Reflections on the Harvard Business Review article entitled “Stop Making the Business Case for Diversity”.
This is a tough one for me… I’m still processing this article but here are my first thoughts:
1. The business case for diversity is not for your candidates… How you share this info with them could be harmful and perceived as an exploitation of non-white people. The audience for any business case for diversity is your decision-maker. DEI practitioners need professional development around this concept and need to understand how to use the business case if this is a tool they will be using.
2. I agree that diversity as a value shouldn’t need a justification… the same is true for our society at large, yet there is still much discourse on diversity, Equity and inclusion in the US… In fact, much of today’s efforts towards workplace equity have been propped up by the death of George Floyd and the #blacklivesmatter movement/movement for Black lives. We are still justifying every day why police shouldn’t kill Black people. If people were swayed by their moral compass we wouldn’t need boundaries and policies to protect the most vulnerable among us.
So consider this: There’s what we think we believe, what we say we believe and what we actually believe about DEI…
Because we exist in space and time where a large majority of the country is still grappling with its understanding and navigation of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion we must continue to fire on all cylinders.
I am not opposed to using the business case for diversity where more dialogue is needed and I recognize that we want to get to a place in society where it’s not needed.
