Diversity and Inclusiveness - Great Concept, Terrible Approach

D&I is a perennial effort in Shell, and a good one. But....

I have become a big fan of diversity and inclusiveness in recent years.

I suppose I've been lucky enough to face situations where I have been able to see the value of difference.

My own team in GSXX tends to be quite fast-rotating, with people staying less than three years on average (longer tenure is also a great goal, but not for every job), and we have somehow recruited a very diverse mix of people over the years. Going global as a team accelerated this, but even before that we could tick off most of the classic categories of difference.

I used to think I was a good manager of D&I. I guess I was proud to have acquired a diverse team, and at least to manage to herd them together without too many train wrecks.

But now I know I wasn't really very good. Just acquiring a diverse team is first base. Herding them together is the antithesis of successful D&I management. What I try to do now is almost herd them apart - minimise the constraints and maximise the potential.

With one staff member I had a key moment of truth. He (it is a he) has a set of strengths and styles which are very non-traditional. Some things most of us do well and which somehow we expect in people he just does not have. We all spent the first year getting very frustrated about these gaps, and frantically trying to close them. Then I stumbled across a new mantra - value him what he is, rather than trying to change what he is not. We now spend a lot less time on the gaps (we have to spend some - just enough to allow communication and a modicum of cohesion and certainty) and a lot more time unleashing his strengths. The result is a motivated and confident employee, an employee adding massively more value.... and even someone having more success working on gap closing.

That is for me D&I, and I think our team a gradually learning how to use this as a core source of strength. For sure we have a long long way still to go, and there must be many teams out there far better than us.

My frustration is that we discovered this almost by accident, and the Shell approach to D&I seems to run counter to achieving this goal. All I see are two things:

- quotas

- rules about what we are NOT supposed to do, or or what we are supposed to AVOID

A bit like the police force really, isn't it?

Quotas of course are needed. But all it does is get you to base camp. And, just like our team, you get to base camp and think you've done the job and stop and be proud. Wrong. Having a diverse team is a necessary condition to achieving the value of D&I, but far from sufficient.

The rules bit is just political correctness, or at best a hygiene factor. Something to keep the growing army of D&I focal points busy, to tick a few boxes?

I do wish we could completely turn around the approach. I wonder how. A positive approach would certainly rely more on stories and role modelling and less on metrics. Less ownership in HR would probably help too. I wonder what else we could do? And, looking at the changing world and the natural comfort my daughter has in leveraging the value of diversity in her life, maybe the problem will go away in time? Or maybe that is the solution - more power to the kids!