As muted as the Tokyo Opening Ceremony was this year, it’s hard not to get caught up in the emotion of this wonderful environment** where global sportsmanship, honest competition and genuine meritocracy play out. Where politics and purse have no place, but the medals goes to the athletes who trained the hardest, peaked perfectly and their passports played no role in where they place.
Watching the national teams walk into the stadium, it’s a wonderful reminder that no one nation has a monopoly on talent, grit and dedication. And that winners can, and often do, come from the most unexpected corners of the world.
But it is the motto of this year’s Olympics that had me reflecting the most this week.
“Unity in Diversity”
A wonderfully evocative mantra but, as so many things that we proclaim and pontificate about in society and in business, is this just another brilliant example that saying something is so much easier than doing something.
In business we know the benefits of diversity are without question.
Diverse teams are more innovative, more adaptive, more empathetic and, broadly speaking, perform better. A longitudinal study by McKinsey shows a 36% point difference in profitability between the most ethnically-diverse teams and the least.
Yet in the same study, McKinsey also notes that early progress on gender and ethnic diversity globally appears to be stalling or, in some cases, moving backwards.
So, why in the face of such overwhelming evidence do many organizations still seem to prefer homogeneity over diversity?
Why are terms like “cultural fit” oft used as corporate shorthand for “you don’t think or act like everyone else here” and the surest way to be shown the door?
Why, as Sunny Bonnell and Ashleigh Hanisberger ask repeatedly, is it still so frigging impossible to exist as a “Rare Breed”inside the vast majority of organizations?
Is it ego?
Is it because diversity of thought and opinion give rise to diversity of questions that most leaders are unwilling and unable to address?
After all, it takes a very special ego-less group of Executives to take those questions onboard without resorting to some corporate version of “do it because I told you so”
Is it bureaucracy?
Is it because most successful companies have become so convinced of their omnipotence and infallibility that their cultures have enshrined the status quo “way we do things around here” with unbridled pride and indisputable logic?
Gary Hamel’s most recent book highlights how this affliction of the status quo creates the lethargic pace of change inside most organizations today. Amusingly the book includes a Bureaucracy Mass Index, a corporate equivalent of the popular BMI doctors use to determine how overweight a patient is. This BMI though, ascertains how corpulent your corporation is.
Or is it something else?
Or is it perhaps that, during COVID, as we’ve lost the ability to travel and subsequently to see, touch, smell and taste the different cultures and experiences all around us, our cultural curiosity and appreciation of diversity has also been stunted?
Rupert Brown recently posed that eloquent question on “Thinking Inside The Box”. He speculates that if we continue to exist in the 2-D parameters of perpetual video calls we will lose the ability to build the solidarity and empathy that comes from, literally, rubbing shoulders with those that are different from us. As someone who has had the privilege of working – and travelling – internationally there is a heightened appreciation for your colleagues when you’ve been a guest inside their homes, shopped for food in their markets and eaten their local cuisine. ZOOM is a poor substitute.
Ego
Bureaucracy
Lack of curiosity
None of those conditions seem likely to embrace diversity.
Neither do those conditions seem likely to embrace innovative thinking, increased empathy and organizational adaptability either.
The dichotomy to address then is will we ever fully realize the true potential of diversity if we’re unwilling to completely remove all the reasons it can’t flourish in the first place?
Maybe taking the Olympic values of excellence, respect and friendship to heart would be a good place to start.
Postscript ** - My deep romanticism of the Olympics stems from being the son of an Olympian – Field Hockey, 1964, ironically in Tokyo too - but there is something inarguably majestic about that competition and the scenes of mutual respect among the athletes.