“The secret of corporate creativity? Boosting diversity through mentoring”

All businesses can benefit from the creativity that true diversity can bring. Taking part in a cross-company mentoring scheme is one way of achieving that. They can even help you retain talent too, as Kirk Vallis, innovation and creativity expert at Google explains here…

Creativity is a precious commodity in the corporate world: fresh thinking and innovative ideas will always help organisations stay ahead of the game, solve problems and empower colleagues and customers alike.

But where does this creativity come from? The easiest way to achieve it within organisations is through cognitive diversity: bringing in different perspectives from a diverse cohort of people who see the world in different ways.

I believe Moving Ahead’s 30% Club cross-company mentoring programme is a brilliant way for organisations to harness this diversity, enabling participants to get fresh perspectives from outside their bubbles.

Thanks to their data, expertise and gut instincts, Moving Ahead are experts when matching mentors and mentees (they’re the Fred Sirieix of the mentoring world!). They can create amazing connections that might not seem obvious or logical at first, but soon turn out to be perfect pairings.

I’ve been supporting the programme since 2017. Quite often, at the start of the programme, I see people who look somewhat disappointed when they discover who their mentor or mentee is. Usually this is because they’re expecting somebody from the same industry, whose career path they can emulate.

These people might not instantly realise it, but they’ve actually struck gold. Sitting with somebody from a different industry or gender or ethnicity who views the world differently to us is a great way to glean fresh perspectives. As Moving Ahead mentors/mentees swiftly find out after their initial conversations, these opposite numbers quickly inspire new ideas and ways of thinking, which they bring back into their workplaces.

Moving Ahead’s mentoring schemes do much more than expose us to new viewpoints. They also help organisations retain talent. This has traditionally been one of the biggest challenges for companies, even more so during the ‘Great Resignation’ of recent months. Here’s how they do it:

1/ The programmes make people feel their company wants to invest in them, beyond what they do in their day-to-day work.

2/ The professionalism that goes into Moving Ahead’s programmes is palpable. This inspires confidence and makes anybody participating feel as if they’re involved in something special.

3/ It increases the confidence of the mentees to progress within their own organisations. This is something I’ve witnessed first-hand: through regular sessions with their mentors, people find they are putting themselves forward for projects and situations that would have scared them just months before.   

Moving Ahead’s programmes also give a voice to people from underrepresented groups, as well as help them overcome the barriers which may have previously prevented them from being recognised and rewarded, or from stepping up to a higher level.

Whenever I think about the term inclusion, there’s a famous quote from Vernā Myers, currently Netflix's vice-president of inclusion strategy, who once delivered a TED talk on overcoming bias. She said that “diversity is being invited to the party and inclusion is being invited to the dance”. There's a truth in that, which is why it has become such an oft-used expression.

Unfortunately, I see many organisations and teams attempt to solve diversity challenges in a way that almost becomes like a tick-box exercise.

Inclusion goes so much deeper than that. It requires a mindset that permeates all levels and all areas of the organisation.

When companies start to engage with Moving Ahead’s programmes, they naturally develop a greater knowledge and education on the power of diversity and inclusion at all levels. This, in turn, helps create a more diverse leadership pipeline, both from within and outside their organisations.

Above all, Moving Ahead’s mentoring schemes and live events gives me reassurance and confidence that I’m doing the right thing and making progress in areas where I’m still learning. And we all still have a lot to learn, regardless of our positions.

For more information click here or contact Maria.May@moving-ahead.org