Initiatives for diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace began from a premise that accepted exclusion. The world is like this, went the argument - and these are the people who have been and are excluded by gender, by race, by ethnicity - and this must be fixed. But framing a "fix" of "exclusion" with "inclusion" makes it a debate about power, inviting attack. Putting people in clearly defined categories in a rapidly changing globally mobile world where individual culture is fluid is also deeply flawed, and has not worked well.  Why not aim for "fairness" instead as the objective, and opportunity as the goal?

A new book entitled Make Work Fair: Data-Driven Design For Real Results by Harvard’s Iris Bohnet and Sira Chilazi could provide a way to flip the debate around DEI and move towards better thinking for businesses on harnessing human potential, and creating opportunity. They chart a data-driven path to fairness, based on their own extensive research, and that of others. Behavioural economics is the driver, and case studies offer good results where there is a combination of organisational awareness and agility in the approach.

Iris Bohnet is the co-director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School, and a behavioural economist . Siri Chilazi is a senior researcher at the program, and conducts research on how organisations can become more fair. Together they offer what they call an “actionable blueprint” to making fairness at work a reality, and one that leads quite simply to better decisions. The book has already drawn accolades from business leaders and academics, and its arrival could not be more timely.

We live in a world of millions of strong opinions, often exaggerated or derailed in the voicing and repetition of social media, and it has never been more important for businesses to know what their goals are, and how they intend to get the best out of their people. How businesses treat employees has an impact on their levels of engagement and their productivity, and getting those processes right is paramount, more important perhaps than joining the social noise. In a world where everyone is shouting, it is smart to listen.

It is ironic that businesses have spent years in the UK talking about “unconscious bias” and how best to deal with it, when “unconscious bias” ultimately is based on what you think you see, before you jump to a million false assumptions and conclusions. The creative industries have arguably done more for the DEI debate with their exploration of depicting identity and how we see the world, ourselves, and each other and the eyes with which we view the past. There are many different ways to see. I can think of many exciting ways in which art in Britain today is shifting that focus and understanding, but that is another story.

For business, with generations of cultural mobility and fluidity in Britain, it is sheer folly to make assumptions about the whole offering of any individual based only on aggregate data about a group they belong to.

Instead, we need to use data to help us design better and fairer decision-making processes that enable us to accurately evaluate the talents of every person.. I look forward to hearing more at the book launch in London on Wednesday March 12th hosted by MoreThanNow.

In the UK, businesses are said to have struggled for years around the “accurate” collection of data on ethnicity, in part for good reason - how the question is framed matters . Reframing questions around fairness moves the DEI debate to a different space, which must be welcome. With so many claiming the noisy but unproductive moral high ground on DEI, it offers a more focused route along the path to corporate opportunity..

Note: this post has been edited for clarity since first posting on 21st February.

Header image credit, with thanks : Maxim Kharkovsky on Unsplash