Diversity Is More Than Just Numbers

Research shows that gender and racial board diversity is good for business, leading to stronger performance, higher returns, and better employee engagement and retention. Yet progress in making corporate America more diverse and inclusive, particularly in its leadership, remains slow, due, in part, to a focus on diversity statistics. These numbers are important, but they can create tunnel vision, leading businesses to neglect the underlying causes of how an organization’s diversity makeup came to be and the true nature of the company’s culture. Business leaders should balance their approach by paying more attention to company culture, and boards should review and center targeted diversity and inclusion plans. Because America’s workplace diversity and inclusion problem is a systemic one, stemming from years of institutional racism, conscious and unconscious bias, and economic inequality. Broad, collective action is necessary to bring about lasting change. Employees should be made are aware of unconscious bias in the workplace in order to prevent it, be able to have open conversations about inclusion-related issues and feel understood by their teams and management. Moving the needle on diversity and inclusion requires deliberate planning, expert execution and accountability, says Tim Ryan, U.S. chairman and senior partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers and co-founder of CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion.

Read the full article on Fortune.com.