The word “diversity” has always been in focus in contemporary times. Corporations are embracing and inculcating diversity with the hope that it’ll lead to transformational business outcomes. Diversity has always been synonymous to cultural identity, ethnicity, race, origin, sexual orientation and so on. However, this is an incomplete picture and most importantly not bringing in the much wanted cognitive diversity.
Cognitive diversity is the new term in vogue when it comes to leadership and teams. The ‘my way is the right way’ is an old style of functioning. It might definitely work for linear problems, but does nothing for solving complex problems we are facing in society and in modern corporate strategies. Here comes into play cognitive diversity. But what is it really?
Cognitive diversity in its true form, is acknowledging the fact that we all have different ways of thinking, making decisions, and solving problems. To put it simply, it is what is inside your head. It’s about how you perceive things, how you frame things that come in, how you take your observations and put them in your own internal language, and how you approach solving problems. Some people are quite analytical thinkers and others more holistic and contextual thinkers. If you’ve a group of people who can do those things differently and voice different perspectives in the same situation, you’ve cognitive diversity.
With cognitive diversity comes an interesting concept called cognitive friction. Cognitive friction arises when you take perspectives and heuristics from different people who think differently and have them to battle. It’s when you explore solutions to problems, you explore ideas or intellectual territory from different perspectives. This leads to discomfort because you are getting outside of your own way of thinking but this discomfort leads you to growth. This works just like muscle-building where you need to push further than you’ve gone before if you want to get better.
Innovation requires breadth and depth, linking the discoveries and insights across disciplines and professions. Like-minded people are less likely to solve a problem efficiently because new ideas are only 10 per cent. Working in a team with people who think like you is inherently limiting. It is when you partner with folks who experience the world differently than you do, the team comes up with ideas that couldn’t have been imagined before. Therefore, it is about harnessing the different ways we think and our diverse approaches to the same complex problem, whether at work or in society in general.
As Matthew Syed shows in his brilliant book Rebel Ideas, cognitive diversity - the diversity of the minds we engage with - is the key ingredient to remove blind spots, learn faster, and generate the best ideas.
Thanks for reading :)
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