The Unprofessional Professional: How diversity can shape the boardroom

Boardrooms have come a long way in the diversity game, and so far it’s a commendable achievement. Decades ago, a person of colour would unfortunately have never been seen on a board. Women were in a similar position. These days, people of different race, creed and gender are being welcomed onto boards because society is beginning to see – really see – the positive effects of inclusivity. But while we’ve no doubt made leaps and bounds, how far away are we from experiencing full diversity?

Even though people from very different backgrounds are able to lead successful board careers, they’ve still all got a wealth of things in common regardless of these differences. They’re likely to have similar personality types: very probably being high achievers, well-educated and learned members of society. Given that we’ve learned so much thus far from diversifying the boardroom, would it be correct to assume we could learn even more from someone who had absolutely no background, skills, experiences or even desire to be on a board?

Alexa Clay and Kyra Maya Phillips had similar thoughts when they co-wrote the book The Misfit Economy: Lessons in Creativity from Pirates, Hackers, Gangsters and Other Informal Entrepreneurs. The premise behind their hugely popular economics book was that innovators and entrepreneurs come in a huge variety of different shapes and sizes. They discovered people from all walks of life – from Somali pirates and computer hackers to inner city gangs – who have the same ability to be able to pioneer methods of originality and ingenuity. Alexa and Kyra espoused that, rather than being the ones to fear, they’re the ones we can learn a lot from. 

How would you feel if you knew that the man sitting next to you in the boardroom was an ex-con? Would you be quick to paint him as a bad person? Would you believe he didn’t belong? Would you be mistrustful of everything he said? Would you judge him before you’d attempted to understand him or hear his story? Or would you accept him, knowing that you could learn a lot from him? Often, people who come from a background different to ours, especially backgrounds we’d class as ‘rough’ or ‘difficult’, are seen as violators of our morals, ethics and social conduct. As such, we’re quick to cast them aside. But if we are really championing for diversity, we need to be inclusive of all people – regardless of their backgrounds and life experiences. 

In the same way the fears of our past societies kept them from being readily accepting of people of colour, the fears we may have of people from different walks of life keep us from accepting them. But rather than pigeonholing those we don’t understand, we should be open to share and hear ideas from them. There’s a wealth of new information, knowledge and opportunity just waiting to be brought in from those you’d never normally associate with – and if you’re truly for diversity, you will no longer judge a book by its cover. Open it up and learn from it instead.