Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as First Principles

First Principles thinking whittles down any problem, any challenge, any theory, into basic truths that can be applied universally. Not just in learning, not just in development, not just in humans, but anywhere! It takes away all statements, statistics, history, and assumptions, and leaves room only for the most basic questions about how stuff happens. And that doesn’t mean that there’s no outcome in mind. This model requires an outcome to be in mind! In fact, much of modern machine learning uses a First Principles structure, with the programmer inputting one rule, such as “win this chess game” and letting the artificial intelligence figure the game of chess from scratch. That’s pretty much the extent of my knowledge of machine learning, so let’s move on before I put my foot in my mouth too badly.

Whether in humans or with AI, First Principles can be thought of as thinking and learning like a young child. You’re going to make a lot of weird mistakes at the beginning because you’re still figuring out the activity, but, with time and practice, you become less and less clunky. And I should point out, there’s a reason I’ve been vague in this introduction. It’s because I’m purposefully trying to craft this story using first principles, and part of that is not getting caught up in any specific story, or history, or failure, or success in the past. It’s starting from right now and figuring out the best position to move from. And right now in the world, there couldn’t be a better starting point than the First Principles of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

My mission in this post is to present these concepts as universally applicable, no matter your background or current situation. And I promise, if you build any program from a foundation of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, that learning environment will skyrocket! So let’s get into it.

Principle One: The most resilient systems are diverse

Let’s first define diversity: Diversity includes all the ways in which things differ, encompassing the different characteristics that make one individual or group different from another. Think about it, diversification is as good of a cornerstone of longevity as anything. Things that stay the same however, tend to get left behind as the world evolves. And speaking of evolving, that’s a perfect example of diversification and resilience! The more diverse traits a species can bring together, the more likely a helpful mutation occurs, like big brains, and the better chance that species has to stick around. How about the stock market? Diversification wins. Yeah I said it. This is not the right blog for the GameStop crowd. A diversified strategy wins in the long run. So why wouldn’t we apply this to learning and teaching? Diversify the people, backgrounds, and opinions in the room, and chances are you’re going to come up with something more creative than a room full of clones.

Principle Two: The biggest ROI is equity

Equity is the fair treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement for all people, while at the same time striving to identify and eliminate barriers that have prevented the full participation of some groups. Dollar for dollar, creating equity is a game changer if you’re trying to create a high-performance learning environment and see the biggest return on that investment. Imagine if your people were already high performers, meaning they had all the knowledge, skill, and ability they needed to be stars, but there was something holding them back that others didn’t need to face, and as soon as you worked on helping them overcome that obstacle, their performance skyrocketed! That’s equity. You want to know why baseball teams moved from giving minor league players hot dogs and PB&J sandwiches before games to serving basically a major league spread? It’s not because they were feeling generous. It’s because they saw the return on investment in performance. When your starting point is creating a starting point that’s the same for everyone, then you’re much more likely to see everyone live up to their potential.

Principle Three: Inclusion invites learners to participate

Inclusion is the act of creating environments in which any individual or group can be and feel welcomed. Tell me a teaching, managing, or coaching scenario where you don’t want everyone in that room to feel welcomed? If you’re trying to transfer any type of knowledge, and as a starting point you exclude half your audience, that doesn’t sound like a very good system to me. On the other hand, if you start with the premise that participation is a prerequisite to success, then inclusion is a no-brainer, because no one gives full effort when they don’t think their efforts are welcomed.

Let me be the first to say that I know this is a 30 thousand foot view of these concepts. My reasoning for such broad strokes is that I personally don’t feel equipped, at least yet, to dive into the details of what DE & I efforts can do for organizations. I am definitely like that young child who will surely make mistakes in trying to wrestle with these concepts. I know I need to continue to learn so much more. But that’s also why these terms work so well as First Principles. I know that if I seek out diversity of thought, remove barriers to participation, and invite that participation, then that learning is bound to occur.

Now just imagine what the world could learn if we all utilized those First Principles. Will it be clunky at times? Definitely! But when you build from diversity, equity, and inclusion, the world will not only open up for your people, it’ll open up for you.