Just as problems and opportunities are often created by human imperfection, those same problems are solved, and opportunities leveraged, through the innovation, creativity and insights of people. That may sound old fashioned with the well-deserved excitement currently focused on technology like Artificial Intelligence and the high volume of work that has been effectively automated. These trends will continue and will doubtlessly enhance organizations’ capabilities. Just as certainly, though, there will continue to be a need for people in highly functioning organizations to use their creativity and problem-solving skills to leverage the next generation of tools and technology.

To do that, those people will be working in teams.

It shouldn’t take too much explaining to convince you that teams are more effective problem-solvers than individuals. It’s intuitively obvious that the more intellectual capacity that you bring to a given problem, the more effective solution will be developed.

Some may argue, “Ok, but I can work much faster on my own than if I’m bogged down by a team.” This may or may not be true. Undoubtedly, working in a team requires more communication, coordination and perhaps administration than charging ahead alone. However, the solo problem-solver, without the benefit of differing perspectives and viewpoints, leaves themselves open to significant risk of error.

Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in March 2021 is a perfect example of an obvious phenomenon.^[1]  If you believe press and other expert speculation, the signs are pretty compelling that rather than consulting a team of diverse thinkers, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s autocratic leader, basically made the decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022 on his own. For purposes of this course, let’s call it the Putin rule: 

If no one is around to challenge your thinking, then there is a much greater risk that something will get overlooked or miscalculated.

That then, leads to an obvious corollary to the Putin Rule, let’s call it the Rule of Respectful Challenge:

For teams to provide maximum value, members must be capable of identifying contrary views and empowered to respectfully challenge one another.

We’ll talk more about the Rule of Respectful Challenge, and how to create a culture where it flourishes, in Part 3. For now, let’s keep the focus on the the first step— which is assembling a diverse team

When you assemble a team to solve a problem, what should you be striving for? If you’re not careful, a lot of the same arguments for solo problem-solving may also be deployed (consciously or not) in assembling a very homogenous project team. There is comfort that comes from working with people who have a similar background, mode of thinking, shared experiences, and/or area of technical capability as you. When teams are comprised of individuals from the same type of backgrounds and similar sets of experiences, they can often work more quickly and dedicate less time into “getting up to speed” and consensus-building. Such homogenous teams, however, almost inevitably sub-optimize relative to more diversely comprised teams because members who think the same are unlikely to question and challenge each other or bring up points that may have been overlooked by other teammates.

Studies show conclusively that businesses led by diverse leadership teams make more money. A 2015 McKinsey report on 366 public companies found that those in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean, and those in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have returns above the industry mean.^[2]

While intuitively it makes sense that we might do our best work when we are the most comfortable, that isn’t necessarily the case— at least when it comes to productivity and innovation. Multiple studies show, for example, that teams that are populated by people from more diverse backgrounds— ethnic, gender, age, cognitive, or work function— tend to make better decisions and achieve better results. At least one reason for that is the very discomfort that is introduced by working with someone who has a different background can be very beneficial in getting to the best result.^[3] 

There are different dimensions of diversity. Functional diversity, for example, is important for any organizational problem to ensure that the appropriate technical know-how is available to the team.

Let’s imagine a New Product Introduction (“NPI”) team in Caterpillar’s Earthmoving Division being formed to design and introduce a new model of wheel loader. We’ll call it the X-Series. Typically, there will be at least one member of the team who is a functional sales or marketing expert so that the team has expertise in identifying customer needs relevant to key applications of the product. You would also expect to find members who have expertise in design of various components of the machine, like engine, transmission, hydraulics and electronics. You’d also likely find a manufacturing expert who could provide, or access, information on how to design the machine in a way that made it easier and less costly to manufacture. Finally, you might find an aftermarket product support expert who could provide insight on how to ensure that customers and dealers could easily support and repair the machine following its sale to a customer. Having these differing functional areas of expertise leads to a better designed product.

Another dimension of diversity on our imaginary NPI team would be geography. Assuming our X-Series wheel loader will be marketed globally, we’d want to ensure that our team had representatives from different major markets to understand details such as the quality of fuel available and dominant applications. A wheel loader of a certain size might predominantly be used for moving sugar cane by farmers in Brazil, for example, while the same size and model in North Dakota might be predominantly used for snow removal. Ensuring that the same machine could be used, or easily modified, for both applications is an important role of the NPI team that can only be met if the design team is diverse enough to be aware of such differences.

Another aspect of diversity in problem-solving that is often ignored or overlooked is having people at different levels of the organization involved in problem-solving teams. Some of the least-effective problem-solving teams I’ve served on in my career have been comprised predominantly of senior-level executives who simply didn’t have enough familiarity with operational details to be able to adequately state the problem— much less resolve it.^[4] The best teams I’ve been on have people at different levels of the organization so that both “on the ground” functional thinking can be combined with higher-level strategic perspective.

One final thought to whet your appetite for Part 3 of the Course, which focuses on culture. A well-constructed team comprised of members with differing backgrounds and experiences will only realize the value of those team members to the extent they believe they are operating in a culture where they are empowered to speak up and challenge prevailing views. If that’s not the case, all the effort that’s gone into creating a diverse team will be wasted. We’ll discuss that further and talk about how to build and maintain that kind of culture, in Part 3.

Reflection Questions

1. Can you think of another example (besides Putin’s invasion of Ukraine) where a leader tried to solve a problem without input from her/his team and as a result failed to recognize pitfalls that input from a diverse team may have avoided? (Could be historical or a fictional character in a book/movie/series)

2. Think about a leadership team in an organization in which you’ve worked, volunteered or participated as a team member (could be a workplace, church, sports team or any organization with common purpose). How were the individuals on that team alike or different? What value did those differences bring to the organization?

3. Can you think of a time when your identity or background experiences made you different than other members of a team you were involved with? Was there an evolution in how you felt about belonging to that team? Did your “differentness” eventually allow you to add unique value? [If you can’t think of a personal example, have you seen or read about others in this circumstance and how it played out?]

4. Think about yourself on 2 levels: a) surface-level attributes that everyone can either immediately see or recognize; (b) deeper attributes that require a bit more exploration to discover; How are your surface and deeper attributes the same or different from your Central College classmates? Does your “differentness” on any of these attributes allow you to add value on a team/club/study group or other on-campus organization in which you belong?

Footnotes

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[1]. “In interviews, Putin associates said he spiraled into self-aggrandizement and anti-Western zeal, leading him to make the fateful decision to invade Ukraine in near total isolation, without consulting experts who saw the war as pure folly. Aides and hangers-on fueled his many grudges and suspicions, a feedback loop that one former confidant likened to the radicalizing effect of a social-media algorithm. Even some of the president’s closest advisers were left in the dark until the tanks began to move. As another longtime confidant put it, “Putin decided that his own thinking would be enough.”   New York Times, “Putin’s War: The Inside Story of a Catastrophe”, Dec 16, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/16/world/europe/russia-putin-war-failures-ukraine.html

[2]. Harvard Business Review, “Why Diverse Teams are Smarter”,  Rock and Grant, Nov 4, 2016.

[3]. Rock and Grant, HBR, Nov 2016

[4]. The idea of respect for those close to the work will be a significant part of Part 3 of the course, but for those interested in getting a head start and hearing interesting examples of the role of front-line employees in solving big organizational problems, I highly recommend Season 3 Ep 1 of Michael Lewis’s excellent podcast, “Against the Rules.” The Episode is entitled “Six Levels Down.”