Cognitive Diversity. A Rebel Idea?

The significance of cognitive diversity within teams and the role it can play in driving organizational performance is gaining traction.

From 1 November 2018 to 1 November 2019 there were 177 mentions of ‘cognitive diversity in the UK national media. In contrast, for the period 1 November 2019 to 1 November 2020 there were 341 mentions. Just under a 100 per cent increase.

What are they talking about? Many of the articles published focussed on the benefits cognitive diversity offers, the problems it can help overcome (including in terms of commercial resilience amidst the global pandemic), and the challenges businesses face in delivering it.

Driving Growth. Forbes, for example, featured an article earlier this month by Gaurav Bhalla, author and CEO of Knowledge Kinetics, showing evidence of how homogenous groups make organisations more vulnerable by inaccurately assessing growth opportunities compared with those that are cognitively diverse. 

Rebel Ideas. Perhaps most significant, however, was the publication of ‘Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking’ in 2019 by award winning journalist, Matthew Syed. The book catalysed discussion in the media surrounding cognitive and demographic diversity and the benefits they offer. In his book, Syed argues that our brainpower as individuals isn’t enough. To tackle problems from climate change to economic decline, we need to employ the power of cognitive diversity. Drawing on psychology, genetics, and beyond, he offers real-world scenarios including the failings of the CIA before 9/11 and a communication disaster at the peak of Mount Everest to introduce us to the true power of thinking differently. He encapsulates key themes from his book in a subsequent weekend essay for The Times, titled ‘The truth is that great minds don’t think alike’. He cites the breaking of the Enigma code, arguing how the presence of cognitive diversity was a success, and helped shorten the war by up to three years. 

Writing in FT Adviser, Annabel Brodie-Smith also discusses Syed’s book and the evidential advantages for cognitive diversity, but also noting the barriers to achieving it. As human beings we often instinctively want to surround ourselves with people who are similar and agree with us.

‘Diversity Paradox’. The barriers to achieve cognitive diversity among teams were also recently discussed by Professor Junko Takagi, chair of leadership and diversity at Essec Business School in France. Reporting on her latest research for her article: ‘Study dissects the ‘diversity paradox’ at work’ in the Financial Times she notes that while there is clear evidence to show that the complexity of diversity can lead to heightened awareness and the possibility of us taking on new perspectives, it can also quickly be undermined by categorisation processes and stereotypes. Although we may understand the potential benefits of seeing difference, we have developed cognitive reflexes that operate almost instinctively and discriminately.

Is a cognitively diverse team always the panacea? For some corporate functions cognitive diversity may not be an advantage. In their article for Harvard Business Review: ‘The Best Way to Hire Salespeople’, Frank V. Cespedes and Daniel Weinfurter argue that effective recruitment for salespeople often relies on conformity to a given set of traits reflected by those already successful in the role.

The authors argue that when recruiting for a sales position employers should:

• Hire for the task. Selling effectiveness is not a generalized trait. It’s a function of the sales tasks, which vary according to the market, strategy, the stage of the business, customers targeted, and buying processes of those customers.
• Focus on behaviours. Rather than relying on interviews, evidence suggests the most effective hiring decisions occur when those making hiring decisions are able to observe the potential hires’ job behaviours and use a recruitment process based upon various factors.
• Define relevant “experience”. Identify specific areas of experience that will be of value to your organisation.
• Ongoing talent assessments. As with any area of business, the sales environment is constantly changing. Businesses must constantly react to this through on-going talent assessments to stay in-touch with changing tasks and required behaviours. 

Excitingly, at ViewsHub we are currently developing a unique feature to our platform that will enable sales directors to benchmark their top salespeople (whether in aggregate or as various individuals) to help them determine which key behavioural traits are most important and prevalent in top performers. These benchmarks can then be used to filter final stage candidates to see both how prospective candidates would fit into the existing sales team and crucially which are most similar to the traits of their existing top performers thereby reducing the risk that the new hires will not perform as well as the organisation needs.