Limits of Diversity

It’s interesting diversity in modern institutes seems to be limited to so in ethnocultural background, gender, and sexual orientation with consideration for socioeconomic background and religion and recent additions of disability status, neurodivergence, and age.

The characteristics firms seek diversity in serve as a compensatory measure to empower typically underrepresented minority groups. However, these bases of diversity hold little pertinence to work ethic, output, aptitude, or caliber.

It would be more suitable to the work output and quality to seek diversity in personality, cognitive, and intelligence types, academic and professional backgrounds, work styles, frames of thinking, interests, skills, industries of work, and relevant life experiences.

In some ways, diversity in the typical traits is for show. It’s good marketing, in culturally, and you seem inclusive and righteous. That’s more important than critically evaluating diversity in what factors is relevant and important and making decisions that fulfil lacking practically beneficial diversity-ethos.

Diversity in individualistic traits is more important than what seems to be the conventional kind of diversity – accommodating different minority groups, which largely has reputation-enhancing, convention-obeying, and historical marginalisation-correcting roots. These traits are also obvious and easy to gauge.

Although there is variation that comes with diversity in ethnocultural backgrounds, genders, sexual orientation, and representation is compensationarily generous to those involved, particularly towards the ones who wouldn’t get selected if the criteria were merit-only, a more robustly considerate approach to diversity can lead to increased quality and profitability if is isn’t unfortunately affected by potential loss of business that may come with not appearing diverse in the conventional ways.

These dimensions of diversity that are intended to combat systemic inequality and historical disadvantages are increasingly irrelevant as modern societies generally get more progressive over time. Yet, the touting and popularity of this kind of diversity stands in effacing contrast with diversity of the more truely progressive individual-level traits.

Diversity of individual-level characteristics gets squandered because of the conventional importance of diversity in group-level (could be sex/race/sex orientation or where they went to uni or other group ties that give them prestige or appeal just for the pure fact that they belong to the group) characteristics.

There’s more to diversity than cultural and sexual characteristics. Though it may be harder to gauge than boxes you can check in job applications, inculcating diversity of more individual-level characteristics leads to better and more varied ideas.

Consider the example of a Business Analyst, a common and accessible corporate role. Success in this role involves strong communication, analytical skills, technical proficiency, and stakeholder management abilities.

In not just this role but also in majority of roles, being socioculturally minority doesn’t necessarily make you any more qualified for the role. It does, however, help companies comply with anti-discrimination laws and hit advertisable targets that attract business and employees that buy in.

Diversity of individual-level traits, however, is less measurable and more nuanced and multifarious than groups you can liberally bracket yourself into.

In addition to the resume, the most flattering portrayal of the considered, cognitive, work-style, and personality assessments, tests of skills applicable to the role, the more applicable to entry-level though of moderate at most significance transcript, relevant project-work and certifications, demonstrations of life experience (like you leading a volunteer group to East Timor and applying to a managerial role at a non-profit) are some implementable approximating measures of invisible individualistic traits.