Imagine you only had colleagues in your organization who were just like you. Wouldn’t that be boring? Diversity is important, and diversity is not limited to gender. It’s about much more!
Modern companies should try to promote diversity, not just in terms of gender differences. Diversity can relate to age, ethnicity, place of origin, place of upbringing, skills, experience, education and much more.
There are many reasons why diversity is important. As work becomes more complex, promoting diversity in the workplace will help you. In addition, it can help your company satisfy all customers. Different people can connect with different customers in different ways.
The good thing about promoting diversity is…
- The organization is better able to develop new ideas and insights and is more willing to adopt them.
- Decisions are made more thoughtfully and creatively.
- And it’s simply more fun!
“Diversity means being invited to the party. Inclusion means being asked to dance”
Vernā Myers
At best, these concepts are brought together, and as some authors suggest, ‘equity’ might be another concept we should add. Equity, in our example from Vernā Myers, means “ensuring that everyone has adequate transportation to the dance, regardless of their starting point” (Craddock, N., 2020).
We must not confuse “equity” and “equality”. In English, and often in technical language, the terms equity and equality are used here.
Equality means that companies offer people the same resources and opportunities. Equity means that companies recognize that people have different circumstances, so they need to be treated differently according to their needs.
There are, of course, many ways for organizations to approach these issues and discover the benefits. In this blog, we want to introduce you to a small tool from the Management 3.0 toolbox: The Diversity Index.
The Diversity Index by Management 3.0
The Diversity Index can help your team and your organization to gain insight into the current level of diversity. It also takes into account that your diversity does not have to be identical to that of others. It is a simple and effective tool to gain insight into the diversity climate. When creating it, you will also observe great side effects. Diversity becomes a topic, you engage in dialog, learn together, become aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the composition of the team, etc.
How you can use the index
- Ask people which areas of diversity are relevant to their context.
- Have them fill in the diversity index. On the left-hand side, they can write down the areas they find relevant for their area. This doesn’t need to be rushed, it can lead to nice conversations about what is needed.
- Once the areas are filled in, ask the team to calculate the score. One point is awarded for each different answer. For example, if the country was a diversity area and everyone was from the same country, one point would be awarded. If there are four people in the group and they all come from different countries, four points are awarded. If two people come from country A and one each from country B and C, there are three points.
- Once the index per area has been determined, the team should have recorded the individual scores on the right-hand side and calculated the total score.
- What can teams do to increase the score? If there are several teams, they can perhaps swap people with another team. Teams can also increase their knowledge if the diversity area concerns a specific skill. They can look at a particular area in a new hire.
The measures here are diverse. The diversity index gives the team and the organization a basis for communication and transparency on the status quo. If the organization accepts that diversity brings added value, it now has an initial starting point and can identify potential blind spots or a lack of disruption.
Want to learn more about diversity and team composition? We are happy to recommend the brand new “Agile Team Leadership” course from Management 3.0, where we also go through the Management 3.0 Diversity Index tool in the group and discuss the advantages and disadvantages.
The one-day workshop builds on the content of the Management 3.0 Foundation Workshop. It enables you to create the optimal conditions for the self-organization of your team and to promote the individual growth of the team members as well as that of the entire team.
You can find out more about the workshop and our schedule here: