I love the month of June—from ushering in the official start of summer to Pride and Juneteenth celebrations filling the New York City streets with joy and community to warm weather and more time spent outdoors, it feels like a natural time to re-energize, lift the spirits, and look forward with a sense of purpose and hope. Even so, I can’t help but feel reflective, as we’ve just passed the one-year mark of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. And while it can be all too easy to feel discouraged given what we’ve lost, from experience, I know the quicker I take a step in the right direction (no matter how small it may seem), the sooner I can generate the momentum needed to keep pushing onward. So let’s talk about a way many of us—business owners and anyone who has a voice in hiring decisions—can have a real impact and be a part of reshaping the world for the better.
"Together, We Have the Power to Build a Better World For All"
As my regular readers know, I’m incredibly passionate about diversity, equity, inclusion, and more precisely, representation in all its infinite forms. Amazing things can happen when you bring incredible, unique people from wildly different backgrounds together. In fact, my entire career has been about doing just that—from founding a billion-dollar business that helped other companies work across borders and language and cultural barriers to launching my foundation dedicated to bridging equity gaps and creating a world in which everyone has the tools they need to succeed. We each bring something uniquely our own to this world, and we all deserve the chance to fulfill our highest potential—not only for individual benefit, but for our collective good as well. A world in which everyone can thrive and succeed is one that will continually benefit from a wealth of perspectives, knowledge, talent, and ideas. This is precisely why I’m so passionate about dismantling barriers to opportunity and why a commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is so crucial for business and beyond.
Diverse teams are stronger problem solvers.
Diversity and inclusivity, simply put, are the future. Not only because they’re fundamentally right (which they are) or because they represent values shared by the vast majority of Millennials and Gen Z (also true), but because through them, we can build a better world. When we allow everyone to succeed, we are all better off for it (because we get to benefit from everyone’s unique talents). Diversity of backgrounds, experience, and perspectives translates to diversity of talents, skills, problem-solving tactics, vision, innovation, and so on. It may be cliche, but we are actually stronger together.
A well-rounded team will help you see things from multiple angles to better solve problems. Just take a look at the profound impact of targeted investing in social entrepreneurs from marginalized communities. One of the endeavors I’m most proud of, is the work the Elizabeth Elting Foundation does in partnership with the American Heart Association to invest in women-led and particularly women-of-color-led social enterprises. These are underrepresented entrepreneurs and organizations tackling difficult problems and doing so with exceptional rates of success. This is just a glimpse of the power of a world in which everyone has the ability to fulfill their highest potential
Inclusion fills knowledge and experience gaps and eliminates blindspots.
For the same reasons we all have our own strengths, we all also have our own blindspots. Afterall, our world is shaped by our unique, personal experiences of it. No one can possibly know, much less master, everything. Having a team with a diverse range of experiences, expertise, and perspectives helps your company be more robust and fill all of those knowledge gaps.
It’s not hard to understand how companies benefit from including a wider array of perspectives and voices in the room. We’ve all seen companies falter in the most mortifying ways and found ourselves asking, “What were they thinking?!” Remember Bic for Her, anyone? This is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the value of building diverse teams. It’s not even a novel concept, this is why market research and testing can be so invaluable.
Different perspectives breeds innovation.
Teams with diverse representation are more innovative and have a greater aptitude for out-of-the box thinking. This is yet another point that should seem intuitive, but let’s break it down. If you have a group of people who’ve generally had similar life experiences, similar upbringings, graduated with the same degree from the same handful of universities, and gained similar work experience from the same few companies in the same industry, they’re all likely to see and approach tasks in more or less similar ways. On the other hand, if you have a team of people who’ve lived in vastly different places, raised in different cultures, grew up speaking different languages, went to a wide-range of schools, majored in different studies, and gained experience in other fields, they’re each going to tackle projects in incredibly unique ways. This is the precise strength of diversity, equity, and inclusion. It’s also why highly innovative companies like Apple hire talent from across disciplines. If you want a company that thinks outside of the box, the answer is DEI.
Bringing differing perspectives to work and collaborate together doesn’t happen on its own. If it did, we wouldn’t need DEI initiatives. It takes some work to break down the status quo, to unlearn decades-old recruiting practices, and to really think differently about hiring, but the payoff is well worth the investment. If you want to build exceptional, world-changing, highly innovative teams, you need to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion. Not only will you be building a stronger business, but you’ll be building toward a better future as well. I for one couldn’t think of a greater endeavor.
WRITTEN BY
Liz Elting