Aren't you essentially making the argument that you are most comfortable working with people similar to yourself?
Which is not a criticism. It's completely understandable. But how, then, do we get all of us (you, me, etc...) to feel comfortable working together, despite any particular differences?
(I don't have any easy answers, and I may not even be someone whose opinion means much on this subject. I honestly got so tired of workplace politics of any flavor that I left and started working for myself about 10 years ago.)
I suspect that diversity as a virtue is itself a culture that can exist, or there's some other cultural factor that ties a team together that happens not to care about sexual orientation or race or etc, but my current thinking is that people seek out cliques.
I remember reading some of the current crop of pro-diversity research many years ago. The benefits of an ideologically diverse company were clear, and highly positive.
An important caveat, buried in the analysis, is that the researchers noted that at least some of this benefit was due to the fact that people from differing cliques were less concerned about insulting other groups, which resulted in freer speaking, and thus a wider range of ideas presented. This, I think, is a very important point that has been lost along the way in the current discussion of what, exactly diversity means.
This contrasts with a more monocultural corporate environment, where an institutional blind spot may stubbornly remain, as too many of the people involved are all locked in to similar thinking patterns.
The professionals involved kept things professional- they were able to work together effectively. But not worrying about walking on eggshells (or needing to) appears to be an important part of the formula, and, well... I think we're far from that at the moment.
I'm afraid my google skills are failing me, and I can't find the original paper I am thinking of. IIRC, it is a highly cited one, so it should be out there. Maybe someone else will be able to link it. I first read a summary of in in Harvard Business Review ~2011.
Which is not a criticism. It's completely understandable. But how, then, do we get all of us (you, me, etc...) to feel comfortable working together, despite any particular differences?
(I don't have any easy answers, and I may not even be someone whose opinion means much on this subject. I honestly got so tired of workplace politics of any flavor that I left and started working for myself about 10 years ago.)