Value diversity Teams Solve Problems Faster When They’re More Cognitively Divers

[Anonymous]

Here some parts of an article where brings interesting information for what we normally tend to think about “value of diversity”. There is an important factor that helps teams to solve problems that is not so easy to identify in teams (like, gender, race, etc, what we normally tend to think of diversity).

“Cognitive diversity has been defined as differences in perspective or information processing styles. It is not predicted by factors such as gender, ethnicity, or age. Here we are interested in a specific aspect of cognitive diversity: how individuals think about and engage with new, uncertain, and complex situations.

The AEM cube, a tool developed by Peter Robertson, a psychiatrist and business consultant, assesses differences in the way people approach change. It measures:
• Knowledge processing: the extent to which individuals prefer to consolidate and deploy existing knowledge, or prefer to generate new knowledge, when facing new situations
• Perspective: the extent to which individuals prefer to deploy their own expertise, or prefer to orchestrate the ideas and expertise of others, when facing new situations

If cognitive diversity is what we need to succeed in dealing with new, uncertain, and complex situations, we need to encourage people to reveal and deploy their different modes of thinking. We need to make it safe to try things multiple ways. This means leaders will have to get much better at building their team’s sense of psychological safety.”

Here a link to a video that shows part of the essence of the article.

https://hbr.org/video/5574949597001/cognitive-diversity-helps-teams-solve-problems-faster

Source: HBR.org
by Alison Reynolds and David Lewis

Enjoy it.
Jimena Romero Oneto

[Author]

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