I’ve been working on this blog post for about a month, with the initial idea coming to me even longer ago than that. The question that has stopped me from completing it, let alone posting, has been, who am I to talk on this topic? What can I add to the conversation?
May 17th is International Day Against Homophobia, Transphonia, and Biphobia (#IDAHOT). I’m going to stop silencing myself and just put my thoughts on the topic of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) out there.
What does that mean?
Defining our terms on this topic is a little problematic. The dictionary definition of Diversity is fine.
Diversity – The condition of having or being composed of differing elements, especially the inclusion of different types of people (such as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization
– Merriam-Webster: Diversity
The definition of Inclusion is problematic on several levels, not the least of which is, it isn’t very inclusive.
Inclusion –
- The act of including; The state of being included
- Science definition
- Venn diagram definition
- The act or pract ice of including students with disabilities in regular school classes
That first definition of Inclusion makes me question my own understanding of grammar. Adding the suffix “ion” to an English word generally makes it a noun, meaning anything-ion is a noun. “The [any verb] of [any verb]” just doesn’t seem like it should add up to a noun, a -ion word, grammatically speaking.
“The state of being included” is better, but still fails, because it includes the word Include in the definition of a word based on the word Include. It’s not clarifying anything.
Then there’s the non-inclusive 4th definition that relates the word specifically to 1) kids, 2) kids with disabilities, and contains 3) the pejorative regular school classes. Is the dictionary actually telling us that only including kids with disabilities in schools not specifically built for kids with disabilities (the most generous/ least ableist definition of “regular schools” I can think of) counts as Inclusion?
If that’s what’s in the dictionary, then the state of inclusion in the working world becomes somewhat more understandable. Not excusable in any way, just more understandable.
Let’s turn to diversity and inclusion consultant Verna Myers for our definition:
“Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance.”
What’s the point?
The purpose of diversity follows the purpose of agile, as in agile development methodologies: bring in more data, more voices, when making decisions, and course-correct based on feedback of a representational group of end users (User Acceptance Testing).
The purpose of development cycles is to improve quality over time (Deming Cycle). Quality, or what to improve, is defined differently for each industry, each company, each product.
Nokia’s fall wasn’t just a marketing failure. They famously (infamously) defined Quality in such a way that they “improved” themselves from the leaders of the smartphone market, to completely out of the smartphone business. They continually improved their core product, what the market now would see as very basic smartphones (hardware). The data Nokia gathered and fed back into the product development lifecycle wasn’t sufficiently diverse, meaning did not contain sufficiently different perspectives, to incorporate a pivot to a new software, even after the limitations of their platform became apparent.
- Gizmodo: How Nokia lost the smartphone race a decade ago
- The New Yorker: Where Nokia went wrong
- INSEAD Knowledge: The strategic decisions that caused Nokia’s failure
Do you know this tune?
Okay, you’re at the party, you’re dancing. What does that look like?
While different perspectives may be present, are the diverse voices heard? Are the differing perspectives taken into account, given equal or appropriate weight, at decision time? Is that what it means be asked to dance?
Tech teams tend to be very hierarchical, with the loudest voice being the only one that speaks, not just the only voice heard. The bottom line is that not everyone is heard (lack of diversity). Good leadership gets past that, either by soliciting feedback and opinions in one-to-one sessions with individuals who don’t speak up in team meetings, or by putting those reluctant speakers on the spot in team meanings, and not allowing others to talk over those quiet voices.
- Data is actively sought.
- Positive feedback loops are avoided by soliciting different perspectives.
One of the companies I worked at used the Six Thinking Hats method to solicit different perspectives.
| Six Thinking Hats | |
|---|---|
| Cautious | Black Hat |
| Constructive | Yellow Hat |
| Creative | Green Hat |
| Informative | White Hat |
| Intuitive | Red Hat |
| Reflective | Blue Hat |
Some people were better than others at specific perspectives. You knew you wanted to sit with M before a meeting with the Product decision makers, get them to “black hat” aka critique your ideas well before that presentation. If you could convince M, you were definitely likely to get management on-board. But you would have to have all of the perspectives covered. Is the idea innovative? (Green hat.) Is it useful? (Yellow and white hats, possibly also red.) What value does this add to the overall product, and who is it adding value for? (Blue hat.)
The Six Thinking Hats method of critical analysis is analysis from specific perspectives. It can’t substitute for true diversity (different voices) because there is still only 1 “voice,” the analyst’s.
Product Management’s approach to solving for diverse voices is to create personas. Personas can be generally descriptive of a particular product user, or can be very specific (J from Accounting). This similarly doesn’t substitute for diversity.
But what the Six Thinking Hats and Personas give us is that larger view of the product. It also trains us to listen to different (dare I say, diverse) voices when making product decisions, to include those perspectives before making any decisions.
Technically Writing 