A few weeks ago I attended a panel discussion organized by women for women of the female Career Program of the company I work for. The topic of the two hours was „How to support more diversity within the company“. The event enjoyed a high popularity, a lot of women came, and also some men found their way to the big meeting room.
In the discussion, Diversity was interpreted right from the beginning only to the point, that more women should be promoted within the company. When the discussion developed in the direction of better balancing career and family planning for women, the issue quickly narrowed down to younger women. The objection that Diversity is about more than women, namely wide variety in general, was taken up by one of the panel members. And she explained proudly, that in her department, she puts a lot of effort in Diversity, especifically by mixing women and men with different cultural backgrounds. And at the end she added, that she puts a premium on the age: her team members should be between 30 and 40.
Listening to this, it came painfully aware to me: when women are invited to discuss about Diversity, many (at least in Germany) assume that Diversity means at first enabling career opportunities for younger women. Diversity offers tremendous opportunities for all of us. At the same time it obviously triggers fears, not to fit to the demands of Diversity, which automatically might support thinking in clichés. Our own uniqueness is the asset for Diversity. We should always be aware of the inherent diversity of our own life, in private and in business. We are evolving ourselves by experiences and age. Our own diversity determines the career definition and we should always keep this in mind. The sooner we realize this, the better for our long and midterm career planning. With each phase of our life we can offer a more deeper variety to our environment. It is up to us, to bring in our potential and uniqueness and also to request acceptance for this from others.
Coming back to the above mentioned panel discussion: we should also never believe, that women might have an entitled advantage in the Diversity debate. Being young and female are not unique quality criteria. In the age of Diversity, only those who know their own particularities, differences and strengths can successfully position themselves.
Diversity means the chance to contribute to life with our personal variety and also to request this if we observe boundaries and prejudices.
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Food-For-Thought for Leapfroggers
- Take your own private “Diversity” inventory control in your company or office environment. Questions may be: How is Diversity defined there? Is there Diversity at all? Is Diversity something your boss/your team likes?
- Where do you see “Diversity Gaps” in your working environment that can be filled by your competencies or strengths?
- Team up with someone, who is from your point of view completely different to you. Work together on a project etc. and learn how to assess your partners and your own strengths. Start thinking how your strengths pattern matches into his/her strengths pattern. Position yourself according an optimized cooperation/project success. Repeat this exercise!
