Transcript excerpt from a YouTube conversation (recorded Nov 23, 2022) with Simon Sinek discussing organizational diversity. Sinek emphasizes that diversity, inclusion, and belonging are ongoing journeys, not one-time events, and highlights practical steps (broaden hiring aperture, seek recommendations from other companies) and the need to acknowledge bias and continual striving.
Chapters
What are other doings that to your point earlier, that we can learn from, not competitors. Yeah, yeah, but what was it?
Worthy rivals.
Worthy rivals, yeah. That are doing that. That you say, hey, look at that, you know, this could be a good direction.
Well, I think most importantly, and you seem to be doing this most importantly is you see it as a journey rather than event. I think the companies that are doing it wrong view it as an event, which is we have this issue, we are not as diverse as we need to be. And so let's fix that. Flip a switch, go on a hiring binge. Ta da. Right.
And the problem is that's not how it works, which is this is a journey of making our organization more representative of the general population. And to say we have to do better, just acknowledging that there is room for improvement, I think is a big part of it. But obviously, where are you looking to hire? Who are you asking to make recommendations?
All of these things matter. I mean, it's literally just opening the aperture. One of the things we have to recognize is we all have an inherent bias, which is we look for people who look like us.
And to stop doing that, also go to other companies, ask them who's really good. But the fact that you're treating as a journey that you will never actually. The point is you'll never actually be perfect. It's going to be a striving for the rest of time.
Because there's three words there. It's diversity, inclusion and belonging. Belonging comes from your values and your purpose. Diversity comes from what it looks like. But inclusion is how people feel. So it's one thing to hire somebody, but do they feel like they're valued and included and part of the organization? So all of those are strivings. None of those you'll ever be perfect at, none of those you'll ever complete. But it is a game of constant improvement.
