Shore et al. (2011) observe that the trend of diversity literature in organisations is shifting away from the problems associated with managing diversity, to finding a way to integrate diversity, through inclusion or through other mechanisms. Professor Martin Davidson extends the managing diversity and integration of diversity conversation to that of leveraging diversity. The title of his book soundly captures its message: The End of Diversity As We Know It: Why Diversity Efforts Fail and How Leveraging Difference Can Succeed. This book is fills an important gap in academic literature. While companies are becoming increasingly adept at being more representative and managing diversity-related challenges, the outcome of how we use diversity to an organisation's advantage is illusive.
Amongst other business outcomes, diversity outcomes are governed by the stance of the leadership team. Lorbiecki and Jack (2000) characterise three leadership imperatives for diversity transformation: moral, legal and business. Leaders driven by a moral incentive will transform their organisations because being diverse is the right thing to do. An accepted diversity outcome of this stance is “diverse representation”, where there is a visible presence of diversity and a grappling of the respective issues. The legal imperative is driven by the desire to avoid legal action, or to comply with legislation such as affirmative action or employment equity. In South Africa, compliance with employment equity is a qualification requirement for government tender applications, so this is an additional legal incentive for many businesses. As with the moral imperative, the required outcome from the legal compliance perspective is diverse representation. For both these perspectives, there is no incentive or business need to extend these outcomes. The business imperative focuses on using the representative diversity or recruiting necessary diversity to progress their understanding of their market and stakeholders, which will result in enhanced competitiveness and profitability. The required outcome of this leadership stance is slightly different because in order to create a deeper understanding of the marketplace, the organisation needs both a representation of difference and the capability to use the difference to its advantage.
Although there many leaders who would like to leverage individual difference to their organisation advantage, the challenges of representative diversity prevent many from extending the conversation to how this same diversity can be leveraged to the organisation's advantage. This book provides a clear map about how organisations use their diversity to leverage and extend their business outcomes.
The first chapter provides a theoretical analysis of why diversity efforts are failing in organisations which sets the scene for further discussion about how leveraging diversity can add value to business outcomes. Chapter 2 discusses how the practices and outcomes of managing diversity and leveraging diversity are different. This understanding is important because it helps us to see the gaps in current diversity practice, but also sets the context for the following chapters. Chapter 3 addresses the leveraging difference capability, which is the organisation's ability to live difference through their people, practices and systems. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 provide a description of how organisations leverage diversity: through seeing difference, understanding difference and engaging difference. Seeing difference relates to a recognition of difference in the organisation and understanding which of those differences are strategically important for the organisation. Understanding difference is about knowing enough about differences so that they can be leveraged successfully. Engaging difference involves exploring possibilities for the difference to be used. Chapter 7 describes how leveraging diversity should be a conscious practice which should happen continuously as a result of constant awareness of seeing, understanding and engaging difference.
There are two major contributions of this book. The first is that the notion that managing diversity and leveraging diversity are led differently because they are associated with different practices and processes. Although the scope of this book excludes discussion about the theory and challenges of the different facets of diversity management, the objective of the book is not intended to negate, but extend the valuing or managing diversity conversation. Second, while the connection between diversity and bottom line results is discussed in related literature, guidance on how to attain this connection is evasive. The illusive business case becomes more attainable in this book through pragmatic guidance for leveraging diversity in organisations.
I noted three limitations. Davidson advocates that diversity management and leveraging diversity are associated with different practices and processes, have different outputs, but essentially drive the same agenda, which is to enable equity and justice. He also suggests that diversity management and leveraging diversity are not mutually exclusive processes, and that leveraging diversity should build on managing diversity practices. How the processes overlap in practice remains unclear and this might be worthy of exploration in future research. Second, although literature increasingly addresses inclusion as an outcome of diversity integration practices, this connection is also missing. Finally, the book is written using case examples from the USA. While the examples largely have global relevance, this factor may restrict the readership and a perception of usability.
The book is easy to read thanks to a number of case examples, which are used to illustrate or elaborate theoretical points. The book is well written, the flow is logical and the text is realistic. Leveraging diversity is not pitched as a “pie in the sky” concept, practical concerns are raised and the difficulty of this journey is discussed. The book is a sound combination of theory and new thought which makes the book both interesting and thought provoking.
When considering readership, this book is valuable to academics because it opens relatively unchartered channels of thought for discussion and exploration. The book can also be used as course material for academic or practitioner workshops because the content is accessible and the arguments are drawn on peer-reviewed theory in the field. Thought about how to leverage diversity is clearly supported with explanations and examples. The main beneficiaries of this book are diversity practitioners and senior leaders who are looking for new ways to grow to their businesses. This book goes beyond a philosophical discussion of difference to practical guidance about how diversity can be leveraged through seeing difference, understanding difference and engaging difference. While understanding the management implications or dynamics of say race doesn’t necessarily have global applicability, leveraging diversity is interesting to all organisations in all contexts.
This book is an interesting and valuable contribution to this field. It is accessibly priced, interesting, thought-provoking reading that will likely enhance your understanding of this field and expand your thinking regarding diversity practice and diversity outcomes.
