Let’s Cheat a Little More

Traveling from Wilmington to NYC is a great time to catch up on reading, and I used it to absorb an interesting mix of articles. Two apparently very different articles stood out as having a lot to say about the same thing: leadership and diversity.

Does Diversity Harm Execution?

In this Harvard Business Review article, Does Diversity Actually Increase Creativity?, author Thomas Chamorro-Premuzic contends that while diversity is great for generating new ideas, implementation bogs down in diverse groups. This observation is based on a meta-analysis of more than 108 studies and 10,000 teams. While I don’t have the knowledge base to review the data, he states one conclusion that belies the entire premise that the problem of poor implementation is due to diversity:

            “Good leadership helps. The conflicts arising from diversity can be mitigated if teams are effectively led.”

Further, yet another conclusion states,

            “Knowledge sharing is key. No matter how diverse the workforce is, and regardless of what type of diversity we examine, diversity will not enhance creativity unless there is a culture of sharing knowledge.”

So, while the data shows that diversity is great for creativity, but bogs down in implementation, the correlation does not necessarily mean causation. The cause may not be diversity, but the lack of leadership and the lack of knowledge sharing.

Do We Cheat Enough?

Which leads me to the second article, in ForbesBrandVoice, Trust, Diversity and Passion – The Three Ingredients of Successful Organizations. Here, author Richard Bliss tells the story of a team of highly intelligent, forceful young leaders, who, in a military test, failed spectacularly. There was great diversity of thought and passion, but instead of sharing their knowledge with each other, each contended to prove that they had the right answer. They wanted to show that they were right, instead of working together.

Why is it so hard for smart, intelligent people of diverse backgrounds and thought processes to work together? Bliss quotes Vivek Wadhwa, of Carnegie Mellon University College of Engineering:

             “When you and I went to school, we were taught to be individuals. … If we shared knowledge with each other, it was called cheating.”

How true! Our educational system rewards individual achievement. If we share our knowledge with others or ask for help from other students, we are cheating.

What is the Leader’s Role?

Bringing together diverse viewpoints, experiences, mental processes, and aptitudes; sharing what we know; allowing others to also contribute – these all go against our childhood training.

Does diversity lead to more creativity? It appears yes. Does it take good leadership to make the most of the diversity? Again, it appears yes. Merely creating diverse teams is not a magic bullet.

Leadership is fostering the growth of the team so they can listen to, acknowledge and learn from each other, in order to achieve extraordinary ends. No one person has all the answers. No one type of person has all the answers.