Olivia: A company with high racial and ethnic diversity is 35% more likely to outperform its competitors. So, Jackson, why do so many corporate diversity programs feel like they're designed to fail? Jackson: Because they're often just expensive PR. It’s a performance. Companies spend a fortune on unconscious bias training that doesn't stick, and they end up with a board that looks like a slightly more colorful version of the same old country club. This book argues the entire way we think about diversity is wrong, and it’s costing companies billions. Olivia: Exactly. And that's the core argument in Difference Makers: A Leader’s Guide to Championing Diversity on Boards by Dr. Nicky Howe and Alicia Curtis. What's fascinating is that this book didn't come from a theoretical, academic place. It grew out of an award-winning governance program they created in Australia to get young, aspiring directors onto boards, so it's packed with real-world, battle-tested insights. Jackson: So it's less about philosophy and more about a practical playbook. I like that. So where do most companies go wrong with diversity? What’s the fundamental mistake?

Olivia: The book argues the mistake is in the definition itself. We've been conditioned to think of diversity in terms of visible metrics—gender, race, age. And while those are critically important, the authors say that's only the first layer. The real power comes from what they call "diversity of thought." Jackson: Okay, "diversity of thought." That's a term I hear a lot. But isn't it a bit vague? It feels like something a CEO could say to avoid setting hard targets for representation. How do you even define it? Olivia: That's the perfect challenge. The book defines it very clearly. It's the sum of our unique qualities—our backgrounds, our personalities, our life experiences, our beliefs. It's everything that shapes how we see the world and solve problems. In a world the book describes as VUCA—Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous—you can't afford to have a room full of people who all think the same way, even if they look different. Jackson: VUCA. Right. That’s the modern business landscape in a nutshell. So you need a team that can handle curveballs from every direction. Olivia: Precisely. And they have a fantastic story that illustrates this perfectly: the China Australia Millennial Project, or CAMP. In the early 2010s, an organization called Alyceum recognized that despite strong economic ties, the future leaders of Australia and China didn't really understand each other. There was a huge cultural and collaborative gap. Jackson: I can imagine. Two very different worlds. Olivia: Immensely. So they created this bilateral business incubator. They handpicked top young leaders, aged 18 to 35, from both countries—from all sorts of industries—and brought them together for a five-day summit in Sydney. The goal wasn't just networking; it was to throw them into collaborative projects to develop new business ideas. Jackson: That sounds like a recipe for either chaos or genius. What happened? Olivia: Genius. By forcing these incredibly diverse minds together—not just different nationalities, but different ways of thinking about commerce, risk, and opportunity—they generated a wave of new ideas and forged deep, lasting relationships. The project wasn't about hitting a diversity quota; it was about creating a collision of perspectives. That collision is where innovation happens. It’s a perfect example of harnessing diversity of thought to create tangible value. Jackson: Okay, that story makes the concept click. It’s not about just having people from different places in the room; it’s about what you do with them. But let's get back to the boardroom. Does this "diversity of thought" actually make a company more money? The shareholders always want to know. Olivia: They do, and the data is overwhelmingly clear. The authors lean heavily on a landmark McKinsey report called 'Why Diversity Matters'. It's not just a few percentage points here and there. Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their national industry median. Jackson: Thirty-five percent. That is not a small number. That's a massive competitive advantage. Olivia: A huge one. And for gender diversity, the top-quartile companies were 15% more likely to outperform. The report even broke it down further: for every 10% increase in racial and ethnic diversity on a senior executive team, earnings before interest and taxes—EBIT—rose by nearly a full percentage point. Jackson: Wow. So the authors of Difference Makers are essentially saying, "Stop treating diversity as a social charity project or a PR move. It is a core financial and strategic imperative." Olivia: That is the entire premise. A quote from another report they cite says it all: "More diverse companies, we believe, are better able to win top talent and improve their customer-orientation, employee satisfaction, and decision-making, and all that leads to a virtuous cycle of increasing return." It’s not just the right thing to do; it's the smart thing to do. Jackson: Alright, the numbers are compelling. The "why" is crystal clear. But that just makes the next question even more urgent. If the business case is so strong, what's stopping boards from just... doing it? It can't just be about finding the right people. There must be something else going on.

