Computational Leadership

Chapter 2Releasing the DEI Talent River

Growing up, I lived in a 10‐block immigrant neighborhood where distinct ethnic groups worked together to overcome extreme poverty and the terrible working conditions in the steel mills and coal mines. These courageous individuals created a shared sense of identity and community that left an indelible mark on my life regarding the value of diversity. From experience, I fundamentally know diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is critical to performance in a globalized and uncertain world. It's an opportunity to make simultaneously ethical and financial right choices. As McKinsey recently reported, DEI is “a powerful enabler of business [and social] performance … and the likelihood of diverse companies outperforming industry peers on profitability has increased significantly.”¹

DEI is a key factor for organizations looking to improve multiple aspects of their operations, including hiring, retention, and customer satisfaction. It also affects performance in complex and often unseen ways. For example, let's say that you think subconscious biases within your organization are creating hidden patterns of exclusion, such as leaders recruiting people with social backgrounds similar to their own. But how could you know for sure if there's no data to surface the underlying implicit behavior? And even if you do intuitively tap into exclusion, it's extremely difficult to address such challenges in the workplace without understanding how to pull the ...