Tribe Payments' Chief Operating Officer, Lynda Clarke, was invited to speak at Harrington Starr's International Women's Day Event earlier this week, Inclusion Includes You, alongside a host of other inspirational speakers - Eugénie Colonna d'Istria, Oge Opara-Nadi, Ashlea Atigolo and Nadia Edwards-Dashti.
It was a wonderful and uplifting morning, one that Tribe was proud to sponsor - especially given the current context of various companies rolling back on their DEI initiatives, and we wanted to share Lynda's speech here.
Businesses that embrace diversity in thought aren’t simply ‘doing the right thing’, they usually outperform their competition, avoid costly mistakes, and drive innovation, and we are not short on data backing this up. McKinsey & Company’s 2020 Report demonstrates companies in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 36% more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean. Gender-diverse executive teams were 25% more likely to outperform their peers.
Yet, too often, we think of diversity in terms of demographics; a checklist of gender, race, and other identifiers. Whilst it may feel more comfortable, surrounding ourselves with like-minded individuals who agree with everything we have to say, we do create groupthink, resulting in blind spots.
Homogeneous thinking can have severe consequences. Take The CIA’s failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks: The agency was dominated by Western, Ivy League-educated males all from very similar backgrounds. Yes, they were individually very intelligent, but they collectively had a very narrow perspective that led them to grossly underestimate radical Islamist threat. Key signs were missed, and the consequences were catastrophic. The same principle applies to business, without a broad perspective there is a great danger of creating solutions for a single demographic.
Apple launched its revolutionary Health app, which tracked all key health metrics. Well, almost all. It completely omitted menstrual cycle tracking, a fundamental health metric for literally millions of people worldwide. The backlash forced Apple to scramble and add the feature later. A simple lack of diversity led to a massive oversight in their innovation.
Early versions of Siri and Google Voice struggled to recognise females, mainly due to developers training the software being predominantly male, resulting in poor accuracy for women.
For years, car safety tests used crash dummies modelled on the "average male body" (5’9”, 75-80kg). As a result, seatbelts and airbags were optimised for male physiology, leading to a 47% higher injury rate for women in car accidents. Volvo changed the game by introducing female crash test dummies and analysing real-world crash data involving women - making their cars safer and positioning themselves as a leader in vehicle safety.
Blind spots extend beyond gender, they affect race, ethnicity, age, ability and socioeconomic status. This becomes even more critical to think about when businesses expand into new markets or segments - and the voice recognition example from above can again be applied here, as early versions especially struggled to deal with numerous accents.
Pepsi’s slogan, "Come Alive! You’re in the Pepsi Generation," was mistranslated as "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead." Given the deep cultural significance of ancestor worship, the campaign flopped (unsurprisingly), and Pepsi had to rework its entire strategy for the region
Initially, McDonald's struggled because they failed to account for the country's predominantly vegetarian and beef-averse population. The company had to overhaul its menu, introducing chicken and vegetarian options
Beyond avoiding costly mistakes, diverse mindsets can fuel innovation and open up new markets. Take LEGO, and its shift to include girls: For years, LEGO focused on boys, but research revealed an untapped market. By hiring more women in product development, LEGO introduced LEGO Friends, leading to record-breaking sales.
A powerful example came from research by the late Katherine W. Phillips, a Professor of Business. She conducted an experiment where racially diverse and homogeneous teams were tasked with solving a murder mystery. It probably won’t surprise you that the diverse teams significantly outperformed the homogeneous ones.
However, what was most striking was their experience: The diverse teams found the task harder, had disagreements, challenged each other and were less confident in their conclusions. Meanwhile, the homogeneous teams felt confident they knew the answers… but were generally wrong. Why? Because when we are surrounded by people who think like us, it feels comfortable, it feels nice when people agree with you. Our blind spots remain unchecked, we group think and we operate within a narrow frame of reference.
Diversity alone isn’t enough. The real magic happens when companies foster psychological safety where employees feel secure enough to share ideas and challenge assumptions. Google’s research found that the number one factor in a successful team isn’t who is on it, but how safe people feel in contributing. Without inclusion, diversity becomes a superficial label without impact.
The lesson is clear: Diverse teams bring better solutions, but only when those diverse voices are empowered to speak up and their perspectives are valued.
1. Challenge your own blind spots and recognise you DO have them:
- Actively seek out different perspectives, especially in decision-making.
- Designate a "rebel" in meetings to play devil's advocate and prevent groupthink, their job is to challenge you even if they think they agree with you.
2. Encourage individual thought with silent meetings
Do you often find the same person always first to comment on ideas or always the first to ask questions? Try to create an environment where diverse ideas can flourish by allowing individuals time to develop their thoughts before discussions begin.
- Amazon replaced PowerPoint presentations with written memos, giving team members dedicated time to read, reflect, and provide meaningful feedback before engaging. This approach eliminates immediate judgment, encourages deeper thinking, and ensures that ideas are evaluated on their merit rather than influenced by dominant voices.
- Others use silent collaboration, where participants write down their ideas before discussion starts ensuring a broader range of perspectives and reducing the pressure of speaking first.
3. Expand feedback channels
If your team lacks diverse perspectives, you can’t simply hire new people overnight. Instead, consider ways to broaden your reach for more insights:
- Implement hackathons / idea competitions
- For some time now at Tribe, I have used a method we call SWAT teams but it is essentially mini squads of people from across different departments and at different seniority levels tasked in solving problems. Interestingly what I have witnessed is, as the teams have seen real success in this method; now whenever there is a problem to solve they start pulling SWAT teams together!
The truth is, thankfully it doesn’t really matter, because when you listen and embrace diverse perspectives, someone on your team will have!
Team Tribe came together from across Europe to celebrate International Women's Day