Diversity, chocolate and safe cracking.

Diversity. It’s the topic of the hour.

But, do we want diverse teams because it’s the “right thing to do”? Are we hiring minorities to keep up with quotas or our competition?

This talk will engage the audience in a frank discussion on what diversity is, why we need it and how we might achieve it.

Diversity. It’s the topic of the hour. Organisations are all putting ‘diversity’ and ‘equal opportunities’ on every job ad. But, for some organisations it still seems to be a struggle.

What’s the goal? Do we want diverse teams because it’s the “right thing to do” or is it “good for our teams and organisations”? Are we hiring minorities to keep up with quotas or our competition?

This talk will engage the audience in a frank discussion on what diversity is, why we need it and how we might achieve it. Guiding attendees through the latest research with practical exercises to demonstrate the issues and open discussion to find answers to the following questions:

• What does diversity mean? How does it relate to me?
• Why does diversity matter in effective teams?
• How can teams where everyone is different be effective?
• How can we increase diversity in our organisations?
• Is positive discrimination a feasible and ethical way to achieve diversity in our organisations?
• How can I employ a diverse group, when they are not applying?

Diversity is no longer just a moral imperative, it’s critical to effective organisations.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand how diversity relates to them.
• Understand what diversity is.
• Understand why diversity is essential to effective teams.
• Understand the challenges diverse teams might face and how to overcome them.
• Understand the role of positive discrimination in forming effective teams.
• Understand how some organisations have incentivised greater number of applications from underrepresented groups.

This is a new session for me, but I’m an experienced speaker. Here is a rough breakdown of the session to give you an idea of the content.

What diversity is.

This is a presentation with a bit of discussion with the audience.

• Introduction, who I am and the background of the subject.
• Discussion on diversity, does it apply to you?
• The actual definition of diversity.

Why diversity matters to effective teams.

An introduction into current research on diversity and an exercise to explore why diversity leads to effective teams.

• Looking into the research, what does diversity have to do with anything?
• Safe cracking exercise to show why having a mixture of perspectives is important.
• How can we make a team work if everyone is different?

How we can increase diversity in our teams.

A discussion on positive discrimination, it’s potential pitfalls, ethical challenges and what to do when there are no applicants.

• Discuss why positive discrimination makes sense where the goal is how to make the team most effective.
• Discussion on the ethics of positive discrimination.
• What can we do before people apply.
• Closing