For many years, when we talked about diversity in the workplace, we tended to begin with categories.
Race. Gender. Age. Culture. Religion. Sexual orientation. Disability. Ethnicity.
Those differences matter. They have shaped people’s experiences at work in profound ways, and they continue to matter.
But I have come to believe that if our discussion of diversity ends with categories, we have missed something important.
Diversity is not simply about who we are. It is also about how differently we see, experience, and move through the world.
Two people can work for the same organization, sit in the same meeting, hear the same words, and leave having experienced two very different meetings.
Why?
Because none of us enters the workplace as a blank slate.
We bring our childhoods. Our cultures. Our families. Our successes and failures. Our education. Our fears. Our ambitions. Our disappointments. Our values. Our generation. Our beliefs about work. Our ideas about authority. Our experiences with people who are different from us.
And increasingly, we bring very different ideas about what we even want from work.
Maybe that is another place to begin our conversation about diversity.
We All See the World Through a Lens
One of the easiest things to recognize in another person is bias.
One of the hardest things to recognize is our own.
We all make assumptions. Sometimes we are aware of them. Often we aren’t.
Think about meeting someone for the first time. Before that person has said very much, your brain is already busy. You notice age, clothing, accent, appearance, name, mannerisms, perhaps race or gender. An impression begins to form.
That doesn’t necessarily make us bad people.
It makes us human.
The more important question is:
What do we do next?
Do we become curious?
Or do we turn that first impression into a conclusion?
We can learn to notice our reactions and ask where they came from. Would I interpret this behavior differently if someone else had done it? Is a previous experience influencing what I am seeing now? Am I responding to this person, or to something I have come to associate with people I believe are like this person?
Perhaps one of the most useful habits we can develop is learning to catch ourselves thinking.
What Happens When We Are Wrong?
Here is another interesting question.
How do we react when one of our assumptions about another person turns out to be wrong?
We might like to think we simply change our minds.
Human beings aren’t always that cooperative.
Sometimes we reinterpret what happened so our original belief can survive. Sometimes we decide this particular person is merely an exception. Sometimes we pay more attention to information that confirms what we already believe and less attention to information that challenges it.
That is one reason self-awareness matters so much.
We cannot examine a belief we don’t notice.
And we cannot become more inclusive simply by announcing that we value inclusion.
We have to become interested in our own thinking.
Watch What You Do
Most of us probably want to think of ourselves as fair and accepting people.
But intentions don’t always tell the whole story.
Behavior may tell us more.
Whom do you naturally sit next to?
Whom do you approach at a social gathering?
Whose ideas do you take seriously in a meeting?
Who gets interrupted?
Who gets invited into the informal conversation?
Who gets mentored?
Who receives the difficult assignment that might eventually lead to a promotion?
Who gets another chance after making a mistake?
There is a considerable difference between saying “I value diversity” and noticing how we actually behave when surrounded by difference.
There is no need for guilt in that observation. There is simply an opportunity for greater self-awareness.
Diversity Is Becoming Broader
The traditional dimensions of diversity remain important. Race, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, age and culture continue to influence people’s experiences and opportunities.
But today’s workplace also brings together people with remarkably different expectations about life and work.
Consider generations.
A younger employee may look at someone who has spent 25 years climbing an organizational ladder and wonder, Why would I want that?
The older employee may look at someone who wants greater flexibility, career breaks, remote work or less management responsibility and wonder, Where is the ambition?
Perhaps neither person is wrong.
Maybe they simply define a successful life differently.
That is diversity too.
We work alongside people who want to become executives and people who have no interest in becoming managers. People who want work to be central to their identity and people who see work primarily as something that supports the rest of their lives.
We don’t have to decide which philosophy is correct.
We have to learn how to work together.
And Now There Is AI
Artificial intelligence adds another dimension.
People are entering the age of AI with very different levels of access, experience, enthusiasm and concern.
Some people can’t wait to use AI. Others worry about what it will do to their jobs. Some have had extensive opportunities to learn these tools. Others have barely encountered them.
