Leadership and Executive Development for women of all races, cultures and backgrounds
Issue link: https://diversitywoman.epubxp.com/i/510478
We Mean Business > d i v e r s i t y w o m a n . c o m S u m m e r 2 0 1 5 D I V E R S I T Y W O M A N 23 diferences each employee is able to con- tribute to a common mission at work," says Carmen Medina, a specialist leader with Deloitte Consulting and a key leader on the report. Trough her research, Me- dina found that combining two or more things not normally related to each other often drives innovation. "An organiza- tion needs to have people with broad experiences and exposure to diferent ideas," she posits. "Diversity of thought yields a kind of positive friction from varying approaches, training, and mind-sets," agrees Selena Rezvani, corporate diversity consultant Activate Diversity of Thought in Your Organization H ow can organizations successfully undertake a strategy that actually works? The Deloitte report makes three recommendations. Hire differently. When writing a job description and interviewing candidates, ensure that the process is designed to identify a cognitively diverse organization. Be prepared to shake up the status quo by recruiting opinionated candidates. Selena Rezvani, corporate diversity consultant, suggests asking candidates un- conventional questions like, "How would you assimilate into our culture and at the same time not blindly conform?" "Companies need to set the stage before employees join the organization that diversity of thought is welcomed and expected," she says. She also recom- mends using technology, like GapJump- ers, that allows recruiters to screen for problem-solving abilities to a hypothetical case and only later to see a candidate's training, background, and résumé. "Many recruiters learn from this that educational background is less important than they originally thought," she adds. Manage differently. Rather than seeking consensus, managers should encourage task-focused confict that is designed to push teams to scale new heights of creativity. The aim is to foster an environ- ment where everyone feels comfortable sharing their views and their authentic selves. "Make one of your corporate values that 'we challenge norms, especially our own,' and encourage 'hero stories' and success stories that involve people consciously staffng teams for diversity of thought and their positive outcomes," says Rezvani. It's also impor- tant to assess the different types of diversity across your organization. "Does your company have a representative mix of social and economic backgrounds?" poses Buzzfeed's Stacy-Marie Ishmael. "What about generational mixing? Don't just roll your eyes at the Millennials, and don't create an environment that is implicitly hostile to boomers. Do you have immigrants on your team? I don't just mean expats with an army of lawyers at their disposal." Promote differently. Deloitte recom- mends moving to a team-based perfor- mance evaluation. This fosters a culture of inclusion that empowers employees and inspires collaboration and innovation. "I recommend sessions on implicit bias, to help ensure people are aware where their strongly or loosely held convictions might be coming from," says Ishmael. Does hiring people who readily shake up the status quo bring challenges? Absolutely! Wittenberg cautions organiza- tions to be prepared to travel the harder path when embarking on this journey. "It's always easier to hire and promote someone who brings more of your value system to the table," she says. "But you really need someone who is comfortable challenging existing systems to innovate." Once the practice of hiring and advancing diverse employees becomes entrenched in the culture, the business impact is often quickly noticeable. The long-term benefts are just too large to ignore.—R.T. THINKSTOCKPHOTOS and author of Pushback: How Smart Wom- en Ask—and Stand Up—for What Tey Want. "Tat very friction or rub, made up of the disagreement—and often lengthier processing time—of diferent team mem- bers, is what makes diverse teams higher performing, collectively, compared to ho- mogeneous ones." One of Rezvani's clients, a major phar- maceutical company, was attempting to bring a new drug to market. Te multi- billion dollar investment involved inter- nal stakeholders including research and development teams and external teams of physicians and patients. "My client overemphasized the importance of the internal marketing team to the process when the drug was brought to the FDA for approval," she says. "But in reality, there needed to be more input from a di- verse range of doctors and patients too." Te lesson learned by placing too much emphasis on the expertise of one team? Te company's major drug was not ap- proved by the FDA. "Te company suf- fered from tunnel vision in an expensive way. But it's an easy mistake that could apply to any industry." With Rezvani's help, the company iden- tifed key stakeholders and gathered input