How well does your organization do with diversity and inclusion? - SmartBrief

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How well does your organization do with diversity and inclusion?

How well does your organization do with diversity and inclusion?

2 min read

Leadership

How well does your organization do with diversity and inclusion?

SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from over 240,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our newsletter.

How well does your organization do with diversity and inclusion?

  • We’re great. We’re very diverse and inclusive: 34%
  • We’re okay. We actively manage D&I but have some opportunities: 35%
  • We’re fair. We know we have issues and are working on them: 18%
  • We’re poor. We hardly know what D&I stands for: 12%

D&I takes effort but is worth it. Focusing on diversity and inclusion takes effort and is a mindset. The benefits are clear — broader ideas, wider perspectives, better results. Living and working in a bubble can cause you to miss opportunities and lose good employees and customers. Recognize D&I isn’t some corporate program. It’s about openness to bringing in new people with backgrounds different than yours and making them an integral part of everything you do. If your organization isn’t very good at this yet, go interview people at organizations that excel at it. Learn everything you can on the subject. Embrace opportunities to interview, hire and include people different than you are. Over time this mindset will take hold in your organization and the benefits follow. But don’t do it only for the benefits — do it because it’s the right thing to do. We’re all occupying the same world. We need to act accordingly.

Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS. Before launching his own company, he worked at McKinsey & Co., Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He’s the author of three leadership books: “One Piece of Paper,” “Lead Inside the Box” and “The Elegant Pitch.”