That raises new questions about inclusion.
Who gets access?
Who receives training?
Whose job is redesigned?
Who benefits from increased productivity?
Whose voice is included when organizations decide how AI will be used?
And what happens if technology begins reproducing assumptions and biases that already exist within our organizations and society?
In an AI-enabled workplace, diversity isn’t simply about having different people in the room.
It is also about making sure different people have a meaningful opportunity to participate in what the organization is becoming.
Technology may change enormously in the years ahead.
Our responsibility to one another doesn’t disappear with it.
Inclusion Is More Than Invitation
I think there is an important distinction between diversity and inclusion.
Diversity means difference. Inclusion is what we do with difference.
An organization can be diverse without being particularly inclusive.
People can be present without being heard.
They can be invited without feeling welcome.
They can attend the meeting without believing it is safe to disagree.
They can have a seat at the table while realizing that the important decisions were made somewhere else.
When people don’t feel included, they often protect themselves. Communication closes. People withdraw. Risk-taking decreases. Ideas remain unspoken.
When people feel included, something different becomes possible.
Trust grows. People contribute. Different ideas emerge. Collaboration becomes easier. Creativity has room to breathe.
But increasingly, I think there is another step beyond inclusion.
From Inclusion to Appreciation
The word I keep coming back to is appreciation.
Tolerance says:
I can live with your difference.
Acceptance says:
I recognize your difference.
Inclusion says:
There is room for your difference.
Appreciation asks:
What might I learn because you are different from me?
That question changes things.
The colleague who approaches work differently may see a problem you have missed.
The person from another generation may challenge assumptions about careers that you have never questioned.
Someone from another culture may understand a customer or situation in a way you cannot.
The quiet person in the meeting may be seeing something that everyone else has overlooked.
The person who disagrees with you may even help you understand your own beliefs more clearly.
Difference stops being something we have to manage.
It becomes something from which we can learn.
Curiosity May Be the Beginning
We will never completely eliminate our assumptions.
We won’t understand every culture, identity, generation, life experience or way of seeing the world.
Maybe we don’t need to.
Perhaps we can begin with something simpler.
Curiosity.
Ask rather than assume.
Listen rather than immediately explain.
Notice who isn’t speaking.
Seek perspectives that challenge your own.
Give people opportunities to surprise you.
And perhaps most difficult of all, be willing to change your mind.
None of this requires us to agree with everyone.
Inclusion does not require agreement.
Appreciation does not require abandoning our own beliefs.
It asks us to recognize that another human being’s experience may contain something we cannot see from where we are standing.
That requires humility.
And perhaps a little courage.
Start With Yourself
It is tempting to make diversity an organizational issue.
What should HR do?
What policies should the company create?
What training should employees receive?
Those questions matter.
But I would begin somewhere smaller.
With ourselves.
Think about the people you encounter in your own life.
Who do you understand least?
Whose behavior do you quickly judge?
Whose choices make little sense to you?
Who sees work, success, family, leadership, technology or the world very differently from you?
Instead of immediately deciding what that difference means, become curious about your reaction to it.
Where did it come from?
What might you be assuming?
What don’t you know?
And perhaps the most interesting question:
What might this person see that I don’t?
Beyond Diversity
So perhaps we can approach diversity a little differently.
Yes, learn about cultures and identities.
Yes, understand discrimination and inequity.
Yes, examine organizational policies and practices.
Those things remain important.
But don’t stop there.
Notice your assumptions.
Question your first impressions.
Pay attention to your behavior.
Become curious when someone sees the world differently.
Listen to people whose experiences are unlike your own.
And when one of your long-held beliefs no longer seems useful, give yourself permission to change it.
Maybe our goal shouldn’t be to become blind to human differences.
Maybe it should be exactly the opposite.
Notice them.
Become curious about them.
Question the assumptions you attach to them.
And perhaps, over time, learn to appreciate that another human being may see something in this world that you cannot see from where you are standing.
That may be where inclusion truly begins.