Being Different vs Thinking Differently
The new term in vogue when it comes to leadership and teams is ‘cognitive diversity’. There seems to be a general consensus that the solution to having more productive and effective teams is re-evaluating cognitive diversity. The ‘my way is the right way’ is an old style thinking. It might work for linear problems, but does nothing for solving complex issues we are facing in society and in modern corporate strategies. Here comes into play cognitive diversity. But what is it really?
There is a renewed focus on diversity in general. Companies are embracing diversity, with the hope that it will lead to transformational business outcomes. However, diversity is still wrongly understood. It is generally perceived as having a team with a heterosexual man and women, an ethnic person, a person with a different sexual orientation and hopefully, they are of different ages. This is such an incomplete picture and most definitely not bringing in the much wanted cognitive diversity. That is simply because all of these people could still have overlapping thinking styles and approaches to life, due to a multitude of reasons such as being from the same town, and having had the same academic journey. Furthermore, the psychologist Paul Rozin at the University of Pennsylvania made the shocking observation that cross-cultural differences are more pronounced in older generations, implying the world’s young people are converging. This is leading world thinkers to ponder whether we should be worried about the looming disappearance of human cognitive diversity. The loss of cognitive diversity also raises an ethical dilemma. The same initiators responsible for the loss of cognitive diversity are very often also responsible for raising literacy levels worldwide, promoting access to education and connecting people across the globe. So it is not just about slowing down the loss of human cognitive diversity, but also whether we should even try…But this in itself requires another blogpost.
Cognitive diversity in its true form, is acknowledging the fact that we have different ways of dealing with situations, making decisions and processing information. This is not just governed by ethnicity, gender or age- it has everything to do with personality! Therefore it is about harnessing the different ways we think and our different approaches to the same complex problem, whether at work or in society in general. The most famous example that provides solid evidence of the power of cognitively diverse teams is certainly the codebreakers of Bletchley Park in World War II. The team started with Oxbridge graduates but the invitation was then extended to a crossword genius and J.R.R. Tolkien.
To be continued next week!