Diversity and inclusion requires variation in organisational decision making. However, from the moment an organisational change is created, very often it is simplified to gain acceptance, approval and spread. This simple decision bias hinders consideration and inclusion of the diverse thinking and needs of staff and service users. This blog explores the how and why organisations have this bias towards simplifying decisions and what to do about it.
Key Takeaway
Organisational decision making often simplifies complex issues to gain acceptance and scalability. This can inadvertently overlook diverse perspectives of staff and service users. By recognising and addressing this tendency, organisations can create more inclusive and effective decisions. Embracing diversity not only meets the varied needs of staff and service users, but also enhances innovation and organisational success.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Decision Making is Often a Key Barrier to Diversity and Inclusion
I have spent several years in working with issues of diversity and inclusion. In my experience a very common barrier to diversity and inclusion even in the most well intended organisations, is that the organisational decision making process demands clarity and simplicity. But the very nature of diversity work is to foster change and variation in decision making. Indeed the one size fits all approach runs completely counter to diversity and inclusion.
What is Diversity and Inclusion in Decision Making.
Diversity and inclusion in decision making is the active involvement of any individual or group that is representative of people outside the normal core decision making group. All too often diversity work focuses on the colour of skin alone, which of course is essential. But sadly all too often does not include cultural, social, economic diversity as well as physical disability and diversity of thinking. For true diversity we need to consider and include all these perspectives. It is not a job to be done or a simple decision to be made, but a continuous journey of improvement learning and growth. (I’ve written more about this here)
Why Does Diversity & Inclusion Conflict With Organisational Decision Making?
Diversity and inclusion means adding complexity, variation and inclusion of different perspectives into decision making. However, this directly conflicts with the classic ‘well run’ organisational principles: that we want decisions to be clear and simple, working towards a mythical optimum.
Diversity is relegated to ‘engagement’, rather than genuine inclusion. Simple decisions, by definition, precludes a diversity informed approach where people’s variation is taking into account. So what is creating this endless drive for simple decisions that rides rough shod over the diverse needs and perspectives of staff and service users.
An Example of Simple Decisions Gaming the System.
Why did the UK government spend £50000 on 20 chess tables (with no pieces) as part of scheme specific designed to reduce inequality? The answer is simple. The problems of addressing inequality are rich and complex. The government had funds to spend in a short amount of time. Therefore the focus moved from social and economic change to what things could be bought or be ‘shovel ready’ in the timeframe to complete the task. Moving the focus from people to simple things. In fact a recent report found that despite £3.7 billion been allocated to ‘leveling up’ inequality their were no compelling examples of what has been delivered.
I’ve identified 10 factors at play driving simplification of organisational changes:
10 Factors Driving Simple Organisational Decision Making
1. Complex Changes Are Often Difficult to Explain
Issues of diversity create a natural complexity in decision making. Changes that are complicated to explain, difficult to understand or deeply rooted in varying contexts have a distinct disadvantage in gaining approval and support of key decision makers.
When you have a diverse range of perspectives or needs, it can be difficult to get this across to decision makers. Many issues are too complex to communicate quickly and easily in a busy meeting and decision makers usually lack the time to take a detailed nuanced approach to properly consider the change. This limits the perspectives that are considered when making decisions. Meaning that views of different are often only considered when implementation occurs, if at all.
2. Decision Makers Cognitive Overload.
Decision Makers can be affected by Cognitive Overload. Decision-makers when faced with information that they are not used to or unfamiliar with, can be given too much information too quickly for their brain to process effectively. This can lead to hesitation or reluctance to approve diverse nuanced and complex proposals, because the decision maker does not feel they can properly understand the problem or solution. Cognitive overload is a key reason why many reports have an executive summary. But none the less reinforced the bias towards easily explained problems and solutions. Too often when diversity is considered it is under a catch all label.
How the Decision Maker Can Affect the Complexity of a Decision.
I think it is important to note that cognitive overload is significantly reduced by people who are already knowledgeable in an area. Meaning that the type of expertise decision makers have directly impacts the complexity of decisions they are willing to make. e.g. Someone from a marginalised group is much more likely to easily understand the issues faced by that group and other similar groups. This means it is vital that decision makers are representative of a variety of perspectives. However, they still need to be actively connected to the diverse group to properly represent them.
3. Inability To Understand Risks of Diversity Complex Problems
Diversity causes greater complexity in decision making. Complex problems are generally perceived as carry higher risks. Even if the reality is those risks are small in effect and magnitude. These can include uncertainties in outcomes, higher costs, and the risk of communications being misunderstood.
