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On Laziness and Groupthink

I attended two Diversity and Incusivity trainings in the space of about a year. Done by two different vendors. They were exactly the same. And if it had been by a third or a fourth person, it would still be exactly the same. Why?

Why are these trainings exactly the same? Why are they unable to think beyond a certain set of topics? I believe it is because people are lazy and dont read enough. The second, perhaps more importantly, is that they believe so strongly in DnI that they believe their conviction will see the day through. And in the process, they end up sounding sanctimonious and all questions are answered with that sanctimoniousness than actual data.

The examples that the esteemed people shared were what we read in whatsapp forward 5 years ago. #fail.

The so called business case with riddled with fundamental data errors. They said colleges have a 50-50 ratio of men and women. Truth is most colleges dont. A simple google search gives you this data for IIMs. MBA colleges would be in a similar range. The IITs and engineering would be slightly lower depending on stream and so on. It is important to start with honest data and not sanctimonious arguments. Someone who brought up this argument was shut down - but he had a valid point. At such junctures, it is important to acknowledge honestly what is the data and not expect people to simply agree with your flawed data. Which in turn brings up the next point.

The second point is that most managers, when they hire for their team - hire with best intent. That of having a high performing team. To attribute every selection only and only to bias - does a great disservice to them. Because corporate rewards and incentives (and market rewards and incentive) are aligned to extract better performance from teams and individuals. And that is what they will go towards. Yes, here there will be real biases if they expect women to go on a maternity leave and so on - and this is where an organizational policy can be a great nudge.

There is a strong business case for diversity, but there are also some weak arguments. See this article which draws out those distinctions. And yes it is not a pureplay business case - it is also a belief driven initiative - because it truly is the right thing to do, but not allowing for debate doesnt help the cause.

Lastly, in the cause of diversity, most companies only pay lip service by tackling say women in technology. My argument is that MBAs, women in tech are all elites of elites. There is greater merit in focusing our efforts lower down where diversity matters even more. Probably in operations. And truly create opportunities.

There is a fourth issue - which is that diversity is still clouded by groupthink and people honestly miss the real point of diversity and instead crowd around some convenient thoughts without looking deeply. For instance, India is truly a diverse nation - and as a nation, we are the best wired for diversity. There is an inherent advantage in India that needs to be tapped into...

And the net result of all this is that I have some good ideas on how to make this better, truly honest with non sanctimonious arguments and take it way way beyond the workshop. Will post it once we create, share and implement it.

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