The Power of Diversity

I was reading aloud to my son yesterday, one of Aesop’s stories about the strength of unity in diversity. It was a trademark story about how a jungle has different animals with all different traits and how they all work together in a crisis situation. That triggered my thoughts and I realised how we all seem to have forgotten this simple message in today’s corporate world.

Confused? Don’t agree. Think about it. When was the last time you had staff from different departments from your organisation come together to work on a corporate problem? When did you last try to attack a pressing problem by bringing together people with different and varied skill sets? All of us are so busy with our day to day challenges that we are just running from one crisis to another without even time for reflecting. Also another major factor is that most of our organisations have now setup so many internal barriers that collaborating across them requires dedicated attention and time – something that all of us just don’t have in today’s competitive world!!! So we just organise teams with similar skilled people and encourage everybody to think “out of the box”. Unfortunately that is easier said than done!!!

Why is this important? Ask any trouble shooting expert or any innovation “guru” and he will vouch for the power of diversity. The more varied and different their skill sets are, the more diverse their thinking is and that will directly reflect in the creative solutions that they come up with. I am sure all of you have experienced a situation where you are stuck with a problem and can’t seem to find a solution even after spending a lot of time on it. We get out of such situations in many different ways – some people sleep over this situation, some people take a short break away from work, some people talk it over with colleagues/friends. But all of us agree that the best way to resolve these kinds of issues is by having a fresh look at it. Look around you today. You will find that diverse teams are very difficult to find. IT guys stick together, domain experts form their own circle and it is very rare to find a mix of these diverse fields.

So what can organisations do to encourage diversity? I think the first thing organisations need to provide is a platform where diverse teams can be formed and work together using their complementary skills. This is the biggest challenge, as of today, due to globalisation and the distributed way of working today. It is not uncommon today to find that the core technology team is based maybe out of India or Brazil while the domain experts are in US/UK or Australia given that their customer base is in that region. Finally the back office processing team could be in another geographical location. In such a scenario, getting teams to collaborate together is a huge challenge without a platform. Anybody who is currently working with teams in different time zones and geographical locations will know what I am talking about.

So assuming we have a platform in place for collaboration, what else do we need? The second and equally important requirement is motivation or incentive to collaborate. This could be either in terms of reward money or it could be also non-monetary incentives like a gift voucher or holiday for two or something popular enough to motivate the experts to contribute. Why is this important? The problem today is that everybody is as busy with their normal business as usual (BAU) activities that it is a challenge to get the brightest minds to collaborate without incentives. Also this sends a clear message to the group that this is an important activity which needs to be prioritised and creates a win-win situation.

Finally the last factor, which is important, is the definition of objectives and key result areas for domain experts and star performers. This should include participation in the collaborative platform and they should be encouraged to contribute. This will help in two ways.

1. This will help in maintaining the quality of the solutions being discussed since these are the best talent within the organisation.


2. They will act as role models and guide other staff while at the same time ensuring that the deadlines are not compromised. Over a period of time, this platform can help groom talent and identify potential high performers within the organisation.

So – are there any pitfalls to watch out for or avoid? Well – Some attention will be required initially to ensure that the platform is being used transparently and people are having healthy discussions. Care should be specifically taken to ensure that newcomers are encouraged and valued. But over a period of time, the group will become self-governing. Regular feedback and transparent evaluation will go a long way in encouraging people to contribute regularly and keeping them interested. But the true success of the platform should be measured by the creativity of the solutions generated. The platform should serve as an avenue to demonstrate the power of diversity and inspire everybody to achieve greater heights through collaboration and through partnership.


So what do you think? Do you know of any examples of such platforms being used today? Can you think of any reasons why they are not popular and some of the challenges these platforms will need to overcome?