How Diversity Can Drive Innovation in the Workplace
Imagine working in a team where everyone shares a similar perspective and thinking pattern. Yes, there will be fewer conflicts, but you won’t be getting your desired results.
Why? Because uniform teams lack creativity and diversity, which usually generate new ideas and out-of-the-box solutions.
A team comprising individuals from diverse backgrounds, work experiences, and cultures creates the ideal environment to foster innovation. Even research agrees with it. According to a Harvard Business Review, diverse teams are more likely to generate new ideas than homogeneous ones.
Let’s learn how diversity drives innovation in the workplace. We will also discuss 6 ways you can leverage diversity to make your team more innovative.
How Diversity Fuels Innovation
Diversity is a major driver of business growth. It fuels productivity, innovation, and collaboration, enabling companies to easily achieve their goals.
Here is how diversity helps businesses innovate and succeed.
Brings Different Perspectives in One Place
Do you know that IBM, one of the largest IT companies, has over 130 years of experience in inclusive hiring practices? The company has a diverse workforce that develops versatile solutions for different industries.
When a team consists of people from different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences, they view a problem from various angles. The perspectives shared result in creative and comprehensive solutions.
Prompts Debates
Teams with people from similar perspectives often lack critical thinking. The members tend to agree on a consensus rather than analyzing problems on their own.
Diverse teams break this pattern. They encourage debate and reflection, which help make smart innovations and decisions.
Let’s take Pixar’s example. The company’s Braintrust Meeting is designed to encourage open communication within a diverse environment. These meetings work as a collaborative feedback process to improve the quality of results.
Movies like Inside Out and Coco are a result of such meetings. They depict inclusivity and debate together.
Increases Empathy in Innovation
Innovation combined with empathy is more effective and accessible to the masses. A diversified team is more empathetic than a non-diversified one.
When people from different backgrounds work together, everyone has to listen to one another and find solutions that don’t harm anyone’s sentiments. This way, diverse teams better understand the needs of various customer segments.
Great at Problem-Solving
According to one CloverPop research, diverse teams make better decisions up to 87% of the time. Besides, groups that follow an inclusive method make decisions twice as fast with half the meetings.
This implies that diversity is one of the drivers of a major innovation skill: problem-solving. It also helps accelerate the decision-making process, satisfying both stakeholders and customers at the same time.
Attracts Top Talent
According to research, 83% of millennials are actively engaged in organizations that promote an inclusive culture.
Such organizations also attract top talent, a major ingredient for innovation. Diversity helps such ventures to also retain top talent for a long duration and benefit from their experiences.
6 Ways to Introduce Diversity for Innovation
Diversity is the fuel that powers the engine of innovation in a business. Therefore, it is important to introduce it to drive growth.
Here are some ways that can help you incorporate diversity and inclusivity at work.
Reintroduce Diversity-friendly Hiring Processes
To build a diverse team of innovators, ensure that you rewrite inclusive job descriptions that are free from jargon and gendered language. This is the best move to encourage even underrepresented individuals to apply for jobs.
Meanwhile, you must put effort into broadening your recruitment channels. You can partner with diverse universities and community organizations to connect with capable individuals.
Build a Diverse Working Culture
Diversify your working methods by fostering a culture that welcomes individuals from diverse backgrounds. You can achieve that by:
Conducting regular meetings and workshops to recognize talent based on their capabilities rather than background
Setting rules so that everyone gets the right to voice their opinions
Creating a safe environment to encourage risk-taking and critical thinking
Create Diversification in Leadership Roles
It is imperative to introduce diverse voices to manage the role of leaders. This strategy helps create innovative ideas that cater to a wider audience.
Similarly, providing mentorship and sponsorship programs also helps give underrepresented employees a golden opportunity to showcase their capabilities. Mentorships help such people gain the confidence to participate in meetings and share their unique ideas with the world.
Encourage a Culture of Remote and Flexible Working
When you give people the liberty to work remotely, you tap into talent from different countries, cultures, and experiences. As a result, you find teams that eventually become your drivers of innovation.
Similarly, flexible working hours attract caregivers, mothers, and individuals with disabilities to your company. This provides an opportunity to bring additional perspectives to your team.
Use Digital Tools for Collaboration
Collaborations across departments also encourage diversification. Whether it’s marketing or customer service, your organization's teams have to work together on a daily basis to ensure every operation runs smoothly.
This means people from different backgrounds stay in touch, fostering a positive and diverse work culture.
To support this diversity, you must leverage digital tools, such as Slack or Mural, to connect your teams within the company — or even in different countries.
Reward Your Teams for Inclusive Innovations
To encourage diversification at work, recognize and then reward teams with a diversified workforce that achieves success with their innovations. Look for groups that demonstrate inclusive problem-solving skills.
Additionally, to make things interesting, you can launch innovation challenges focused on diversity themes. Then reward those who display inclusive goals and results.
Wrapping Up
Diversity is a game-changing aspect for innovation. It invites new perspectives and ideas, creating unique outcomes that benefit both the company and the world. But it won't automatically lead to innovations.
Companies need to create a safe space where creativity flourishes through inclusive leadership, diverse hiring, and frequent collaboration. Small efforts like these can then give life to breakthrough ideas.
So, if you are looking to build innovation-focused teams, consider diversity as the foundation. For more insights, check out Sheri Jacobs’ talks on fostering innovation in the workplace.
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