By Jaideep Salil
In an op-ed for Fast Company, co-written with Luis Velasquez, Columbia SPS lecturer Jenny Fernandez asserts that teams with diverse professional experiences are more innovative and successful; she also explains how leaders can prime teams for success. Fernandez is vice president of marketing at Loacker USA and teaches three courses in the M.S. in Strategic Communication program: Content Strategy, Digital Communication Strategy, and Marketing Management.
Highlights from her article:
Invite divergent thinking. A highly diverse environment can improve team performance by up to 30 percent. Teams consisting of individuals with different backgrounds bring varied perspectives and skill sets to the table. This leads to improved decision-making, profitability, and business outcomes.
Evolve your definition of success. When you’re assembling a team, qualities like versatility and curiosity are just as important as technical capability.
Diversity’s the competitive advantage. Fixating on specialized technical skills at the cost of adaptability and soft skills is detrimental to building effective teams. Resetting expectations of what good looks like and focusing on transferable skills is a more prudent approach.
Foster a culture of trust. Leaders must set norms and conditions that encourage people to share divergent perspectives, deliberate, and arrive at consensus solutions. Creating a culture that values creativity allows for improved idea generation, paving the way to greater innovation.
Encourage the devil’s advocate. Dissenting opinions are necessary to question assumptions, avoid groupthink, and vet ideas before implementation. Assigning the role of contrarian to a team member serves to encourage thinking outside the box.
Connect the dots. The world is complex and interconnected. The ability to work at the intersection of disciplines—and to connect issues that are seemingly disparate—is crucial to navigating a dynamic business landscape. Diverse teams with a mosaic of backgrounds, an expansive knowledge base, and a healthy appetite for risk are best positioned to connect the dots and deliver success.
Read the article in Fast Company.
