Why diversity is the only way to generate great ideas?

Where do your ideas come from? From books, conversations, something you’ve seen online, overhead, watched? Ideas come from anywhere, at any time, but they have one thing in common – they do not come out of thin air. They’re sparked by inspiration, by something external to the person that comes up with it, that gets them to think ‘what if…?’. 

All organisations love ideas; most want to be seen as innovative, to be able to generate new services and products that get people excited, get customers talking and, more importantly, buying. Why wouldn’t they? Ultimately, the more ideas a company generates, the more likely it is to come up with something that punches through, that turns into tangible results. In other words, money. By Natalia Escribano, chief commercial officer, VIOOH

The challenge they face is that as an organisation, there are rules and structures and processes to follow. How do they generate ideas within those confines? Entrepreneurs will be familiar with the concept of balancing working in the business with working on the business. The former is the day-to-day, the tasks that keep the wheels turning. The latter is thinking about the direction the wheels should be facing, strategy, growth. Quite often, it’s hard to take a step back and do that, particularly when it’s not immediately translating into sales. 

New perspectives as a source for new ideas

That’s where having a diverse workforce comes into play. If you only employ the same type of person, with the same education, background, outlook on life, then you are going to get the same ideas. By having a more diverse outlook, new external sources come into play – new books, new conversations, new perspectives. New ideas. 

It’s good business to be diverse – according to a Boston Consulting Group study, “companies that reported above-average diversity on their management teams also reported innovation revenue that was 19 percentage points higher than that of companies with below-average leadership diversity—45% of total revenue versus just 26%.”

In short, more diverse leadership teams equals more ideas that make money. It doesn’t stop with ideas, either; another study said “companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.”

For any sector, that’s enough to make people sit up and take note; for advertising, in which the quality of ideas is the service being sold, it’s vital. Traditionally male-dominated, we’re seeing slow and steady improvement in diversity at all levels of the industry – in the UK, women make up 52.6% of all employees in advertising agencies and a third of all C-level executives. 

Accelerating change, from the top down

Yet more needs to be done. Change always needs to come from the top, and advertising is no different. That means empowering leaders and those with hiring responsibilities to recruit with diversity and gender equality actively in mind, and really commit to building inclusive cultures.

Broadening the talent pool available, so that a greater mix of candidates are available, is critical, as is investing in new ways to recruit – the days of being able to hide behind saying ‘we can only hire people that apply’ doesn’t cut it if you don’t make the effort to look beyond your traditional channels, recruiters and networks.