Part Three – Thought Diversity
Organisations are built on teams and a great organisation is built on a great team. A great team is the sum of the efforts of all individuals. These individuals bring their collective diversity, creativity, intelligence and motivation to create a well-rounded, confident and capable team. However, there are a few other key elements aside from the individuals that great teams have in common.
There are three key themes that bind some of the most innovative, driven and motivated companies across the world.
- Common Goal
- Psychological Safety
- Thought Diversity
These three elements of a great team aren’t defined by location, hierarchy, if you’re in the office or a remote worker. Every factor is equally as important, and you need all three to be a great team. Do you want to know what it takes to foster a great team in your organisation?
What is a team? Organisations are built on teams and a great organisation is built on a great team. A great team is the sum of the efforts of all individuals. These individuals bring their collective diversity, creativity, intelligence and motivation to create a well-rounded, confident and capable team.
A team is be defined by:
A group of people working together to achieve a common goal
Identifying what a team is the first step to understanding how to have a great team.
This is the final part of our three-part series on “What do great teams have in common?”
Thought Diversity
Diversity in the workplace is about much more than the ‘diversity hire’ and the common connotations of racial or gender diversity. Intellectual diversity includes all aspects of a person or group, encompassing different experiences, opinions and perspectives. This creates dissimilarities between the team, allowing innovative and creative problem solving, compared to a team where people think alike or who have similar experiences.
Similarities breed the same results, the same opinions, the same experiences. Variety within the team fosters new and exciting methods of problem solving, ways of working, processes and systems. It is a team’s differences that greatly increase the range of possible ideas and therefore value of the solution to a wider audience.
There’s been a study that shows how one aspect of diversity within the team, gender diversity, created more intellectual diversity and value. The research found that with more women present on the team, the better the decisions were that the team made.
Thought diversity is the foundation of great team and underpins major milestones, innovations and value for an organisation.
Creating a great team is more than just hiring the most qualified person for the job. Expanding your search criteria and using intellectual diversity as a springboard, will no doubt create a well-rounded, challenging team that can creatively problem solve for a clever outcome.
For the other two crucial elements of a what makes a great team – check out Part One and Part Two.
