A visual story is extremely powerful, especially when it’s providing a glimpse into someone else’s life and experiences. TED Talks give the world’s leading thinkers and doers a platform – so we’ve chosen five inspiring talks on diversity and inclusion that can help to shift perspectives and foster important conversations.
With all this time we’re continuing to spend at home during level 3, we recommend checking out these talks – all have a valuable message to take away.
How diversity makes teams more innovative
Rocío Lorenzo asks the question – are diverse companies really more innovative? She and her team surveyed 171 companies and discovered this is most certainly the case.
“My goal is to change the face of leadership, to make it more diverse – and not so that leaders can check a box and feel like they have complied with something or they have been politically correct. But because they understand, they understand that diversity is making their organisation.”
Rocio Lorenzo
Be a better ally in the workplace
Melinda Epler gives tips on how people can be better allies for those who face discrimination in the workplace. She shares three ways to support people who are underrepresented in the workplace.
“So, what can you do as an ally? Start by doing no harm. It’s our job as allies to know what microaggressions are and to not do them. It’s our job as allies to listen, to learn, to unlearn and to relearn, and to make mistakes and to keep learning”
Melinda Elper
Get serious about diversity and inclusion in the workplace
Inclusion advocate Janet Stovall shares a three-part action plan for creating workplaces where people feel safe and can be their authentic selves.
“Lets be clear, diversity and inclusion are not the same things. Companies can mandate diversity, but they have to cultivate inclusion.”
Janet Stovall
Yes she can
Our former Prime Minister Helen Clark, speaks passionately about the importance of women in leadership, and her experiences through a gender-sensitive lens.
“I think our decision-makers, our Parliaments and all our represented bodies should look like the society we represent. Not just look like some segments of society which doesn’t then share the perspectives of a much broader cross section”
Helen Clark
The danger of a single story
Our lives and cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie shares her experiences and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.
“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”
Chimamanda Adichie
