Diversity is also a perspective

Demographic diversity is legible—you can count it, you can see it, so it becomes the target to make organizations more diverse.

Over time the count becomes a false proxy that stands in for the actual thing an organization wants to accomplish—because divergent thinking can't be counted.

So diversity isn't just different gender or ethnicity, but humans who truly think in different ways from each other.

Except…

The people who genuinely think differently are the ones who generate friction, and every hiring process tuned for "fit" is built to filter exactly them out.

So the thing organizations say they want most is the thing their machinery is designed to eliminate.

And it isn't only hiring that runs this way. The algo feed sorts you toward the people who already agree with you—engagement tuned for sameness, which is fit by another name. Every day it hands you back who is like you and who isn't, and every day we take it.

Which sparks the question: Are we really becoming more diverse in allowing people/thoughts/ideas come to the table or do we just like saying it?