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A Sweet Diversity Lesson
Jay Forte, 02-16-2010
Who would have thought that the value in a diversity program could be connected to candy — more particularly to M&Ms? But these confections model the behavior of a highly advanced workplace: their value is in their filling — thinking — and the experience is enhanced by their colorful, yet less important exterior — their diversity.
In our intellectual-age workplace, great employee contribution comes from inside our employees — their intellectual capital — evidenced by their talents, strengths and passions. How employees think through their days — observing, assessing and responding in high-value ways — is what drives company success. Employees who are hired into roles that use their talents and strengths and are passionate about what they do contribute more significantly. This core employee contribution is further enhanced by their diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, stories and traditions.
Wise organizations respect, appreciate and support the entire person by connecting employees intellectually and emotionally to the right role internally and celebrating their diversity externally.
Intellectual Connection
Much of manufacturing has moved offshore and left us with an intellectual or service workplace; this has significantly changed what employees do as well as our daily expectations for them. Today’s jobs are thinking jobs: Employees must be fully present and thinking as they handle constantly changing situations. Repetitive and recurring tasks are a thing of the past. Today, employees are paid to observe, assess and respond in the best, most efficient and most profitable manner — in short, they are paid to think.
Since each job requires specific thinking to be effective and each of us thinks in specific ways, not everyone is a good fit for every job. The best performance happens when we play to our strengths — when our jobs use our talents. Today, internal fit matters.
Research presented in the book First Break All the Rules, by Marcus Buckingham and the Gallup Organization, supports that talents are based on our natural brain biology and as such are hardwired. Each of us has a unique combination of recurring patterns of thinking that indicate our natural performance talents, strengths and passions. Our best performance happens when we use what we are naturally good at; we feel capable and competent. This hardwiring has no specific connection to our diversity.
For example, those who possess the intrinsic abilities or talents to connect easily and effectively with people, or those who are detail-focused and precision-minded, may be any age, gender or ethnicity. What drives engaged performance is connecting the right person to the right job. The diversity that employees bring to the workplace in addition to their talents allows for more perspectives and ideas and a more inclusive worldview.
Emotional Connection
In Daniel Pink’s book Drive, Harvard University Professor Teresa Amabile said, “The desire to do something because you find it deeply satisfying and personally challenging inspires the highest levels of creativity, whether it is in the arts, sciences or business.” Employees who are emotionally connected to or passionate about their work are more engaged, interested and effective. As with intellectual connection, this emotional connection is internal. An employee who is passionate about customer service may be old or young, black or white, man or woman. We hire the passionate inside, not the outside.
Diversity expands our effectiveness. For instance, hiring the right employee who is also:
• A woman may bring in a high-value perspective about family, community, whole-brain thinking or product safety.
• A person deeply rooted in his or her culture may bring in strong cultural traditions, new perspectives and an expanded view of the world.
• A religious person may bring in a strong sense of morality, ethics and compliance.
• An older employee may bring in a sense of maturity, loyalty and wisdom.
• A younger employee may bring in a sense of optimism, energy, technical proficiency and global perspective.
In today’s workplace, we hire an employee for internal talents and thinking; the external candy coating or diversity is a bonus. Gender and religion do not matter. Age and ethnicity do not matter. Thinking matters. By considering everyone, you not only have a broader population from which to locate the right employees, you expand your understanding of the world by appreciating, using and celebrating the diversity that comes with each employee. It is today’s manager’s role to find, hire and encourage the best thinking employees and unite their diversity into a performance powerhouse.
