SESSION 21 | ORGANIZATIONAL DIVERSITY

What do we mean when we say "leadershipal diversity"?

What do we mean by "diversity"?

Diversity Of Thought | Vidya Spandana

For our society to move towards a more inclusive consciousness, diversity must be explored through thought and perspective, not by race or gender.

Diversity means a lot of different things

The US can only function as a healthy democracy if we find a way to diversify our social connections, if we find a way to weave together a strong social fabric that bridges ties across difference. Right now, we are moving in the opposite direction with serious consequences.
Two contemporary trend lines can help us understand this.

Self-segregation: how a personalized world is dividing Americans | danah boyd

Go on to read How Diversity Makes Us Smarter by Katherine W. Phillips

Being around people who are different from us makes us more creative, more diligent and harder-working.

You don't have to read this unless you wish to, but we might touch upon them in conversation

1. Williams, K. Y., & O'Reilly, I. I. I. C. A. (January 01, 1998). Demography and diversity in organizations: a review of 40 years of research. Research in Organizational Behavior, 20, 77.
   Don't necessarily read it all, but glance over it to get a sense for how it looked from the middle to the end of the previous century.
2. Catmull, E. (September 01, 2008). How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity. Harvard Business Review, 64.
3. And then for a slightly newer, and different, take on the topic of organizational diversity, read
   DIVERSITY: Teams Solve Problems Faster When They’re More Cognitively Diverse
   By Alison Reynolds and David Lewis in Harvard Business Review, 30 March 2017

things we'll talk about; ethics feeds into a discussion on diversity in organizations

• in America, has the push for cultural, religious, ethnic, and gender diversity affected the way organizations recruit and hire new members?
• is it an organization's responsibility to ensure that it is diverse?
• how can organizations balance the need to recruit the best possible members with the need to recruit diverse members? or is it a false choice?
• how can organizations prevent biases from influencing recruiting decisions?

or are we framing the discussion in an entirely incorrect manner?
What is our understanding of organizational diversity?

Look ahead to the preparations for the next session.

All Sessions.