Two things are true right now:
- Australia has never been more diverse, and
- Australia right now is the least diverse it will ever be.
Against that, I’ve long had a sneaking suspicion that we have the ‘fight’ for diversity wrong.
It’s not about good versus bad people. Woke versus unwoke. Enlightened versus not.
What if it was just about humanity?
Not a fight. But about Openness. Interest. Possibility. Changing the potential of the collective.
Embracing diversity is about making space – right next to you – for someone else, and most likely someone quite different from you.
We’ve used a deficit model until now. I think it’s time we started looking at the potential and possibilities and had some optimism about people. That approach might just be a whole lot closer to reality.
What is a deficit model?
From the text books, a “deficit model” is a way of understanding individuals or groups by focusing on their perceived weaknesses or shortcomings. It often attributes failures or problems to individual deficiencies, rather than systemic issues or environmental factors.
When it comes to diversity, it often means we describe the shortfalls – for example, lack of confidence, or communication issues – and then work on how do we accommodate them despite their perceived shortfalls.
I think our weddedness to these approaches runs even deeper than that.
Our central proposition is that society is broken and needs fixing.
It’s an emotional response from a singular perspective. For example, “it’s not fair”, or “it should be different”, or “I can solve it” – often because “I know”, “I’m smarter”, or “I’m more evolved” …than you.
But am I?
The issue with ‘fixing’ diversity, like we are now, is that it doesn’t accept the breadth of the issue as it is.
Diversity is an issue, agenda, and challenge in every culture and every country in the world. Regardless of politics, religion, or the agenda (gender, culture, etc).
It’s not an indicator of a broken society; for better or worse, it’s a normal part of every functioning society.
Functioning doesn’t mean we shouldn’t evolve and grow and be progressive, but it does challenge whether it’s ‘fixable’. Maybe the solution is in the fallibility and imperfections, rather than constantly describing – often in a very preachy way – the problems.
The hedgy paragraph before anyone gets upset.
Now, before I go any further, and have anyone lose their head, I’m up for evolution and progress.
I appreciate the value of lived experience. That each perspective and example is as important as the next.
I’m open to learning from experiences I’ve never had.
I also understand the ‘system’, and I admire the people trying to change that system towards their perception of better. I can respect their life’s work and the progress made. Heaven knows, I’ve worked side by side with them for ages. And long may their efforts continue.
I just think there’s a different way.
Where I did hear a different perspective.
Early 2000s. Living in Europe. Charged with European diversity for my organisation, I approached the author of the European Union white paper – Teresa Rees. In conversation, she called what we do now – as ‘tinkering’ – a legal/control response to bend reality to our will.
She thought it swam against the tide of how people are, by trying to fix them – subjecting them to targets (e.g., 20%, 30%) or workshops (e.g., one hour on unconscious bias, respect) to change them, make them smarter.
Instead, she was optimistic and open to how people are. She put faith in the next generation, and, as a Professor, taught ‘what if’ and ‘how might we’ rather than ‘I know’.
Her approach was called ‘Mainstreaming’. It’s a system-based approach, rather than a “by agenda” approach. It’s from social science, not law. It works by harnessing and evolving the reality of human fallibility. Small things add together within the system, not singular interventions against the system. It is part of every agenda, not a separate one.
I had the pleasure of working with and learning from Teresa from the early 2000s when I lived in Europe, until she passed, too early, from cancer in 2023. Alongside a few critical others, it has informed so much of my work and thinking.
What if?
What if most people we met and worked with were open to being inclusive.
To learning from a new or different perspective? Open to being better for the addition of perspectives and ideas other than their own. What if they needed an opportunity rather than a lesson?
Too often, we look at particular people as ‘experts’. This person is a member of a special club, or a group that has a specific target. They ‘solved’ diversity in Industry A, so we should copy them in Industry B. They fixed Org C, so they can also fix Org D.
But they didn’t.
No organisation, no industry, and no country has ‘fixed diversity’, nor have they ‘taught’ into a different way of being.
You look at Boards of 10, with one or two women proudly saying “I/we support 25%”. But even hanging with and forming respected friendships with those 8 men every month for 4 years, they haven’t achieved 25% in their own backyard.
We too often look at corporate people and quote them as THE answer, but the answers aren’t so straightforward. ‘I fixed it in banking, and now I can fix (insert any industry here – sports/entertainment/education/healthcare)’.
But it’s not fixed in banking. So the tools you used, the approach you took, the targets you set, and commitments you made, all fell short. And that’s before we add an understanding of the vastly different contexts of every industry. How people join, how they progress, and how they succeed.
Same goes when we look at Country A. Country A might have solved one issue, but it has seven others. You can learn from them, but you cannot learn only from them. You’ll solve caring responsibilities from European Country A, or even work flexibility to help you be flexible parenting, but you won’t solve career pathing, or percentages of women at the top. To solve ‘women at the top’ you’ll have to look at Asian diversity, in a segment, within a region of Country B.
Turning things around.
What if our going in proposition was that most people are good and trying to do the right thing. What if we went to a strengths-based approach to realise the value and possibility of difference?
Most of us are happy to get smarter. We know we have lots to learn, limited by our experience, and are open to different perspectives, and experiences or thinking. We’re not so enamoured by ourselves that we need or want to be surrounded only by people like us. We want a fuller breadth of human experience.
It’s a mindset thing.
There’s a very big difference between “I’ve got your back” and “I back you”.
‘I’ve got your back’ means it’s dangerous, only I know the rules and ways things are, and you need my protection, and you’re lucky I’ll help you.
‘I back you’, means I make space for you. I lift you. I welcome you. I want you to succeed. I’m open to you being more successful than me.
And what you hear when you get it right?
If we are able to move the whole diversity and culture agenda forward, you hear one of two very different responses. Only one is sustainable change.
Firstly, “Thank you. You’re terrific”, accompanied by a post and photo on LinkedIn.
Secondly, “I love that we’ve done this together”
The second one is sustainable change. It needs no teacher or lesson. It’s a group doing it differently because it works well. Long after any ‘expert’ leaves the room or committee or lectern, they’ve created a workplace that is open and inclusive and all the better for it.
And, all this approach asks of any of us is to simply sign up to, ‘You do you, and I’ll do me, and we’ll both give each other space and support to be great, do no harm (of course), and be open to our collective being much better when we’re all confidently at our best’.
That’s not a deficit model to be accommodated.
It’s having optimism that we can all see the potential and possibilities, and backing each other to deliver it!
