DEI: A Practical View
We’ve never written about DEI. We’ve never felt the need—because it’s ingrained in the way we live and what we teach in our program. We respect everyone’s background and treat people the way we’d like to be treated.
At a fundamental level, you need diversity in your team. But diversity isn’t about the features of our bodies. It’s about diversity of thought. Promote the right people for the right jobs, regardless of where they come from or how they look.
Basically, there are two extremes in this conversation right now, and it's become politicized. Some people push hard for affirmative action. Others want to see it gone because they feel stifled, and they see it as overly 'woke'. Beyond that, there's layers of nuance. I'd argue that it should only be about treating people on the basis of relevant criteria for their job. Our point is simple: neither extreme is entirely true. What’s in the middle is what matters. The improvements that have come from DEI aren’t going away. Fundamentally, we are more tuned into peoples’ differences, and that’s a good thing.
Those who cheer its demise because it frees them up to express their bias—well, they were always biased, and we can’t do much about their ignorance. But DEI has moved the middle. Even if you thought it was woke or over the top, you’ve still been influenced by it. Let me explain why that’s a net positive.
In our program we emphasise dealing with the person right in front of us. The whole person. Everything they bring. They have a suite of important skills—how can you, as a manager, unleash them if you deny some part of them? You can’t.
Something that has stuck with me since I first heard it at a Darden Business School residential program is a quote from Alec Horniman: Staff have three questions for every manager:
Can I trust you?
Do you care about me?
Are you committed to excellence?
The caring question is simple: Do you recognize me as a human being, or am I just an economic unit—a vehicle of production? Hopefully, most of us see ourselves as managers who care about our staff as people. We can all think of times when we’ve shown compassion and appreciation during tough times. But how do you go beyond that? How do you create a culture where people feel cared about all the time?
Because if you only show compassion in times of distress or to appease a box-ticking exercise in diversity, there’s a risk that you’ll be perceived as indifferent. And right now, more than ever, people need security and reassurance.
A Real-World Example: We went to Hortus yesterday. Hortus recruits, manages and houses RSE (Recognized Seasonal Employer) workers from all over the Pacific Islands, including Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea.
I was talking to a guy who had 12 different nationalities in his team—people who leave home for months to work. Hortus has built a high-class facility with 400+ beds to house them, and they work incredibly hard to make their people feel at home.
To me, that’s what managing diversity looks like. It’s neither subjugation nor token hiring. It’s not about DEI as a policy. It’s about finding a fantastic workforce and making it as easy as possible for them to succeed.
Even small things matter—like the shape of the roofs in the housing, which resemble those back home, or putting stones down because the staff miss the sound of rain hitting the stones in the night. That’s recognizing cultural preferences and helping people feel comfortable in a foreign land.
And it works. Hortus has grown faster than the industry they serve. They get workers coming back year after year. They can train their managers because they know those managers will return. They have an exemplary record because they treat people well.
That’s not hiring because of DEI. That’s applying the lessons DEI has taught us. It wasn’t because of institutional DEI—it just makes sense. They said they’re all about “Horticulture, Viticulture, and Our Culture.” And you can see it in everything they do. They live their values, as any good business should.
Here’s the reality, and an idea about the future: any institutionalized DEI effort will eventually become bureaucratic, break down, and fade away. But good human practice, good human workplaces—those don’t go away. They existed before DEI, and they’ll exist after, because they are built on good values.
If you need to be reminded of this stuff, then yes, you actually do need DEI.
Because discrimination is treating people differently based on irrelevant characteristics. Race, gender, orientation, disabilities—they’re an important part of people’s lives, but are generally irrelevant to how someone does their job.
If you judge someone’s performance based on those things, you’re discriminating based on an irrelevant characteristic, and that means you’re not doing your job as a manager. It’s as simple as that.