Diversity – What Am I Missing?

As it is currently understood and perpetuated by society, when someone talks about diversity, they are really talking about racial and gender diversity. In fact, based on this definition, as an Indian with brown skin, I am one of the diverse persons. Good for me, right? But, I have always had problem with this definition. I have often wondered why we have decided to define diversity so narrowly. What about religious diversity or diversity based on height, weight, hair color, sexual orientation, country of origin. To be fully diverse, why stop there. We must also include people of different ages, varying mental and physical abilities and thousands of other attributes that make each one of us humans different than the other. All seven billion of us!

So, why do we define diversity the way we do. I have struggled with this question all my life and would have gone along with it if I felt it was mainly an academic and intellectual debate with no real- life ramifications. But it ceased being that when I was “advised” by my superiors to stop asking too many questions and get with the program. The conversation below is paraphrasing what transpired at one of those “advise” meetings with my boss:

“Raj, I understand you have some questions about diversity and are not fully aligned with the corporations guidelines.” My boss said as he welcomed me in his office.

“Yes, I do.” I said.

“OK, let us hear it.” he said.

I then went on to articulate what had been troubling me about the currently accepted definition of diversity and added, “Now, let me ask you something.” I said.

” OK, I am listening” he said.

“In NBA what is the predominant race of the players?” I asked.

“Why, African Americans of course.” He replied.

“How about NFL?” I continued.

“Mostly African Americans with smattering of Whites.” He said.

“And what about Golf?” I persisted.

“Mostly White.” He answered but clearly getting impatient.

“What is your point?” he asked somewhat annoyingly.

“My point is why don’t we insist on diversity and inclusion in these sports?”

“Because we want to field our best team.” He replied. He was beginning to see where I was going with this but let me continue anyways.

“You mean we don’t want to lower the bar to bring in players who may not be the best but would satisfy the diversity metrics.” I said.

“Of course not.” He replied.

“So, then please tell me why we would not want the best team in our businesses or in our governments or our academic institutions. We operate in a highly competitive high-tech world and it would make sense to me to get the best people on our team. Should not the only criteria that matters in who we bring on board is to get the most qualified person for the job and not be bogged down by some artificial requirement such as diversity. Especially if we have to lower the bar in doing so.” I said passionately.

“I hear you. But if meritocracy was the only criteria, then how are we going to bring in underrepresented segments of our population. Don’t you think it is good for business to reflect the make-up of the population it is serving.” He asked putting forward the arguments I had heard many times before justifying diversity.

“You do that by investing additional resources in training and preparing those underrepresented segments. Certainly not by lowering the bar. If we were hamstrung by having to bring in people who were not the best, slowly but surely we are going to lose our competitive edge against countries like China and India who are not constrained by such requirements. And that is not going to help anyone including those underrepresented segments. We will simply become an also ran country instead of the world’s most technologically advanced nation to which I had immigrated and now proudly and lovingly call it my home.” I said concluding my pitch.

My boss who belonged to the group lowest on the diversity stack – a white male, simply smiled and said, “Raj, I think you need some diversity training.”

I took the training – twice. But still did not get it. In the end the company simply gave up and reassigned me.

But now that I am retired and older and hopefully wiser, I often reflect on that question and keep coming up with the same conclusion – since we are all diverse it does not make sense to use some politically expedient definition of diversity. We should simply get the best people, just like we do for those professional sports teams.

What am I missing?

I would love to hear your views and any help you can provide in locating that missing thought from my cerebellum.