conducted in many companies in Pakistan on these topics. But more needs to be done.

Solution— To make it a behavioural change initiative, inclusion of these variables in the performance evaluation system is mandatory. Tying it to ratings and promotion does have a magical impact on making people adopt and adapt these values. These behaviours should have qualitative and qualitative rewards and punishment tied to them to increase compliance.

Develop role modeling and stories to develop a DEI value system in the company culture-Role modeling is a great inspiration tool. Stories about the behaviours company wants to promote and adopt needs to be developed strategically. With a very invasive social media scams and scandals get viral attention. This has marred many top companies such as Uber and Renault. There needs to be a PR campaign around DIE to shame and fame values that are desirable.

Solution— Behaviour adoption targets like desired sales targets have to be strategized, reinforced and spread to increase its virality. A deliberate narrative needs to be crafted to promote heroes practicing DEI. This then needs to be uplifted and spread through inspiring ted talks, group chats and celebrations that highlight DEI adopters courage as fighters for a just cause. The DEI champs need special awards for their bravery to stand up against injustice.

The universe is diverse. Human beings are even more so. With so much fear about the invasion of Artificial Intelligence creating copies of humans, it is the human diversity that is the saviour. Real intelligence of humans is real because it is unique, it can go beyond any programmed script, and it can beat all boundaries. It is the diversity of humanity that brings creativity and opportunity.

Organizations investing billions of dollars on AI technology are rightly investing in their future. But an investment into creating a DEI humonology-based culture, with much less, could spur on a more impactful and enduring cycle of productivity and profitability.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023