Thrive Through Diversity: Diverse Teams Outperform Homogenous Teams — Every Time
Why is diversity so important? Put simply, it creates stronger, more creative businesses that are better equipped to handle current and future customers amid their own changing work and market environments. It’s no longer enough to tolerate differences; to be successful, we must celebrate and leverage them every day.
The World Is Changing
Embracing diversity isn’t just about being politically correct; it’s about assuring the continued success of one’s business in a world of ever-changing demographics. According to data obtained from the United States Department of Commerce, minority-owned businesses in the United States grew by 35 percent between 1997 and 2002, bringing the total number to more than 4 million; the growth rate of minority-owned businesses surpassed the national rate by more than three times. During this period the top growth rates among minority firms were as follows:
- African-American firms grew by 45 percent
- Hispanic firms grew by 31 percent
- Asian firms grew by 24 percent
According to the National Women’s Business Council’s 2004 Annual Report, women were majority owners in 6.7 million privately owned businesses that year — growing at twice the national average rate. Businesses in which women owned at least 50 percent of the company (10.6 million) generated $2.5 trillion in annual revenues that same year. And these numbers aren’t anomalies; they’re indicators of things to come. Women and minorities have and will continue to represent significant purchasing power. In order to secure their business, organizations must recruit and retain staff that demonstrate the expertise and creativity needed to serve these changing demographics, thus becoming better equipped to thrive in the marketplace.
Diverse Teams Outperform Homogenous Ones
The changing demographic landscape is not the only reason best-in-class organizations are developing diversity initiatives; diverse environments also yield more effective collaboration and teamwork than homogenous teams. There are a variety of ways to solve a problem; leveraging the input of a diverse staff population helps organizations arrive at better decisions. You can’t underestimate the value of the creativity and ingenuity elicited from a team of varying experience, knowledge, and background. Much like Thomas Edison’s cross-section of multidisciplinary specialists helped to develop the light bulb, so can a diverse cross-section of staff illuminate their organization with ideas to serve customers more effectively.
In addition, diversity initiatives can also help organizations attract and retain top talent. Embracing diversity sends a message to potential staff that you’re committed to using resources to further develop and leverage their individual talents and abilities.
Thrive Through Diversity!
Businesses are constantly looking to improve customer service, and successful diversity initiatives that broaden organization skill sets are one way to do that. Can you be successful without them? In the short and near term, perhaps. Will your organization be more successful in the long term if you implement them effectively? Unequivocally. Here’s to celebrating the beauty of our differences for the collective good of all, and thriving through diversity — together!
Plante & Moran’s Approach to Diversity
Plante & Moran’s Diversity Council has been thriving for several years now. Below are a few of the initiatives that have, to date, helped us to improve:
- Diverse Business Development — Specific actions developed to effectively position ourselves for new business opportunities in an increasingly diverse business environment within our geographic footprint.
- Diverse Talent Management — Understand and effectively manage the process of hiring, training, developing, mentoring, and promoting diverse talent throughout the firm.
- Effective Scheduling — Centralized and industry-based scheduling, which encourages staff to schedule diverse teams to work on various engagements while ensuring all staff are working at their highest potential.
- Mandatory Diversity Awareness Training for All Staff — These sessions are conducted by an experienced, external facilitator in an effort to understand and celebrate our differences to make us a stronger firm. Phase II training, expected to commence in Fall 2008, is specifically targeted toward supervisors in an effort to help them mentor and develop diverse staff.
- Consistent Communication From Firm Leadership — Without consistent tone-from-the-top communications, staff may not embrace established initiatives.
Although we’re pleased with our accomplishments to date, our work is by no means complete. That’s the thing about diversity — it’s not a matter of conducting a training session and calling it a day. It takes consistent effort to reach the end goal: that moment when diversity becomes an innate part of the organizational culture versus a separate initiative.
Diversity: More Than Ethnicity & Gender
Businesses often equate diversity initiatives with two specific attributes — ethnicity and gender — but there’s so much more to it than that. Other attributes include:
- Age
- Physical Ability
- Sexual Orientation
- Marital & Parental Status
- Education Background & Work Experience
- Dominant/Non-Dominant Culture
- Religion
