Diversity increases the quality of ideas
Diversity leads to better solutions because a variety of perspectives can be taken on board. Employees with different mindsets challenge each other’s ideas in order to get to the best sollution together. In addition, the more diverse your offer, the more potential customers you can attract. You could therefor say that a diverse team offers a competitive advantage as compared to less diverse teams.
“Doesn’t it work faster and more efficiently if we all agree?”. This phenomenon is called group thinking. And while it may seem useful, group thinking also involves risks. We then no longer dare to take a critical look at our own group and are simply more inclined to say ‘yes’.
Reflection exercise
As an experiment, researcher Solomon Asch invited eight participants under the guise of coming for a visual test. They were shown a target line and then had to indicate which of the three lines was the same length as the target. The participants sat in a row and each had to give their answer out loud. The participants were shown 18 images.
What the eighth participant didn’t know, was that Asch had agreed with the first seven participants that they would give the same incorrect answer 12 out of 18 times. The experiment focused on group thinking and examined whether the eighth participant would go against what was clearly a wrong answer provided by the other participants.
Suppose you are the eighth participant, would you go against the answer? Why would you? Or why wouldn’t you?
Asch conducted this experiment with a large number of groups, each containing eight participants (7 actors, 1 genuine participant). And 75% of the genuine participants agreed with the incorrect group response at least once in 12 occasions.
Differing opinions are often less pronounced in groups where group thinking is present. Group members tend to take a less critical view when decisions are made, this imposes a risk regarding the quality of decisions. With this experiment, we wanted to highlight the added value of bringen various voices to the table and creating an inclusive environment in which those voices are also heard.