Innovation and Diversity: A critical best practice
If a company wants to establish themselves as innovative and if they truly want to institute an innovative and creative culture, then they must re-think the hiring and promotional policies and think diversity, not only in the racial sense but in a much broader sense.
Innovation is a complex eco-system with many variables and requirements, one of them being, in my experience, the need for people from different walks of life with different experiences and psychological profiles. Remember those crazy Myers Briggs tests? Those tests are fantastic, as they provide valuable insights into the different profiles that an innovation group requires. From the highly sensing types to the highly left brain types, they can all contribute to an innovation practice with their skills in the proper job.
I see it again and again. Too often we promote the wrong profile into the wrong positions. A feet-in-the-street sales person does not make a good sales manager. Period. Yet, I have seen this being done over and over again. The profile of a good hunter sales person does not transfer to the profile of a good manager. If one reads the lessons from Jim Collin’s fantastic book: From Good to Great, one can see this being the case. According to the book, the ultimate level of management that can be reached by managers is the fifth level (very few). At this level managers are almost ego-less, in that they promote and mentor the team members and the cause above themselves. In my experience, truly brilliant sales people do not handle this transition well.
If one would not place a serial entrepreneur inside a large bureaucratic company, why do we find it acceptable to place people with the right skills in the wrong positions positions?
The other day I heard a story from a friend that works in a telecom company that is starting a new sales vertical targeting a specific telecommunications segment. He related the frustration of top management over lack of results from that new group that was started to address the vertical. The cause appears to be another atrocious recruitment and hiring practice that is anathema to establishing and innovative culture. A certain manager was hired from another Telecommunications company. In turn this new hire proceeded to hire the same people that he worked with at his last company. Now, we all know that most people tend to hire like-minded people. With that in mind, where is the diversity in profiles?
Diversity – at all level - works. In an innovation practice, I want artists, philosophers, thinkers, writers, project managers. Additionally I need people that are intuitive, mathematical, young, old, international….The last thing I want is a bunch of individuals dressed in khaki pants standing around talking Golf.
I am not alone in this belief. Frans Johansson, author of the book: The Medici Effect has proven it as well. This book is a fantastic read on the power of diversity at the interaction of ideas and cultures.
Innovation is a complex eco-system with many variables and requirements, one of them being, in my experience, the need for people from different walks of life with different experiences and psychological profiles. Remember those crazy Myers Briggs tests? Those tests are fantastic, as they provide valuable insights into the different profiles that an innovation group requires. From the highly sensing types to the highly left brain types, they can all contribute to an innovation practice with their skills in the proper job.
I see it again and again. Too often we promote the wrong profile into the wrong positions. A feet-in-the-street sales person does not make a good sales manager. Period. Yet, I have seen this being done over and over again. The profile of a good hunter sales person does not transfer to the profile of a good manager. If one reads the lessons from Jim Collin’s fantastic book: From Good to Great, one can see this being the case. According to the book, the ultimate level of management that can be reached by managers is the fifth level (very few). At this level managers are almost ego-less, in that they promote and mentor the team members and the cause above themselves. In my experience, truly brilliant sales people do not handle this transition well.
If one would not place a serial entrepreneur inside a large bureaucratic company, why do we find it acceptable to place people with the right skills in the wrong positions positions?
The other day I heard a story from a friend that works in a telecom company that is starting a new sales vertical targeting a specific telecommunications segment. He related the frustration of top management over lack of results from that new group that was started to address the vertical. The cause appears to be another atrocious recruitment and hiring practice that is anathema to establishing and innovative culture. A certain manager was hired from another Telecommunications company. In turn this new hire proceeded to hire the same people that he worked with at his last company. Now, we all know that most people tend to hire like-minded people. With that in mind, where is the diversity in profiles?
Diversity – at all level - works. In an innovation practice, I want artists, philosophers, thinkers, writers, project managers. Additionally I need people that are intuitive, mathematical, young, old, international….The last thing I want is a bunch of individuals dressed in khaki pants standing around talking Golf.
I am not alone in this belief. Frans Johansson, author of the book: The Medici Effect has proven it as well. This book is a fantastic read on the power of diversity at the interaction of ideas and cultures.
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