Have you ever stumbled upon the unfortunate comments of the kind “so when is International Men’s Day?” on March 8th? Well, we all have. As November 19th marked the International Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, and the 20th we celebrate the “Black Awareness Day” in Brazil, I decided to share thoughts on representation. The fact we need special dates is merely illustrative here. Let’s talk about representation.

Why does it matter? Because we are talking about historically oppressed minorities, yes. But even so, why does it matter? What is the impact of it? It matters for a myriad of reasons, but I’ll focus on 3.

Representation matters:

To create possibilities of who we can become
To broaden perspectives and enhance fairness in our justice system
To enrich decision making, leading to solutions that embrace more people

Let’s talk about it.

1. Creating Possibilities

I learned that representation matters from a very personal perspective, which I shared in the Badass Times (The Ugly Duckling Road to Entrepreneurship):

“There was an emerging number of people who looked like me being founders, which helped. Being around them reinforced the belief that I could be a successful founder. And look: I am privileged in a myriad of ways, let’s face it, just by the fact I am born white. In the process of researching the economic value of diverse communities – while writing Hacking Communities – I found that the influence of our surroundings is crucial in becoming the best version of ourselves.
Some of us need others who we can relate to. Sharing stories creates possibility and enhances the probability that we could do the same. As in the 4-minute mile (Roger Bannister’s historic deed which paved the way for many others to break a previously scientifically-impossible record).”

Haven’t you heard about the 4-minute-mile? In short:

As per Wikipedia, “A four-minute mile is the completion of a mile run (1.6 km) in four minutes or less. It was first achieved in 1954 by Roger Bannister, at age 25, in 3:59.4.” Why was it any special? Because such a deed was deemed impossible by all means, scientists and experts up to the night before he broke the record.

“When Bannister broke the mark, even his most ardent rivals breathed a sigh of relief. At last, somebody did it! And once they saw it could be done, they did it too. Just 46 days after Bannister’s feat, John Landy, an Australian runner, not only broke the barrier again, with a time of 3 minutes 58 seconds. Then, just a year later, three runners broke the four-minute barrier in a single race. Over the last half century, more than a thousand runners have conquered a barrier that had once been considered hopelessly out of reach.”
Source: What Breaking the 4-Minute Mile Taught Us About the Limits of Conventional Thinking

Wharton School professors Yoram Wind and Colin Crook dedicated a chapter to the 4-minute mile in their book, Power of Impossible Thinking. They wondered what led to Bannister’s record-breaking deed, and what happened since:

“Was there a sudden growth spurt in human evolution? Was there a genetic engineering experiment that created a new race of super runners? No. What changed was the mental model.”
Source: The Power of Impossible Thinking

If Bannister allowed such wonders within a year, wonder what US Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris could do to a whole generation of little girls?

Representation matters. Dot.

2. To Enhance Fairness

This topic hurts, but let’s face it like adults. Our justice system is still led by people who look and think a lot like each other. While we’re growing in representation of people from diverse backgrounds, gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation, we often see strong biases in the way others are treated - be it at the court, on the streets.

As we celebrate the Black Awareness Day in Brazil, November 20th 2020, we are hit with the news of another black life taken away violently, unfairly, in a cowardly way. João Alberto Silveira Freitas, 40, was murdered without committing a crime. The scene was caught by video, recorded on someone’s phone. According to Reuters “Black Brazilians make up 64% of the country’s unemployed, die younger and are almost three times as likely to be victims of homicide, according to 2019 government data.”

Earlier in theme month, November 2nd 2020, a jury coined the term “culpable rape”: which means the rapist did not intend to rape. He reportedly “did not realise the victim was unable to consent”. While the rapist Andre Aranha probably preferred the new term and felt represented, the right opposite can be said about the victim, Mariana Ferrer, and millions of people who raged after watching the trial video online.

The world is not fair yet. But it is thanks to millions of voices that the #BlackLivesMatter movement is standing up and moving forward. It is thanks to millions of men and women supporting other women that we are likely not to accept rapists getting away with crime, a few years from now. But screaming from the grassroots ain’t enough: representation means to have diverse people at the court, as national leaders, at the C-level in large companies. From my personal experience, I notice every day how women are still underrepresented and underpaid in business and leadership positions. I am unfortunately used to (but not happy, nor proud of) being the exception in an all-male panel at tech conferences.

We need to make better decisions that include a wider range of people. To do so, we need more diversity in our company boards, meeting rooms and amongst public leaders.

How to increase representation? We rise by lifting others who look different, and by standing up to represent ourselves and others with whom we can relate and empathise.

3. To Enrich Decision Making

Diversity is good for business. A series of studies have proven it.

When different minds get together, we have richer discussions, broaden our perspectives, and make better decisions. These can result in more eloquent ways of presenting an idea or coming up with better solutions to a problem. The more representation, the more likely that we create products for a wider audience - bingo! That’s good for business.

More diverse tables make better decisions: as long as we have intelligent, open-minded individuals sitting on it. In this case, intelligence is defined by their willingness to learn and debate. Are our leaders looking forward to receive constructive feedback, have their ideas challenged and their minds changed?

In my upcoming book, Hacking Communities I share a framework to engineer serendipitous encounters between people from different backgrounds, which allows for richer conversations and interactions to take place, which often lead to innovation. I call this “serendipity engineering”, and can be read under a chapter under the same name. Here’s an excerpt from the very book (yet to be published, wait for it: December 2020):

“We must purposely design communities that welcome diversity.
Through mixing crowds, we increase serendipitous encounters that spark creativity, which can in turn render positive financial results. “Why Diversity Matters,” a 2015 McKinsey study, reports that companies in the top quartile for diversity perform better than the rest. Racial and ethnic diversity can lead to 35 percent financial returns above the national average, while gender diversity leads to 15 percent. Another study by Startup Genome shows that 20 percent of the world’s top tech founders are immigrants, while this group represents only 4 percent of the world’s population.
Only through diversity are we able to create something new from scratch. We can’t expect a series of unexpectedly positive outcomes from conversations when only discussing the same topics, with the same people, with the same thinking.”
source: Hacking Communities

Diversity is good for business. Again, representation mattes.

Mic drop.

Stand Up and Lift Someone By Your Side

Let’s see how narrow the diversity gap gets, until it disappears. Your fight is everyone’s fight - remember everyone who came before you and cleared the path for you to believe in who you could become.

Wrapping up with an eternal quote from the Notorious RBG:

'Fight for the things that you care about. But do it in a way that will lead others to join you.'
Ruth Bader Ginsburg