4 Things Leaders Should Know About Creating Diverse Teams
When it comes to diversifying teams to reflect the local community, I often hear from leaders one form or another of “we don’t have people ‘like that’ to put on our team.” There are many reasons why this could certainly be true. You look around and you simply “can’t find” people of different races, nationalities, genders, etc. to add to your team.
However, my personal experience when I hear this from leaders is that there are three main reasons especially people of color (POC) can’t be found if you will: POC haven’t had a personal invitation to your table, POC don’t feel comfortable around you and the culture you have created, and/or you haven’t taken the time to develop POC in your community to the standards you have for team membership.
If you find yourself realizing something needs to change in order to diversify your team, you absolutely can do this and avoid hearing from people after the fact “You wanted a black face, but the truth is you never wanted a black voice.”[i]
How Leaders Shape Organizational Culture
When it comes to organizational, business, and church cultures, leaders are the culture managers. So, the beliefs, values, and norms of leaders shape the culture of their organization. And leaders either operate out of the belief system that everyone has inherent worth and value, or they do not. When leaders genuinely believe that each person has inherent worth and value, it is only then that differing cultures (and thus approaches, thoughts, ideas, and values) are allowed to exist without being threatening. When leaders maintain a posture of appreciation, intrigue, and interest in others, they bestow upon others value, worth, and dignity.
The alternative to this posture is maintaining the belief that as the leader, I have the only true culture and value system. Essentially believing then that I am “right” and everyone else is “wrong;” only my culture and values carry weight and worth. In essence, this is what we say every time we do not create environments where diversity not only exists superficially but also prospers.
Racial diversity absolutely matters. But I believe that if we minimize racial diversity to skin color alone, we put ourselves in a position to have said about us what the character Chris Darden said in the 2016 TV miniseries “The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” “You wanted a black face, but the truth is you never wanted a black voice.”[ii] This is worth repeating, “You wanted a black face, but the truth is you never wanted a black voice.”
So, to minimize racial diversity to skin color alone misses what it means to create diverse teams. Organizations, businesses, and churches in which cultural diversity not only exists, but is valued and promoted, are not only able to recruit diversity, but also retain it, and thus set itself up for future success. Cultural diversity is not simply “politically correct,” it is vital to the future existence of every organization.
Creating Culturally Diverse Teams
There are a number of ways leaders can create environments where cultural diversity thrives in their organizations. The best ways to create culturally diverse teams require leaders to minimally commit to taking the following four steps.
- Life-long learning
In order for you to lead the way implementing change within your organization, life-long learning must be a paramount personal value. The “how” and “why” we do what we do must change. Nothing ever changed by doing things the same way they have always been done. In order for organizations to become inclusive of cultural diversity, leaders must be life-long learners who can implement change, personally and organization-wide.[iii] Any new approach requires a new way of thinking about and seeing things. Doing anything new requires leaders to look beyond how things have always been done before and foster environments where taking risks is rewarded, not punished[iv] Taking risks requires that leaders continually posture themselves to be life-long learners.
- Modeling the Way Personally
Leaders must “model the way” and show with actions and words how we want others to do what it is we are asking of them.[v] Cultural changes always involve behavioral changes, and these begin with us as leaders. We cannot make cultural changes without actually doing things differently ourselves. If what we say we value does not match what we do (and thus actually value), we foster mistrust every time. Stop for a minute and think about when you have heard someone say something and then do something else entirely and think about how it made you feel. Lasting change will never take place without trust. Leaders must model the way through their own words and behaviors first.
- Promoting cross-cultural understanding
To ensure diversity is celebrated on our teams, it starts with leaders understanding that every interaction with another person is in fact a “cross-cultural” interaction. The more leaders not only embrace this reality but also normalize it by acknowledging the cultural differences that exist on every team, the better able everyone will become at cross-cultural communication and understanding. Every person brings to the table their own life experiences, personality, family of origin culture, macro culture, etc. that influence their individual culture. When leaders fail to recognize this reality, and instead demand (even subconsciously) that everyone “fall in line,” leaders fail to create environments for diversity to not only exist but to also prosper.
In the 2016 Minneapolis Star Tribune article “Twin Cities businesses ask why professionals of color leave,” they quoted an online survey of professionals of color who indicated one of the reasons they were looking for work in other cities was because they felt that “In order to fit in, they need[ed] to lose their identity.”[vi] Failing to acknowledge and promote cross-cultural understanding leads to hiring and placing people on teams simply to satisfy quotas. We must commit to ending this practice now if we genuinely want to diversify our teams.
- Stimulating diversity within the organization
Leaders must also personally stimulate diversity within the organization. This means intentionally ensuring that diverse voices are not only present at every meeting, but heard, listened to, and sought out. It is not enough to hire one person to be the “token fill-in-the-blank.” But rather, diverse ideas and values must be accepted and even celebrated in order for true diversity to exist.
To do this well, leaders must not only allow, but also encourage conflict. Conflict is inevitable whenever more than one culture is allowed to exist. In her Ted talk Dare to Disagree, Margaret Heffernan offered that a better way of defining conflict is as “constructive thinking relationships.” We cannot have diversity without conflict. If our team meetings are without conflict, everyone likely believes that they had to lose their identity in order to stay at the table. In order for conflict to be a tool for growth and development, leaders must embrace the reality that their ideas will be contended. And leaders must create environments where this is not only okay but also preferred. Yes, it means we leave our egos at the door.
As you move forward with creating culturally diverse teams, please remember this: This will be a journey because there is no quick fix. The moment you try and quickly “fix this," the moment you continue to perpetuate the problem of inviting POC to the table without having created cultures for them to flourish by bringing their whole selves to your team.
I want to encourage you not to do this alone. I would love to go on this journey with you, as would others in your community! The more voices you invite to speak into this process, the better able you will be to create cultures that genuinely celebrate diversity and thrive over the long haul.
If you want a step-by-step guide to walk you through how to do this well, you can download my complete guide to creating diverse teams. Together, we can do this long work well!
[i] The character Chris Darden said in the 2016 TV miniseries “The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” “You wanted a black face, but the truth is you never wanted a black voice” (Murphy et al., 2016).
[ii] Murphy et al. 2016
[iii] Cameron & Quinn, 2011
[iv] James Kouzes & Barry Posner, The Leadership Challenge (2012).
[v] Kouzes & Posner, 2012
[vi] Prather, 2016