This article was originally published in 2023 and updated in 2025 to keep our readers up-to-date with the latest in organisational performance and team dynamics.
The common perception is that diversity and inclusion is an HR prerogative. But that’s not true. While the HR team is responsible for driving diversity and inclusion in the workplace, it needs to be a leadership priority that works from the top down.
Fostering diversity and inclusion is no longer just an HR checkbox—it’s a strategic advantage. From improved decision-making and innovation to stronger team dynamics and business performance, embracing diverse perspectives unlocks measurable impact.
In this practical guide updated for 2025, we explore how companies can go beyond quotas to create an inclusive, high-performing culture where everyone thrives.
How does diversity and inclusion benefit the workplace?
Here at Herrmann, we believe diversity is more than just a buzzword. In fact, we know it’s a core driver of business success. Gender equality and racial inclusion in your workforce is not only the right thing to do morally, it’s the smart thing to do strategically.
Just take a quick look at some of the numbers. According to research by McKinsey:
- Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15% more likely to achieve financial returns above their national industry medians
- Businesses with low gender and ethnic diversity not only fail to lead, they actually lag behind the average company in their market
- Organisations with the highest racial diversity are 35% more likely to achieve financial returns above their national industry medians
- A 10% increase in racial and ethnic diversity on senior-executive team correlates with a 0.8% rise in earnings before interest and taxes
As per a study by Deloitte, organisations with inclusive cultures are:
- 2 times more likely to meet or exceed financial targets
- 3 times more likely to be high-performing
- 6 times more likely to be innovative and agile
- 8 times more likely to achieve better business outcomes
Even a brief look at these numbers shows the undeniable effect of having more diversity in the workplace.
When it comes to executive leadership, research has shown time and time again that having a diverse workforce improves business – the benefits include more equitable pay across all levels of the organisation, improved shareholder returns and more effective risk management, resulting in better outcomes for businesses, employees, customers and society as a whole.
On the flipside, a lack of diversity can have severe consequences. Groupthink (the tendency for groups to make poor decisions in an effort to maintain group cohesion) contributes to failures in governance. If you’re surrounding yourself with yes men and yes women, who’s going to provide a different perspective? And who’s going to challenge a questionable decision?
What’s the link between diversity and success?
The answer lies in two words: diverse thinking.
When you have a group of similar people running a business, their thinking styles tend to sync. Meaning that, while you may have 20 people sitting in the boardroom, you’re ultimately coming to similar conclusions.
Think of it like a football team. A room full of defensive players will strategize defensively. Add in offensive players, a goalie—even a mascot—and suddenly, you’re drawing from a much wider range of perspectives. your decisions will be made with a full spectrum of thinking. Bottom line: Diversity opens the door for more diverse thought. Differing viewpoints, ideas and insights led to better problem-solving and superior performance.
That’s the power of diverse thinking. Different viewpoints lead to better decisions, deeper insights, and stronger performance. It also helps companies connect with increasingly diverse customers by better understanding their needs and perspectives.
At work, we need diversity of thought and ideas to solve tough problems and make smart decisions. Embracing diverse thought unlocks fresh ideas, fosters curiosity, and helps build empathy. It invites us to step out of our own viewpoints, ask better questions, and discover unexpected links between ideas. Most importantly, it strengthens relationships and drives innovation.
When it comes to governance teams, having a spectrum of thinking styles helps drive better decision-making, problem-solving and innovation. Governance teams deal with a range of complex problems – too complex for any one person, or one perspective, to handle effectively. Having multiple perspectives on the possible outcomes of any action is more likely to take into account the risks and consequences of the action. With different perspectives represented, executive teams are also more likely to consider the interests of not just shareholders, but also employees, customers and the community.
Introducing diversity of thought
Diversity of thought goes beyond background, experience, and opinion—though these elements often shape it. Fundamentally, it’s about how individuals process and approach ideas differently. The reason diversity leads to better outcomes is because having different people at the table contributes to greater diversity of thought – Diverse teams bring varied perspectives, pose different questions, and propose unique solutions. Factors like gender, education, culture, life experience, personality, and socio-economic background all influence how a person thinks.
The Herrmann Whole Brain® Model offers a powerful framework for understanding these cognitive differences. It identifies four distinct thinking preferences: analytical, structured, relational (people-oriented), and conceptual. The model shows how thinking falls into four preference clusters that we all have access to. It’s like your thinking system, consisting of four different thinking ‘selves’.
The four-colour quadrant graphic and Whole Brain® are registered trademarks of Herrmann Global, LLC. ©2015 Herrmann Global, LLC
You have a team of these four thinking selves available to you, but if you’re like most of us, you probably prefer some of them over others. Like a sports team, you have your go-to players that you send out the majority of the time, while others sit on the bench.
