The most important diversity of all
Feb 16, 2023
- When I got my first management job in my mid 20s, the oldest member of my new all-male team went to the leader who had appointed me and said, “what do I do when she cries?” He was not encouraged by the response. That was long ago, and we have, I hope, got used to the fact that our boss can be both a different gender and younger than us.
- That’s a tick in the box for diversity; there have been other ticks in other boxes since, but in all the talk about diversity we continue to ignore one of the greatest diversities, and I believe, in the modern world, probably the most critical, that of age. When we do that we are ignoring some of the most important input we can get. Boards today are no longer made up of white, middle aged males, there are good mixes of gender and ethnicity, but multi-age they are not.
- One of the drivers for board diversity should be the fact that the board should in some way mirror its customer base. If there is no empathy with their customers, then it is very hard for boards and management teams to understand the lives of the people whose support their business is dependent on. If your customer base is made up of pensioners then an elderly board may work for you; if your customers are in their 20s then get a younger perspective.
- The argument that boards are all about governance and therefore need to be made up of experienced professional (aka middle-aged) people does not really hold water when you look at the boards that have failed in their governance duties. A moral compass is not exclusive to those over 50.
- But there is an even more compelling case for age diversity being the most important diversity today, when almost 50% of the workforce is made up of Millennials and Gen Z. That is the speed at which technology is moving, and the gulf that exists between generations in the way that mobile technology and social media is, (or is not) consumed.
- If you do not have representatives of all generations then your communication to, and understanding of customers and market is likely to be less than optimal and you will miss the chance to adapt your business before it is too late. A few years ago, I published some research entitled “The March of the Robots into the Boardroom” – in the course of the interviews a Board Chairman said to me “I’m just hoping I’m retired before all this automation happens”. Fortunately the company made sure that he was and they survived.
