Received wisdom is that the more diverse the teams in terms of age, ethnicity, and gender, the more creative and productive they are likely to be. But . . . we have found no correlation between this type of diversity and performance.
. . . This led us to consider differences that go beyond gender, ethnicity, or age. We began to look more closely at cognitive 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 . . .
There is a familiar saying: “We recruit in our own image.” . . . Colleagues gravitate toward the people who think and express themselves in a similar way. As a result, organizations often end up with like-minded teams. When this happens . . . we have what psychologists call functional bias — and low cognitive diversity.
. . . To overcome these challenges, make sure your recruitment processes identify difference and recruit for cognitive diversity. And when you face a new, uncertain, complex situation, and everyone agrees on what to do, find someone who disagrees and cherish them.
Alison Reynolds and David Lewis, «Teams Solve Problems Faster When They’re More Cognitively Diverse», in HBR.org ; Boston : Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, 2017-03-30 (excerpt La Litera información)
