Do your cultural traditions foster stability – or do they prevent you from adapting to emerging disruptions that are changing your marketplace and threatening your business model?
If you know that continuing to follow certain of your traditions is hurting you, why is it so difficult to abandon them in favor of something new and necessary?
One tradition that is currently playing out in many segments of society is workforce diversity – especially around hiring and promoting women, particularly women of color.
Quotes from scholars, spiritual, religious and business leaders about why diversity is needed abound. Diversity increases the size of our talent pools, it fosters creativity, it is morally necessary, it makes us better people, and so forth. And yet—it isn’t happening, at least not on a grand scale.
Traditions are more than habits. They define our tribe. Abandoning them, no matter how justified the reasons, threatens our sense of who we are.
How can you overcome that barrier? Here’s one way to begin. It’s about how you frame the challenge. Rather than see the change as a threat, ask yourself what it would take to see diversity as a way to strengthen your existing tribe – both in size and capability. Identify how many new growth opportunities become available with a broader set of skills that can only happen with a more diverse culture.
This is not a simple, one-time exercise. But it’s vital to your continued success.
We spend a lot of time thinking about this in terms of how we can help our clients address this challenging need. If you’d like to explore this in greater detail, contact us. We’d be happy to start a discussion that could open unseen doors of opportunity for you.
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