School is Making Me Boring

"School is Making Me Boring" is one of my favorite quotes from my son when he was little. At first, I thought he had misspoken, but as time went on, I saw that he was wise beyond his years.

Many years later, I was running an International Women’s Day Celebration event; the theme was Diversity. During Dr. Stefanie K. Johnson's speech, she touched on how diversity impacts the bottom line, stating the example, “McKinsey showed that companies in the top quartile in racial diversity outperformed those in the bottom quartile by 35%, whereas the benefit was only 15% for gender diversity.” https://drstefjohnson.com/business-case-for-diversity/.  When we think about diversity, we often think about race, gender, culture, and sexual orientation, but it’s not limited to those. This sparked an epiphany in one of the Managing Directors attending the session, who noticed that the majority of the 200 participants went to the same university, read from the same textbooks, experienced the same exercises, and learned how to solve problems with the same process. Could it be true that school has made us boring? If it's not boring, then maybe we're less imaginative. We say they must be a college graduate on job postings, but then we miss out on those applicants with non-traditional learning experiences. We are leaving money on the table. These applicants come with a wide variety of talents, life experience, and unique problem-solving skills, all contributing to innovative ideas and increased product offerings and profitability.

I believe it's critical to continue to grow and learn every day. There is so much we can learn from each other; here is to developing ourselves through discovery so we can keep learning from making us boring.