Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives seem to be losing traction, enthusiasm, and resources in some corporate environments. Daniel Snell, co-founder of leadership and culture change consultancy Arrival, says it’s time to take a performance-driven, customer-centred approach.

In this in-depth interview, Daniel discusses the challenges facing DEI initiatives and offers insights on how to realign diversity and inclusion efforts with business performance.

We explore these questions:

•  Why is DEI falling off corporate agendas?

•  Can diversity truly drive business performance?

•  Is the current approach to inclusion holding companies back?

•  How can organisations unlock people’s ‘uniqueness of contribution’?

•  Does a pure performance focus mean less progress towards inclusive leadership?

•  What role should data play in evolving DEI initiatives?

•  How will the corporate landscape transform in the next decade?

Listen to the full conversation below or read on for a summary of our discussion.


Our conversation with Daniel Snell, co-founder of Arrival


In a recent article, you mentioned that DEI seems to be fading as a priority. What’s driving that, do you think?

The team and I did a big piece of global research, speaking to over 100 executives and leaders across the globe. DEI is not really on anybody’s top 10 agendas anymore. I think what’s driving it is the fact that McKinsey (and other people) really established, in 2015, that more inclusion and more diversity drove greater performance. And I think everybody got excited by that. But in reality, that’s not really what’s happened.

If we can’t exactly demonstrate how DEI drives greater performance, then eventually leaders are going to look elsewhere to figure out what drives performance. And I guess what we [at Arrival] have managed to do is figure out that ‘how’.

We’re currently working with a global partner, unlocking significant revenue growth and opportunities as we unlock how DEI is applied in market to ensure that we’re unlocking the huge opportunities that inclusion and diversity can bring.

So, what are some of those opportunities? What’s the continued value in pursuing DEI initiatives and how do you talk to leaders about it?

Well first of all, ‘inclusive’ leadership is good leadership. So, I think inclusion or being in a growth mindset or open-minded is clearly a central agenda for everybody.

It is a huge driver of performance if you can understand how to apply it in the market. But typically now my conversations are much more performance-focused.

How the market has consumed DEI is a conversation about representation, targets, and lived experience. I don’t know any executives who haven’t understood and consumed that message. So, the whole agenda has to evolve and move on.

And that’s effectively what we’ve been doing – evolving it further.

What are the top priorities leaders and organisations should be looking at when they try to revitalise their approach to DEI and move it forward?

I guess the answer is performance, performance, performance. How do we unlock the innate uniqueness of contribution that drives performance?

And that’s the power of diversity, isn’t it? Because everybody has something unique to contribute, the question is, how can organisations link and align that to drive the performance flywheel?

For example, in the organisations we’re working with, we’re looking specifically at how we open up new market segments by applying these approaches to that new market segment. How do we become customer-centric?

There is amazing talent in almost in every organisation I step into. Great performance-enhancing contributions come from anywhere and from anyone.

If I were feeling excluded in an organisation and felt like I couldn’t contribute my performance-enhancing contributions and my energy and my effort, I’d think about moving on.

But if I felt I were in an organisation that I could contribute to, where I could rise through my contribution, then I would want to stay.

DEI performance-driven
That chimes with research we did on how inclusivity and belonging can drive performance and productivity. And on the flipside, when people don’t feel included, it reduces retention and increases attrition.

Where this evolves past that is, what is the performance-enhancing contribution that you can give? When you’re stepping into meetings, what is it that you can contribute and what is unique about your contribution that’s going to drive performance?

By focusing the business purely around growth and unlocking the uniqueness of either people’s contribution or the uniqueness that they can bring, you establish a much narrower focus around the value of their difference.

That brings up an interesting question. Is this pure focus on performance going to result in more diverse or inclusive leadership, or will things remain as they are? And if so, is that an issue?

I don’t think that’s how it plays out. My experience of talent is it’s always on a bell curve, doesn’t matter where you go or how you look at it.

To me, if you’re establishing a genuinely meritocratic environment, what people look like is secondary to the opportunity. That contribution of difference we can drive if somebody is exceptional.

If you want them to stay, you’ve got to get behind them, and that could be moving them all the way up to an executive role.

But you don’t want them in an executive role if they can’t operate and flourish in the executive role. You have to ensure that their contributions drive success at whatever level they are in the organisation.

There’s a wave of young talent coming into UK organisations. When I look around at organisations now, sub-35 [years old], they’re wildly diverse. So, I think that talent will continue to move up through the process.

The leaders that I work with believe that talent can come from anywhere. I just think that battle has been won.

What role do you think data collection and analysis plays as we try and evolve and improve in the quest for better DEI?

Data has incredible value. Obviously good data is the critical thing here. What is the data that we’re measuring and how we’re trying to apply it? If we can better understand what people’s contributions are, if we can better understand how we link what we do to the market and to the customer, if we better understand who our talent is in the organisation and how we unlock that talent, then I don’t see any downside to that.

Looking ahead five or 10 years, how do you think the corporate approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion will have changed?

We can unlock the best contributions of all of our people and we’re allowing the greatest talent we have in our organisations to fully contribute everything that they have. I think that would show up in in a very different and diverse landscape as we looked across our organisations.

How do we establish a high-performance, highly agile workforce that’s digitally enabled and can respond in a very flexible way that’s much more customer-centric? That’s really the next play for the next 10 years for all organisations and leaders.

Daniel Snell’s key takeaways on evolving DEI

  • DEI initiatives need to evolve and focus on driving performance.
  • Organisations should identify and nurture unique contributions that enhance business outcomes.
  • A meritocratic environment is crucial for allowing diverse talent to flourish.
  • Data-driven approaches can help organisations better understand and leverage their diverse talent pool.
  • The future of DEI lies in creating high-performing, agile workforces that are customer-centric and adaptable to change.

Learn more about Daniel Snell and Arrival here.

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