A different take than the usual narrow business case for diversity in favour of one that looks at organizational culture and societal benefits:

One of the most compelling reasons for aspiring to workplace diversity is the self-evident social good it brings: fairness, opportunity, and a society that appreciates and enjoys its natural diversity rather than constantly struggling to accommodate and negotiate it. Remember that throughout the 1950s and 1960s having few African Americans, few Latinos, few Asian Americans, and few white women in management and professional ranks didn’t keep U.S. businesses from creating the most successful economy on earth. But it was a problem for members of those groups and for our society. The conditions needed to be corrected for their own sakes. And, of course, there is still a lot of correcting to do.

Interestingly, the social case for diversity does become a business case when one is willing to look ahead to the longer term. The more the members of an organically diverse society enjoy that diversity and see the visible benefits of investing in shared prosperity and the common good, the more secure and resilient that society will be — possibly not at a given moment, but in the long run. Over a span of decades, a safe and resilient society is very good for business. Here in the United States, this stability goes a long way toward explaining why this country has been such an economic success. And around the globe, research finds that countries with greater social cohesion experience greater economic growth. But this is a long-term and diffuse effect, not a clear boost to anyone’s bottom line this quarter, or even the next.

A More Accurate Business Case for Diversity

Although diversity alone does not increase company profitability in the near term, there is a lot to be gained by investigating the conditions under which it does help. That is, under what conditions does diversity lead not to “us versus them” or even “us and them” but rather to the more desirable, productive, and innovative outcome — “us plus them”?

Research is starting to address this question, pointing the way to a more accurate business case for diversity. Put simply, the negative emotions that tend to go along with bias — fear, anger, contempt, and the like — are damaging. Replace those feelings with positive emotions and we all will benefit. There are, for example, solid empirical research findings suggesting that group- and team-level innovation are more likely in the context of positive emotions. Both classic and more-recent research have found that positive emotions such as joy, interest, and anticipation broaden our awareness and encourage novel, varied, and exploratory thoughts and actions. Over time, this expanded behavioral repertoire helps us build skills and resources. In contrast, negative emotions prompt narrow and immediate behaviors. We narrow our focus to shut out distractions — which is important for survival in the wild but often counterproductive in business. In studies reported by Prof. Barbara Fredrickson, participants watched films that induced positive emotions such as amusement and contentment, negative emotions such as fear and sadness, or no emotions. Viewers who experienced positive emotions then showed more creativity, inventiveness, and big-picture perceptual focus. Taken together, these research findings suggest that because positive emotions make us more open and more creative, they help us discover and build together.

Can diversity encourage such positive emotions? Yes, it can. Although as a society we focus almost exclusively on the negative prejudices, frictions, and conflicts among social groups, research has also found that many individuals have not just a lack of prejudice but also positive feelings such as admiration, comfort, and kinship toward those who are different. Research also finds that leaders who hope to tap this positive power of difference must ferret out any negative prejudices and promote those positive feelings about members of other groups. A company that does so may then expect to find that its own workplace diversity, by encouraging positive emotions, is improving its capacity for innovation.

This is in line with the accumulating body of research confirming that organizational culture plays a key role in sustained innovation. My own research, for example, finds that when we measure the presence of allophilia — positive (not just tolerant) attitudes toward a group other than one’s own — in teams and organizations, we can better predict positive outcomes such as open communication, feelings of inclusion, mentoring across genders and ethnicity, and “bringing one’s whole self” to work. Such benefits are not predicted by a company culture of mere tolerance — that is, not minding the presence of other groups but not having particularly positive attitudes towards them either.

The Case for Patience and Results

Business leaders respect results, and rightly so. But pushing businesses, in Silicon Valley or elsewhere, to increase diversity for bottom line reasons, arguing that it inherently boosts innovation, won’t do. It’s too simplistic and too often just not true.

Instead, we should rely on science to tell us more about which diversity conditions prove productive and which counterproductive. We should be encouraged that positive attitudes such as allophilia and their positive results do exist and can be measured, monitored, and developed in organizations and other groups.

Finally, we should embrace diversity because it provides a foundation for a healthy society. If we can become more disciplined and precise in learning how to create and maintain it in the right ways, this will make for a more prosperous and productive economy in the future.