Beyond Diversity: 12 Non-Obvious Ways To Build A More Inclusive World

by Rohit Bhargava, Jennifer Brown

Overview

A wide-ranging compilation of the best insights and advice about how to make the world more diverse and inclusive, featuring advice contributed by more than seventy world renowned experts.

In January of 2021, some of the world’s most widely respected experts in diversity, inclusion, and equity gathered virtually for the most ambitious conversation about diversity ever imagined.

Casting directors, bookstore owners, disability advocates, college students, robotic journalists, startup founders, esports professionals, bestselling authors, and a diverse group of more than sixty others came together to have conversations about how to shape a more diverse and inclusive future.

Unlike many other global conversations about diversity which inspire feel-good social media hashtags and a false sense of accomplishment, the aim of this event was different. Every conversation focused on uncovering “non-obvious” insights for how to move diversity, equity and inclusion into the future.

In this book, you will read a compilation of the best insights, most actionable advice and biggest ideas from all of these experts. Whether you are new to the ideas of diversity, equity and inclusion, or you are a DEI expert yourself, this book will offer a useful and inspiring collection of ideas to shift your perspective … along with plenty of actionable advice on what you can do right now to become an advocate, ally and leader to help create a more inclusive world for us all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781646870516
Publisher:	Ideapress Publishing
Publication date:	11/09/2021
Pages:	268
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Rohit Bhargava believes the world need more non-obvious thinkers. He is the author of six books on topics as wide ranging as how to bring more humanity back to business and how to see things other miss. His latest book Non-Obvious Megatrends was a #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller. Rohit's books have won multiple international awards, shortlisted for the Leonard L. Berry Book Award and been translated into 15 languages. Outside of his writing and speaking, Rohit is also an Adjunct Professor of storytelling and marketing at Georgetown University.

He believes in listening before talking and helps his readers to be more interesting. According to his business card, Rohit is a "Trend Curator, Storyteller and Nice Guy." You can test that final claim for yourself by getting in touch with Rohit here: rohit [at] nonobviouscompany [dot] com

Read an Excerpt

On a cavernous soundstage in Denmark, groups of people file in one by one. They are clearly different from one another. One group walks in with tattoos. Another, all female, is wearing medical uniforms in various colors. There is an all-White group, right alongside one that includes people visibly from multiple ethnicities. Each group stands apart, staring uncomfortably at one another for what seems like an eternity.

Finally, a host comes in to explain what is about to happen.

“I’m going to ask you some questions today,” he says. “Some of them may be a bit personal, but I hope you will answer them honestly.”

The first question immediately reduces the tension. “Which one of you was the class clown?” A smattering of people from each cluster comes forward. They line up together on the far side of the room and stand in front of a screen posing for a group photo. The session continues with a range of other unexpected questions. Who among you are stepparents? Who has been bullied? Who has been a bully? Who feels lonely? After each question, people come together, embrace, pose for a photograph, and return to their group.

The point of the exercise soon becomes clear to every participant: they are celebrating their similarities instead of their differences.

This social experiment was conceived and filmed several years ago to promote Denmark’s most-watched family of channels, TV2. Titled “All That We Share,” the campaign ran on Danish television and was later released globally on YouTube.1 It quickly went viral, racking up nearly 300 million views and winning a prestigious Gold Cannes Lion award.
This focus on similarities is sadly missing in many conversations happening about diversity and inclusion across the world. It is a rarely spotlighted irony that so much of the dialogue about diversity ends up emphasizing what sets us apart instead.
 
You can see this splintered approach in the structure of many live and virtual events aimed at exploring the theme of diversity. There are conferences dedicated to racial justice, reducing gender discrimination at work, advocating for LGBTQ+ legislation, eliminating ageism at work, creating more accessible digital content for people with disabilities, making corporate boards more inclusive, and much more.

These conferences host important conversations—and they offer a safe space for people who have been excluded and marginalized to share their experiences freely and have their points of view heard and discussed. They play an essential role in our evolving conversation about diversity and equity.
And yet, they are not enough.

These often-insular conversations about diversity don’t reflect the reality of our intersecting identities. As the TV2 viral experiment so powerfully illustrates, none of us fits neatly into a single category. We exist through intersections, but our conversations about diversity regularly push us to pick one dimension of ourselves at the expense of others. These dimensions are the lenses that shape how we perceive our place in the world. Being Hispanic, or female, or gay, or over 50, or disabled, or any combination of identities helps us zoom in on a unique perspective of the world. But while zoom lenses are helpful for focusing on details, they are intentionally designed to ignore the full picture.
 
If there is one shortcoming of the worldwide conversation about diversity and inclusion, it is this: focusing on only one aspect of our identities prevents the opportunity to better understand ourselves and others outside that one label.
Instead, there is a concept we will discuss frequently in this book known as intersectionality. The term, first coined by American lawyer and civil rights advocate Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, refers to the idea that none of us can be defined by a single label, but only through a combination of social identities.

