Conscious Commonality — diverse by nature, inclusive by design

Having a sustainable Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) strategy is part of any modern organisation’s performance objectives. Many authors and specialists however agree that the rhetoric and business case for diversity and inclusion, along with anti-bias training, are falling short. We need some fresh thinking. Here I introduce “conscious commonality” as a way of reframing how we think about DE&I and approach it in our everyday.

(this article was first published on my linkedin page here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/conscious-commonality-diverse-nature-inclusive-design-philip-robinson/)

Every time I observe children playing together in the same sandpit or playground, I am reminded that our inability to navigate difference is a result of social miseducation at scale. Consequently, diversity awareness has been part of corporate training for more than 50 years, driven by a business or social responsibility case. Some businesses emphasise the competitive advantages of diversity, such as creativity and innovation, while others focus on fairness and diversity and inclusion being the right thing to do. Yet a recurring dilemma of tokenism avoidance versus attaining diversity targets arises, as organisations manage their employee engagement, recruitment, progression and development campaigns.

While the work of central diversity and inclusion departments and leadership are important for driving an organisation’s diversity, equity and inclusion maturity, sustainable transformation comes when diversity, equity and inclusion are everyone’s business. Sustainable transformation of businesses — and dare I say society — cannot lean on one-off unconscious bias awareness training and campaigns. We need a more continuous model of diversity and inclusion practice that is woven into the everyday, built into our ways of working.

In this article I introduce “conscious commonality”, an early idea I hope will open up some opportunities for progress in diversity and inclusion in our organisations. These opportunities exist but often missed an imbalanced focus on difference presides. The idea is based on nature’s evidence that commonalities attract — birds of a feather flock together. Yet it does not stop there. The heart of conscious commonality as a strategic narrative for diversity and inclusion is to use discovered commonality as the seed for inclusion and diversity (i.e. difference) as the signal for personal and network growth opportunity.

Commonalities attract — why deny it?

In their book, “The man who lied to his laptop”, Clifford Nass and Corina Yen explain an insight into social behaviour and personalities that contradicts and disproves an old adage that “opposites attract”. The profound insight was that opposites don’t attract, except when one gradually changes to become more like the other. The incremental compromises individuals make in a relationship reinforces their bond. Why would we be attracted to people with whom we have nothing in common, where time together meant conflict and tension, unless there were complimentary purposes, goals or desires we fulfilled? My belief is that we defensively deny our attraction to commonality because we don’t want to be perceived as socially biased, exclusive and superficial.

we defensively deny our attraction to commonality because we don’t want to be perceived as socially biased, exclusive and superficial.

Let’s stop denying that we are drawn to commonality. We love having things in common! It is our human nature to assume safety with familiarity and anything else as taking a risk and stepping into the unknown.

Should we then just talk about commonality and ignore difference? Would that solve all challenges that diversity brings to social and organisational issues?

No.

We cannot simply assume that focusing on commonality and ignoring difference is the solution to our social miseducation we have acquired. Difference is also a reality of life and provides us with the beauty, variety and surprise that make it wonderful. Dovidio, Gaertner and Saguy explore a similar challenge in their paper Commonality and the Complexity of “We”: Social Attitudes and Social Change. They conclude that creating a sense solely of common identity and promoting more harmonious relationships can distract attention away from inequity and impede, in the long run, fundamental structural change in society. So while in this article I make the case for a conscious focus on commonality when encountering difference, let’s not underestimate the social complexity of managing difference, similarity, bias and fairness, or the mental health challenges and neurodiversities that affect how people socialise. The overemphasis of either commonality or difference leads to missed opportunities for promoting diversity and inclusion. Iteratively tuning that balance seems a more reasonable approach.

Amplifying difference misses memorable moments

We were recently on holiday in Germany and spent one night in an airport hotel before travelling further. At breakfast, a young, white couple, man and woman, entered the dining area behind us. We did that awkward dance of strangers averting eye contact and keeping out of each others way. She had a tattooed arm and dreadlocked hair tied in a wrap. To place things in perspective, my wife and I are a black, Caribbean, let’s say middle-aged couple, no tattoos, no dreadlocks and two teenaged children. There was nothing suggesting commonality with this couple, beyond staying in the same hotel. In a hotel dining area tensions are relatively low, as everyone rests in the safety that they are in the company of paying guests, who can afford to stay in the hotel and want nothing more than a decent breakfast. That was all we had in common. Or so we thought.

The young couple sat at a table across from us, when my wife suddenly spotted a tattoo on the lady’s arm with a familiar symbol — the broken trident, the national symbol of Barbados’ independence and centre of our flag.

