The biggest obstacle to diversity is forced diversity initiatives

A lot of HR attention at the moment is focused on the implementation of EID, EDI and DIE initiatives (Equality, Diversity, Inclusion).

At Hofstede Insights, we have supported organizations in focusing on the one point of diversity which makes the biggest impact on actual business results, which is cultural diversity. Using our 6D model on national cultures to help understand the different emotional drivers which continue to cause challenges within organizations – not because people are different, but because organizations tend to want to overlook the difference, as opposed to leveraging the differences to explore new avenues.

Besides looking at national cultural differences, including understanding how culturally adaptable people are across cultures, we also look at the organizational culture and to which extent training programs, aimed at individual development, actually stand a chance of succeeding organizationally.

You can train people all you want, but if they are not able to deploy new skills and new mindsets in their daily work environment (remember 70-20-10), you have just wasted a lot of money and time and basically only increase resentment towards the organization.

What does this mean for diversity?

On an organizational level, to enable people to explore differences and use these differences to work in a more agile and innovative way, in other words to maximize the possible positive impact diversity can bring, there are three working practices which need to be in place.

In a study of 255 selected organizations, looking at the developments in organizational culture during the period 2012 – 2020, we have found the following.

1.      Organizational effectiveness: When everybody is clear on the goal, the “how” you will get there, becomes less important. We have noticed in the last decade a growth in goal orientation among all the organizations we have measured. Whereas in 2012 the average organization score around 63 on a scale of 0-100, in 2020 this score was on average 70. So this helps to accept more diverse behavior.

2.      Approachability: The more open an organization is, the easier it is to explore each other’s behavior and be open for different ways of thinking and acting. Whereas in 2012 the average organization scored 67 in 2020, the average organization scored 71, so also here a slight increase into a direction whereby diversity has a more operational chance of succeeding.

But if all would be “blue skies” (meaning positive), I wouldn´t be writing this piece, because there is one very important element where operational practices are moving into a direction counter to the direction required for acceptance of diversity; that is the element of how organizations enforce discipline.

As mentioned in one of our previous articles, on organizational flexibility, this dimension runs from being easy going about enforcing discipline, to being very strict. To accept diversity, strictness does not help – as it will create an emotional counter reaction to any process put upon people and being tightly controlled.

Perhaps this is a bit of a paradox, but imagine an open hand with sand on it. When you keep your hand open, some sand will blow away, but new sand will come. When, on the contrary, you close your hand, the harder you squeeze, the faster the sand in your hand will run out, and because your hand is closed, no new sand will enter…

In 2012, the average organization scored 57. In 2019, the average organization scored 49 and in 2020 we have noticed a slight move towards less control, probably due to COVID, back to 51. All in all, in terms of organizational flexibility, the development shows a significant development opposite to the directions organizations would want to go, should they want to become more agile or diverse. In both cases being more flexible would be a better choice.

In our practice of measuring organizational culture, our dimensional approach allows us to make pictures of how the interplay of various dimensions impacts various organizational strategies. For a diversity strategy to work, not becoming too dogmatic (we must have diversity) is one of the key factors to predict successful uptake of diversity initiatives / in other words, go easy on the topic.

Despite this particular element (control) having increased over the years, all in all, across the board diversity acceptance has increased, as shown in the graph below. 

So next time you force executives to sign diversity initiatives, think twice. Perhaps a friendly nudge to explore differences, by putting people to work together on projects, will help you to build a more positive experience.

In the end the goal should not be diversity, it should be effectiveness. It just happens to be that become more diverse will help you to become more effective in today´s world.

Learn more about what we do at: https://hi.hofstede-insights.com/the-hofstede-insights-magazine