But longer-term, the challenge for all organisations is this: to put in place a more system-oriented approach to recruitment and performance management, which weighs diversity explicitly and systematically. We are not close to being there yet. This would be a leap of faith. But it would not be a leap into the unknown given the known benefits such diversity confers. Conclusion We are all Sneetches, some with stars, some without. The sooner we recognise that our minds are biased, the better placed we will be for dealing with its consequences. Diversity is a public good because it corrects our biased minds in ways which benefit society – from greater creativity and innovation to more robust and resilient decision-making, in every social setting from schoolrooms to sports fields, from companies to communities, from eco-systems to economies. This public good, like all public goods, requires an on-going investment. Society has made a real investment in identity-based diversity over the past few years. So too has the Bank. That first diversity wave is reaping significant societal rewards. There has probably never been a better time for making progress on creating that second diversity wave, one which cultivates the subtle, but as important, cognitive and socio-economic dimensions. While leopards can’t change their spots, Sneetches can change their stars.
That being the case, it is worth considering the “second wave” of diversity initiatives that might augment the first. An obvious place to start here would be the other dimensions of diversity – cognitive and experiential. The evidence suggests these confer societal benefits every bit as great as identity. Indeed, diversity of thought and experience go the very heart of decision-making diversity. Moreover, because these dimensions are less well-recognised and harder to measure, unconscious biases around them may be harder to detect and correct. That underscores the importance of purposive action to move the diversity dial in these directions. (a)  Cognitive diversity  Cognitive diversity is far from easy to define and measure. It is stored between our ears in an organ which, despite recent neuro-scientific advances, remains largely a black (or grey) box. A second reason is that it is clearly multi-faceted, including diversity of perspectives, interpretations, heuristics and predictive models. 62 It comprises not just technical problemsolving, in an IQ sense, but also social and interpersonal problem-solving, in the EQ sense. Together, these comprise an individual’s cognitive toolbox. Recognising even that this toolbox exists, and what might lie inside, is a useful first step. Work by sociologists, psychologists and neuro-scientists has, over recent decades, shone a light on these wide-ranging cognitive competencies, their implications for behaviour and their source. Yet this evidence is only now beginning to percolate into the workplace, much less into wider society. Let me give an example.