I then happened to be going for a coffee at the same time as the young lady (hmm, she too likes a morning coffee) and my wife gestured to me that now was the right moment to ask this stranger about the tattoo on her arm.

Sigh… I did as requested.

The young, white, dread-locked, tattooed lady smiled and asked, “do you know what it means?” I nonchalantly replied, “well, I’m from Barbados…”. To which she artlessly responded, “and so am I”.

We both laughed and marvelled that bajans (the colloquial term for Barbadian) would run into each other in a German hotel at breakfast, 7,350 KM away from Barbados. Our accents thickened, we dropped the effort to speak slowly and steadily, forming our words properly, and relaxed in the dialect we shared. We celebrated our discovered commonality by turning-up our bajanness. I brought her and her German partner over to my family, a signal of trust, and we introduced ourselves, exchanged names and brief narratives of where we were from and how we managed to be where we were. We discovered that we went to different schools, from different generations and moved in different social circles, but this moment, far away from “home” brought us together, when our glaring differences and unconscious biases might have kept us apart.

When unconscious bias keeps us apart

Anecdotal and genetic evidence shows that we do have much more in common than we differ. This can still be challenged, as the measurement of difference and commonality depends on the scope and detail of analysis. For example, all the billions of stars look like specks of light against the dark, night sky, while a telescopic image reveal vast differences in distance, size, colour and terrain. Sending a probe to a planet explores the topology in greater detail and find samples of materials and minerals. The hope for planetary exploration is to identify evidence of current or historic life, finding even traces of the common element that makes life as we know it possible — water. The most common and fundamental of things for existence can be easily ignored and taken for granted.

Diversity is a sign of a healthy, thriving ecosystem. Diversity is nature’s way of constantly improving, sustaining, recovering and surprising. Not only do birds of a feather flock together, but fish of a fin school together, bees of a buzz swarm together and lions of a pride hunt together. Our ability to apply bias to social reasoning is what enables individuals, communities and cultures to survive. When bias is too concentrated in influencing our connections and conversations, it becomes toxic and damaging to the ecosystem, as difference causes individuals, families and species to contend for common resources and space.

Unconscious bias training is often introduced for recruitment teams, hiring managers and leaders to raise their awareness of biases that influence their decision making. Without this awareness, we make decisions to interview, hire, socialise, acknowledge and promote people who remind us of ourselves. That is, we have a bias toward commonality and those in whom we see ourselves at work. Unconscious bias training helps to curtail that behaviour and challenges us to check ourselves when in positions of making decisions that impact the rest of someone’s life.

However, the evidence is clear that unconscious bias and anti-bias training cannot solve the challenges of diversity and inclusion in the workplace alone. In fact, according to Dobbins and Kalev in their 2018 paper, Why Doesn’t Diversity Training Work, research dating back to the 1930s shows that anti-bias training does not reduce bias, alter behaviours or change the workplace. While these programmes increase awareness, educating people about biases does not necessarily change behaviours. Furthermore, focusing on difference and biases serves to amplify their existence and reinforce cultural clusters in an organisation.

Fitting in and standing out

Resent, cynicism and disengagement become unhealthy responses to strategic diversity and inclusion programmes and initiatives, as people naturally fight against structure and rules to defend their sense of autonomy. This is a social conundrum of life — the concurrent desire to fit in and stand out. Thinking of Diversity and Inclusion, fitting-in is the desire for collective inclusion and individual belonging, while standing-out is the desire for collective diversity and individual leadership.

Goldberg et. al (“Fitting in or standing out? The tradeoffs of structural and cultural embeddedness.” American Sociological Review 81.6, 2016) argue that people can be simultaneously embedded within their organisation in two conceptually distinct ways: structurally and culturally. An individual is structurally embedded when they primarily reinforce relationships through organisational roles, responsibilities and interpersonal networks. They are culturally embedded when they reinforce relationships through shared norms and assumptions of appropriate behaviour. The table below is my summary of differences between how structurally embedded and culturally embedded personalities fit-in and stand-out in an organisation.

This doesn’t mean that one is better, cooler or more desirable than the other or that a single person cannot exhibit both forms of embeddedness. This distinction illustrates that awareness of ones posture, motivators and connectedness in an organisation can improve individual performance and attainment. Furthermore, when a leader has this differential awareness of people, it helps them to present the right opportunities to individuals and, moreover, present opportunities in the right way. People who are culturally embedded gain the most and risk the least from increasing their social network in the organisation. Cultural embeddedness will promote attainment for individuals with low network constraint (i.e. people who connect freely), and (2) network constraint will promote attainment for individuals with low cultural fit. People can portray both forms of organisational embeddedness to different degrees and hence attain both benefits to different extents. I see the above as one instance of how commonality accelerates discovery, as it provides a basis and reference for further connection, conversation and exploration.