When we talk about diversity of thought, we’re talking about this diversity of thinking preferences. Each of the four preferences – analytical, experimental, relational and structural – contribute value to the business. You can’t run an organisation and remain successful over the long term without all of this thinking in play and, often, in very specific ways. From our database of more than two million thinkers, we can even identify patterns of thinking that are common in particular occupations.
Diversity of thought is one of the most valuable assets for any modern organisation. Our work with thousands of businesses worldwide shows this again and again, and our research confirms it. Teams balanced in thinking preferences explore more options, make better decisions, and are 66% more efficient when facing complex challenges than homogenous teams.
How to encourage diversity and inclusion in the workplace
Encouraging diversity and inclusion isn’t just the right thing to do—it’s a smart business strategy. Here’s how you can actively foster a more inclusive and equitable workplace.
1. Set diversity and inclusion goals
Just the way you set goals to achieve business growth, it’s essential to set SMART diversity and inclusion goals to bring them into reality. It can’t be something as top-level as ‘hiring more women’. You need to set more specific and tangible goals that are in line with your business and talent priorities.
One of the biggest mistakes companies make is setting oversimplified goals that don’t facilitate lasting change. Instead of starting out by focusing on getting a certain number of hires, which may not facilitate lasting change, first focus on process and setting goals that zero in on changing hiring infrastructure.
Start with taking a look at your existing workforce — which groups are underrepresented? It’s also a good idea to send out a company-wide survey to uncover insights the top management might be overlooking.
You need to also evaluate the existing processes that might be preventing you from creating an inclusive culture. These are a few factors you can assess:
- How do you write job descriptions?
- What is your hiring process?
- Who is part of the interviewing panel?
- What is your onboarding process?
- How are you holding remote meetings?
- Do you promote a feedback culture?
2. Educate your employees through training
Employees make the company and if your employees aren’t aware of what diversity and inclusion entail, there’s no way you can cultivate it.
This is why it’s crucial to develop an employee training and development program aimed at educating employees, helping them identify blind spots, and training them to be more sensitive to others.
Make sure the training program is geared towards employees across the organisation and is an ongoing initiative. It’s a good idea to create action plans, have open dialogues, and regularly check-in with them to track progress.
3. Design for diversity
While designing any sort of communication or training material, it’s essential to design for diversity. This involves creating designs for people with colour blindness, visual impairment, and neurodiversity, ensuring that the majority of your employees can access and understand the material.
Some best practices include:
- Using colour-blind friendly colour palettes
- Using large and legible fonts
- Avoiding walls of text
- Using icons and photos to create context
- Using clean and simple backgrounds
For instance, here’s an example of a presentation with accessible design. Notice how it uses a simple colour palette and easy-to-read fonts, making it suitable for most people living with colour blindness.
Source: Venngage
4. Create a diversity and inclusion council
Your company structure is likely to have department heads that are responsible for their respective functions and team performance. This ensures that every team is working collaboratively towards the larger business goals.
The same logic applies to creating a diversity and inclusion council.
Consisting of top-level and middle management leaders, this council needs to be responsible for driving and accelerating the organisation’s diversity and inclusion goals. Needless to say, it should include a diverse representation of the workforce – a cross-section of seniority, gender, age, sexual orientation, ability, and cultural and racial diversity in your organisation.
5. Evaluate your leadership team
According to a McKinsey report, when respondents say leaders at their organisations are diverse, they are 1.5 times more likely than those from organisations without diverse leaders to feel included. This suggests that the key to creating an inclusive culture stems from having a diverse set of leaders.
Evaluate your current leadership team — is there diverse representation? Do they reflect your target customer base? What are the gaps in your leadership team? This will help you assess your current stance and understand what you need to do to build a more diverse team.
Just keep in mind that there’s more to leadership diversity than simply paying lip service to gender equality or implementing quotas at the top echelons of business. For example, it’s common practice for new board members to be recruited from the networks of current board members. So regardless of gender or racial diversity, those appointed to boards tend to have similar backgrounds and spend time in similar social circles.
Achieving balance is most certainly the key to more effective governance, but it’s not about who’s in the room, but rather, how the people in that room think. Diversity of thought goes beyond demographics.
6. Develop leadership training
In addition to strategic succession planning and retaining talent from underrepresented sections, it’s also important to develop leadership training programs that help leaders understand the importance of diversity and inclusion and gives them the opportunity to practice what they learn.
7. Overcome hiring bias
Hiring bias is a major barrier that prevents organisations from creating a diverse and inclusive workforce. There are different types of unconscious biases that exist such as affinity bias, attribution bias, and confirmation bias among others.
