This is a great post by Megan Goodwin on LinkedIn about engineering cognitive diversity and how people who don’t think like you help you make better decisions. This is the sort of insight and read that Fridays were made for!
Megan starts by highlighting there has now been at least 20 years of research to tell us that having people from different backgrounds and perspectives leads to better decisions and better performance. She also illustrates that hat companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians (McKinsey 2015).
She asks the question: what about the diversity that you can’t see?
Megan talks about background diversity and that most boardroom persons follow the normal path and cultural conditioning to be part of this set of cohorts. But what about people who follow the less trodden path, people with more diverse experiences and inputs? Does this limit the challenging of our thinking and bring ideas and opportunties to the management of a company?
I am inspired by the final section of cognitive diversity. Having had the privilege of working as a senior lead for a number of US and global corporates, I’ve experienced first hand the lack of cognitive diversity. The killer quote for me:
“The more diverse the thinking styles and conflicting views, the more ideas we can generate and the best decisions are made when not everyone agrees. The reason being that people evaluate all avenues more critically.”
Megan Goodwin
That says it all for me. Surly this is a good thing for all companies to embrace? Read more of Megan’s wise words here:
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