Most of the second paragraph is devoted to the fact that the talent base is becoming more diverse. That does not make diversity itself inherently valuable, it just means that it's a disadvantage to restrict yourself to a monoculture.
The part about workplaces with more female executives being more profitable is weak evidence for the inherent value of diversity because it could easily be driven by the above effect or any number of other factors.
Ok, maybe the second paragraph is kinda bunk, but there's still good stuff in the third paragraph.
I mean, the question is 'diversity in the workplace' in western nations pretty much comes down to asking the questions of 'why should your workplace not roughly reflect your hiring pool' and 'why should your hiring pool not roughly reflect your demographics'. There can be good reasons for why either may not the case for specific instances, but unless you can give a good reason, then you're either actively screwing people over, or participating in some sort of systemic activity that's screwing people over.
I think the question about diversity, though, often comes down to "why should you prioritize diversity over other factors", not "why should you not avoid hiring blacks/women etc". I think generally the debate now is about whether a "blind" hiring process would be better than a "diversity-aware" hiring process, where you are actively shooting for a culturally/ethnically/gender diverse team, and about how much "diversity" counts for vs. skill (i.e. person A is a better programmer than person B, but person A is white/straight/male and person B is black/gay/female - how much better than B does A have to be that his value outweighs the diversity value of hiring B).
Imo it's better because you have a different set of eyes and perspectives looking at a problem so you don't have issues the Kodak issue of the 70s or the recent google image search issues. A more diverse workforce may have caught these issues before they hit production. You can't see problems if you don't know they exist.
http://petapixel.com/2015/09/19/heres-a-look-at-how-color-fi...
A real-world example: we were in negotiations about a big project with a vendor. We - a team of guys about the same age - had a lot of issues with the technical solution the vendor proposed. The next day they brought in a very attractive blonde engineer, and my useless straight colleagues would be gazing at her legs rather than asking tough technical questions. The vendor wouldn't have tried this if we had some women on the team.
All this really means is that your colleagues are unprofessional and/or incompetent. There's a zero guarantee that having women on your team would prevent them from doing that.
There is a saying that you can only manage what you can measure, but the problem is then, you only manage what you can easily measure. It's easy to tick boxes for gender, sexuality, race etc - but if everyone you hire is a 20-something graduate of the same top 10 universities, from the same socio-economic class, having sat in the same lectures, read the same books, been exposed to all the same ideas, buys the same brands, has the same hobbies, then how can the benefits of diversity be realized? I believe nearly every high-profile product flop from major tech firms can be attributed to this.
Monocultures, almost by definition, encourage groups to think alike. That means the group doesn't invent anything new, and has a strong tendency to work towards the lowest denominator. While that's sometimes valuable -- not everything needs to be revolutionary -- it does mean that true innovation is harder to achieve, because nobody is thinking outside the box. In fact, most of the team isn't even aware of the box.
Step back from the color- and gender-counting varieties of diversity for a moment, and just think of the notion of diversity itself: a variation of backgrounds and viewpoints, which can contribute to a wider view and, when done mindfully, more opportunities to serve the community (the same community that buys your products).
Surely you've had that wonderful feeling when a teammate comes up with an idea, and you respond, "Wow, what a great suggestion! I'd never have thought of that!" With attention to diversity (by which I mean, "attracting people of different viewpoints"), you encounter that sense of discovery far more often.
But were those truly monocultures? "Diversity" as practiced in the modern sense doesn't account for age, but it wasn't always so: once upon a time experience was valued... That's a key piece that's missing from all these discussions.
Except the diversity quotas, or EEOs as they call it now, almost never allow for truly norm-bending individuals to access those roles. Having a different skin colour does not make or break group thinking.
It's a mirage, at best, and a sad state of affairs for racial perception at worst. That trendy cult of diversity is only contributing to kick-start racial consciousness among white people and that fragmented society is going to blow-up in your face, down the road.
