Do you think this team is diverse?
Wrong!
Appearance is a poor indicator of true diversity. This group was recruited in the intellectual image of their boss. Managers naturally recruit people who ‘think’ like them. It’s an all-too-common phenomenon. Networkers recruit networkers. Quick decision makers recruit other quick decision makers. Strategists recruit strategists.
This group looks different but in reality they might all be doers/makers/builders, an Intellect type that we call PDs (project directors). In other words they are all built to do the same job. That’s the problem when a team lacks real diversity.
By contrast, here’s a truly diverse team:
These four people possess a mix of Intellects that could design, build and sell you a space station. They were recruited for their cognitive or intellectual diversity to achieve a specific mission.
They all have a similar ethnicity? Actually, that’s irrelevant. True diversity looks beneath the surface of color/age/gender to what really matters: what people can do.
The Method Teaming approach to building teams takes into consideration the core tasks of the team and the Intellects needed to perform those tasks: Strategists, EQs, Networkers and Project Directors. Once companies understand and apply the science of teaming, engagement and productivity increase dramatically. Not only that, the team will naturally be composed of the right proportion of age/color/gender to match the recruiting pool.
The traditional approach to recruitment leaves us poorly equipped to evaluate potential team members. This leads to organizational under-performance because traditional teams can only ever achieve hit-and-miss collaboration. If a traditionally-blended team collaborates well, it’s pure luck.
We know a cognitively-blended team will always out-perform a traditionally-blended team. That’s because when you build a team that’s intellectually diverse you will get ‘natural smart collaboration’ which leads to out-performance.
Intellectual diversity renders all the other diversities obsolete and redundant. It also leads to better results.
