Why diversity matters

20th October 2022, 4.20PM BST

The UK Government and its [current] ruling party are demonstrating the power of diversity, through its absence.

This despite some high profile racial diversity: Rishi Sunak, Kwasi Kwarteng, Priti Patel, Suella Braverman, James Cleverly and Kemi Badenoch have each held high office in recent governments for example.

Diversity is however more than skin deep.

Those same governments pressed for the minimum diversity in individuals’:

• background - work experience, education, social class etc.

• perspective - political leaning, life experience etc.

• opinion - desired national outcomes etc.

• skills - management, subject matter etc.

The deliberate focus on conformity to a single view (support) on just a single topic (Brexit) has up-ended the current UK ruling party by narrowing the pool of available individuals who submit to that conformity to the least capable, whether out of actual ability or out of chosen inability.

Famously, the two most recent UK Prime Ministers (at the time of writing …) both actively shed their diverse opinions on Brexit in order to progress themselves politically.

Conformity is the Peter Principle writ large.

This conformity is now collapsing and revealing that diversity is a strength.

Without it errors compile in a uniform direction.

This alignment makes ultimate failure inevitable, since errors cannot cancel each other out, and all are related.

Conformity is fragile

i.e. vulnerable to & weakened by volatility, change, uncertainty

Consensus is robust

i.e. withstanding of volatility, change, uncertainty

Diversity is antifragile

i.e. improved & strengthened by volatility, change, uncertainty

Forcing conformity in a complex system–like an organisation, market, government, or political party–closes out options, expands fragility and makes the inevitable crash bigger.