In my post yesterday, I attempted a rebuttal of Mr. Jassey’s arguments about the superiority of in-place work.
My meta-argument was that a diverse workforce has a diverse set of needs. And that what works for some does not work for others.
A great meta-question is – so what? Does it matter to an organization if some folks are excluded, and some are not? Is cultural homogeneity an asset or a disadvantage?
When a company asserts specific lived experiences are valid and others are not, they explicitly articulate that specific human experiences suit their culture and others are wrong.
Those whose experiences fit into the wrong category self-select against that company. And over time, if it is successful, the company views its choices as correct because those who don’t fit in never show up.
They never bothered to come and talk to you because they saw that you thought they were terrible and that rejection of their existence meant there was no space for them there. But it’s just working from home? Right? Except it isn’t. Where does that end when you assert your lived experience is correct and the other person is wrong? Why should it stop at how we work together? Why not how we dress? How do we address each other?
“We chose to do it this way, and we are successful, therefore we were right.”
What was a choice, a preference, becomes because of the group’s success criteria for articulating what is generally correct and generally incorrect for all human beings.
And again, so what?
Diversity and diverse perspectives matter because otherwise, you suffer from groupthink. If everyone does it one way, and all successful people do it that way, and no one objects to how we are doing it, then it must be the right way to do things. And what happens, invariably, is that someone else figures out a better way to do it, and then the group collapses as the new way triumphs over the old course.
Several years ago, I wrote about Usain Bolt. Usain Bolt was too tall for a sprinter. That was the orthodoxy. But a coach decided to ignore orthodoxy, and guess what? Usain became the greatest sprinter of all time.
Or Ervin Johnson was too tall to be a point guard. But another coach saw his passing and skills and decided that the advantages he brought to the game because of his vision and height and reaching from the point position outweighed the benefits he got to his team as a front-court player.
History is littered with companies, teams, and organizations convinced they were doing things the right way. By asserting that their lived experience was correct over other people’s lived experiences, they drove talent away. That talent then thrived elsewhere.
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