Diversity as a challenge for managers

A manager remarked to me the other day, "Now my employees are already younger than my children. Does that give me pause for thought?" His facial expression revealed that he was quite serious about the question. Yes, it should make him think, but not because he's getting too old - the days when over-50s were politely complimented into early retirement are long gone. Today, everyone is needed, the old and the young, and many more.

Diversity is no longer a management fashion (if it ever was), but everyday life in countless corporations, mid-sized companies and small agencies. Boomers retire, but often receive follow-up contracts because of a lack of skilled workers; trainees are teenagers; bachelor graduates are just tweens. Mergers and company splits are on the rise. Interdisciplinary collaboration is ubiquitous and more necessary than ever.

Yes, it should give leaders pause for thought about how to appropriately moderate, cultivate, and establish this growing diversity - in age, nationality, language, gender, profession, and so on. Not only in their line departments, but also among their stakeholders, in their projects, in the business units and entities for which they are responsible.

Sometimes there are pretty diversity hymns of praise: diversity makes teams more creative, their diversity of perspectives is a competitive advantage, their ability to cooperate is an asset. But that doesn't stand up to everyday scrutiny, and, by the way, it hasn't been significantly proven in scientific studies either. On the contrary: diversity increases complexity, it often increases conflicts, and not infrequently it also increases costs.

It is not for nothing that a wealth of variants, not only in the automotive industry, is regarded as the number one yield killer. The remedy for this in technical developments is "variant management," which hides behind the shiny variety of models a modular system that always uses the same components.

But this approach is neither possible nor desirable in people management. Neither technocratic attempts at standardization nor idealization will help, but only a realistic diversity strategy that is appropriate to the dynamics of the situation.

To this end, a brief digression on an aggravating phenomenon: the ingroup/outgroup dynamic. Modern working environments offer fewer and fewer strong social affiliations. This has paradoxical effects, especially with regard to diversity. Organizational flexibilization does not automatically lead to increased tolerance and interest in others and those who are different; on the contrary. One's own (fragile) affiliation is enhanced by the devaluation of "the others. This demarcation of the "ingroup" from the "outgroup" - and, as a result, not infrequently also exclusion - serves to compensate for one's own social undersupply. So what should a manager do?

Avoid gross errors

When a team is made up of two fairly familiar, stable subgroups within itself
(e.g., from old department A and old department B), the predetermined breaking point is pre-programmed. Here, "third parties" are important who break up the dualism (e.g., new hires). If exactly one "exotic" is hired into a familiar existing group - not infrequently a woman into the male team - then that is too little. An internal culture does not change just because a new individual element is added.

Instead, the exotic status is cemented, the new impulses neutralized; not infrequently, the newcomer soon leaves. If you really want to hire "freaks" to shake up your company a bit, then hire a whole gang and give them a terrain on which they can first let off steam professionally. Integrating the think tank then still remains a tough management task, but at least you haven't burned the individual people.

Hiring people who don't bring an open mindset is a gross mistake. Hopefully, you have implemented diversity capability as a selection criterion. Professional brilliance never replaces a lack of social competence. The latter always costs more than the former brings in. When hiring an external person into a top management position, it is never advisable to act only when difficulties become apparent.

Instead, invest in onboarding consulting as soon as you sign the contract. It has one of the best cost-benefit balances around. Starting over in a top role, whether from within or outside, represents an enormously valuable and irretrievable window of opportunity that the new guy or gal needs to take advantage of. There is no second opportunity.

Active social care

"Do I belong?", "Is my contribution important?" - these questions are essential for every team member, at every level. Without social belonging and the experience of self-efficacy, there is no stable functioning work constellation, no added value, no performance.

Being accepted and effective in organizational diversity is no longer just an issue of "the others," but "the others" are now everyone: these are questions that every top performer, every trainee, and every senior asks; so too for the executive mentioned at the beginning, "Does this make me think?" Yes. Thinking helps.

Use your meetings, your strategy retreats, to periodically move away from the factual level to the meta-level, the social level, and stimulate shared reflection: How do we work together? Where do we sabotage our cooperation? This is often easier with external facilitation. It is essential that you keep an eye on this social level on an ongoing basis and not just when conflicts arise.