Are good ideas getting lost in your team? We share with you 6 ways to encourage diversity of ideas and take advantage of their full potential.
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We've heard (almost) everything at our private events for companies. Fun and tragic stories, from London to Nairobi, in pharmaceutical companies and banks, for 15 department leaders or 1,000 employees.
And honestly, thanks to this diversity of stories, we've managed to position ourselves as experts in what we do: telling stories of failure and transforming work teams.
In any team, regardless of size, this very diversity is the secret ingredient for innovate, crisis management, and creating pleasant and inspiring workplaces.
Beyond the necessary DEI initiatives or a superficial campaign in June, the diversity of ideas (and the ability to express them) is key to innovation, fostering a genuine sense of belonging, and even identifying potential errors promptly.
Today, we'd like to share some tips so that the diversity of ideas do not remain locked up and are heard and even materialized.
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1. Establish Different Channels:
Open up various channels so ideas can flow. Not everything has to be said out loud in a meeting; you can utilize resources such as forms, notes, emails, or creative sessions to convey your ideas.
2. Regular Check-Ins with Introverts:
There could be a valuable idea or question in those quiet, reflective profiles. Asking directly for their opinion takes just a second, and the results can be very beneficial.
3. Spaces for Psychological Safety:
It refers to the perception of a work environment as safe for participating, being oneself, and even challenging ideas and paradigms. Here's a diagram to better understand how it develops:
Psychological safety evolves through four stages, beginning with inclusion and culminating in innovation. These develop through respect (esteem and value for the individual) and permission (autonomy and responsibility).
4. A Culture of Feedback:
Establish the importance of feedback in your organization. Ask for it and give it. Establish the correct times, spaces, and methodologies to ensure it's not a process full of uncertainty and anxiety.
5. Ask, Don't Assume:
If you're a leader, ask to understand your team's preferences and needs. Never assume. In these conversations, you might uncover improvements in processes or ways of working that benefit everyone.
6. Recognize and Value Diversity:
People from diverse social backgrounds, ages, genders, years of experience, races, etc., are an invaluable opportunity to enrich brainstorming sessions, feedback, post-mortems, and kick-offs. Include and treasure this diversity of opinions.
A team whose members share the same characteristics can create blind spots in a company's peripheral vision, compromising its ability to identify problems from different perspectives.
Having a diverse workforce means having different perspectives on the same topic within the company. This variety will impact your organization's problem-solving skills and improve team initiatives with innovative ideas.
Just a couple of weeks ago, we were at the Global Leadership Conference for the Benefit Cosmetics team, the beauty brand owned by Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy.
After a workshop on innovation and collaboration, we ran an activity simulating a Shark Tank - style pitch for a product that was destined to fail spectacularly in the market.
"We built on each other's ideas. They kept talking and proposing ideas even after the session." - Attendee at our event with Benefit Cosmetics -
We love these kinds of activities where people share without fear and the diversity of ideas comes together to build pure, hard-core innovation.
Bring one of our workshops or events with stories of failure to your company, and prepare your spaces to innovate and speak up without fear:
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Let's transform our perception of failure and use it as a catalyst for growth.
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