Olivia: You've hit on the second major part of the book. It’s one thing to understand the 'why,' but it's another to tackle the 'how.' The authors argue the biggest barriers are invisible. They're psychological and emotional. They exist in our own minds and in the dynamics of the boardroom. One director quoted in the book puts it perfectly: "Increasingly, boards are in a fishbowl of scrutiny... The problems that boards are grappling with are too hard for any one person to figure out." Jackson: A fishbowl of scrutiny. I like that. It captures the pressure. So when you get a group of people in that high-pressure fishbowl, what goes wrong? Olivia: The biggest danger is groupthink. It's the tendency for a cohesive group to prioritize harmony and conformity over critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints. And the book shares a truly chilling historical example of this: the Kent State University board of trustees in 1977. Jackson: Kent State... that name carries a lot of weight. This is related to the 1970 shootings? Olivia: Directly. In 1977, the university trustees decided they needed to build a new addition to the gymnasium. The site they chose was on the very ground where the tragic shootings of student protestors had occurred seven years earlier. It was sacred, painful ground for the university community. Jackson: Oh, no. You can see the disaster coming from a mile away. What was the reaction? Olivia: Exactly what you'd expect. Students and faculty were outraged. There were massive protests, sit-ins, and hundreds of arrests. The community was pleading with the board to reconsider, to choose a different location. But the board, a group of presumably smart and successful individuals, dug in their heels. They refused to listen. They saw the protests not as valid feedback, but as a challenge to their authority. Jackson: They circled the wagons. It became us versus them. Olivia: Precisely. They were so insulated and so committed to their initial decision that they couldn't see the ethical or emotional devastation they were causing. They suppressed dissent and pushed forward. That is groupthink in its most destructive form. A diverse board, one with members who had different connections to the community, different backgrounds, different emotional sensitivities, might have seen the situation from more than one angle. Jackson: That's a powerful and sobering story. It shows how a lack of diversity isn't just a missed opportunity for profit; it can lead to catastrophic moral failures. So how do you prevent that? How do you break the spell of groupthink in a boardroom? Olivia: The book offers several tools, but one of the most practical is Edward de Bono's "Six Thinking Hats." It's a method for structured thinking that forces a group to look at a problem from multiple, distinct perspectives. Jackson: The Six Thinking Hats. I've heard of this, but it always sounded a bit like a corporate workshop exercise. Does a real board actually do this? Olivia: It might sound a bit playful, but its function is incredibly serious. Each "hat" represents a different mode of thinking. The White Hat is for pure facts and data. The Red Hat is for emotions and intuition—what's your gut feeling? The Black Hat is the critic, looking for risks and potential problems. The Yellow Hat is the optimist, focusing on benefits and opportunities. The Green Hat is for creativity and new ideas. And the Blue Hat manages the whole process. Jackson: I see. So instead of one person always being the designated skeptic or the eternal optimist, everyone has to put on each hat. Olivia: Exactly! It depersonalizes criticism. If you're wearing the Black Hat, your job is to find flaws. It's not you being negative; it's the role you're playing. This creates psychological safety for people to voice dissent without fear of being labeled as "not a team player." It forces the board to consider emotional and creative angles that a purely analytical, data-driven discussion would miss. It’s a structured way to build in that diversity of thought we were talking about. Jackson: That makes so much sense. It’s a process for thinking, not just a collection of people. But that requires a lot of emotional intelligence from the leader, the chair, to manage that process. Olivia: It's absolutely central. The book dedicates a lot of space to the mindsets of an inclusive leader—being open, curious, and having a growth mindset. But it all comes back to creating the conditions for these tools to work. And that starts with who is in the room in the first place, and how they got there.

