Diversity in Digital

Digital transformation needs fresh perspectives and unique ideas more than anything else. The more diverse the ways of thinking are the more likely it is that something game changing will happen.

That’s why any group of 90 percent white, male, well educated, young and ambitious extroverts cannot develop an appropriate ‘mindset’ and foster a ‘culture’ to drive digital transformation.

It’s like a bunch of alpha wolves trying to form a pack.

You can find “Diversity” as an official value in almost every company’s mission statement today, yet the real world still looks different. Organisations have a hard time to get towards that desired culture. Because they’re doing it upside down.

Mindset is NOT a result of embracing diversity. It’s the other way round.

This is what I believe in.

I am a highly energetic, extrovert person. I get easily excited. I talk too much. When I start to work with a new client, I need someone on their side, who is different. Someone who tells me to shut up from time to time.

When we build up a team, this is what we do: We analyze our skills, traits and abilities. The way we think. We try to find out what we don’t know and why.

And we’ll be looking for a person to join us which brings to the team what we miss. It is only natural that this person is different from us. Different in every possible way.

When we are a team of three, we do as we did when there were only two of us. We ask ourselves: What is it that we do not see? Even if we don’t know because we might be blind for that, we know that it helps to talk to people who are just not like us.

We keep on doing this exercise of being conscious about our blind spots. That’s the way we build great teams in digital transformation. And that’s the way we should build our organisations.

Diversity is a result of building great teams, organisations and communities the right way. This means taking everything into account. Gender, age, ethnicity, personality. Not just education and experience.