The better your organisation’s thinking, the better its decision-making will be. And the better its decision-making is, the more successful it will be. What’s the best approach? Cognitive diversity. That’s the key to sustainable success.
Organisations make better decisions when the thinking behind them is diverse and holistic. When a decision-making group is made up of similar people, with similar experience, from similar backgrounds the result can be insular and narrow thinking. That brings the danger of ‘group think’. What organisations really need is group discussion and debate. And that’s where cognitive diversity comes in.
The Sweetener
The following is a quick video to illustrate the point, by our CEO Simon Rhodes.
How do you decide?
Have a think about your own organisation. Who’s included in your decision-making group? Is it cognitively diverse? Is everyone in it worth their place? Are they all adding a different perspective? Who else should you add into the group?
The more work you do on establishing your best decision-making group, the better your organisation’s decision-making will become.
Cognitive diversity comes down to this. Pick and mix your people to get the best combination of backgrounds, experience and perspectives you can. If you don’t have enough diversity inside your organisation, then look outside it for help.
Once you have a cognitively diverse group to work with, prepare them for what’s to come. By scenario planning a series of potential business threats, you can debate those future challenges together, safely in advance. If and when they arise, your people will be well prepared. Advanced thinking reduces errors under pressure.