Digital Transformation Doesn’t Happen Without Diversity — Niki Allen
Being a champion for diversity and inclusion, I strongly believe everyone should be given equal opportunities to build a better future and technology is the way to reach the highest level of success. In line with this, an article published by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) titled “Digital Transformation Doesn’t Happen Without Diversity” by Serge Perignon resonated with me. Perignon talks about the value of diversity in companies in the cross hairs of digital transformation and the importance to not simply tolerate it but to be inclusive.
“Companies undergoing digital transformations need an extremely diverse set of people — experience-wise, intellectually, culturally, racially and otherwise. That is not likely to happen if most of them are of the same gender, race, country, religion and sexual orientation.”
“People at all levels of an organization (but especially at the top) who work extremely well together and possess very different worldviews and ways of working. One thing they must have in common: the ability to rethink today’s reality, deeply respect and enhance each other’s contributions, and reject age-old “truisms” as not necessarily true anymore.”
“Simply hiring such a diverse range of people at every level alone won’t make creativity reign. People from different countries, cultures, religions, genders, sexual orientation, ages and so on must embrace such diversity — not just tolerate it. They need to seek out the opinions of people who may seem foreign to them and think differently from them. They need to bring them into the tents of strategy-making, business process redesign, business model revolution, and skill building.”
“Diverse and inclusive leaders possess a competitive advantage that leaders of the opposite traits don’t even know they’re missing: the ability to unleash significant creativity, excitement and camaraderie in their organizations.
If I’m in a company that must digital transform itself, and rapidly, I’d much rather be around an abundant number of radically diverse and enormously inclusive leaders. I’d be far more willing to bet my career on that company than on one that is largely homogenous in people and who work exclusively rather than inclusively.
Diversity and inclusion are vital ingredients to digital transformation. The companies that unearth the digital riches of the next 10 years will be those that take diversity of people and inclusivity in teamwork to new levels.”
