[MUSIC PLAYING] ALEXIS: I think that BlackRock tends to hire people who don’t focus on I want this person to be like me, or I want this person to look like me.
ELLADA: There is a mutual respect between people. And we’re encouraged with our diversity to sort of bring something new to the table. Looking for this diversity to enhance what we deliver to the client. And bring new decisions, new ways of approaching the same tasks.
JOHN: They’ve examined how people work together. And what they found was that teams where everybody’s from the same sort of background might come up with solutions to a problem quickly, but the solutions may be not the most appropriate thing because they just all agree on one single thing straight away.
MATT: To build an innovative team, you have to have a diverse workforce. As a leader in the Army for five years, I became who I am because of my background and what I was. And I think I definitely provide a unique viewpoint, I would say.
CHRIS: We deal with people all over the globe. And having that complete range in diversity of minds and people really helps us tackle any problem that we face.
COLIN: Everyone comes from a different background. They bring a different skill set to the table.
ALEXIS: You open yourself up to a much bigger population of talent. For me, anyway, coming into an environment where I felt like I can talk about my kids, and I can talk about what I did on the weekends was really a breath of fresh air. It really felt like this is a place where I belong, and I can be myself.
MATT: I don’t feel like I’m having to change myself or having to change of viewpoint so that I can impress people.
LAUREN: Something that BlackRock does really well is encourage us to be vocal, no matter what level you’re in.
ERIN: Sitting in a room with senior managers, they’re always going to ask everyone around the table what their opinion is in a matter.
CONNOR: Somebody will look over to this first year and say, what do you think?
SPEAKER: They respect the opinions from the most junior person to the most senior. And it could have come from anywhere from any previous experience.
CONNOR: I absolutely feel that my voice has impact.
JOHN: If you have a team full of different people from different backgrounds, different thoughts, then the process of getting to a solution might take longer, but it’s been found that the solution is actually a lot more whole and comprehensive than answering the problem in a much more coherent way.
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