There’s a diversity issue in growth teams

Hi there 👋,

I recently met up with two fellow experimenters, Annemarie and Lucia, for a delicious Italian lunch.

I promise there’s a point to this story, I’m not just bragging about how delicious the food was!

As usual, our conversation drifted to the growth industry. But this time, we ended up discussing how it was lacking diversity.

The effects of this can be seen on a larger scale, in the speakers chosen for conferences, and on a smaller scale, in the people seated around the meeting table.

Why are we lacking diversity in growth, and what can we do about that?

Why does this happen?

In most cases, it isn’t intentional. People have an unconscious bias that leads them to hire people who look like them.

If someone is similar to you, then you’re likely to feel like you can relate to them and have a successful first impression.

During interviews, you might look for specific qualities, not realising how narrowed these are.

There are many ways to be successful in growth, regardless of things like charisma, education or assertiveness.

But this discriminates against certain groups and holds us back.

It limits the ideas we get, the discussions we have and the experiments we run.

What kind of diversity do you need?

First of all, there’s the most obvious issue in diversity, which is having people of different races and ethnicities.

Secondly, there’s diversity in terms of gender and identity.

Some growth conferences have 70%+ male speakers - but more on this later!

Now consider their backgrounds.

Many people have different levels of education or work experience, and when it comes to growth, this shouldn’t limit you.

Also consider your biases around age so these don’t cloud your judgement.

All of these traits will allow people to bring their own experiences and way of working to the growth team, giving you a rounded overview.

But getting a rounded growth team doesn’t end there.

Here are some more things to consider:

1. Introverts vs. Extroverts: They’ve been shown to think differently. Introverts are very creative but struggle to shine in group settings like brainstorming. They also may be less charismatic in initial interactions.

2. Planners vs. Explorers: Individuals in growth tend to be Explorers in my experience (Check out point 3 to understand the difference). But too many Explorers in one team leads to shiny object syndrome and not getting the most out of your experiments.

3. Different departments: Involve different departments in your growth process rather then only marketing or product team members

   • Lucia mentioned a client where the best ideas in the team come from the developers. Usually people only ask them to execute ideas and tell them to skip the growth meeting if they’re busy.

   • Annemarie said that she had found Customer Care could often predict very accurately whether an experiment would win or fail.

How can you get this diversity in your team?

The best way is right at the source, when you’re hiring for roles.

The goal is not diversity for diversity sake, but rather create an environment where diversity naturally happens.

Ensure you can start with a wide pool of diverse candidates, so that you’re giving everyone a fair shot.

Also look at your criteria when hiring. Don’t rule out introverted candidates based on charisma that isn’t needed for the role. Don’t value education over skills and experience.

In the book ‘Who: The A Method for Hiring’ they suggest using a scorecard.

This allows you to evaluate candidates equally on skills, attributes and values.

You could also use anonymised CVs without images to ensure you focus on the quality of candidates.

Be conscious of accidental biases. For example, the loudest person isn’t always the smartest one.

But it doesn’t end with the hire.

You’ve got to make sure you adapt for diversity in your team.

Create the space for them to share their unique experiences and opinions. Allow people to work in a way that suits them best.

Recommendation

In every edition of Growth Waves, I also share a related resource to check out related to the week's topic. These are not affiliate links.

You won’t find a better guide to this topic than ‘Diversity in the Workplace’ by Bärí A. Williams.

This will not only show you how to improve the diversity in your team and be more bias-conscious, but also contains 25 real-life interviews to expose you to issues you might not even realise are happening under your nose.

So back to the delicious antipasta that started it all.

I realised that one area where I’ve really seen a lack of diversity is the speaking circuit for CRO and Growth.

It’s common to see all-male events, or less than 30% female speakers. And there is little to no other diversity.

When I’ve raised this to organisers, they express their difficult in finding more diverse speakers. So, we decided to make it easier for them!

Lucia started a list of available female speakers, and together we’re trying to make it a diverse group of individuals.

If you’re a female speaker who wants to be contacted for events, join our list.

Simply hit reply and share what you love to speak about.

If you’re organising an event, workshop or even a podcast here is your chance to get different experiences and voices on your panel. Contact someone off this list!

I’m not saying we need events to be 100% female, as that wouldn’t be diverse either. But we can do better than 30%, and a lot better than 0%.

Daphne