Book review of Which Two Heads Are Better Than One? 2nd Edition by Juliet Bourke

Which Two Heads Are Better Than One? 2nd Edition

The extraordinary power of diversity of thinking and inclusive leadership

written by Dr Juliet Bourke GAICD and published by Australian Institute of Company Directors

Juliet Bourke is uniquely positioned to write about diversity and inclusion. This is a remarkable and very impressive book, which reminded me of Corporate Governance Matters (in terms of the empirical approach, as well as the depth/breadth). She provides a comprehensive understanding of DEI across academic research as well as her own first-hand field studies. This book delivers compelling evidence, which is much more nuanced and granular than the public discussions of diverse teams/organisations as well as inclusive leadership.

“This book offers organisational leaders a comprehensive process to support diverse thinking that is not just repeatable, but robust, disciplined and based on a wide body of evidence.”

The tools/approaches/suggestions encompass diversity of perspective (composition changes that help groups to see scenarios through a broader lens), diversity of approaches (to solve problems robustly via multiple perspectives), as well as understanding diversity of styles…

In terms of varying perspectives: functional and educational diversity have direct value, while racial and gender diversity have indirect value.

“Put simply, racial diversity helps trigger curiosity and thus prompts attention and the exploration of group members’ perspectives; gender balance helps promote collaborative behaviours and thus perspective sharing; and functional as well as educational diversity provides a group with access to distinct thinking worlds.”

Both men and women tend to operate at their best when there’s a gender balance, which raises composition questions for both male-dominated and female-dominated organisations and industries. The evidence argues for increased diversity of perspective in both construction as well as in childcare.

In terms of the six building blocks for approaching problems/decision-making, senior leaders are much more focused on objectives (about half of executives) and options (about one-quarter of executives). The other four approaches are usually heavily discounted amongst c-suite and boards: process, people, risk, and evidence… Bourke says that this can be turned into an opportunity, by astute leaders.

Bourke argues that: “Paying attention to diversity of thinking is a plus factor and one to be considered after potential team members have demonstrated their capability in terms of their domain knowledge, competence and experience.” Leading and managing diverse teams requires greater cognitive effort, and more time. It is not sufficient to assemble a group with superficial/visible diversity (this is only a small part of a building a high performing organisation).

A large section of the book deals with bias, particularly focusing on homophily and confirmation bias. There is also extensive discussion of cognitive depletion. Bourke presents suggested mitigations for reducing the detriment from these. Specific tactics are described (including the scenarios where they are most likely to be helpful), in addition to the generic ambition for greater transparency and accountability… This is impressive work, which I eagerly read.

Inclusive leaders are said to demonstrate the Six Signature Traits of: commitment to diversity and inclusion (through their actions), curiosity, cognisance of bias, cultural intelligence, courage, and collaboration.

I personally found it hard to persevere through the first half of this book, due to the writing style/grammar/structure. For a second edition, that was published five years after the first edition, it’s surprising that high quality editing has not shaped the book to a much greater extent. I was very pleased after ploughing through the first half of the book, to find the last hundred pages a pleasure to read. My personal opinion is that structuring the text into short chapters and reducing the size from 300 pages to 200 pages would deliver a book with much greater impact, and higher accessibility for a broader audience.

The content is highly relevant to boards and top teams from all types of organisations, especially medium to large size. I would highly recommend this book for non-executive directors, senior managers, and c-suite executives.