I am not the first person to call attention to the connection between diversity, inclusion and innovation. What I point out has been the most obvious blind spot is the need for personal innovation from leaders that addresses the problem with traditional diversity training. Before we get to that though, let’s take a closer look at the topic of diversity and why it matters.
In 2015, McKinsey released a report that investigated 366 companies based on their diversity. Companies that had a diverse quartile in their ethnic and racial diversity earned 35 percent more revenue than the market average.
In a global analysis of 2,400 companies Credit Suisse showed similar results. Companies with at least one woman at the top generated higher revenue growth and return on capital than companies without women at the top of the management hierarchy. Could recent revelations about Microsoft’s struggles with an organizational culture staunchly resistant to diversity inclusion shed light on the company’s market challenges over the past decade?
In recent years, several studies have been conducted that reveal another significant benefit of diversity within teams: they are simply smarter. Working together with people who are different from you challenges your brain to think in a new way. This requires letting go of the natural tendency of most people to fear and resist change. The situation is made more murkier by studies of thousands of trainings showing that traditional diversity inclusion training is not effective and can actually incite bias.
More focused on the facts and embracing thinking outside the box.
People with different backgrounds can change the image of what is considered normal within the social majority and generate a new way of thinking within a group.
In a study published in the American scientific journal Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 200 people were assigned to a mock jury of six people, all white or four white and two non-white. Together they watched a video of a lawsuit with a black suspect and white victims. They then had to decide if the suspect was guilty.
It turned out that mixed jurors were able to uncover more facts about the case and made fewer errors of fact in discussing the matter. If errors occurred, they were corrected in the same discussion. One possible explanation for this was that the mixed panels took a closer look at the evidence.
Another study shows similar results. In a series of experiments from Texas and Singapore, scientists let people with an economic background walk through a simulated supermarket and guess the price of products. The participants were divided into ethnically differentiated or homogeneous teams. People in the diverse group guessed prices 58 percent more often than participants in the other group.
Diverse teams continue to be more objective in different situations. By creating more diversity, it makes teams aware of their biases, which can blind them to essential information.
Personal innovation strategy
Diverse teams are more innovative, this is already a well-proven reality.
To remain competitive, companies must look for ways to cultivate innovation. Research shows that one of the best ways to transform themselves and their product is to embrace diversity within the company.
The gender diversity of 4277 Spanish companies within the R&D teams was investigated. The teams with more women achieved a more radical renewal in two years than the teams with a majority of men.
Another study suggests that cultural diversity is key to innovation. The researchers analyzed data from 7,615 companies that participated in the London Annual Business Survey, a survey of company performance. Companies that noted cultural diversity at its highest developed more new products than those with similar top executives. Valuable forward-thinking events and effective innovative thinking can become the new normal with smarter teams by better understanding innovation blind spots.
Bringing in people of different genders, races, ethnicities, orientations, backgrounds, and nationalities can boost a company’s ability to innovate. However, if it were that simple, it wouldn’t continue to be such a persistent problem. This is where personal innovation, especially in leadership development, is so valuable. Leaders must lead by example. Embrace a lifestyle of personal innovation that harnesses the pursuit of happiness to nurture personal courage to step up to do the right thing more often.
Leveraging personally meaningful goals is key to personal innovation strategies that circumvent the most common problems with diversity training and innovation skills development programs. This means that there is no single solution per se. Instead, it calls for cultivating the strategy to guide a lifestyle of inner growth, clarity, and wisdom.
Innovative new approaches to turning challenges into launching pads will help you become the kind of leader needed for today’s and tomorrow’s increasingly diverse workforce and markets. Stepping up is the key to discovering your personal innovation path. Art-based solutions based on imagination as a method allow people to become aware of their biases, find out what they are based on, and learn to make better decisions. This will make leadership more successful no matter what the specific goals are. Simply put, smart leaders have to find new courage, wisdom, and inspiration to meet these current and emerging challenges.