Diversity & Inclusion in times of crisis: Superordinate goals + identity

Gender, Age, Ethnicity, Disability, Sexuality, Religion.

These are some of the common buckets that most diversity and inclusion programs fail in. Fall in.

Yet a lot of us, during this acute health crisis are looking at ourselves and colleagues/citizens through different lenses:

Parent, caretaker, single/relationship, expat/native can/can’t remote work, employee/gig worker etc.

What is interesting about some of these “new” buckets is that they cut across, or better said supersede traditional D&I buckets.

They expose inherent inclusivity that we all share, once we enter a particular set of work-life circumstances.

Every working parent now has one question on their mind: how are we going to manage if/when the schools/nurseries/uni’s close?

Every onsite worker is wondering how to balance the exposure risks of ignoring social distancing with the need to keep earning.

From wars, to revolutions to global health scares, reductions in inequality and in & out group identity seem to be a byproduct of catastrophe.

When we drop down Maslow’s Hierarchy in our needs, we seem to re-categorise ourselves around superordinate identities as we see to the dire need to work on superordinate goals.

In social psychology, superordinate goals are goals that are worth completing but require two or more social groups to cooperatively achieve.

A superordinate identity is the result of people being different while simultaneously being part of the “same” group.

So what?

Well, diversity fatigue, mistrust and failure.

While of course at present we have pressing issues to deal with as employers, employees, human beings, it is worth making a note of conversations people are having on social media, on internal comms channels.

In particular the misery conversations that create company.

They might offer insights into ways that organisations can start to credibly build a sense of belonging, inspired by superordinate goals and identities.

Things that naturally concern all your employees, that are now brought to the surface and we are scrambling to fix.

Does this mean that traditional D&I group identities, agenda’s and goals will just vanish if we work on this superordinate stuff? Probably not.

We humans are an eleventh hour species, with short memories. So when things settle, we’ll probably go back to our somewhat selfish ways.

But there is a chance to lessen that effect. There is chance to put some real meaning in company values and missions.

Meaning built on credible actions that resonate and create a deeper sense of belonging, because the company looked beyond the obvious and saw what truly binds their people.