There is nothing more complex than diversity itself.
It’s so complex, we often completely overlook it.
Even today, as I’m attempting to write about it I’m realising how rich the topic is.
And that’s why diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) isn’t going away either.
It’s everywhere around us.
And we’d all best get used to it.
Over the course of this month we’ll take an inside-outside look at diversity.
They say the skill in football is taking the ball from inside to out.
Taking a ball that’s within a pack of players and shovelling it to a teammate running past.
Inside to out.
Diversity is conceptually quite similar.
We want to take our football, our core culture.
And move it from inside (our personality, values, ideals).
To outside.
Our presence as an organisation and the impact we wish to have.
The 4 layers of diversity
Introducing this model by Gardenswartz & Rowe, which dates back over 50 years.
Yes, it’s taken us a long, long time to get to the pointy end of this conversation.
But with Gen Z upon us, the most culturally diverse generation ever, we have finally arrived at this nexus.
And it’s a really exciting place if you ask me.
Today, we’ll start with something that would be most familiar.
And that’s personality itself.
We all know everyone’s personalities are fundamentally different.
Regardless of whether we grew up in the same suburb, on the same street or even within the same household.
I can tell you for a fact that my older brother and I couldn’t be more different people.
He works as an aerospace engineer.
In a problem oriented, rational and fact based organisation, that is Boeing.
I worked as a physiotherapist, the complete opposite setting.
The people-centric, complex world that is musculoskeletal pain.
The big 5 diversity traits
When we look at personality, we’re often talking about the big 5 traits.
They are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism.
These traits are everywhere, all you have to do is look.
I’ll demonstrate them through the personalities of my former team.
Openness
As a person launching a startup clinic, we often find people who are high in openness.
And it was no surprise that the very first enquiry at my clinic came from a lovely lady named Anna.
Anna was our ideal client, and we thought she was enquiring about the clinic services.
But it turned out she was interested in working for us.
And we hadn’t even brought the fit-out walls down yet.
Anna was open-minded to say the least, and adventurous.
This worked magnificantly well in a startup environment.
Someone willing to dive into the unknown.
It didn’t work so well when she was off travelling with her husband to diverse lands.
Nor when she did eventually leave us to move to the other side of the world.
But often we find these sort of special people do really wonder into our lives for a short time.
And the joy of working with imaginative people can last for years after they leave.
Conscientiousness
The conscientiousness persona is the classic physiotherapist.
And I had two of these in my team.
Both Melbourne Uni graduates, and both highly driven towards their own goals.
Exceptionally disciplined.
These two superstars charted different paths to highly autonomous and well paid roles.
Noah was integral in building out the occupational health aspects.
An area where attention to detail is paramount.
Reports, letters, doctor updates.
Return to work certificates.
All the nitty-gritty and often frustrating things.
Our other superstar, Helen, was an exceptional paediatric physio.
She showed off her ability to manage a highly complex caseload.
Further complicated by working inside the NDIS, of course.
Again, reports, letters, communications etc requiring this skillset.
Extraversion
When it came to extraversion, we couldn’t go past Liam.
Liam eventually took over from me as leader, Liam was a classic extravert.
He was energetic, outgoing and always had a huge smile on his face.
The clinic vibe changed the day he arrived.
We went from a group of highly conscientious types, to a fun and hilarious team.
It takes all sorts of personalities.
But the extravert can really inject themselves into a team of otherwise quiet people.
And do wonderfully well in bringing everyone out of their diverse shells.
Agreeableness
In terms of agreeableness, I think our massage therapist Sophie was the lead here.
She was always conscious of creating harmony in the clinic.
Both with her patients and within the clinic environment itself.
Her agreeableness helped to build trust in her clients, repeat users of all of our services.
It also helped to engage our admin team.
An area which I struggled for years with.
Sophie transitioned into a 50:50 role of massage therapist and admin leader.
A unique blend which gave her the clinicians insights, as well as those at the front of house.
Neuroticism
It would be rude of me to single out anyone for neuroticism.
But suffice to say, we experienced our fair share of this too.
I’m sure you know exactly what I’m talking about here, there is always that one person in your team.
Highly emotional, prone to stress.
We love them, they usually bring soooo much to the table.
Often our greatest advocates.
But they can also be hard work 🙂
Moving diversity from inside to out
And there we have it, the five big personality traits and how they played out in my clinic.
If we look for diversity in the workplace, we can always find it.
And if we encourage these diverse personalities, we can build successful organisations.
Much like the midfielder who pulls the ball from the inside of the pack.
We need runners going past.
We need people up the field who can lead, mark and kick straight too.
