Getting Serious About Diversity: Enough Already with the Business Case

Anne-Marie Klijn, founder and partner of NewGround Law shares the following article published in Harvard Business Review with the comment: ‘This is what NewGround Law stands for and what we have as our core value: to create a human centric legal profession’.

Read the full article in –> Harvard Business Review
It’s time for a new way of thinking by Robin J. Ely and David A. Thomas

Summary
Leaders may mean well when they tout the economic payoffs of hiring more women and people of color, but there is no research support for the notion that diversifying the workforce automatically improves a company’s performance. This article critiques the popular rhetoric about diversity and revisits an argument the authors made 25 years ago: To fully benefit from increased racial and gender diversity, organizations must adopt a learning orientation and be willing to change the corporate culture and power structure.

Four actions are key for leaders: building trust and creating a workplace where people feel free to express themselves; actively combating bias and systems of oppression; embracing a variety of styles and voices inside the organization; and using employees’ identity-related knowledge and experiences to learn how best to accomplish the firm’s core work. 

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