Here’s a Simple Fact on Diversity That Most Everyone Should Agree On
I’m not here to defend the social imperatives of diversity. With the endless news stories screaming at me from a multitude of media sources, it’s tempting to join the rising crescendo of voices attesting to how crucial immigration has been to America, how critical diversity is to our society, and how dangerous bias of any kind is to our wellbeing. As tempting as it is to chime in, I’m not here to defend the social aspects of diversity because there are many more qualified voices who are already doing that, and will continue to.
I am here to talk about a different side of diversity that is generally bipartisan, and frankly, simple to understand.
Diversity is good for business.
At i4cp, our research focuses on the people practices of high-performance organizations. We define high performance companies as those with better revenue growth, profitability, market share, and customer satisfaction than their competition. We look at this over a five-year time horizon, and we focus on the top quartile of these organizations.
And when it comes to the people practice of diversity and inclusion (D&I), the simple fact is that most high-performing organizations are really good at it. Consider these four findings from our research:
As this chart shows, top-performing organizations are often twice as likely to embrace D&I than low-performing companies. But embracement can be tricky. With so much pressure to “be diverse,” some organizations embrace diversity for all the wrong reasons (i.e., for PR purposes, compliance, etc.). Top companies make D&I integral to their business. They embrace diversity’s impact on innovation, and generally make it part of the fabric of the company. Consider the following diversity drivers on market performance:
While the data is powerful, the stories we’ve uncovered from companies on what their D&I efforts have meant to the bottom-line are even more compelling. From American Airlines to Campbell’s Soup to Intel, leading organizations have been able to document significant business benefits from their embracement of diversity and inclusion initiatives.
The fact that many of these companies are icons of American business is not lost on me. I hope the fact that diversity is good for all American business doesn’t get lost on the country’s new leaders.
Kevin Oakes is the CEO and founder of the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp)
Kevin is CEO and co-founder of the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), the world’s leading human capital research firm focusing on people practices that drive high performance. i4cp conducts more research in the field of HR than any other organization on the planet, highlighting next practices that organizations and HR executives should consider adopting.
Kevin is also the author of Culture Renovation®, an Amazon bestseller which debuted as the #1 new release in a dozen Amazon book categories. Drawing on data from one of the largest studies ever conducted on corporate culture, Culture Renovation™ details how high-performance organizations such as Microsoft, T-Mobile, 3M, AbbVie, Mastercard and many more have successfully changed organizational culture.
Kevin is currently on the board of Performitiv, and on the advisory boards of Guild Education and Sanctuary. Kevin was previously on the board of directors of KnowledgeAdvisors, a provider of human capital analytics software, which was purchased by Corporate Executive Board in March of 2014. Kevin was also the Chairman of Jambok, a social learning start-up company which was founded at Sun Microsystems and was purchased by SuccessFactors in March 2011. Additionally, Kevin served on the boards of Workforce Insight and Koru prior to their sales.
Kevin is on the board of Best Buddies Washington and helped establish the first office for Best Buddies in the state in 2019. Best Buddies is a nonprofit organization dedicated to establishing a global volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment, leadership development, and inclusive living for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).
Kevin was previously the Founder and the President of SumTotal Systems (NASDAQ: SUMT) which he helped create in 2003 by merging Click2learn (NASDAQ: CLKS) with Docent (NASDAQ: DCNT). The merger won Frost & Sullivan's Competitive Strategy Award in 2004.
Prior to the formation of SumTotal, Kevin was the Chairman & CEO of Click2learn, which was founded by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. Kevin helped take Click2learn public and engineered over a dozen acquisitions post-IPO. Prior to joining Click2learn, Kevin was president and founder of Oakes Interactive in Needham, MA. Oakes Interactive was purchased by Click2learn (then called Asymetrix) in 1997, prior to going public a year later.