Before diversity became an industry buzzword, we recognized its power to help make our products better, to help us innovate faster, and to differentiate ourselves from our competitors. It’s how we grew. It helped us integrate different (corporate and international) cultures: IBM’s PC business, Medion in Germany, Motorola, IBM’s X86 server business, and NEC and Fujitsu in Japan.
For a technology company, diversity is wrapped into nearly everything we do: we represent more than 60 countries; we work with suppliers of different types; we give back in different ways to local communities where our employees live and work; and customers across 160 countries count on our products.
As the topic of diversity got more attention across the board, research identified the missing ingredient: inclusion. Like peanut butter and jelly, they’re better together. In fact, you really need both. When you have inclusion, you can better leverage the power of your diversity and connect people in new and different ways.
In our first D&I Report, we share our approach, our programs, and our results. And, importantly, we show our people – the people who are helping create the next generation of technologies that must respond to the call for greater diversity and more inclusiveness as the world get flatter and more diverse.
Director of Global Diversity and Inclusion, Seth Smiley-Humphries, shares his story to show why both ingredients – diversity and inclusion – are necessary for organizations to thrive.
