Diversity is not a strength, contrary to what you are endlessly told.

Diversity is in reality a problem, a factor, an issue that has to be successfully dealt with.

Let’s imagine a hypothetical situation. Company A has a group of employees who are basically alike. They have similar cultural backgrounds, speak the same language, and are like each other.Company B on the other hand has a team from varying cultural background, are native speakers of several languages, and are fundamentally unlike each other.

Company A can work together to serve customers and hopefully make money without having to negotiate cultural misunderstandings, without having to translate – whether explicitly or mentally – from one language to another, and the employees can work knowing a similar mental scaffolding.

The opposite holds true for company B. And all of those things take time, energy, and mental strength, and all of them are drains on customer service and erode profits.

I am NOT suggesting that companies need to be monolithic. That’s probably not possible now, and maybe not even desirable.

But the problems with diversity have to be dealt with. They can be dealt with well or they can be dealt with badly, but they cannot be ignored. What people in a company (or any other group working toward a common goal must do is minimize diversity issues, build a culture that emphasizes similarities, and strengthen those similarities.