Interview with: Lili Gil Valletta, CEO & Co-Founder, Culture+ Group
"Talent leaders know the power of inclusion, yet there are still opportunities to elevate what it means to future-proof business growth in a highly diverse and changing world. It must be embedded into all parts of the organization, and measured as it correlates to business results and competitiveness given demographic and market shifts. That is why DEI ought to become not a program but a mindset with Cultural Intelligence®," says Lili Gil Valletta, CEO & Co-Founder, Culture+ Group.
Culture+ Group was a service provider at the Marcus Evans Talent Management Summit 2023.
Talent leaders recognize that the power of diversity and inclusion goes beyond ensuring representation in ethnicity and background. The challenge and opportunity they have today is, how do they make that notion of inclusion more than just a number on a dashboard or a requirement they need to follow? How can they manage it and grow it into a competitive advantage, embedded in planning, R&D, operations, and marketing decisions every single day everywhere in the organization?
This is particularly critical given today's shifting demographics and expectations of internal and external stakeholders. We consider culture or inclusion, or Cultural Intelligence® not a program but a mindset.
By the year 2040, the US will be a majority-minority nation. That reality will have not only market implications but also the talent ought to reflect the communities they serve. In addition, in the next five to eight years, roughly 75 percent of the workforce will be Millennials. The Millennials are the most diverse generation in American history. Since companies should be fostering the talent pipeline and capturing the customers of tomorrow, if they are not tapping into those segments that are set to become the majority, they are shrinking their capacity to capture the full potential of the market. It really is mathematically impossible. They must tap into the growth of diverse segments, otherwise they will be stagnant in a shrinking market. Any analyst will tell you, the way to win is to anticipate trends and get ahead of growth. You cannot get your full potential in business, creativity or people, if you are not intentionally tapping into these segments that are set to become the majority.
I came up with the term Cultural Intelligence®, which has now evolved into a trademarked/patented methodology and data analytics solution, when I realized that companies were missing a cultural lens to their data and traditional business intelligence.
My dream is that in the future, the notion of an inclusive mindset will become as natural as digital savviness has now become. Understanding digital is no longer a specialty. The need for Cultural Intelligence® will also get to that point because of the sheer size, and shifts in the workforce and consumer base.
What gets measured gets done. The only way to make it stick is to monitor the impact of tapping into these high-growth diverse segments, have performance dashboards where sales growth is monitored by segment as well as talent sentiment and reputation across segments. That will allow them to truly see if they are capturing the full size of the market. If only 20 percent of the customers of a South Florida company are Hispanic, there is clearly a gap there, for example, when the population of Miami is 70 percent Hispanic. However, without measuring the process it's hard to know where you are going or what you are missing. Metrics, accountability with the metrics, compensation models that reward inclusive growth, capacity and capability building from within, will empower and democratize the organization's knowledge and application on this. That's ultimately the magic. Making that competent and inclusive data part of everyone's job and business KPIs.
There is a lot of noise and fear around the topic of DEI, in fact many are retreating from it, afraid of backlash, of saying the wrong thing. In fact, recently there are many headlines and studies around "DEI fatigue", and we cannot deny that. Companies should not fall into the trap of chasing a DEI agenda for the sake of representation and compliance, but graduate to an inclusive business mindset for the sake of innovation, impact and growth. If they have an inclusive approach to business growth, societal impact will be a by-product. We are coming from the point of view that this is all about business impact, staying competitive and future-proofing the business.
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