Why lived experience matters
“Diversity.” The word is everywhere. We’ve said it so many times it’s become background noise—like a corporate mantra repeated until it loses all meaning. When that happens, the best thing to do is step back and ask a simpler question: What makes a good business? What makes a good team?
A big part of the answer is, differences. Differences in skills and knowledge translate to complementary specializations that lead to better and faster outputs. Businesses rely on specializations. You hire engineers to build products, salespeople to close deals, marketers to shape your message. Few question that logic. Diverse skillsets are needed to solve diverse problems.
But solving problems isn’t just about formal expertise. A person’s upbringing, culture, and life experience shape how they see the world—and how they spot opportunities others miss. That’s not some feel-good statement about representation; it’s a practical truth about how information flows within teams. If everyone around the table shares the same background, you’re not just lacking variety—you’re missing information.
Spotting blind spots before they cost you
Imagine you’re launching an office in a new market. Your project team is smart, experienced, and hardworking. But none of you have ever lived in the region you’re targeting. You could figure it out—but it would take longer, cost more, and mistakes along the way are almost guaranteed. Or you could loop in a peer who understands the cultural nuances because they’ve lived them. That’s not tokenism. That’s common sense.
The same logic applies when hiring. If you’re an apparel startup with a team of seven women launching a unisex product, and two equally qualified candidates apply for a role—one man, one woman—hiring the man isn’t about “checking a box.” It’s about gaining insight into half your customer base. His life experience brings a perspective that research or guesswork can’t easily replicate. Sometimes what’s obvious to one person is entirely overlooked by others.
Consider the automatic soap dispenser that failed to detect darker skin tones. While we can’t know the makeup of the engineering team, it’s likely there were no people of color involved in testing. Had there been, a simple wave of the hand could have flagged the issue early. Our differences aren’t just valuable—they’re a safety net against avoidable mistakes.
Different perspectives aren’t a liability—they’re an edge
Some argue this line of thinking reduces people to their identities. But no one claims all women think alike or that every person from a certain background shares the same views. People are individuals. Still, common threads exist. The food you grew up eating, the norms you absorbed, the ways people communicated around you—all of these shape how you approach problems. That knowledge isn’t niche—it’s a competitive advantage.
Here’s the reality: Businesses operate in a complex world. Markets are diverse. Customers are varied. Ignoring that complexity doesn’t simplify things—it blinds you to them. Differences within teams aren’t liabilities to be managed. They’re assets to be leveraged. When you pull together people who think differently, you spot risks sooner and seize opportunities faster. The word “diversity” may have lost its punch, but the idea behind it hasn’t. Call it specialization. Call it an information advantage. Call it the business case. Because that’s what it is.
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