The Diversity Gap

Managing complexity

As I wrote in an opinion piece in Børsen this week, it is bad business acumen not to focus on getting more women into entrepreneurship. Boston Consulting Group has estimated that by 2028, women will be responsible for 72% of consumer spending. Aka, the female market is bigger than India and China combined. No matter how you look at it, women know better than any others what it is like to be a woman - and thereby also what they need. Their input is therefore essential when designing and developing products for the market. Also called the positive effects of diversity and inclusion.

You can take the word “entrepreneur” in the opinion piece and replace it with leader, designer, [software] engineer or board member. It’s the same principle. You can also take the word “woman” and replace it with +50 talents, trans-men, homosexuals or people with disabilities. Still the same principle. Because, when we design workplaces that are inclusive to tackle the complexity of different ideas, thought processes and views internally, we are in a better position to compete in the market and hence outperform our competitors. That’s the true value of diversity and inclusion.

Our Default Human

That’s the business side. However, a lack of diversity can have serious implications. If we just look to the gender side, women in the UK are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed following a heart attack - simply because the way we diagnose heart attacks is based on male symptoms. FYI, the symptoms are different and dependent on your hormonal balance. Same goes for car collisions, where women are 50% more likely to be seriously injured, because the default crash test dummy is designed to mimic the male body. Just the design of the seat belt does not take into account that women have breasts.

We risk as businesses to push products to the market that are potentially dangerous, because of the diversity gaps we have in our companies. Nobody does this on purpose. However, we have built a system and stereotype that requires certain skills in order to be included. The same goes for [female] entrepreneurs, which is actually the great thing about KvindeKompagniet, because not only does it highlight female entrepreneurs, but it also tells the story of entrepreneurs that are not the tech stereotype of a 28 years of age white cis-man developing yet another app.

Links to both the opinion piece and the podcast with KvindeKompagniet below and other good stuff below - as always