Cause and Effect are Hard to Predict For Complex Social Issues.
The fundamental problem is that decomposing the risks into simple cause and effect often does not work in areas of complexity such as when working with diverse groups of people. Well meant changes can be misinterpreted or seem as stereotyping. We simply cannot be certain how each particular group will react. This means that decision makers struggle to get simple answers around the level of risk for issues tackling diversity. When decision makers consider risks they often therefore want to keep things simple, whereas opening up decisions to diverse perspectives can be seen as increasing risk and potential challenges.
Diversity is Not a Box to Be Ticked.
This is why diversity despite it’s complexity is so often reduced to a tick box process. Rather than properly trying to understand the needs of diverse groups, it is much easier to create a form and tick the boxes. If you tick the box you dont have to understand the problem or associated risks. If you genuinely care about these groups and community you have to understand them. A tick box never ever shows understanding or relevance.
4. Logic Models Guide Our Change Making Decisions.
Creating a logical rational approach is often held up to be the best way to make a decision. This is often involves fitting change initiatives into a ‘logic model’ format for senior decision makers that narrows and filters a change down to a simple logical formula of problem – solution – outcome. This can stop many ‘messy’ problems with diversity being properly considered. What is approved is often a one size fits all oversimplified misunderstanding of the problem rather, than a reflection of reality. A logic model tends to focus on a single view of everyone and everything. As if one intervention will work the same on everyone.
A typical example many of us experienced during covid was:
‘We have different outcomes because of diversity’ therefore ‘We need additional diversity training and comms’ = ‘This result in a changed inclusive mindset of staff which will increase productivity’.
This appears simple and logical, but the reality is it not remotely simple scientific or logical in practice. The training and comms does not address any of the fundamental issues that resulted in the different experiences and outcomes of people from different backgrounds. Simply giving people training and communication does not help to build a fundamental understanding of what diversity means. The logic model approach became about doing things to people, rather than recognising and responding to different people’s needs.
5. Prioritising Emotional Safety in Decision Making
Far from being the rational logical being’s that we are taught at school humans actually prioritise emotional safety over being correct. Emotions typically guide our decisions with research suggesting only 5-10% of our decisions are made rationally. So how do our emotions guide our decisions. Well the threat perception system takes priority that has evolved to keep us safe. Meaning that we make many of our decisions prioritising our own safety above all else. This means many decision makers will prioritise decisions that they can understand and will keep them safe.
From Inclusion to Engagement.
In terms of diversity this means that decision makers will happily consider diverse opinions as long as the decision maker is not threatened by diversity. This means where the diverse views contradict or conflict with the views of the decision maker those views are less likely to be sought in the first place. This is a real challenge as one of the main thing a political decision maker does is decide who is in the decision meetings.
It seems no coincidence therefore the main complaint of diverse groups of people is that they werent included in the meetings. This is why the emphasis in many organisations has moved the emphasis from inclusive decision making to simple ‘engagement’ (As in someone ticked a box).
6. Changes are Focused on Simple Problems.
The more complex the current problem area, the less likely decisions would be made in that area. With large scale studies such as a study by Washington University finding that changes are much more likely to be made in areas that were simple. Crucially it is the complexity of the current situation that is important, not of the solution. Meaning that most changes are focused on a small number of simple areas, rather than addressing more complex problems.
In terms of diversity this means that new initiatives are far more likely to go into the simple one size fits all areas rather, than go to address existing areas of diversity. This can become a significant barrier to improving and adapting existing work, as it can often become siloed as a diversity scheme, rather than moving to the core of the new work that the organisation does.
The other impact is that diversity work often seems to flourish briefly with lots of enthusiasm and energy. Then lose momentum as inevitably comes more complex and typically struggle to get additional decision makers support.
‘What if’ Decision Makers Don’t Understand?
We have all experienced this in meetings when the ramifications of an idea or decision becomes difficult to understand for decision makers. Someone asks a question. With diverse groups the answer can sometimes get bogged down in everyone offering their opinion. This can often be well intentioned wanting to give everyone their say, but it can take a long time and raise more problems than solutions; overwhelming decision makers.
The senior leader will then politely say “let’s leave the idea for now and come back to it in the next meeting.” (Which means no please i can take any more of this!). Good luck on getting that decision on the next agenda! This is often what happens when something gets held up for months waiting for ‘a decision’.
