It was about three years ago when a number of top people from the Dutch business community gathered in a mosque, looking around uncomfortably. Where should they leave their shoes? Delegates from KPMG and PostNL, among others, have been invited to a meeting on diversity by Karen van Oudenhoven-van der Zee, professor of psychology and dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Free University (VU). Only at last did they realize the location: the Blue Mosque in Amsterdam Nieuw-West. They also did not know beforehand that they were going to talk to the imam.
‘It takes guts to set up such an unusual meeting,’ says Jolanda van Schaik, then head of diversity and inclusion at accountancy and consultancy firm KPMG. “That characterizes Karen.” For years, the two saw each other regularly during meetings under the heading ‘More Color at the Top’, Van Oudenhoven’s initiative to investigate why the Dutch company top remains so white, and what to do about it.
Like three other acquaintances, Van Schaik is de Volkskrant spoke, delighted with Van Oudenhoven’s appointment as the new director of the Social and Cultural Planning Office (SCP), the most important social science research institute in the country and an advisory body to the government.
From the ivory tower
The position is tailor-made for her, according to the four. Van Oudenhoven is not in the least afraid of stepping out of the ivory tower of the university. In the late 1990s, she set up the Institute for Integration and Social Resilience at the University of Groningen (RUG), where research was to be conducted that would have a direct impact on practice.
‘People warned her that it was not good for her career,’ says fellow psychologist and professor Ellen Giebels, who met Van Oudenhoven in Groningen. ‘At that time, as a scientist, you were doing fundamental research – and she did that at the highest level – or you were involved in practice. But she founded the institute anyway, I thought that was really progressive.’
Even at SCP, research does not take place in a vacuum: the institute is legally obliged to evaluate policy in The Hague. With her appointment, Van Oudenhoven inherits a privileged place in the public debate. In recent years, the current SCP director Putters regularly cracked down on government policy. ‘That will certainly be no different under her leadership’, expects Mirjam van Praag, chairman of the board of the VU, where Van Oudenhoven worked in recent years as dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. ‘Because she dares’.
Diversity will remain one of its spearheads, the three expect. From an early age, Van Oudenhoven has been fascinated by anyone who deviates from the prevailing norm. ‘We lived in Friesland, and my parents were a bit hippies’, she explains her interest in a recent VU podcast. ‘We ate pasta and rice and didn’t really belong. But when we got to the Randstad, people would ask: where are your clogs?’
Dealing with uncertainty
Although differences between people can be enriching, it often turns out not to work that way in practice, she realized during her psychology degree. The question of how a team can be more than the sum of its parts is central to her research.
The answer she found consists of two parts. First, learn to deal with uncertainty. You can train your brain for this, says the internationally acclaimed psychologist. “Plunge yourself into as many different and uncertain situations as possible,” she advises in the podcast. Hence her invitation to top people and CEOs in unusual places, such as the mosque.
After confronting their prejudices there, the CEOs are presented with a dilemma. Some people need a new kidney, but only one is available. They must jointly decide to whom they will donate the kidney. ‘Afterwards, most think: that went quite well,’ says Van Oudenhoven. “But there are always people who have not been listened to. Not out of bad intentions, but out of the habit of making quick decisions.’
And that is the second condition for a successful diversity policy: to take advantage of differences, you must ‘start from the point that you are not always right, and really take the time’, says Van Oudenhoven. Diversity also means that you are challenged by people with difficult opinions, and that can delay decision-making. She herself is the first to conclude that she can still make a profit there. ‘As a manager I sometimes think: I want to continue, I have to achieve my targets.’
In a loose mood, says VU board chairman Van Praag, Van Oudenhoven sometimes characterizes himself as ‘Frisian-headed’. That perseverance makes her suitable for the position of SCP director, according to professor Jacquelien van Stekelenburg, Van Oudenhoven’s direct colleague on the VU Faculty Board. ‘She knows how to get people to get things done. In the administrative world, where things don’t always run smoothly, that’s an important quality.’