I had the pleasure recently speaking at a client’s management conference. The theme of my session was to explore cognitive diversity and how as an organisation they could harness the benefits of encouraging and utilising it. The organisation had made significant strides in being more inclusive across areas such as social and ethnic backgrounds, gender, and sexual orientation but they wanted to continue this journey by making the most of the different approaches to processing information and solving problems.
Insights from working with the McLaren F1 team
I shared an experience of working with the McLaren F1 team. During their pre-season camp, we’d given them a practical problem to solve and very quickly the team split into two – one group starting to explore the equipment we’d given them and start experimenting with solutions. The other smaller group spent time looking on from a distance and began conceptualising solutions – trying to find a strategy that they could turn into a plan. The Race Team Manager who was observing with me found this fascinating as he’d noticed the two groups had naturally split into mechanics and engineers. One group processes information through a very hands-on approach and physically playing with options, and another group stays very much amongst the bigger picture and theory. After a few minutes (these teams work quickly) they came together to share their thoughts and ideas. What could have been a clash of approaches was a wonderful example of conceptual ideas and suggestions meeting practical considerations and limitations (“great idea but the rope isn’t long enough, however, if we tied it to the plank it would work” etc).
Now I’m not suggesting that all mechanics think alike, and all engineers think alike (although there may be an element of similarity amongst those professions) but I was demonstrating that incorporating and encouraging very different ways of solving problems can result in faster and more effective solutions rather than the opposite – delay and conflict. A recent HBR paper published research that supported this – teams that had a greater level of cognitive diversity outperformed those that didn’t.
How do we encourage this type of appreciation for diversity and collaboration?
The secret of course is to help team members appreciate their own approach and the approach of others and see differences as a potential to exploit rather than hinder. We use several ways to do this – one of which is using Everything DiSC profiles to help develop self-awareness of their tendencies and preferences at work and appreciate those of their colleagues.
When I observe teams in action there does appear some consistency:
- D styles tend to address the problem in a very pragmatic and action-orientated manner
- i styles are more comfortable imagining the solution being more conceptual
- S styles will take their time to listen, consider and connect different ideas
- C styles are more likely to search for detail and be thorough in logical steps
Of course, we are a mixture of all styles, and we can flex our approach, but this takes practice and (I’m glad to say) some help from our Everything DiSC profiles. Great minds don’t think alike.
