Joe Gerstandt | keynote speaker, freedom fighter, freak-flag flier

Mary Schaefer and I have an ongoing Q&A exchange that we are posting on both of our blogs.  This week Mary has a question for me…

For an organization leader who sincerely wants to better understand what it is going to take to make her/his organization more innovative, by way of diversity and inclusion, what book would you recommend and why?

Tricky question for me, because I read a lot, and I think there are about five really important books related to this issue and most of them would be considered “diversity books.” I did think about cheating and including all five, but I did not want to set a bad precedent for our ongoing conversation?

The one book that I would recommend is The Difference, by Scott Page. To me, this book is the most important book related to diversity to be written in the past decade if not longer. I reference this book almost daily. One of the things that makes this book so valuable in my opinion, is that is written by an “outsider.” Scott Page is a professor of complex systems, political science and economics at The University of Michigan. He is also external faculty for the Santa Fe Institute, which is kind of like a modern day Jedi Council. Professor Page is a smart cookie.

I like a lot of things about this book, but first and foremost it puts some really solid stuff in the hands of the reader regarding the tangible value of difference. This book is primarily about cognitive/mental diversity but Page also talks about the overlap between the diversity of our social identities (race, orientation, gender, etc.) and the diversity of our mental orientation and problem solving style. He also does a wonderful job of tearing down the horribly misinformed talent vs. diversity debate that still unfortunately shows up in many places in our society.

I think that there is still little real investment in diversity in organizations and communities and I attribute the vast majority of this to the fact that people just do not truly understand what diversity is and what its real value is. I am a fan of anything that helps change that, and this book certainly does.

Here is a good New York Times article about Page’s message and the book. You can find the book here, Professor Page here and this is a good summary from Princeton University Press:

In this landmark book, Scott Page redefines the way we understand ourselves in relation to one another. The Difference is about how we think in groups–and how our collective wisdom exceeds the sum of its parts. Why can teams of people find better solutions than brilliant individuals working alone? And why are the best group decisions and predictions those that draw upon the very qualities that make each of us unique? The answers lie in diversity–not what we look like outside, but what we look like within, our distinct tools and abilities.

The Difference reveals that progress and innovation may depend less on lone thinkers with enormous IQs than on diverse people working together and capitalizing on their individuality. Page shows how groups that display a range of perspectives outperform groups of like-minded experts. Diversity yields superior outcomes, and Page proves it using his own cutting-edge research. Moving beyond the politics that cloud standard debates about diversity, he explains why difference beats out homogeneity, whether you’re talking about citizens in a democracy or scientists in the laboratory. He examines practical ways to apply diversity’s logic to a host of problems, and along the way offers fascinating and surprising examples, from the redesign of the Chicago “El” to the truth about where we store our ketchup.

Page changes the way we understand diversity–how to harness its untapped potential, how to understand and avoid its traps, and how we can leverage our differences for the benefit of all.