FWIW I agree with you. Anything forced on a group is apt to be resented by its members, including the "token whatever" who feels that she has to represent "her kind" instead of winning or failing on her own merits.
Instead, groups benefit when they themselves work to expand their own membership. It's _really_ easy for all of us to look for people who share our outlooks and opinions, a "mini me" in some way. But we grow only when we insert new ideas.
I've been exceedingly lucky, in that I've worked with diverse groups of all sorts. They include people from varied backgrounds (rural vs city, money vs poor, race, gender), and in every instance I can think of a time when that "differentness" caused us to think of a better and different answer. For a lame example, someone who grew up in a rural area is more likely to think about how an online application works in a region with lousy connectivity. It's not that other team members can't think of such things, but the background ensure someone does.
>Monocultures, almost by definition, encourage groups to think alike.
Why is that bad? The barriers in regards to language, religion, customs are close to non-existent and the possibilities of conflicts over gender/race dynamics are greatly lessened. The time that would otherwise be wasted on sorting out these differences can be used to perform actual work.
Diversity in viewpoints, which I agree is important, does not arise from diversity in race or gender. The celebration of diversity in race or gender seems to be just for the sake of diversity.
I don't know how you would select for diversity in viewpoints when hiring. But I do know that selecting for diversity in race or gender isn't a way to get there.
I make software for everyone, not just white males. Why? Well, consider if nothing else, that white males are not a majority of the world population! There is a lot of money being left on the table!
As an example, let's say you are productizing a consumer UV monitor. For the American market, you sell it to 20 something white men in Cali as a way to work on their tan.
Hey, maybe you succeed! But you are a fraction of the size you should be.
If that team had a parent on it, he or she would ask about using it for babies.
A woman from the south east part of Asia may ask about develop it for use in avoiding UV exposure! A completely opposite use case from the target audience!
As I said, if you consider nothing else, money left on the table.
I am left speechless before this comment. I cannot believe some people here unironically believe that because they hired someone with a particular skin colour or heritage this will translate in better software for their end-users.
You do realise that worshipping diversity is symmetrically as non-sensical as starting a cult for homogeneity? Your assumption that an unlabelled individuals cannot work on a product whose target market isn't them is crazy.
>I make software for everyone, not just white males. Why? Well, consider if nothing else, that white males are not a majority of the world population! There is a lot of money being left on the table!
By your own logic you should mostly hire europeans because, well the EU is the single largest market of high purchasing power individuals. Do you see yourself saying to a capable latinx engineer: "Nope, sorry, your demographic isn't my main consumer target and everyone knows the craftsman has to be as close as possible from the consumer; Sorry, really mate".
Please remind me never to invest in anything you touch.
The examples I gave are from my own personal experience.
If you have a team of people in Seattle developing a product that measures UV, they will first bias themselves towards more light exposure (SAD is a huge thing in the Pacific Northwest), give a team from Australia the same job, and they'll look at using it for avoiding too much sun exposure.
Another example;
Microsoft's original Xbox controller was too big for many people's hands[0] (women, children, and many Japanese users as well). A more diverse team would have made that very obvious. Again, I've witnessed the result of industrial design within a diverse team, the second a physical product doesn't work for a member of the team, everyone starts to feel very differently.
Yes in theory you can do a lot of user research and gain a better understanding of your target market, and yes some teams do succeed with that approach. But I've witnessed that personal anecdotes from a team member hold a lot more sway (rightly or wrongly!) than user research studies do.
Think of it this way, for the people who were on that Xbox controller design team, for everyone they knew, the controller was a great fit. If at some point they got back a survey result saying that your survey (biased towards white males in their late teens to early 20s) came back with some small % of people having an issue, well, "works for me, and the 100 other engineers on this team" is the reply that will be given.
> By your own logic you should mostly hire europeans because, well the EU is the single largest market of high purchasing power individuals. Do you see yourself saying to a capable latinx engineer: "Nope, sorry, your demographic isn't my main consumer target and everyone knows the craftsman has to be as close as possible from the consumer; Sorry, really mate".
