Diversity and Inclusion
What makes you you? Probably too many things to count.
Our identities are complex. Put groups of people together and you’ll find all sorts of variety in what we are and what we do. In fact, scientists say that this variation between and within populations is exactly what helped humans evolve biologically and socially.
We call the variation diversity. And there’s a lot more to diversity than initially meets the eye.
One way to organize all the ways we are diverse is to consider two buckets that hold ‘inherent’ and ‘acquired’ dimensions of diversity.
Inherent diversity is the range of traits that you were born with, happened to you and by which you are conditioned. They include the typical things we think of as identity such as gender, age, race, physical ability and sexuality.
Acquired diversity “is not who you are but how you act as a result of what you’ve experienced or learned”. It relates to personal experiences that help shape our world view and, alongside inherent diversity, contributes to the variety of perspectives that make diversity powerful.
Dimensions of inherent diversity include:
Dimensions of acquired diversity include:
. . .
🚀 A winning combination
These two buckets aren’t a matter of splitting hairs. It’s the way top researchers scrutinize teams for whether they have the diversity of thought for success.
Research from the Center for Talent Innovation (CTI) indicates that businesses need a combination of both inherent and behavioral diversity to maximize innovation and business performance.
State of DEI 2020-2021
How has 2020 changed the way we work? Hive Learning reports on the State of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in 2021.
Fiona Young (she/her)
Having previously led Learning and Development for 3,000 people at Europe’s leading venture builder, Blenheim Chalcot, Fiona knows a thing or two about how to build high performance culture. As Content Director at Hive Learning, Fiona pioneered the organisation's leading guided content programmes which are designed to turn learning into action. Most recently, Fiona led the inception, development and delivery of Inclusion Works by Hive Learning - the world’s first diversity and inclusion programme focused on turning unconscious bias into conscious action - created from over 1,000 leading sources.
