HP Innovation Journal Issue 09: Spring 2018 | Page 41

We can already imagine tools and services that will
help defend against unconscious bias at the front lines.
HP Fellow Will Allen shared one of those ideas. AI could
scan resumes and identify items that could reveal factors
like gender or race, and remove them in order to eliminate
a chance of unconscious biases being applied.
“If you put six people in a room who are all in different
boxes, you don’t need to push everyone to ‘think outside
of the box’—you already have diverse perspectives, and
that’s important,” says Allen.
Diversity and innovation go hand in hand, and a
growth mindset is vital when it comes to innovating with
AI and diversity. Product innovation illustrates this con-
nection: If you don’t have diverse thinking and a clear
vision to different use cases, the solutions you develop
will likely be both too narrow and/or too homogenous.
When the HP team created the Sprocket, for example,
the development team brought its intended audience
into the design, engineering, and marketing mix to make
sure the product truly resonated and met the needs of its
target market.
Make a Difference
Every employee at every level of business across every
geography can be part of building a healthy, diverse and
inclusive workforce. I tell eager students and early career
colleagues the same thing I say to senior executives: be bold
and be intentional. You can’t back down on fighting against
unconscious biases. You need to have the uncomfortable
conversations. I once had a manager tell me as I was con-
templating moving from the business into Diversity and
Inclusion, “You need to be willing to lose your job because if
not, you’re not creating change. You’re not pushing enough.”
In the end, all of us need to take a seat at the table and
make our voices heard. Great agents of change take action.
Every day, I get up and search for opportunities to increase
diversity and inclusion. Innovation in human resources is
not about breakthrough inventions—it’s about challenging
the status quo and driving meaningful evolution. A better
understanding of diversity and bias will inform our own
tools and processes as well as the products and solutions
we create. As such, it’s a sound investment in the work we
do today, and the work we’ll do well into the future.
DIVERSITY:
THE ART
OF THINKING INDEPENDENTLY
TOGETHER
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