Here are some ways to overcome hiring bias and improve inclusion:
- Use neutral language while writing job descriptions
- Diversify your sources of recruiting candidates
- Be mindful of the questions you ask during an interview
- Organise multiple rounds of interviews with different interviewers
- Create a standardised template to evaluate candidates
8. Go beyond quotas with the HBDI® and Whole Brain® framework
Traditional approaches to diversity have focused on filling quotas or achieving a demographic balance. While it’s certainly a step in the right direction, the HBDI and Whole Brain® framework offers a more comprehensive approach by shifting the focus to cognitive diversity.
Many leaders believe that simply including women or underrepresented groups will solve their diversity problems. But giving attention only to the skin deep elements of diversity is a mistake.
Demographics are only one piece of the puzzle. Real impact comes when organisations go beyond surface-level diversity to embrace differences in how people think, process information, and solve problems. To create meaningful change and link diversity to business results, we need to prioritise diversity of thought. It’s differences in thinking rather than differences in gender or race that increase diversity and, as a result, performance.
The HBDI assessment allows businesses to look at similarities and differences in thinking styles, helping teams understand their strengths and weaknesses, and uncovering any cognitive gaps. This insight allows leaders to intentionally build diverse teams equipped to solve complex challenges and drive innovation. The HBDI also gives you the tools to leverage these different ways of thinking (more on this below).
Making diversity work: How can you leverage diversity and diverse thinking?
You’ve built a diverse team—great start. Now what?
Differences in a group can lead to better problem solving and decision making as well as more innovative ideas – but it’s not just as simple as putting diverse people on a team and seeing what comes out of it. Diversity alone isn’t enough. To unlock its full value, you need to activate it. That means recognising, appreciating, and intentionally using your team’s different thinking styles to solve problems, spark innovation, and make smarter decisions.
Here’s how to get the most out of your team’s diversity of thought:
Recognise different thinking styles
In order for diverse team thinking styles to positively affect your business, you need to recognise them. This means taking the time to pinpoint the different thinking styles within your team and understanding how they add value to your business.
Understanding and recognising different thinking approaches will enable your team members to share their ideas and thought patterns more openly. This freedom jumpstarts team creativity and allows your employees to take advantage of the spectrum of thinking in the office.
Create a safe space for diverse ideas
The added bonus of thinking diversity is it allows people to think about differences in a non-judgmental way. It has nothing to do with personalities or behaviours, it is about the way people prefer to think. It highlights preferences in information processing and opens the pathway for better communication and better team chemistry.
And while recognition of different thinking styles is important, avoid stereotyping – Stereotyping of others is a major impediment to team development (he’s a “this” or she’s a “that”).
Facilitate with intention
Particularly in the case of highly diverse groups, an effective leader or facilitator is essential. The most successful team leaders value the differences on the team and encourage people to bring their best thinking to work. This helps to both bridge the diversity of thought in the group and keep the Whole Brain® in mind so all perspectives are heard.
The more mentally diverse a group is, the more they need a multi-dominant facilitator/leader. Agile team leaders are critical for managing and leveraging differences on the team.
Establish a common language to build synergy
While diverse teams are less likely to experience groupthink, one downside is that they’re more prone to conflict and barriers to communication.
Diverse teams—especially those that are cross-cultural or virtual—need a shared language and communication framework to thrive. Without it, even the most creative groups can struggle with misunderstandings and misalignment. Investing time in defining processes, expectations, and communication norms builds clarity, trust, and collaboration across differences.
Use the Whole Brain® Model to guide collaboration
Using the Whole Brain® Model as a framework to guide a team’s actions can reshape the entire meeting or task for the better. At the beginning of a project, or periodically throughout the team’s engagement, ask questions from each quadrant, such as:
- BLUE: Do we have clear performance goals, objectives and measurements?
- GREEN: Do we have clear priorities, a plan and a timeline?
- RED: Do we have an understanding of our “customer” and each other?
- YELLOW: Are we taking appropriate risks to challenge ourselves and come up with new ideas?
Embrace creative contention
Successful teams practice ‘creative contention’. Getting great results from a team isn’t just about everyone getting along or coming to quick agreement.
In fact, when the problems are complex, or we need to push the boundaries for innovation, creative abrasion can make all the difference.
The takeaway: Promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace
Building a diverse and inclusive workforce is not something that happens overnight. However, the earlier you make conscious efforts to drive change, the better it is for your organisation.
The HBDI can help teams better understand each other and be used as a starting point to embrace diversity of thought. To learn more about the HBDI and Whole Brain® Thinking, reach out to our team today!