Embracing the idea of intersectionality requires us to switch to a wide-angle lens. What if we had conferences, TV shows, or corporate recruiting programs dedicated to bringing people and perspectives together that might never otherwise share the same space? It is exciting to imagine the sorts of questions and topics that might arise.

How would someone fighting to end gender pay gaps relate to a disabled gamer demanding more accessible experiences? What would an advocate for racial literacy in schools say to a researcher studying how to end age-related biases at work? What might a local business fighting to expand broadband internet access for those living on Native American reservations ask a community organizer imagining how to transform a neglected local park into a vibrant urban garden? All of these people are pioneers fighting for equity, but they rarely (if ever) cross paths.
 
To truly create a more inclusive world, we need to move beyond the usual diversity conversations and break down the barriers between these topics.

Vernā Myers, vice president of inclusion strategy at Netflix, once said, “diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance.” Her words are often shared by those who advocate for diversity, but for us, they inspired a question: what if everyone was not only invited to the party and asked to dance, but also left with a mixtape filled with music they would love, but had never had the chance to hear before?

In late 2020, we decided to try and host this type of party. It started with the idea of a one-day virtual event that would bring together a dozen or so diversity and inclusion experts from various fields. Over the next few months, that concept sparked a whirlwind of hundreds of conversations and 20-hour-days that would eventually result in the groundbreaking gathering of voices that inspired this book. It all began, as many great ideas do, with listening.

Table of Contents

Introduction..................................1
Beyond Diversity ... In Storytelling..........17
Beyond Diversity ... In Identity..............37
Beyond Diversity ... In Family................57
Beyond Diversity ... In Culture...............75
Beyond Diversity ... In Education.............95
Beyond Diversity ... In Retail................113
Beyond Diversity ... In the Workplace.........131
Beyond Diversity ... In Technology............149
Beyond Diversity ... In Entrepreneurship......167
Beyond Diversity ... In Leadership............185
Beyond Diversity ... In Government............203
Beyond Diversity ... In the Future............221
Conclusion....................................241
Acknowledgments...............................245

Editorial Reviews

"A comprehensive guide focuses on how to increase diversity and inclusion in society. . . . Managers, CEOs, and hiring directors—as well as ordinary people—will find a great deal of valuable insights in these pages. . . . A useful, forcefully written, and wide-ranging study of inequities—and how to fix them."
—KIRKUS REVIEWS

Rohit Bhargava and Jennifer Brown’s progressive and inspiring book Beyond Diversity suggests means of building a more inclusive and accepting world. A wide range of voices and experiences are included, including transgender people and people of color, and the text leans into the successes that people have had when faced with challenges, helping to show what’s possible. The result is a book that makes daunting arenas, including those of family, personal identity, and work, feel accessible to change.

The prose is straightforward and direct, and is complemented by the book’s bold design choices and approachable, short paragraphs. But its accessibility belies the power of its vision for what societies might achieve. It acknowledges hard realities, as of racism, while asking people to hold institutions accountable for any inequalities in them. And it welcomes discussions about identity, which it says should be approached with “less judgment and more patience.” Its thoughtful mix of ideas that can be implemented in groups with those that operate on the individual level are concrete; they recognize that “changing ourselves and our actions is hard,” but still say that diversity is worth the effort.

Beyond Diversity is a cogent social science book that knows that progressive, meaningful change, though it may require collective action, begins with individuals.

—Clarion Review

"Beyond Diversity provides a much-needed directive for those in power to get educated and use their influence to finally break down the barriers that have left so many of us behind."
—MINDA HARTS, Speaker, Founder, and Author of The Memo

"An urgently needed, eminently practical book that every leader should read which takes on a tough topic with sharp minds and open hearts."
—DANIEL H. PINK, New York Times bestselling author of When, Drive, and To Sell Is Human

"Beyond Diversity artfully uses the power of storytelling to connect the reader with the lived experience of LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized communities. This book opens eyes, hearts, and minds!"
—AMBER HIKES, Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

"A must-read for anyone committed to a world where we all belong and contribute fully. I really enjoyed this book!"
—MICHELE MEYER-SHIPP, Chief People Officer for Major League Baseball

"Successful women advocate for themselves. For any woman of color seeking to unearth her individual power, this is an essential read."
—DEEPA PURUSHOTHAMAN, Author of The First, The Few, The Only and Co-Founder of NFormation

"Thought-provoking, layered, and fresh. Wherever you may be in your journey, Beyond Diversity is the weapon in your DEI arsenal to make better inclusion choices."
—MICHELLE KING, Author of The Fix and CEO of Equality Forward

"Beyond Diversity provides a roadmap to help all of us step into the conversation and be a part of the movement toward a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable society."
—ERIN URITUS, CEO of Out and Equal

From the Publisher