Political Uncertainty.
Politics can often play a part in decision making I’ve often seen experienced decision makers often deliberately create uncertainty using this tactic. Usually if it’s going to cost them resources. They intentionally throwing a well aimed awkward question grenade at the idea to cause confusion and uncertainty. Or insist that everyone is consulted, or that further research is required. So that it gets delayed and postponed as others can’t understand the problem. As a leader of change you need to be prepared for this when you go into those vital meetings! With diversity i very strongly recommend going around all the key people and creating a unified approach BEFORE the decision meetings.
7. Communicating Changes Need to be Simplified to Scale Up
When we scale up a change across an organisation there is evidence that the change need to be communicated clearly and simply to scale up. E.g. How many of us have seen an email from IT of a change that appears very complicated with attachments and a wall of text and decided to put it on the ‘read later’ list. Which then only gets viewed again in an emergency. Whilst the simple headline this is happening then, seems to stick in the mind.
This can be a real problem for diversity as it means that diversity initiatives because of the need to address different groups can often find themselves sending out huge amounts of information to meet everyone’s needs. Multiple attachments for different groups, or a ridiculously long set of plans and implementation guidelines are often the order of the day. Sadly often well beyond anyone’s time to read through.
How to Form Diversity Initiatives to Aid Communication and Spread.
If you want to communicate diversity initiatives then it is usually far better to create guiding principles of change that fit everyone. Or create points of escalation for people who need additional support. Trying to define everything for everyone is an exhaustive process and to be frank will limit your ability to scale up.
8. The Law of Misunderstanding: the More an idea Spreads the More it is Misunderstood.
When an idea is shared at scale i’ve described that it often follow a law of misunderstanding. The more an idea spreads the more it is misunderstood and the amount of errors appear to increase exponentially. (Read more about the law of misunderstanding and how to counter it here). At some point of spread the idea ceases to have any significant impact as the level of misunderstanding has increased so much. This is arguably what’s happened to Agile. Even the simple waterfall process is based on a common misunderstand of Dr Winston Royce describing what NOT to do.
This means for diversity initiatives no matter how well planned and formulated, will always be misunderstood or misused when spread at scale. This is why spreading initiatives needs to be an ongoing process of learning and adaption. Learning what worked what didn’t and how it can be improved. Sometimes the misunderstandings can be positive and create new ideas and fresh perspectives. Diversity also means diversity of understanding.
9. Simplification Aids Compliance
When a change is stated in a simple format whether it be a change in behaviour or the adoption of a system, it can make ensuring that the change is adopted much more simpler. We can then judge whether or not people are complying with a change, because their is a simple logical rule to follow. When adoption of change is varied, which it usally needs to be for diversity (e.g. For this group do ‘x’ and that group do ‘y’ unless someone wants ‘z’.) it can make it much more challenging to understand whether people are adopting the change.
When implementing a change making it simple creates a significant advantage in knowing whether the required change is being implemented. But for initiatives that address diversity, it can be hard to know what extent it is being followed.
10. Simplification Aids Measurement & Reporting
A simply stated set of changes makes reporting much simpler. It allows for the creation of KPIs and reports that can be used organisation wide. It open the opportunity to create feedback loops. The feedback loops help amplify the change, identifying where it has been successfully adopted or where there is areas for improvement. It is an important part of the process of helping build confidence in senior decision makers, as well as targeting resources and additional support where needed.
Measuring Impact on Diversity is Particularly Challenging
Applying KPI’s to measures of diversity can often be really challenging. It can be difficult to identify different groups, some people maybe in mutiple groups and numbers of particular diversity can be very small making it very difficult to measure, especially when you drill down.
The whole concept of BAME: Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic came because the statistical demand to measure the difference between BAME and non-BAME for reporting. But in reality Minority Ethnic can be almost anything. Many of these groups actually have nothing in common and some minorities can do significantly better than the non-BAME population. Diversity is not an easy thing to measure and that certainly hinders work in this area.
Organisational Bias Towards Simple Changes.
All these factors taken together means that there is an enormous pressure to keep changes simple especially for decision makers ‘at the top’ and especially in large organisations. This means that many ideas and problems with diversity never make it through, because of the complexity of understanding them. Or what does get approved gets mangled into a one size fits all solution. What’s most often left is the ‘big idea’ that rides over the top of everything or simple changes that are supposed to fix a multitude of problems with little understood impact on diverse groups of staff or services users.