Commonality emboldens curiosity

I go back to the story of meeting my fellow bajan in the German hotel. It was not curiosity about our difference in appearance and style that prompted conversation and a desire to learn more about each other, it was spotting a familiar symbol that stirred wonder about the potential link. My biased expectation of a “proud bajan”, who would dare to wear our national colours and symbols with prominence, is a black person. My bias was overridden by spotting a symbolic commonality that made it feel safe and less awkward to start a conversation with a stranger. There are four categories of commonality I noted from this encounter:

1. Circumstantial (Situational) Commonality: having a common geographical or virtual space, access to resources and ability to observe each other. This can hence arise in a physical or online context and is the foundation for any further interaction and development of a relationship. For example, sharing the same hotel, room, workplace, neighbourhood, online chat forum or platform are all circumstantial or situational commonality. These are observable by everyone who shares the same situation and hence impossible (except in a virtual world) to deny.
2. Attributional (Symbolic) Commonality: sharing intrinsic attributes, features, appearances, behaviours, abilities, impairment or other characteristics that indicate belonging to a common background, ethnicity, nationality or family. For example, skin colour, hair, dress and speech. Speaking a common language or dialect is fundamental for accelerating exploration of further commonalities, but having a common accent denotes a closer proximity of national or social background.
3. Relational Commonality: having a common relationship to another person (e.g. “we’re both friends of Sam!”), thing (e.g. “they both drive electric vehicles”), event (e.g. “they both witnessed the accident on the motorway”) or recognised designation (e.g. “Sam and Sarah are software engineers”). This form of commonality can be permanent or transient. Transient commonalities may still persist as memories. Relational commonalities are not always obvious and more often discovered through interaction and conversation.
4. Mindful Commonality: having common or complimentary ideas, concerns, values, interests, passions and perspectives. Mindful commonalities are the most intimate form, as they can only be discovered by people choosing to reveal their personal thoughts, feelings and information. They require vulnerability and trust in order to be discovered and used as the basis for further exploration. Given that people can choose to withhold or falsify information, mindful commonalities are tested and validated over time as relationships are developed.

Our social observations and interactions are a continuous search, discovery, validation and confirmation of commonalities. As we interact with fresh and familiar people, we consciously and subconsciously process and update our cognitive map of the above commonalities. Bias is reasoning based on commonality and not difference. Our biases reference past knowledge and experience of commonality to make trust and engagement decisions. Unconscious bias is the resultant shadow of conscious commonality. We need our unconscious bias to make quick social and survival decisions, but it can be destructive when applied as an instrument of exclusion and disengagement.

The encounter of difference sparks fear or dismissal rather than curiosity, without the safety of commonality. Commonality reinforces connection or signals potential connection, such that exploring difference and variation becomes safe. It is the establishment of commonality that stimulates growth and fosters relevance, significance and contribution. Consider the statement “I was thinking the same thing” or “you are reading my mind”. These are uttered in a moment where you feel increasingly confident about an idea or opinion, because there’s at least one other person with the similar line of thought. When diversity and inclusion amplifies difference rather than commonality, it decreases safety and stunts growth.

Commonality makes exploring difference seem ok

We connect with each other based on commonalities. Commonalities provide the context for us to explore, discover and make sense of our differences. Growth follows an encounter with difference in the safety of commonality. Without difference and variety there can be no growth. Without commonality, there can be no exploration of difference. In the simplest case, we need a common language to communicate with each other, even if it is as primitive as gestures. Detecting difference in situational perspective, attributes, relationships and mindsets can lead to conflict that weakens relationships. Weakening relationships because of difference is the lowest effort response and yields low personal and collective growth. This is how fear works. Fear is a rational reaction but not necessarily a reasonable response to difference. A rational reaction to difference is assuming a relational problem (e.g. “perhaps we are not as similar as a I thought” or “we could never get along”) as opposed to a learning and growth opportunity. Seeing fear as a signal and courage as a process is mature, reasonable and wise thinking. Here are 3 processes for consciously exploring difference in the safety of commonality.

Growth and learning starts with self-awareness, or at least having an impression of who we think we are. Our exploration of commonalities may start with obvious, simple traits, such as appearance and language, but become more complex as we search wider, deeper and more thoughtfully. Building our social networks is a search for commonalities with others in order to validate, challenge and improve our impression of self.

Conscious commonality 1 — Breadth and Expansion

Who else shares this in common?