Olivia: And that structure is key, because without it, you get the disaster scenario we saw with Lehman Brothers during the 2008 financial crisis. Jackson: Ah, the poster child for corporate collapse. How does their story fit into this? Olivia: The book points to their board as a textbook example of a failure in diversity—not necessarily of gender or race, but of relevant experience and perspective. The board was stacked with directors who were mostly retired and had very little current, hands-on knowledge of the complex financial instruments the company was dealing with. They were a homogenous group in terms of their out-of-date expertise. Jackson: So they didn't have the right "diversity of thought" to spot the iceberg dead ahead. They couldn't ask the right questions because they didn't even know what the right questions were. Olivia: Exactly. There was no one to effectively challenge the excessive risk-taking. It was a catastrophic failure of governance, rooted in a lack of the right mix of skills on the board. Now, contrast that with the stories of how to do it right. The book highlights the work from the authors' own program, featuring young leaders like Orla Hill and Matthew Horgan. Jackson: These are the people who went through their traineeship program? Olivia: Yes. Orla Hill, a research officer, was unsure about her capacity for a board directorship. But through the program, she was placed in a traineeship with an aged care organization called Melville Cares. This is the key: it was a traineeship, not a full-blown directorship with all the legal liabilities. Jackson: That’s brilliant. It solves the classic "you can't get experience without experience" paradox. Olivia: It's a perfect solution. She was mentored by the board chair, she got operational training with the executive team, and she was able to build relationships informally. She wasn't a token young person thrown into the deep end; she was nurtured. By the time she was appointed as a full board member a year later, she was confident and ready to contribute. She brought what the chair called "intelligent naivety"—the ability to ask fundamental questions that everyone else had stopped asking. Jackson: And Matthew Horgan's story was similar? Olivia: Very similar. He had a background in chemical engineering and was doing his MBA. He became a trainee director at another aged care group, SwanCare. He used his analytical skills to review financial activity, bringing a level of detail-oriented scrutiny the board valued. He said the traineeship was a great "taster" without the initial pressure, and it helped break up groupthink. Jackson: These stories are so much more hopeful. They show a clear, practical path. But in both cases, it sounds like the board chair was incredibly important. Can one person really make that much of a difference? Olivia: The book argues the chair is the lynchpin. The journey of Conrad Liveris, who became a board chair at 21, is a testament to this. He says, "Organizational issues start and end with the chair." The chair's role is to lead the recruitment process, to champion programs like traineeships, to manage the meeting dynamics using tools like the Six Hats, and to ensure every voice is heard. They are the ultimate "Difference Maker."

Jackson: It really feels like this all comes together as a cohesive strategy. It's not just one thing. It's not just hiring different people, and it's not just running a workshop on thinking differently. Olivia: That's the perfect way to put it. The book presents it as a three-legged stool. You need the right 'why'—a deep, strategic understanding that diversity of thought is a financial and innovative engine, not just a social good. Jackson: That's leg one. The business case. Olivia: Then you need the right 'how'—the psychological tools and emotional intelligence to overcome our natural tendencies toward bias and groupthink. You have to actively manage the human element in the boardroom. Jackson: Leg two. The mindset and the toolkit. Olivia: And finally, you need the right 'who'—the people, yes, but also the processes like nominations committees and traineeships to bring those diverse voices to the table and, crucially, to set them up for success, not tokenism. Jackson: It seems the big takeaway is that diversity isn't a program you install; it's a culture you build, starting with yourself. The book even has checklists for leaders to assess their own commitment. Olivia: It does. It's intensely practical. So the question the book leaves for every leader, every board member, every aspiring director listening is a powerful one. Are you building a team that just looks good on paper, or are you building one that's actually equipped to see the future from every possible angle? In our complex world, the difference is everything. Jackson: A question worth reflecting on for anyone in a position of leadership. A fantastic and deeply practical book. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.