Simple Solutions Are Not Bad
Simple solutions can be great. Many of the reasons organisations prefer simple solutions are real benefits. We absolutely do want to use simple solutions, when it is appropriate to do so. The point of this article is that when diversity is forced into a simple solution, it all too often loses it’s value.
The drive for simple solutions is so strong, it creates a strong organisational bias that overrides groups and often the leaders themselves. This creates organisational blindspots where diversity is not properly recognised or considered. The best solutions are often not considered purely because of the complexity of doing so. The fact is that humans are messy and rarely logical, meaning that simple solutions to diversity often do not work.
Diversity in Decision Making Is a Competitive Advantage
It is the very fact that diversity can break organisations out of oversimple decision making that is it’s real advantage. A 2015 McKinsey report analysed 366 public companies and found that those with ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean. Whilst diverse groups have consistently found that they are able to come up with more innovative solutions than homogeneous groups.
Awareness of simple decision bias can help you identify areas for improvement.
By being aware of the organisational bias towards overly simple solutions it can help you and your organisation identify blindspots. There are very likely diverse groups of staff and customers who are not getting their needs met. Whenever, we reach for the simple solutions we are likely not only ignoring the fact of existing diversity problems, but creating new groups who don’t fit into current plans.
Not all problems are simple
Not all problems are simple meaning that they need a mixture of expertise and learning to overcome them. Rigidly applying solutions or following an inflexible plan can cause a host of new problems. The planning stress cycle describes a typical pattern of what happens when a bureaucratic approach to change enforces an inflexible plan on an organisation.
The Engagement Problem
There is absolutely nothing wrong with engagement. Indeed we need engagement to socialise changes and test ideas and make sure that any change is connected to reality. Where engagement goes wrong is if it is used as fig leaf, to hide the lack of genuine consultation and inclusion of diverse groups on organisational decisions. Usually this takes the form of a tick box exercise that puts diversity in a comfortable little box for decision makers. That is simply not engagement with diversity. It fails to influence decision making or deliver real insight. Diversity absolutely must have a genuine influence decision making to deliver benefits to staff, services users and wider society.
The Cynefin Framework and Diversity
When understanding how best to make decisions for diversity, the Cynefin Framework is a great starting point. It helps us understand what changes are genuinely simple. What things require genuine expertise to change – this is where groups of representatives can be most helpful as well as where the impact of the changes are complex and unpredictable. Where we need more flexibility to test various solutions.
A Simple Approach to Supporting Diversity.
There are three simple approaches to increasing diversity in organisational change. These can be implemented together and complement one another.
1. Creating Simple Rules for Diversity
By establishing a small number of key principles you can create a flexible and diverse approach to change. The rules can then be applied to fit different situations helping to create consistently. As opposed to having to anticipate and define every group and every situation. This can significantly help with the changes being understood much more clearly.
2. Creating Escalation Points
There will always be unique circumstances and situations where diversity does not fit. Inequalities often stem from a larger minority not having their needs met in the effected group than in other groups (e.g. White people may still suffer from mental health issues. But there may be fewer of these than in other groups. Even if the majority of both groups has few if any mental health problems. Providing a clear escalation route helps manage variation and unexpected problems.
3. Devolving Decision Making Power
Decision making power can be devolved either to where the information is strongest often the front line of the organisations. Allowing for frontline managers to adapt to the specific needs of the staff they know. Or it can be devolved to individuals and teams with specific expertise to understand the issue. It is important this expertise is recognised and accepted by the affected group.
Empowering Diversity To Empower Your Organisation
Too often diversity is seen as a problem to be solved. Or something to be fixed. The reality of many organisations is that whilst there is an understandable drive towards simple solutions. The fact is that there are no simple fixes or solutions to diversity. But that is a good thing.
Diversity provides the opportunity to utile the knowledge and expertise of staff and services users to bring new knowledge and insight into your organisation. It helps you adapt and keep up with the modern world that’s constantly changing. Diversity is not an additional aspect of your business, by better matching your decision making and services to real people it has the power to create new potential in your organisation to fit people as they exist in the real world and better meet their needs.
Conclusion
Our organisations often have a significant bias toward making decisions simple. But to make them successful we have to accept that we need to embrace variation and complexity for success. A simple decision inflexibly implemented can result in disproportional large risks to the success of an organisation.
What small changes have you seen blow up and what were the consequences?
If you would like help and support implementing a change please contact me to arrange a meeting and let’s see if we can work together. Learn more at EdgeofPossible.com
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