“Diversity” is being discussed widely in the Boardroom for a while now, with a strong focus on balancing the scales of representation of different genders and cultures in business, which is, of course, important.
Equally critical is to recruit Company Board Members from different backgrounds and experiences to cultivate a diversity of thought.
When you do this, you strengthen your organization by becoming open at an Enterprise and Board-level to varied perspectives and ideas, which means you will be better prepared against the unexpected.
It guards against groupthink and encourages healthy debate and critical thinking, all in the service of better decision-making. This diversity empowers the Board to develop creative solutions to any challenge.
As a business leader and executive, I actively worked on driving diversity. To me, diversity is simply about having a balance. At one point, my direct leadership team was 70:30 female:male, and I not only actively encouraged them to offer their diverse perspectives to achieve an overall balance, but whenever talent rotation opportunities emerged, I would proactively look to balance the gender ratio out again by appointing more males to balance perspectives and styles in my leadership team.
The Boards I sit on focus on diversity of experience and thought, which makes a huge difference to our dialogue. What is your approach to inviting diversity in?
#DiversityofThought #ESG #Perspectives #ProblemSolving #DecisionMaking
CIO - Enabling People by Digital Transformation
1moNatalie Whittlesey excellent article. Influencing the BoD and commercial acumen go IMHO hand in hand. In my little world, which is very much a PE world, you are influencing them by numbers (only), which means presenting and proposing activities, how they enable business and their ROI. What I consider most challenging, is to challenge a BoD, without stepping on their toes.