Lisa DeBruine demonstrated in her 2002 paper how facial resemblance enhances decisions to trust. We are drawn to similarity and appearances that fit our perception of self. Expanding our social connections starts with a recognition of our own circumstances, attributes, relationships, interests, needs, concerns and ideals. According to Dunbar’s theory, a typical human brain has cognitive capacity for 150 meaningful relationships, 5 nearest and dearest, and up to 1500 people that you would recognise. One could argue that the technology-assisted brain is able to recollect far more people, faces and experiences, given that social media maintains and present images of people with whom we no longer have frequent contact. Our cognitive limitations might explain our reluctance to expand social circles and people with whom we spend time. Still we are driven to connect and expand our network. Matthew Lieberman in his book Social presents the case that our brains process social pain (disconnection) in a similar way to physical pain. For this reason social growth, healing and strengthening of relationships are behaviours of a healthy brain. The ability to perceive commonalities is fundamental to connecting and expanding our social networks. This is core to any recommendation algorithm in social media and content on demand platforms. Commonality and similarity are the impetus for trust and connection. The more we trust, the safer we will feel to expand our network and then create deeper, more intimate relationships.

Conscious commonality 2 — Depth and Intimacy

What else do we share in common?

I have often experienced being introduced to other black, African or Caribbean people at a gathering, as the assumption is that we would have a lot to talk about. Truth be told, we often did. As I have lived and visited different places across Europe and the UK, where black people are a minority, I have had great times meeting and socialising with other black people from various nations. Clearly common heritage and ethnicity is a starting point, but these are shallow affinities that we did not influence or develop. I realised two things on reflection. Firstly, in a social circle of black, Caribbean people, there were still a subset of individuals with whom I would go on to have deeper conversations and build lasting friendships. Secondly, having a good time and socialising with people transcended race and cultural heritage — many of my best friendships and memories are with people from various nations, races and backgrounds. This is because we ventured deeper than the surface and asked the question, “what else do we share in common?” Sometimes that question can lead to awkward silence and disappointment, especially when disagreement and conflict are the response.

Conscious commonality 3 — Compromise and Complement

How else could we share this in common?

True growth comes with confronting unfamiliarity. A more common phrase is pushing beyond our comfort zone. The comfort zone is where we feel most at ease, as tasks and relationships are familiar and we have a sense of control. Trust is high as commonalities have been established with people sharing the same (or sufficiently similar) circumstances, relationships, attributes and interests. Trust allows us to work and perform optimally, as we know what to expect and muscle memory can function without constantly referring to rules of engagement. Ironically, the more familiar we become with people or circumstances, the more likely we are to encounter flaws and conflict — familiarity breeds contempt. Once people share space, resources, risks and opportunities, conflict will emerge. When we do encounter unfamiliarity or situations where we detect a breach in commonality, here are three possible approaches to resolving commonality:

1. Compromise and grow. Compromise can be mutual or imbalanced, resulting in at least one party learning from and yielding to the other for the sake of finding common ground.
2. Complement and connect. There are then those nuts and bolts, plug and socket moments, where differences are acknowledged as equally necessary and supportive for a common purpose.
3. Admit conflict. Agree to disagree and nurture a common/mutual respect for each other’s views, experiences and ways.

The above are 3 proposals for how we can consciously use commonality to explore difference. These would not replace conflict resolution strategies or even diversity awareness training, but work alongside these more established initiatives as simple references for everyday conversation and engagement.

Summary

With conscious commonality I hope to motivate a movement of ‘everyday’ diversity and inclusion beyond one-off, short-term educational interventions. Secondly, conscious commonality prompts us to amplify commonality above difference, given that reinforcing commonality creates a safe context for encountering difference and addressing conflict.

Individuals do not easily lay aside and suppress personal preferences, biases, traditions, social identities and expectations in order to embrace a set of predefined values, even if presented with business justifications of fairness, compliance and creative edge. Moreover, in times of tension, contention or stress, personal preferences and biases often surface in ways that are difficult to manage and contain. The exploration of commonalities becomes an exciting process of ongoing discovery, underpinned by positive intent and expectation. Guilt and complacency about biases would be reduced, as biases are exposed and interrogated as natural commonalities.

Conscious commonality does not impose process and targets on people, but recommends themes for active conversations around exploring commonality. At this point I have not thought deeply about measurement and success, but my current inkling is to look closer at social network analysis metrics as indicators of growth, activity, connectedness, variety and health. This would be a novel approach alongside measuring targets and population percentages. In a similar way that we use social network analysis to build recommendations of content and connections, we could serve opportunities for commonality exploration at scale. After all, difference is undeniably a thing we will always have in common.