Dversity in the Workplace

Though times of crisis might induce companies to entrench themselves in the old tried and true ways of doing business, ESSEC’sStefan Gröschl and Junko Takagi would argue that our current slump is a call for change.

“Overcoming challenges like we see today is really about asking questions, looking at complex issues from a more holistic perspective, finding new ways of tackling old problems,” explains Professor Gröschl. “Doing this requires diversity. It requires individuals who can look at problems from different angles, bring new perspectives and really look at the bigger picture.”

Admittedly, with limited team diversity an organization might solve a given problem. However, a homogeneous team encourages a collective mindset that reduces the number of solutions a team can propose. Businesses are beginning to understand that there are many different ways of solving a single problem. A more diverse team might be in a better position to think outside the box and come up with more innovative solutions that would foster better results. At the same time, understanding a phenomenon conceptually is easier than acting upon new ideas.

Professor Takagi likes to look at diversity as a potential source of what she calls cognitive flexibility. “Cognitive flexibility is thinking differently about problems. Businesses can tackle challenges in more than one way, they have choices. When these choices lead to exchanges between a diverse group of individuals, it can open more windows of opportunity.”

The first steps for creating more diversity within an organization?

If diversity fosters innovative thinking and cognitive flexibility within organizations, how can companies encourage a cultural evolution within their business? A first and crucial step to implementing a strategy for diversity is learning to recognize it – or a lack thereof – in all its forms. As the word itself implies, this is a multifaceted concept. In the context of organizational management, it encompasses all...