I want to share a great post written for Catalyst by guest blogger, Laura Liswood, Secretary General, Council of Women World Leaders, and Senior Advisor, Goldman Sachs, entitled “Diversity of Nature.”

This beautifully written piece talks about how diversity within nature works well, but when organizations commit to diversity of its people, the organization stumbles.

In her post Liswood refers to the Gender Gap Report for 2009 released by the World Economic Forum. She talks about the good news in that the gaps in healthcare and education are almost closed in many countries around the world and how many people believed that once those gaps were closed, the economic and political gaps would also close, quite naturally. In reality that didn’t happen. Liswood suggests a more affirmative approach is needed to close economic and political gaps, which will not be easy nor will they close naturally.

When we look at the statistics for Canada, we ranked 25th and gained six places in 2009, moving ahead of the United States. Canada is now the 10th highest ranking country on the economic participation and opportunity subindex. Women’s labour force participation increased from 73% to 75% and women’s estimated annual earned income increased from US$ 25,448 to US$ 26,055. Canada also posted gains in the political empowerment subindex as a result of a small increase in the percentage of women in parliament—21% to 22%.

So how do we create a diverse and equitable workplace? Why do our stereotypical beliefs hold us back from creating the diversity in nature that Liswood talks about? I love this quote from Liswood’s post:  I once saw a sign that said, “We hire because they are different and fire because they are not the same.” All too often we talk about wanting diversity and equity in the workplace, but our actions don’t match our words. We need to find a way to get back in tune with nature as Liswood suggests and make diversity of the workplace work in the same natural way. I think Canada should be ranking far above 25th in the world in the Gender Gap index. We should be leading the way and be held up for other countries to emulate.