That is not what I am saying.
In fact, I made no argument one way or the other about that. I only replied to a poster who said that they saw NO purpose at all in diversity on a team. I pointed out that diversity on a team can bring in different perspectives and viewpoints. I'm not advocating quotas, I'm advocating not being an asshole when hiring.
All in all, I believe it is worth trying to remove bias from the hiring process, because leaving good /talent/ on the table is just plain stupid. As a hiring manager, doing interviews I have had feedback given back to me about candidates implying that due to the candidates ethnicity, that the candidate may not be a good "fit for my team".
Crap like that is unacceptable, and leads to rejecting great developers.
It would be very possible to make the UV measuring tool that would work for both locations if the spec would be clearly defined; in the case of the Xbox controller you still need to adhere to some kind of a median value when it comes to ergonomics. Both your examples are a case of design issues to which diversity is only one of the solutions available with no real guarantee that it will work.
We have proven studies that the c-factor of a group (think of it as an IQ test for groups of people, it measures the ability to solve problems) increases with the ratio of women.
As for nationalities, I have discovered that companies who look for specific technical skills worldwide usually very naturally become diverse.
Most of modern science and technology has been discovered/invented by white males - an incredibly uniform group in the eyes of today's diversity police. Clearly the lack of diversity was not that big of a problem for them.
31 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 77.1 ms ] threadWhy? What makes this inherently better than say, a monocultural group like Japan.
The part about workplaces with more female executives being more profitable is weak evidence for the inherent value of diversity because it could easily be driven by the above effect or any number of other factors.
I mean, the question is 'diversity in the workplace' in western nations pretty much comes down to asking the questions of 'why should your workplace not roughly reflect your hiring pool' and 'why should your hiring pool not roughly reflect your demographics'. There can be good reasons for why either may not the case for specific instances, but unless you can give a good reason, then you're either actively screwing people over, or participating in some sort of systemic activity that's screwing people over.
I think the question about diversity, though, often comes down to "why should you prioritize diversity over other factors", not "why should you not avoid hiring blacks/women etc". I think generally the debate now is about whether a "blind" hiring process would be better than a "diversity-aware" hiring process, where you are actively shooting for a culturally/ethnically/gender diverse team, and about how much "diversity" counts for vs. skill (i.e. person A is a better programmer than person B, but person A is white/straight/male and person B is black/gay/female - how much better than B does A have to be that his value outweighs the diversity value of hiring B).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/06/1...
"Cool, you hired a dynamic Python dev, a static functional Haskel dev and a UX inclined HTML/C# dev?"
"Err... No, we hired a cartesian product of races and genders within Java skillset... But they sure have different worldviews!"
I'm not arguing it's a bad thing.. but why is it a bad thing?
The most notable thing I see in diversity are additional language and cultural barriers that will slow down productivity.
Step back from the color- and gender-counting varieties of diversity for a moment, and just think of the notion of diversity itself: a variation of backgrounds and viewpoints, which can contribute to a wider view and, when done mindfully, more opportunities to serve the community (the same community that buys your products).
Surely you've had that wonderful feeling when a teammate comes up with an idea, and you respond, "Wow, what a great suggestion! I'd never have thought of that!" With attention to diversity (by which I mean, "attracting people of different viewpoints"), you encounter that sense of discovery far more often.
It's a mirage, at best, and a sad state of affairs for racial perception at worst. That trendy cult of diversity is only contributing to kick-start racial consciousness among white people and that fragmented society is going to blow-up in your face, down the road.
Instead, groups benefit when they themselves work to expand their own membership. It's _really_ easy for all of us to look for people who share our outlooks and opinions, a "mini me" in some way. But we grow only when we insert new ideas.
