As Deloitte's study put it, "diversity's new frontier" is "diversity of thought." I feel the country club's script pool is especially headed for script homogeneity, although I do not believe they are as bad at continuing to innovate as this article makes it seem results from the homogeneity.
The second tactic I would recommend is giving each person an 'opposite' buddy. It sounds weird, but it is what my coworker and I do for projects sometimes. I know I overthink things and try to get the best quality possible at the detriment of my time. I know she rushes through projects and sacrifices quality. So for important projects we often double check each other's work - she makes sure I'm spending time what's important and relevant and I tell her where she needs to spend more time adding polish. The results are great and we came up with it after both doing StrenghtFinders and finding that we had complimentary styles on getting to work on a project. If others had someone like this they could really benefit adding new approaches to getting things done!
The Club's script pool is becoming more homogenous through the leader's effects, emigration, and "genetic drift." The GM naturally enjoys working with others who think analytically and have the same "instincts" when handling problems, creating leaders effects by encouraging his managers to emulate his behavior. Because of the desire to have a management team with the "right" instincts we also see emigration of those who do not "fit" - not a bad thing necessarily. Managers are given a lot of independent responsibility and have to handle a lot of unique situations, so often they can come up with any kind of creation solution as long as the overall solution is in the "spirit" of the company's values. I'm sure we also contribute some to genetic drift by recruiting from the same or similar sources each season. We keep trying to come up with new ways to recruit but as soon as one source gives us a couple great new hires, we go back to that source and want to know if we can get any other new hires "like that" from the source.
We cannot change the way our departments are divided and subdivided, but we do respect that those assign to a specific are the experts in that field. They know their problem inside and out and are given the freedom to come up with their own creative solutions to address the problem they know so well. Mutation is encouraged only to the extend that new ideas are created that still move towards the spirit of the company's values. For example, at IDEO I'm sure they encourage being inventive but being inventive in a certain way, such as respecting others' ideas, and some people "fit" while others do not. Immigration is not an issue for the company since checking for cultural fit is a big part of the hiring process.
I think there is an untapped opportunity for the company to let creative thinkers who have the right instincts work on projects outside their area of expertise with the team from that department/sub department. For example, if the cooks are working on how to get the dinner buffet setup faster after lunch buffet ends, having an accountant join them on the problem may help simply because he or she is a new set of eyes and can ask a lot of seemingly obvious questions like, "do they sell wheels for the type of equipment you use so you could just wheel it away?" because just like any human beings regardless of our script diversity environment, we get jaded by the things we see, use and do day in and day out.
We cannot change the way our departments are divided and subdivided, but we do respect that those assign to a specific are the experts in that field. They know their problem inside and out and are given the freedom to come up with their own creative solutions to address the problem they know so well. Mutation is encouraged only to the extend that new ideas are created that still move towards the spirit of the company's values. For example, at IDEO I'm sure they encourage being inventive but being inventive in a certain way, such as respecting others' ideas, and some people "fit" while others do not. Immigration is not an issue for the company since checking for cultural fit is a big part of the hiring process.
I think there is an untapped opportunity for the company to let creative thinkers who have the right instincts work on projects outside their area of expertise with the team from that department/sub department. For example, if the cooks are working on how to get the dinner buffet setup faster after lunch buffet ends, having an accountant join them on the problem may help simply because he or she is a new set of eyes and can ask a lot of seemingly obvious questions like, "do they sell wheels for the type of equipment you use so you could just wheel it away?" because just like any human beings regardless of our script diversity environment, we get jaded by the things we see, use and do day in and day out.
The second tactic I would recommend is giving each person an 'opposite' buddy. It sounds weird, but it is what my coworker and I do for projects sometimes. I know I overthink things and try to get the best quality possible at the detriment of my time. I know she rushes through projects and sacrifices quality. So for important projects we often double check each other's work - she makes sure I'm spending time what's important and relevant and I tell her where she needs to spend more time adding polish. The results are great and we came up with it after both doing StrenghtFinders and finding that we had complimentary styles on getting to work on a project. If others had someone like this they could really benefit adding new approaches to getting things done!
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