The evidence is clear – there’s value in diversity.
Research pretty clearly shows that businesses with greater overall diversity are more innovative and have higher profitability when compared with the averages. But to tap into the ideas and perspectives of people with diverse physical characteristics and backgrounds, you have to build trust. That means tapping into our tribal nature and making your workplace a modern tribe.
But here’s the thing about ‘trust’…
So…
These are questions that I’m asked by clients and event participants when I talk about valuing diversity.
In this short video, I answer the next question that often comes once we start discussing it…where do I start?
A couple of weeks back, my friend Mykel Dixon issued an invitation…well, it wasn’t so much an invitation as a dare. A dare to extend random acts of gratitude to people that bring light and beauty into the world.
Not the usual suspects. No agenda. No tit-for-tat reciprocity. Just do it because it’s the RIGHT thing to do.
Right because it’s appreciation they deserve. Right because it’s good for your soul. Right because it’s what the world could desperately use more of.
I thought long and hard on who I could appreciate and knew that it had to be Ben Waites.
Who’s Ben? Check it out…I dare you!
Recently, I was rehearsing the closing of my DIVERSIFY keynote and – for the first time in a long time – I connected to the meaning of the words that makes it one of my favourite songs of all time. I re-affirmed – for myself – that valuing diversity means creating the space for everyone to have a voice but not remaining silent when there are those that try to take that voice away.
Rather than trying to hit the right notes (that are clearly at the edge of my vocal range!) I engaged with the powerful emotions that make this version of the song* so poignant in the world in which we all find ourselves…and that our children might inherit.