I've been exceedingly lucky, in that I've worked with diverse groups of all sorts. They include people from varied backgrounds (rural vs city, money vs poor, race, gender), and in every instance I can think of a time when that "differentness" caused us to think of a better and different answer. For a lame example, someone who grew up in a rural area is more likely to think about how an online application works in a region with lousy connectivity. It's not that other team members can't think of such things, but the background ensure someone does.
Why is that bad? The barriers in regards to language, religion, customs are close to non-existent and the possibilities of conflicts over gender/race dynamics are greatly lessened. The time that would otherwise be wasted on sorting out these differences can be used to perform actual work.
>That means the group doesn't invent anything new
Really?
I don't know how you would select for diversity in viewpoints when hiring. But I do know that selecting for diversity in race or gender isn't a way to get there.
As an example, let's say you are productizing a consumer UV monitor. For the American market, you sell it to 20 something white men in Cali as a way to work on their tan.
Hey, maybe you succeed! But you are a fraction of the size you should be.
If that team had a parent on it, he or she would ask about using it for babies.
A woman from the south east part of Asia may ask about develop it for use in avoiding UV exposure! A completely opposite use case from the target audience!
As I said, if you consider nothing else, money left on the table.
You do realise that worshipping diversity is symmetrically as non-sensical as starting a cult for homogeneity? Your assumption that an unlabelled individuals cannot work on a product whose target market isn't them is crazy.
>I make software for everyone, not just white males. Why? Well, consider if nothing else, that white males are not a majority of the world population! There is a lot of money being left on the table!
By your own logic you should mostly hire europeans because, well the EU is the single largest market of high purchasing power individuals. Do you see yourself saying to a capable latinx engineer: "Nope, sorry, your demographic isn't my main consumer target and everyone knows the craftsman has to be as close as possible from the consumer; Sorry, really mate".
Please remind me never to invest in anything you touch.
If you have a team of people in Seattle developing a product that measures UV, they will first bias themselves towards more light exposure (SAD is a huge thing in the Pacific Northwest), give a team from Australia the same job, and they'll look at using it for avoiding too much sun exposure.
Another example;
Microsoft's original Xbox controller was too big for many people's hands[0] (women, children, and many Japanese users as well). A more diverse team would have made that very obvious. Again, I've witnessed the result of industrial design within a diverse team, the second a physical product doesn't work for a member of the team, everyone starts to feel very differently.
Yes in theory you can do a lot of user research and gain a better understanding of your target market, and yes some teams do succeed with that approach. But I've witnessed that personal anecdotes from a team member hold a lot more sway (rightly or wrongly!) than user research studies do.
Think of it this way, for the people who were on that Xbox controller design team, for everyone they knew, the controller was a great fit. If at some point they got back a survey result saying that your survey (biased towards white males in their late teens to early 20s) came back with some small % of people having an issue, well, "works for me, and the 100 other engineers on this team" is the reply that will be given.
> By your own logic you should mostly hire europeans because, well the EU is the single largest market of high purchasing power individuals. Do you see yourself saying to a capable latinx engineer: "Nope, sorry, your demographic isn't my main consumer target and everyone knows the craftsman has to be as close as possible from the consumer; Sorry, really mate".
That is not what I am saying.
In fact, I made no argument one way or the other about that. I only replied to a poster who said that they saw NO purpose at all in diversity on a team. I pointed out that diversity on a team can bring in different perspectives and viewpoints. I'm not advocating quotas, I'm advocating not being an asshole when hiring.
All in all, I believe it is worth trying to remove bias from the hiring process, because leaving good /talent/ on the table is just plain stupid. As a hiring manager, doing interviews I have had feedback given back to me about candidates implying that due to the candidates ethnicity, that the candidate may not be a good "fit for my team".
Crap like that is unacceptable, and leads to rejecting great developers.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Controller#History
As for nationalities, I have discovered that companies who look for specific technical skills worldwide usually very naturally become diverse.
Disclaimer: I'm a non-white male.