Get Out of the ‘Red’ With Diversity

A version of this post was originally published on The Kaleidoscope Group’s blog. It is republished here with permission.

No five-star chef seeks out mediocre ingredients. Similarly, no organization creates sustained greatness on a foundation of mediocre talent. The quest is to recruit and retain the best and brightest, to build on a foundation of best talent.

Research consistently shows that diverse teams outperform non-diverse teams over time. If your goal is to innovate, to illuminate blind spots where opportunities lie and pitfalls lurk, securing best talent means attracting and advancing diverse talent.

For too many organizations, doing “what you've always done” to acquire talent has you firmly in the RED: Your efforts are reactive, expensive and desperate.

Isaias Zamarripa, VP/diversity talent acquisition practice for The Kaleidoscope Group, coined this acronym after recognizing unmistakable patterns of behavior and beliefs over his years of helping companies of all shapes and sizes struggle to create and maintain workforce diversity.

• Reactive: Driven by the recognition of suboptimal outcomes, or worse, as a response to outside pressures—legal or otherwise—operating from a reactive place severely diminishes the odds of securing best talent. Even if diverse talent is brought into the organization, it is imperative that an inclusive culture is developed. In an inclusive culture, diverse talent thrives. When there is not an inclusive culture, the “reaction” to new talent can be as violent as an organ rejection, with talent fleeing to find organizations where they feel welcomed and valued.
• Expensive: About that “dollar short,” companies that operate from the RED compound their negative business outcomes by pulling more dollars from a diminished bottom line. The old axiom is: “Good, fast, cheap… You can have two. But you can’t have all three.” If you want best talent (good) and you have to have it now (fast), guess what that means? It means using outside agencies. It means paying headhunters. That all costs money.
• Desperate: Work is piling up. There’s a hole in the team. Everyone is stressed from picking up the slack. This is not a time when anyone is going to be particularly interested in conducting an exhaustive talent search. Further, even if they were interested, where would they find the time? No, this is when you “do what you always did,” when you scan resumes for the same old colleges, when you conduct interviews with same old unconscious biases, when you “hire like me” and choose a candidate who meets the minimum requirements rather than a candidate who brings experience and knowledge that might truly elevate the level of your credit union's performance. You'll get “what you always got.”

Life in the RED for businesses includes a series of unexpected departures and disappointing outcomes that lead to competitive disadvantage and, in the worst cases, locked doors and shuttered windows.

Orlando Bishop is a thought leader with The Kaleidoscope Group, Chicago.

Also read “Intentional Diversity Is FUN,” “Diversity at the Top” and “Three Ways to Retain Your Top Diverse Leadership Talent.”