Creative Work Is Best Done As A Team
I encourage leaders to drive greater creativity and innovation by encouraging teamwork at all company levels.
I’m a firm believer in not doing everything myself. After 25 years at the C-level, there have been many times when I ended up taking on tasks on my own, but it’s often more of a struggle to operate that way. I prefer to tackle creative work with the help of a supportive and diverse-minded team.
In a world where competition has increasingly become a game of generating the best and most ideas, the best creative work is often done in teams. Therefore, I encourage leaders to drive greater creativity and innovation by encouraging teamwork at all company levels.
Teamwork Boosts Creative Thinking
The old saying, “Birds of a feather flock together,” perfectly illustrates our tendency to seek out people with similar perspectives, but this can dampen creative thinking. Harvard economics professor Richard Freeman noticed the tendency of scientists to work with those who were similar to them. Chinese scientists in one lab, Indians and Europeans in two others. He analyzed the publications put out by similar-minded scientists and found that papers with more diverse groups of authors received more public citations and prestige. Diverse input is a strength.
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Three Ways To Check More Than Just Boxes When Adding Diversity to Your Organization
Immigrating to the U.S. as a child gives you an entirely new perspective on what it means to add diversity to an organization.
People talk a lot about diversity — sometimes so much that I wonder if we still remember why. When leaders assemble diverse teams, the conflicting understandings of normalcy can lead to some friction — but as long as people are open-minded to the idea that their normal is not the only possibility, that friction can yield great results. A multifaceted, multicultural team can deliver some very unique and creative solutions in the workplace.
But when leaders hire people for their diversity simply to meet some standards of compliance, they might end up with more than just healthy friction. Unless these hires understand the benefits of bringing together diverse minds for more creative innovation, they may also bring conflict into a team.
Diversity should do more than check off boxes for your corporate diversity requirement; inclusivity for decision-making roles should go beyond basic divisions. Immigrants, like myself, know that diversity of class and culture can bring many benefits to a collaborative effort. To do diversity better, we need to go back to the source of its importance-bringing more diverse perspectives to work together and generate better ideas for business and society.
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