Diverse minds make creative teams
Diversity of thought, ideas and expertise provide the lateral perspectives required to solve knotty problems. In today’s unprecedented economic climate pooling the solutions of as diverse a range of people as possible is key. However, people often recruit those like themselves and group think in meetings is prevalent. Those who challenge the norm can be regarded as threatening.
White, heterosexual, alpha middle-class men have historically been the leaders. They have created the norm of working practice. This is not to criticise: simply to state historical fact. Also to highlight the voices whose ideas may not be being heard or taken into account as an organisation tries to weather the current storms. Things are certainly changing but although ‘diversity’ has been on the agenda for many years now things at the top have not changed radically.
So how can organisations encourage true diversity of thought?
Shift the ‘norms’ of behaviour and work practice at senior management level. Just because things have been done in a certain way in the past they don’t have to be done in the same way now. Get creative about how to access solutions.
Encourage thought from all members of staff not just the dominant few. Diversity of thought comes from diverse experiences of life. Gender, race, disability or sexual orientation do not necessarily provide diverse perspectives but they can. It is difficult to truly understand the needs of others unless we have experienced their problems. Consider a Yorkshire library that created wheelchair access to be faced with the problem of how the person reaches the upper shelves.
Encourage flexibility of practice. We are stuck in out-dated working practices. Flexible working helps all members of staff, not just women. Work-life balance gives people perspective and time for reflection. The benefit is breadth of thought and experience, leading to creativity.
Enable the female voice. Women are not a minority; they are half the population. Whilst men and women are equally intelligent and skilled they have a different experience of life and different biological influences on how they think. Therefore a company benefits from their perspectives. As Ned Herrmann, creator of the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument, commented:
“I can say flatly that it is not possible to create the optimum whole brain team with only one gender involved. The differences of approach are both subtle and profound... Leaders of composite whole brain companies do not lead on the basis of their diverse workforce but tend to lead in left-brain mode which deprives the business of essential perspectives.”
Research demonstrates that companies where women are most strongly represented at board or top management level perform best.
Provide a thinking process. The quieter, more reflective, introverted people within an organisation are unheard. They are unlikely to speak up at large conference calls or plenary sessions. Introduce a structured process to give people:
3-5 minutes individual time to think
Time to share in a small group (shy people will do this) and
A plenary session where a spokesman from each group feeds back ideas. This accesses far more solutions than if one ‘Chair’ and a few extrovert or senior members of a group do most of the talking.
Value thought beyond hierarchy. Younger and newer members of teams seldom speak up as they think ‘someone must already have thought of this’ or ‘I might look stupid’. But, some of the best ideas come from ‘new’ minds so use good facilitation techniques to encourage each person to contribute their solutions.
Differentiate opinions from facts. Clarify what is fact and what is opinion. Opinions couched as facts can stonewall dialogue and limit creativity.
Helen Whitten is an accredited Cognitive Behavioural coach and the Managing Director of Positiveworks (www.positiveworks.com)
Posted: 23 June 2009 16:35:00
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Diverse Minds Make Creative Teams
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