Diversity & Inclusion
Inclusion is the Key to Team Performance
DPI founders Rick Perin and Elvio Di Simone went against the grain to build a company that hires the best people for the job regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation. DPI’s diversity and inclusive culture has organically grown over 20 years in business.
Over time everyone else came to understand what Rick and Elvio already knew; that a diverse and inclusive workplace is the key to maintaining a high-performance, world-class organization.
DPI’s Project Delivery teams are comprised of 80-100% women and under-represented groups.
Diversity Reduces Groupthink and Enhances Decision-Making 1
Diversity is a key ingredient for better decision-making among teams. Homogenous groups may be susceptible to groupthink, 2 while diverse teams can leverage a greater variety of perspectives and are likely to consider information more thoroughly and accurately. 3
- Teams that include different viewpoints or thinking styles (cognitive diversity) solve problems faster. 4
- Mixed-gender teams can better manage group conflict compared to homogenous teams and can better maximize creativity among team members. 5
“While construction has long been considered a male-dominated industry and occupation, the gender make-up of the DPI team is an encouraging sign of greater gender diversity in the future. We sincerely anticipate the growth of this partnership and opportunities to expand the conversation about inclusion, diversity and equity within the wider sector.” – Michael Bach, CEO Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion
1. Sarah E. Gaither, Evan P. Apfelbaum, Hannah J. Birnbaum, Laura G. Babbitt, and Samuel R. Sommers, “Mere Membership in Racially Diverse Groups Reduces Conformity,” Social Psychology and Personality Science, vol. 9, no. 4 (2018): p. 402-410; Astrid C. Homan, “Dealing with Diversity in Workgroups: Preventing Problems and Promoting Potential,” Social and Personality Psychology Compass, vol. 13, no. 5 (2019).
2. The American Psychological Association defines groupthink as “a strong concurrence-seeking tendency that interferes with effective group decision making. Symptoms include apparent unanimity, illusions of invulnerability and moral correctness, biased perceptions of the outgroup, interpersonal pressure, self-censorship, and defective decision-making strategies. Causes are thought to include group cohesion and isolation, poor leadership, and the stress involved in making decisions.” American Psychological Association, “Groupthink,” APA Dictionary of Psychology (2020); Sarah E. Gaither, Evan P. Apfelbaum, Hannah J. Birnbaum, Laura G. Babbitt, and Samuel R. Sommers, “Mere Membership in Racially Diverse Groups Reduces Conformity,” Social Psychology and Personality Science, vol. 9, no. 4 (2018): p. 402-410.
3. Astrid C. Homan, “Dealing with Diversity in Workgroups: Preventing Problems and Promoting Potential,” Social and Personality Psychology Compass, vol. 13, no. 5 (2019).
4. Matthew Corritore, Amir Goldberg, and Sameer B. Srivastava, “The New Analytics of Culture,” Harvard Business Review (January-February 2020).
5. Hun Whee Lee, Jin Nam Choi, and Seongsu Kim, “Does Gender Diversity Help Teams Constructively Manage Status Conflict? An Evolutionary Perspective of Status Conflict, Team Psychological Safety, and Team Creativity,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, vol. 144 (2018): p. 187-199.
