Happy Thanksgiving From Innovation to Cognitive Diversity

It is that time of the year in some parts of the world when we get together with family members and are humbly thankful for what we have.  Enterprises need to be thankful too in several ways as I had explained around the same time last year -- Don't leave any of these people off your IT Thank you list.  Enterprises must also be thankful to Innovation -- especially when there is a culture of continuous innovation at play within a thriving ecosystem.  But, how about Innovation itself?  Who or what should be Innovation be thankful to?  That is where diversity comes in.  If collaboration drives the best form of innovation, diversity is the lighter fluid for meaningful collaboration.  Innovation, thus owes a lot to various forms of diversity.  Conferences like the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in computing (where the photograph is taken) are fine testaments to promoting such diverse perspectives.  Join me as I walk through the various forms of diversity that one could instrument in the spirit of healthy innovation.

In his keynote at the Gartner ITXPO Symposium, Chief Gartner Fellow, Daryl Plummer had called out the fascinating intersections of multiple industries like Healthcare and Wealth Management resulting in “Whealthcare Management”.  Just like the intersection of industries, intersections of our perspectives are a fertile ground for innovation.  

Gender. Conventional wisdom is that men and women have distinctly different approaches to dealing with common problem domains and have skills that are more conducive to certain tasks -- going back to the dawn of time.  What is important is to have a good blend of the representation from both sexes when making decisions that set the strategic direction for the enterprise.  Organizations like Grace Hopper provide an opportunity for the IT community at large to take proactive steps.  Initiatives like the 2017 Women in Open Source Award also take critical steps in this direction.

Generation. What is interesting about the 2017 Women in Open Source Award is that there are two different aspects -- a community award as well as an academic award -- providing an opportunity for upcoming generations of students to participate in it.  With each generation comes a whole new set of perspectives, technological advances, things that they take for granted which may not have been the case in earlier generations.  Current generations -- are in a way -- modernized versions of the ones that preceded them.  Hello Millennials !!

Ethnicity.  The world is flat.  With globalization and virtual collaboration environments, comes easier access to various ethnic communities who have a socio-economic perspective that is unique to their environment.  Their ethnic history tends to have a bearing on their perspectives that offer unique complements to domestic approaches.

Nationality.  Even across the same gender and ethnicity within a generation, there is variance across geographic and national boundaries.  Just take a look at Europe with perspectives unique to each country.  The political landscape as well as cultural aspects unique to the given nation tend to influence the approach the citizens take to addressing different problems and in many respects, how they communicate about it with others. How about that Thanksgiving dinner!

There are several other characteristics that can trigger complementary perspectives including religion as well as sexual orientation and identity (LGBTQ).  Diversity can and will result in conflicts -- and that is good -- especially if these conflicts are resolved in a constructive manner. Checkout Gina Likins’ session on constructive conflict resolution at the Grace Hopper conference.

While it is true that there are several factors that influence the diversity of perspectives, what really matters is cognitive diversity -- diversity of thought -- not just who you are but how you think.  Representation from different genders, nations, cultures and generations increase the overall cognitive diversity of the team at large. You need a Digital Anthropologist, says Daryl Plummer (Checkout Knowledge Moment Five)

Cognitive diversity fuels continuous innovation.  

And thus, Innovation should be thankful to Cognitive Diversity!  On behalf of Innovation, join me in wishing Cognitive Diversity a Happy Thanksgiving.  How about you?  Are there other factors that could influence the diversity of perspectives in a team?  How about at the Thanksgiving dinner?  Please let me know.

I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving from Twitter and Linkedin.