March 12th, 2011
My session at SXSW this afternoon:
Where do good ideas come from? Diversity. There is a growing body of evidence showing that cognitive diversity can play a powerful role in increasing the ideation and innovation capacity of a group or community. This session unpacks cognitive diversity, shows how it can drive better outcomes and examines some things that can get in the way. As General Patton said; “If everyone is thinking the same thing, then someone isn’t thinking at all.” If a group of people are considering something that matters, there will be some disagreement. Pursuing better solutions requires that we are willing and able to create social spaces where we can surface and recombinate those differences. We often avoid those differences because there is tension there. If you want the benefit that diversity brings, you have to be able to contain the tension that comes with it and that is where a lot of individuals and groups fall short. They avoid or deny differences because it is easier and safer. Even if we have an intuitive appreciation for the fact that different perspectives can be valuable, human nature can still get in the way. Things like stereotypes, assumptions, implicit association, attribution errors, and cognitive biases can have a profound impact on our considerations of others, regardless of our intentions. We can however, reduce the impact of our drive to judge and categorize so that it does not prevent us from creating robust intersections of differing perspectives.
[…] this conversation is going to right on theme with a lot what I have been talking about lately in Great Minds Do Not Think Alike, The Think About Talent, and Picking Fights With […]
This resonates with me deeply. Have you read “The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations” by James Surowiecki about the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that are often better than any one individual could have made? The diversity you speak of is touted as imperative to making group decisions actually better than individual decisions. I have also studied systemic thinking methods and theory and what you are saying about diversity in ways of thinking is supported by the academic work done on these topics as well. Thanks for your educational thoughts on the matter. Encouraging people to hold the tension that naturally comes with this type of diversity is powerful advice!
Thanks for reading and commenting Devon, yes I have read The Wisdom of Crowds and I think that is one of several books that provide a lot of good examples and research to this argument. I think at the heart of the challenge is that we prefer to avoid the tension…it is incredibly powerful and valuable, but easier to avoid…at least in the short run. Thanks!